Intra European Adoptions ?

Reopening intercountry adoption – subject of a Resolution of the European Parliament

Published by www.victorbostinaru.ro on Tuesday 18 January 2011 (informal translation)

On Monday night, European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg has discussed an initiative of 62 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), mostly Italians, to re-open international adoptions to the European Union. Although both the debate and the resolution aimed at the general situation of international adoptions in all 27 Member States, in the MEPs speeches, Romania was the country mentioned almost exclusively with the criticism that its legislation does not allow international adoptions. The MEPs resolution will be put to vote tomorrow, 19 January.

The European Parliament debate comes less than a year after the petition of the Italian organisation Amici dei Bambini “, which called for the reopening of international adoptions by Romania, the proposal was closed by MEP Victor Bostinaru (PSD) and with the agreement of all members of the Petition Committee of the European Parliament.

MEP Victor Bostinaru welcomed last night’s debate in the European Parliament plenary session on the premise that “protection of child rights is and should be a priority of each EU member state as long as our ultimate goal for everybody here is to promote children’s interest. ”

At the same time, however, the MEP reminded those present that “opening the gates for international adoptions in Romania, has meant creating an unprecedented network of child trafficking, including cases of kidnapping children and selling them to the West, in collaboration with European and international organisations. ”

“Between 1997 and 2000, Romania has “exported” 9.150 children and my country will not ever again accept such a monstrosity,” said Victor Bostinaru.

In concluding his intervention in the plenary, Victor Bostinaru asked Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship and Vice President of the European Commission Viviane Reding to clarify the allegations published in Romanian and international media regarding the establishment of a European Agency for Adoption. According to revelations in the press in December last year, the European Commission pressured the law firm appointed to draw up a report on the status of adoptions in the 27 EU member states to include the conclusion that there is a need for the establishment of a European Adoption Agency.This agency should be followed to unite all the lobby mechanisms in order to force Romania to reopen international adoptions.

• • Against Child Trafficking

Debat Europees Parlement

Eurocommissaris Kristalina Georgieva.

Ik heb vanavond live gekeken naar het debat over de adoptieresolutie van het Europees Parlement. Passievol brachten de parlementariërs hun punten naar voren: met brede armgebaren, strakke kaken, overslaande stemmen in - soms verbeten - one minute speeches. "Ik zou willen dat EP-leden ook zo gepassioneerd waren over andere onderwerpen", verzuchtte één van de afgevaardigden.

Het patroon was duidelijk. Vooral Italiaanse en Spaanse afgevaardigden kwamen op voor aspirant-adoptieouders die uit Oost-Europa willen adopteren. Zij suggeren dat er vele weeskinderen in tehuizen liggen te verkommeren. Ierse, Britse en vooral Roemeense
parlementsleden kwamen op voor de rechten van kinderen en hun (gewoonlijk springlevende) familieleden: "Het is toch treurig dat in Europa nog steeds worden afgestaan uit armoede? We moeten families helpen, zodat ze zelf kunnen zorgen voor hun kind."

Ik was erg onder de indruk van de Europese Commissaris Kristalina Georgieva. Zij benadrukte dat we in Europa de rechten van de kinderen moeten waarborgen, dat we binnen Europa adopties moeten erkennen, dat het Roemeens verbod op internationale adoptie uitsluitend een Roemeense aangelegenheid is en dat de Commissie al actief is in het Haags Adoptieverdrag. Ze is niet van plan nieuwe regelgeving te ontwikkelen voor intra-Europese adopties.

Tenslotte vertelde ze nog dat ze zelf een peetmoeder is van een adoptiekind en dat ze de complexiteiten bij adoptie goed kent. En dat het belang van het kind het belangrijkst is. Wat dat ook moge betekenen.

Dutch Government will sign the new EU Adoption Treaty

Ministry of Justice keeps Status Quo

A widespread letter from the Ministry of Justice to the House of Representatives but not published for the public, reveals that the Netherlands will sign the new EU Adoption Treaty.

