A State of Affairs

What To Do

2008-08-04T13:27:00.001-05:00

I am not posting on this blog anymore. The world is not interested in orphaned children. I have started another blog for whatever.

If anyone is still interested in this subject, let me know.

Thank you.

News Clip

2007-08-09T12:55:00.000-05:00

From ProTV February 19, 2007 7:00PM

(There was also a specific clip regarding the Maternity hospital in Giulesti [Bucharest])

26,000+ children await a family. They will have a long wait, even though they have been abandoned for many months. Many families would like to adopt, but the road to having these children declared adoptable is long and difficult. And in most cases, there is no paperwork (or at best incomplete paperwork) regarding the child or the family. Consequently, nothing can be done for these children regarding getting them declared adoptable. There are also thousands of cases of children whose biological parents killed them and tossed them into garbage cans, dumpsters, and garbage dumps.

2007-08-09T12:50:00.000-05:00

"Adoptive parents invest more time and financial resources in their children compared with biological parents, according to the results of a national study that challenges the more conventional view -- emphasized in legal and scholarly debates -- that children are better off with their biological parents.

The study, by sociologists at Indiana University Bloomington and the University of Connecticut, found that two-parent adoptive parents not only spend more money on their children, but they invest more time, such as reading to them, talking with their children about their problems or eating meals together.

"Society often tells people that adoption isn't normal," said IUB Professor Brian Powell, who focuses on the sociology of the family. "When people make the decision that they want to have children and then use unusual means to have them, they compensate for the barriers."

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/4865.html

Florentina Ban Story

2007-08-09T12:43:00.000-05:00

By Florentina Ban (her personal story)

There are many people who consider our attacks on the Romanian system to be politically motivated. This is not the case. I have decided to publish a problem which appears to be a personal one, but which demonstrates with a vengeance how Romania violates the rights of people as a common and regular practice.

I said to some friends the other day that I am ready offer 1,000 euros to anyone who can show me one single, solid, unemotional argument which would convince me to NOT hate Romania. But to this point, I have found no one who has picked up the gauntlet and I will probably have to find the answer within me in order to get past all the filth.

To: The Government of Romania, the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, and the Arges County Office for Child Protection

To the attention of: Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, State Secretary Bogdan Panait, and Arges County Director, Adrian Macovei

I am a Romanian citizen with residence in Holland because I am married to a citizen of Holland. My chosen domicile is in Romania and I am the parent of a little girl who was born on April 24, 1995. She has a severe handicap and was entrusted to me for raising and education via a definitive and irrevocable judicial decision which was handed down more than three years ago. I want to bring to your attention the inexcusable and intolerable abuses suffered by us at the hands of the Services for Children with Disabilities in Arges County and specifically the Director of this service. I am asking for these things to be considered with all due urgency and measures taken so that such situations will not be repeated.

Here is the situation: My little girl whom I adopted at the age of 3 days, has a congenital handicap, and at the age of 18 months was entered into the system for children with handicaps Arges County. Even though this handicap is irrecouperable, nevertheless, we must go before the Evaluation Service for Children with Disabilities Arges County every year, though nothing can really change with regard to the medical situation of the child. Year after year those responsible for following up on children with disabilities pretend to be interested in the fate of the child but ONLY in the time period when they must do the necessary home studies which need to be added to the file. Otherwise, INDIFFERENCE is the one thing that characterizes these services (an attitude which is accepted as normal in Romania; in fact, indifference IS Romania). In September, 2006, we once again had to go before the evaluation commission in order for my daughter to be "re-entered" into the system for children with disabilities. The commission approved a certificate which certified my daughter's disability. I have not yet received this certificate (Feb. 11, 2007).

Here in Holland, my daughter benefits from the care of numerous specialists to whom I presented her medical file. But because I live in Holland, I decided to get a notarized power of attorney for my mother so that she could pick up the paper certifying my daughter's disability and send it to me here in Holland. Unfortunately, the Evaluation Service which has the OBLIGATION to give me this certificate "forgot" that Romania is a "democratic" country and is "part of" the European Union. The Arges County Evaluation Services behaved themselves as though the communist regime was still in power. Practically speaking, my mother was subjected to much mistreatment by a secretary, as well as having to endure a barrage of questions. This person commanded my mother to: 1.) Prove that my daughter is in a hospital in Holland, 2.) To explain why I was getting treatment for the child by foreign doctors and not Romanian doctors [but all of these treatments are paid for out of our own pockets and not by the Romanian government], 3.) To tell her when we were going to come back to Romania, 4.) To prove that the power of attorney was not falsified, 5.) Affirmed that she (the secretary) would contact the Romanian embassy in Holland in order to get clarification regarding the legality of our living in Holland. In these and many other ways, this secretary went way beyond her authority. This secretary committed a whole chain of abuses since she denied our right to freedom of movement, she denied our right to freely choose where we wish to live, and she attacked our right to privacy. It is the right of every Romanian citizen to decide where he wishes to live within the European Union, while the administrative reglementation of this residence is something that belongs to the private and personal lives of everyone.

Her affirmation that she will check up on things through the Embassy is proof of a "police state" mentality because she threatened to take "appropriate measures". This attitude represents the general policy of the National Authority for the Protection (??) of the Rights of the Child. Consequently, I will put in a complaint to the European Commission against the Romanian government.

I believe that this relevant example, among many others, demonstrates the deficient way in which the National Authority of the Protection of the Rights of the Child operates. It also demonstrates how unprepared Romania was for entry into the EU and especially to the rights of Romanian citizens. In all these years of fighting for the rights of my child, I was NEVER helped by any "representative" from the Child Protection Services. The care of my child falls entirely to me and those who have claimed that they want to help, actually only "protect" (??) the child, but I am the one who must fight for the child so that she can live and grow as normally as possible. The handing over of the certificate regarding my child's disability is a debt and obligation that the local authorities have. It is not optional. And next year, the suffocating bureaucracy in the area of child protection (??) in Romania will require us to completely re-do the file.

Therefore, I am asking the authorities to take appropriate action to respect the rights of my child and that these measures would, in fact, fulfill the declarations of the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. I know the law and I know the rights that are ours. I will make the appropriate appeals, not only with regard to the flagrant abuses in my situation, but also to those in similar situations. I will not delay putting in my appeal to the European Commission for more than 48 hours, and I expect that the Child Protection Services in Arges County will resolve my situation, the situation involving my child's certificate of disability, and the administrative measures taken to rectify past mistakes and prevent future ones.

Romania urged to resume international adoptions

2007-08-09T12:37:00.000-05:00

16/01/2007

International adoptions of Romanian children ground to halt after the government banned the practice, under EU pressure. Now its laws on adoptionare being criticised as too restrictive.

By Paul Ciocoiu for Southeast European Times in Bucharest - 16/01/07

Two members of the European Parliament (EP) are calling for a change in Romania's restrictive adoption laws, only three years after the same laws were enacted at the insistence of the European Commission.

The proposal came from EP members Jean-Marie Cavada and Claire Gibault, both from the centre-right Union for French Democracy. They claim that Romania does not have the financial means to maintain the necessary social services to care for institutionalised children whose adoption process has been prolonged due to entangled bureaucratic and legal procedures.

In the years after the fall of the Ceaucescu regime, some 30,000 Romanian orphans were adopted worldwide. Under EP pressure however, Romania banned international adoptions, except in cases where a family member living abroad requests guardianship.

The EP's rapporteur for Romania at the time, Emma Nicholson, threatened that she would propose suspending accession negotiations unless a ban was imposed. Legislation to that effect was drafted by Romanian and EU adoption policy experts.

Cavada and Gibault say Europe's view of international adoptions has changed, due to a decline in child trafficking. Nicholson, an MP representing Britain, now says the issue is a county's sovereign matter and does not fall under EU competency.

The Romanian media has scorned this new stance. The government, moreover, has made clear that it plans to stick to the policy of banning international adoptions and encouraging domestic adoptions.

Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu has pledged that the government will invest more money in improving the needed social services. Statistics show that domestic adoptions have been on the rise since the ban went into effect.

OSCE MINISTERS URGE CONCERTED ACTION

2007-08-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

1/9/07
OSCE MINISTERS URGE CONCERTED ACTION TO
COMBAT SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN

By Ron McNamara
International Policy Director

Foreign Ministers from the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe approved a major initiative on combating a wide range of sexually exploitative crimes against children, including prostitution, child pornography, trafficking in children for sexual exploitation, sex tourism and forced marriages of children. A collaborative effort spearheaded by the United States, Belgium and France, the decision was unanimously agreed in recognition “that sexual exploitation of children constitutes a grave and heinous crime, in many cases involving organized crime that must be prevented, investigated, prosecuted and penalized with all available means.” The decision, taken during the annual Ministerial Council meeting, held in Brussels, provides political impetus to enhance cooperation among law enforcement agencies throughout the OSCE region.

The statement issued by the Council condemns the sexual exploitation of children in all its forms, urging the participating States to conform their legislation on this subject to their relevant international commitments and obligations. Progress in strengthening the legal framework to combat these forms of abuse and close existing gaps is viewed by experts as essential to effective action by law enforcement, especially as these crimes often involve entities in numerous countries. The need for greater uniformity in relevant laws was made clear in a comprehensive report, Child Pornography: Model Legislation & Global Review, issued in 2006 by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children in cooperation with Interpol. Surveying laws in 184 Interpol member countries, the report found that more than half of these countries (95) had no laws addressing child pornography and, in many other countries, the existing laws were inadequate.

Among OSCE countries, the report found that six countries lacked any laws criminalizing any aspect of child pornography, with 32 countries lacking any legal definition of child pornography. Sixteen OSCE countries have failed to make the possession of child pornography a crime and 20 lack laws criminalizing the distribution of child pornography via computer and the Internet. Fifty OSCE countries do not require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to report suspected child pornography to law enforcement. To date, Belgium, France and the United States are the only OSCE countries to have enacted comprehensive laws addressing all five areas analyzed in the report. The Ministers drew particular attention to the role played by new technologies, including the Internet, in facilitating the sexual exploitation of children, in an industry with revenues in the billions of dollars each year.

States were urged to take a holistic approach toward the problem of sexual exploitation of children, addressing root and contributing factors, including the demand that fosters all forms of sexual exploitation of children, and to develop comprehensive and proactive strategies and measures aimed at preventing and combating the sexual exploitation of children. OSCE countries were encouraged to develop compatible and exchangeable data registration systems specific to the sexual exploitation of children as well as create telephone or Internet hotlines as a resource for victims and their families. They were likewise urged to work with ISPs, credit card companies, banks and other corporations as well as relevant NGOs, to ensure information related to the sexual exploitation of children is tracked and reported.

In addition, the Ministerial decision included a series of specific recommendations for further action by the participating States, many aimed at strengthening the tools available to law enforcement, including adoption of legal measures that would allow them to prosecute their citizens for serious sexual crimes against children, even if these crimes are committed in another country. OSCE States were urged to aggressively prosecute the sexual exploitation of children and impose tough penalties on offenders perpetrating such crimes.

The Council recommended the establishment of training programs concerning sexual exploitation of children for personnel, including those working in the areas of justice, policing, tourism, transport, social work, health care, civil society, religious organizations, and education. Similarly, Ministers called for countries to facilitate legal protection, assistance, appropriate medical care, and rehabilitation and reintegration programs for child victims of sexual exploitation as well as efforts for the safe return of trafficked children.

The OSCE, as an organization, was encouraged to pay increased attention to these issues, including the links to trafficking in persons, and to cooperate with other international organizations, NGOs and civil society in combating the sexual exploitation of children.

The Brussels Ministerial decision on sexual exploitation of children originated, in large part, from a resolution sponsored by Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith and managed by Commissioner Rep. Joseph R. Pitts during the Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly convened in the Belgian capital in July 2006. That proposal, “Combating Trafficking and the Exploitation of Children in Pornography,” was overwhelmingly approved by parliamentarians from the participating States.

A Helsinki Commission hearing, “Protecting Children: The Battle Against Child Pornography and Other Forms Of Sexual Exploitation” was held on September 27, 2006, to assess the magnitude of abuse against children. In opening remarks, Co-Chairman Smith explained, “The anti-trafficking efforts have convinced me that combating sexual exploitation of children in all of its forms requires even more comprehensive laws, as well as effective partnerships between local, state, and federal law enforcement, and the nongovernmental communities at all levels, and that includes international.” Smith noted strong indicators that those captivated by pornography are more likely to become predators and purveyors themselves, further feeding the cycle. As with other addictive behaviors, these individuals are often driven into more extreme acts of preying on younger victims or employing violence. He observed that organized crime, including gangs, also appears to be venturing further into the lucrative trade in children. As a result, global criminal networks are springing up, further complicating efforts to prosecute those responsible for these horrendous crimes against children.

James E. Finch, assistant director of the Cyber Division of the FBI discussed the Bureau’s efforts to combat the sexual exploitation of children through the use of the Internet and promote closer cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies. James Plitt, the unit chief of the Cyber Crimes Center of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement stressed “that the issue of child exploitation is enormous and multidimensional. Furthermore, any potential solution to this issue must be multidimensional….collectively, we need to understand the challenge we face, and we need to understand the trends, techniques and vulnerabilities of those engaged in international criminal business enterprises,” he concluded. On the question of limited resources, Plitt noted, “If we had triple the investigative resources, we would still have investigative leads untouched.” Finch underscored the challenges faced by law enforcement given the relative ease and limited expense involved in setting up exploitative web sites. Commissioner Mike McIntyre urged greater partnership between law enforcement and the public to identify perpetrators of these crimes as well as aggressive investigation and prosecution of them.

Linda Smith, founder of Shared Hope International and a former Member of Congress, presented the findings of the U.S. Mid-term Review on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in America, identifying five key issues which stand out as the most immediate and urgent needs to protect America's children: confront the demand side of exploitation; aggressively pursue those responsible for the online trafficking in children; ensure sufficient services for victims, especially shelter; expand cooperation between law enforcement agencies at all levels; and further strengthen Federal law. She made an impassioned call to decriminalize the prostituted minor, “What we've found was that these kids, when identified, are called prostitutes, and they're quickly moved into detention when they're found, treated like a criminal, and then, when released, put in a foster care system where they bleed out. We do not have child prostitutes. We have prostituted children.” With respect to pornography, she decried the marketing to recruit boys as clients as well as the explosion of pornographic images of children creating demand for direct sexual violation of children.

Carol Smolenski, executive director of ECPAT-USA discussed multilateral efforts to more effectively combat the sexual exploitation of children. She cited demand and prevention as major of common concern as well as the need to keep pace with rapidly changing technologies. Commissioner Pitts voiced particular concern that law enforcement have the tools necessary to adapt to technological challenges. Turning to the role of organized crime and gangs in exploitation, Smolenski observed, “you'd be hard-pressed to talk to a service provider who has not found gang involvement with child prostitution these days…yes, gangs are definitely a part of it and a growing part of it.”

Dr. Mohamed Mattar, executive director of the Protection Project at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, touched on several positive developments in the fight against the sexual exploitation of children: expansion of criminal liability; extension of territorial jurisdiction; and enhancement of child protection, including the abolition of a statute of limitations. He welcomed Senate ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime of 2001. Mattar made a series of recommendations to enhance implementation of relevant U.S. law. He urged funding to back up U.S. efforts to prevent sex tourism, while citing laws in Sweden, Switzerland, and The Netherlands as particularly problematic. Dr. Mattar called for funding to support research on victims of child exploitation; establishing programs to expand state law enforcement officials' capabilities in prosecuting demand and providing services for victims; shifting the focus of the United States toward penalizing the purchaser of sexual services; and mobilizing countries to enact Internet laws that protect children from commercial sexual exploitation.

Ernie Allen, chairman and chief executive officer of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, focused largely on commercial child pornography, a multibillion-dollar industry, stressing that children are plentiful and easily accessed; child pornography is easy and inexpensive to produce; there is a huge consumer market for it, making it enormously profitable; and, finally, historically there's been virtually no risk, far less risk than trading in drugs or guns.

Allen presented his candid conclusion, “Most people don't understand what this problem really is; there's a real misconception. But what we are finding and what law enforcement is finding is that the victims are getting younger and the content, the images, are becoming more graphic and more violent. From the data on the hundreds of offenders who have been identified to date, we can report to you that 39 percent of those offenders had images of children between the ages of 3 and 5. And, 19 percent had images of children younger than 3 years old. This is not what America thinks it is.”

Few of the world's nearly 200 countries, he pointed out, have any kind of meaningful system or capacity to adequately and effectively combat the sexual exploitation of children, especially through child pornography. Allen discussed his organizations work in training law enforcement officials around the world in the investigation of computer-facilitated crimes against children as well as initiatives to enlist the support of ISPs and leaders in the technology and banking industries in dismantling networks responsible for exploitation of children. He echoed calls for additional resources to aid law enforcement, including in the field of forensics.

In response to a suggestion from Co-Chairman Smith that the United States push for an international form of Megan's Law aimed at sex offenders, Allen replied, “I agree 100 percent. I think it's absolutely appropriate. It's a prime opportunity for American leadership and the leadership of other countries on this issue. It's unbelievably important. These offenders are mobile…offenders from other countries come here, where we have no knowledge about their history or prior record.”

ROMANIA / ABANDONED BABIES

2007-04-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

Abandonment is a key issue affecting children in Romania. UNICEF says that while there has been a notable increase in the number of children being placed in foster or guardian care rather than in institutions, the primary rate of child abandonment has not declined.

THE DESTINY OF ONE YOUNG PERSON RAISED IN AN ORPHANAGE

2007-04-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

Article from Monitorul Dec. 2, 2006

By: Daniela Micutariu

This is about the destiny of a student named Gheorghe Nedea. He has written a book entitled "The Destiny of One Young Person who Grew up in an Orphanage". Gheorghe Nedea is 26 years old and in his last year at the University Stefan Cel Mare in Suceava. His major is History and Geography with a specialization in Tourism Geography. He is also the president of the "Protin Association" for young people who have come out of the orphanages in Suceava county. He is the only young person from an orphanage who has had the courage to bare his soul before people in order to let the world know the horrors in which he grew up. The book is addressed to children in the orphanages and to those who have abandoned the orphanages. It is also written for those who have never even lived one day in an orphanage. Gheorghe said, "I want to show the world how these children lived, what it's like in an orphanage and more especially that they are not given any sure future." He said that the horrible reality of the orphanage included beatings, arguments and many wicked things. He added, "All these things and more are experienced by the poor children in the orphanage. It is the price they have to pay for being abandoned. They have no one to encourage them or who can talk to them." In his book, one can find many sad stories that were actually lived out by the author in different orphanages in Suceava county. You can also read about his meeting with a part of his family. The book can be bought at any Orthodox Church in the city of Suceava. With the money received from the sales of the book, Gheorghe Nedea wants to construct Young People's Center for those who have grown too old for the child protection system. He knows that the wish of every young person is to have a place to live.

ABANDONED BY THEIR MOTHERS

2007-04-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

By: Alex Pintea

More than 50 children were abandoned since the beginning of the year in the Municipal Hospital. Only 30 of these managed to be re-integrated in their families, while the rest fell under the system of child protection. The highest rate of abandonment was registered in the neonatology section and the principle cause is the economic situation of the mothers. Many of them are very young and do not have much schooling.

The phenomenon of abandonment is growing in the city of Medias. Since the beginning of this year, more than 50 children were abandoned in the hospital by their mothers. In about 20 of these cases, re-integration into the birth family did not take place and thus these children fell under the system of child protection. Valeria Guliman, social worker for the Medias City Hospital, explained that, "In general these mothers come from very poor conditions where they have been rejected by their own families. Another cause of these abandonments is the limited schooling of these mothers."

EMPHASIS ON PREVENTION

At the Medias City Hospital, people are working very hard to prevent these abandonments. The medical teams from the neonatology unit as well as the pediatric unit, together with social workers, are making an effort to convince these mothers that they do not need to abandon their children. From the moment the mothers are admitted, attempts are made to determine whether she is at risk to abandon the child. For example: A person who is admitted and does not have any acts of identity or who is not accompanied by someone in the family immediately attracts the attention of these authorities. "At that point, the social worker is alerted and the mother is admitted to a program of counseling," said Valeria Guliman.

ALARMING STATISTICS

In 2005, a total of 54 children were abandoned at the Medias City Hospital. This year, the number of children abandoned by their mothers has already passed 50.

Children abandoned in the Maternity Hospital

2007-04-26T12:12:00.001-05:00

This is for the year 2006.

From the beginning of the year, 52 children were abandoned in the Maternity Hospitals in Timis County, 45 of these being in Timisoara. The number of adoptions completed were limited to 15 in the same time period. Rodica Negrea, director of the CPS Timis, declared that, compared to 2005, when there was not even one adoption completed, this year represents progress. But things are much more difficult because of the change in adoption legislation.

BACK TO THE DYING ROOM

2007-04-26T11:52:00.000-05:00

15 years ago Pat was found tied to his cot and left to rot in a Romanian orphanage..he was rescued by a British family but now he's returned. By Bob Graham In Bacau And Clare Raymond

THE stench of stale urine and human excrement was horribly familiar to British teenager Patreascu Peberdy.

Looking around the dormitory of what was once a Romanian orphanage triggered long-buried memories of his own desperate childhood. It was in this room that the 19-year-old from Milton Keynes, Bucks, had been left to die as a baby. He and another child were found in a stinking cot in the fetid Ungerini Orphanage, east of the city of Bacau. Their legs and hands had been bound and their soiled clothes were in rags.

Sixteen years after being rescued from his terrible plight by the British family who later adopted him, Pat returned to the place where he spent the hellish first three years of his life. He wanted to learn about his past and prepare for his speech to MEPs in Brussels last week, urging them to overturn Romania's ban on foreign adoptions.

"Being there again brought back memories of the awful smells and the suffering of all the kids - and I was just one of them," says Pat, who was given up shortly after birth by his impoverished parents.

"I looked at their faces and kept thinking how lucky I was to escape from the orphanage. If fate had played things differently I could still be there as one of them - or more likely dead."

On his trip he managed to track down his biological father - a farmer called Gheorge - and 68-year-old grandmother, Elena. Sadly his birth mother is dead.

Pat, who describes his escape from Ungerini as "the luckiest day of my life", was also anxious to trace Iulien Boanta, the boy who shared his cot.

Although Ungerini is now a home for 120 handicapped adults who have grown up there, he heard that Iulien had been moved to another institution. Then he learned that his friend had died in 2003, of liver failure caused by the years of neglect and all the drugs he was given for his mental problems.

Pat wept as he, Gheorge and Elena went to visit Iulien's graveside.

"This could have been me," he says. "Poor Iulien. His life would have been spent in misery. Maybe now he's free of the pain and suffering of all those years of being abandoned in the orphanage."

Of the 100,000 children dumped in orphanages because of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's insane population-building policy, Pat is one of the fortunate ones.

AFTER Ceausescu's fall in 1989, foreign aid workers and TV cameras were allowed into Romania for the first time. The world was shocked by what they saw.

A year later, the horrors of Ungerini Orphanage came to light - the children inside had been abandoned by parents who were simply too poor to care for them. In 1991, Beverly Peberdy, a building society worker from Milton Keynes, volunteered to work in the orphanage.

"The conditions were shocking," recalls Beverly, 49. "There was one room, the 'dying room', where children were left to die. That's where I came across Patreascu. He was pitiful and close to death."

Pat was tied up, his arms and legs curled under his skeletal body. He had malnutrition, polio, pneumonia and bronchitis. His body was covered in raw sores.

Beverly took him to the Mother Teresa's Sisters Of Mercy home in Bacau where he began to recover.

The following year she brought him back to England where, in a hospital in Birmingham, he had the first of 13 operations to correct the deformities in his limbs caused by being tied to his cot - one of his legs was six inches shorter than the other and the muscles had withered.

In October 1995, Beverly and her husband John adopted Pat who, despite his traumatic early years, soon settled in to his new life.

He thrived at primary school - never letting his leg brace get in the way of games. And he was a promising student who later won a scholarship to attend the £6,000-a-year Bury Lawn private school in Milton Keynes.

Pat set his heart on going to RADA and becoming an actor but then changed his mind, telling his headteacher: "I have never seen a limping James Bond... and I do not wish to be Richard III for the rest of my life!"

Instead, he has started an apprenticeship as a television cameraman in Cyprus, where the Peberdys have a holiday home.

He knows that his life could have been very different. That is why, for the last three years, he has returned to Romania to help those still suffering. But last week was the first time he had returned to Ungerini.

"It was a journey into my past back to an experience I'd been able to leave behind," he says. "During it I had flashbacks to the terrible conditions. I had to make this journey to try to understand what happened when I was a child and how I escaped the misery of an orphanage. It was part of my determination to try to help the kids I left behind."

The building remains much as it was in Communist times.

DOUBLE glazing, heating and fresh paint give the appearance of better care, but many of the inmates wear clothes soiled by food or soaked in urine.

The staff at Ungerini are far less welcoming to foreign visitors now. "You need permission to come in here," says the director. "You must not take pictures, it is forbidden." In 2001, Romania imposed a moratorium on all inter-country adoption. The ban became law last year. But Pat is determined to do all he can to overturn this and give hope to the 70,000 children who remain trapped in such desolate institutions.

His story moved MEPs to tears and was central to last week's heated debate in Brussels between the pro and anti foreign adoption lobbies.

Those in favour say Romanian children in care would have the chance of a better life. But critics claim it is ripe for corruption, with unscrupulous agents willing to sell orphans into child-sex rings.

Beverly Peberdy, who accompanied Pat to the EU, says: "I'd like the European politicians and both sides of the inter-country adoption debate to close their laptops, put away their reports, and come with me to see the reality of the orphanages and the conditions as they are now. They should come out of Brussels and away from Romania's capital Bucharest into remote areas - away from showpiece institutes to places like Ungerini, where Patreascu comes from, and where very little has changed in the past 16 years. Cosmetically they look better, but beneath the surface neglect and suffering continues. I have visited projects which are wonderful but they are only catering for a minority of the young people stuck in institutions. The majority are still living in archaic and terrible conditions. Patreascu's story shows that it's possible to be adopted by a family living outside Romania and to still retain the cultural and ethnic values of his country of birth. We are most proud of the fact that he has, of his own free will, returned to Romania each year to voluntarily work in an institution similar to where he was abandoned, to try and make a difference for those who were left behind."

In fact, this could well turn into his life's work.

Pat concludes: "My ambition is to make films that matter to people. To that end I hope to make one of street kids in Romania and one about the people who live in the sewers of Bucharest."

GREAT BRITAIN--THE ADOPTIONS CIRCUS

2007-03-22T12:52:00.000-05:00

Article from Jurnalul National Nov. 11, 2006

GREAT BRITAIN--THE ADOPTIONS CIRCUS

At a time when a part of the British press is relaxing in its treatment of the situation of Romanian immigrants who will "assault" the doors of Britain after January 1, 2007, another part of the London press is preoccupied with a different issue which is just as delicate -- international adoptions.

Without even remembering that the moratorium of 2001 forbid international adoptions from Romania under pressure from the EU, the Daily Telegraph published yesterday the story of a young man who grew up in Great Britain after he was adopted from an orphanage many years ago.

SHOCKING

Petrescu Peabody, age 19, was actually adopted 10 years ago by a British family and told the Europarliamentarians about the miserable conditions in the orphanages in Romania. He asked for the Europarliamentarians' support for re-opening international adoptions from Romania. The boy "was nearly dead when he was delivered from one of the most notorious orphanages in Romania and taken to Great Britain." He had lived his early years in an infected bed which was soaked in urine. He could not speak nor walk and he had hearing problems. He said, "It is shocking to think that there are still thousands of children in institutions in Romania.

PRESSURES

The article published by the Daily Telegraph was, of course, pleasing to the United States and to France who repeatedly warned that Bucharest's decision to forbid international adoptions would punish the approximately 76,000 children currently in orphanages. Vice-President for the European Commission, Franco Frattini, maintained that the Commission would support the Romanian authorities in their current legislation because the results of it are visible.

CAVADA AND GIBAULT CONFUSE ROMANIAN ORPHANS WITH GOODS

2007-03-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

From Adevarul -- November 10, 2006

CAVADA AND GIBAULT CONFUSE ROMANIAN ORPHANS WITH GOODS

by Dana Filipescu

Several europarliamentarians are desperately trying to re-ignite the international scandal regarding the situation of orphaned children in Romania and the scandal regarding the re-opening of international adoptions. Yesterday in Brussels, Europarliamentarians Jean Marie Cavada and Claire Gibault held a long public conference which included the European press. The announced theme of the conference was "A European Policy Regarding Adoption". Instead, they concentrated on the issue of re-opening international adoptions of Romanian children. The organizers of the conference believed that the moratorium which stopped international adoptions and which was imposed upon Romania by the European Parliament, is "foolish stupidity". These two Europarliamentarians had invited Franco Frattini, the vice-president of the European Commission, to speak. He spoke about the progress made by Romania with regard to the situation of abandoned children and also about the possibility of some recommendations on the part of the European Union concerning adoptions within EU territory. Theodora Bertzi said, "Romania was backed into a corner," and was presented as being in a situation which was painful and sad regarding the orphan children from Romania and this was used as a reason for re-opening international adoptions. A film was presented by ITN, which showed some old footage of the Ungureni orphanage which was, in fact, closed in 2001. Another tactic which was absolutely unusual, was that the two Romanian officials present at the conference, Theodora Bertzi and Bogdan Panait, were not allowed to be on the platform. They were allowed to give their point of view at 5:00 with the closing of the conference coming at 5:50 p.m. The French Europarliamentarian Cavada, was very tense and repeatedly made some extremely grave accusations toward the Romanian authorities. He believes that they lie and give false reports as well as threatened journalists with lawsuits if they make even the smallest reference to international adoptions in a favorable light.

In addition to this, another completely unusual action for a conference of Europarliamentarians was to ask Roelie Post to leave the conference room because she "had become aggressive toward a little girl from a Romania orphanage". Roelie Post is a permanent functionary who has worked at the European Commission for 23 years and who for the last eight years has dealt with files concerning orphaned children from Romania. She maintains that she was merely trying to speak to the little girl who was crying. She said that she had to notify the Belgian police and the security forces of the European Commission about the intimidation and harassment that she received from representatives of the international adoptions lobbies. Theodora Bertzi declared, "I believe that they want to re-open adoptions from Romania because the corruption involved in this system is only dormant and has not been completely eradicated. I believe that it is injurious to compare international adoptions with the free movement of people, services and goods. We have lost track of tens of thousands of adopted children. To date, the number is approximately 30,000 children from 1990 - 2001."

This is one of the comments to this article:

Comment by George Enescu

"Bertzi is Delirious"

Isn't it in fact Bertzi who is always speaking about the export of children as goods? And now all of a sudden it's an injurious expression? It is plain that she got made because the truth was told. And especially since the Romanian press abounds with horrible stories about the treatment of children in Romania. But why is she so upset that they lost track of 30,000 children who were adopted abroad? Doesn't Mrs. Bertzi know that when a child is adopted in another county he receives the citizenship of that country? What does Mrs. Bertzi really want? Does she want Romania to spy on these children in their adoptive families? I think that her fury at not being given an important place at the conference has blinded her. You know, she has become used to so many praises from false admirers......

UN calls for EU helP on Roma children

2007-03-06T15:43:00.000-06:00

UN calls for EU help on Roma children

06.03.2007 - 09:29 CET

By Helena Spongenberg

Roma children in south-eastern Europe are facing serious discrimination, social exclusion and disproportional poverty, according to a new UN report. The author calls on the EU to help improve the situation.

The report from UNICEF – the UN's children's fund – found that Roma, Sinti and traveller's children in south-eastern Europe are facing "human rights abuses on a large scale".

The children "remain invisible" because they do not have birth certificates and therefore do not have access to the social agencies that ensure they have basic health-care and education. As many as one million Roma children in south-eastern Europe are unaccounted for in official statistics, said Gordon Alexander from UNICEF.

Later in life, they will not be able to vote, make use of the social services nor register their own children.

Mr Alexander called on the EU to use its leverage to raise accountability. "If you look at new member states, their problems have not been solved; in fact, they are getting worse," he said, according to Reuters.

UNICEF presented the report at the German parliament together with the report on Roma in Germany, prepared by Berlin's Technical University.

That study found there are some 50,000 Roma from the former Yugoslavia living in Germany on refugee status who are not eligible for integration and language courses because they don't have official papers.

"Roma children should be given the chance to break up the vicious cycle of poverty, discrimination and prejudices," said Reinhart Schlagintweit, head of UNICEF Germany in a statement on Monday.

He warned of the "dramatic consequences" when "hundreds of thousands of children around the world grow up in ghettoes, without educational perspectives in the heart of Europe."

At the same time another UNICEF report shows that the percentage of Roma children at school age, but not attending school, are 60-80 percent in Bulgaria, Albania and Romania, while it has been reduced to 20 percent in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to AFP.

EUROPE WANTS TO FORCE THE RE-OPENING OF ADOPTIONS

2007-03-06T12:26:00.000-06:00

Article from Ziua Nov. 10, 2006

EUROPE WANTS TO FORCE THE RE-OPENING OF ADOPTIONS

The Hunt for Children

After Romania had been sharply criticized for the way in which international adoptions were done between 2000 and 2004, now some European Parliamentarians are vehemently demanding the re-opening of international adoptions. At the opening of a conference entitled "A European Policy of Adoptions" held yesterday, and organized by Europarliamentarians Claire Gibault and Jean-Marie Cavada, Romanian authorities were accused of using the fight against corruptions merely as a pretext for closing international adoptions. Gibault stated, "The issue of corruption is very important, but it should not become a mere pretext for sacrificing whole generations of children." Thus, in spite of the fact that the conference was supposed to be about European adoptions, the first session had more to do with the refusal of the Romanian authorities to re-open international adoptions.

