Campaigner:Romania has stopped baby sales

BUCHAREST – A senior European Union parliamentarian said last Thursday Romania had managed to stop the sale of babies for profit and backed its decision to allow several hundred international adoptions to go ahead. „The magnificent efforts by Prime Minister (Adrian) Nastase and his team have created laudable results,“ Emma Nicholson, the European parliament‘s special representative for Romania told Reuters. Romania imposed a ban on foreign adoptions last June after the European Union denounced them as child trafficking and said Bucharest nee-ded to clean up a process riddled with corruption if it wanted to earn EU entry. But foreign families who had already picked children from orphanages protested loudly at the ban, saying they had already formed attachments with youngsters and returning them to institutional care would be cruel.

The EU-inspired ban cast a shadow over Romania‘s bid to win a NATO entry invitation this year as U.S. families lobbied senators to vote against Bucharest‘s membership of the alliance if the ban on adoptions was not lifted. Around 3,500 foreign families were estimated to be in the process of adopting a Romanian child when the ban was imposed. A few dozen exceptions have been granted and Nastase allowed a further 81 adoption cases to go ahead this week.

Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu‘s ban on birth control packed orphanages with unwanted children, whose plight came to global attention after the fall of communism in 1989. Since then 40-50,000 children have been shipped out of Romania for fees of up to $50,000, while the number ininstitutions barely decreased. Stung into action by last year‘s EU report, Nastase pledged changes to a system that had sold babies to the highest bidder. „International adoptions will be a residual solution in the near future,“ Nastase said, with only „exceptional cases, gravely ill or handicapped,“ qualifying to go abroad.

EU-backed legislation should be in place by October when the ban expires. It will outlaw advertising, fees and commissions related to adoption and impose a 18-month compulsory residency for foreigners along with tough post-adoption monitoring. Romanian authorities are now promoting domestic foster care and adoptions to help slash the number of children going abroad to the low dozens per year from 2003. Since the moratorium began domestic adoptions, which are free, have risen 50 percent. Nicholson, who recently discussed the adoption issue with leading U.S. senators, said Romania‘s NATO bid was not at risk. U.S. lawyer David Livianu said planned legislation would block many foreign families from adopting a baby from 2003. (Reuters)