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Hundreds of personal carers for adults and children with disabilities and HIV and AIDS in Romania’s Constanta County have lost their jobs. 
World Vision MEERO, http://meero.worldvision.org

Hundreds of personal carers for adults and children with disabilities and HIV and AIDS in Romania's Constanta County have lost their jobs while hundreds of others haven't been paid for months, in response to a crisis measure taken by the Romanian government. Constanta is the first Romanian County to bear the brunt of the measure, which threatens to push more families into placing adults and children with disabilities or HIV and AIDS into institutional care.

'This collective dismissal is illegal and unjustified by the economic crisis. Disadvantaged categories of people must be a priority even in these difficult conditions. They not only lack protection and help but they are also exposed to prostitution, trafficking, underground work. A rapid and legal intervention is necessary in order to stop reviving a 1990's grave version of Romanian reality', said Raluca Bratu, 'Together for the future' Project Coordinator with World Vision Romania.

World Vision Romania and eight other NGOs from the Black Sea Coalition, which protects the rights of people living with AIDS and local governmental institutions working in the social services field, have taken a stand against the measure and distributed a statement to some 70 institutions. They addressed the statement to the Government, the Prime Minister cabinet, the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection, the National Authority for People with Disabilities, the League for Defending Human Rights in Romania and all the communal halls in Constanta County. 

'The address emitted by the local representative of the Finance Ministry, the National Authority for Fiscal Administration, infringes upon the law', reads the statement by the NGOs and asks for the observance of the rights of people with disabilities and others in need of care. 

Many believe the measure will throw Romania's social services back 20 years. 

'What will happen when the State is forced to take back the HIV-positive children who will remain without personal carers?' rhetorically asked Dr. Rodica Matusa, president of the Hope Association for HIV-positive youth. 

'NGOs, institutions and families made huge efforts to offer them quality services because they need special care and nobody wanted them to enter centres for people with disabilities. We will annul the progress made by the Romanian social services over the last 20 years', said Dr. Matusa.

The Romanian Constitution stipulates special protection for disabled people. One of the protective measures consists of providing a personal carer for them, once a panel of experts decides the person is incapable of living independently, based on rigorous medical and psychosocial criteria. The personal carer can be a disabled person's relative or a professional personal carer and is employed with an official contract. His salary is paid from the national budget and the local councils' budgets and is derived from the VAT (value added) tax. 

According to the General Directory for Social Assistance and Child Protection Constanta database at the end of June, some 2,380 people were registered as having a personal carer. Of these, 834 are children with severe disabilities or children living with HIV and AIDS; many of them in foster care. 

For many of the personal carers this salary is the only income they are able to generate as the job requires round the clock attention and dedication. 

'My wife and I took Alin in foster care, six years ago. We help him walk because he can't walk alone; we watch him all the time, give him the medication from the psychiatrist and go for the medical examination every month. We love him. He became a part of our family but if we don't receive the salary we will be forced to give him back to the State. We cannot afford to cover his medication and food…' said Nicolae Maxim, personal carer of a 21-year-old boy, with severe mental and physical disabilities. Nicolae has not received his salary for the last three months from the Cogealac hall. 

Many personal carers who foster children with disabilities are expected to be forced to give up foster care altogether. The children will return to the crowded State-run centres for children with disabilities, which so many people have fought to close over the past 20 years. The social services system from Constanta County is already working beyond its capacity. 

'Every week we take more than seven or eight children from the natural family because the parents can't feed them and ask for our help. Our three centres for disabled children are over capacity with 10, 12 children in each one. We are confronted with more and more resignations from maternal carers', says Roxana Onea, communications officer with the General Directory for Social Assistance and Child Protection Constanta.

In May 2010, 40 personal carers of World Vision's young beneficiaries received notification about their future dismissal. Two of those who lost their jobs have confronted the Navodary hall, asking for their rights. 

Background information

On December 31, 2009 the total number of people with disabilities registered in Romania was 681,558. Of these, 97.5% (664,409 persons) live in family care and / or live independently (non-institutionalised) and 2.5% (17,149 persons) live in residential institutions of social assistance for adults with disabilities coordinated by the National Authority for Persons with Disabilities.

[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

EU foreign ministers must agree halt to any new adoptions into Europe of Haiti earthquake children

Source: Save the Children Alliance

Date: 24 Jan 2010

The EU foreign ministers must use Monday's meeting to announce an immediate ban on any new adoptions into Europe of children who have been separated from their relatives in Haiti, say Save the Children and World Vision.

