Silent Cradles: Life Histories of Romania’s Looked-After Children, or an important book

Mariela Neagu’s Voices from the Silent Cradles: Life Histories of Romania’s Looked-After Children was first published by Policy Press in the UK. 

Neagu, a research associate at the University of Oxford, describes her book as follows: 

“In 1990, disturbing television footage emerged showing the inhumane conditions in which children in Romanian institutions were living, and viewers were surprised that the babies were silent. The so-called ‘Romanian orphans’ became subjects of several international research studies. In parallel, Romania had to reform its child protection system in order to become a member of the European Union.

This book sheds light on the lived experiences of these children, who had become adults by the time the country joined the EU. Uniquely, the book brings together the accounts of those who stayed in institutions, those who grew up in foster care and those who were adopted, both in Romania and internationally. Their narratives challenge stereotypes about these types of care.”

Now, Neagu’s book has been translated into Romanian and published with Cluj University Press. She says this was very important to her given that most of the forty people she interviewed were Romanian speakers, and therefore one of her most important target audiences will now be able to read the book in their native language. 

A book launch for the Romanian version was held at the Faculty of Sociology in Cluj-Napoca on April 15. 

The publication of the book’s Romanian version was supported by the Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of Romanian Exile (IICCMER). Daniel Șandru, the president of the Institute, prefaced Neagu’s talk at the launch with a series of interesting remarks. 

Șandru recommended Neagu’s book as one that he is “certain will upset many institutes”, as “a painful but captivating text”, and placed Neagu’s role as an experienced manager and academic in Children’s Rights in the context of an ongoing process of justice for those who suffered under the communist regime, which has officially been declared criminal. 

Dr Maria Roth of the Faculty of Sociology pointed out that Neagu’s book boasts vast knowledge of the literature Child Protection Rights, as well as its practices, and praised both the integration of interviews with victims and the element of personal reflection. 

Neagu herself explained that this is not only a sociological but also historical work, and one that greatly influenced and affected her own life over the course of 25 years. She pointed out that a commission of justice is still imperative to reimpower people who have been wronged – mostly those found in poverty and treated as subhuman, whom the state seized and abused. She specified however that restorative justice would be more appropriate than retributive justice – for instance, victims should be offered free therapy. 

At the end of her presentation, she pointed out that Romania currently has a Child Protection scheme comparable in its lawfulness to any other country – and that these are all important, and in an eternal state of improvement. 

Mariela Neagu has a doctorate in Social Sciences and a master’s degree in International Human Rights Law from New College, Oxford. She is a former minister for child welfare in Romania and influenced the reform of the child protection system there while working for the European Commission office in Bucharest.