Romania Will Not Give In

Theodora Bertzi, State Secretary for the Romanian Office for Adoptions, declared, "These are not pretexts. Such a position is inadmissible. Romania is going to maintain its position and respect the current law because this law is in conformity to European standards and is the only thing which can protect against the international adoption mechanisms which still exist in the world. It is the only legislation which can protect the children of Romania. The system of international adoptions which existed before is only in a temporary dormant state. The people who were involved in this are waiting for a change in the legislation so that they can once again start up their business. I was expecting something like this to happen. The Europarliamentarians Gibault and Cavada, who organized this colloquium, are trying to drag people into error. They said we were going to talk about European adoptions, but now they are talking about adoptions from Romania."

Parliamentarians Try To Stop The Tears

There were three young Romanians at the debate organized by these two Europarliamentarians. These young people spoke about the conditions in institutions. The first of these was Petrescu who was adopted in 1995 by a family from Great Britain. He had been institutionalized for 4 years at a center for handicapped children in Ungureni because he suffered from polio. Among the statements that this young person made were the following: "I was tied to the bed and my feed were bound. We did not receive sufficient food nor clothes and we were always dying of cold. When people from outside were coming to visit us, they put nice clothes on us. But afterward, these clothes were taken away from us and we continued to freeze." He was later invited to speak about the advantages which came from being adopted. Additionally, his adoptive mother said that the situation at the orphanage hadn't really changed much if at all. On the other hand, the head of the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, Bogdan Panait, said that the orphanage in Ungureni no longer falls under the system of child protection but rather is under the National Authority for Handicapped People. The 15 children who were there had been moved into a family type home in 2000. Panait declared, "I came to this conference very relaxed hoping to find out somethings about the policies of member states. I would ask that Romania not be shown as a negative example when it comes to the area of child protection. We have to remember that our system is very young, but we have made important progress. The system is not perfect and I have never maintained that it was."

Europarliamentarian Cavada stated that he will protect these witnesses and asked that the Romanian authorities would stop their slandering and threaten Romania with a lawsuit if they continue. Cavada acknowledged that progress had been made in Romania, but at the same time he said he was not impressed with their "publicity campaign". He said that he wishes to help Romania to continue the reforms. He added, "We are trying to help, but Romania refuses to believe that we want to help them." Europarliamentarians Gibault, Cavada and DeCombret had initiated a petition in which they asked for the re-opening of international adoptions.

ADOPTION LAW IN ROMANIA DOESN'T RESPECT INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS

2007-03-06T12:21:00.000-06:00

Article from Mediafax Nov. 10, 2006

DECOMBRET--ADOPTION LAW IN ROMANIA DOESN'T RESPECT INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS

Brussels, Nov. 10, 2006

"The law from 2004 regarding adoptions in Romania includes an article which is against the United Nations Convention and the Hague Convention, because it forbids international adoptions," declared the president of the foundation SERA France, Francois DeCombret, in an attempt to force Romanian authorities to review the legislation in this area.

He explained that the international adoption of a Romanian child is not possible today except in the case where the one who wants to adopt the child is his grandparents.

"It is about a disguised ban on international adoptions. This article (nr. 39 from law 273/2004--n.r.) doesn't respect the international conventions ratified by Romania. The authors of these laws are not Romanian, but pretend to be international experts sent from the European Union," declared Parliamentarian DeCombret Thursday, on the occasion of the conference "European Policy of Adoption".

Many children claim abuses in a private orphanage

2007-03-06T12:17:00.000-06:00

Article translated from Realitatea.net Sept. 11, 2006

QUESTIONABLE

Many children claim abuses in a private orphanage

The problem of abuses in orphanages again becomes a reality. Many children who have stayed for years in the care of a private orphanage in Brasov told a journalist from Great Britain that they were beaten by the workers and forced to stay days at a time in isolation. The head of the Educational Complex denies all the accusations. Still, the CPS will open an investigation.

The children who launched the accusations against the employees of the Sunny Glade Educational Complex (Poinana Soarelui) in Brasov, have lived there since 2004. Unhappy with the behavior of those who cared for them, the children asked to be moved into a state run orphanage, and now they are in the state's care.

"The employees beat us (...) They made us believe that our only option was to depend on them, that other orphanages weren't good," a young 16 year old man who lived in the Sunny Glade (Poiana Soareleui) told us.

Even young people who are still at the center say that employees lock them in isolation.

"Yes, as a punishment if we smoke or if we do bad things, but how many days? Well, three days if you smoke..." testified one of the children from the center.

Representatives from the Center do not acknowledge the accusations:

"No isolation exists, besides the room for those with contagious diseases," declared Luminita Tampea, director of the Complex.

What's more, two girls who stayed at the Sunny Glade Complex (Poinana Soarelui) complained that they were violated by the administrator of one of the camps in Bacau during summer camp. The CPS will send a notice to the police, but will begin their own investigation. If the accusations prove to be true, the Sunny Glade Complex risks losing their license.

CHILDREN WITHOUT A CHILDHOOD

2007-03-06T12:09:00.000-06:00

Translated from Cotidianul Oct. 24, 2006

CHILDREN WITHOUT A CHILDHOOD

By: Radu Calin Cristea

Romania will not be able to put up for very long with a total embargo in international adoptions. The subject demands at least a very serious debate.

International adoptions from Romania were a well justified idea, but the idea was applied in a catastrophic way. Thousands of children were sold like merchandise through the intermediaries called NGO's who were motivated merely by the money they could get from this business; and then they refused to present the Romanian authorities with post adoption reports. Baroness Emma Nicholson, former rapporteur for Romania from the European Parliament, spoke about the interests of certain dubious politicians as well as about the international adoption of certain children for the criminal purpose of using their organs. The moratorium of Oct. 2001, suspended international adoptions, but left the door open for exceptional situations. In Feb. of 2004, international adoptions were completely stopped. The EU says they are thankful, but the United States is pleading for the re-opening of international adoptions. The presence of various lobbying groups has also been felt. The National Authority for the Protection of the Child and Adoption does not have funds to deal with the situation of children in difficult situations. We have seen plenty of reports about families with five or six children who live in wild conditions and who survive for the most part on gifts or on what they can find in the field. About 400 Europarliamentarians are lobbying for the unblocking of international adoptions. The investigations which were recently made by Europaliamentarians Cavada and Gibault have stirred up rumors in almost all of the press with articles resonating the following idea "We will not sell out children".

My opinion is that international adoptions should be re-opened because there are perhaps tens of thousands of children who have no parents that will assure them of a decent life. National adoptions are extremely difficult, and they will not ultimately catch up with the huge number of children that need to be adopted. A new system of international adoptions needs to be put into place which avoids the errors of the past. I believe that the best guarantee would be to give the agreement on an intergovernmental level. Governments would be required to periodically verify the situations and then communicate this to the Romanian government as well as to families who gave up their children for adoption. Communication between the adopted child and his family in Romania would be regular and diverse. Any deviation from the requirements would immediately cause the child to be brought back to Romania and given to the biological family. The time for international adoptions will come for Romania. It would be good to initiate some public discussions on this theme so we don't wake up one day in a situation which demands a hasty response and which will be dependent on political convergences.

Below is a comment to this article:

By: Ioana Apopei--Unfortunately, and especially for the children, no one has wanted to defuse the bomb which has been put at the doors of orphanages by the Baroness and big Mr. Tiriac, who praises himself for the fact that he gives children from the orphanage work to do (but what does he do, make them his slaves?).

How did these children get lost? Give us some names. Why has no one ever mention the name of a child who has been adopted after 1997? Hasn't anyone ever been able to find even one newspaper to pay 2 or 3 million euros to grab an adoption file at random, to get the address of some adoptive parents and go there? Go to the country where the child is and find the adoptive parents. They should ask to see the child and compare it to any pictures which are found in the adoption file at the court. Ladies and Gentlemen, the judges are not as has been said. Don't you think that the judges read every jot and tittle from every page of the adoption file? Do you know how many documents were required from adoptive parents? You will be flabbergasted. Do you know how many people read these documents? Do you know how many they approved? A huge amount. There is something I don't understand: it is curious to me that not one functionary from the Romanian Adoption Committee gave the right to free thinking in the press when the Baroness lorded herself over all the TV channels, etc. 'Look, man, she's from the EU'! Adoptive parents needed to have a background check from their police department which was no older than one month before the court hearing for the adoption. There were psychological studies, home studies, plus the adoption had to take place through an agency authorized by the receiving state. But also authorized by the Romanian Adoption Committee, which involved many, many formal procedures.

In addition, each adoptive family was flanked by other families from their area when they arrived at the airport and were received in adopters clubs and everybody knew about this adopted child. They met with people, they visited with people, they had all kinds of outings; and curious thing, they gathered funds for the orphanages in Romania. Do you know how many donations were made to support the orphanages during the years when international adoptions were open? Oh how easy it is to cast blame. With all the hysteria, I am amazed that Mr. Radu Calin Cristea was able to publish such an article. Involved with their own concerns, the leaders of our country omitted important aspects of this problem and left the destiny of the children to the whims of them EU. But what will happen when they turn 18? What awaits them? Will Mr. Tiriac take them all to work for him? Nobody wanted the truth. It's more trendy to sling mud. That's what we've done--like the Romanian saying, "we've thrown the whole shepherd's coat into the fire because of one louse" which in fact, was not a louse but a flea which no one actually saw. However, merely because someone had an itch, and scratched, a hubbub erupted that the shepherd's coat was full of fleas. And the children have not been hammered by this fate. It happened when they were abandoned in the hospitals, when they were left by the government, and most of them are without parents when they could have been sent to any civilized place in the world. Do you realize that these adopted children are treated like little Princes? Why doesn't anyone go where these adopted children are and write an article? Do you know what principle should govern the art of journalism and especially the government? "Sine ira et studio"--it demands that what is said should not be for self-serving purposes (for favors from the present ruler by studium for him and ira for the previous). I am disgusted with writers who write what is 'in vogue' in order that sales will increase due to the scandals. Perhaps the children who could have been adopted will grow up and will ask us, "Why did you keep quiet? Now we have no chance for a family and we have no home to which we can go back at holidays.

I didn't really want to get into this dispute, but I recently read an article in which a child from the U.S. kept running away from the children's home or from the family who had him in foster care ("family type placement", as we say here). When the psychologist asked him why, he said, "I want a stable family, people that I can call momma and daddy and where I can return for the holidays and know that people are there waiting for me." The child was a girl. If we are parents, then we ought to think like parents. The 1997 law said clearly 'adoptions are done in the best interest of the child'. I believe that it seemed good for the new government in 2000, to use the matter of international adoptions as a way to show how corrupt the former government was. An adoption, however, was eventually signed by a judge (from among 3 judges) and in the presence of the prosecutor. But nobody really wants to know how adoptions are done. For 2 years after a child has been adopted, the adoption agency from the area of residence of the adoptive parents, would send a report every 6 months with photographs of the child to Romania. The Romanian foundation which did the adoption, was obligated to make sufficient copies and give them to the CPS of the county, to the orphanage from which the child had been adopted, as well as to the Romanian Adoptions Committee. The foundation was also required to keep one copy in their files. Many foundations visited the children at home in their new families. But why was no foundation allowed to give its point of view but rather only the Baroness was allowed to speak and right of reply was killed? There are many foundations which intermediated hundreds of adoptions and have hundreds of files in their archives.

Unfortunately, the destiny of innocent children has been politicized. These children were abandoned and then beaten again by the government because that's what the government thought would be good for them politically. It's shameful. How will these leaders be able to look these children in the eye? It has been said that a child is a gift from God, but the government has made him political pawns. Sin! Yes, it's true that different fates came about when the lots were cast. But the one who doesn't know is not the one who is being accused, rather, the one who doesn't want to know.

Helping Families Adopt Orphans Act

2007-03-06T12:06:00.000-06:00

Congresswoman Wilson Introduces the Helping Families Adopt Orphans Act Legislation

Congresswoman Heather Wilson today announced she has introduced the Helping Families Adopt Orphans Act, legislation to aid families adopting orphans from foreign countries.

The legislation would extend the validity of the I-171H "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition" form to at least two years.

This form is issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security. It is the final form needed to adopt international orphans and is the ticket to adoption for many families.

The form is currently valid for 18 months, although the time needed to complete the adoption process has significantly increased over the last few years because of delays in travel approval, visas for orphans, and additional processing time to gain approval by foreign governments.

AFTER THE RE-OPENING INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS

2007-03-01T12:25:00.000-06:00

Article translated from Gandul Oct. 19, 2006

AFTER THE RE-OPENING INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS YOU WILL HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD

by: Sinziana Ionescu

The visit of French Europarliamentarian Claire Gibault in Constanta began with a scandal. Accompanied by two filming teams from the French mass media, Gibault wanted to check on the conditions which were being offered to children in hospitals and orphanages in Constanta. From the very beginning, the attitude of her delegation created tensions in their hosts. At the first stop, the Emergency Hospital in Constanta, the Europarliamentarian manifested her unhappiness with the presence of Romanian journalists who disturbed her in their recording of events. Although he wished to visit the maternity section, she went to the pediatric section believing that she would find abandoned children there in filth. It was explained to her that these little patients come from needy families. They have health problems and their parents are not able to assure them of proper treatment. The head of the pediatric section, Dr. Valeria Stroe assured Gibault that the families do visit the children from time to time. The French Europarliamentarian posed with several children in her arms and spoke to one of them who was only a year and 3 months old saying to him in French, "After the opening of international adoptions, you will have a happy childhood."

In the maternity hospital, Gibault could not converse with the nursing children. She spoke, instead, with the head of the maternity section, Dr. Vlad Tica. After that, she shared her impressions with the press and also rebuked them for coming into the children's ward. She said, "I didn't expect that all of the press would come into the room out of respect for the children and the doctors." Noteworthy is the fact that she never wore a white gown.

After the visit to the hospital she made her way to some orphanages. At "Little Rotterdam" Gibault and her team commented that the visit seemed a little too much "by the book" and suspected that the Romanian authorities had orchestrated the whole visit. Petre Dinica declared, "They had the impression that we only showed them what we wanted them to see." At "Little Rotterdam" there are about 60 children who come from needy families. The French visitors accused the Romanians of hiding some of these children in order that they would not be seen. However, the students were in school and there were only pre-school children in the center. Dinica told the French that what they believed was absurd.

The atmosphere at the home of a foster mother who is raising a handicapped child as well as a visit to the "Horizon" family type home, only strengthened the conviction of the French that the Romanians were covering up the reality. "I don't see any smiles on their faces," declared Gibault. She was informed that along with the psychological and physical problems that these children have, they are also marked by disabilities and were scared by the hubbub created by her visit. Although the program was supposed to end at 12 noon, the visit of the French woman was prolonged without the knowledge of the Romanian officials.

At the "Antonio" orphanage, the employees refused to permit her access without the approval of the head of the Constanta CPS. When they arrived at the orphanage, Gibault said that the reason for her visit to the orphanage was an attempt to escape from the Romanian press.

Yesterday in Bucharest, Gibault asked forgiveness for her attitude, admitting in a press conference that it was due to being very nervous.

The official visit of Claire Gibault in Romania which began Monday, was marked by changes of plans at the last minute, unannounced visits at institutions where children are housed, violations of Romanian law, and disrespect for the Romanian authorities regarding their right to be informed.

Also present at the press conference on Wednesday, was Europarliamentarian Jean-Marie Cavada. He, along with Claire Gibault and Francoise de Combert, is the initiator of a petition for re-opening of international adoptions in Romania. He said that he has had discussions at the governmental level and has proposed constituting a commission regarding the cases of Romanian children whose international adoption had been requested before the stoppage of international adoptions. According to Cavada, these cases should be "reviewed". The government of Romania firmly rejected this request by the Europarliamentarians regarding modifying the law or reviewing the more than 1,000 requests for adoption of Romanian children by foreigners which were made before the stoppage of international adoptions. The head of the Romanian Adoption Authority, Theodora Bertzi, declared that a working group had been constituted at the governmental level and had analyzed each individual case and that all the families involved had received a response from her office. Bertzi specified that, "It should be understood that not even for one moment would I be in agreement with re-analyzing these cases."

EUROPARLIAMENTARIANS ASK FOR INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS

2007-03-01T12:22:00.000-06:00

Article translated from BBC Romanian.com October 18, 2006

EUROPARLIAMENTARIANS ASK FOR INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS

A group of French Europarliamentarians ask Romanian authorities to revise legislation which forbidsalmost all international adoptions. Jean Marie Cavada and Claire Gibault presented Romanianofficials, including Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, a list of signatures, over 400 of the 632 Europarliamentarians, who maintain their position of changing the Romanian law.

Emma Nicholson says the problem of the children is one that is to be resolved by nationalsovereignty, and doesn't enter into the competence of the European Union.

For two French Europarliamentarians, there are two reasons why Romania should allow foreign citizens to adopt Romanian children.

The first one is that the Romanian government does not have sufficient money to keep the thousands of abandoned children in orphanages nor does it have enough money to prepare and pay social workers and medical people to care for these children, nor does the government have the money to offer these children the best conditions of hygiene and education. These officials did recognize that the situation in the orphanages is not the same nightmare that it was said to be several years ago by the foreign press.

The second reason given by the Europarliamentarians is that many children are not adopted here because of very difficult procedures in adoption or because of different problems that the children have. On the basis of these two arguments, Jean-Marie Cavada proposed that the European Commission suggest a law which would permit the re-opening of adoptions, if not international ones at least inter-European ones. The European sentiment has changed a great deal. They are not of the same opinion that they were when international adoptions were forbidden. I know many Romanian families who wish to adopt, but wouldn't it be just as simple to adopt a new European law which would be valid in Romania when Romania is part of the European Union, which says that any adoptable child in a member country of the EU is able to be adopted by any citizen from any member state. As a refutation, the head of the National Authority for Child Protection, Bogdan Panait, says that official statistics indicate that the number of children being adopted has grown only after the closing of international adoptions. British Europarliamentarian Emma Nicholson, who fought for the stoppage of international adoptions from Romania, says that, "The problem of the children is one which has to do with national sovereignty and that it is not in the competence of the European Union to resolve it. The European Union has many responsibilities but not the problem of children in its member states. All the social problems need to be resolved by the authorities in these member states. In other words, Brussels cannot decide anything about the problems of children in Romania." Prime Minister Tariceanu declared at a meeting on Tuesday that Romania will maintain the current policy with regard to adoptions and will give more money for improved services in this domain.

A EUROPARLIAMENTARIAN SNEAKS THROUGH ROMANIAN ORPHANAGES

2007-03-01T12:19:00.000-06:00

Article translated from Adevarul Oct. 18, 2006

A EUROPARLIAMENTARIAN SNEAKS THROUGH ROMANIAN ORPHANAGES

By: Carmen Chihaia and Magda Crisan

A delegation of Europarliamentarians who came from Brussels to visit institutions that protect children changed their original scheduled visits twice, trying to catch Romanian authorities 'on the wrong foot'.

The most recent try was yesterday, when the delegation went unannounced to an orphanage in Prahova. Europarliamentarian Claire Gibault hadn't yet arrived in institutions in Arges and Brasov, stopping instead at an orphanage in Campina, where 32 minors are cared for. Local authorities in Prahova were told of the change in schedule only Monday evening (the evening before) after 11 p.m. The head of Romanian office for Adoptions, Theodora Bertzi, considers that Gibault's attitude is without transparency and respect with regard to the authorities in Romania.

A SCANDALOUS VISIT IN CONSTANTA ALSO

European Deputy, Claire Gibault, also tried Monday to take Romanian authorities by surprise, trying to sneak into an orphanage in Constanta. After she left, with a smirk on her lips, from officials and journalists from Constanta, she suspects the hosts showed her only the nice part of things, she turned around at the barrier, and asked the personnel of the orphanage to show her everything immediately. She went into the Pediatric section of the County Hospital, but turned around, finding out that she had gotten the wrong address: instead of Maternity, she had gotten lost in the sections of little children sick and undergoing treatment. In another visit to the Micul Rotterdam orphanage, the special conditions offered to over 60 orphans, instead of making her glad, made her run away.

RESOLVING THE ORPHAN PROBLEM??????

2007-02-06T22:16:00.001-06:00

Article From Gardianul Oct. 9, 2006
Also in Gardialul on Sept. 22, 2006
Also on www.phg.ro on Oct. 8, 2006

BOGDAN PANAIT ACKNOWLEDGES THAT HE IS INCABABLE OF RESOLVING THE ORPHAN PROBLEM
By: A.D.

"There is no institution, no matter how large or how much money it has, that is able to resolve the problems with the children if the whole of society is not available to help," declared Bogdan Panait, director of the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. His declaration was made after warnings given by the international organization "Freedom House", in their campaign "Unseen Children". This foundation sounded a powerful alarm concerning the fact that Romania is confronted with huge problems with regard to the situation of institutionalized children, street children, and those who come from poor families. This is true even though they have signed the declaration on the rights of the child. This organization also believes that children who come from families who are better off also violate the rights of the children because many of these children are abused by their parents. Dispite these problems, Panait thinks that his organization is the best prepared institution for entry into the EU.

NGO'S ARE USED AS SPIES

2007-02-06T22:13:00.000-06:00

This is an amazing lie!!!!

Article from Gardianul

VOLUNTEERS FROM NGO'S ARE USED AS SPIES FOR THE PURPOSE OF ILLEGAL ADOPTIONS
BY: Andreea Dancu

After she had declared repeatedly that approximately 1,300 internationally adopted Romanian children had disappeared without a trace, Theodora Bertzi, head of the Romania Office for Adoptions, stated that volunteers from non profit foundations are involved in spying for adoptions. According to her affirmations, these volunteers are spies in the maternity and pediatric hospitals as well as in the orphanages in order to find abandoned children who would be suitable for illegal adoptions. She explained, "Certain NGO's have volunteers in the hospitals in order to find out which children could possibly be adopted. They are a kind of under cover informers."

STEALERS OF CHILDREN

2007-02-06T22:11:00.000-06:00

From Gardianul (Oct 06, 2006)

THE AUTHORITIES MAINTAIN THAT THERE ARE STEALERS OF CHILDREN IN THE MATERNITY HOSPITALS

Although it has been demonstrated that volunteers from charitable organizations have been involved in trafficking children and have profitted from the fact that they are allowed to work in maternity and pediatric hospitals, Bogdan Panait, head of the National Authority for Child Protection, has indicated that he does not want them to withdraw their services. Panait affirmed, "I haven't even thought about removing the volunteers from these hospitals. Many of them will be the social workers of the future here in Romania." Standing in contradiction of him, however, is Theodora Bertzi who is the head of the Romanian Office for Adoption, and Zita Vatnai the head of the Social Assistance Directorate in Bihor county. These two believe that these volunteers actually hinder the work of the hospitals. Bertzi declared, "I don't understand what role these volunteers play in a maternity hospital. Why do they need to work with newborns? There are cases where children have had operations or are in casts and have need of care. Why are these people not over there?" Zita Vatnai said, "Under the cover of saying that they want to help, these volunteers try to do unorthodox things." This is also the opinion of Theodora Bertzi who declared that she suspects that these volunteers are spying. She explained, "From the information that they hold, the volunteers from these foundations are involved in spying regarding adoptions. More precisely, they are spying in these maternity and pediatric hospitals as well as orphanages in order to find abandoned children who could possibly be adopted illegally. They are in fact undercover informers." She also declared that Bogdan Panait is not the one who decides whether the volunteers will be allowed in hospitals or not. Theodora Bertzi stated, "Panait doesn't put them in the hospitals nor can he take them out. It is the Ministry of Health who will decide the destiny of these volunteers. For example, the Health Department in Oradea decided that volunteers from foundations can no longer go into maternity hospitals." At the beginning of August, CPS Bihor discovered that one of the volunteers from the Hope House Foundation stole an 18 month old child from the hospital. The volunteer had been sent by the NGO for the purpose of helping the medical personnel with the children who were in that institution. Representatives of the CPS System said that the child was then sold to a family from Romania who badly wanted to adopt a young child.

ONE ABANDONED CHILD WAS ADOPTED IN BIHOR COUNTY

2007-02-06T22:09:00.000-06:00

ONE ABANDONED CHILD WAS ADOPTED IN BIHOR COUNTY
by: Ana Minziu

Everyday in 2006, scores of newborns are forgotten by their mothers in different hospitals. The reasons for this are many, including poverty and unwanted pregnancies. In hospitals in Bihor county in the course of this year, so far approximately 150 newborns have been abandoned. Over 160 children have been abandoned so far in 2006. According to a statistical report from CPS Bihor, from Jan. through June of 2006, 158 children were abandoned in different hospitals. Ciprian Novac, spokesman for CPS Bihor, said, "Approximately 160 children were abandoned in different hospitals in Bihor county. At the Obstetrical and Gynecological hospital in Oradea, 59 children were abandoned. At the Children's Hospital "Gavril Curteanu" 64 children were abandoned, at the Municipal Hospital in Solonta 23 were abandoned, at the Municipal Hospital in Marghita 13 abandonments took place." According to a statistical report from Census Bureau, 26 of the abandoned children were placed in the care of maternal assistants, 2 were taken in by substitute families and 8 were transferred to the Children's Hospital 'Gavril Corteanu'. At the Obstetrical and Gynecological Hospital, there are still 13 abandoned children. All the others have been reintegrated into their natural families. According to specialists from CPS Bihor, at the Children's Hospital Gavril Curteanu 64 children have been abandoned since the beginning of the year. Novac further declared, "CPS Bihor decided to constitute a commission which will go to the Children's Hospital in Oradea in order to get a clear picture regarding the situation of abandoned children in this hospital. After examining the situation, this commission found 31 cases of abandonment, 8 cases of repeated readmissions and 31 cases in which the situation could not be determined exactly. These will be monitored by specialists from Bihor. We believe that some of them will go back to their families." At the moment, in the children's hospital Gavril Curteanu, there are 38 abandoned children.

A VERY POOR YEAR FOR ADOPTIONS

In 2005, CPS Bihor saw 95 children reintegrated with their natural families or extended families and 36 children adopted by different families in Romania. However, in the course of this year, there was only 1 adoption case registered so far. Ciprian Novac said, "At the moment there are 25 families who have been approved to adopt. Twelve of these have identified an adoptable child and only one of these has actually been adopted. In the other eleven cases, the adoptions are in different phases." In 2005, 33 children were given in foster care under emergency situations. Novac stated that, "We have 24 maternal assistants who are available for emergency placements. In 2006, we have had 25 children placed in emergency situations. In Bihor county, there are 365 maternal assistants who have a total of 459 children in their care. There are an additional 132 maternal assistants prepared to receive children."

THEY DON'T WANT TO GO TO ORPHANAGES

2007-02-06T22:07:00.000-06:00

THEY DON'T WANT TO GO TO ORPHANAGES
from Realitate.net

Seventy percent of children begging on the street refuse to go into orphanages. One reason is that the law permits them to go into these shelters for a limited number of hours and to leave whenever they want.

On the streets in the summer, there are approximately 2,000 children begging, most of them can be found in Bucharest, Constanta and Timisoara.

The procedure is simple; when the social worker finds a child who has no shelter and who is living by begging, the social worker can guide the child to an orphanage. But in the case where the child does not want to go to the orphanage, the police can intervene. The current law, however, forbids the keeping of that child there against his will. The only solution is that of dialog, but very few of the children are convinced. In any case, the number of vacancies in the orphanages are insufficient for the number of children who have need of such shelter. Child protection services who are responsible for these children and for convincing them to go to the orphanages are under the authority of the local mayor's offices. In other words, the child protection authorities have no legal grounds to give sanctions but rather merely recommendations. This fall programs will be launched to integrate the children into institutions with the financing of these programs coming from abroad

ABANDONED CHILDREN

2007-02-06T22:05:00.000-06:00

ABANDONED CHILDREN--JURNALUL NATIONAL WANTS A DEBATE
By: Luminita Gurita

Every year thousands of children are abandoned in hospitals in Romania. Most of them are relatively healthy and they all need to grow up in a family. However, they remain in the hospitals because the orphanages have been closed before the state has been able to provide an alternative system of protection.

Consequently, they are condemned from birth to a life without affection, to alienation and to infections from their stay in the hospital. They are not vaccinated (something that is required and is free for children who have identity documents) against childhood diseases. Those who are born with problems often end up in the pauper's cemetery.

The salvation of these children is the responsibility of every Romanian. Jurnalul National has made the first step, via a press campaign through which they wish to mobilize the state authorities.

We are debtors to these children who wait on a bed in the hospital to help them further

CHILDREN ABANDONED IN HOSPITALS

2007-02-06T22:03:00.000-06:00

Article by Rompres

CHILDREN ABANDONED IN HOSPITALS MISS OUT ON THEIR RIGHTS AS ROMANIAN CITIZENS

Children who are abandoned in hospitals and who have no documents regarding their identity do not have any rights as Romanian citizens under the current law of child protection because their existence is not officially recognized. The situation of these children resulted in the organizing of a public debate at the Caritas hospital. The initiator of this debate is the director of Caritas hospital, Bogdan Jansean, who raised the problem regarding the impossibility of being reimbursed by the national health insurance for medical services performed with regards to these abandoned newborns. The reason why the children have no rights is because there was no personal ID code assigned to them, no do they have family names and surnames.

The representative of the National Institute of Personnel Records, Paraschiv Petu, declared that the obtaining of a personal numeric code (ID number) is strictly related to a person's name. The only way a situation can be resolved, is to modify law nr.272/2004 regarding the protection of the rights of the child.

Another proposal which was put forth was the creation of special funds by the government for these children in order to help cover the costs of taking care of these abandoned newborns until they obtain their identity documents and can come under the care of the state.

According to the general director of the Ministry of Health, Ioan Buraga, there were 4,500 children abandoned in maternity hospitals and pediatric hospitals in 2005. This is 700 fewer than in 2004. Of these 4,500, 150 still do not have any identity documents. Thus, from a legal point of view, these children cannot benefit from any rights that are available to Romanian citizens.

STREET CHILDREN

2007-02-06T21:59:00.000-06:00

From Adevarul Dec. 6, 2005
By: Marcel

STREET CHILDREN, A BIG PROBLEM

Hungry, covered in filth and frozen by the cold, thousands of children live on the street. Theydon't know the joy that comes from a visit by Santa Claus. In 1998-1999, the number of streetchildren was said to be 2,100. But the latest statistics from the organization "Save the Children"shows the number of children has gone over 2,500. The majority of them are found in Bucharest,Brasov, Iasi, Craiova, Galati, Bacau, Buzau and Ploiesti. More than 30% of the street children havebeen on the streets longer than 5 years, while 25% of them have lived this life style for less thana year.

FOUR CATEGORIES OF STREET CHILDREN

On the streets of the larger cities in Romania, there are four categories of street children:children who only live on the street and have no ties to their family or to any institution,children work on the street but who generally return daily to their families, young people who liveon the street (usually these are the group leaders of the street children and those who make therules for the group and who offer 'protection' and support for the other members), children who livewith their parents on the streets.

I'M HUNGRY FOR CHOCOLATE

Full of foam and froth from the soap, yet still black from filth, and sopping wet from head to foot,Marian Iosif washes windshields at an intersection in Piata Regie. He looks askance at us with anevil glance "What do you want with me? Are you one of those who buys children and after that killsthem so you can take their liver?" He's gone through all kinds of trickery and knows about people.He is 10 years old but he has a furrowed face which is soiled with something shiny and silver:Aurolac (glue). From time to time he inhales from a bag on which are written the words, "Agfa ColorFilm".

It's become cold outside, but Marian is only wearing flip-flops. His feet are cyanotic and swollen.However, he doesn't feel the cold. He says he's used to it. He knows how to read and write. He knowsmoney, learns quickly, and he's not stupid. "Winter's coming," he says with an air of maturity. "Idon't know what I'm gonna do this winter. All the sewers are full of water from the rains andfloods. The dampness goes all the way to your bones. You know how it is? You can't sleep even ifyou're warm. There are swarms and swarms of mosquitoes and they eat you alive." Marian told us thatlast winter he slept in a sewer which ran along the bank of the Dimbovita River. It was warm and quiet and he heard only the running water in the hot water pipes which were as big around as his body. He made it nice there. He put up some ads from the Billa grocery store and from Carrefour, he had an icon with the Virgin Mary, and a pocket-knife to protect himself. He doesn't remember whether he ever received a gift in his life or not. "Two years ago I ran away from home with my brother, but he separated from me and now he stays over by the railroad station. From that time until now we've lived only in the sewers. We are barely away from Craiova. We left because our mother married a guy who beat us with a whip. We haven't seen her since then nor do we remember what her face looks like. It's better on the street. I get up when I want. I eat if I have something. And then I go off to beg. I wash windshields, I sweep the floors of small shops, carry goods, etc. I manage. And I haven't starved yet from hunger." At the moment, these children are sleeping under a large block of cement which was thrown into a waste area near a major intersection. That's Marian's house and others' house as well. Marian says that Santa has never brought him any gifts. I've never had a Christmas tree or a new toy. When workers decorated a center where he stayed he shouted for joy. Bucharest is his -- from one end to the other. "If I had the chance, I'd write Santa Claus and beg him: Dear Santa, I have a big craving for chocolate. I haven't had any to eat since I was little. And I have one more request: please get the cats and the mosquitoes out of this sewer so that I have some place to sleep this winter. Thank you."

BEATEN AND STARVING

The majority of street children are beaten, insulted, threatened, starving and under-developed for their age and they do not get enough nourishment nor sufficient sleep. They usually do not have a roof over their heads. These are the conclusions of a study entitled "A Rapid Evaluation of Street Children Who Work" which was done by the organization "Save the Children". According to this study, the most common activities of these little ones are begging, loading and unloading goods, washing windshields or cars, selling newspapers, or collecting garbage. On average the children work six hours on the street everyday all year. Their educational level is very low. Approximately 20% have never been to school, 30% are illiterate, 40% know how to read and write a little bit. Of those who left school, 18% left around the age of 12. The street boys are three times as numerous as girls. 70.4% of the street children are between the age of 14 and 18. These results come from a study by the organization "Save the Children". Of those questioned, more than 90% are permanently on the streets. The boys are more numerous than the girls because the girls are more vulnerable on the streets, they cannot do hard work and usually their families prefer to use them in housework. More than 60% of street children come from families with a lot of children, usually more than 4. According to the study, 57% are Romanian and 40% are Gypsies. The data show that the risk of ending up on the street, whether accompanies by a family or not, are in fact greater for Gypsy children.