Aid agencies and the Government must be given the chance to conduct full and exhaustive searches to reunite families following the earthquake, before any international adoption ban could be lifted. Separated and orphaned children must be registered and interim arrangements made for them to be cared for, ideally by their extended families or those close to them. Earmarked funding is urgently needed to scale up these efforts.

Save the Children believes adoptions that were already being processed should go ahead, as long as the appropriate legal documentation is in place and the adoptions meet Haitian and international law. However the chaos of the earthquake, which destroyed records as well as infrastructure, means that children could be taken out of the country without proper checks going ahead. It can costs thousands of pounds to internationally adopt a child yet that money could help a whole school of children remain in their communities.

Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children, said: "Many families in Europe will see the suffering of Haitian children who have been separated from their parents, and want to do something to help. But trying to adopt children who most likely still have parents or relatives alive and are desperate to be reunited with them is not the solution. Taking children out of the country would permanently separate children from their families - a separation that would compound the acute trauma they are already suffering and inflict long-term damage on their chances of recovery."

Save the Children and World Vision's experience following previous disasters such as the Pakistan earthquake and the Asian tsunami has found that children have been unnecessarily adopted or placed in orphanages without extensive checks being done to see if there were relatives that could care for them instead.

Without proper focus on family tracing and a immediate ban on new adoptions, child trafficking – already a major problem in Haiti – could increase, warns the aid agencies.

Jasmine Whitbread continued: "EU ministers must act now to ban any new adoptions into Europe and support the Haitian government to put trained personnel on the country's borders to prevent the illegal movement of children, and to rebuild their child protection systems so that the circumstances of individual children can be properly assessed and recorded."

Save the Children and World Vision are also calling for international focus to remain on reuniting children in Haiti, and for the Haitian government to declare an immediate moratorium on any new adoptions of children left on their own until full extended family tracing and reunification has been completed.

World Vision Chief Executive Justin Byworth said: "Children should not be leaving Haiti at this stage except with surviving family members or if adoptions already in process have full required legal documents. Thousands of children have been separated from their families and primary caregivers due to the earthquake and more than half a million children were already separated either living on the streets or in orphanages, or working as restaveks in private homes away from their families.

"As well as supporting the efforts of aid agencies and the Haitian governnment to identify separated children and conduct family tracing and reunification, as well as finding and funding appropriate care arrangements for them, we would urge EU ministers to push for the rapid establishment of a public complaints and response mechanism within Haiti for reporting and responding to sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking."

Save the Children and World Vision have teams on the ground identifying lone children and Save the Children is launching an emergency family tracing and reunification programme to reunite families and help put in place long-term support for their care.

Ends

For further information please contact: Save the Children on 0207 012 6841 or out of hours on 07831 650 409.

Notes to editors:

· To make a postal donation make cheques payable to 'DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal' and mail to 'PO Box 999, London, EC3A 3AA'.

· Donations can be made at any high street bank, or at a Post Office by quoting Freepay 1449.

· Text "GIVE" to 70077 to give £5 to the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal. £5 goes to the DEC. You pay £5 plus the standard network SMS rate.

· The DEC criteria to launch an appeal are: The disaster must be on such a scale and of such urgency as to call for swift International humanitarian assistance. The DEC agencies, or some of them, must be in a position to provide effective and swift humanitarian assistance at a scale to justify a national Appeal. There must be reasonable grounds for concluding that a public appeal would be successful, either because of evidence of existing public sympathy for the humanitarian situation or because there is a compelling case indicating the likelihood of significant public support should an appeal be launched.

A powerful earthquake has struck Haiti, devastating the capital and affecting around 2 million people. Our response teams are preparing to bring them life-saving aid. Please help now – go to www.savethechildren.org.uk/haiti to donate.

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Reisverslag

Nicole en Brendie, 22 december 2008
 Kenia Nairobi

Paspoorten

Utah-Based Volunteers in Haiti See Long Recovery,

STOP ALLE RICHIESTE INTERNAZIONALI. UNO DEGLI ORFANOTROFI È GESTITO DALL' EX TENNISTA TIRIAC, CAMPIONE NEGLI ANNI SETTANTA

Traffico di bimbi, Bucarest blocca le adozioni

La decisione dopo le pressioni di Bruxelles. In Romania sono centodiecimila i piccoli abbandonati

