Opinion

What happened to Romania's orphans?

By: Stephen Maughan

Conditions are certainly better for Romania's orphans since the horrific discoveries following the Revolution, but there remains room for a whole lot more improvement

Posted: 29/07/2009

An orphan's fate in Romania is often based on luck.

Few can forget the horrors of Romania's orphanages of the early 1990s. Following the fall of the Ceausescu regime in December 1989 Romania, although newly liberated, became notorious for the appalling conditions within its state-run orphanages and institutions. The world was shocked by television and newspaper images of half-starved abandoned children chained to their beds. Aid agencies rushed to help and governments condemned what they saw, yet behind the scenes the children continued to suffer. A UNICEF report claimed that in 1990 86,000 children were in institutions, yet curiously by 1994 the numbers had increased to 98,000 children. Perhaps even more surprising is that in 2005 the figure had fallen to just over 80,000. All this despite an increase in international adoptions. (Between 1992-1994 about 10,000 Romanian children were adopted worldwide, according to a report for Toronto Life).

Officially, orphanages in Romania have all been closed; that was one of the conditions of joining the EU in 2007, which in turn followed a European Parliament report in 2001 criticising the country for its treatment of orphans. However, the question remains: what exactly has happened to all those children? The Romanian government claims 12,000 of those orphans now live in foster care, and the orphanages have all been replaced by smaller, modern institutions. Aside from a few celebrities such as JK Rowling and Sarah Brown, the wife of the British prime minister, rallying to the causes of Romanian children, the issue of Romania's orphans is believed - in the wider world at least - to have ended once and for all when Romania joined the EU in 2007. Indeed Baroness Emma Nicholson, MEP for SE England and an international campaigner for children's rights went so far as to declare in 2008 that "Romania has fundamentally reformed its child protection system and has gone from having the worst system in Europe to developing one of the best".

Sadly the reality is far different. Unicef's State of the World's Children 2009 report put Romania's child mortality for under five years of age was 16,000 (compared to just 5,000 for Britain). In October 2008, the General Directorate of Social Welfare and Child Services (DSASOC) issued a report in which Romania's chief social inspector, Maria Muga, stated that 92 per cent of the children in state care did not own any toys, 97 per cent had no cultural and sporting equipment, 77 per cent had no school supplies, and 65 per cent had no toiletry and hygiene supplies.

As for the children now taken into foster care, the recent official DGASPC report said on average there was one social worker for every 100 children, but since joining the EU Romania guaranteed that one social worker should monitor the progress of 25 children in foster care. The social inspector details significant problems within the organisation level of foster care. These factors support the Unicef report's conclusion that "An underestimation of the issues at stake has resulted in too many reforms under pressure, which in turn have led to uncoordinated, contradictory and unfocussed stop-and-go reforms". Hardly one of the best child protection services in Europe!

The sheer number of so many children requiring foster homes creates its own problems. A World Bank report conducted in 2007, which looked at the fate of abandoned children in foster care in Romania, concluded that "It is remarkable how little support these children have received" and mentions problems including foster parents' substance and alcohol abuse, as well as child abuse and neglect. It is hardly surprising this goes unchecked or ignored when Romanian social workers are too few in a badly organised state run system.

Street children is another serious problem facing Romania. Unicef estimated in 2004 that 2,000 street children lived in Bucharest alone, 500 permanently, either working or begging to survive.

Yet life for these Romanian children is brighter than the fate of disabled and Roma children. According to a Harvard Review article in August 2007 "Having attained EU membership, Romania now has less incentive to improve the conditions for disabled children, but has instead turned a blind eye". In fact, Romanian Law 272 on Children's Rights which claims that although orphans under two could not live in state run institutions, disabled orphans are to be sent there from birth. The sad fact is that disabled children are unlikely to find foster families, and will spend their lives 'living' in these institutions, which may not officially be called 'orphanages' yet are "not proper homes for children and further the development of disabilities," according to the Harvard Review. Unicef estimates that there are about 200 of these institutions with up to 30,000 disabled children living there. It is hardly surprising that the report claims only 28 per cent of the 52,000 disabled children living in Romania obtain "some education". Many of these children rely on charity workers to support and visit them within these 'homes'.

