Romania Acts to Speed Up Adoptions UPDATED

By on 11-30-2011 in Domestic Adoption, International Adoption, Orphan Care, Romania

Romania Acts to Speed Up Adoptions UPDATED

Marian Chiriac in Balkan Insight  is reporting today that “Romania has passed a law aimed at encouraging more domestic adoptions, in order to slash the number of children kept in orphanages.

“The law allows children to leave the state protection system much earlier, speeding up the adoption process,” Bogdan Panait, president of the Romanian Office for Adoptions, ORA, said.
“Children who have not been visited by their parents for a year will be declared automatically available for adoption. If no other relatives of the child can be identified within a month, he or she will be put up for adoption,” Panait explained.
Another important change in the law is that Romanian citizens living abroad will be able to adopt children from Romania. They will no longer fall under the terms of the ban on international adoptions introduced in 2001.
The new adoption law will come into force within four months.
The number of children held in Romanian orphanges has already fallen massively. Twenty years ago, there were more than 100,000 children in state care homes.
Now only 7,000 remain and the plan is to take the rest from the orphanages and close them by 2020.
Romania is currently under pressure to resume international adoptions, halted in 2001, but with more families in Romania wishing to adopt than there are children available, change looks unlikely.”

Update: “The new law, passed in November and coming into force next spring, should reduce red tape and shorten the length of the adoption process, viewed as the two main hurdles for adopting orphans.

The new adoption law limits to one year the evaluation process, after which a child can be declared adoptable if the biological parents do not claim the child. It will also extend the period during which an orphan is declared adoptable from one to two years, therefore increasing the chances of the child finding a new home.

Previously, the adoptee’s relatives, up to the fourth degree, were encouraged by the courts to adopt the child. Under the new law, relatives will be merely informed the child has been declared adoptable without pressure to adopt.

Authorities and analysts are optimistic about the new law.

“We have elaborated and promoted the changes in the law on adoptions, with the very purpose to increase the number of annual adoptions. We anticipate that in time statistics will show a significant increase in this respect,” Bogdan Panait, head of the National Adoptions Office (ORA), told SETimes.

There are currently 851 children undergoing adoption procedures in the courts, Panait said. In 2010, 1,011 were adopted.

Panait said the new amendments are the outcome of a 2010-2011 nationwide study carried out in partnership with UNICEF that highlighted the long and complex adoption procedure as obstacles.

Specialists say the new law fits current Romanian social realities.

“Changing the law on adoptions is a step forward taken by the Romanian authorities and meets the demands of the families in line to adopt a child,” Mihaela Naftanaila, editor of the newspaper Romania Libera, told SETimes.

“It brings a new philosophy, basically changing the focus from reintegrating children with their families at the risk of not being effectively accepted, to giving them up for adoption to families that meet strict economic and moral criteria and who desperately want a child,” she explained.

With 67,000 children in orphanages, Naftanaila says the new law will go some ways towards integrating children and providing them with proper care and education to succeed once they are adults.

“Once integrated in adoptive families, they will not end up on the streets, cleaning car windshields at intersections, because after turning 18 they were expelled from orphanages,” she concluded.

In line with the new provisions, ORA started training social workers in local government to handle the new caseload.

However, despite the progress, some hurdles still stand in the way: lack of specialized personnel in some of the regions, societal prejudice and the absence of courts specialised in adoptions.

Statistics show that Romanians prefer to adopt children between zero and three years of age that have not been in an orphanage and are of the same ethnic origin.

In the end, adoption can provide fulfillment and opportunity for both the child and family, as attested to by one story.
“I adopted a little girl from a poor family in the countryside in 1987. Despite all the obstacles of the then reclusive system, I came out victorious in the end,” A. Sandulescu told SETimes.

“But it was not the system itself that bothered me the most, but the people around me. My family had to move because of my neighbors’ insistence to tell my young daughter she had been adopted. But looking back, I am sure I would do it again with no second thoughts,” she said.

Her daughter, now 26 years old, just graduated from the medical faculty and works as an intern.

“I know that I changed her life completely by offering her this chance. And that’s what probably keeps all these families in line to adopt a child.””

Romania’s new law streamlines adoptions
[Southeast European Times 12/20/11 by Paul Ciocoiu]

Update 2: “Adoption in Romania is to be easier in future, following parliament’s adoption of a new law aimed at encouraging more adoptions in the country.

The goal is to slash the number of children kept in the country’s scandal-ridden orphanages and close these institutions for good in the next ten years.
“We are hoping to double the number of adopted children in a year, as the new law allows them to leave the state protection system much earlier,” Bogdan Panait, president of the Romanian Office for Adoptions, ORA, said.
“Children who have not been visited by their parents for a year will be declared automatically available for adoption. If no other relatives of the child can be identified within a month, he or she will be put up for adoption,” he explained.