According to the study done by the Save the Children organization, the average age at which a street child begins sexual relations is 12.5 years, which is well below the national average of 17 years for boys and 19 years for girls. Of those questioned, more than 42% said that they began sexual relations at ages between 6 and 12 years, while another 58% at 14 years. Thus the risk of various diseases is very great.

WHY DO CHILDREN END UP ON THE STREET?

The majority of children say they ended up on the street by their own initiative and only 12% of them were thrown out by their parents. The usual causes for ending up in the street are alcoholic parents, negligence, physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional distress. Many of the children are sent to beg by their parents while approximately 10% come from orphanages.BEGGING IS THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF INCOMEBegging is the primary source of income for street children. More than 55% of them get their money through this practice. About 20% do day work, while 9% wash cars. 7.4% said that they obtained their money from stealing and 1.5% said that they obtained their money from prostitution. Because they want to get money, the children do not relax very much. For 11.9% of them, free time is synonymous with drugs or stealing. The usual place for such relaxation is on the street. Only 5.9% of the street children go to an orphanage for rest.

WE ARE PRESIDENT BASESCU'S NEIGHBORS

Some of these children are spending their ninth Christmas in the open air only a few meters from the fence of the Presidential Palace in Bucharest. At this location there are 8 people. There are 6 children who are between the ages of 3 months and 11 years who are shivering because of the cold. Their parents, Catita Afrim and Constantin Bobi Flueras have made this "house" and covered it with plastic and old clothes. It's a hut. Instead of a door, the hut has rags. On a nearby tree, wet clothes are hanging. They were washed yesterday by the children's mother in a trough with holes. For 9 years they have been on the street and some of the children were even born there in the field. Only later did Catita get to the hospital. The woman is 34 years old and is crazy with worry. Only her man, to whom she is not legally married, works. They live on his salary. At 6 in the morning when he leaves for work, it is so cold that it freezes the tears his eyes. He doesn't want to get out from under the blanket. But when he looks at the small hunched forms, his heart throbs painfully. He goes out hungry and comes back in the evening broken. All that awaits him is a potato broth in a beat up pot. He wolfs down the broth with the rest of them. Catita told us with moist eyes, "We stayed for a while in a park. It was summer. After that we moved to a ghetto in Ferental. For 2 years we slept in the field near Bolentin. Several months we rented, we had a television, my, how the children watched it. We were no longer able to pay the rent so we returned here. My soul is black with anger that no one looks at us! See, Christmas is coming and we find ourselves under the stars!" Catita says that every year when Saint Nicholas is to come, she teaches the children to clean their shoes and put them outside in front of the door. Before lying down, the six little ones arrange their misshapen and mismatched shoes in front of the hovel, still hoping that St. Nicholas will pass their neighborhood. But St. Nicholas keeps forgetting to stop there. In the morning, Catita's children find little shoes frozen solid and made wet by stray dogs seeking shelter in the area. Then she smiled and told them that they weren't good and that's why St. Nicholas passed them by. They believed it. And at Christmas, as miserable as they were, they wouldn't give up until they got a little Christmas tree which they decorated with whatever they had -- the foil from chocolate that they received from charity, little colored papers found in the garbage, a little doll without a leg, three buttons, a few plastic flowers. When it rains, their clothes are all wet and the palace of rags gets wet like cardboard. Three of the little girls go to school daily, helped by the organization Save the Children. The ones who stay home loaf around all day begging from cars at intersections, to the desperation of Catita who by no means wants to see them there. In one second the little children all go out of the tent in a row, like ants, some with no shirt and barefoot, some with slippers put on backwards. Carmenuta, the 3 month old girl, laughs and punches with her little hands. The boys pull a gray tomcat by the tail and then scuttle away to some bushes. They appear with a moth eaten stuffed fox, thrown away in the garbage by who knows who. They ride it, pull its tail and kiss its snout. Sometimes Catita messes up their names because there's alot of them; "Well, there's Lavinia, ahhh...Adelina, Camelia, Mihaita, Carmenuta (the little one) and .......oh brother, there's one more." She looks around the 'house' and realizes that a little girl is missing. "Hey, where in the world is that little rascal?!" screams the woman. Toward the evening the little one shows up too, barefoot, full of snot but happy, licking a lollipop victoriously. She holds it in her little dirty hands like a trophy. Catita puts her hands on her head: "You crossed the road again, you little rebel! How many times have I told you that I better not catch you doing that, because I'll crack you!"

HOW MUCH DOES A CHILD COST?

2007-02-06T21:56:00.000-06:00

From Adevarul Oct. 5, 2006

HOW MUCH DOES A CHILD COST?
By: Val Valcu

Among seven children who were born in Cluj and Constanta, only 2 are still holding onto life. For doctors this is a simple statistic. Babies born prematurely in Romania have a 15% chance to survive. If they live for a week, their chances of survival are 20%. For the authorities, these statistics do not seem to have any importance. Confronted with an infant mortality rate which is as high as many African states, Romania is, nevertheless, under pressure to report an infant mortality rate which is more in line with European levels. It needs to be known that infant mortality numbers are not influenced by extreme cases nor by occasional situations which may happen once per year. Thousands of children have died, many anonymously, because the midwives from the villages did not have anything with which to wash their hands. Also, many times, the ambulance didn't arrive at the top of the mountain while other times parents fed their newborns bread and water which were poisoned with nitrates. Beyond the drama of individual cases, what has Romanian society lost in its war against its smallest citizens? In other words, what really is the value of the life of a child? Monetarily speaking, one could begin with the sums which are necessary for bringing the child into this world. Blood tests during the pregnancy cost between 100 and 500 euros ($130-650). The birth itself in a private clinic will cost between $1900 and $2500. Those who choose the classic system, that is with bribe money in an envelope, will find that they will pay approximately the same amount. Why is it that only half of all mothers are seen for the first time by a doctor on the day they give birth? Why is it that 80% have not had a sonogram which in Romania only costs $1? Many Romanian families have sold their houses and cars in order for their child to have an operation abroad. Others, and probably many more, have put their children to work at hard labor at the age of 10 years so that the parents can have money for alcohol.

What value are Romanian children given by the state in which they are born? Demographic experts point out that the population will grow older and smaller. In 2050 there will be only 16 million Romanians in the country, and a working adult will be working to support 9 people. In order to prevent a crisis, these Romanian demographic experts say that birth rates must be increased. Salaries for mothers and babies which are supposed to be introduced in 2007, have been shown to be efficient in Western Europe, but is this the solution to the problem? Are we interested in the number of Romanians or in their quality of life? If the state would invest in the health and education of Romanian children, perhaps a Romanian worker in 2050 will be able to support 9 people. If not, then the retirees of tomorrow will not have a very good life. Romanians depart for Italy because there they can earn money to buy a house. After Jan. 1, 2007, the local authorities will strive to construct kindergartens for children and to give them medical insurance. If the state does not take measures which view society as a whole, and if Romanians don't sense that things are going better, they will depart. People will go to the business owner to work abroad, and the little ones will be stolen from maternity hospitals and sold on the internet for adoption.

IN CONSTANTA COUNTY ONLY 18 ABANDONED CHILDREN FOUND A FAMILY IN 2006

2007-02-06T21:53:00.000-06:00

Translated from Telegraph on line--May 27, 2006

IN CONSTANTA COUNTY ONLY 18 ABANDONED CHILDREN FOUND A FAMILY IN 2006
By: Paula Anghel

Institutionalized children are hard to adopt. Hundreds of children from Constanta county live in orphanages or with foster parents. Many of them have never seen their biological parents, while others only have a vague remembrance of them. Although over 95% of the children who are under the care of CPS Constanta are abandoned, from the strictly legal point of view, they cannot be considered abandoned or considered for adoption because someone has not shown up in court to sign a paper declaring agreement with this. According to the director of CPS Constanta, Mirela Gene, only 18 of the children in the whole child protection system have been declared abandoned and have a chance to find a family. Of these 18, four have been entrusted for adoption. This means that they will spend 3 months with a family to see if they can be integrated in this adoptive family. Another four were placed in families as emergency placements. Mirela Gene said, "We have 10 children who, although they have legal abandonment were not given for adoption because they are more than 5 years old and not one family from among the 22 who are interested in adopting a child wants a child this old." Additionally, from the beginning of this year to the present, there were 18 families which were able to adopt a child.

EVERY CHILD NEEDS A FAMILY

In order to adopt a child, a family must go through many, many stages. This begins with the submission of a file and then a social and psychological evaluation as well as receiving authorization to adopt. Only after this can an adoption finally take place. This process lasts between 6 and 18 months. After an adoption has taken place, the family is monitored for 2 years with quarterly post adoption reports. According to the law, adoption is a form of protection which responds to the needs of a child to grow up in a family. But who can become an adoptive parent? Persons or families who fulfill and provide moral guarantees and the necessary material conditions for the full and harmonious development of the child. Adopters must be at least 18 years older than the child they wish to adopt.

SCORES OF CHILDREN ARE ABANDONED IN HOSPITALS

2007-02-06T21:50:00.000-06:00

From Adevarul Sept. 6, 2006
Author: Dana Timofticiuc

SCORES OF CHILDREN ARE ABANDONED IN HOSPITALS

The number of children abandoned in hospitals and maternity wards in Vaslui county has risen alarmingly, compared with last year. The abandonment of children demonstrates that a society is sick and this is true of Romania as it traverses these years of transition.

Ionel Armeanu Stefanica, director of CPS of Vaslui county said, "The phenomenon of children abandoned in hospitals has increased alarmingly." Compared with last year, when a total of 80 abandonments were registered, through August of 2006, there were already this many children abandoned. It is anticipated that by the end of the year the number of children abandoned will be twice as large as it was in 2005. According to authorities, the main reason these mother abandon their children is poverty. Abandonments are continuing in spite of the fact that abortions are easily available, as are contraceptives. Statistics from UNICEF show that at the end of 2005, more than 9,000 newborns were abandoned in maternity hospitals in Romania. According to these sources, the rate of abandonment of children has remained the same for the last 30 years.

SIX HUNDRED FAMILIES FORSOOK THEIR CHILDREN

Six hundred families from Vaslui county left Romania to work abroad. They usually left their children in the care of relatives. The authorities are saying, however, that these families have made a grave error. Armeanu declared, "Children should live in a family with a mother and father. Otherwise their lives will be severely marked by the departure of the parents during childhood. The child has need of parents all the time. The departure of both parents abroad will probably affect these children for the rest of their lives." Cumulatively, abandonments and the departure of parents to work abroad will ravage the mentality and perceptions of families in society.

ION TIRIAC'S ORPHANAGE RUINS ROMANIA'S IMAGE!

2007-02-06T21:46:00.000-06:00

From Atac-Online
September 13, 2006
by Adrian Militaru

ION TIRIAC'S ORPHANAGE RUINS ROMANIA'S IMAGE!

The abuses at Poiana Soarelui [Sunny Glade], the "Educational Complex" shepherded by Ion Tiriac via his sister Rodica, have gotten to the ears of the European Parliament and are ruining Romania's image just a few months before its entry into the EU. Six institutionalized children have notified the European Parliament concerning the abuses to which they were subjected by the personnel who were supposed to be caring for them. To top it all off, the whole scandal will make it to the European press because last week two British journalists from the celebrated newspaper, The Sunday Times, came especially to make a report about the abuses at Poiana Soarelui [Sunny Glade].

RAPED BY A SUPERVISOR

Two of the girls who are at the complex declared to journalists that they were raped by one of the caregivers from the orphanage while attending a camp in Bacau. This camp was organized by Poiana Soarelui in order to demonstrate the great conditions which exist for children institutionalized at the complex. This case was swept under the rug and the perpetrator was let go from the institution. Traumatized and forced to not say a word, the victims suffered in silence.

THE OFFICIAL VERSION

The current leadership of Poiana Soarelui has a different version, however. The leadership said the two girls had disappeared during that week and that the institution needed to contact the police to look for them. After they were found, they were taken to the institution and put in isolation. Thus affirms the leadership of the institution. However, this is not the only case of sexual abuse which the children at Poiana Soarelui was subjected. A few years ago, the baker at Poiana Soarelui was sentenced by the Brasov court to 7 years in prison after it was proven that he raped a young boy. The young boy was taken by the perpetrator to a garage where he proposed that they play a game called ride the horse. The victim was forced to his knees while the pervert rubbed the genital organs of the boy. In the end, the silence of the victim was bought with candy. Just like in the case of the two girls, this case also was swept under the rug. The institution's lawyer, Nicolaie Mandrila, affirms "I don't know about such cases in which children were mistreated."

THE MYSTERY BEHIND THE FENCE

The children have come to the end of their rope with regard to the harsh treatment to which they are subjected by Tiriac's employees. The institutionalized children are bringing grave accusations against the psychologist, maternal assistants, care givers as well as the leadership of the institution. The children primarily blame the center's psychologists and maternal assistants for inadequate and severe behavior. The children said that "the psychologists don't take care of us and the leadership has abandoned us. In general, the language used by the psychologists is very harsh and they no longer care about our problems." It appears that the situation has not changed. The children maintain that when they make a mistake, they are put in isolation, usually for 3 days. One of the children said, "They bring us food, but isolation is terrible."

IMPRESSIVE MEASURES

Larisa Z. ran away from Tiriac's center last year because of the way she was treated. Because of the scandal this created, she was moved to Bucharest where she is studying piano at the Dinu Lipatti. The girl returned to Brasov to pick up her identity documents, however, the doorman at the gate refused to let her in without the approval of the director. According to request no.31021 from August 9, 2005, the CPS Brasov demanded that the leadership of Poiana Soarelui give the girl her identity papers. The leadership maintains that they sent the documents to CPS Brasov as requested. The problem is that only her identity card arrived, together with her birth certificate and medical records. Her passport was not sent and thus she lost the opportunity to visit the United States, for which she had a visa.

EMMA NICHOLSON IS ALSO ACCUSED BY THE CHILDREN

The adolescents are determined to expose the fact that the institution tried to hide the truth. The children did not hide the fact that they are very mad at Baroness Emma Nicholson who was responsible for stopping international adoptions. One of the children said, "Tiriac brought her here two times with his helicopter and buttered her up, thus making us suffer." The children also declared their anger at the fact that the representatives of the orphanage did not even tell them that their names were on a list to be adopted abroad. Many of them found out later that families from the U.S. and Italy had tried everything possible in order to adopt them. CPS Brasov wants to open an investigation. If the things stated by the children are confirmed, it is possible that the authorization of this institution will be withdrawn. Though we don't need these kinds of scandals just a few months prior to Romania's entry into the EU, unfortunately the repeated alarms signaled by ATAC Newspaper have not been heard by the authorities and they have closed their eyes to the facts.

Letter from MDRI to Olli Rehn, EU Commissioner

2007-02-06T21:41:00.000-06:00

September 22, 2006

Commissioner Ollie Rehn
European Union
Brussels , Belgium

Dear Mr. Rehn,

I am writing to urge the EU to take steps to ensure that the government of Romania is held accountable for human rights violations of children and adults with disabilities and that incentives be used to bring about meaningful reforms. If and when Romania is accepted for accession to the EU, the accession agreement should include a “safeguards” clause to ensure future monitoring of rights and to link the use of structural adjustment funds to specific safeguards for the protection of rights and community integration of people with disabilities.

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) is a human rights organization dedicated to the protection of people with mental disabilities worldwide. We have investigated human rights conditions of people with mental disabilities in 23 countries of Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East . The human rights abuses against children and adults with disabilities in Romania are among the most extreme and pervasive that we have observed in any country of the world.

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) documented these abuses with regard to children in our May 2006 report, Hidden Suffering: Romania ’s Segregation and Abuse of Infants and Children with Disabilities. Since the release of MDRI’s report, our findings have been widely and independently corroborated – including findings from investigative reports at ITV News in Britain , ABC News in the United States , and Jornalul National in Romania . Human Rights Watch has issued a report Life Doesn’t Wait: Romania’s Failure to Protect and Support Children and Youth Living with HIV that documents abuses against a particularly vulnerable population of children with disabilities. The broader abuses against adults with disabilities – including large numbers of deaths by exposure – have been documented in recent years by the Center for Legal Resources and Amnesty International. As part of MDRI’s investigation in 2005 and 2006, we also found serious and widespread abuses of thous and s of individuals in adult institutions. These included freezing temperatures in institutions, lack of protection against sexual abuse, the improper use of physical and chemical restraints, unhygienic conditions, and arbitrary detention without due process.

We recommend the inclusion of a safeguard clause to require future international monitoring and national reporting of rights protections for this vulnerable population. It should establish clear benchmarks, including significant penalties if they are not met according to a clear time schedule. Benchmarks within one year should include:

Establishment of an independent monitoring body to report publicly on conditions in all institutions for children and adults. This report would include a comprehensive human rights assessment of conditions in all institutions under all national and local authorities. Such a survey and report will only be credible if non-governmental human rights and disability rights organizations are also guaranteed access to all institutions to produce independent reports. The monitoring body and NGO’s should be given a 24 hour right of access without notification and should be given the right to obtain and submit photographic and video evidence of their findings to the government.

Removal and prosecution of abusive staff – Where specific abuses are identified, the government must take action to remove the staff who are responsible for the abuse from positions where they can endanger other people. Abusers should be held accountable and prosecuted where criminal laws are violated.

Expansion of the maternal assistance and family support programs to prevent the ab and onment of babies and the breakup of families, particularly including children with disabilities. Romania should demonstrate a significant decline in the number of ab and oned babies below the current level of 9,000 per year.

Establishment and expansion of supported foster care programs and adoption to ensure that children with all levels of mental and physical disabilities now ab and oned in maternal wards of hospitals, placement centers, and other institutions have an opportunity to grow up with a family. An independent mechanism for monitoring human rights protection and quality of care in community programs must also be established. Children with disabilities should have the same right to services as all other children. Protections against any institutionalization of infants under law 272 should be extended to all children with disabilities.

Significant decline in the institutional population of children and adults with disabilities. The transfer of children or adults from large institutions to small institutions shall not be considered deinstitutionalization. To assess future progress, Romania must show that it is moving children to stable families or substitute families. Children in small institutions, even so-called “family-like” environments should be considered children in institutions for the purpose of this assessment.

We recognize that the government of Romania has made progress in recent years in reducing the number of children in institutions. A similar move toward community integration is needed for children and adults with disabilities. We are concerned that, under the guise of reform, scarce resources have been used to build new institutions rather than promoting true community integration. The “trans-institutionalization” of children to nearly 200 new institutions in the last three years has been documented by UNICEF and is described in Hidden Suffering. A similar pattern of misdirected reform is now taking place for adults. In his testimony to the United States Congress on September 13, the representative of the National Authority for Persons with H and icap, Adrian Mindroiu, reported that the government of Romania was building 10 new psychiatric institutions. The creation of new institutions will consign a new generation of people with disabilities to segregation from society. The EU should insist that any new funds for structural adjustment or assistance be used to support community integration and not new institutions.

Please contact me if you have any questions about these matters. MDRI would be pleased to provide the EU with assistance in further defining appropriate safeguards and /or creating a program for human rights oversight .You may reach me at 1-202-296-6550 or at erosenthal@mdri.org .

Thank you for your urgent attention to the human rights of children and adults with disabilities.

Sincerely,

Eric Rosenthal
Executive Director, MDRI

Romania’s orphans claim years of abuse

2007-02-06T21:36:00.000-06:00

Bob Graham, Brasov, Romania

A GROUP of Romanian orphans who were approved for adoption by western families have claimed that their lives were devastated by the Romanian government’s ban on overseas adoption. Instead of growing up in the West, they remained in an orphanage where, they allege, they were sexually abused and beaten.

The disturbing testimony of 11 teenagers centres on a private institution in the town of Brasov. The claims are being investigated by police and Romania’s National Authority for the Protection of Children’s Rights.

The children’s complaints were sent last week to members of the European parliament to coincide with an imminent decision on Romania’s entry to the European Union. Child protection has become a key issue for Romania’s entry, although it is expected to learn this week that it will be able to join in January under strict conditions.

The complaints have shocked those who have read them, including child protection workers in Brasov, where the £2.5m Poiana Soarelui education complex, home to 66 children, opened in 1994.

In a series of interviews with The Sunday Times, Romanian ministers, orphanage directors and other officials all acknowledged serious failings in the country’s childcare system more than 16 years after appalling conditions were discovered during the collapse of communism.

While progress has been made to meet demands from Brussels for EU entry — such as the closure of large state-run orphanages — many problems remain, including the care of handicapped and abandoned children. There is also the issue of adoption by foreigners, a practice banned by Romanian governments for the past five years.

The latest allegations, sent in two letters detailing shocking abuse, were made by residents and former residents of the Brasov orphanage aged between 14 and 20.

One letter from a group of four children said: “We, the senders of this letter, are a group of teenagers institutionalised since 1994 . . . we are frustrated, punished, beaten and humiliated.”

The second letter, from a group of seven youngsters, said: “We had the unluck [sic] to grow 12 years in the private orphanage . . . No one loves us . . . That is the reason we write to you today.”
The letters contain harrowing accounts by two sisters aged 17 and 16, who claimed they were raped by a member of their orphanage’s staff two years ago at a summer camp. The sisters, who were abandoned at an early age by their mother, confirmed the details last week.

The accounts have helped to reopen a debate about inter-country adoption which has been pivotal to Romania’s childcare policies. After the 1989 revolution, when the plight of an estimated 200,000 orphaned and abandoned children emerged, thousands of western families were eager to adopt. More than 600 Romanian children were taken by British families until the process was halted in 2001.

The moratorium was urged by Baroness Nicholson, the Liberal Democrat MEP for southeast England, who insisted Romania’s entry into the EU be linked to its treatment of children.

Nicholson claimed foreign adoptions had created a lucrative black market trade in baby and child trafficking.

Opponents denied many of her assertions and claimed the moratorium “denied children a good home” in the West.

More than 1,000 children who had been approved for foreign adoption when the ban was introduced have been caught between the two camps, including those whose details have gone to Brussels.

Those children interviewed by The Sunday Times said they were pleased that their stories were being told. One of the alleged rape victims said: “It is true this is what happened to us.” The letters incorporated details of how the children had been approved for adoption with families in Italy, France and the United States before the ban on foreign adoption was imposed.

The one containing the rape victims’ account revealed that they had been selected six years ago for adoption by a family near Paris. When it was read to them by a child psychologist last week, both girls broke down and wept.

The 16-year-old grasped the hand of her sister and whispered quietly: “Paris . . . a family in France wanted us . . . this is the first we knew about this.” She added: “For the first time people outside Romania will know about us and how we have been kept prisoner when we wanted to leave.”

When Bogdan Hampu read how he had been identified for adoption with an American family, he smiled ruefully. “Wow, America . . . I never knew. To think I could have been in America instead of here, incredible.”

The Brasov orphanage is owned by the country’s richest man, Ion Tiriac, the former tennis star. A former manager to Boris Becker, Tiriac is acknowledged as the country’s leading philanthropist.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on his part.

Hearing :: Care for the Disabled in Romania

2006-12-29T15:22:00.000-06:00

UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
(HELSINKI COMMISSION) HOLDS HEARING:
CARE FOR THE DISABLED IN ROMANIA
SEPTEMBER 13, 2006
COMMISSIONERS:
U.S. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS)
CHAIRMAN
U.S. SENATOR GORDON H. SMITH (R-OR)
U.S. SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA)
U.S. SENATOR RICHARD BURR (R-NC)
U.S. SENATOR DAVID VITTER (R-LA)
U.S. SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD (D-CT)
U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD (D-WI)
U.S. SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D-NY)
VACANT
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH (R-NJ)
CO-CHAIRMAN
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FRANK R. WOLF (R-VA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH R. PITTS (R-PA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT B. ADERHOLT (R-AL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE PENCE (R-IN)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BENJAMIN L. CARDIN (D-MD)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER (D-NY)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ALCEE L. HASTINGS (D-FL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE MCINTYRE (D-NC)
WITNESSES/PANELISTS:
ADRIAN MINDROIU,
Director of the Directorate for European Integration, Head of PIU, SPO,
Romanian National Authority for the Persons with Disabilities
ERIC ROSENTHAL,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
MENTAL DISABILITIES RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL
CRISTIAN ISPAS,
FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR,
MOTIVATION ROMANIA INTERNATIONAL,
NATIONAL DIRECTOR,
SPECIAL OLYMPICS ROMANIA FOUNDATION.

The hearing was held at 2:06 p.m. in Room 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., Representative Christopher Smith, co-chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, moderating.

SMITH: The commission will come to order. And I want to wish everyone a good afternoon.
I want to thank my friend and colleague, Senator Brownback, who will be joining us shortly,
and other members of the commission. This is a very, very important hearing. As you know, Romanians have made enormous strides in many, many areas. And as a longtime friend of that country, I certainly welcome these changes. It has been heartening to see democratic reforms that allow all citizens in Romania greater participation in the political decision-making process and economic reforms, genuinely to improve the quality of life of the people living in Romania.

Ladies and gentlemen, however, "Hidden Suffering," the May 2006 report by Mental Disability
Rights International, has shed light on a segment of Romanian society whose lives remain woefully unchanged. For adults and children with disabilities, too many endure an existence shrouded in darkness, shut out of the mainstream of society, and in conditions that are all too reminiscent of the images we saw of orphanages exposed to the public eye in the early 1990s.

I would note parenthetically that having made several trips to Romania, I remember so well
when Dorothy Taft and I were there just a few weeks after the December revolution. And we went to some of the orphanages and were struck by 60 and 70 children lined up, many of whom could not even be turned or handled in a proper way by well meaning, but certainly understaffed orphanages in Bucharest.

And we wondered then, as we now are concerned, about their plight as individuals. They were
hurting. Some of them were laying in their own excrement, because, again, there was nobody even there to change them. As I think many people in this room know, last year this commission held a hearing on Romania's ban on inter-country adoption. The testimony at that hearing was riveting and very moving.

As witness Dr. Dana Johnson from the University of Minnesota testified, and I quote,
"contemporary child development research has unequivocally shown that in infancy, hospital or
orphanage care for longer than four to six months can cause permanent alterations in cognitive,
emotional and behavioral development. A reasonable estimate is that an infant loses about one to two I.Q. points per month and sustains predictable losses in growth, as well as motor and language development between four and 24 months of age while living in an institutional care environment."

I would note that the report that we will be spending much of our time discussing comes to
many of those same conclusions. One of those conclusions, and I'll just read it very briefly, was
where one of the nurses said -- just let me find it -- that, how these children were close to death, an MDRI investigator found.

But one of the others said that these kids were actually -- let me find it before we move on
-- that there is deterioration -- the bottom line is, to paraphrase it -- in the lives of these
children when they sit in these places of warehousing.

Of course, it has been proven -- here it is. In Timisoara, one of the nurses said, "they
become disabled in here." In other words, that's not how they started out. But because of the
factors that they face, they become disabled.

Of course, it has been proven, also, that placement in a permanent, nurturing home, contrary,
is, in our life, can immeasurably improve their development. We also know that many of the
inter-country adoption cases, which were abruptly halted, involved children with critical physical and developmental disabilities.

They have to-date been denied the opportunity for a permanent family, critical medical care
and a loving home, in which they have the best chance to develop as they are able. One of the cases that I worked on personally -- and I was joined by some of my colleagues -- which thankfully was resolved, at least so far, positively, was in the case of a spina bifida child
who had actually come to the United States, was living with a doctor who specializes in spina bifida. I chaired the Spina Bifida Caucus in the House, and we worked very hard on those issues and care for spina bifida-afflicted children.

Amazingly, the government was in a position where they wanted that child -- who was already
placed, already here -- to go back to Romania, probably to a warehousing situation, to leave a place where very aggressive care and love was being provided to that child. To me that was absurd.

Sadly, Romania's policies do not take into consideration the best interests of the child. And I say that with respect to my friends in Romania, because I have an enormous respect for the
government and for many of the parliamentarians, who I know very well. But it doesn't change the facts on the ground. Facts are stubborn things.

And I would also emphasize that is especially true when we talk best interests of the child,
a child who has special needs, who could otherwise be a candidate for adoption.

I am particularly troubled by reports that some institutionalized children may lack even
basic identity documents, and, therefore, have no chance of being adopted into permanent homes in Romania.

We have received other reports that some children who have no disabilities are housed in
institutions, because of lack of an adoptive family. Again, the research has shown that
institutionalized care can actually cause permanent disability.

Let me just finally say, in reading this report -- as I, and I know my colleagues on the
commission have done -- this is a serious indictment and cries out, begs remediation, and to do so immediately.

One of the statements made by a nurse in Timisoara -- and I quoted it in part, and now I will
quote it a little bit more -- "we do our best, but it's impossible for us to stop the spread of lice
and contagious diseases. I give it an injection, and a baby cries, and I have to keep going. There
are too many. They become disabled from being here."

One of these statements that really grabbed me was when a staff agreed to unwrap several of
the children. One girl, who looked to be about four to five years old, was actually 17, and weighed no more than 25 pounds. As the staff removed the restraint, her skin came off with the sheet, leaving a raw, open wound beneath it.

Another boy looked to be the size of a baby, and he was seven years old. He, too, when
unwrapped, was wasting away, his legs covered with sores and his fingers chewed and swollen.

So, there's -- this is a serious report that needs to be taken very seriously, and aggressively approached with an idea to remediate it and fixing the situation.

I would note parenthetically that no country is beyond reproach when it comes to how they
treat their disabled. I remember so well years ago -- and it was while I was still in high school --
a report that came to light right near my home -- it was in Staten Island -- when Geraldo Rivera went in with a camera and took pictures of people, many of whom were naked and were being mistreated, as a result of very poor and inadequate -- and I would say cruel, in some cases -- care.

That was in proximity to my home, in another state, in New York, but right near the state of
New Jersey.

That led, and other kinds of exposes, to a very aggressive disability rights movement in this
country. It also helped to create ombudsmen and other kinds of permanent -- and we have them in New Jersey, we have them in other states -- people who work on disability issues and do nothing but try to mitigate abuse when they see it.

It also later on had some bearing, the whole disability rights movement, on the enactment of
the ADA, the Americans With Disabilities Act, which was landmark, historic, human rights, civil
rights legislation for the disabled -- which is still in the process of being implemented.

So, again I say to my friends in Romania, all of us have been there, but it's what you do
once these kinds of exposes occur. And I would hope that it would be all about reform and making it right for those who have been afflicted with disability, mental or physical.

We are very fortunate today to be joined by Adrian Mindroiu, director of European integration
in the National Authority for Persons With Disabilities. He has flown in from Bucharest to
participate at this hearing. And we are grateful that you were able to come to Washington to share with us your expertise.

I yield the floor to my friend.

MINDROIU: Honorable members of the U.S. Congress, distinguished representatives of NGO
community, ladies and gentlemen. I am sincerely honored with the invitation presented by the
Helsinki Commission to testify before the U.S. Congress.

I took the decision to respond to this invitation, and have come a long way from Bucharest,
sharing the belief this event will be a unique opportunity to inform you first hand on a relevant set of measures that the current government of Romania, which I proudly represent today, has been undertaking on an issue of unique sensitivity, both to our public responsibility and personal awareness: improving the life of people with disabilities, who are equal in civil rights to us all.

It is also my belief that today's event will be a constructive exchange of perspectives on
lessons learned and good practices, to the benefit of our concerned citizens.

I am familiar with the process followed by dedicated defenders of the rights for people with
disabilities for over a period of more than 20 years in the United States, which ultimately leads to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a groundbreaking piece of legislation, that admirably
transformed the entire American society into a more inclusive and equal opportunity community.

Likewise and parallel progressive development has taken place in the E.U. countries and, of
course, in Romania, too. The very history of the European "aquis communautaire" proves that gradual maturation of the questions in the member states, both in terms of political awareness and result-oriented policies.

Speaking about political awareness, I feel indebted to refer to the Moscow document of 1990,
where participating states acknowledge the importance of binding political commitments to ensure the protection of the human rights of persons with disabilities in the OSCE area, as a consensual political platform to further action and shared accountability on this matter.

My testimony here will be focused on what happened during the last two years in Romania.
It's the period in which the new government is involved in the reform of the persons with
disabilities system.

As a governmental body, we were charged -- the National Authority for Persons with
Disabilities -- to initiate action-oriented policies to elaborate, monitor and control the
implementing of the quality standards in the field, to innovate interagency procedures and other chains of cooperation with NGO partners and all the society, in order to effectively and immediately implement policies.

To make a long story short, we had to produce concrete results and unarguable progresses, so
as to rise up to the standards -- world-recognized standards -- and compulsory requirements of the E.U. integration process.

We started from a low level, and we reach today the moment when we have a national strategy
-- the national strategy was elaborated last year -- and the plan of action system, and these two are sustainable by unprecedented financial resources.

For my government, filling the gap of previous years with concern to assistance for persons
with disabilities is a key component of developing a comprehensive care system with a long-term vision. The main motivation is to comprehensively integrate the principle of mainstreaming -- mainstreaming defined as systemic consideration of the specific needs of disabled people in a broad sense, which have to be respected when designing policies and measures.

Its main objective is to protect, offer equal opportunity and combat discrimination on
grounds of disability, against those persons that, due to their social, physical, psychical or
economic impediments, cannot provide for their social needs, and develop their own capacities and capabilities to function and participate in society.

I'd like to briefly speak about the quite new legislative framework in Romania, because it is
very important what has happened in the last 1.5 years in the field.

Last year, in 2006, together with our partners, NGOs, the Romanian government approved the
national strategy, which is called the National Strategy on the Protection, Integration and Social
Inclusion of Disabled Persons. And the period covered by this national strategy is 2006-2013.
And the name of the strategy is "Equal Opportunity for the Disabled: Towards a Society
Without Discrimination."

Its ultimate goal is to ensure -- and the most important goal -- is to ensure the right to
exercise fundamental civil liberties of persons with disabilities, and ensure a meaningful increase of their life quality.

The core concept of the strategy is the liberty of choice. A person with disabilities has
been assured the opportunity to make choices concerning its own life.

Therefore, the national strategy is the basic platform to ensure a broad and consistent
mainstreaming throughout all governmental policies.

