Romania's 100,000 Orphans

by Marian Chiriac

He is just one of the over 100,000 children in Romania's child-care institutions, according to official estimates.

Mihai's case was extensively highlighted by the local press who claimed that his condition was the result of starvation as staff from the orphanage stole the food destined for the needy children.

Romanian officials have launched an investigation into the alleged thefts while the European Union anti-fraud office has begun its own inquiry as the food had been donated by the EU to supplement the diets of the orphaned children.

A decade after the communist regime was overthrown, Romania is still trying to improve its image of a country where many vacant-looking and listless orphans are crowded into cold, filthy dormitories.

Such images of Romania's orphanages, which shocked the world in the wake of the former communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, unfortunately still loom large.

"The situation became better in recent times but the truth is that some child-care institutions are still in dire conditions despite the millions of dollars worth of foreign aid spent on them," says Vlad Romano, president of the National Child Rights Agency (ANDP).

ANDP was set up in January this year and it aims to return abandoned children to their biological families whenever possible or place them with foster families and provide alternative services in the existing orphanages.

Representatives of the European Union and the World Bank met with Prime Minister Mugur Isarescu to discuss the problem, and urged rapid change.

The international organizations decided to allocate over 21 million Euros in the next three years to support reforms in Romania's child protection system.

On July 14, one day before the meeting, the Romanian government adopted new rules to help local authorities to cope with the financial burden of orphanages.

The move aims to de-centralize the administration and financing for more than 440 orphanages and hospitals across the country.

The new legislation also sets rules for the transfer of funds to local public child care services, but the government has yet to estimate the size of the total funds needed.

In June, Bucharest doubled budget allocations for child protection to $209 million this year, compared to 1999.

"It is important that Romania now has almost all the needed laws in order to improve child protection, de-centralize administration and finance child care institutions," says Irina Cojocaru, manager of "Copilul Meu" (My Child) Foundation.

"The only problem is that the money does not always get to the children. It gets lost in bureaucratic circles," she added.

"Copilul Meu" Foundation's activity seems to be a successful story. Founded just two years ago, it has accommodated over 40 children in foster families while 30 other babies have been adopted.

"As a private institution we have to work directly with our sponsors and have responsibility for every penny we get," Irina Cojocaru added.

The situation is quite different in most state-run institutions.

Continuing poverty -- the average monthly salary is less than $100 -- and lack of family planning facilities have kept orphanages full. A total of 74,000 children are living in cradles across Romania.

Another 25,000 live in foster homes and 2,000 on the streets of the main cities.

The crisis can no longer be blamed on the communist regime when Nicolae Ceausescu banned contraception and forced women to have more children than they could look after, in an move to boost the country's work force.

Over the past decade, failed economic reforms and high unemployment have led to crippling poverty -- the number of abandoned children increasing in line with the growth in impoverished families.

At least 1,000 children are annually abandoned -- many of them by poverty-stricken teenage mothers, 60 percent of whom are unmarried.

"Families with many children, single or very young mothers are most likely to abandon their children," says Raluca Slamnescu, manager with Save the Children foundation.

A survey conducted by her agency showed 37 percent of families abandoning their children are living on a monthly income worth the equivalent of $15 per family member.

Lack of proper housing conditions has prompted another 26 percent of families, with more than six children, to put their children in state care while most young mothers aged 15 to 19 were abandoning their babies after birth.

"Most of the poor families say they would keep their children provided they got support like money, clothes and food," Slamnescu said.