Romanian is not breaking the Hague Convention
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Famous UK professor of family rights explaining why the moratorium must be preserved
UK academic journal "Family and children Rights" published a vest study on international adoptions in Romania, a study signed by Professor Andrew Bainham, associate professor at Christ's College and family legislation expert t Cambridge University. Bainham is analyzing in detail the evolution of Romanian abandoned children and presents the main international rules for international adoptions that Romania is assigned to. That is UNCRC (The UNO Convention on Children Rights), The Hague Convention on child protection and cooperation in international adoptions and the EU Convention on children and the jurisdiction of The European Court (The European Convention). After discussing and comparing these and the Romanian case, Bainham reaches conclusion: Romania has got no international obligation to take up international adoptions again, as international conventions include several points asking Romania not to do such a thing".
The 1990 and 1993 laws allowed for "a children market"
The quoted article shows before 1990 international adoptions in Romania were very rare. The freedom came after the law 11 in 1990, which, although saying internal adoption was preferable, was issued as consequence of the great number of children in public care institutions. In the period the orphans, the abandoned and the disabled were preferred to enter institutions. Law 47 in 1993created a new concept for abandonment. A child under social or medical care in an institution could be registered as abandoned by court sentence, if it was shown his parents didn't care about him for 6 months. Professor Bainham said the 1990 and 1993 laws became the basis of what has later turned to be a children market.
USAID: Offer and demand on the international children market
In 1997, the Romanian Government introduced a new international adoption mechanism, promoting an "offer - based" system replaced the previous one, which was "demand - based", according to the 1990 law. So before 1997, international adoption process started by an adoption application from a family. After his year Romanian Officials have kept a "constant offer" of children meant to international adoption by database. Under he regime, children were treated as goods and this way all of Romania's international assignments were broken.
Another report in 2001, written by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) states: " Almost every meeting on Romanian adoption we have had included the use of trade terms, such as 'auction', 'market' and 'price". Those we have talked to have frequently apologized for using these inappropriate terms, but explained they described the situation best."
The Hague Convention versus the UNO Convention
The Hague Convention on international adoptions is mainly inspired by UNCRC, saying the child's interest is the most important aspect.
The reason "international adoption is in favor of the child"
Professor Bainham shows in the concluding part that there is a counter argument saying it is the child's interest to live in a family background, be it international. This is preferred to a care institution. Professor Bainham says "this statement is attractive, based on deeply ignoring Romanian conditions and the many children who could use family care, instead of living in institutions. If there was an adoption market".
The article's final conclusion is a simple one: "The last thing Romania needs now is the threat due to political reasons that it would better liberalize the international adoption market again. The Romania Government is more and more aware that, no matter the types of interests obeyed to by this practice, they don't include the interests of Romanian children and their families". (D.E.)
Articol disponibil la adresa http://www.ziua.net/display.php?id=146186&data=2004-05-01