Subsequently, in the same year -- that means, somewhere in October 2006 -- the Romanian
government has approved and submitted to the parliament, a draft law concerning the protection of persons with disabilities. This law was approved by the Romanian senate at the end of March this year and currently is under the debate of the low chamber of the parliament.
We are expecting the law to be approved by the parliament this autumn. So, until December,
we have a new and very courageous law concerning the rights of and the protection of the persons with disabilities.

I would like to tell you some words about the national system of social assistance, because
the social protection of the persons with disabilities is a part of the national system of social
assistance in Romania.

In this respect, in March of this year, the Romanian parliament approved the Framework Law on the National System of Social Assistance. And this law replaced an outdated legislation of 2001, and all other previous regulations and special provisions concerning the protection of disabled, child protection, elder protection and all other members of the Romanian society who needs social protection.

The Framework Law granted the Romanian Ministry of Labor, Social Solidarity and Family the
main role in issuing and coordination of social policy at large, and social assistance in particular.
As a result, the Ministry of Labor, Social Solidarity and Family, and the National Authority
for Persons with Disabilities, which is an authority under the supervision of the Ministry of Labor, alongside other concerned institutions, participate in policy-making, manage and coordinate the national system for persons with disabilities -- national system of care for persons with disabilities -- promote their rights and grant methodological and financial support to the social care programs for the disabled person.

An outline on the National System of Protection for Persons with Disabilities.

The services provided under this system enclose all types of financial aid addressed to
disabled persons or their family and their caregivers, as well as social assistance. That means,
social services.

And the social services are targeted to maintain, habilitate respective -- rehabilitate and
develop individual skills, and are provided either at home or in specialized institutions.
The increasing participation of nongovernmental organization and other social partners is a
specific trait of the care system for persons with disabilities.

If we are talking about the current state of the residential system care for persons with
disabilities. I have to inform you that the situation of the disabled persons in the residential
system represents the most difficult and sensitive issue we are doing our utmost to cope with on a priority basis.

Statistically speaking, on March 31st this year, in Romania were registered almost 461,000
persons with disabilities. And this includes 405,000 adults and almost 55,000 children.

Out of this total, almost 18,000 adults and 354 children received specialized care in
residential institutions. The rest received care within their family or in a family-like
environment. At the same date, in Romania were 149 residential institutions for disabled adults.

I want to make it -- to specify that the National Authority for the persons who are
handicapped are dealing with adults with disabilities. That means people over 18.

For the children with disability, their rights are protected, and all the services are
provided under the supervision of the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption, our
partners in the Ministry of Labor and Social Solidarity and Family.

The main challenges facing the institutions that provide care for persons with disabilities
in Romania are, first of all, the majority of our residential institutions are overcrowded, and the
living standards in these institutions are very low.

By the way, this summer we had an action, and we evaluated the implementation, the degree of
the standards implementation in our system. And the result of this assessment will be published on our Web site until the end of this month. Very, very important for us is how our institutions are implementing the standards that are compulsory.

The second challenge, and the second big problem of the residential institutions is that, in
these institutions are a mix of types and degrees of disability. And in each institution we can find people with different types of disability, different degrees of disability. And that makes it
impossible to provide (inaudible) and tailored-to-fit services for the individual needs identified
for each beneficiary.

Another information I want to -- that's not presented in my testimony is that I want to
inform you that the needs -- we create services based on the identified needs for each person. And we have, since 2003, together with some specialists from Holland, we created a scale of support. That means, a scale of assessment to identify the needs of the person.

And at the beginning of this year, we realized that this scale does not cover all the needs
we need, and the most important one, this scale does not give us information about the needs of
persons with mental disabilities and their needs.

That's why we searched, and we updated our scale of supports with a part identified in
Wisconsin. The scale of assessment for the persons with disabilities in Wisconsin is very, very
close to our needs (ph). And that's because the problems are almost the same identified (ph).

That means, these big institutions and a mix of types and degrees of disability. So, we started last week to assess again the persons using our new scale.

Another problem -- a very, very important problem with -- in our (inaudible), the national
institutions for adults with disabilities -- is about the staff. The staff employed in these
institutions strongly lacks specialized professional training.

And if we are talking about prevention of institutionalization, if we are talking about
support to families who have persons with disabilities, another problem is that day centers,
ambulatory centers for rehabilitation of persons -- rehabilitation or habilitation -- for the
disabled persons, and all the community services are not enough, are just a few.

For example, this year we started to create centers for homecare services. But it is the
first time. Then we tried to create in five pilot counties this type of services.

What have we done until today?

The National Authority for Persons with Disabilities has closely oriented its actions on
identifying solutions for these challenges. Though much remains to be done, and that's why I will briefly go through what we have succeeded to achieve so far.

If we are talking about the capacity for national institutions, at the beginning of 2005,
each county presents a plan for the restructuring of the old type residential institutions and, of
course, those with large sizes and overcrowded.

According to them, these county plans, the number of residents located in these institutions
will be reduced, and at the same time, will create alternative community services.

For this, we have now financial support provided by a grant scheme from PHARE 2003. It means around 16 million euro. And national program financed from the national budget around 3.9 million euro, and a loan granted by the World Bank in May this year. The loan is around 18 million euro. As we speak, this financial assistance is oriented to reorganize and transform almost 48 residential institutions in the very near future.

Why "almost" 45? Because it's a grant. Everything is on the grant scheme. And based on the
project, we can transform 48 or 49 or 47. But the financial means it's around 48 institutions.
If we are talking about the quality of life in the residential centers, we are talking about
the centers which will not be reorganized in the very near future. In this respect, in February
2006, the government of Romania has granted 3.5 million euro to ensure the modernization and indoor remodeling, including the purchase of new furniture and other needs for 45 centers.

Another 14 centers have been benefiting from a financial assistance to ensure the designing
for the complete restoration of the buildings. Last month, the government approved the financing of around 2.9 million euro to complete the repairs for five of the above centers, which already restoration projects have been passed (ph).

And these days, when I left Romania, we have another government decision, which will provide
financing for another four centers. This government decision is in the endorsement phase.

Probably it will be approved by the government at the beginning of October.

Another problem -- a problem very, very important -- is the cross handicap problem. And this
problem, a sensitive issue, is represented by the people with mental and neuro-physical -- psychical, sorry -- psychical disabilities.

Due to the fact that beneficiaries of the assistance and care offered by our centers for the
rehabilitation and recovery of neuro-psychical disabled persons, most of them are people with
psychical impairments, which mostly require specialized medical care.

And that's why the Ministry of Health is currently unfolding a comprehensive assessment
mission of all residents in the center -- not of the residents of the psychiatric hospitals, but for
our centers, which I would like to underline again. We provide social services in most of the -- in
the majority. Of course, are medical care. But most of our services are social type services.

As a member of the Interagency Committee of Mental Health, coordinated by the Ministry of
Health, the National Authority for Persons with Disabilities closely follows the developments on this particular issue.

Moreover, in January of this year, the government has approved a memorandum, jointly
initiated by the Ministry of Labor, Social Solidarity and Family and our authority, on the measures meant to solve problems of the institutionalized persons with mental disabilities.

Among the most important measures is the approval of building of 10 new residential centers with a capacity up to 50 places each, in which we will want to ensure an adequate assistance for persons who currently reside in overcrowded centers.

Another direction of our reform is the improved qualification of the specialized personnel.

To this end, the national authority has issued nationwide plan to upgrade the professional skills of the personnel enrolled in the care protection system for persons with disabilities.

We are much focused on the program, this year training for trainers.

BROWNBACK: I wonder if we could get this -- if you don't mind, if we could get this to a
point of closure, and then I'd like to bring up a couple of other witnesses to testify, and invite
you to stay at the table.

And I think something that would be most helpful to me, if it would work for you, is to have
an interaction then as we question the panelists, and you responding to their questions and
assertions, as well.

Does that -- would that work for you? Is that acceptable?

MINDROIU: It's perfect for me.

BROWNBACK: OK. So, if you wouldn't mind wrapping your testimony up, and then I'll bring
these other two witnesses forward.

MINDROIU: Thank you very much.

BROWNBACK: Thank you for that, and thank you for your testimony. I apologize for being
late. We had a vote on the floor. I do have an opening statement that I'll submit for the record.
You're welcome to stay there, if you would like, Mr. Mindroiu. I'm sorry. My enunciation
was not good.

We'll call up the other two witnesses at this time to make a presentation.

It's Cristian Ispas. He's with Motivation Romania. He's executive director of that group.
He's worked for 13 years in the Romanian nongovernmental sector, founding and building sustainability and capacity in the Motivation Romania Foundation. That's a nongovernmental organization providing programs and support to wheelchair users. I'm delighted to have him present.

And then also, we'll have Eric Rosenthal, Mental Disability Rights International, the
executive director of that group. He's the founder of Mental Disability Rights International. It's
an advocacy group dedicated to international recognition and enforcement of the rights of people with mental disabilities.

He's quoted, as well, in the "New York Times" article May 10th, regarding a report done, I
believe, by your organization on the situation in Romania.

I want to invite both of you to put testimony forward. We have your written testimony. The
most appreciated thing is if you would summarize your statement. And then I personally, and I think Congressman Smith, as well, would like to ask questions that several of you would respond to, and we can get more of a dialogue going at that point.

Mr. Ispas, if you would. Your testimony will be placed in the record as if presented, and if
you would like to summarize that, that would be most helpful.

ISPAS: Senator Brownback, Congressman Smith, I would like to thank you very much for
inviting me to testify here in front of the commission and share with you my opinion as
representative of the NGO community in Romania regarding the situation of people with disabilities.

We are, at Motivation, we are an organization that was created in 1995, to serve people with
motor disabilities. We started with production of adapted wheelchairs and with programs aimed at training wheelchair users in independent living skills.

In 2001, we met with a group from the United States called Mosaic, who came to Romania aiming at starting a program to support children with severe disabilities from institutions.

We partnered with Mosaic and with some seed money from them that they raised from American individuals. And then with support from the USAID mission in Romania, we were able to create three group homes, to refurbish a building and transform it into an educational and rehabilitation center.

We built the first wheelchair accessible camp in Romania. We created different type
alternative services for children from one institution north of Bucharest in a small community called Tancabesti.

The photo that you received, that you have, show -- the first two photos show the situation
of the children as we found them in Tancabesti in the summer of 2002. You can see then two photos with our children, who live in the group homes. We have two group homes, each with eight children and one with six children.

You can see the changes in their life as soon as they got the appropriate care.
The initial objective was to transfer 22 children. The fact that we managed to put in place
foster care placements and even reunification with natural families, allowed us to transfer 40 more children out of the institution in Tancabesti.

Probably one of the best examples of our work, the best outcome of our work, is Cristina's
story -- the little girl you will find in the fifth photo, together with our production manager from
the workshop. When we went to Tancabesti, she was laying in bed at the age of eight, diagnosed with cerebral palsy, considered being unable to do anything.

At the beginning we provided her with a specialized, adapted wheelchair. And you can see the
girl, how she starts to develop. Then we transferred her to our transition center, and in the next photo you could see her after only two months of work with our physical therapy.

Next photo shows Cristina on the day of her baptism. We did that with our children. Most of
our staff who are in wheelchairs kind of adopted these children.

Cristina lives now with her foster mom. And you can see the difference between July 2002 and
August 2006.

We provided these children not only with residential and educational services. Our children
benefit from the Special Olympics program that we have in Romania.

They are now part of the huge family, global family of Special Olympics. And they are
recognized and congratulated by the community as real winners in the competitions that we have in Romania -- regular competitions in different sports according to their abilities.

Programs like ours, like Special Olympics, like other NGOs offer in Romania, not only
identify creative alternative solutions for the children from the institutions, but also influence
public policy.

This is why we consider that the legal framework in Romania is quite developed at this
moment.

However, we still have a lot of work to do. The central and local governments, with the NGO
community, in order to close all those institutions shown in MDRI report.

And what we would need to do that? I mean, if you look at the girl on the front page of MDRI
report, and then look on the photo which is next one after Cristina, it's the same girl. When we
found her -- when MDRI researchers found Ioana in the center in Braila, I think she was 12 years old and she weighed about 24 pounds.

After she was transferred from that psychiatric unit to the new center where she lives, and
physical therapists worked with her, she improved a lot. And you see on the next page, provided with an appropriate seating system, a wheelchair, she developed a lot.

So, how much will it cost to have a child like Ioana in this status? We, based on our
experience, we think it's around $500 a month or $6,000 a year. In the American standards, I don't think that's a lot. For Romania, it is a lot.

The biggest challenges that we think we have in Romania, and how to solve these problems, are
the weak cooperation between central and local governments, especially in enforcing the existing laws, and, of course, the financial sustainability.

As you could see from the graph on the left page of this package, we started this program
with the seed money from Mosaic and USAID, $64,000. And then the total amount of money that we received from USAID was $325,000.

Our partners from Mosaic raised from American individuals. We raised from European donors
another $700,000 to put in place all these programs and to run them up to the end of 2006.
The problem now is that -- which shouldn't be a problem -- Romania will access European
Union, hopefully January 1st. But until we will be able to access the structural funds that will
come from the European Union, we think that will take time until the government will put in place all the procedures.

So, we think, we estimate that in 2009 -- and the figures that you see there are 2007, 2008
and '09 -- are estimates. So there is a gap between this moment of 2006 and 2009. Our problem is how to bridge this gap.

So, for us it is essential to find for 2007, for us as an organization. But, of course, for
other organizations. But for us, $200,000 for 2007 to support -- to sustain this program. We would like also to replicate it, to see it in other communities implemented by local government and also by other NGOs.

Please let me finish this by making a few recommendations. First of all, we think that the
government of Romania should perform a comprehensive assessment of all institutions and situations of people from institutions. So we don't need an international organization to come and show us what are the problems there.

To make this information transparent for the local community, local and international NGOs,
so we can come with plans to solve these problems.

We would like the central government to enforce the existing laws at local level, to convince
local governments to allocate budgets to solve these problems.

We would like, as well, the central and local governments to identify funding to sustain the
existing programs of NGOs, and also to replicate the model of good practices at the country level.

And finally, we would like to see a program, a model program like the USAID program in
Romania, ChildNet, a program of cost-sharing between local and international sources of funding to be replicated, to be copied, to be continued in Romania for the benefit of our children.

And in the end, I would like to read something which I think it's important for this
testimony.

We cannot afford to lose momentum in the establishment of community-based services in
Romania. I am confident that, with continued international support, the Romanian government, working with the NGO community, can make continued progress for the benefit of children and adults with disabilities.

Thank you very much.

BROWNBACK: Thank you, and God bless you for your work.

I had a chance to meet yesterday with Mr. Ispas and to see some of the work and the smiling
faces of some of the kids that you're working with. And it's a delight to see that and see the
progress being made.

Mr. Rosenthal, thank you very much for joining us, and I look forward to your presentation
regarding your report, what's taking place in Romania.

ROSENTHAL: Thank you very much, Senator Brownback and Congressman Smith, for convening this important meeting.

The human rights of people with disabilities around the world is a subject that has received
too little attention. They are among the most vulnerable people in any country. And your
willingness to bring the attention of the commission and the U.S. Congress to this issue is extremely valuable and extremely important.

Before I plunge into our findings on Romania and respond to the important statements of the
other speakers today, my organization, Mental Disability Rights International, has investigated human rights abuses in 23 different countries.

We have published reports on the situation in Turkey, Russia, Mexico, Uruguay, Hungary. It's
important to recognize that we are applying the same human rights standards to Romania that we have applied to every other country of the world.

Many of the people who are on our board have dedicated their lives to doing similar work in
the United States. And as Congressman Smith properly pointed out, the disability rights movement is a direct outgrowth of finding similar civil rights problems in the United States in our own institution.

And because we found those terrible problems in our own institutions, we created civil rights
laws and oversight mechanisms that require conditions in institutions to be monitored, that require institutions to be closed down, particularly children to grow up with a family and not in an institution, and to have some form of oversight to make sure. Even a good foster care program needs oversight in the community.

What we have found in Romania, I'm sorry to say, in the 13 years that I have done this, are
some of the most serious human rights abuses we have observed anywhere on a grand scale.

We started out investigating conditions in adult psychiatric facilities. And while our
report is focused on children -- because they're the most vulnerable, and the most immediate action can be taken to save their lives -- it is but the tip of an iceberg of a vast, vast problem facing thousands of people whose lives have essentially been thrown away.

There are at least 30,000 children in institutions and well more than that in terms of the
adult facilities.

The conditions that we have seen are life-threatening abuses, are inhuman and degrading
treatment, are segregation from society. These are basic, fundamental violations of international human rights law. They should not be tolerated in Romania, and they should not be tolerated in any country.

In putting this in a human rights framework, we do it for a very specific reason -- not just
to generate outrage and public support for reform. But when human rights violations take place, this becomes the currency of international affairs.

It's not just a question of social policy, and who are we as Americans to tell any other
country what their social policy should be. But when children are left to die, when people with
disabilities are segregated from society for a lifetime, that's where we need to take a strong stand.

It's a critical time, as Romania is being considered for accession into the European Union.
And the European Union has identified as one of the ongoing issues that has not yet been resolved the care of people with disabilities in institutions. And we have called on the European Union, certainly, even if it accepts Romania for admission, to continue to monitor these issues, because they have not been resolved, and to ensure that the structural adjustment funding that's used for Romania be used as an incentive and be linked to real reforms.

I have every confidence that reform in Romania is possible. The wonderful work of Motivation
demonstrates that children can be integrated into the community.

Mr. Mindroiu himself has a wonderful reputation within Romania for having done some excellent work to provide some models of community care for people with disabilities. Reform can happen in Romania, but there are 300,000 people with intellectual disabilities, and probably close to three million people with disabilities, who are extremely vulnerable.

Our findings in one small institution are representative of a much wider problem. Since the
release of our report in May, our findings have been corroborated. ABC News went in, and a week before the release of our report, just after a couple of days spending some time in Romania, they found abuses every bit as serious as what we found in the Braila psychiatric hospital.

The Romanian newspaper, "Jurnalul National," conducted a series of investigations. And in
many different institutions, they found horrendous abuses going on. They called the conditions in the institutions "a refined Auschwitz." That was their term, not ours.

Just last week, ITV News, independent news in Britain, aired findings in institutions. These
are institutions where children are kept, and the facilities are so horrendous, the staffing is so
low, they generate disability. They are life-threatening. They should not be tolerated in Romania.

We strongly encourage the United States in its foreign assistance, in its political relations
and its economic relations to raise this issue at every point. We believe that if we create the
incentives for reform, reform can take place.

The government of Romania cannot solve these problems until they recognize that they exist.
I have to say, the response of the Romanian government has been shameful up to now. They
have denied the allegations of our report. They have said they're outdated. They've said that the problems have been solved, when our findings are both recent and they have been widely corroborated.

Until they recognize that there are life-threatening abuses, how can they possibly solve
them?

We in the United States have an oversight mechanism for our institutions and our community
services. There is no equivalent oversight mechanism. There is no transparency. There is no
accountability.

The Center for Legal Resources found that 100 adults in the Poiana Mare psychiatric facility
froze to death. And the response by the European government was that it was an administrative problem, by not having enough food and not enough heating.

There needs to be...

BROWNBACK: When did this happen?

ROSENTHAL: It's cited in our report. Two years ago, in 2004, the Center for Legal Resources
and Amnesty International published reports of 100 people in the Poiana Mare psychiatric facility freezing to death.

And despite international pressure, no individual has been held accountable for that.

BROWNBACK: Thank you.

ROSENTHAL: The government of Romania must recognize the problems in order to reform them.

In addition to creating oversight and rights protection, we are concerned about the direction
of reform. While many positive changes have taken place, and some children and adults have been integrated into the community, in the reform process the government continues to build new institutions.

In the testimony of the government today, we learned that in the mental health system the
reform process includes building 10 new psychiatric facilities. Their stated goal of the policy
reform is community integration. Why are they building 10 new psychiatric facilities?

I confess. In the United States, after abuses were identified, we made many of the same
mistakes. We thought, close down the big, horrendous facilities. And in the interim, let's create
smaller, cleaner, nicer institutions.

Ten years later, we found out that those smaller, cleaner, nicer institutions were just as
dirty, were just as abusive, kept people segregated from society. That is not the direction of
reform.

We are watching Romania in slow motion making the same mistakes that were made in many other countries.

They may be intending to do well. They are trying to close down these big facilities. But
the direction of big facilities to small facilities is a terrible, terrible mistake.

Congressman Smith, you properly identify when you cited the research literature that shows
that every child needs to grow up in a family. It is the loving care of a parent that is necessary
for any child to grow up with psychological well-being. Children are permanently damaged by growing up in institutions.

So, according to UNICEF, Romania has built 200 new institutions for children in the last
three years alone. They may be moving from big, dirty facilities to small, clean ones, but a new
generation of children is being lost.

There needs to be some accountability -- not just plans, not just new strategic plans for
reform, but accountability for abuses and specific outcomes of seeing children integrated in
families.

Thank you very much.

BROWNBACK: Thank you. That was powerful of a statement.
Let's run the time clock at 10 minutes here, Chris, if you're all right with that.
Do you have -- are you being called for a vote or anything? Do you need to...

SMITH: (inaudible).

BROWNBACK: OK. Good, good.

Gentlemen, thank you all for being here and testifying. I've got some questions and some
interaction that I'd like to see.

First, Mr. Mindroiu, I want to enter into the record the "New York Times" piece from May 10th of this year, and it's citing MDRI's report. I'm sure you've reviewed this "New York Times" article on the abuses that were found.

Mr. Rosenthal is quoted in this paper as saying, "it was the most horrible thing I've seen in
13 years of doing this work."

How do you respond to that? Do you -- is this the situation in Romania?

MINDROIU: We cannot deny the importance of the work did by Mental Rights Disability
International.

And we consider that these problems and these facts MDRI discovered in Romania. It is better
to be presented to the authority, to the national authority, the responsible authorities in the time they are identified, and not after a year, or something like that.

Because, for sure, the facts they saw in Romania were happened in 2002, 2003, 2004. But, for
sure, most and many of these problems were solved by the Romanian authorities.

For example, in Braila, in the hospital they saw and they picture the girl on the cover of
the report, this hospital is closed at the end of last year. There's no hospital there now.
And Mr. Rosenthal told about the ITV News, their broadcast of two weeks ago, and they are
talking about one center in Romania. I was the manager of the closing down of the project. I know exactly that this center is closed down since the beginning of this year, and nobody is there now.

This is -- I can tell you. Of course, these things were happening in Romania. Probably
there are -- we can find in one or two places we can find -- I don't know what to say. These are
mostly things about children, and we are not dealing with children.

But it's not usual to find these things in Romania. And we are working hard not to find
these issues, these things now.

BROWNBACK: If I could comment on our own history in the United States.

You can hear and you can go back, and not that far, in the United States history, and find
these sorts of problems existing in this country. You could probably find some situations today that you wouldn't be very pleased with, that I wouldn't be very pleased with.

And yet - I mean, I do believe one of the key ways of moving forward is to identify where
system problems have occurred. When you're sitting in national government, community government levels, where system problems have occurred, and then try to put in place systems to see that that doesn't occur, or that you just, you break the old models up and try to go at a different model.

But first you have to identify the problem and you have to own it. And we've had plenty of
problems here, and there was a number of people, too, for a long period time that advocated that it's too expensive. This is difficult to do, because this takes very individualized care.

My own other experience in this has been that the earlier the problem -- particularly a
mental health problem -- is identified, the more options you have for successful working with the individual. I mean, it really is key for early treatment and help.

I don't bring you here to beat on you, or to beat on the Romanian government. I ask you,
just in looking at these things -- we get these reports and you see these studies, more than anything to identify the problem. And then, what is it that we can assist with?

I have seen your testimony about here's where you're going at this. And if there are
specific ways that we or others can help in working with this, we're happy to try to do it.
But it does require -- yes, the problem does exist and we're willing to move forward with it.

MINDROIU: What can I tell you is, after we saw the report, teams from the Ministry of
Health, the Ministry and National Authority for Child Protection and from our authority, visited all the locations the report told about and evaluated the real situation. That's why we know what is there now.

And these days, a very large assessment process started and will evaluate all the
institutions for children and the persons with disabilities until the end of the year.

And the evaluators are completely independent persons, completely independent, nor from the
Romanian government or from the local authorities.

It's exactly in the same way you said about -- first of all it has to identify what are the
problems. And we have to assess again. And we are doing this these days.

BROWNBACK: Are you -- Mr. Ispas suggested a comprehensive review by the federal government, by the national government in Romania. Are you -- is that what you're saying you're doing, is a comprehensive review by the central government of conditions for mental disabilities?

MINDROIU: It's our response of Mr. Ispas' testimony. And not testimony, but his ideas. And
it is not the only person from civil society who had the same ideas. So, we took -- we had the
opportunity now to assess everything.

It'll be all the institutions and psychiatric institutions. Everything will be assessed
until the end of this year.

BROWNBACK: And then a report issued by the central government of what you found?

MINDROIU: Of course. Of course. And we'll see the needs and the reality.

BROWNBACK: Mr. Rosenthal, you've heard the testimony about how the problem is being dealt with by the Romanian government and view (ph) that a number of these institutions have been closed.

Is that -- that is a factual statement. It's either -- this is verifiable one way or the other.

ROSENTHAL: What we have seen is a shell game, where people are moved from one institution to another institution. So one institution is closed and they're moved to perhaps a smaller and perhaps a cleaner institution, but to another institution.

In Braila, the psychiatric facility was closed, and they moved them to two smaller
institutions. When we visited in December of this year -- we first identified the problem in June of 2005.

And let me say, the Center for Legal resources, a Romanian organization, found the problem
first in June of 2004. They went public. They identified the problem.

We got there a year later and the problem had not been solved after -- between 2004 and 2005.

The videotape of that abusive facility, described by Congressman Smith from our report, was
taken by me in June of 2005 -- the most horrendous abuses against these children.

We came back in December, and they had closed down the psychiatric facility, but they moved
them to two other facilities. And when we were there we said, well, why haven't you integrated these children in the community? These children need families. Why another institution.

We were told that there were no services available anywhere in the country for children with
this kind of disability -- no services -- and that these children would spend the rest of their lives
in institutions.

Before the release of our report, I spoke to one service provider who visited Braila in April
of this year, and funding was not available to get those kids out of those institutions into the
promised group homes. After the release of the report, the funding miraculously became available.

So, yes. After the spotlight of international attention has been on these particular
children in Braila, finally there is some action.

But the children of Braila -- those 46 souls whose lives have already been so terribly hurt
-- what about the thousands and thousands of other children? It has been documented time and time again by other independent investigators that these abuses exist.

To say that the government is now doing an assessment, after all this time -- certainly, they
need to do an assessment. But there is no independent mechanism to do that assessment. And indeed, the governmental structures are so fragmented, the Ministry of Health doesn't know what's going on in the institutions under the authority of the local governments.

When we asked the Ministry of Health how many people were in institutions, they had no idea.
As part of their reform, they're transferring authority over their psychiatric facilities to the
local authorities, for which there is no budget.

Their reform plan is simply to take an institution and take it out of Ministry of Health
authority and put it into the local government authority, and then they can say there are fewer
institutions.

The worst abuses are going on in the mental health system, and no one is taking
responsibility for it. The numbers that were given in the official testimony of the number of people with disabilities in institutions here only represent the individuals under his authority at the National Authority for Persons with Handicaps.

There is such a bureaucratic maze of different authorities, there can be no national policy
on these matters.

So, there has to be, as Senator Brownback -- you identified some recognition of the problem
and a way to step back and say, if there is a problem, we have to find some new way of dealing with this that includes the creation of an independent monitoring authority and a mechanism for dealing with this in which a national policy can actually be implemented.

BROWNBACK: If my colleague would let me just let Mr. Mindroiu respond to this, because I do
appreciate your attendance, your being here and your willingness to engage with us on this.

And specifically, do you intend to move people from one institution to another? Or is it --
are you moving to an effort to get them from an institution into a family, a group home type
situation?

MINDROIU: This is -- there are two different things, for children and for adults. This is
for children, the best way is to move it into families. This is for sure.

What we are talking about...

BROWNBACK: It's your policy that you are doing on a national basis.

MINDROIU: I distributed a brochure with what has happened, and it's produced by the National Authority for Child Protection.

And these are -- in that brochure are a lot of figures, real figures, and what has happened
now.

So, for children, the best way to integrate them is from institutions into families --
natural families or shelter families, if we cannot find the natural family, or because of traditions
and mentality, and so on, they refuse to take a child with disability inside the family.

But when we are talking about adults institutionalized since, I don't know, 1990, with 15 or
20 years of institutionalization, is very, very difficult to take from a residential institution and
to sent it to a shelter family, or a natural family.

So, another type of institution like a shelter home is the first step when we are talking
about their social integration, because the main idea is, we have persons now in big, overcrowded institutions. They have to -- for them we have to do everything, to identify perfectly their needs, and to create the services in the way to include them back into society, even for the employment of them.

And these are making by steps. Step by step. There are different types of institutions, and
each institution has its own mission. So, that's why from a big residential institution it's very
difficult to send it back on the first step to the family. And we are talking about an adult over 30
years old, which are staying in an institution since he was 18.

This is what -- this is how our politics (ph) in this field are going on.

BROWNBACK: It's been my experience that people that have particularly mental disabilities --
certainly physical disabilities, too -- really enrich a country. They make us richer, and they make us better.

A lady in my office is blind. And she gives the best Capitol Hill tours of anybody in my
office, and I'd put her up against anybody on Capitol Hill.

But she had a very aggressive treatment as a child. And she inspires the rest of my office.

Everybody else is just -- she actually went skydiving two weeks ago. And so, a lot of other people went out saying, well, if she can do it, I can, too.

And they enrich us.

And I can look back on our history when we didn't really treat people with disabilities as an
asset. They were a liability. They were a cost in the system.

And, OK, what are we going to do now?

And we were the poorer for it as a nation. They really do make us better. It's tough. It
can be hard and expensive, but they make us better.

My colleague, Congressman Smith?

SMITH: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just begin, Mr. Mindroiu. In the MDRI report, a statement is made that the National
Authority for Children's Rights told MDRI in 2006 that doctors still encourage parents to give up a child when a baby with a disability is born.

UNICEF concludes from a recent study of recent child abandonment, that the "acceptance and
perpetuation of such situations constitutes not only a violation of the law, but also an acute lack
of understanding of the child's developmental needs."

My question first is, is that the case?

MINDROIU: It's very difficult for me to give an answer to this question, because we are not
really involved in the child protection system. So, I'm not very sure if -- I don't know what to
say.

But I do not believe that the doctors recommend to a family to abandon a child with a
disability. I cannot believe that.

SMITH: Is that something that you could get back to us on for the record, so we have, you
know...

MINDROIU: It's easier for me to...

SMITH: Because it's very important...

MINDROIU: ... to give you an official...

SMITH: That's the beginning of...

MINDROIU: ... an official, right answer from our colleagues from the National Authority for
Child Protection, because I do not know exactly what is happening in the system of the child
protection.

SMITH: I would ask that you at least make an inquiry and please get back to us if you get an
answer.

I would just note parenthetically that the whole idea of abandonment -- you know, neglect and
abuse is an extension of a mindset that I believe is employed even before birth, when things or
techniques like amniocentesis and other means are used to determine whether or not the child is disabled. And then another abandonment, an abortion occurs.

That mindset then carries forth at time of birth, if these doctors indeed are suggesting an
abandonment of such a child.

MINDROIU: Well, I'm not so sure that the facilities of the hospitals permit to have this
information before the child's birth.

SMITH: OK. Well, let's...

MINDROIU: There are just a few in this (ph) end (ph).

I really do not believe that doctors would do this kind of thing. It's completely against
the law.

SMITH: OK. Mr. Rosenthal?

ROSENTHAL: Yes, Congressman Smith, if I could add one detail.

In addition to the problem that we identified, of active encouragement of abandonment, there
is a problem that the system is entirely overwhelmed. There simply are no community services for newborn children with disabilities. There's no place to go.

The government admits that when a child with a disability is born, there are officially
hundreds and probably thousands of children who never leave the maternity ward of the hospital, because there is no support.

A poor mother comes in. She has a child with a disability. She can't get the support she
needs.

I have met heartbroken mothers and fathers of children with disabilities who desperately
wanted to keep their child with a disability at home. But they lack the support from the government, and felt, well, there are institutions out there where they're assured of getting three meals a day.

And I've spoken to these heartbroken parents who have given up their children to those
institutions. It is a very sad thing.

The law of Romania, law 272 -- the same one that banned the international adoption -- also
said that no child under age two may be placed in an institution. So, that's had two perverse
results. One, children are placed outside the official system.

When we were in Timisoara, we asked the child protection authorities, are there any children,
infants zero to two, in institutions? They said no.

When we went to the hospital and asked the staff at the maternity ward, they said, well, if
you go down this street two blocks to the left, there's this institution that they said was for, you
know, recuperation of children who are undernourished.

And in that facility there were 62 infants in beds with three staff. They never got out of
their cribs. The staff were extremely well-meaning, trying to keep these children alive and clean.

And those children had no life except growing up in a crib. It was a very sad thing.

So, there is simply no mechanism set up to help those children and to help families keep
those children. Or, to the extent that there is a system, it's overwhelmed.

SMITH: Thank you.

Let me just ask Mr. Mindroiu a question. You mentioned visits before. And I'm wondering if
those visits are done in an unannounced way, whether or not there are protections for whistleblowers, as Mr. Rosenthal just said.

And I was struck by this when Dorothy Taft and I visited the orphanages, right as Ceausescu
left and Iliescu came in. They were well-meaning. They were just absolutely, totally overwhelmed by the number of children per helper, per nurse or whatever.

So my question is, when someone might come forward with that information, to whom does she or he address it? Do they make unannounced visits with some real clout?

Because it seems to me that, just like we found with our own institutions where abuse is
rampant, it wasn't until you did those unannounced, coming in the door, documenting what is going on, that you get to the bottom of what abuse may be occurring.

MINDROIU: The responsibility for these institutions, or for the general direction for social
assistance and child protection -- that means the level, each county level -- or in the hospital, to
the manager of the hospital.