United Adoptees International warned several years ago already for the silent movement within the European Union. Especially the European Commission, where the international adoptionlobby was represented to reform EU adoption laws to create a possibility of faster adoptions within Europe and to pull of adoptions which are now protected by Foster Care and International Children Rights (CRC).

The Adoption lobby ,existing foremost by (prospective/single) adopters and the homomovement, has been successful of using anti-discrimination statements to enforce adoptionrights for their own purposes without acknowledging the necessity of creating thresholds and protection measures for the most vulnerable ones in the adoption process, the parents and adoptees.

It seems that no one really cares and believe that governments act in the best interests of the vulnerable and weak citizens in the world.

Missing Representatives at International Conferences

Due to the missing representatives of adult adoptees last decades, to ensure their voice to be heard, the European Commission and European Parliament could speed up and execute their agenda's to create new loopholes in the new EU adoption law.

United Adoptees International was present at the last Strasbourg conference warned the public for the hidden agenda of the real interest of the designers and signatories of the treaty. One of the arguments which are been used now is the statement of the Dutch Ministry, saying that, equality of sexes and the non-marital status or single adoptions becomes possible within the EU. The essence of the treaty according to this letter is to create equal rights for wish-parents (adopters).

But no sentence or revision has been pulled of to protect and to facilitate parents in stressful situations who have to make the decision of relinquishment. Nor a change in the necessary (Post) Adoption Care has been given attention. And with no word, the interests of adoptees and their questions has been answered.

Again, the international community has been successful to silence adoptees and parents. Not because they are not there, but because the 'elite' of the western society executed a well managed exclusion of their voices by denying access to conferences and space to present their stories and researches.

The UAI was finally accepted to the Strasbourg conference after threatening with the EU Ombudsman. But as said with huge hesitation to let us in. It seems that the EU is afraid of critical voices which are based on meta-level instead of representing adoptees always as mascot's denying the relevance of the intrinsic and content based discourse of the adoption debate.

Open EU Adoption Market

With the new EU Adoption Law, the Netherlands and all signatories are accepting an international adoption market, lets say a new 'Schengen Adoption Treaty' where children can be freely moved and transported easier and faster from one country to another. A new chapter is add to the international child-caravan. Constructed and directed by and at EU Level.

Foster Children free for Intercountry Adoption ?

United Adoptees International is concerned that parties behind the new EU Law see this treaty as the next step of free Foster Children for international adoption. Meaning that those children who are right now in foster care , will soon be made available for intercountry adoption. Nevertheless the subsidiarity rule in the Hague Convention. The mantra of "in the interest of the child" will be used again but this time to create a new European Adoption Market.

UNITED ADOPTEES INTERNATIONAL © 2010

HIGH LEVEL EXTERNAL PRESSURE

U.S. and EU force reopening international adoptions

Source: Jurnalul National, 23 July 2009 - translated article !

Jurnalul National came into possession of an official document of the U.S. Congress, in which 8 senators and 13 members of the American Congress ask the Romanian Government, since May, to reopen international adoptions. In parallel, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has given the same "advice" following the presentation of the country report of Romania in Geneva on June 5.

American lobby by the hands of Ms. Hilary Clinton – click for image

Romania has become the target of pressure from some interest groups and some foreign NGOs that fight for more than about 5 years to re-open international adoptions from Romania.

In fact, foreigners require the changing of Law 273 of 2004, which brought the regulations necessary to resume international adoptions after a suspension of over three years by the moratorium since 2001. The new law, however, accepts that children can only be adopted by foreigners who are relatives of the children.

Trafficking in children, unable to stop

Last week has come to light a new scandal concerning the illegal adoption of two Romanian minors in Italy, which has reopened the issue of international adoptions, a real battleground between the National Authority for Protection of Child Rights and several members of the European Commission, on the sidelines, and several private groups in the U.S. and EU which require reopening pressure through adoptions made at the highest level, from Western governments to the Romanian authorities. Exclusively Jurnalul National shows you an incredible document, bearing the letterhead U.S. Congress and signed by 20 U.S. senators and congressmen.

