Adoption Opponents Respond
Adoption Opponents Respond
Baroness Nicholson Calls Adoption “Human Trafficking”
As expected, anti-adoption forces have come out swinging against the memorandum created by the Romanian Office for Adoptions (ORA), recommending that certain children be allowed to find families outside Romania.
The article below was run by the Romanian-language newspaper Gandul on Friday, October 16th. Thanks to Peter Heisey for providing the translation.
The article quotes Baroness Emma Nicholson of Great Britain, architect of Romania’s current anti-adoption policies. Baroness Nicholson cites the thousands of Romanian children being trafficked abroad, and equates well-regulated adoption with such child trafficking. However, Baroness Nicholson should ask herself who is trafficking these children, now that intercountry adoption is completely banned. The people selling Romanian children to traffickers today are the children’s own birth families. Now that children are forcibly being reintegrated back into their birth families (under Nicholson’s policies), it is little wonder that the problem of child trafficking has not abated. Well-regulated adoption should alleviate, not exacerbate, this problem.
Several of Romania’s high-ranking bureaucrats follow Nicholson’s lead in equating adoption with human trafficking. In addition, they falsely state that no EU countries allow intercountry adoption (Poland and Bulgaria are among those that do), and they falsely suggest that intercountry adoption violates the Hague Convention on International Adoption. In fact, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in its June 2009 survey of Romania recommended that Romania re-open adoption, and pointed out that Romania’s adoption banis in violation of the Hague treaty.
For anyone who believes that all children deserve a permanent family, we warn you that reading the following article may cause a significant increase in your blood pressure.
The Government has the Decision of Reopening International Adoptions on the Table.
Emma Nicholson, for Gandul: “Thousands of Romanian Children are Trafficked even in Central London.”
by: Robert Veress
Whom does the ROA want to give for adoption: “children over six years old, children from minority groups, children with serious medical problems or those who are more than two siblings and can’t be reintegrated into their families.”
The ROA, directed by Liberal Democrat Bogdan Panait, sent a memorandum for approval of the government, asking for the reopening of international adoptions. Mediafax quoted from the memorandum, showing that the measures could be limited to cases in which national adoption as failed. “It’s about children older than six years, children from ethnic minorities, children with serious medical problems or those who are more than two siblings and can’t be reintegrated into their biological families and can’t be adopted in Romania, so that these children remain in the system of protection until they are 18 years old,” the memorandum from the ROA shows.
What Does the Baroness Say
Baroness Emma Nicholson, ex-European rapporteur for Romania at the beginning of the decade, criticizes the decision of the authorities in Bucharest. In an exclusive declaration for Gandul, Mrs. Nicholson maintains,”Thousands of Romanian children are trafficked in Westminster, even in entral London. There are criminal groups which exploit babies and little children. Do the Romanian authorities have a complete guarantee that if international adoptions are reopened, they will still be able to totally enforce the legislation and all it implies? I believe that the legislation in force regarding adoption contains enough stipulations to protect the interests of the children very well. It would be better if the Romanian authorities would concentrate on strengthening the weak points of the legislation which permit thousands of children to be trafficked and end up in Great Britain, France, Spain and other Western countries. These children are rarely found even after investigations by the authorities.” The Social Democrats and the Liberal Party are severely criticizing this initiative of ROA. Serban Mihailescu, a former cabinet member under Adrian Nastase, and who coordinated the reforms with regard to adoption and child protection and who collaborated with Emma Nicholson on the matter, said, “Panait has lost his head.” Mihailescu said further, “The prohibiting of international adoptions was the most important condition imposed by the European Union in terms of Romania’s entry. There is no member state that permits international adoptions. International adoptions are the fabrications of irresponsible people. What the ROA wants to do now is to get involved in human trafficking. It’s astonishing what they want to do.”
Mariela Neagu, former head of the Child Protection Services of Romania also expressed her amazement. “This is incredible. I don’t know how this legislation can be harmonized with the Hague Convention legislation nor with the European legislation on human rights. The current Romanian legislation was developed with the support of specialists from many European states and has received an extremely favorable report. This is proof that it is compatible with these international conventions to which Romania adheres. The reopening of international adoptions is a very clear signal that Romania does not want to offer care for children in difficult situations. The legislation in Holland does not allow children over six years of age to be adopted because most of the time these adoptions do not work, even if they are in country adoptions.
The prohibiting of international adoptions was one of the conditions for Romania’s entry into the European Union. There is no member state in the European Union which permits such exportation of children. Romania was for many years under the tyranny of the international press which criticized the shameful conditions of the institutions in which children were kept, but at the same time promoting the business of international adoptions. The prize for these adoptions which involved non profit organizations finding foreign parents (usually Americans) for these children, was sums of up to $50,000. Under pressure from European bodies, the moratorium on international adoptions was introduced in October of 2001. Even this moratorium was often violated. Even Traian Basescu used this matter against the government of Nastase. In 2004, even the possibility of finalizing adoptions which were in process was stopped. The current legislation went into effect in 2005, and international adoptions were supposedly a closed subject…..until now.