Normally is, when you go to see something, to have the approval of the responsible for that.
But you do not have to take permission one week before. OK, let's go to see. Nothing is --
everything is transparent.

SMITH: But is that regularized? Does it happen -- is there like a strike force mentality?

And I would just say before you answer, you know, we have in this country a very, I think
well-developed sense that we trust and we verify. Whether it be V.A. hospitals -- I served as
chairman of the V.A. hospital, or the Veterans Affairs Committee for four years. And very often, it was the eyes and ears of those who went unannounced, whether it be the General Accounting Office or some other, or even the veterans service organizations -- we assume the best.

But we're always looking out for the vulnerable. And that means that you have to not worry
about whether or not it's an affront if you walk in the door.

So, a strike force mentality to find -- and if somebody does blow the whistle, a nurse, are
there protections for her or him to, you know, against retaliation and dismissal and other kinds of retaliatory...

MINDROIU: Nobody fires an employee who says everything is -- in an institution.

But in Romania, there is a law...

SMITH: Are there protections in law for that person to assert their -- you know, the
retaliation in law, and say this is a direct...

MINDROIU: There is no contract which -- a labor contract, every labor contract protects the
persons, the employees in this respect.

But there is a committee, an anti-discrimination committee, forcing by the law, by the
anti-discrimination law, they can control everything and without any permission.

But I do not think it is normal to go to see an institution, to say, OK, I come here to
assess, to make a health assessment, to put (ph) the closedown (ph), to picture them and after that to publish the pictures.

It's not a very good way for working.

SMITH: With all due respect, I would disagree that you help both those who administer, and
especially those who are at risk. And again, it's not with the intent to embarrass. It's the intent
to ensure that their full rights as individuals, notwithstanding their disability, are fully
guaranteed.

An adversarial relationship is benign and good when it is done with that as the intent. And
that's what my understanding is, what MDRI has tried to do. And to reject it, it seems to me -- I mean, everything in here, shouldn't we say, is that true? What are we doing to make sure that it's rectified, if it is true, and to give a full and thorough explanation if it is not.

And I wonder, did you get a point-by-point, Mr. Rosenthal, rebuttal to this? How did that
play out?

ROSENTHAL: We did not. We got broad denials. We were told that there was a parliamentary
inquiry when our report came out. We were told that journalists were brought into the institutions and they were found to be clean.

I mean, of course, it's easy to bring journalists into an institution, and of course they're
going to be clean on an official visit of this kind.

And yet, ironically, the very government response is an admission. Why are these children in
institutions? Why are then in clean institutions at all? After the release of our report and we
identify these abuses, there should be efforts to get them out of institutions and into families.

And so, the very government rebuttal was an admission, in a sense, a part of the problem.

And that was pointed out to me by a Romanian journalist who was covering this.

We responded to the Romanian government by saying, look, if you want to conduct an inquiry -- we outlined a program for onsite inspections without notice, in which photo and video documentation would be taken. We got no response to the government.

We've called on Europe to continue monitoring. An independent monitoring mechanism needs to take place, whether by us or by Europe, by the United States, by some independent United Nations authority.

These are fundamental human rights at stake. And there is certainly precedent in
international law for onsite inspections where very serious human rights abuses are at stake.

SMITH: Yes, please, Mr. Mindroiu?

MINDROIU: For sure, the Romanian government is not against any monitoring, as long as we do not break the law.

SMITH: But again, we'd be talking about people with the authority to not just visit,
singular, but to do visits, plural -- hopefully unannounced and in a way that you would have experts looking and knowing what they're looking for.

And there needs to be a division, you know, a pretty bright line of demarcation, so they're
not coming from the same ministry, writing up a report that could be a whitewash.

MINDROIU: From the beginning of next year in the national Framework Law on the social
assistance, is creating something that is called the "social observer." And the main duty of this
social observer as a kind of independent observer is exactly to monitor and to inspect the human rights and all the social services, and so on.

Because, Mr. Rosenthal is right. Yes, you cannot control yourself. This is completely,
completely correct. You cannot control yourself.

That's why, for example, we have an inspector in each town, in each county. And this
inspector is under our supervision, is our employee. And our inspector is a monitor, the fulfillment of the standards, of the quality standards in the institutions.

But the institutions are not ours. You understand? It belongs to the county council, the
local government.

So, it's a kind of independency. But for sure, in this respect, Mr. Rosenthal is right. You
cannot control yourself.

SMITH: Let me ask with regards to larger to smaller.

It seems to me that it has a surface appeal ring to it. We tried it here to some extent, and
it didn't work. And we have found, again, that the placement, particularly with an adoption setting, with people who are ready to adopt a disabled child, or a group home setting where you've got in many cases the disabled running -- we have running the setting themselves.

We had a project called Project Hope -- independent living for disabled persons -- in my
district. It is the model of people who are robust. Many of them are afflicted with Down syndrome and other disabilities.

And yet, they work, they use public transportation to get to work, and they live out very,
very productive and very happy lives, and are really, I think, as Sam Brownback said a moment ago, you know, that we value them.

We learn from the fact they have not only coped, they overcome their disabilities. And those
of us are put to shame who don't suffer some disabilities when we complain and we see how they overcome their adversity. But they need to be given the setting and the opportunity to do so.

My concern about going to smaller is that it misses by a mile that the people are not well
served. It could lead to more abuse, because of a lack of accountability. And that would be a
question I would ask.

Doesn't it make it harder when you have scattered sites, to do the kind of oversight and
accountability in these smaller home settings? And frankly, where did that come from?
You know, we had a hearing one year ago -- almost to the day, one day off, last year -- on
what we believe to be a very cruel provision in 272 that deals with ending, essentially,
inter-country adoption.

The European Commission talks about how Romania has fulfilled its obligations pursuant to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European convention. How about the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, designed exclusively, after 10 years of very rigorous and robust debate among the nations of the world, to develop a protocol so that there is transparency in adoption?

Romania turns around -- and frankly, I was appalled at this and said it very clearly on many
occasions. The House of Representatives did so by way of resolution, that the idea of Romania's
adoptions international have been ended, under largely undue pressure from Lady Nicholson, who was the rapporteur for E.U. accession.

We find that appalling. And especially now, not just kids who don't suffer handicaps, but it
impacts these handicapped children.

So, where did this (inaudible) to smaller really come from? And what about the
accountability issue, when you have scattered sites and fewer people? And you might tell us, how many people are actually in the oversight business when it comes to the disabled in Romania?

MINDROIU: Why smaller institutions? I'll first refer to the adult field, and after that
I'll speak just a little about the international adoptions, because it's very difficult for me. I
was not involved at all in this issue. So, but I can -- I have some information, some ideas I hold,
something.

First of all, the institutions, actually, institutions for adults are very, very isolated.
The small ones are only created in the community.

And this is the main idea, to take them from isolated institutions, to send them to
community, because the tradition in Romania is to hide the disabled -- unfortunately. This is a
verity. We cannot fight it.

But we can try -- and we are doing this -- to modify this behavior of most of the citizens.
And first of all is to take disability inside the community, to be seen -- persons with disabilities
to be seen. That's why our smaller institutions.

But because the first idea is they are highly isolated, far on the hills. And you saw, Mr.
Rosenthal, and you cannot say that it is not the truth here.

We are talking about children's disabilities. There are only 350, something like that, in
institutions. And this is a true fact. And until 500 children, they are in different type of
hospitals, and so on. Just a few are in institutions.

But the main idea is, disabled people to be inside the society, inside the community. Before
-- this is before they realize and they can live in the community for themselves.
What about adoptions? I don't know. It's a law. It started in last year. We have to try
to fulfill the provisions of the law. We'll see.

It's very difficult for me to speak about adoptions. Please believe me.

SMITH: Let me just...

BROWNBACK: Yes, I've just got one question. And then I'd just turn the hearing over to you,
if you'd like to, Congressman Smith.

Mr. Ispas, I'd just, if I could, ask you to comment on any of the discussion you've had here.
You're a practitioner on the ground with some model facilities.

Do you see the trend moving towards more of your facilities? And what's it going to take in
the way of resources to see that happen?

ISPAS: Senator Brownback, I would say that we all know that there is no white nor black.
There is a gray in between.

Through my work, I had the opportunity to visit institutions since 1995, with the
distribution of wheelchairs. More recently, since I became the national director of Special
Olympics, I also visited institutions with our programs of Special Olympics.

I would say that we should take into consideration the actual economic situation of Romania.
And the alternative that our organization, and other organizations in Romania, propose --
community-based services in family-like settings -- is an alternative at this moment for Romania.

I don't speak here about institutions which will accommodate 50 people, children or others.
One child with disability, 300, 1,000 children with disabilities or adults with disabilities -- we
have to take care of them.

We, at Motivation and Special Olympics, we have 26 people with disabilities employed among 80 staff. We are blessed to have the ability to take care of these children.

I think -- and this is why, what I think the Romanian government should admit -- we should
unify our forces, admit the problem, recognize it, and then cooperate with international supporters of our efforts, but only after the problem will be admitted, to sustain the actual programs and to replicate them.

This is the alternative. Again, I want to say it again, that we propose. We verified it,
and we think that the group home as a transition towards the natural family or the foster family is the most appropriate solution now.

What we hope will happen by 2009, is that we will receive support from European Union, from
the structural funds. Forty percent we hope to get from the total cost of the services.

We hope the Romanian government will understand that it has to allocate more resources and
provide another 40 percent of these costs. And then we, the civil society, we have to make available another 20 percent from the individual donors or companies.

BROWNBACK: And it sounds like, too, there's also some need to really have the discussion
with the public, from what Mr. Mindroiu was saying. It has been an objective in the past to hide
those with disabilities, and you need a discussion with the public that this is not a liability, this
is an asset.

And this is something that we can really celebrate, like you do with Special Olympics. It's
a celebration to me, of sorts, of people really overcoming. And that discussion needs to take place, as well.

ISPAS: Senator, Romania was used, before 1989, to be -- I mean, seen from inside -- seen as
a perfect society without disabled. This is why they were hidden in huge institutions in the
forests.

The United States has a history of over 200 years of social services. You mentioned earlier
that only, not a long time ago, in the 1970s, as far as I know, problems like this existed in the
United States.

Romania has a very young democracy of 16 years. We cannot transform all these or solve all
these problems overnight. We know it will take time. But everybody from the Romanian society should contribute to this.

We -- again, and Motivation will help with equipment. We've adapted wheelchairs. We help
with care and also training for staff from other places.

Both at Special Olympics and Motivation, we bring people with disabilities forward. We
organize the wheelchair sports on the streets, just for the community to become used to the abilities of people with disabilities, to see what these people can do and how valuable they could be for our society.

Again, that idea that the disabled are probably the most difficult problem of Romania, that
we have to hide them because they are ugly -- that's started to change. Otherwise, you won't see all these programs that we have now.

The problem is to convince the Romanian community in it's whole -- I mean, the government,
the civil society -- that we have to really involve in providing alternatives for these people.

BROWNBACK: I want to turn this back over to Congressman Smith. I'm going to have to leave.

But God bless you for your work, and I look forward to working with you, Mr. Mindroiu.
This is a tough issue. It's an expensive transition. My experience has been that, once
transitioned, everybody is a lot happier, and the cost structure of it declines substantially, as
well. It not only declines, you actually have some income that comes in from people being productive in the society.

But it is a tough transition, and I look forward to working with you and others in the
Romanian government to see this on through.

Mr. Rosenthal, I appreciate you and your group and your work bringing this forward. This
can't be pretty things to do, but they're important things to do. And I'm delighted that you've done that.

Congressman?

SMITH: Thanks very much, Chairman Brownback.

Let me just ask a few follow-up questions.

The issue of the National Strategy -- and I wonder if you might all want to comment on it --
it contains specific dates, who the responsible, principal responsible party is, deadlines, measures.

It seems like a very, very comprehensive effort to transition -- to use the words of Chairman
Brownback just a moment ago -- in assisting the handicapped.

It even has a whole section, 2.2, of assuring family support services, something, Mr.
Rosenthal, you've mentioned a number of times as being severely lacking.

And I'm just wondering what your assessment is. This was put out in 2005. It's pretty much
a 2006 onward looking document, to 2013.

How well is it coming out of the blocks? Is it moving forward?

Mr. Rosenthal?

ROSENTHAL: We are very concerned, frankly, about these plans. There is no shortage of
plans. There have been national strategies. Year after year after year, the government of Romania has come up with national strategies.

It has brought in E.U. experts to develop these strategies. And we've seen deadline after
deadline come and go.

To have a new national strategy, 2006 to 2008, the specific timetables that are in there --
there are no outcomes that they actually have to produce until after the E.U. accession process is essentially over.

We have been terribly disappointed by many previous reform strategies that simply have not
been implemented.

I sat in, in February of this year, at a meeting of the inter-ministerial committee on mental
health, where all the different ministries that were supposed to be dealing with the mental
disability issues got together.

The sub-secretary in the Ministry of Health was there. And he was asked questions by the
very senior level adviser to the prime minister.

And she said -- and there was a plan in mental health -- she said, where in your plan are
costs? Where does it say how much you need to do this? How many -- she literally said -- how much money do you need for toilet seats, to make sure these institutions have the basic hygiene
facilities?

He said, I can't tell you. I can't tell you, because we don't know how many people are in
institutions. We don't know what their needs are. We don't know what their disabilities are.

There is such absolute chaos at the policy level, it's a very -- you know, it's an
inch-and-a-half-thick plan, and yet there is such basic lack of information that they can't cost out any specific change.

There was utter exasperation on the part of the adviser to the prime minister who said, I
can't say. I cannot turn to the European Union and say that reform is a national priority, unless
you give me specifics about how much it's going to cost, when you're going to produce it and what outcomes we're going to see. So, I am very, very skeptical.

There is one national pilot project at Techirghiol (ph). And I'm sure I'm not pronouncing
that correctly.

And what I have been told by advocates in Romania, is that the national pilot project that's
supposed to be used to help cost this out, is already underfunded, that the staff -- the budget for staff -- is only at 50 percent of what was in the pilot project, and that the budget that's down on
paper is going to run out after another month or so.

So, the pilot projects that they've already set up are underfunded and can't possibly be used
as a model for reform.

So, again, we've called on the European Union, and we certainly call on the U.S. government,
to look for outcomes. What are they producing? Another plan that starts in 2006 and ends in 2013 is not an assurance. We want to see human beings moved out of institutions, not into new facilities.

The viewpoint that the official government presented today, that it's an improvement to move
people from big institutions into small institutions in the center of the city, is totally at odds
with all thinking in the social science field, with evidence in the psychiatric field, with evidence
in the developmental disability field.

A person segregated from society will continue to be segregated from society, will become
more disabled. Just because their institution has moved from the countryside into the center of the city does not mean that that segregation is not damaging to that person's mental disabilities.

This testimony on page six says, they are now investing in new psychiatric facilities. That
is the opposite direction that they are going.

Romania is not a rich country. This is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the infusion of
foreign funds, and they are blowing it. They are blowing it on a major scale, and it is a tragedy -- a tragedy -- to see them using this one-shot infusion of funding to build new institutions.

Senator Brownback talked about how the process of reform is costly. Rarely does a country
have an opportunity for an infusion of foreign money to help them with the transition process.

But instead of using it -- the problem is that transition requires, essentially, funding two
systems at once. You have to keep the old institutions open until you create the community
facilities. And therefore, there is a very brief period of a couple years where you have to fund
essentially two systems.

But they're not funding two systems. They're reforming the old system by moving them from
one institution to the other. They're blowing their one chance.

The views that are expressed by the government are simply not consistent with basic human
rights principles that have been opted by the European Union, by the world community.

Just last month, the United Nations finished work on a new draft convention on the rights of
people with disabilities. It's an historic document that will help bring the rights of people with
disabilities into the mainstream of the international human rights field -- a subject that has been overlooked as a human rights issue.

There is one concept, one idea that pervades that convention, that there was world consensus
on. And that is, the right to participation in the community, full participation in society, being
part of families, making decisions for themselves.

This policy of building new psychiatric facilities, of moving people into new facilities in
the center of town, is contrary to basic human rights principles accepted by the international
community.

CHAIR: Mr. Mindroiu?

MINDROIU: First of all, I'd like to inform you that the National Strategy was elaborated
only by Romanians together, the national authority together with the NGOs, and Mr. Ispas was there and participated. And he knows exactly how we create the strategy.

The second part is that Mr. Rosenthal knows exactly, to move a person from a residential
center. In the family, you need at least six months to work with that person, just for a movement.

It's not an object to be moved.

That's why the strategy, because we are talking about people. We are talking about lives
(ph). It is between 2006 and 2013.

Why? Because 2013, because it's about the national development plan, and it's about
financing the scale. We are talking about seven years of financing. That's why our strategy is
until 2013. It's exactly like in all the European countries, about the financing.

Mr. Rosenthal told us about his participation to a meeting in the Ministry of Health. Yes,
it was. But it was the first. And he is right. At that moment, nobody from the Ministry of Health
knew how much costs. That's why in my testimony I told you the Ministry of Health now assesses every person with disability from the psychiatric hospitals and from our centers.

And we do not want to create 10 psychiatric units. We are talking about persons with mental
disabilities, which are now residents of very big, overcrowded institutions since, I don't know,
maybe in 1980.

That's why we want to create something special, or to create special services for them, the
special they need. And the special and the services we want to create will be based on the Ministry of Health assessment, which is produced in this period.

I don't know. Maybe we'll not create 10 centers. But we have the -- we propose to the
government the financing, to have the financing. After the assessment we'll see what kind of
services they want, and we'll create those services.

But as you say, we need financing for that. And we need to have a budget. And the beginning
of this year, with budget, some money for services dedicated only for persons with mental
disabilities.

Because there is a thing nobody would like to speak about: the problem with mental health
problems -- the persons with mental health problems need the same type of community services like a person with mental disabilities.

That's why there is a misunderstanding, the difference between mental disability and
psychiatric illness.

And this is -- there are no specialists, there are not so many specialists in the world who
can say, you are sick or you are disabled, when we are talking about mental disability. It's very,
very difficult, because they need medical care and community care. It's not very easy to assess this kind of need.

SMITH: Is there a sense, even if it's a general assessment, as to how much it would cost to
fully implement the...

MINDROIU: I can tell you, the institutional reform -- that means restructuring or closing
down the old type of institutions and creating alternative residential services, including group
homes and shelter homes and everything -- costs around 150 million euro. This is my project, that's why I know.

Establishing the home care services means that sustainability costs are around 100 million
euro, too.

And after that, we have to speak about the training of the staff, because the main challenge
of the system is the staff. The staff provides services, not a building.

So, this is my main concern, the training of the staff. And this is -- I'd like angels to
help us.

SMITH: Let me ask Mr. Ispas. Mr. Ispas, you might have an answer to this.

Do you agree that the goal should be to move children out of institutional care into family
settings? And what barriers exist to do that?

Obviously, all over the world, including the U.S., because of better health care and better
interventions, more and more of our disabled are living longer lives and more productive lives.

And
many of their families, even if they are still living at home, worry about what happens when they die. And that's a problem we're facing here in the United States big time.

But what is your answer to that question.

And secondly -- and perhaps others would want to touch on this -- when I got elected 26 years
ago, the prevalence of autism was one out of every 10,000 in the United States. That was the
generally accepted number.

A few years ago, I became aware of what I thought was a spike in one of my townships, Brick
Township. So we brought in some experts and we found that the number was significantly higher. But as the work was being done, the Centers for Disease Control and others, including many of the advocates in the autism area, became aware that we probably have a prevalence much higher.

So I did some legislation that created centers of excellence within CDC to look and to being
to chronicle and to react, as well -- mostly on the NIH side.

We now believe that it's one out of every 166 children.

Now, unlike a baby born, autism often isn't detected until several months later into that
child. And sometimes it's after an MMR shot, sometimes it's through some other trigger, but maybe a two-year-old. And so, we have what we think is an epidemic of autistic children.

And I'm wondering if you might speak to what the experience is in Romania. Is it being
captured as to how many kids are suffering from it? What are you doing about it?

Because that presents a whole set of independent -- you know, those kids are warehoused. If
early intervention is not undertaken, the prognosis for their life is greatly diminished. The
earlier the intervention, the better. And so, I would ask you that.

And finally, the Chamber of Deputies has a proposed law on the protection and fostering of
disabled people's rights. I'm wondering what the status is of that law, whether or not the NGOs and interested parties have commented on it.

Is it a good proposal? Does it have deficiencies? And all three of you might want to
respond on that draft law.

ISPAS: Congressman, thanks. Could you please repeat the first question?

SMITH: The first one had to do with those individuals who are now growing into adulthood,
over 18, 19, 20. What are the barriers for them? What is Romania doing?

And I would ask you one other question. You mentioned earlier about USAID. In your
testimony you said, USAID's ChildNet program provided a model of cost-sharing between local, national and international funding sources.

Well, USAID, as we all know -- you know, their funding spigot is coming to a close.

What's going to happen? I mean, since it's worked pretty well for you, what would be your
recommendations to us to maybe -- you know, what's the bridge that's out there to continue that kind of funding?

ISPAS: OK. If I may answer?

The problem of children arriving at the age of 18, and having to leave the institutions for
children, to me, it is, again, one of the biggest challenges in Romania.

If you ask me about the children that live in our group homes, I would say that the day we
took them out from the institution, we committed. Since that moment, we have a moral commitment to those children.

We will either find a community alternative for them, independent or semi-independent living,
living with their family, or they will stay with us. Because at this moment, if, let's say, one of
them is 18 years old, he will be placed in an institution for adults, which is a place we don't want
to visit. At least I would say.

I have been in places like this -- it's true, not in the latest years. But again, my goal
would be to close these institutions as soon as possible.

So, again, that is a real problem for the children who will be 18 years old, who are in other
places than group homes managed by NGOs.

Then the question regarding statistics about autism, we have a few children with autism. And
just recently, we had a team from Germany who trained our staff in working with them.

But at the national level, I believe there is no -- but I might be wrong -- but I think there
is no statistics about how many cases of children with autism we have. But I agree, it is a serious problem and we have to approach that problem.

Talking about USAID leaving Romania at the end of this year, as I pointed out in my
testimony, this is one of the financial sustainability challenges. We should identify something to
put in place of the funding that the American government, through USAID, provided and helped Romania.

All what we can hope is that we will identify other sources of income that will contribute
and will create the incentives for the Romanian government to come and match this funding, because it should be a common approach for the problem.

SMITH: Any comment, putting on the draft legislation?

ROSENTHAL: With regard to draft legislation, again, we have a lot of problems with a lot of
the legislation that's on the books. Again, law 272, which I mentioned, explicitly permits children with disabilities, infants with disabilities, to be institutionalized, though it bans other children.

There have been many times when the Romanian government has specifically asked for the
European Union to give it technical assistance on the drafting of legislation, and in particular, in
the area of mental health and psychiatric disabilities.

There was a law adopted about four years ago on the rights of people with mental
disabilities. It contained many positive rights that said specifically, every person has a right to
individualized treatment, to participation in the community.

What the law says on paper is so far different from what happens on the ground. I mean, we
go to institutions where there are 100 people in a common ward and they're spending their day sitting in bed. So, the law does not have an impact on the actual treatment of the individuals.

In terms of basic civil liberties, one of the key points in the mental health law was, how do
you guide -- when can a person be involuntarily detained?

Many people are locked up in institutions for the rest of their lives. And one of the core
provisions of international human rights law is that, before a person is detained, they at least have a right to a hearing before an independent authority.

After four years of failing to create norms -- what they call norms, what we would call
regulations -- to implement the mental health law, the government of Romania, just before the E.U. accession process closed in April, adopted these norms. They did not respond to the biggest gap in the law.

This was a gap that was identified by the E.U. experts. You failed to create a right to a
hearing before a person is institutionalized. And the norms didn't solve that problem.

So, in the area that I am most an expert of, the rights of people with psychiatric
disabilities, there are major gaps where the law is not meeting the basic core minimum requirements of international human rights law.

SMITH: I'd just ask a question with regards to -- from time to time -- and you see these
reports in America -- some doctor or nurse -- most recently it was a nurse -- takes it upon
themselves to euthanize people that they consider to have a life that's not worth living.

It has always been a problem with handicapped individuals or disabled persons, that somebody
in their misguided view feels that they are better off dead than alive.

Are there any instances in Romania, reported or suspected, where particularly severely
disabled persons have been subjected to euthanasia?

Yes, Mr. Rosenthal?

ROSENTHAL: This is an extremely hard thing to document in terms of the intent to actually
kill a person or let a person die.

Conditions that we have seen in institutions -- in Braila, for example, when we saw them --
were so bad that the natural implication is that many of these children are going to die.

When Center for Legal Resources identified the problem in 2004, they found 51 children. When
we got there, there were 46. What happened to those extra five children?

In the conditions that I observed in June, 2005, there were emaciated children with their
bones sticking out from their skin, wrapped from head to toe. Obviously, since we exposed that,
conditions have gotten much better, but they have been documented by other people.

We believe that children with disabilities, and particularly who are outside the child
protection system, in the psychiatric system, are in such horrendous conditions, that in many
situations they are essentially left to die.

So, there are not -- there's not a policy, necessarily, that we could identify, or an
individual who is choosing to kill them off. But if you let children grow up in those circumstances, they will die.

And the psychiatric literature also identifies -- you know, you don't have to deprive a child
of food for that child to have what they call failure to thrive, or to die.

The very fact of leaving a child in a crib -- they can have all the food available, but
without the loving touch of a caring parent, those child will just stop crying. Then they'll stop
eating, and they'll start to waste away.

So, the institutions where we saw, that were clean facilities, where there was food, those
children are going to die from failure to thrive. So essentially, the impact is the same.

SMITH: Mr. Mindroiu?

MINDROIU: So, all we have to do -- and I spoke about this, and it is very important -- the
training of the staff.

Of course, we cannot say it, in our institutions people are starving. It's unbelievable to
say that.

But, if the staff are not very well trained, of course, they cannot do anything for a child
with a severe disability to eat (ph), himself.

So, we have to work a lot with the staff. And we have to train them, and you have to employ
them on a vocational basis, and so on. This is my opinion, and it's my personal opinion. The
biggest challenge we have in our field is not to build houses, but to prepare people to work with and to help the disabled to live independently.

But I have only one -- if it is possible -- only one question I do not understand. Why are
children after 18 years old to go into an institution, if they leave you? Why to go into an
institution and not a social house, or something like that, to live independently? This is what I
did not understand, Cristian.

You said that one child, one of your children, will go for sure after 18 years in an
institution. Why in an institution, and not in a social house?

ISPAS: I think this is a misunderstanding. I didn't say that one of our children will go to
an institution. I said that none of our children will go to an institution.

MINDROIU: Thank you very much.

ISPAS: I was talking about the situation of children in other places, for example in
institutions for children, at the age of 18 or maybe later, 21, he will be transferred from there to
an institution for adults.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

ROSENTHAL: But if I may observe, there is a problem of children aging out of the orphanages,
who are so disabled as a result of growing up for 18 years in an orphanage, that they need supportive care. And if there is no supportive care in the community, they will go into adult facilities.

We visited many, many adult facilities where children, without necessarily having been born
with a disability, just from the very fact of having grown up in orphanages, had been transferred from the orphanage to the adult facility.

And in our report you'll see, we found many young adults in those long-term facilities. So
you saw people who had been there 30, 40, 50 years, sitting around. And then you saw a 19-year-old, a 20-year-old.

I remember seeing a young woman who had been -- she had been sexually abused as a child, put into an orphanage, never got counseling or care. The staff, you know -- it was just a very sad situation, because this child had really, ever since being placed in the institution to get her out
of that abusive family situation, had spent her life in the orphanage, knew nothing else and was
transferred, then, from the orphanage to the adult facility.

So, it's a very vulnerable age. And many, many children will grow up to live a lifetime in
an institution.

Without supportive services, without care in the community, you can't solve the child
problem. You're just going to grow them up and leave them to a lifetime in long-term asylum.

SMITH: Let me just ask Mr. Mindroiu.

There's two ways of dealing with criticism. We find this in the United States all the time,
as it's human nature.

You can either deal with a report or with a group that apparently, or seems to be adversarial
with an arms length approach, or you can bring them in and say, show us. You're a mirror. We may not accept everything you say, but we do want to hear what you've got to say.

And again, the fact that you are here, I think is very -- we very much appreciate that.
But with MDRI, do you have any kind of working relationship with MDRI or other organizations
that routinely are critical, to meet with them on a regular basis and take that as a point of, OK,
how are we doing? And then engaging in the disagreement or agreement.

But I find it's totally valuable. I do this -- we do this as a Congress all the time with
groups that have very strong opinions against what the U.S. is doing.

Amnesty International is as critical of the U.S. as it is of other countries, in many cases.
And it does form a good backdrop to say, how are we doing, you know, to take our pulse.

MINDROIU: With MDRI, we do not have any connection, because we didn't know, met him until today, from National Authority. But we have a close relationship with juridical center. They are partners in Romania. And the other partner they had in Romania for the Timisoara visit, the Pentru Voi, for your foundation.

And we are working very close with, for your foundation. And there is a juridical resource
center. We finance them projects.

For example, last year we financed a project for their partner in Romania, Juridical Resource
Center. And they produced four movies, let's say four movies, with problems in our institutions.

We financed that project. They told us, OK, we'll be tough. OK. We pay to be tough for
that, and you will do what you'll have to do and what you intend to do.

And for Pentru Voi Foundation, for your foundation in Timisoara, all the time they are
financed by us, because they know how to write projects.

SMITH: Let me just respectfully request or suggest, some contacts would be helpful, and the
higher and the more frequent, the better, so that some of these issues can be resolved.

MINDROIU: You know, it's like in a marriage. It's better for a husband to say to his wife,
or the wife to the husband, OK, you're not right here. So, it's the same thing.

We need the social society to tell us, you're wrong. You have problems. You have to do
something, because, you know, you didn't see that. But you have to do it. And it is my duty to show you what is the problem.

That's why I was a little bit -- I was not very happy when they saw that in 2004, 2005, and
didn't tell us anything about before 2006.

ROSENTHAL: If I may respond, I never got to Braila before 2005. It was the Center for Legal
Resources, a Romanian organization, that identified the problem in 2004. And they went immediately to the government, and the government did nothing.

So, we got our report out as soon as possible. The material in our report was fresh.
In terms of the idea of constructive dialogue, we are very much in favor of constructive
dialogue. We are pleased to offer technical assistance. In many, many countries we have done so.

In Mexico, after we identified horrendous abuses in a Mexican facility, the government
immediately hired the main psychiatrist on our team to come down to Mexico. They worked very closely. Within six months they had closed one of the most abusive facilities in Mexico.

Just last year we identified a problem in Turkey where they were using electroconvulsive
therapy with no anesthesia. Shortly after the release of our report, they abolished the practice.

Many other countries have responded to our reports, though adversarial, in a constructive
manner by responding to them.

In the case of the Romanian government, we've gotten denial, denial, denial and straight
misinformation. You keep repeating the same information, that we didn't come to you. I was never in Braila in 2004.

This material is very much up-to-date. It is a national problem. There are children in
life-threatening circumstances now.

And we have quite a bit of expertise in how you provide oversight and protection, and we've
never been asked for that expertise, because we have been told time and time again, we've solve this problem. This is an ancient problem. Two or three years ago we had this problem, but the problem no longer exists.

So, there has been no basis for us to help or offer our services, when all we've gotten is
denial, denial, denial. And frankly, the European Union has been given tremendous misinformation by the Romanian government about what's going on there. A lot of what they've been told is essentially misleading.

And if we're going to have a public policy discussion on this, there has to be an
acknowledgment of these very serious, life-threatening abuses in institutions. And only by that
acknowledgment can a problem, a system be set up to end it.

SMITH: Let me just -- did you want to comment? Please.

Because I would hope that this could be the beginning of a new day of cooperation.

Very often, this kind of connection will lead -- as you pointed out, in Mexico and elsewhere.
We all have to be shown what our problems are.

I mean, in my own state we had a problem, not just with mental facilities and abuse -- and
that's really nationwide -- we had problems with nursing homes. And it wasn't until we established ombudsmen with the ability to go in and check, and working aggressively, where you would think there wouldn't be a problem, with abuse that -- the elderly were very fearful to say anything, because of the retaliation when somebody would leave.

It's an ongoing problem, but we're working on it every day. So, we all have problems. And I
would hope -- not to sound trite, but transparency and working with the groups that are bringing forward these very considerable concerns.

As governments, I think our bottom line is we have a duty to protect, particularly the
weakest and the vulnerable. And so, I hope that you would work together. And I would encourage it and plead with you to do so.

MINDROIU: Probably we will work together.

SMITH: On that note -- and again, I want to thank our distinguished witnesses, all three,
for being here and for providing such candid answers. And hopefully, a new chapter will be written as we go forward.

If you have anything further as we conclude?

ROSENTHAL: We would just like to thank you very much for bringing attention to these issues.
We know that the U.S. government policies towards Romania are ongoing. And we just strongly
encourage you to raise these in your future dealings with the Romanian government. Thank you very much.

SMITH: Thank you so much.

MINDROIU: We are very happy that you invite us there, and we have the opportunity to tell
you what is our vision about the Romanian system, what are our problems, what we want to do, and what are the difficulties. Thank you very much.

SMITH: Thank you, sir.

ISPAS: Thank you for inviting me here, and thank you for considering our recommendations.

SMITH: Thank you so much.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon the briefing ended at 4:12 p.m.]
END

Response to EU Article on Romania

2006-10-06T12:52:00.000-05:00

In reading the article, "EU child reform bears fruit", that was put out with different titles in various Romanian papers, it was interesting to me that there was no mention of how much money the NGO's had to put in to make all of this EU-RO government PHARE project work and to be maintained. For example, in our county, Mures, our foundation invested over $50,000 for the start up costs for only one of nine of these PHARE home projects. We were one of five foundations being told that the projects would not be able to open without our partnerships. We then chipped in even more for the rest of the state group homes to be able to open on time. All of the NGOs that deal with abandoned and orphaned children were involved and we all spent a lot of time and money and other resources to help close down some of the bigger orphanages. We are still giving to these state group homes monthly to supplement their meager state allowances. The state cannot meet the basic requirements their own laws mandate without NGO assistance. I am talking about basic food, clothing, education, required summer camp outing, etc.... Thus, this article, obviously for the spin value the RO government hopes will further the myth of their great success, is not accurate in the picture it paints of their "success." It once again undervalues the work of the NGO's that helped get these projects off the ground and that still play a major role in their month to month sustenance.

