Romanian orphanages are no longer icy gribuses

The images of severely neglected Romanian orphans in bare children's homes are still etched on the retina. But the images need adjustment. "The Romanians really tackled the problems."

by Runa Hellinga June 29, 2006 , 11:03 am

BUCHAREST - From January 1, Romania will definitively ban international adoptions under pressure from the EU. Brussels has demanded such a ban to end suspicions of child trafficking around adopted babies. For example, a year ago there was a scandal surrounding a hospital where mothers were told that their babies had died, when in reality the children had been sold abroad.

To put an end to this kind of abuse, Romania has had a moratorium on international adoptions for two years now. Not everyone is happy about that. The US, Spain and Italy, countries where Romanian adopted children are very popular, argue in favor of keeping adoption options open. They do not deny the problem of child trafficking, but believe that the rules should be tightened up. According to the three countries, children are ultimately better off in a foreign adoptive family than in a Romanian home.

Anyone who remembers the horrific TV images of the early 1990s can only sympathize with that point of view. But those images need to be adjusted. “The problems in the children's homes have really tackled the Romanians. The situation there has improved a lot in recent years," said a Western diplomat in Bucharest.

“Romania has had the option of foster parenting since 1997. Since then, there has been an active policy to close children's homes. Moreover, the homes that are still there no longer resemble the institutions of that time. They are increasingly organized according to a family structure, in small units of eight children and two chaperones," said Niculina Petre, program director of World Vision, an international Christian organization dealing with children.

Petre looked as shocked at the TV images in 1990 as the rest of the world. She quit her job as a sociologist and switched to child protection. She has been working at World Vision for two years now. Last year she obtained her PhD for research into recent developments in Romanian child protection.

Preventing children from ending up in a home is the first objective of the current Romanian policy. "That starts with preventing the often unwed mothers from giving up their children," says Petre. World Vision runs a number of homes where unmarried mothers stay with their babies. “They are often young girls. We try to convince their family to accept mother and child after all, and we prepare them for an independent life. They learn about childcare and running a household and we help them find work.”

Small children who are abandoned despite such programs are no longer allowed by law to go to a children's home.

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