The Gypsy community of Romania may well be romanticised by outsiders, but according to Unicef the Roma population, which makes up 7-10 per cent of the Romanian population, has a poverty rate of 77 per cent. Karen Bucur, head of Pathway to Joy, a charity based in Oradea, which also works with the Roma community told me "Their poverty is hard to describe. There is no running water, so with that comes health issues, disease, and the children are uneducated for the most part". Due to the stigma within Romania about the Roma community, vulnerable children rely even more on outside help. Ms Bucur tells me of two little Roma girls, Alexandra and Alina, who the charity found in a dreadful state last winter without clothing and food, and with no support from the social services; the charity was forced to act independently to secure the children's safety, who now thanks to the charity live in a foster family financially supported by Pathway to Joy.

An orphan's fate in Romania is often based on luck. If you are lucky enough to be taken into a good foster family, or receive help through a local charity, working in Romania to support and care for you, you may well be able to lead a normal child's life. However, if you are disabled, or happen to be born in a Roma village, or are just stuck in the state institutions, your physical and mental wellbeing can hang in the balance. Undoubtedly improvements have been made in child welfare issues, but the situation in Romania today still has a long way to go.

Stephen Maughan is a freelance journalist, recently graduated from Britain's NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists). http://spmaughan.snappages.com

Comments:

1.

Saturday 01st August 2009 at 15:08

John Mulligan said:

"Good article by Stephen, but it won't find favour with the bureaucrats in Brussels. The EU didn't want to know the truth about conditions in state-run institutions prior to Romania's accession -- the "land grab" of enlargement was the overriding driver and all human rights issues were swept under the carpet. The other half of this story of course is that children grow up, pass the age of eighteen and disappear from the children's statistics. Romania still has too many adults with a range of disabilities and living in what are virtual prison camps, sentenced to life for the "crime" of being disabled. Far from helping them, the EU is providing funds to restore these institutions and compound the wrong; that same EU will not provide funds for community housing, they "will not interfere in the affairs of a member state". So, the cruelty and abuse goes on, and on. Everyone got what they wanted in the EU enlargement process -- the USA got military bases in Eastern Romania, the EU got its territory before the Russians were able to take it back, the people in the know in Romania made a fortune from adhesion funding. As usual though, the kids and adults in state "care" got nothing at all."

2.

Sunday 02nd August 2009 at 19:08

Andrew Taylor said:

"An excellent, informative article, with a strong argument supported by facts. The sad story of children, is, as I've written in Vivid before a reflection of society itself. Much has changed here, but far from equally and some material gains are hardly a substitute for the almost complete absence of a civil society. Step outside your house, or office and I guarantee that within 10 minutes walk you can find scenes from Slumdog Millionaire. For the reasons the author outlines, relying on the Romanian state is pointless, so just ask yourself the question what are you doing about protecting the weakest in society? My company designed and, with the client, delivered an award winning programme to bring street children and managers together. It was tremendously exciting for all concenred and the global board of a major multinational recognisied it as the best HR project and most dynamic business project in the world in 2006 and donated $100 000 to a centre for street children. The Romanian government has never asked about it. Imagine the support they could get from the corporate world. Meanwhile the programme has been rolled out in Bangladesh and India, with great success. It is sad, but unfortunately Trompenaars assertions that Romania is the second most individualistic society on earth stills holds true in too many ways."

3.

Wednesday 05th August 2009 at 21:08

Stephen Maughan said:

"Yes, a recent world bank and unicef report in April backs this up concerning the fate of the very poor (and orphans) during the economic downturn in Romania saying Romania state services “are either insufficient or lacking the necessary quality to effectively protect the most in need children” see http://www.unicef.org/romania/Crisis_Impact_UNICEF_WB.pdf ....I'll also be in Brasov early in November doing research into a follow-up article, and it would be great to meet with any readers with experiences or stories to tell."

4.

Thursday 24th September 2009 at 12:09

finbarr murphy said:

"Very good article and a reflection of the true situation in Romania in so far as children in care are concerned. I don't think it is possible to underestimate the levels of depravity that still exist in state care that are in reality orphanages under a different name. Theses institutions are the concentration camps of out time and economic excuses for child neglect and cruelty are not acceptable. Keep going with your work Stephen because the story is still there to be told and it is a tragic one that is still ongoing."