The letter, non published until, has been given to the Foreign Minister, Cristian Diaconescu, by U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, in May, when Diaconescu was at an official visit overseas. On top of that, although the document bears the heading U.S. Congress, the signatories declare to be members of a NGO, "The Congressional Coalition on Adoption".

Although the 21 signatories state functions congressmen and senators, they claim to be a simple group of American citizens who require a change to Law 273, which forbids international adoptions of Romanian children. The letter contains two misinformations: the number of children "adoptable" in the U.S. is not 60 thousand, but 129 thousand, according to international statistics, as regards the fate of 84 thousands of Romanian children, the figure is exaggerated, it includes all children who are included in the system of child protection, reintegration into their families or are in family care in Romania.

It has to be said that the Coalition, a private body whose members are senior U.S. politicians, is an initiative of Mary Landrieu, a signatory of the letter, the U.S. senator who has strongly demanded in recent years to resume adoptions from Romania

In July 2006, when President Traian Băsescu visited the United States Senator Mary Landrieu introduced successfully, to vote in the U.S. Senate Resolution 359, which relates only to the ban on international adoptions by the Romanian authorities. And Hilary Clinton was involved in the issue of adoption of children from Romania and Croatia. In 1995, when she was the American First Lady, she spoke in favour of the adoption of 28 children, through the foundation of a Californian pastor, Wayne Coombs, whose organization, Adams Children's Fund, had no license for international adoptions.

ROMANIA FACES INTERNATIONAL OFFENSIVE

The same pressures have resulted in recommendations for the Child Protection Committee of the UN, made following the submission of the country in Geneva from June 5, which was submitted by the Romanian delegation headed by State Secretary Ileana Savu, director of the National Authority for Child Protection. It recognized that external attempts to change legislation forcing Romanian.

Despite bans in force, Ileana Savu leans towards a compromise with countries wishing to adopt children from Romania. "There were and there is pressure. The issue concerns us, but especially to the Romanian Adoptions Office. We have found a new system for national and international adoptions. If we claim we are an EU member state, then we must find mechanisms to control what happens to our children, even if it be adopted in other countries and is not abused. It is okay to forbid a law, that of adoption, so just because we want us. have been pressure from the 90s and are still pressures, especially for children who are already in other countries that can legally remain there, "he said Ileana Savu.

Foreign Minister Cristian Diaconescu, said, exclusively for the National Official, that Romania will keep its position on the issue of international adoptions under current law. He admitted meeting and veracity of the document received from Hilary Clinton in May, meeting with the foreign ministers of Hungary and Serbia, the last Saturday, from Timisoara. "Both in terms of regulations and how they have implemented and the international relations of Romania has not anything new, so it is clear that this view does not intend to make any change, we he said.

CHILDREN, INSTRUMENT OF POLITICAL BLACKMAIL

International adoptions have become a hot topic immediately after Romania suspended this procedure in 2001. Since then, several Western governments have pressed Romanian politicians for the reopening of such adoptions, particularly through non-governmental organizations, through American congressmen and French, Italian, Spaniard and Germans Euro-parliamentarians, but also by other EU Member States . For example, reopening the international adoptions was "2" on the agenda of talks between Romanian officials and former state secretary of the U.S., Colin Powell, before the acceptance of Romania into political NATO.

Another demonstration of force was made by Silvio Berlusconi, in 2003, when he forced the hand of then Prime Minister, Adrian Nastase, for adoption by Italy of 105 children, although the moratorium signed by Romania forbade this. Interest groups have used the accession to the European Union, to ask repeatedly, to agree with the adoption of children by families in other countries.

The European Commission did a tough battle to halt international adoptions, after it emerged many cases where children were abused or have become victims of trafficking in children. The corridors of these pressures and the European Commission’s fight with the "black market of international adoptions" by foreign NGOs and politicians have been disclosed by Roelie Post, who coordinated the work for child protection in Romania, for the European Commission between 1999 and 2006. The details of this fierce lobbying and blackmail to which Romania has been subject to re-open international adoptions are presented in her book, "Romania - For Export Only, the untold story of the Romanian orphans", a book that got no attention whatsoever in our country.