In a week that has been filled with plenty of legislative bad news on the adoption front domestically, I figured a brief post on this little bit of good news was in order.

Despite the petition efforts of an Italian adoption agency to reopen Romanian inter-country adoptions to a broader set of would-be-adopters, for now at least adoptions will remain closed to all but a very few family members.

On Pound Pup Legacy, user Romanian-Reporter had a piece a couple of days back pertaining to the pressure being exerted to reopen Romanian adoptions, Romania is still being pressured to export children:

In 2001 Romania placed a ban on Inter Country adoptions of its children after massive corruption was discovered within these kinds of adoptions. Ever since the ban came into place the Country has been unjustly pressurized by the leading Countries involved in Inter- Country Adoptions. France, Italy, Spain, Israel and the US and UK have all lobbied to get this ban lifted. The politicians in these Countries involved have interests in adoption agencies and in many cases adoptive parents too.

While there have been numerous changes in the Romanian system, I am fully supportive of the decision not to reopen.

I haven’t much to add to that, so instead, I’ll finish by pulling a few links and some of the important pieces out of the articles.

MEP Victor Bostinaru to declare against petition requesting new start to international adoptions

Romanian MEP Victor Bostinaru, of the Social Democratic Party, the coordinator of the European Socialists and Democrats on the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions (PETI), on Monday will declare against the petition brought forward by the Italian organization „Amici dei Bambini” requesting a new start to international adoptions.

The European deputy is to ask for an end to be put to this petition by the European Parliament’s committee, informs a press release. The above-mentioned petition (No 1120/2009) is brought forward by Marco Graffini on behalf of the organization „Amici dei Bambini” (“The Friends of Children”) and its subject is „Romania’s observing international conventions on children’s rights.”

The petition asks for a new start to international adoptions, namely Romania’s being sanctioned in keeping with Article 7 of the European Union treaty. The petition was supported by PETI chairperson Erminia Mazzoni, a member of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusoni’s party.

„Both the current legislation and the moratorium on international adoptions are a direct consequence of a special situation created in Romania: child trafficking, by kidnapping and selling these children to West European countries and the US.

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The reasons for which the Bucharest authorities in 2001 made the decision on the moratorium still exist, some strong guarantees to the contrary lacking. One must never forget the fact that, in the pre-accession period, it was the EU that asked Romania to introduce the moratorium and its being adopted was hailed both by the European Parliament and by the European Commission repeatedly,” said Victor Bostinaru.

„The Romanian legislation, as well as the moratorium actually, has not violated any international or European regulation. One further needs a sound system and putting an end to the moratorium can only be gradual and monitored. I am urging all people who want an end to this moratorium to get familiar with the situation existing before 2001,” he added.

Romanian orphans are, once again, on Brussels’ agenda

Romanian orphans are, once again, on Brussels’ agenda, Evenimentul Zilei reads. The European Parliament Petitions Commission is discussing today Italy’s petition for unblocking the international adoptions in the case of Romanian children. Romania has banned international adoptions in 2005.

Romania’s representative social-democrat Victor Bostinaru already announced that he was against the petition. He’s facing Commission’s president Italian Erminia Mazzoni, who’s supporting her co-nationals, namely the “Amici dei Bambini” (‘Friends of Children) organisation, which shows that Romania is allegedly breaking the children’s’ rights and asks for sanctions.

But the EC members encouraged Romania to oppose the right for foreign citizens to adopt Romanian children. Romania says there will be no favour for Italy because Italy is having issues with its child protection system and it breached the agreement for the repatriation of Romanian minors.

There is also the fear of going back to “business with orphans”. There have been children that disappeared after international adoptions. 11 children have been sold to the US with false documents in the ’90s and police have not managed to find the children yet, one example goes.

Judicial sources underline the issue of human traffic. Foreign families have been helped to buy birth certificates belonging to poor Romanian children and they used them to get other children out of the country, children that have been abandoned and had no papers. According to the Romanian authorities, in some cases lawyers or notaries helped out, or the adoption was made without any third party.

In the spring of 2006, several months before Romania joined the EU, 400 MEPs signed a petition requesting Romania to unblock international adoptions. Five liberal MEPs have planned this petition and two of them, Claire Gibault and Jean- Marie Cavada, went on with the lobby, paying unexpected visits to Romanian maternities and centres for child protection to raise proofs for the necessity of Romanian orphans to be adopted by foreign citizens. For the time being, the authorities are considering only the adoption of Romanian children only in the case of parents residing overseas.

Romanian Office for Adoptions: Romania entirely observes law on international adoptions

Romania entirely observes the law on international adoptions, but gives pride of place to national adoptions, Secretary of State of the Romanian Office for Adoptions Bogdan Panait told.

„Romania entirely observes the law on international adoptions. Currently the draft law on changing adoptions is with the Prime Minister for a first reading,” said the head of the Romanian Office for Adoptions. The Secretary of State added that Romania gave pride of place to national adoptions at present and mentioned that an important element of adoptions was the post-adoption monitoring.

The reaction of Secretary of State Bogdan Panait comes after the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament informed of the organization on Monday of a debate on international adoptions of children from Romania following a petition submitted by the Amici dei Bambini Association.

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The petition was declared admissible on November 23, 2009 and the European Commission was invited to supply information. On February 19, 2010 the EU Executive answered that they were acquainted with the situation described by the petitioner. Romania is a special case within the EU, as it is the only member state that de facto abolished Law 273/2004 on international adoptions, adoptions being only allowed when they are requested by the child’s grandparents living abroad. By law 49/2009 this possibility was extended to the relatives up to the third degree (aunts, uncles).

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Indeed, as early as October 2009 the Romanian Office for Adoptions sent the Government a memorandum referring to the resumption of international adoptions in cases in which the domestic adoptions failed repeatedly. The proposal was immediately turned down by Emil Boc, the then Prime Minister, reads the answer of the Commission.

And finally, one last link, Petition on international adoptions in Romania is put end to