July 07, 2004
Is the EU just blind, or in fact stupid?
EU enlargement commissioner Guenter Verheugen on Tuesday congratulated Romania for a new law restricting the possibility for foreigners to adopt Romanian children.Verheugen called for the law, which parliament voted last week, to be strictly applied in order to bring Romania in line with European Union legislation.
"This law is very clear. International adoption is now possible under very strict conditions," Verheugen told a press conference.
Source: EU Business.com
I know. I'm not really one to judge harshly. But I can't find words strong enough for my outrage over this latest development in the adoption law.
Honestly, I do wonder whether the EU has lost its collective mind. Does Verheugen have any idea what this law will actually do - and what not? It seems to me that he doesn't.
If he thinks that the restrictions on international adoption -- namely, it has to be made sure that a child will absolutely not be adopted by a Romanian family before it will be made eligible for international adoption -- if he thinks it will stop child trafficking, then he better think again. The only thing the law will actually do about child trafficking is it will raise the profits of those performing it and the receiving ends will pay much more than they did before. Hello? Romania is a corrupt society. Did someone not pay attention?
What this law will do is to ensure that children, who otherwise could be adopted into families in the EU or the States, and have safe and happy lives, will now stay in the Romanian orphanage system for years before it's clear they will not be adopted nationally. Romanians are very peculiar about adopting, it's not a generally accepted social phenomenon. It's not as if thousands of desperate Romanian families are standing in line for adoption. Plus, Romanian bureaucracy is... slow, if you want to be kind. It really will take years for each child to determine that it isn't wanted in Romania.
What this means for the children is clear to anybody who doesn't have a potato for a brain: the children will suffer neglect and be traumatized for the rest of their lives. Romanian state orphanages are horrible, to say the least.
In particular, this law is bad news for gypsy kids. While they might very well be adopted abroad, hardly any Romanian will give adopting a gyspy kid a second thought. But the system won't release those kids any earlier. Again, the minorities are those who will suffer most.
Is Verheugen aware of this? Is the EU? I can't imagine they aren't because there are a lot of people, including now-Ex Ambassdor Guest from the USA who kept arguing against this law. The facts are on the table.
America's ambassador to Bucharest described the law as a "tragedy", which would bar thousands of childless couples legitimately providing some of Romania's 40,000 orphans with a high standard of living in the US. Source: Deutsche Welle
No, it's not about children only being happy when they are raised in the US. It's about the fact that spending your most important childhood years in a Romanian state orphanage will screw you up for life.
Verheugen and the EU are guilty of child neglect in the worst possible manner. I'm disgusted about the behavior of both the Romanian government and the EU. Shame on you both.
Posted by claudia at July 7, 2004 02:09 PMIt's the baroness Emma Nicholson the one responsible for all this. And yes, she thinks it will stop the traffic. She had a piece in The Guardian a while back. Oh, here it is:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,1250908,00.html
But... the American response? "OK, since these Romanians aren't listening to us, let's tell CNN to re-run that two year old piece of story they've got in their archives about orphans and foreign paedophiles in Romania, tear down to pieces the rest of the positive image they have - if any".
A coincidence that CNN re-ran a 2 yrs old documentary? I think not.
Best of luck.
Posted by: X at July 7, 2004 05:19 PMYeah, the baroness... I'm sorry, I just can't take her seriously. It seems like one of those cases where people with only half the information try to solve the entire problem. It never works.
Fact is, the situation in the (few left-over) state orphanages is still abominable. Private enterprises are often more hindered than encouraged by well-meant but ill-executed laws. In the end, the children only suffer.
I love Romania. I love living here. But I do not agree that upholding a positive image is desirable if it means to cover up something that is so grave.
There are lots of wonderful aspects about Romania. Its people is just one, the landscape is another, and there are many more. The orphanages, and the entire treatment of the orphan problem, is not.
The solution to the problem -- or to the baroness' complaints -- is political, not social or even humane. As so often, politics outweighs common sense. I just wonder why the baroness, or Verheugen, or anybody of any importance in the EU, isn't capable of seeing this.
Yes, I feel strongly about the subject. I have kids of my own. I see the street kids every day. Something needs to be done. This law isn't it.
Posted by: claudia at July 7, 2004 05:48 PM"Traffiking" is a loaded way to describe the process, anyway. Would-be parents are (in programs like China's) overjoyed to pay "high" fees, provided only that (most of) the fees help speed up the overall process of adopting for ALL the kids, locally or internationally, and the the facilities and institutions providing care for the kids in the system are being continually improved. That (a little bit of the orhpans') money sticks to the fingers of the bureaucrats handling things is considered par for the course among the US groups I frequent.
"Honest Graft gets the road built", I believe Doug says.
Posted by: Pouncer at July 7, 2004 07:38 PMI'm really not surprised, though that new law is disaster, but EU encourages many wierd things, and had recently made Romania introduce visas to Serbia...
Posted by: bojan at July 8, 2004 12:30 PMOh Claudia, no post has so unsettled me as this one of yours. At first I thought, is there nothing that I don't agree with Claudia on? But then my mind went, Maybe the EU is really responding to protecting their own adoptions within their own borders. Nothing else made any sense.
Then I thought about the Romanian Orphanages I know in Hunedoara, Sebes, ect and it struck me, though I could be wrong on this, they're still just kids, by in large nice kids, the Orphanages run by pretty decent people doing a heroic job with very little funding.
And lastly I had to explore my own prejudices against adoption, (no reason to lie to you, Claudia, yes I have them). And so I called some people that have both adopted and natural children...in two cases a Romanian child, though I had nothing to do with this except encouragment, and everyone told me that they loved their adopted children as much or sometimes even more than their natural children.
This surprised me a little. Hummmmmm...
Claudia, thanks for the post, but I will think on this a while longer and get back to you.
Best wishes,
Posted by: Traveller at July 9, 2004 12:30 PMThe absurdity is that when Romania does actually join the EU then all EU citizens will have the same adoptions rights to Romanian children as Romanians do. Look at the new Constitution: One cannot discriminate on the basis of nationality.
Posted by: Tim Worstall at July 11, 2004 05:31 PMHi,
I am actually very interested in this subject. We are one of those cuples in USA that cannot have children and want to adopt. I am still Romanian citizen, my husband is American born citizen. The ban on international adotions brings us a lot of frustration because now not only we need to deal with the stress of being infertile, but we cannot legally adopt a soul from Romania.
My husband wanted to adopt from Romania and now we need to look somewhere else, like China. Well, China is a communist country but is a choice. Romania is a "democratic" country but is not a choice.
And thousands of Romanian children are going to be in the Romanian system instead of on loving families.
Ohhh, is hard to talk about this.
Marinela
Posted by: Marinela at August 29, 2004 06:15 PM