Please let me know if any of you all and the NGOs with whom you work have "partnered" with the state for some of these PHARE (EU/Romanian Government) projects. I would really like to know how much others have invested in other areas of Romania.

As to the rest of the article's content, some of these new group homes are great and we have seen very positive results in them. However, some are just smaller versions of orphanages with the same employees and many with abuse, neglect, violence, etc... In our county, there was a huge scandal because the orphanage director was also in charge of the "new apartments" for the girls in his care. The girls were first on the list to get out of the orphanage because they were being gang raped there. Within one year of opening the new apartments, the scandal broke because the girls were being prostituted out by the group home parents with the apparent full knowledge of the orphanage director! The local DPC did not fire the director. Instead they put him on their staff as the psychologist who investigates sexual abuse cases! I am not kidding.

We are still partners with the state for the sake of the children. Thus we still give aid and run ministry programs, educational programs, camps, etc... for these state group homes that have replaced the larger institutions. Even with all that, they pale in comparison to private care group homes. The state of Romania spends $200 per month per child in an institution, $250 per month per child in a state group home (this is not including what they get from NGO aid and assistance), and a private group home, on average spends an average of $500 per month per child, depending on the NGO. This is just one way to see the difference in the level of care. The private care kids are not living luxuriously by any means but they are receiving good care by anyone's standard.

Thanks for letting me rant again.

Bruce

Bruce Thomas
Executive Director/Founder
Livada Orphan Care
ROMANIA
www.livada.org

EU child reform in Romania bears fruit

2006-10-06T12:44:00.000-05:00

91 old type institutions were closed and 581 family type homes were opened in the 5 years since Romania began implementing the "Children First" Phare programme financed by the European Union. Over 15,000 children from 37 counties and 4 Bucharest sectors have benefited from services created by this EU programme.

The projects financed under the "Children First" programme, which has now come to an end, were carried out country wide by the General Directorates for Social Assistance and Child Protection (DGASPC) with the assistance ofthe National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights.

The "Children First" programme, worth 37 million Euro, led to: the closure of 91 old-style child protection institutions; the opening of 581 apartments and family-type homes, 51 day care centres, 34 recuperation centres for disabled children, and 14 mother-and-baby centres; the recruitment of over 2000 foster parents, as well as the development of other support and counselling services for parents.

The total size of the Phare programme was 31 million Euro, of which the Government of Romania contributed 2.5 million Euro and the beneficiary county councils 3.5 million Euro.

Mr. Jonathan Scheele, Head of the Delegation of the European Commission, stated: "A nation's health is also measured by the care it shows for its children. Romania, with EU support, has over recent years carried out an indepth reform of child protection, based on a policy that aims to support families and through European-standard legislation in the area of child protection that addresses not only institutionalised children, but all children in Romania. I sincerely hope that other countries in the region will follow your country's example in this sector".

Mr. Bogdan Panait, Secretary of State of ANPDC, added: "A few years ago one would immediately recognise an institutionalised child, no matter where you met him or her. The fact that today these children are informed and involved in decisions that affect them, the mere fact that when they come back from school they open the door of their home has decisively influenced their behaviour, their self belief and, why not, their self esteem".

The conferece that will begin tomorrow, 14 September, in Sinaia will present the results of the "Children First" programme and will enable an exchange of best practices between the General Directorates aimed at improving the quality of services in the social assitance and child protection area.

Contact persons:

Mariela Neagu, Delegation of the European Commission, Tel: 021 203 5418

Nicoleta Preda, National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights, Tel: 315 36 33

UK Press 9/10/06

2006-10-06T12:40:00.000-05:00

Barred: The aid workers who exposed Romania's orphan abuseDaily Mail Sat, 09 Sep 2006 3:27 PM PDTAid workers accused of helping expose the abuse of children in Romanian hospitals have been forced out of their jobs after an outcry over news pictures of orphans strapped to their beds for hours on end

Barred: The aid workers who exposed Romania's orphan abuseEvening Standard Sat, 09 Sep 2006 3:17 PM PDTAid workers accused of helping expose the abuse of children in Romanian hospitals have been forced out of their jobs.

HELSINKI COMMISSION TO EXAMINE STATE OF CARE FOR DISABLED IN ROMANIA

2006-10-06T12:39:00.000-05:00

(Washington) – Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Chairman and Co-Chairman respectively of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission), announce that the Commission will hold a hearing entitled “Care for the Disabled in Romania” on September 13, 2006, at 2:00 p.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

In the early 1990s, images of Romanian children tied to cribs -- neglected, underfed, and often languishing in their own filth -- shocked the world and prompted calls for radical reform of Romania's care for disabled and disadvantaged children. The hearing will examine Romanian governmental and non-governmental perspectives on the current state of care of persons with disabilities in Romania.

The witnesses confirmed to testify at the hearing are: Silviu G. Didilescu, President, Romanian National Authority for Persons with Disabilities; Eric Rosenthal, Executive Director, Mental Disabilities Rights International; and Cristian Ispas, Founder and Director of Motivation Romania International and National Director of Special Olympics Romania Foundation.

For additional information about the hearing, please contact Shelly Han or Mark Kearney at (202) 225-1901.

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency that monitors progress in the implementation of the 1975 Helsinki Accords.

Email from the Helsinki Commission 8/4/06

2006-09-14T12:34:00.000-05:00

This is an excerpt from an email from the Helsinki Commission in regards to the meeting Rep. Chris Smith and Congressmen had with President Basescu and Ambassador Ducaru. Ambassador Taubman and other State Dept. officials were also at the meeting.

"Rep. Smith had made a rather impassioned plea in the Speaker's meeting but frankly was the ONLY Member to raise any substantive matter that was critical of the Romanians."

Comments from the source of the email.............

I think the statement above pretty much states our current problem as U.S. citizens. One politician cannot fight this battle on his own and will soon give up the fight if he doesn't have the support of other Representatives and Senators. If our Bucharest Embassy sees that our Congressmen aren't willing to press the Romanians too hard, they won't either. It's the domino effect...

I know that many of you contacted your Congressmen in regards to their support of the Resolutions. I'm now presuming that they feel they are willing to vote for a Resolution, but are unwilling to subsequently speak out and force the issue. Perhaps its because we didn't formally request them to do so, most likely it's because Romania is our ally in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and all of the other key points that were included in the letter from Rep.'s Weldon and Ortiz, and they, like President Bush, are willing to hold their feet to the fire but not in it since they are our ally.

I'm now making a plea for each of you to contact your respective Congressmen and ask them to write a strong letter to Prime Minister Tariceanu and the head of the opposing party and former ruling party, Mircea Geoana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Geoana. If we do not demand that they hold the Romanian government's feet to the fire on this issue, we don't stand a chance. And, if we don't do it now when they are all up for reelection and will listen to their constituents/voters concerns, we have let the most opportune time slip by.

Romania has lied repeatedly to our government and made promises they've reneged on, starting with former President Iliescu and former Prime Minister Nastase and now the current government. Keep in mind that Geoana, the former Foreign Minister, is now the head of the the PSD, so just because Nastase and Iliescu are somewhat out of the picture, it doesn't mean the former ruling government - and a key party in the current Romanian government (Basescu won by a slim majority) cannot be held accountable too. For those of you who are recent members, Romania - prior to joining NATO - publicly promised President Bush that the new child welfare legislation would allow for inter-country adoption. As an FYI, the Prime Minister is a member of the same political party as Baroness Nicholson. In the EU it's known as ALDE. Hence the reason his relationship with Nicholson is tight and unbending.

Response to Romania and Adoption Laws

2006-08-14T13:02:00.000-05:00

A great response to Romania not changing their Adoption Laws. Submitted by a source working hard to open adoptions.

Please remind Mrs. Bertzi that the reason there are not enough children eligible for adoption in Romania to fullfill the requests of Romanians who want to adopt is due to the new legislation. Prior to the current legislation there were thousands of available children who had been declared legally abandoned and eligible for adoption. Sadly, their legal abandonment decrees were declared null and void in January of 2005 and they must go through the process of tracking biological relatives in attempt to place them - again, go to court for a legal abandonment hearing - again, and then go on a list of available children for adoption - again. Since Romania lacks enough social workers, juvenile judges, and funding to accomplish this, the abandoned children of Romania will continue to wait years to even be eligible for a permanent family. Meanwhile, the high rate of abandonment will continue, babies will continue to languish in hospitals, and the abandoned children who are older, disabled, or Roma (or all three) will rarely - if ever - be domestically adopted and find permanent families. And many social workers, who are now being paid 20 euros for every abandoned child they "reunite" with a biological family member, will do whatever it takes to place a child in situations of extreme neglect, abuse, and lack of interest of any biological family member - all to lower the statistics of abandoned children in state care. But as government officials have said in the past, "Why are you concerned about these children? They are worth nothing." Just 20 euros and the perceived price of admission to the European Union.

Romania will not change adoption rules

2006-08-14T12:50:00.000-05:00

Romania is fighting all the internal pressure to open up adoptions.

President of the Office for Adoptions says Romania does not plan to allow international adoptions since the domestic demand is higher than the number of the children ready for adoption.

published in issue 3735 page 5 at 2006-08-02

BUCHAREST - The Romanian authorities remain firm on keeping the current legislation governing inter-country adoptions, Theodora Bertzi, President of the Romanian Office for Adoptions (ORA), stated yesterday, while expressing her doubt that a relaxation in the area of such adoptions would lead to a more flexible regime of obtaining visas for the US.

Referring to the adoption by the US Senate of a new resolution on the resuming of international adoptions by Romania on the very day when President Basescu left for the US on an official visit, Bertzi explained that the resolution was identical to the one passed in April this year by the House of Representatives, its signors asking for the amending of Law 273 (2004) on the regime of adoptions as well as the assessment of over 200 cases of Romanian children in connection with which the Romanian authorities had completed reports as early as March.

Moreover, the President of ORA explained that the foreign families whose applications could not be processed received their papers back together with information about the circumstances of the child.

The resolution urges the Romanian officials ‘to give priority to the best interest of the child’ and allow inter-country adoption not only by relatives of the child but also by families who wish to adopt children from Romania. The document expresses the position of the House of Representatives and is not legally binding’, added Bertzi.

“A sovereign state cannot be blackmailed in that way. We know that we will not change the legislation in the area,” stated Bertzi, reminding that for the first time President Basescu had adopted a very decisive attitude on that.

In fact, the ORA president stressed that the resolution as well as the entire lobby so far for the resumption of international adoptions had not been authored by the governments of the states in question, but by the various NGOs or members of parliament who paid huge amounts to have their press articles published, making reference to Romanian children and advocating the resumption of adoptions.

According to Theodora Bertzi, 30,000 Romanian children have been adopted internationally after 1990, around 35 per cent of them to the US, while only a few hundreds were adopted from Hungary or the Czech Republic. In Romania there are 2,200 families declared eligible for domestic adoptions and only 1,300 children with an open adoption procedure.

by Cornelia Nitoi

Excerpts from memo sent to President Bush and updated to include passage of Resolution

2006-08-14T12:46:00.000-05:00

Summary:

In June of 2001, the country of Romania closed legal avenues for the adoption of unwanted children by loving parents from other countries. This change in policy was done in order to answer the charges made by Romania’s former EU rapporteur of corruption in the child welfare system and a need to review the currently child welfare legislation. Unproven accusations of adoptive parents selling their children’s organs and “baby buying” fueled the EU bureaucrats request for a total ban on inter-country adoption as a condition of Romania entering the European Union. Consequently, the new legislation which was signed into law in January 2005 bans all inter-country adoptions except in the case of biological grandparents, and has left 1,100 adoptions that were in progress suspended in permanent limbo. American (and European) families have now waited 3 - 6 years to adopt children whose adoptions were in progress prior to the ban.

Discussion:

An “Emergency Ordinance” (EO) was issued by the Romanian government in October of 2001 to allow previously suspended adoptions in progress to proceed and new adoptions to be registered, processed and finalized.

During the EO time period, the Romanian Adoption Committee arbitrarily selected which dossiers/children were allowed to be sent to the office of former Prime Minister Nastase, whose signature was required on each dossier to allow the case to proceed to court and finalization. The date of the initial filing/registration was not a consideration. Hence the reason many of the “pending/pipeline” adoptions have waited as long as 6 years for completion. The EO was suspended in February of 2004 at the request of the former EU rapporteur.

Parents – those who had already adopted from Romania and “pending parents” - and non-government organizations (NGO’s) have been working with their Congressmen and EU Parliamentarians for the last 2 years to persuade the Romanian government to at least transparently review, with a clear set of criteria, those adoptions that were “pending” and filed prior to January 1, 2005.

A committee – “The High Level Working Group” – subsequently reviewed the pending cases and notified the waiting parents of their status between November 2005 and March of 2006.

The initial and long-awaited “review” of the pending/pipeline Romanian adoptions is unacceptable. With the exception of biological grandparents, or those parents who have permanent residency in Romania, all of the cases were denied. The “High Level Working Group” that reviewed these dossiers was made up of individuals, suggested by former EU rapporteur Baroness Nicholson, who have publicly stated they are against inter-country adoption and were clearly biased.

The Romanian government also used contradictory arguments as to their denials stating that dossiers were reviewed under the criteria of the 2001 Emergency Ordinance (EO), and yet denied under the current child welfare laws which came into effect Jan. 1, 2005.

The Romanian government has stated these children did not meet the EO “exceptional criteria”. These denied cases represent disabled children and children over the age of 3. However, healthy babies and non-disabled children were finalized for adoption during the EO. In reading the EO there is no “exceptional criteria”.

The Romanian government states that there are less than 1,000 children available for adoption domestically – ironically the number of pending/pipeline cases (they have stated that some of the original 1,100 pending/pipeline children have already been domestically adopted or placed with their biological families). This is because all children who were declared legally abandoned prior to Jan. 1, 2005 (approximately 5,000) must now go back to court and be declared legally abandoned again in compliance with the new legislation, which voids their previous court documents. This number does not include children who have been abandoned since 2004. According to a UNICEF study issued in January of 2005, 9,000 children are abandoned each year in Romania and the numbers have not changed in 30 years. The Romanian government currently has not the funding or the professional staff to take these children’s cases to court. Additionally, in their attempts to appease select EU officials they have no interest in expanding their current statistics of abandoned children. It should be noted that Romanians rarely adopt Roma children (73% of abandoned children) or children over the age of 2. It is unheard of to adopt a disabled child.

We know that many of the pending/pipeline cases have not been domestically adopted, “reunited” with their birth families, or are living in foster care. We also have proof that currently Romanian social workers are being paid 20 Euros for every child in state care that can be placed with their biological family.

In December of 2005, an amendment to Romania’s EU Accession report was unanimously approved by EU Parliamentarians in which Romania was asked to allow these pending adoptions to be finalized. On July 6, 2006, 408 European Union Parliamentarians – including Romania’s current EU rapporteur and VP of the EU Parliament - signed Declaration 23, calling on Romania to allow these dossiers to be reviewed again and the children allowed inter-country adoption. The Romanian government can no longer use the excuse that their EU membership is at stake.

U.S. Senate Resolution 359 passed unanimously on July 27th, 2006. U.S. House Resolution 578, an identical Resolution, passed unanimously in April 2006. These Resolutions call on the government of Romania to allow the pending/pipeline adoptions to be reviewed again by an unbiased committee and proceed to finalization where appropriate.

Proposed Solution:

An unbiased committee should be set- up as soon as possible to review these pending/pipeline cases again, with a view to allowing adoptions to be finalized that meet transparent and clearly defined criteria. Pierre Moscovici, Romania’s current rapportuer and VP of Parliament, could designate select committee members and the criteria used to review these cases. Verifiable evidence (court documents) should be provided to those parents and their governments who were told their children were domestically adopted or returned to their biological families. In many cases, we have found this is not true.

Senate Resolution 359

2006-08-14T12:40:00.000-05:00

GOVERNMENT OF ROMANIA'S BAN ON INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTIONS AND THE WELFARE OF ORPHANED OR ABANDONED CHILDREN IN ROMANIA -- (Senate - July 27, 2006)

[Page: S8397] GPO's
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Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 359.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 359) concerning the Government of Romania's ban on intercountry adoptions and the welfare of orphaned or abandoned children in Romania.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 359) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 359
Whereas following the execution of Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, it was discovered that more than 100,000 underfed, neglected children throughout Romania were living in hundreds of squalid and inhumane institutions;
Whereas citizens of the United States responded to the dire situation of these children with an outpouring of compassion and assistance to improve conditions in those institutions and to provide for the needs of abandoned children in Romania;
Whereas, between 1990 and 2004, citizens of the United States adopted more than 8,200 Romanian children, with a similar response from the citizens of Western Europe;
Whereas the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported in March 2005 that more than 9,000 children a year are abandoned in Romania's maternity wards or pediatric hospitals and that child abandonment in Romania in ``2003 and 2004 was no different from that occurring 10, 20, or 30 years ago'';
Whereas there are approximately 37,000 orphaned or abandoned children in Romania today living in state institutions, an additional 49,000 living in temporary arrangements, such as foster care, and an unknown number of children living on the streets and in maternity and pediatric hospitals;
Whereas, on December 28, 1994, Romania ratified the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption which recognizes that ``intercountry adoption may offer the advantage of a permanent family to a child for whom a suitable family cannot be found in his or her State of origin'';
Whereas intercountry adoption offers the hope of a permanent family for children who are orphaned or abandoned by their biological parents;
Whereas UNICEF's official position on intercountry adoption, in pertinent part, states: ``For children who cannot be raised by their own families, an appropriate alternative family environment should be sought in preference to institutional care, which should be used only as a last resort and as a temporary measure. Inter-country adoption is one of a range of care options which may be open to children, and for individual children who cannot be placed in a permanent family setting in their countries of origin, it may indeed be the best solution. In each case, the best interests of the individual child must be the guiding principal in making a decision regarding adoption.'';
Whereas unsubstantiated allegations have been made about the fate of children adopted from Romania and the qualifications and motives of those who adopt internationally;
Whereas in June 2001, the Romanian Adoption Committee imposed a moratorium on intercountry adoption, but continued to accept new intercountry adoption applications and allowed many such applications to be processed under an exception for extraordinary circumstances;
Whereas on June 21, 2004, the Parliament of Romania enacted Law 272/2004 on ``the protection and promotion of the rights of the child'', which creates new requirements for declaring a child legally available for adoption;
Whereas on June 21, 2004, the Parliament of Romania enacted Law 273/2004 on adoption, which prohibits intercountry adoption except by a child's biological grandparent or grandparents;
Whereas there is no European Union law or regulation restricting intercountry adoptions to biological grandparents or requiring that restrictive laws be passed as a prerequisite for accession to the European Union;
Whereas the number of Romanian children adopted domestically is far less than the number abandoned and has declined further since enactment of Law 272/2004 and 273/2004 due to new, overly burdensome requirements for adoption;
Whereas prior to enactment of Law 273/2004, 211 intercountry adoption cases were pending with the Government of Romania in which children had been matched with adoptive parents in the United States, and approximately 1,500 cases were pending in which children had been matched with prospective parents in Western Europe; and
Whereas the children of Romania, and all children, deserve to be raised in permanent families: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) supports the desire of the Government of Romania to improve the standard of care and well-being of children in Romania;
(2) urges the Government of Romania to complete the processing of the intercountry adoption cases which were pending when Law 273/2004 was enacted;
(3) urges the Government of Romania to amend its child welfare and adoption laws to decrease barriers to adoption, both domestic and intercountry, including by allowing intercountry adoption by persons other than biological grandparents;
(4) urges the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to work collaboratively with the Government of Romania to achieve these ends; and
(5) requests that the European Union and its member states not impede the Government of Romania's efforts to place orphaned or abandoned children in permanent homes in a manner that is consistent with Romania's obligations under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.

Cotidianul - America wants Children with Romania

2006-08-14T12:36:00.000-05:00

Cotidianul writes today about a resolution passed in the U.S. Congress regarding Romania's policy on international adoptions with an emphasis on asking the latter to relax the rules for foreigners who want to adopt Romanian children.

The day Basescu arrived in the States, the U.S. Senate adopted a resolution regarding the relaxing of the international adoption ban by Romania. The superior chamber of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed the resolution according to which the American authorities will ask the Romanian government to relax the international adoptions policy, almost four months after the House of Representatives voted an identical resolution. Moreover, the date the paper was signed, July 27, according to which the American senators reinforced the lobby for Romanian children, coincided with the arrival of Romanian President Traian Basescu in America for an official visit. The text of the two resolution papers maintains word by word that Romania still has major problems regarding the abandoned and institutionalized children that allegedly reaches a number that is considerably greater than the one of the children who are adopted nationally. As a consequence, congressmen want the modification of the Romanian legislation so that Romanian children are able to be internationally adopted, but they also want the conclusion of the analysis regarding pipeline cases (involving over 200 children). However, this request was met by Romania at the end of March. The text of the resolution states that the U.S. requests the European Union "not to impede the efforts of the Romanian government to place orphaned or abandoned children into permanent families, in a manner that agrees with Romania's obligations to the Hague Convention." Sources within the U.S. Congress told us last week in Washington that giving up visas before entering American territory will depend greatly, among other things, on the change of the international adoptions regime in Romania. Concretely, the above mentioned sources said that Americans clearly want international adoptions to be resumed in Romania.

Declaration 23

2006-08-14T12:26:00.000-05:00

Below is an analysis of the signatures on Declaration 23 that was done for the US State Dept. and MEP allies.

Declaration 23

408 signed out of 732 MEPs: 55.7%. This was a tremendous accomplishment. As of July 9, 2006, this written declaration was one of only three declarations in 2006 that received enough signatures to be adopted. Twenty-one declarations lapsed for lack of the requisite number of signatures in 2006, and 32 were ongoing. Only one declaration received more signatures (422) than this declaration. In 2005 there were 83 attempted declarations. Only 7 were adopted, and 76 lapsed. Of those adopted, only one received more signatures (424) than 408. This means that in 2005-06, this declaration had the third-highest number of signatures out of a total of 107 declarations (not counting the ongoing declarations as of July 9).

PARTY GROUPS

All party groups except the GUE/NGL (Communists and far left) and the Independence and Democracy Group (euroskeptics) had 50% or more of their members sign. The lack of a majority of IND-DEM signatures can probably be explained by the reluctance of many IND-DEM MEPs to sign written declarations in general, because of their euroskepticism.

EPP/ED: 146 out of 263: 55.6%

PES: 112 out of 201: 55.7%

ALDE: 66 out of 89: 74.2%

Greens: 21 out of 42: 50%

GUE/NGL: 14 out of 41: 34.1%

Non-aligned: 24 out of 37: 64.9%

UEN: 19 out of 30: 63.3%

IND-DEM: 6 out of 29: 20.7%

NATIONALITIES:

In 14 out of 25 nationalities, more than a majority of MEPs signed (12 of the top 14 nationalities had 60% or more signatories). In 18 nationalities, 42% or more of MEPS signed. In only 3 nationalities, less than 1/3 signed. Of the 137 MEPs from the 8 former East Bloc member states, 80 (58.4%) signed.

France: 74 out of 78: 94.9%

Slovenia: 6 out of 7: 85.7%

Cyprus: 5 out of 6: 83.3%

Luxembourg: 5 out of 6: 83.3%

Italy: 64 out of 78: 82.1%

Spain: 42 out of 54: 77.8%

Greece: 18 out of 24: 75%

Estonia: 4 out of 6: 66.7%

Slovakia: 9 out of 14: 64.3%

Lithuania: 8 out of 13: 61.6%

Poland: 33 out of 54: 61.1%

Malta: 3 out of 5: 60%

Belgium: 14 out of 24: 58.3%

Latvia: 5 out of 9: 55.6%

Ireland: 6 out of 13: 46.2%

Hungary: 11 out of 24: 45.8%

Finland: 6 out of 14: 42.9%

Denmark: 6 out of 14: 42.9%

Portugal: 9 out of 24: 37.5%

Netherlands: 10 out of 27: 37%

Germany: 36 out of 99: 36.4%

United Kingdom: 26 out of 78: 33.3%

Czech Republic: 4 out of 24: 16.7%

Austria: 3 out of 18: 16.7%

Sweden: 1 out of 19: 5.3%

Other observations:

Of the 212 female MEPs, 118 (55.7%) signed -- exactly the same percentage as the total number of MEPs who signed.

Slovakia's high percentage of signatures is due to the Slovakian EPP (Anna Zaborska's delegation) -- all 8 signed.

Of the British MEPs who signed, 15 were EPP/ED (out of 27 British EPP/ED), 5 PES, 3 ALDE, 3 from other party groups.

Of the German MEPs who signed, 14 were EPP/ED (28.6% of the German EPP/ED delegation); 7 were PES (30.4% of German PES delegation). 6 of 7 German ALDE signed, and 7 of 13 German Greens (Hiltrud Breyer's delegation) signed.

Twelve of 15 Polish EPP/ED members signed (Jacek Saryusz-Wolski's delegation), and 6 of 10 Polish PES members (Siwiec's delegation); eight of 10 Polish non-aligned members signed (Giertych's delegation).

Five of 12 Portuguese PES members signed (Ana Gomes's delegation).

Four of the 6 Irish signatures were from Irish UEN MEPs (Brian Crowley's delegation).

Behind the Scenes Work for the Abandoned Children in Romania

2006-08-14T12:23:00.000-05:00

This is from 7/28/06.

First, thanks to each of you who were able to get your Senator's and Representatives to sponsor the respective Resolutions and to those of you who also called them. Your phone calls, emails and faxes were invaluable in getting these passed. As you read, the Senate Resolution hit the floor last night for a vote and passed unanimously. Congratulations all! I relayed the news to our Romania Desk Officer to pass on to Ambassador Taubman - they were both heading over to the Romanian Embassy for a special event with President Basescu. I'd like to think that the Romanian government thinks our Senate intentionally scheduled this vote while P. Basescu was in town.

I got a call from our State Dept. at 9:00 on Wednesday night to tell me they were able to get a meeting scheduled with me and Ambassador Taubman yesterday, just prior to his meeting with President Bush and President Basescu. It's protocol that the American Ambassador brief the President minutes before he meets with the President/Prime Minister. I don't know if it was due to his busy schedule, or a fluke of fate, but I thought it was appropriate that I got to update him on the current situation with Romania's abandoned children/pending adoptions within minutes of the topic being discussed. (I say "minutes" as our meeting went over the time allotted and he truly had to rush off afterwards for his meeting at the White House). I'm awaiting clearance for a formal "debriefing" of the details, but I can tell you that I spoke with the State Dept. today and got confirmation that the subject was on the agenda and discussed in the meeting with Basescu. I can also tell you Taubman is supportive of our efforts, of the children and ICA in general, and is doing what he can. His staff has recently toured a few orphanages and hospitals and he's well aware of the issues and the discrimination of Roma. He told me that our problem still lies with the Prime Minister and the European Commission and that he felt that Romania would wait until their EU Accession/January 1st before they would allow another review of the dossiers and ICA. He also told me that our Embassy is aware of the lies being thrown out by the Romanian government, and have proof in some cases of said lies. They have also told the Romanian government they know they are being lied too. I told him of some still confidential EU initiatives and we discussed a few that we, as Americans, may be able to pull off. He also told me, no surprise, that "...from the top of the Romanian government to the bottom, they cannot understand why we are concerned about these children. 'Why do you care so much about them?' " All in all, it was a postive meeting. He also told me that VP Cheney brought up this topic at the Bi-laterial meeting in May and that President Basescu's response was "It was a bad promise." Meaning, he shouldn't have given it...I didn't ask what VP Cheney's reply was.

I then went to the Hill to call on a few Senators to request they push Senator Frisk to put the Resolution on the schedule yesterday. I started with Senator Brownback (Kansas and co-chair of the Helsinki Commission) and then as the day went on I saw him on 3 other occasions, each time getting in a few more "points". (I'm sure he now suspects I was stalking him as I saw him in 2 other buildings...) I met with Senator Lieberman's Deputy Press Secretary and senior foreign relations staffer, Senator Lugar's senior foreign relations staffer, Senator Dodd's senior foreign relations staffer, and stopped in to push the Resolution for inclusion in yesterday's schedule in the following offices: Durbin, Bunning, Obama, and Byrd. By the time I got to Sen. Lugar's office it was on the schedule to come up at the end of the day, but no one knew when "the end of the day" was "scheduled". In between I spoke to the CCAI and they were calling my cell phone and giving me updates throughout the afternoon too. Senator Lieberman's office was quite gracious. They supplied band-aids twice (I ended up with blisters on several toes - hot, hot day and lots of walking) and even gave me an intern to escort me around so that I could identify Senators and Representatives in the halls and approach them, and to take me to the Senate floor via the tram to both save time and see if the Resolution was up for a vote. I don't remember all of their names, but trust me, I spoke to at least another 10 as they were all in town. David-the-intern blew me away as he not only recognized innumerable Congressmen, he seemed to know everyone we encountered. He has also agreed to do some research work for us - I thought to ask if Sen. Lieberman had Lexus Nexis in his office - an expensive and invaluable online research service and one that I've been wanting to get my hands on for awhile now.

I also met with the Helsinki Commission Chief of Staff (COS). This meeting was crucial as Rep. Smith had a 5:00 meeting with President Basescu and Ambassador Ducaru to discuss the pending adoptions and suggested revision in the current child welfare legislation. I was able to read, edit and add on to the document they were planning on presenting to President Basescu. I missed the COS's phone call for the download on the meeting, but we will be speaking this weekend. You should know that there is a hearing scheduled for Sept. 13th on the issues of disabled children and their treatment and care (or lack thereof) in Romania.

MEP Breyer called while I was "lobbying". She is working with a few other MEPs on a few things that must remain confidential but will be revealed in September.

Around 5 I went to a reception for Congressmen and their families called "Taste of America" on the Hill. Various organizations representing other countries had tables sent up in the Capitol with traditional foods and drinks offered. The Congress of Romanian Americans (CORA) had a table too. I was able to meet up with the President of CORAand our ally, Armand Scala, and talk to him at length. I then escorted him to an introductory meeting of the Congressional Caucus on Romania, in which President Basescu was attending and Rep. Weldon and Ortiz are spearheading. (More on this in another e-mail). Adoptions was not on the agenda. Enroute back to the CORA table, I did happen to run into a Representative from Alabama and requested he put it on the agenda. (I'll look up his name as I don't remember it at the moment - a "new recruit".) I don't know if he was the one who brought up the subject at this meeting, but I was told today by our State Dept. today that "adoptions" came up in the meeting. As he wasn't in the meeting he couldn't tell me further details, so I'll let you know more after I speak to those who were.

Of course I couldn't leave the Hill without trying to make a few more contacts/converts, so while hailing a cab I introduced myself to 2 staffers also hailing cabs on the corner - the policy advisor for Rep. Deborah Price (who happens to be an adoptive parent) and the legislative assistant for Rep. Leach (who also supports ICA). They also let me take the first cab :)

More information and details to come in the future.

"Emma no longer has any legitimacy"

2006-07-31T12:32:00.000-05:00

From Jurnalul National
July 28, 2006

Criticized by her colleagues -- "Emma no longer has any legitimacy"

The adoptions of Romanian children has managed to heat up relationships of the Liberal Party parliamentarians. They responded with harsh rebuffs to Baroness Nicholson, whom they accuse of managing to force the hand of the Romanian government to close adoptions.

The support which Emma Nicholson enjoyed several years ago, when as rapporteur for Romania at Strasbourg she pounded her fists on the table of the authorities from Bucharest and demanded the stoppage of international adoptions, has become a memory. The same colleagues who helped her in her efforts have now turned their backs on her accusing her of misinforming them with regard to the situation of institutionalized children in Romania. This change of opinion on the part of the Europarliamentarians was evidenced by a petition put before the European Legislature and initiated by several Liberal Party deputies, with Claire Gibault and Jean-Marie Cavada leading the way. In the text of the declaration the reopening of adoptions for foreign families who were affected by the stoppage of international adoptions due to the demand of the Baroness. The document was adopted by the plenary session as an official declaration of the European institution at the beginning of July. It enjoyed the support of 408 European parliamentarians.

"THE WAR OF REBUFFS"

From then on the Declaration of those 408 parliamentarians became the subject of the fight between Baroness Nicholson and the signers of the declaration, as well as in the Romanian press. In her reply to Ralu Filip, editorialist at Jurnalul National, she draws his attention to the fact that he doesn't take into account the fact that her colleagues were misinformed. In consequence, Jurnalul National contacted the European deputies at whom Mrs. Nicholson's finger was pointed and managed to obtain a statement from Claire Gibault, European deputy and one of the co-authors of the Declaration in the European Parliament.

Claire Gibault stated, "I consider Baroness Emma Nicholson to have lost her influence in the European Parliament and that she unloads her suppressed ideas on others as much as she can. She no longer has any legitimacy and in her 'injured vanity' she grasps hold of everything she can. Asked about the comments and declarations made by the Baroness in rebuffs addressed to Jurnalul Nationalin which she accused the authors of disinformation, Gibault explained that the signers of theDeclaration do not want to put pressure on the Romanian government. Gibault told us, "The one whoput pressure on the Romanian authorities was Emma Nicholson who several years ago misinformed the European Commission. Contrary to what she said, we are well informed. I give you the example of my colleague Jean Marie Cavada who several years ago, as a journalist for French television, produced many programs and investigations regarding the situation of institutionalized children in Romania. Furthermore, we are in contact with non-governmental organizations who work in the area of child protection in Romania who give us information and statistics."

COMPLAINTS

With regards to the harsh position of Emma Nicholson regarding the re-opening of international adoptions, Claire Gibault emphasized that in fact she herself (Gibault) has received complaints even from Romanians. The European deputy was firm in explaining that no only she herself but her colleagues as well understand the situation regarding Romanian children very well. "I also am the mother of two adopted children. And Mr. Cavada was orphaned at age 2 and has lived with fiv efamilies. Therefore, we are militant for adoptions."