“We support the new law as it will allow families to fulfill their dream of adopting a much desired kid much faster,” Simona Czudar, from “Ador Copiii” organization, said.

Another important change is that Romanian citizens living abroad will be able to adopt children from Romania and will no longer fall under the ban on international adoptions introduced in 2001.
The number of children held in Romanian orphanges has already fallen massively. Twenty years ago, more than 100,000 children were in state care homes.
But in recent years the numbers has crept up again, as parents go to work abroad and leave their children in care.
Today around 67,000 children are in state shelters, but only 1,900 of them were legally available for adoption before the new law came into force. The authorities are planning to take all the children out of orphanages and close them in the next decade.
Romania is currently under pressure to resume the international adoptions halted in 2001, but with more families in Romania wishing to adopt than there are children available, such a change looks unlikely.”

Romania Eases Adoptions to Empty Orphanages
[Balkan Insight 4/10/12 by Marian Chiriac]

Update 3: US DOS was not too far behind on this one! Bravo.They also highlight that Romanian citizens who are legal residents of the US can’t immigrate a Romanian adoptee to the US unless one spouse is a US citizen. That has always been the case, so it is odd that they wanted to highlight this, and it makes us wonder if this is a weak attempt to deter US agencies/attorneys or Romanian agencies/attorneys from falsely signing on Romanian citizen clients who are legal residents of the US. They are going to sign on clients anyway and beg for Humanitarian Parole and get congressmen involved as that is how the Wild West adoption system works.

Yet DOS doesn’t step in when children from a mixed-citizenship marriage in which the children are US citizens are allowed to be deported to Zimbabwe.

Notice: Romania New Adoption Law in Effect The Romanian Office for Adoptions announced that its new adoption law
[DOS April 10, 2012 alert]

“The Romanian Office for Adoptions announced that its new adoption law went into effect on April 7, 2012. The new law allows for intercountry adoptions of Romanian children by relatives of the fourth degree of kinship, the spouse of the child’s natural parent, and Romanian citizens who are habitually resident abroad.

Please be aware that the U.S. law implementing the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (the Convention), the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (IAA), requires prospective adoptive parents to be U.S. citizens in order to be eligible to apply for intercountry adoption using U.S. procedures. This means that Romanian citizens legally residing in the United States will be able to adopt from Romania only if they or their spouses are also U.S. citizens.

Moreover, the U.S. Hague Adoption Convention accreditation regulations (22 CFR 96) provide that in each Convention adoption case, an accredited agency, a temporarily accredited agency, or an approved person will be identified and act as the primary provider. More information on the role of U.S. accredited ASPs and the role of U.S. accrediting entities is available on the Department’s adoption website, adoption.state.gov.

The Department of State has provided information to the Romanian Office for Adoption about the U.S. requirement for a primary provider to serve in each Convention adoption, explaining the critical monitoring and oversight role of U.S. accrediting entities in ensuring that ASPs remain in substantial compliance with the IAA and the Convention. We look forward to the opportunity to expand our cooperation with Romania as Convention partner countries.”

“critical monitoring and oversight”….snort!

Update 4: DOS issues June 28, 2012 update on Agency Authorization

See here and pasted below:

“

Notice: Agency Authorization Required by Romanian Law

 

The Romanian Office for Adoptions (the Office) reported to the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest that it will allow private non-profit organizations accredited in the foreign receiving country to transmit documents in intercountry adoption procedures provided that they are also authorized by the Office. U.S. accredited agencies that would like to work on behalf of U.S. prospective adoptive parents adopting children from Romania should submit a request for authorization to the Office with the following documents:

 

  1. A copy of all state statutes governing adoption service providers in the state where they are licensed;
  2. Domestic licenses and Hague accreditation documentation;
  3. Documents pertaining to the organizational and personnel structure;
  4. A history of the activities already performed, and recommendations from other collaborators, as well as from foreign authorities that supervise the agency’s work overseas;
  5. A description of planned activities and work methodology in Romania;
  6. A commitment to present to the Office only the applications of those families or individuals with whom the respective private organization has signed an agreement (contract, understanding) regarding the follow-up of the child after the adoption is granted by qualified personnel, for a period of at least two (2) years from the time the child enters the territory of the foreign state;
  7. A commitment to present to the Office annual activity reports, in view of the renewal of the authorization, as well as periodic reports, at its request;
  8. A commitment to forward to the Office quarterly reports for post-adoption follow-up required by the Office.”

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