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Dominic
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posted 3/20/06 2:10 PM
The National Authority for Protection of Child Rights, together with the non-governmental organization Hope and Homes for Children, and the High Level Group for Romanian Children on Friday organized the first session of the International Conference on Deinstitutionalization. The goal of the two-day conference, which was attended by representatives of the Child Protection Department throughout the country and several experts in child protection, including UNICEF specialists, was to analyze and debate which the best solutions for the children's deinstitutionalization are and to put together a set of rules that would help the Romanian child protection system to take the best care of the abandoned children.During the first stage on Friday, for work groups were created in order to tackle issues like the child's reintegration in its biological family, the creation and administration of group homes, the training of the foster families, and the standards of the adoption process.The first day also hosted a press conference, chaired by the head of the National Authority for Protection of Child Rights, State Secretary Bogdan Panait, the head of the National Office for Adoptions, State Secretary Theodora Bertzi, the president of the High Level Group for Romanian Children, Baroness Emma Nicholson, and the honorific president of the Hope and Homes for Children, Princess Marina Sturdza.During the press conference, Panait explained that the authorities' main goal is to give the abandoned children a new life by taking them out of the old orphanages and placing them in group houses. "Currently, Romania has only 20 old institutions for children. Each shelters about 150 children. However, we are closing down these institutions as they do not offer the children the affection and attention they need. In stead, we want to create small family houses that will shelter no more than 12 children," said Panait.Sturdza pointed out that together with the Hope and Homes for Children, the government has already closed down five institutions in Maramures County Romania by establishing alternative local family-based care services. "This deinstitutionalization model is now being replicated in other regions of Romania with a view to being applied at a national level," added Nicholson.Several other issues were tackled during the press conference, including the case of a five-year old girl from Bacau County which has outraged the authorities, as the girl was kept in a cage by her own grandparents.Nicholson pointed out that such cases exist in every country, including Great Britain, stressing that it doesn't mean that the system is not working. "I can tell there is evidence that hasn't yet been made public, showing that some new EU members have hundreds of cases in which children are kept in cage-beds. But in Romania it is not the case," added Nicholson.The baroness answered a series of questions related to various issues, including adoptions. Nevertheless, when Bucharest Daily News asked the baroness if she believes that Romania would jeopardize its EU accession by resuming international adoptions, the baroness stood up, pushed her chair saying that she does not have to answer to "a newspaper that has published inaccurate information," and left the room. Bucharest Daily News published several stories on international adoptions, presenting both the opinions of those who agree with the ban and those who want inter-country adoptions resumed. Although several interviews requests have been sent to Baroness Nicholson, she refused to answer Bucharest Daily News' questions.However, before the international adoption stories were published, Nicholson granted an interview to the newspaper.
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