MOSCOVICI IS AMONG THE 408 SIGNERS

In spite of the declarations made by Emma Nicholson, who accused her colleagues of being misinformed, the fact is that the even the current EU rapporteur for Romania, Frenchman Pierre Moscovici, is among the signers of the declaration. This sheds a completely different light on the affirmations of Emma Nicholson.

A SIGNAL FROM STRASBOURG

The involvement of Moscovici in this declaration, thwarts the harsh rebuffs of Mrs. Nicholson because the rapporteur knows the situation in Romania much better, giving a much great legitimacy to the actions of these 408 deputies. In other words, it can be remarked that, despite the"inheritance" left to him by the previous rapporteur, Moscovici has had a much more neutral position with regards to adoptions from Romania. By signing the petition, which later became an official declaration of the entire European legislature, the rapporteur for Romania confirmed the dual position of European officials regarding the re-opening of international adoptions. While the"voice" of the Baroness remains just as harsh the petition signed by the 408 Eurodeputies demonstrates a position 180 degrees different compared to recent years. French Europarliamentarian, Claire Gibault, maintains, "I know very well what Romanian children go through. They are the victims of this moratorium regarding international adoptions and especially those who have already established bonds of attachment with their future parents." The European deputies' petition concludes, "In this sense we are asking the Romanian authorities to take into consideration the opinion of the European Parliament and as a consequence to reopen without delay the cases that remained on hold when international adoptions were stopped...and to authorize internationa ladoptions when it is indeed in the best interest of the child."

SR359 - Call for Romania to open International Adoptions

2006-07-31T12:29:00.000-05:00

From a fellow person attempting to reopen adoption:

I too just heard from my Senator James Inhofe that resolution SR359 passed last night. THANK YOU ALL so much for your involvement! Apparently Frist's office was hounded to the point where they felt compelled to get this done! The timing is fantastic, not only because the Senate recesses next week and who knows after that when it would have been brought to the floor, if ever, but also because Basescu and the RO gov't probably feel like the US Senate timed this intentionally with Basescu's visit! Of course, we can tell people that of course this was our plan all along! Anyway, let's hope this makes some impact.

Resolution passes!! SR 359

2006-07-31T12:26:00.000-05:00

The Senate Resolution passed unanimously late yesterday - 7/27/06.

Relating to the passage of Declaration 23

2006-07-20T12:53:00.000-05:00

Dear MEPs,

Relating to the passage of Declaration 23, we thought you would be interested in a translation of the following interview with MEP Nicholson published in Gandul, which is below. Two quotes by MEP Nicholson include:

“…the document which was signed by them does not represent the point of view of the European Parliament.”

“But, I repeat that this petition has absolutely no value from an official point of view.”

Other relevant news:

In the days preceding passage of Dec 23, Nicholson and Gomes stated that all outstanding 1,000+ cases in question suddenly were either adopted or in long-term foster care. They argued that long-term foster care was, in essence, permanent family placement.

However, in recent days throughout Romania, contrary to Nicholson and Gomes’s claims of permanence and stability from fostering, the government has for the first time begun to ask all foster parents to sign a statement accepting that the fostering is not permanent and that they can not adopt children in their care. This has significant implications, as it will dissuade those families with a true, permanent interest in adoption, and it will send an emotionally disturbing message to the children -- that their status is not stable, that the family they live with will be taken from them.

Sincerely,

Charities Concerned with Children in Romania

EP Adopts Pro-International Adoption Declaration

2006-07-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

The document was developed following the initiative of MEPs Claire Gibaultand Jean-Marie Cavada.

According to the document, the pipe-line cases are children who have been adopted by European families but due to legal wrangling have not yet been allowed to join them.

The document reads that the moratorium imposed by the Romanian authorities has "brutally interrupted the processing of thousands of adoption requests" and considering that "children concerned by these requests have already have established relationships with their future adoptive families, this moratorium has, in effect, left them abandoned for the second time."

The Romanian authorities adopted a moratorium on international adoptions inJune 2001 with retroactive effect from December 1, 2000, including a law on the protection of children which is very restrictive as far as international adoptions are concerned.

Gibault and Cavada decided to complete this document because of the lack of reaction of the Bucharest authorities to the resolution of the EP.

In its resolution adopted on December 15th, 2005 for the progress of Romania's accession process, the EP urged the Romanian government to "address the adoption cases in progress when the moratorium was announced in June 2001."

Gibault, herself a mother through adoption, said that it was "very satisfying and also a great relief" that the EP has legitimized their initiative which sends a powerful signal to Romanian authorities.

Baroness Emma Nicholson, former rapporteur of the EP for Romania, pointed out that there are inaccuracies in the document, explaining that the international adoptions created a black market in Romania, on which children were being trafficked.

Copyright C 2004-2006 Bucharest Daily News

My comments on the Jane Nicholson article and Brian Douglas' comments thereon

2006-07-20T12:31:00.000-05:00

Comments are from my source in Romania, A...............

Jane Nicholson is to be commended for her efforts. However I do not believe that the suffering of the children nor the international concern will come to an end until ALL those children without permanent families are adopted into permanent families, either in Romania or abroad. There is just no way internal adoptions are keeping up with abandonments, let alone the 100,000+ (or 30,000, or 50,000) who still need permanent families. And here is where Brian Douglas errs again. Until all those children, plus those abandoned yearly, are adopted into permanent families (no matter where those families may reside), the matters of international concern and suffering children will continue. And Romania's current ill-conceived, abusive, and draconian legislation which was promoted, lobbied for (by the other well-financed Nicholson), and ultimately adopted due to the other Nicholson's bullying, is to blame.

Billion of EU Aid can help Romania's Children

2006-07-20T12:24:00.000-05:00

By Jane Nicholson

Mr. Brian Douglas in his letter to the editor makes several observations relating to my interview in Curental and the Financial Times advertisement. As he correctly states, no NGO paid any money towards the advertisement (which was a fraction of his estimated cost). 31 of the 33 NGOs and all of the sponsors who paid the cost of the advertisement have no involvement with international adoptions. It is common for charity sponsors to give anonymously, so we see no reason to break this confidentiality which due to rumours have have no basis in truth.

First, we are grateful to the Romanian government on many accounts, the excellent relationships we have with many government ministries and local officials, and for their donation of land for FARA's specialist centre for children with disabilities. We also have admiration for what Romania has achieved as a country in the last 15 years in many different areas, including infrastructure, commerce, education, politics and social reform.

However, I fully disagree with Mr. Douglas's assertion that it is right for any country to permanently rely on foreign donors to fund its own child care services. Social welfare is a primary obligation of all governments, as it is in the EU, which Romania should be joining in six months time. This includes the provision of assistance to helpless children, of which abandoned and disabled children are some of the most vulnerable. Over the last 16 years, FARA (a Romanian registered charity) has built up an organization of experienced Romanian professionals who have changed the lives of many vulnerable children, a large number of whom come from some of the poorest families in the country. Our commitment is for the long term, as is that of our donors who have contributed 94% of the funding from Great Britain.

However, much more needs to be done. There is an urgent need to provide specialist care for children with disabilities, both from natural families and those within institutions. Our new project is in line with EU strategy and has the full backing of the National Authority for Child Protection.

Mr. Douglas correctly says that there is now foster care available inRomania; however, this is severely restricted due to lack of government funding and FARA in common with other NGOs are having to take in additional children with little contribution from the state.

What Mr. Douglas overlooked was the final point in our FT statement: our finger was not pointed directly at Romania's pocket, but at the expected EUR 30 billion of EU aid. Our hope is that some small part of this package is targeted to relieve the suffering of these children, and to finally ending this source of international concern that has gone on far too long.

Jane Nicholson is Chairman, FARA Foundation Romania & UK.

Copyright C 2004-2006 Bucharest Daily News

Some Points on the EU's Declaration

2006-07-20T12:20:00.000-05:00

1) They are not 1st term MEPs and there were others who sponsored this Declaration besides Cavada and Gibault.

2) The lack of response they are referring to in the Declaration is the Romanian government's ignoring the amendment the EU passed unanimously on December 15th.

3) Since 407 Parliamentarians signed, across all parties and nationalities, including the majority of Nicholson's own party, it's hardly a "lobby group". The editor should check their notes. Given that they printed the issue and page information, it's inexcusable.

THE EU IS READY TO ASK FOR THE RENEWING OF THE EXPORT OF CHILDREN FROM

2006-07-20T12:07:00.000-05:00

Ziua newspaper Friday July 7, 2006

Prime Minister Tariceanu's international colleagues, Liberal Euro Deputies Claire Gibault and Jean-Marie Cavada, have prepared a petition which could delay Romania's integration into the EU. These two Euro parliamentarians have managed to gather 407 signatures for an initiative in which they ask Romania to abandon the moratorium of Oct. 2001, regarding international adoptions. If this petition is approved, the EU will find itself on the side of the USA which has pressured Romania to lift the moratorium.

Romania risks an unfavorable report on the part of the European Commission this fall which could put in peril Romania's adherence to the European Union on Jan. 1, 2007. The two Euro deputies ask that the Romanian authorities take another look at the refusals to allow 1,000 families to adopt who were caught in the moratorium of Oct. 2001.

The 407 signatures are sufficient that this petition will benefit from a special procedure. In the plenary session of the European Parliament which will be held Sept. 4-7, 2006, this petition will be officially announced by the president of the European legislature, Joseph Borell, after which it will be published in the official record of the EU. The next step after this will be the sending of this declaration to the European Commission, the European Council and the Romanian Government in Bucharest.

With this petition on the table, the European Commission must make a decision whether or not to include it in the monitoring report for Romania. This is a decisive report regarding the adherence of Romania to the European Union in Jan. 2007.

In 2001, Romania found herself between a rock and a hard place regarding the reglementation of international adoptions. The United States has exercised permanent pressure for the continuing of international adoptions while the European Union represented by Baroness Emma Nicholson solicited the stoppage of international adoptions. Following pressure from the European Union, Romania instituted a moratorium on international adoptions in 2001. However, more than 1,000 cases for adoption in which the adoption process had already begun, remained unresolved.

The petition initiated by Liberal Deputies Gibault and Cavada, solicits the reopening of the adoption process for these more than 1,000 cases which remained unresolved. The petition states that the moratorium "brutally interrupted the adoption process of these 1,000 cases" and that "the children involved in these adoption situations have already established bonds with their future adoptive families and the moratorium left them abandoned for a second time". Gibault affirmed that, "It is a great relief that Euro Parliamentarians agreed with our initiative and this initiative sends a powerful signal to the Romanian authorities and to the enlargement commission of the EU. We dedicate this success to the Romanian children who are suffering in their wait for a new family and who have now received a ray of hope."

Numbers of Euro Deputies, however, oppose this petition. They say that to review the decisions regarding these 1,092 children Romania would need to change the legislation and reopen the files for international adoption. Portuguese Socialist Ana Gomes is afraid that this will reopen the trafficking of children which took place before the moratorium.

The French newspaper Le Monde in its Tuesday edition indicated that the Romanian authorities accepted all requests for adoption (1,003) introduced before the entering into force of the moratorium and that they rejected all that were made after that. According to them, these requests concern 1,092 children with which some families have been in contact, a condition which is illegal. The 1,092 files were examined on the basis of the new law which makes international adoptions the last resort, after attempts to reintegrate the child into the biological family, in foster care, or national adoption. Ollie Rehn, the European Commissioner for enlargement declared that he was satisfied saying, "All the files were examined and the families individually informed about the results."

Euro-deputy Gomes said, "A baby costs between 12,000 and 20,000 euros on the unofficial adoption market." She declared that she amazed that non-governmental organizations which were very little known could finance a page in the British newspaper the Financial Times. It is known that a page costs approximately 120,000 euros and this page was used to demand the controlled opening of international adoptions.

BARONESS NICHOLSON IS PRO-ROMANIA

The Financial Times published a letter signed by Baroness Emma Nicholson, former rapporteur for Romania, in which she replied to the announcement which appeared in that newspaper under the title "The Hidden Crisis in the Child Protection System in Romania".

Nicholson wrote, "This advertisement supports the reintroduction of international adoptions in Romania. It was paid for by a group of 33 non-governmental organizations. Some of these have a powerful financial interest in this extremely profitable business of international adoptions." Emma Nicholson affirmed that Romania forbid international adoptions in 2001 "because they represented the diabolical commercialization of children in which adoptive parents were dragged along by adoption agencies without scruples. The children were selected illegally on the basis of photo presentations and videos, while social services were evaded. The pro adoption lobby has continued to spread false information concerning the number of abandoned children in Romania."

407 signatures for pipe-line adoption cases declaration

2006-07-19T13:14:00.000-05:00

Amazing News!!!!!!

407 signatures for pipe-line adoption cases declaration

Oana Dan

More than 407 MEPs have signed a written declaration urging the Romanian government to end the plight of more than 1,000 Romanian orphans, following the initiative of MEPs Claire Gibault and Jean-Marie Cavada. These children have been adopted by European families but due to legal wrangling have not yet been allowed to join them, reads the document prepared by the two.

The declaration underlines that the moratorium imposed by the Romanian authorities has "brutally interrupted the processing of thousands of adoption requests" and considering that "children concerned by these requests have already have established relationships with their future adoptive families, this moratorium has, in effect, left them abandoned for the second time."

The Romanian authorities adopted a moratorium on international adoptions in June 2001 with retroactive effect from December 1, 2000, including a law on the protection of children which is very restrictive towards international adoptions. Gibault and Cavada decided to complete this document because of the lack of reaction of the Bucharest authorities to the resolution of the European Parliament.

The European Parliament in its resolution on the progress of Romania's accession process, adopted on December 15, 2005, urged the Romanian government "to address the adoption cases in progress when the moratorium was announced in June 2001."

Gibault, herself a mother through adoption, said that it was "very satisfying and also a great relief" that the EP has legitimized their initiative which sends a powerful signal to Romanian authorities.

Resolution to the EU

2006-07-19T12:50:00.000-05:00

Update on Resolution to open Romanian Adoptions.

The battle for signatures continues. We are now at 390, I know that we have at least 10 MEPs signing tomorrow, and 50+ faxes have been sent tonight to those whom we believe may still sign by noon tomorrow - the cut-off time for signatures. If a miracle occurs and we get 490 we will have 2/3 of Parliament. So, please, pray for a miracle. We've already had a minor one earlier this evening - one of Nicholson's allies came over to our side and signed - Allessandro Battilocchio of Italy. It's been rumored the Italian parents threatened to use him as a soccer ball in their World Cup match on Sunday unless he repented and signed...We also now have 65 signatures of the 93 ALDE MEPs - Nicholson's political party.

To give you an idea of what we've been up against, and why this Declaration is so key, Lisa Ragsale found the following information on 'www.childhelplineinternational.org'

"Since 1999, a total of 214 Written Declarations were presented to the EU Parliament. Of these only 11 were successfully adopted. Of the eleven, none were on children’s issues."

As Eliot mentioned, Tannock and Gibault stood up in Parliament today and requested that MEPs sign Declaration 23. Immediately Nicholson and Gomes rushed to a computer and sent the email below to MEPs. Tannock then wrote a response which also appears below. This is the 4th email Nicholson/Gomes have sent to the MEPs in the last 2 weeks and the 4th our allies have responded to.

I will send another update tomorrow when we have a final tally of signatures and details of the press conference and press release. Although thsi Declaration is not legally binding, it sends a strong message to both the EU Commissioners and the Romanian government. It will be wise for them to heed it. More information tomorrow, including next steps....

Thanks so much for your continued support and efforts and prayers.

From MEP Tannock in response to Nicholson/Gomes email below
Dear Baroness Nicholson and Colleagues

The "destruction of Romanian families" is absurd. I have never heard that "long term fostering" is a "family" -by definition fostering is subject to being stopped at any stage when a better more caring permanent situation becomes available. Foster parents unlike adopting parents are generally being paid for their services and are less likely to bond as genuine adopting parents with the children. There are actually allegations that some of these children were deliberately placed by the Romanian child protection services in fostering at considerable expense and at very short notice to avoid them being permanently adopted abroad and to show the outside world that all was well with Romanian orphans and abandoned children.
Personally I am delighted WD 23 has achieved a majority of MEP support today and I thank as coauthor all colleagues who signed. This resolution is a binding resolution of the European Parliament but is not legally binding on Romania, only indicative that the EP believes the Romanian government should be more flexible and compassionate in its approach. I now call on the Romanian government and the Commission to pay heed to our wishes.

best wishes

Dr. Charles Tannock MEP

London Region
Vice President Human Rights Subcommittee of EP
Deputy Coordinator Foreign Affairs Committee for EPP-ED Group
UK Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman

Office of Dr. Charles Tannock MEP
European Parliament
ASP 14 E 101
Rue Wiertz
B-1047 Brussels
Belgium
Tel: +32 2 28 45870
Fax: +32 2 28 49870
http://mail.yahoo.com/config/login?/ym/Compose?To=charles.tannock@europarl.europa.eu
http://www.charlestannock.com/

EXPORTERS OF CHILDREN WANT TO GIVE LESSONS ON MORALITY

2006-07-11T12:21:00.000-05:00

EXPORTERS OF CHILDREN WANT TO GIVE LESSONS ON MORALITY
By: Gabi Golea

The Romanian authorities have declared that more than 1,300 internationally adopted children have disappeared. As proof, they invoked certain presuppositions. The ace up their sleeve in this media war concerning international adoptions is really a jolly joker but what has come out, is something like a bluff. We are not for the opening of international adoptions. Since there are more than 2,000 families in Romania who want to adopt, and only 900 children who are adoptable, we think that there-opening of the exportation of minors is an immoral act. In this war, a war of financial motives or EU approval, we don't align ourselves with either camp. The one thing we fight for is the truth. This should be the work of any journalist.

The following problem has been given to journalists: "The Romanian Office for Adoptions announced that more than 1,300 Romanian children adopted internationally between 1997 and 2005 have disappeared. The proof: the Romanian government no longer has any news about them." Being more receptive than our other colleagues in this guild regarding the subject of "missing children", we have tried to follow up on some of the adoptees around the world. As with any disappearance, the first step which needs to be made, after the registration of the complaint, is to verify it. In the case indicated by the Romanian Office for Adoptions, the verification is made on the basis of the legislation which was in force in the indicated time period. Of these 1,300 children, 1,153 were adopted between 1997 and 2001, while 175 were adopted between 2001 and 2003. The largest number of these missing children is in the United States (491 of which 382 were adopted before 2001). There are 175 missing from Italy and 151 from Greece. There are two distinct categories involved in this situation: those which pre-date October 2001 and are based on the Emergency Ordinance Nr. 25 from June 9, 1997, and those which post-date October 2001 (175 cases).

In the first case, article 23 paragraph 2 from Emergency Ordinance Nr. 25/June 9, 1997, indicates the following: "The Romanian adoption committee or as the case may be the commission for child protection in the domicile of the adopter have the obligation to follow the development of the child for at least 2 years after the adoption is finalized. The public services specializing in child protection or the private organizations who were involved in the adoption of the child are obligated to present periodic reports in the condition established by governmental decision." Who then has the obligation to send these post-adoption reports? The obligation rests on the foreign foundations who intermediated these international adoptions.

These NGO's were authorized by the Romanian Authorities and in conformity with governmental decision Nr. 245/June 2, 1997. They were required to "annex an agreement to present the Romanian Adoption Committee with the names of families or persons with whom the NGO had signed a contract agreeing to follow up on the child with a qualified person for a period of two years after the arrival of the child on the foreign territory." (Article 5 paragraph 2 letter G)

The agreement which had to be signed by the NGO's indicated that if it was not kept, the NGO would risk the removal of their authorization to intermediate adoptions in Romania in the future. In spite of all these procedural technicalities for which the Romanian authorities are ultimately responsible, the reports were indeed sent. For two years, just as the law said, they were sent; but not up until 2006 as those from the Romania Adoption Office want.

CHAOS AT THE RAC/ORA

The reports arrived either directly at the Romanian Adoption Committee (at that time located on Nicolae Balcescu Blvd.) or at the foreign NGO's affiliate in Romania with whom they partnered. As of2002, the formerly accredited Romanian NGO's who did adoptions were disbanded or they completely changed their activities. The reports wandered off.......

A representative of the Helios Foundation in Bucharest told us that in the more than 100 international adoption cases which they mediated, there was not one case in which the reports were not filed. "It was an obligation assumed by the foreign foundations that they would send reports every 5 months. However, I know of no stipulation in the law which indicates any kind of sanction for not doing this," said one worker at the foundation. When asked to comment about the fact that the Romanian Adoption Office has 1,300 cases of children who have disappeared, the agency worker replied, "I believe that the Romania Adoption Office/Committee has super lousy record keeping skills. And at that time (around 2001), everything over there in their offices was topsy-turvey. We sent the reports to the Romanian Adoption Committee and after a while they would call us and ask us to send them again."

The Bambi Foundation from Turnu-Severin, mediated about 30 adoptions for the U.S. In the year 2000, these cost about $5,000. Those from the Bambi Foundation insist that the post-adoption reports were sent. "If we wouldn't have received them, we would have made a big fuss with our partner organization in the states," said a source within the leadership of the foundation.

The other situation (after October 2001) involved children adopted under the moratorium. On October 8, 2001, via Emergency Ordinance Nr. 121 international adoptions were suspended for a period of 12 months. Theoretically, this was so that they would never be re-opened again. Practically, the ordinance left the last door open for the milk man to milk this fat cow.

However, beginning October 2001, the NGO's (both Romanian and foreign) were excluded from mediating the adoptions. All adoptions were sent by the government to the courts via a total of 12 memorandums. There were 1,115 requests that made it to the courts of which 1,005 were approved. At that time, the authorities declared these cases as "exceptional humanitarian cases". Later, they were called "exceptional situations". We call them a mockery. Eight of these children went to Andorra, 4 to Venezuela and 1 to Slovakia. Of these 1,005 "humanitarian cases", the Romanian Adoption Office maintains that 175 are missing.

THE SITUATION IN AMERICA

Of the children adopted under the moratorium, 384 went to the United States. In the view of the Romanian authorities, the situation of the children adopted by the Americans is the most dramatic. They have the most missing children (491). The country has not ratified the Hague Convention regarding the protection of the child and cooperation on the issues surrounding international adoption. Thus, the American authorities are not obligated to cooperate with the Romanian authorities in this matter. Romania knew this and allowed the adoptions anyway in good faith. We tried to find some of these children and in doing so heard the American side of the issue.

Linda Robak and her husband adopted a 2 year old girl in 2001. She said, "The adoptive children and their parents visit Romania. I personally brought my daughter to Romania two years after the adoption and we met her biological family and we also visited with her god-parents." She also said that the post-adoption reports were made and sent every six months for two years after the adoption was finalized and she and her daughter arrived in the U.S. She paid $500 for each report. Linda further said, "The reports were sent to the foundations which did the adoptions. The foundations were responsible for the translation of the reports and for getting them to the Romanian authorities. But when international adoptions were interrupted, and the agencies disbanded, there was no way that those agencies (Romanian or American) could give the reports to the Romanian authorities. Not only that, but many agencies no longer existed after international adoptions were blocked. This mean that adoptive parents needed to find Romanian translators on their own, something which is more than a little difficult in most states in America. Only then could they send the reports to Romania. Others probably thought that with the stoppage of international adoptions, the reports were no longer necessary."

I asked Linda how she explained the panic which was created by the Romanian authorities when they declared that 1,300 children had disappeared. She replied, "It needs to be mentioned that in 2004 and 2005 when these accusations were made, American parents called the Romanian Embassy inWashington, D.C. to find out if they were on the list of 'missing reports'. Some discovered that the post-adoption reports which were sent were considered missing or lost; and this in spite of the fact that they had receipts. They had signed receipts received back from the U.S. Postal Service or Federal Express, as well as from the Romanian government or the directors of the foundations who had signed for the reports when they arrived in Romania. In 2004, they sent copies of all these reports to the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest so that they could be given directly into the hands of the Romanian state secretary for adoptions. In 2005, the parents again sent the 'missing reports'; but this time they sent them to both the Romanian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and to the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest. The absence of these reports is primarily due to the failures of the Romanian government. This resulted from their failure, after the moratorium was enacted, to put in place a system which would facilitate the sending and receiving of these documents. As far as I know, no instructions inthis regard were sent to agencies or foundations. It is certain that adoptive parents did not receive any instructions. Almost all of the reports were completed and sent and are probably to be found at the old central government offices which were involved in this kind of thing and/or with the old NGO's in Romania. The problem is not really about how to locate these children, but rather, the problem is how to locate the files."

LOOK WHO'S TALKING

The point men in this match for international adoptions are Theodora Bertzi, State Secretary at the Romanian Office for Adoptions and Bogdan Panait, State Secretary for the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. In the past these two had played on opposite teams. Theodora Bertzi, a former parliamentarian from the Liberal Party was in the leadership at the Authority for the Protection of the Child and Adoption in the peak period of child exportation. In 2002, she functioned as the director of adoption monitoring, while in 2003, she was General Director at National Child Protection Authority. At that time, according to governmental decision Nr.1315 from Dec. 7, 2000, National Child Protection Authority evaluated the activities of NGO's involved with adoptions. In the cases where there were irregularities, their adoption activities could be suspended or their authorization withdrawn. More about these procedures could be gotten from Democratic Party Member Bogdan Panait, who occupied the position of comptroller at National Child Protection Authority from 2001 to 2002, and General Secretary at NCPA between 1998 and 2001. He has been an employee in the child protection field since 1994.

With this much experience, he should have information concerning the 102 NGO's who were accredited as of Feb. 2001, to intermediate adoptions. One of these foundations was the Golden Snowball Foundation. Another was the Association for our Children which, according to documents from CPS Timis, was involved with international adoptions in that county. What do these two NGO's have in common besides the fact that their area of activity is now defunct? What they have in common is Bogdan Panait. According to his resume, "from April 2002, until the present he has been program coordinator for the Association For our Children. His declared annual income from this foundation is 8,500 euros ($10,500). He is also a consultant with the Golden Snowball association for which he receives an annual salary of 3,300 euros ($4,100). He is also a consultant with "word learning" with an annual salary of 770 euros ($1,000). It is a fact that in 2000, the peak of this lucrative business when 3,035 Romanian children were adopted internationally, his ex-wife was a member of the Romanian Adoption Committee.

Since 1992, every December the Romania embassy in Washington, D.C. organizes a "Winter Party" for children adopted from Romania. On their website, www.roembus.org you can find many pictures of this event which show many of these adopted children. Furthermore, every two years, adoptive families from the U.S. who have adopted Romania children hold a reunion. Last year the reunion took place between July 14 and 17 in Burlington, VT. The Romanian ambassador, Sorin Ducaru, participated in the event. If the Romanian authorities wish to make post adoption reports on these children, they are invited to the next meeting. The Romanians have demonstrated the ability to wait. Why did they wait more than a year to reveal the fact that they knew about the disappearance of more than 1,300 children? Why did they keep quiet so long? Because others kept silent. In this verbal war, the children are nothing more than the subject of a sentence.

Our Pipeline Case Son

2006-07-11T12:14:00.000-05:00

Our story may be just one of many, but it is our story and it is Ioji’s story…we believe it is time to get it out there. This is actually the story of Ioji’s childhood. For those of you who don’t know us, we are parents of a Romanian adoption pipeline case. Our Romanian son’s name is Ioji. We have had a relationship with him since he was 5…he is 11 now. Ioji’s birth mom abandoned him when he was born. His birth father died when he was 11 days old. He grew up first in the leaganal and was then placed in the state orphanage in Ludus. He has suffered from malnutrition and abuse (both physical and emotional).

For the first few years after we met Ioji we were under the impression that adoption was impossible. In 2001 we established a foundation, Livada Orphan Care - Fundatia LOC (www.livada.com), to serve orphans in Romania and are in the country several times a year. We would get permission to take Ioji out of the orphanage for a few days at time. We became very bonded to him and he to us…he calls us Mom and Dad and he calls our daughters, his sisters. In 2003 we learned and were encouraged by Romanians who understood the system to go for adoption as an exception under the law. Ioji was 8 years old at that time. We traveled to Bucharest and were told that an exception would be made. About 5 days later, it was announced that the law had changed and exceptions were banned. We were all crushed.

When Ioji was 9, his birth mother, whom he had never heard from or seen in his life, showed up at the orphanage on a weekend…a caregiver handed him over to her…no questions asked. Realizing the horrible error, the orphanage officials contacted our foundation in Romania and asked us to help them find Ioji…we heard about it by email and were horrified as you can imagine. It took 2 days to track him down. His mother is a street person with no actual address. They found Ioji in a village, filthy and scared. His birth mother had heard that some Americans were interested in Ioji and she didn’t want to miss out on “the money”. Evidently she had another son, older than Ioji, that was adopted to a family in America years before. His name was also Ioji. She didn’t get any money for the first son and didn’t want to miss out this time. Some of the people in the village told our director, Bruce Thomas whom some of you know, that it was good thing that he showed up when he did as the birth mother’s plan if she couldn’t get some money for Ioji from us, was to sell him in a neighboring county to pedophiles.

While Ioji was at the orphanage in Ludus, we did all we could to supply him with a few of the creature comforts of life…new clothes, shoes, toiletries, a picture album, etc…only to learn that each time these items were taken from him including the picture album…we later found the picture album in the possession of one of the workers…all of the pictures we put in were gone.

Ioji at age nine still couldn’t read and no one seemed to care. When we went to the orphanage in July 2004 with my parents to visit Ioji, the orphanage officials were irritated that we had permission to take him out again…who knows why…so they sent him out to us in girls clothes (picture attached) just to humiliate him. The end of that visit was the hardest ever for all of us…we all knew that when Ioji went back he would be physically beaten just for being out with us. On the morning of his return, Ioji told us adamantly that he would not take anything back to Ludus with him “not my toothbrush, not my socks…just put me in the girls clothes and take me back...don’t even gel my hair”. So that’s what we did…there were 7 people in the van as we approached the orphanage including Ioji…we were all in tears, man, woman, young or old…..that day we decided that we would do whatever it took to get Ioji out of the hell hole orphanage…and we did. In October of that year we arranged for him to move into a nice group home run by another private foundation….3 months after the move we asked Ioji what he liked best about the new place. He said, “Well I get food and they don’t beat me…but when can I come home to live with you?”

Ioji also begged us to protect him from his birth mother…he knew that she had been planning to sell him. We told him he could trust the director of the group home he was in to protect him…little did we know what the future would hold.

Every person on this mailing list has been involved in the horrendous fight for the pipeline cases. For us, it is so personal. With everything our foundation does for the orphans of Romania, we can never let go of Ioji. We don’t have the option to “give up”. He is a part of our family and this is his childhood. Somehow we will be united with him as a family…what we are really fighting for right now is time. Let me explain…

Last year we petitioned the local Child Protection Services to allow us to bring Ioji to the U.S. to go to school and get the therapies that he needs (he has many learning and emotional issues including chronic bed-wetting) that cannot be properly treated in Romania. The authorities felt our request was too unusual but allowed us to bring him to the U.S. for 3 weeks for testing so we could document for them what Ioji’s issues are and what treatment is needed…that 3 weeks took place over Christmas last year (2005). It was an amazing 3 weeks… just watching this little boy, who is 11 but acts and looks more like about 8, come to life in our family. He was so cooperative with all of the testing we had done. We even got him $1,300 worth of dental work…he never complained once. The day before he left, we asked him what he would like to do before his return. He told us he would like to sleep in our bed between my husband and me…that was all.

The test results clearly outlined many physical, learning and emotional difficulties which the specialists told us were due mainly to starvation, malnutrition and abuse at a young age. They all said that since he is 11 and still hasn’t gone through puberty yet, there is much that can be done to give him a real future if we can get the therapy going now particularly within our family environment.

So we bring Ioji back to Romania, right on time, and move ahead with the documents so we can hopefully get him back to America for treatment quickly. What happens from there is just a nightmare. First because of Bruce Thomas’ testimony to the EU in Brussels, the local CPS people are upset that they were exposed and decided to take this out on our foundation and in particular, Ioji and the Wallaces. Also, in the meantime, Bertzi, had put out the word to all CPS offices to make all the pending cases go away and reintegrate the children with their biological parents regardless of anything else. So to our horror, CPS tracked down Ioji’s birth mother and gave her paperwork to have rights to Ioji…so far she has missed two court dates. My understanding is that she has one more chance to show up and then the paperwork must be redone….but bottom-line, this is Ioji’s worst nightmare…that his birth mother could have any control over him. We are told that since she has no residence and is a street person, Ioji would not have to go with her but that she would have to sign off on any major decision (whatever that means) concerning Ioji. We keep asking when Ioji gets a say in what happens to him…I believe that at age 11 he does have some say. We all know that his birth mother is just desperate for a source of income and we are very open to helping her except that at this point any help we would give her could possibly be misunderstood.

In the meantime, we speak to Ioji (with an interpreter…his English is not too good but he’s working on it) just about every other week by phone. He always asks how many more months he must wait. We have told him that at this point we have been told no to all of our requests but that we love him and we will never give up. We’ve explained that we will continue to make visits until someone in the government gets a clue. The other day Ioji told us “It seems like the only kids the people in the (Romanian) government know how to take care of are their own…they really don’t care about us (orphans) at all”.

A year or so ago, at the suggestion of a US Embassy official who believed that Bertzi was going to consider the merits of each case based upon whether the child was bonded to the family (through frequent and prolonged contact), we sent Bertzi a personalized letter with the history and 10 pages of photos chronicling our journey and long-term relationship with Ioji believing that she might give our case consideration. We sent the letter with return receipt. Our letter was never acknowledged or answered.

So right now, this isn’t even an issue of finalizing the adoption…our desire is to get the Romanian government to allow Ioji to come to the U.S. to receive the therapy and help he needs and to do it quickly. No one in Romania is going to domestically adopt an 11 year old boy with issues…and so as the debate regarding adoption continues, we are looking for someone in this world that will give us permission to make a life long difference for Ioji. If there is anyone out there who can help us, we would so appreciate it.