Stop alle richieste internazionali. Uno degli orfanotrofi è gestito dall' ex tennista Tiriac, campione negli anni Settanta Traffico di bimbi, Bucarest blocca le adozioni La decisione dopo le pressioni di Bruxelles. In Romania sono centodiecimila i piccoli abbandonati DAL NOSTRO INVIATO BUCAREST - La baronessa Emma Nicholson l' ha denunciato senza mezzi termini: «C' è un traffico di bambini in Romania». Di più: «La Romania è un transito delle attività della rete mondiale del traffico dei bambini». E adesso è sceso in pista Scotland Yard per far luce su questa tragedia che in Romania ha gli occhi tristi dell' infanzia devastata, centodiecimila i bambini abbandonati negli istituti. Il governo, preoccupato, ha deciso di bloccare le adozioni internazionali. Perché Emma Nicholson in Romania c' è arrivata per conto dell' Unione Europea, nel parlamento di Bruxelles è vice-presidente della commissione Affari esteri e diritti umani. Ha chiesto di entrare in Europa il presidente rumeno Ion Iliescu, tornato al potere dopo cinque anni. Ma il peso di quei bambini gli grava addosso insieme alla corruzione di un paese che a quasi dodici anni dalla caduta di Nicolae Ceausescu annaspa con l' 80% di disoccupazione e annega nell' approssimazione delle leggi. Cifre: quanti sono i bambini rumeni abbandonati che possono essere adottati? «Il Comitato rumeno per l' adozione ne ha riconosciuti 500, ma a noi risulta che siano 30 mila», afferma Valerio Piras, funzionario della nostra ambasciata a Bucarest, prima di spiegare che quei 30 mila bambini sono le cifre «ufficiose» calcolate da uno dei tanti avvocati che in Romania si occupano, appunto, di adozioni, navigando in quella melma che è la burocrazia delle adozioni dove non si resta a galla senza tirar fuori dollari a migliaia, anche fino a 40 mila. Lo stipendio medio di un dipendente rumeno non arriva ai 70 dollari al mese. Ma Valerio Piras non si scandalizza: «E' normale che le coppie arrivino qui con la disponibilità di tirar fuori dei soldi pur di velocizzare le operazioni per portarsi via i bambini. E questo è un fenomeno che inevitabilmente sfugge al governo centrale». Perché, in verità, il governo non controlla le trattative che gli enti stranieri devono portare avanti con le fondazioni rumene autorizzate per le adozioni. «Le fondazioni sono personalità giuridiche di tipo privato e privatamente decidono come gestire una trattativa», taglia corto Mircea Perpelea, prefetto di Ramnicu Valcea, uno dei 42 distretti nei quali è divisa la Romania. C' è chi ci prova a contenere i costi: «Noi un' adozione riusciamo a farla con 2 mila dollari soltanto», assicura Marco Griffini, presidente dell' Aibi, uno dei 18 enti italiani accreditati per le adozioni in Romania, nonché nell' albo delle adozioni internazionali pubblicato dalla presidenza del consiglio dopo la ratificazione della Convenzione dell' Aja. Ma inutilmente Griffini si sta sgolando per ottenere in Romania adozioni gratuite. Per adesso non solo si pagano cifre inconsulte, ma spesso non si riesce a portare a casa nemmeno i bambini. Ne sanno qualche cosa una mamma e un papà di Ascoli Piceno finiti, loro mal grado, nelle mani di un signore che negli anni Settanta ci faceva sognare con i suoi smash e le sue voilè sui campi di terra rossa. Il tennista Ion Tiriac, adesso, è diventato un uomo potente e in Romania gestisce un istituto privato a Brazov. In quell' istitututo due anni fa Luigi Aulozzi e Renata Rainaldi hanno conosciuto quelli che sarebbero dovuti diventare i loro bambini. Sembrava tutto in regola, con tanto di timbri del tribunale locale e 10 mila dollari tirati fuori per le «spese». Ma il vecchio tennista ancora oggi non ha lasciato andare i bambini: secondo lui non erano adottabili. Alessandra Arachi Gli orfanotrofi e le cifre del traffico IL PAESE Dodici anni fa cadde il regime comunista di Nicolae Ceausescu. A distanza di tanti anni, la Romania non è ancora riuscita a trovare un rilancio: la disoccupazione ha toccato l' 80 per cento GLI ISTITUTI I bambini abbandonati negli istituti romeni sono 110 mila. Ufficialmente, il Comitato rumeno per l' adozione ha riconosciuto l' adottabilità solo di 500 bambini. Ma, in realtà, le cifre ufficiose parlano di 30 mila bimbi «adottabili». Basta pagare: si può arrivare a spendere fino a 40 mila dollari, 88 milioni di lire LO STOP Il governo romeno, dopo le proteste dell' Unione europea, ha deciso di bloccare le adozioni internazionali. Il Paese stava infatti diventato il centro di un traffico mondiale di bambini

Arachi Alessandra

Pagina 17