Adoption Law Needs Your Prayers
Nov 2, 2013 / Uncategorized
Adoption Law Needs Your Prayers
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Corina Caba, shown with a formerly abandoned child, has worked tirelessly on a legal proposal to help abandoned children find families.
Corina Caba, shown with a formerly abandoned child, has worked tirelessly on a legal proposal to help kids like him find a family.
It has been a decade since a Romanian child could find a home with an American, British, or Italian family.
In 2004, following several years of temporary moratoriums on adoption, Romania passed a full-fledged international adoption ban. While NGOs working closely with abandoned children reacted mainly with dismay, officials from the European Union, who had equated adoption with human trafficking, rejoiced — and subsequently rewarded Romania with EU membership.
At the same time, the process of domestic adoption also underwent a total overhaul. Strict new requirements made the process of declaring an abandoned child adoptable extraordinarily difficult, and the domestic adoption process itself became a lengthy legal maze. Now, thousands of Romanian children were left in a “no man’s land” — abandoned by their birth families but legally unable to be adopted.
While a few needed reforms have been passed since 2004, the overall result has been, as the NPR reported last year, to make adoption a rarity for Romania’s abandoned children.
Now, a serious effort is underway to make real amendments to the law. This push has come primarily from Romanians themselves: both NGOs working on the ground with abandoned children, and would-be adoptive parents who became vocal through a nationwide media campaign. Both groups have expressed their disgust with a system that works against the interests of children in need of families.
While these efforts have focused mainly on fixing the problems in Romania’s domestic adoption law, there have been distinct rumblings about the international adoption ban as well. This remains the most controversial adoption-related issue, and it remains to be seen whether Romania will be willing to re-introduce international adoption for some of its most at-risk children.
Hope House has played a key role in drafting proposed amendments to the law, working with other NGOs to draft a thoughtful, thorough legal proposal. Having identified a legislator to introduce the amendments later this year, we are currently working on carefully refining them. Please pray for Corina Caba as she meets this week with a Romanian lawyer. Their agenda is to thoroughly review the legal proposal and create a final draft.
But it’s not just this week. We need your prayers as this effort moves forward. Despite great strides that have been made in bringing this issue to the attention of both Romanians and their legislators, there are still strong, entrenched anti-adoption forces in Bucharest. This remains a David vs. Goliath undertaking.
Nonetheless, “the king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” (Proverbs 21:1) Please join us in beseeching God to turn the hearts of Romanian lawmakers toward the well-being of abandoned children. Food, shelter, and clothing are not enough. Every child deserves, needs, and belongs in a family.