For the Children

For the Children is an organization composed of adoptive parents and concerned parties who are united in their concern for the welfare of orphaned Romanian children. With full understanding of Romanias current position with European Union negotiations, For the Children brings to you its profound concerns regarding the current draft laws on The Status of Adoption and the Rights of the Child being considered passed by the Romanian Parliament and awaiting signature by President Iliescu.

We ask that the following information be considered in Romanias adoption reform that will impact the lives of these children.

Conventions, Laws and Treaties

The best interest of the child according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Convention on International Adoption is permanency. The Hague Convention on intercountry adoption seeks to protect childrens interests: everything must be done to find a child a family in his birth country; when that fails, everything must then be done to find him a family in another country, to grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding. Institutionalization is defined as children in institutions, foster care and any child under government jurisdiction

Article 20 of the Romanian Constitution states, Constitutional provisions concerning the citizens rights and liberties shall be interpreted and enforced in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the covenants and other treaties Romania is a party to. In ratifying The Hague Convention, Romania agreed to uphold the tenets embodied by the Convention. The proposed Romanian law violates this vital principle.

On January 23, 2004, UNICEF clarified their position that adoption is preferred over institutional care: 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 measureIntercountry 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.

Child Welfare Structure

A fully functioning child welfare infrastructure cannot be fulfilled until Romania reaches economic, political, and social stability. Long term planning is essential with benchmarks for goals at 5, 10, 15 and 20 years. Implementing programs quickly in response to a crisis are destined to fail.



Foster Care

In the past 24 months, tens of thousands of children have been placed in foster care families by a system that has offered little or no training, minimal monitoring and is destined to fail.

Studies indicate that the foster care system in the United States and Europe are not successful. When children raised in the foster care system become adults, many end up in prostitution, prisons, living on the streets, uneducated and with a higher suicide rate.

A study conducted in England concluded that, the prevalence rate of psychiatric disorders among adolescents in the [foster] care system was 67 percent compared with a rate of 15 percent in the living-at-home group.

Numbers of domestic adoptions in Romania has increased slightly, but continued prejudice of certain ethnic populations, lack of income, and the current administrations views on foster care as a permanent option will result in children still not having the right to permanency under the current proposed law.

Foster care, like orphanages, is institutional care that should be considered as a temporary, not permanent, solution for children. Although proper, loving foster families are superior to large institutional facilities, studies have consistently shown that foster care fails to provide the permanency that a child needs for optimal growth and development: When children grow up without permanent homes, they are in great danger of emotional trauma, problems in school, risky behaviors, trouble with the law, and poor life outcomes. Studies show that children who have grown up in foster care are over-represented in the homeless and prison populations.
Corruption in Adoption

Corruption in adoption must stop! But terminating all intercountry adoption results in a life sentence to most of the children in Romania and is not an option. Other countries battling corruption have found a way to keep adoptions open and create systems and precautions to prevent corruption.

Independent commissions should be implemented with representation from Romania and other countries to assure that measures are in place to prevent corruption and review any allegations of corruption in adoption.


Waiting Children from the Moratorium

The moratorium allowed some children the right to permanency. Since the moratorium 384 children were placed in the United States and 605 were placed in the European Union with a total of 1,115 children being placed totally.

Hundreds of families from European countries who have ratified The Hague and the United States, a signatory to The Hague, were in the process of adopting children under the Emergency Ordinance. These cases were legally filed in Romania. The law was in effect, the children met the criteria and yet they have been refused the right to join their permanent families. Some of these families have been waiting since the fall of 2002.

These children have the right to have their approval granted and join their families. Is there not an ethical and moral obligation to allow these children immediate clearance and allow their adoption process to proceed?

Intercountry adoption is not the exportation of children, nor do these children lose their culture in the process. On the contrary, the children gain a lifelong family while learning about and honoring the country and culture they came from. All of those who have been blessed to adopt a child from any country view it is a precious gift one that will be treasured forever.

We commend the country of Romania and their effort to protect the rights of the children. We know that those commitments will continue in the future. Now is the time set aside political rhetoric when making decisions that will affect these children for eternity. The people of the European Union and the United States pledge our commitment and solidarity to the children of Romania.

No matter how much improvement we may make, there are always opportunities for growth. Those opportunities arise from problems that may have been identified and new issues that have arisen; they, like the issues of the past, will also be solved if we always remember what we are here to domake a difference in the life of a child.