Romania Stops Overseas Adoption Of Its Orphans

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday January 11, 1990

CANBERRA: Romania has ruled out further adoptions of orphans overseas, dashing the hopes of Australian couples wanting to adopt Romanian children.

An Australian Immigration Department official visiting Bucharest had reported that Romania viewed the suggestion of foreign adoptions as"distasteful", the Acting Minister for Immigration, Mr West, said in a statement.

The possibility of Australians adopting some of the hundreds of children orphaned or abandoned under the rule of deposed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was raised last week after Romania allowed some foreign adoptions.

"Romania has told Australia that the new government has no intention at this stage of allowing further overseas adoptions," Mr West said.

"The (immigration) officer reported that the new government did not at all welcome proposed overseas adoptions and found them distasteful.

"Romanian officials have stressed that there are not thousands of children at orphanages, though there may be some hundreds.

"They say that most of the children have parents who had abandoned them because of hardship forced on them by the Ceausescu government.

"They believe that the parents will now be able to reclaim their children.

But the department official, whose trip was arranged before Ceausescu was toppled, said Romania would reconsider its stand on foreign adoptions after the country's more urgent problems had been solved.

"(However) I must stress that it is likely to be some time before that can happen, and it would be premature to forecast the outcome," Mr West said.

"We must bear in mind that the Romanian Government feels the problem has been sensationalised and misrepresented in the Western press. It was put to the officer that Romania can take care of its own children."