The photos attached are of Ioji in the outfit referred to above and then in a family photo taken at Christmas. Lynne

Lynne L. Wallace, CPCU
President
MATSEN Insurance Brokers
1-800-967-6543 ext 222

1,300 CHILDREN DISAPPEARED FOLLOWING THEIR INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION BETWEEN 1997 AND 2005

2006-07-11T12:05:00.000-05:00

It has been proven that many parents had sent in their reports in the past and the Romanians just "couldn't find them". The adoptions agencies here in the USA rechecked with all their families and contacts in Romania to ensure there was no problem.

1,300 CHILDREN DISAPPEARED FOLLOWING THEIR INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION BETWEEN 1997 AND 2005
By: Adina Stefan

The head of the Romanian Office for Adoption, Theodora Bertzi, announced that more than 1,300 Romanian children adopted by families abroad between 1997 and 2005, have disappeared without a trace and that the Romanian government has absolutely no information with regard to these children. The reason for this situation is that the private organizations which performed their activities in the area of international adoptions have trampled on the conventions they signed with the Romanian government and they have not sent even one post adoption report. As a consequence, there is nothing known about 1,153 children adopted between 1997 and 2001, and 175 adopted between 2001 and 2003 under the emergency ordinances (international adoptions being forbidden from Romania after 2001). The countries which have the most cases in this situation are U.S.A. (491) Italy (175) and Greece (151).

" THE CHILDREN ARE O.K.", BUT.....

The head of the Romanian office for Adoptions also made reference to post adoption reports from abroad which were inexact. For example, a post adoption report from Switzerland which was received indicated that the children were O.K. But the ROA learned that one of these children is no longer staying at the address mentioned. The child is supposed to be adopted by a different family. The child is now in the Swiss Child Protection System. It was also mentioned, that a child adopted by a family from Spain had ended up in the hospital after he was beaten by his adoptive parents. This situation occurred after the child had been previously beaten numerous times. However, the reports did not indicate any of this.

Positive reports were also sent in the case of the boy adopted by an American citizen William Peckenpaugh, who sexually abused the child for many years. The evaluation of this adoptive father had been done at least 8 times by the American authorities. The post adoption reports did not indicate any need for the intervention of American authorities. This situation was discovered after William Peckenpaugh returned a video camera to an electronics store. It was discovered in the camera's memory that he had recorded his deeds. He was later condemned to 30 years in prison.

THE ROA DEMANDS THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES FROM ABROAD

Theodora Bertzi announced that in May that the ROA had contacted the central authorities in the countries where private intermediary organizations were working with regards to international adoptions. She told them that these organizations have not respected the agreements which they had signed with the Romania government which required them to verify the situation of each child. She asked them to verify each case and also to recheck all the favorable reports which were inexact. Although some of these countries have begun to send information, the head of the ROA declared that in cases where things are not so good, the Romanian authorities cannot intervene to help these Romanian children because they have become citizens of their adoptive country, thus they fall under the legislation of those countries.

These declarations were made by the head of ROA because of the powerful lobbing pressure which was put on the Romanian government in order to re-open international adoptions of children from Romania.

Thirty three NGO's published a full page ad on June 12, in the Financial Times, which cost them 65,200 British pounds (approx. $120,000). This ad defamed the child protection system in Romania and demanded the re-opening of international adoptions. Baroness Emma Nicholson, along with the heads of ROA and NAPRC (Bertzi and Panait) replied to this ad with firm arguments. In a letter to the Financial Times, Mrs. Nicholson said, "Romania has forbidden international adoptions since 2001, because international adoptions lead to the trafficking of children: adoptive parents were seducted by adoption agencies who had no scruples." She said that the re-opening of international adoptions would be "madness". Panait and Bertzi also demanded that Romania be allowed to apply their current laws. They emphasized that "the corrupting effect" of international adoptions made by various NGO's who did their extremely profitable business of international adoptions of children by foreigners, also had an effect on the public life of Romania.

Letter to editor: Financial Times

2006-06-20T13:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Sir,

We would like to address some of the sweeping and untrue statements made by MEP Emma Nicholson and Bogdan Panait, Romania's Secretary of State, National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights, concerning the current situation of abandoned children in Romania and international adoption.

It is, indeed, true that Romania's current child welfare legislation was drafted and signed into law due to a need for a massive overhaul in their previous legislation. It's also true that corruption was rampant in all aspects of the child welfare system. Corruption was - and on some levels, still is - pervasive throughout every level of society in Romania. However, no one in the European Union called for a shut-down of the government and a halt to Romania's accession due to corruption. Nor should inter-country adoption be banned for the same reason. If Romania cannot find a way to resolve corruption on the much smaller scale of inter-country adoption, then they certainly are unable to do so within the higher levels of government and day to day living. We find it both shocking and dismaying that allegations of corruption and "baby selling" continue to be made, and yet, to date, no one has ever been formally charged and prosecuted In a Romanian court of law for these despicable crimes involving children. A first step would be to investigate the assets and bank accounts of individual Romanians who were once involved with inter-country adoptions, including government employees. Should the Romanian government want a "starter list", we are happy to provide one.

We have no idea who the child's rights experts are that MEP NIcholson cites in her letter. However, any credible, professional working with abandoned children and innumerable professional studies will agree that every child needs and deserves a permanent family and that institutionalization and long-term foster care are not in the best interests of the child. The USAID report that MEP Nicholson frequently cites did not advocate banning inter-country adoption, only ending practices and policies that were wide-open for corruption.

Finally, we have some misgivings that Mr. Panait would even be the appropriate person to address any issues involving the welfare and protection of children and recommendations as to their care. When recently presented with the case of 2 year old who is spending 20 hours a day in a cage so her guardian could work, Mr. Panait said,: "From what I have seen she is a healthy child, she has enough food and has had all her vacinnes. She seems to be developing perfectly normally. Her home needs to be tidied up, but as she spends most of the time in the cage anyway it's not a problem." (Daily Telegraph 4/16/06)

Signed by For the Children SOS and adoptive parent groups in France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain

ROMANIA’S CONCEALED CHILDCARE CRISIS

2006-06-20T12:59:00.000-05:00

Dear MEPs,

See the attached June 12th, 2006 Financial Times full page joint statement issued by 33 charities critical of EU MEP leadership and the Romanian Government. Also copied as text below.

Have you ever held a baby in your arms that didn’t exist?

Welcome to Romania, where we invite you to tour the “Real Romania” (don’t take the guided tour).

Here, you can hold an abandoned baby who has spent more than a year in a hospital cot, where, according to government statistics, this baby doesn’t exist on two counts: a) it is not listed on the official statistics of those abandoned, and b) it is not listed on the statistics of those that are institutionalised.

Additionally, EUR 30 Billion in EU aid for Romania was announced last week. Only large infrastructure projects were mentioned. We implore you, in light of the reality in Romania today, to designate some small fraction of this amount to eradicate the horrible legacy of a woefully inadequate childcare system.

As seen in the Financial Times, June 12th 2006 (without photo):

ROMANIA’S CONCEALED CHILDCARE CRISIS

A final vote on Romania’s entry in to the EU is scheduled for October 2006. We, the undersigned 33 charities, work with children in need in Romania. While we support Romania’s admission, the citizens of the EU should be aware of the current crisis in Romania’s childcare system – a system certain EU officials are wrongly presenting as “model.”

Many Romanian officials continue to disregard the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Parliament report of December 2005.

Most EU citizens and MEPs don’t know the truth. EU officials and celebrities are given carefully guided tours of “new and improved” children’s facilities wholly unrepresentative of the real Romania. Thousands of abandoned children still endure appalling conditions. Tragically, there are many “no cost” solutions to stop the suffering that could be implemented today, but aren’t.

There has been some positive change. We have witnessed extraordinary acts of kindness and bravery from many Romanian doctors, police, government officials, nurses, teachers, carers and social workers who are striving to improve the lives of these children. However, these admirable efforts should not serve as an excuse to allow the suffering of so many to continue.

The Problems:

Guantanamo for Babies

Thousands of children a year are abandoned. The Romanians typically adopt a small fraction of these. Many then enter a legal “no man’s land” where, because they do not have birth certificates or consent from the abandoning parent, they cannot be fostered or adopted, and often are not eligible for medical treatment or education.

Crammed into hospitals, these “unofficial” (not included in government statistics) abandoned babies are often confined to steel cribs 23+ hours a day for months or years. Without normal stimuli, without the ability to crawl, play, interact or be loved, they suffer immense, often irreversible psychological and physical damage.

The Impotence of Law

Olli Rehn, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, takes comfort in recent legislation, stating it is "fully in line with EU standards and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child". In fact, the childcare legislation contains serious flaws. Enforcement is sporadic, interpretation opportunistic, and punishment rare. Current childcare legislation is little more than a book of fiction collecting dust on a bedside table.

Failure of Funding

As part of the plan to join the EU, Romania agreed to grant funding for charities providing childcare. Funding for most has been inaccessible or grossly inadequate. Many homes remain under-staffed and under-equipped, especially for children with disabilities. Financing for foster care is drastically underfunded in many regions. Once funding runs out, if the charities don’t pay, the child remains institutionalised. Shockingly, the state has even refused to pay for funeral expenses for many children that it infected with HIV due to unsanitary medical practices.

Disregard for Child Rights

Romanian parents are free to abandon and reclaim their children at will. An abused child may be removed from the family, but the parent is rarely punished. “Forced” reintegration occurs, where a baby is returned to a family with a history of abuse or abandonment.

Teens on the Street

With few “transitional” homes or program for teens, many resort to crime, drugs and prostitution. Girls are particularly vulnerable.
……

Some Romanian government officials and a few EU MEPs will deny the above claims, as they have denied every critical report issued by any external entity, including those by UNICEF and other charities.

When will the EU stop accepting denials and empty promises, and demand concrete actions ?

What can be done today:

1. Establish a Childs Rights Compliance Office (CRCO)

Staffed for a transitional period by Romanian and EU Representatives, CRCO would investigate and report on a) implementation of childcare legislation, b) violation of child rights, c) harassment against those who lodge complaints, d) police and judiciary response, d) use of Romanian and EU childcare funding.

2. Open “Controlled” Inter-country Adoption:

Inter-country adoption was halted in 2001, then fully closed in 2004. The result is that many thousands of children languish in institutions with no hope of domestic adoption, especially Roma children.

If after a suitable period (eg. four months) domestic adoption has not proved possible, the Government should allow inter-country adoption in order to stop the developmental damage caused by institutionalisation.

We also feel that it is cruel to deny more than 1,000 adoptions that have been pending since 2001, where for some of these children the adoptive parents are the only parents they have ever known.

3. Establish an Independent Children’s Policy Group

A children’s “High Level Group” is influencing childcare policy in Romania and Bulgaria. It is jointly headed by MEP Emma Nicholson, who holds opposing views to many childcare specialists, the majority of charities working in Romania, and an ever-increasing number of MEPs. Her continuing demands for complete, unconditional closure of Inter-country adoption are deemed “radical” by other MEPs. And her recent description of Romania as a “model” for childcare is incomprehensible to those living with the reality.

We support the establishment of a genuinely independent, balanced body concerned with Romanian children’s rights and policy. As a diverse group of professionals who have worked with Romanian children over many years, we respectfully request a seat on such a body.

4. Link EU Aid to Child Care

EUR 30 billion is budgeted by the EU for Romania, designated for large projects such as highways and infrastructure. An effective amount of this funding should be directed to ending the legacy of a woefully inadequate child welfare system, audited by the EU to ensure the funds are spent as intended.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

We, the undersigned charities, have years of experience dealing with these issues, working without profit. We include doctors, nurses, lawyers, police chiefs, psychologists, teachers, and social workers. We are principally EU and Romanian citizens. We respect the Romanian people and culture. Above all, we care deeply about the children of this country.

YOU Can Help

Any citizen of the EU can help. Please go to our website at www.romanianchild.org for more information, including e-mails and other contact details of your constituent EU representatives. At the end of September, we will report back to the public via our website and the international press on concrete actions taken by MEPs and the Romanian Government. Subsequent six-monthly updates can be viewed at www.romanianchild.org
Contact details: info@romanianchild.org

Signed,

Amici dei Bambini Reach Romania Lancashire
Blythswood Banat Relief Fund for Romania
Bridge of Chritian Relief Romanafectus
Cry in the Dark (UK) Romanian Aid Distribution
Everyone’s Child Romania Romanian Orphan Support Effort
FARA Foundation Romanian Relief
Foundation for the Relief of Disabled Orphans Save Eastern Europe's Kids
Fundatatia Casa Sperantei Spurgeon’s Child Care
Fundatia Casa Mea Ungureni Trust
Fundatia Forget-me-not Foundation Viata Noua Pentru Copii
Fundatia in Brate Anonymous Charity A
Fundaþia Speranþa Familiei Anonymous Charity B
Link Romania Anonymous Charity C
Livada Orphan Care Anonymous Charity D
O Noua Viata Anonymous Charity E
Prientenii Copiilor Anonymous Charity F
Primavara Copiilor

* You will note a number of groups have signed “Anonymous Charity”. This is due to the fact that previous attempts to speak out on children’s rights have resulted in certain local authorities then hindering charities’ in their vital work. In the future, we will report on our website and to the EU on reprisals of this nature.

USAID has never recommended ban on adoptions

2006-06-20T12:52:00.000-05:00

By Rodger Garner
Published: June 19 2006 03:00 Last updated: June 19 2006 03:00
From Mr Rodger D. Garner.

Sir, I am writing to clarify the position of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on intercountry adoption in Romania.

Emma Nicholson MEP, in her letter of June 13, claims that her views "are in line with the child-rights experts who have consulted extensively in Romania on behalf of the European Union, the United Nations and USAID".

Neither USAID nor its consultants have ever recommended a ban on intercountry adoption. For 15 years, USAID has supported programmes in Romania that have helped prevent child abandonment, trained foster parents, closed large state-run orphanages and encouraged Romanian families to adopt Romanian children.

USAID's work in Romania supports the US government policy that intercountry adoption offers an additional opportunity for many of Romania's abandoned and orphaned children to be raised by loving families.

Rodger D. Garner,
Director,
US Agency for International Development,
Bucharest, Romania
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

International adoption campaign stirs new controversy

2006-06-20T12:48:00.000-05:00

By Denisa Maruntoiu

Following the publication in Monday's edition of British daily Financial Times of a full-page advertisement entitled "Romania's concealed childcare crisis" completed by 33 NGOs which denounced the child protection system in Romania as ignoring the Romanian orphans and pointed out that EU officials have no idea about the traumas the orphans are subjected to in the Romanian institutions, the former EP's rapporteur on Romania, Baroness Emma Nicholson, rejected all the allegations. She pointed out that the non-governmental organizations that have signed the document have a strong financial interest in the resumption of the highly profitable international adoptions business.

In a letter to the editor entitled "Romania banned international adoptions as an evil trade in children" published yesterday by Financial Times, Nicholson said that Romania banned international adoptions in 2001 because it had turned into a trade.

"Adoptive parents were taken for a ride by unscrupulous adoption agencies; children were illegally selected based on photo and video presentations and the social services were bypassed," said the MEP, adding that the ban was a brave decision and has been upheld by successive Romanian governments that have done well reforming their child welfare system and stopping children being institutionalized.

"It would be madness to re-introduce international adoptions now," said Nicholson, pointing out that in her opinion the pro-adoption lobby is continually "peddling false information" about the number of children abandoned in Romania. The baroness said that all the information in the advertisement sounds very dramatic and terrible but is not true."

Unless these abandoned children are hidden away in some secret location (perhaps the "secret CIA prisons"), the pro-adoption lobby should inform us where these tens of thousands of abandoned children are kept. To find out the truth of the situation, one just has to make a random visit to any child hospital in Romania," stressed Nicholson.

The former EP rapporteur on Romania also said that her name is often used by the pro-adoption lobby as the bete noire who has a peculiar obsession with international adoptions as it makes for good lobby practice to blame all these ills on one person. "The lobby consistently fails to mention the fact that my views are in line with the child rights experts who have consulted extensively in Romania on behalf of the European Union, the United Nations agencies and USAID," concluded Nicholson.

As the advertisement in Financial Times also stated that the authorities do not protect the children abused by their families and do not punish those guilty of molesting the children and compared the Romanian orphanages with the Guantanamo detention facility, the head of the Child Protection Authority (ANPDC), State Secretary Bogdan Panait, said the advert in the British newspaper represents a new attack against Romania.

"The organizations that signed that document are some small NGOs operating in Romania as well. Some of them used to intermediate international adoptions and this makes me think the attack is part of the campaign meant to force us to resume the international adoptions," said Panait yesterday. In addition, an ANPDC press release noted that all the pressures coming from both Europe and the U.S. aim at resuming the "export of children" and that the attacks against the child protection system prove all these actions are "orchestrated by foreign interest groups."

The head of the Romanian Office for Adoptions, State Secretary Theodora Bertiz, also said yesterday she is outraged by the strong pressure coming from lobby groups that are trying to convince the EU lawmakers to call on Romania to resume international adoptions.

"It seems those groups are behind an international media campaign that is being financed with huge amounts of money. They should have used the money to help the orphans instead of using them to ruin Romania's image," said Bertzi, adding that it is unacceptable for the progress achieved in the child protection field not to be acknowledged.

"We still have lots of things to improve, but this does not mean we should erase everything we did by now," said Bertzi.

Sent by MEP Tannock to all 737 MEPs

2006-06-20T12:46:00.000-05:00

Colleagues,

This open letter in the Financial Times fully vindicates the work of Madame Gibault, M Cavada and myself and a few other brave MEPs who questioned the assertions of Commissioner Rehn, Baroness Nicholson, Mrs Ana Gomes and others who were adamant that all was well with child protection in Romania. I thanks those MEPs who cosigned our Writen Declaration and hope that the Romanian government will now reconsider its current inflexible position.

best wishes

Charles

Dr Charles Tannock MEP
VP Human Rights Subcommittee
Deputy Coordinator AFET EPP-ED
UK Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman

"STEP"-MOTHERS FOR MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT

2006-06-20T12:39:00.000-05:00

Article from Cotidianul Monday, June 12, 2006

"STEP"-MOTHERS FOR MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT
Author: Seila Dumitrescu and Oana Craciun

At the present, there are over 18,000 abandoned children who are being cared for by approximately14,000 maternal assistants. Maternal assistants who don't take care of the children who are with them, can be dismissed from their jobs. About 1,000 of these maternal assistants over the last three years have been found guilty of negligence in caring for children who were with them and their authorization was withdrawn.

Last month, two children who were in the care of maternal assistants, died in Buzau county. These two 'step' mothers were paid $220 per month by the government to care for a child. Because of their negligence, they now risk up to 20 years in prison. And these are not isolated incidents. According to Bogdan Panait, State Secretary and head of the National Authority for the Protection of theRights of the Child, said that there were problems in many counties. In the last two years, more than 100 maternal assistants had their authorization withdrawn in 4 counties (Vaslui, Botosani, Suceava, and Olt) and two sectors in Bucharest (sectors 2 and 3).

PROBLEMS WITH MONITORING

The minimum legal standards for dealing with these 18,000 plus children who are in the care of professional mothers require that home visits be made at least once per month. Panait says, "The social workers are supposed to make these visits and to counsel and help the maternal assistants." The problem is that there are far too few social workers to accomplish this. Cecilia Manolescu fromBuzau says, "In Buzau county, there are 9 social workers who are supposed to monitor 281 maternal assistants who have 797 children." The selection of maternal assistants is not very strict. Diana Nistorescu, executive director of a group of NGO's who work in the child protection field, says that, "There is no system of parental education in Romania, not for biological parents, to say nothing of a program for maternal assistants."

PARENTS FOR MONEY IN 40 HOURS

The job of a paid 'parent' appeared in Romania in 2003 as a response to the problem of more than 40,000 children who were abandoned in maternity hospitals. Minimal requirements (no job, parenta laptitude, a decent house, and the agreement of the rest of the family) caused many Romanians to take a look at this occupation. Once they had fulfilled the preliminary formalities, they had to take a 40 hour course which culminated in a test of their knowledge. The local CPS offices approved these maternal assistants based on the tests, and evaluation by a social worker, and where deemed necessary by a psychologist. Florin Stefan Vasile, director CPS in Sector 3 of Bucharest says, "Most of the maternal assistants have graduated from high school. Some are former nurses or seamstresses who have wanted to change jobs. Most of them (maternal assistants) have chosen this job because they want the salary." This opinion is also shared by Cecilia Manolescu, director of CPS Buzau.

THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO CHANGE THE LAW CONCERNING MATERNAL ASSISTANTS

2006-06-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

From Cotidianul Monday, June 12, 2006

Page 6

THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO CHANGE THE LAW CONCERNING MATERNAL ASSISTANTS

Bogdan Panait, State Secretary for the National Authority for the Protection of the Child's Rights, recognizes that the system of maternal assistants has problems in the area of monitoring and in the area of the selection of personnel. These exist, he says, because the choice of maternal assistants is "made hastily".

The solution suggested by the National Authority for the Protection of the Child's Rights is to increase the preparation time for the maternal assistants from 40 hours to 300 hours. They will also be more rigorous in the selection of maternal assistants and they want to involve NGO's a well. Panait assured us that, "This new law will come into force on Jan. 1, 2007."

From Jurnalul National May 29, 2006

2006-06-16T10:38:00.000-05:00

By Adriana Popescu, Ionela Gavriliu 2nd Installment

Second half of Atrophied Adolescents

ISOLATION UNIT

"Isolation Unit" is what is written on a plaque mounted above the door of the last room. It is here that children with severe disabilities are kept. There are seven of them now. Not one of them is a paraplegic or affected by some form of muscular dystrophy. Six of the seven are in cribs with metal bars, but white sheets are hung around the crib to camouflage the bars. When they see us they begin to make a lot of noise. Mamaia is a 20 year old girl who is the most recent arrival here and is also the most agitated. We were told, "She has not yet become used to this place." Next to her is Bogdan. He is 16 years old and his skin is transparent. He reaches toward you with long and translucent fingers and he smiles. Also in the room is a 14 year old girl named Princesa; she looks to be about 4 years of age. She is dressed in a white blouse made of lace. She doesn't weigh even 30 pounds. Next to her is a 13 year old girl Narcisa. She is lying in a twisted position across the bed. Her spine is at a 30 degree angle to the mattress and her legs are straddling the bars of the crib. "That's how she likes to sleep," said one caregiver. However, after a few minutes another caregiver gave us a different explanation, "If we put her another way, she hits herself on the bed and injures herself." On the right side of her face near her temple are bruises from where she recently hit herself, but now in the area of her head are numerous pillows. The muscles of all the children are atrophied. The director told us that, "We have a fulltime physical therapist." The fact is that this physical therapist is a nurse who is on two years leave of absence from her job because she had a baby and is staying home to raise him.

PLANS

Children never leave this isolation unit. The director of the center maintains otherwise, but when we asked him to show us the wheelchairs with which these children are taken outside he forgets to answer. However, later he did say, "We will soon receive 7 of them from Odobesti." Once children have entered the doors of this institution, they will never again leave the center except on their way to the cemetery. Several years ago, a child in this unit died and was buried in the village cemetery, due to the kindness of the priest.

Local officials are optimistic, however. It was told us that these children will be moved into a center which will be constructed especially for them in Focsani through the sponsorship of the SERA (Solidarite Enfants Roumains Abandonnes) foundation. It's just that the project will take a long time. Ground must be bought and the building constructed. Even in the most optimistic case, this isolation unit in Cotesti will remain occupied till the end of the year.

Also, on the level of 'plans', is the moving of 16 of the children who have mild deficiencies into a building next to the main center. This location has been renovated and has blue tile on the floor and thermopane windows. This is where Mariana and Ramona, for example, will live. However, they have to wait as well. The beds which are supposed to come from Odobesti still aren't finished yet. After a lightening visit on May 11 by Bogdan Panait, head of the National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights and by Toader Ghetu, director of Child Protection Services Vrancea it was determined that, "In a maximum of 5 days, at least 15 children will be moved."

On May 10, the international organization "Mental Disability Rights International" published a report which described the inhuman conditions in which children with disabilities live in Romania. On May 22, a working group constituted at the request of Prime Minister Tariceanu, went about to verify the data from the MDRI report. This group made public their own report which negated the information and image presented by the Americans. However, we will present the situations that we met with in centers from Vrancea, Ialomita, Iasi, Maramures and the Buzau. We will omit personal impressions and commentaries. We will allow you to tell your point of view and in the end together we will draw some conclusions.

THE SERA REPORT

The orphanage in Cotesti also appears in the report of the French organization SERA which was published in October of 2005. This document which was not distributed to the media is available at www.carefrance.org .

At this orphanage the French were accompanied by Romeo Postelnicu, the General Secretary of Vrancea county and by Toader Ghetu, director of CPS Vrancea county. At that time, there were 49 children in the center: 24 recuperable, and 25 "severely retarded". The report says, "We began our visit in the section for recuperable children. The children were all in one room, both boys and girls, and they were indistinguishable from one another, reduced to the status of animals. They rocked back and forth, they hit themselves and they howled. Not one of them are schooled. The director Mr. Zisu, excuses the situation because of the lack of personnel. Of the 45 employees of the orphanage, there are only two educators and the psychologist comes only twice a week. The conditions in the orphanage are deplorable. There are 18 beds for 24 children and there are no nightstands. The conditions are even worse in the building where 25 children with severe retardation are housed. There are only 14 beds for them, wood heat and one sink. In a small room at the end of the hall, we found five small beds with metal bars where 7 children were crowded together and some of them who were of larger stature are curled up in fetal position. Both Postelnicu and Ghetu are conscious of the fact that this center needs to be closed. Their proposal for resolving the problem consists in placing the 24 'recuperable' in foster care with 'maternal assistants' and the transfer of the other 25 to the orphanage in Focsani where they are supposed to be put in groups of six in small apartments. These are supposed to be apartments which will serve as day care centers for children with disabilities. Unfortunately, Vrancea county has not included any of this in their budget for 2006, but Postelnicu is not afraid to ask whether we can help financially."

WE HAVE A PERSONNEL CRISIS

After the publication of MDRI's report, the first reaction of state secretary Bodgan Panait from National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights was to say that the data presented by the Americans isn't valid anymore. He said, "We can no longer say that in our country children with disabilities live like in Auschwitz." Panait declared that at the moment Romania's fighting a mentality which believes that children with disabilities should be kept hidden. Thus many children and especially those in rural areas do not have access to different services. He says that the solution is for these children to be kept in rehabilitation centers in the County Seats. With regard to a program for reintegrating children with disabilities, Panait described the construction of a campus costing $480,000 consisting of 3 family type houses and a rehabilitation center. Asked whether he thought it was sufficient for these children to merely have their primary needs met (like food and shelter) Panait replied that this was not sufficient. "But at this moment the institution which I lead is confronted with the crisis of a lack of qualified personnel," he said. According to official statistics, in the Romanian system, there are approximately 4,000 children with disabilities.

Article from Jurnalul National from May 29, 2006

2006-06-16T10:18:00.000-05:00

Authors: Adriana Oprea Popescu and Ionela Gavriliu
1st Installment

AN ATROPHIED ADOLESCENT

In Cotesti, the children who have serious disabilities are kept night and day in an isolation unit in cribs with bars. They are 14, 16 and even 20 years of age, but physically they look like pre-school children. Others who are a bit more mobile, sleep two per bed but the beds are too small. We saw this on Tuesday, May 23, 2006, at the center for recuperation and rehabilitation for children with severe handicaps in the town of Cotesti, Brancea county. We had announced our visit about 20 hours before it was to take place, but the personnel of the institution were prepared to meet us in an appropriately. All 27 children with mild or medium retardation were in the courtyard of the institution crowded together on the swings whimpering. Some of them were rocking back and forth, the land of Communist orphanages. Dressed identically and impeccably clean with uniforms conformed of a green tee shirt with a white stripe on the arm and a pair of camouflage Bermuda shorts. We were then invited into the office of the director of the orphanage Mihai Zisu where we were introduced one by one to these "model patients". The children were sitting on their chairs and were not surprised at the presence of strangers. Afterward, being extremely sociable, they waited to be interviewed. And while their stories were flowing, between friendly gestures and giggling, the voice of a female supervisor was heard outside, singing to the children, "What a wonderful world it is in Which you Find Only Children". She was the only one who knew the verse.

PRESS-BOOK

Mariana was the first one invited to meet the press. She is 24 years old and the whole time of her institutionalization she has been a fan of variety TV show Andreea Marin. She is preparing to go on Andreea Marin's show Surpriza Surpriza on Saturday. "Do you have a pretty dress that you can wear?" "They will give me one from storage," she assures us while looking at the floor. "They will also give me new shoes." She has on eye makeup and she has two necklaces as well as a silver cross around her neck. Mariana has well manicured nails and she wants to have children. She's the only one at the orphanage that you can tell is a girl. All the other girls have their hair cut very short. "It's more hygienic that way. We have a clipper and an employee cuts their hair," Zisu explained to us.

The second one to meet us was Ramona (22 years old). She is the "assistant" director of the orphanage. She follows the director everywhere. She follows him like a shadow and doesn't take a nap until after 4:00PM, that is, at the end of the workday. Ramona has a family -- "my gypsies" is what she cries out whenever she sees a wagon full of Roma go by on the street. Several times a day she asks the director to call her parents. She tells them to come for her and take her home, however, she speak is actually only speaking with an employee of the orphanage. The girls have never seen a sanitary napkin in their lives; they use cotton batting. Those with severe disabilities use disposable diapers. The changing of these things falls to the employees.

Marian is 20 years old and was brought here in 2001 by his family. He is insulin dependent and has behavior problems. He is more timid than the girls and tells us that he never went to school and that at home he was forced to work in the forest or in the vineyard. His dream is to leave this place and be employed.

Nita is one of four autistic children in the orphanage. He came here five years ago from and institution in Siret. He has been institutionalized since age 7 when his parents abandoned him in the orphanage in Focsani. The family had triplets, although Nita was the firstborn, the second was born healthy and the third, Nita's sister who is also at Cotesti was also diagnosed with autism. The girl whom we met in one of the dormitory rooms, is not able to speak except one syllable--ma. She repeats this interminably when someone approaches her to comfort her; nor can her brother speak. But he can work. His palms are calloused and full of scratches and dirt is under his fingernails. The director told us that he likes to work. "He likes to be outside and works hard at his jobs." As a reward, Nita is taken for a walk, sometimes in a car or wagon, on the streets of the village. He is not able to say what pleases him. "He doesn't interact," Mihai Zisu tells us. He is an autistic child. He would not have been condemned to this situation if he would live in another country. In many cases autistic children can be helped through special therapy which consists of 40 hours a week of intensive treatment, during which time the child is dealt with by four psycho-therapists. At Cotesti, however, the psychologist has only a cooperative agreement with the institution and comes only one time per week. However, Nita does his therapy "with the garbage can". The director yells, "Nita, take the garbage can outside!" He explains to us that, "Nita likes this; if he doesn't want to he won't do it."

In this center for children with severe handicaps, there are actually 46 patients. There are 38 employees who care for them. Forty percent of these employees live in the village of Cotesti, while the rest come in from Focsani which is about 10 miles away. Among the total number of employees, there are two teachers, nine practical nurses (LPN's), two care givers, and seven nurses. Their boss is the wife of the director. At night, the 46 children are cared for by one nurse, one LPN and a night watchman.

Twenty two of the patients are over 18. Forty of them have been abandoned by their families; not one of them goes to school. The director told us, "Their medical condition does not permit them to go to school because they have IQ's of below 20." For their entire lives, these "chronically ill" (that's what the director calls them) they will need to live on state support. The director, Mihai Zisu, maintains that, "Everyday they receive milk, meat and eggs." On the day of our visit the children had cornmeal mush with cheese and sour cream for lunch. Ten of them were eating sunflower seeds.

When they exit the dining hall, some of them have handfuls of bread. They go to the dormitory and they rebel when the caregivers want to take the bread from them. "We're bulimic," they explained to us. After they eat if they are thirsty, the patients can get water from the sink next to the dormitory room. They turn on the water, put their mouth under the stream from the faucet and lap with their tongue. These are routine gestures. One of the children, a little girl we found out later, cannot let go of a piece of rusty wire that she has with her in the bed. "This is her fixation. If I take the wire she throws a fit." The employees haven't managed to change the wire except with a piece a little smaller. The little girl climbs up on the bunk bed and sleeps with the wire on her pillow like a child next to his toy.

In a few of the nearby beds, there are two children sleeping per bed. They are crowded together because the mattresses are 70" x 31". Not one of the children has any personal possessions; there are no nightstands and no pictures pasted on the walls. The wardrobes are filled with the same clothes in different sizes. The only toys we ever saw in the orphanage were: a ball in the courtyard and a little stuffed bear setting on a bed, but no one played with them. In the recreation hall, the only accessories were a television, several wing chairs and a locked cabinet. All of the rooms have wood stoves for heat.

In the summer, the children are taken to a camp in Tulici which belongs to the CPS Vrancea. They have not seen the Black Sea except on television or in soap operas or in video clips from MTV which show the palm trees in Mamaia. "Because of the problems that they have, the sea shore is not recommended for them," the director told us.

SERIOUS CASES

Children with a severe handicap are kept in a neighboring building. There are 19 there now, but the director of 'migration' explained to us that, "Their number varies depending on their condition. If they are calm, we move them to the other building. If they throw a fit, we bring them here." All 19 of these children in incontinent, this is obvious. In the first room there are 7 beds. They stay two to a bed, one with his feet at the other's head. The room was probably used as a kitchen in the past, the floors and the walls have tile. The bed at the end of the room is made from a slab of wood that has a mattress put on it. One of the "occupants" Vasilica, is 18 years old. This is what we are told, we cannot even approximate the biological age of the children. All of them have diapers (clean). When we get close to one of the girl's beds she takes our hand, puts it on her forehead, moving it in a petting motion. In the room across the hall, there are 5 beds. In one of them, a child is sitting obsessed with the smell of newspapers. "He recognizes the day's newspaper by the smell of the ink," the director tells us.