Thank you for writing this article. The individuals who are making the decisions regarding international adoption in Romania have no idea the impact they are inflicting on all of those children who are growing up in institutions. The lives of those children are irreparably and forever altered because they are not being allowed a chance at a family. My husband and I adopted two boys from Romania 5 1/2 years ago and during that time, we have watched what the love of a family can do for a child. With Romanian officials arguing the best interests of the child (home country vs. adoptive country), should it really matter what country the child lives in? In the end, isn't what should matter, is that a child have a family? This adoptive parent thinks so.

I appreciate that Denisa Maruntoiu reported about this case with accuracy. I am sure that many people reading this article had no idea that the matches they had were not part of the pipeline cases, or that the children were actually not eligible to be matched. I think they really must have been eligible at the time of the matches, and that someone in the Romanian government is saying otherwise to cover their tracks about not proceeding with these adoptions.

 

I find it horrifying that people of authority can thoughtlessly harm these children by making this whole issue about Romania's membership to the EU. Babies and toddlers have turned into young children, being left in limbo without loving parents, Romanian or otherwise. How can anyone ever justify that the political needs of Romania were more important than the future adults of Romania or the world. We all know that hundreds of children have been neglected in this process. This is the largest injustice I have ever been witness too in my life.

I am one of those families that was matched with a child four years ago. I was not told she was too young to be adopted. We started trying to adopt in January 2000 and we waited all those years based on Romania's statement that international adoptions would open again under more transparent adoption rules. Rules to avoid corruption I totally agree with, but rules that prevent children from the chance to have a family that will love them I totally disagree with. Thank you so much for writing this article that shows the whole truth behind this issue.

Thank you Daily News for publishing such wonderful articles and highlighting the fact that the Baroness would not give you an interview. the article was very well written and did not hide anything from anyone-only told the truth. I wish you highlight the reports on the many babies now lying several to cribs in hospitals because of the fact this new law will not allow them to go into Orphanages and they have been abandoned. I am the proud mom of 2 Romanian children home 6yrs now. My children are very proud of their Romanian heritage and tell everyone that they are from Romania. Keep up the good work

I agree that the article covered both sides of the issue, and to grant the Baroness a rebuttal of the same length would bias coverage toward her pitiful position. As the father of two girls adopted as "pipeline cases" during the moratorium, I can tell you that Bertizi's definition of "exceptional cases" as children over the age of 3 was a new one to me. During the moratorium, waiting parents were repeatedly promised that their cases would be processed under the laws existing at the time they applied to adopt.

 

The second moratorium (October 2001) completely cut off the processing of pipeline cases for a time, but when Nastase visited the US in November 2001, he again promised that a commission would be set up to process these cases. And it eventually was, though it took a lot longer than we were led to believe. I know that some of the pending adoptions were not completed. There was no "transparency" to the process; i.e., no one knows the reason why some adoptions were allowed while others were not. There have been several rumors, and contradictory explanations by officials.

 

In my book, any prospective parent who maintains a relationship with a child through five years of political turmoil is a faithful and dedicated parent, who would love and cherish the child forever. With so many Romanian children lacking parents who want them, it just doesn't make sense to stand in the way of a relationship (with a Romanian or a foreigner) that will provide security for the child.

Perhaps the Bucharest Daily News could give equal space to the true story behind the Baroness's aversion to international adoption. The Romanian press has given little coverage to Ms. Nicholson's personal story. The Baroness should be interviewed about her failed international adoption and thus, her failure as a mother. Romanians need to know that's the true motivation for her campaign to stop international adoption. It is not any love for children, or the understanding of the importance of a family on a growing child.

I find it both astonishing and hilarious that Baroness Nicholson feels she deserves "equal space" in the Bucharest Daily News to espouse her lies and propaganda. The Baroness and her "allies" have certainly received innumerable print and press opportunities throughout the years in the media - including this paper - to spread such vicious and untrue lies and allegations of adoptive parents selling their children's organs (which the UN reports as the world's biggest urban myth), that adoptive parents weren't qualified to adopt in their own country and so they turned to Romania, and that adoptive parents are child traffickers - to name but a few.

 

It's puzzling that she is suddenly enraged when a story that presents both sides of the issue appears in print. She also fails to mention that the United States is a sending country (our children may be adopted abroad), that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and UNICEF and the Hague Treaty do permit inter-country adoption, and while she's at it perhaps she may also want to explain how the 84,000+ children in state care are going to have their files reviewed on an annual basis - a requirement for both domestic adoption and the new "child welfare" legislation when there are neither the funds nor the staff to fulfill this annual requirement, and how it is in "the best interests of the child" to force 4th degree impoverished biological relatives to take a child in their care who have never shown any interest in the child and whom the child has never met.

 

She might also want to explain why it's considered a courageous decision in her own country for a birth mother to choose to give up her child in the hope that the child will have a better life but in Romania an unwanted child is forced back on the biological mother - or relatives who are so impoverished they are only doing it for the money.

 

On second thought, perhaps the Baroness could use her press opportunity to explain why it is permissible for her to become the legal guardian and foster parent - and attempt to adopt - a child from Iraq who needed medical treatment, taking him away from his native language and culture, but it is not permissible for other foreign parents to do the same. Perhaps she could also detail the foster parent training she took to enable her to care for this child since she had no previous parenting experience, why she would place a child who had had 26 surgeries and is still disfigured in boarding school, and how much of the 8MM pounds she raised in his name paid for his care and education.

 

Please also let the Baroness know that For the Children SOS and other grass roots advocacy groups for the abandoned children of Romania are not professionals, one of the 4,700 well paid EU lobbyists, or even non-profits. Our efforts are paid for out of our own pockets - and we are not rich. One family even sold a cow from their farm to help pay for our efforts to bring attention to the plight of these children. It must be quite inconceivable to the Baroness that we care so much for these children - and many of us are not "waiting parents" - when she has obviously proven she cared so little for the one she called "her son".

 

And, although Romania has made great strides in their care of these children, much of what has been done to improve the conditions of these voiceless children has been done by foreign NGO's and with significant contributions from the EU and the United States and Romania still has a long, long way to go - starting with throwing out the current child welfare legislation and rewriting it to ensure it truly is in "the best interests of the child" and not in "the best interests of Baroness Nicholson".

 

 Linda Robak, Proud mother of a 7 year old adopted Romanian daughter

"I demand the newspaper's editor..." How huge is this woman's arrogance? Who does she think she is? Baroness Nicholson always places equality signs between intercountry adoption and trafficking in children, although there is obviously no connection between the two. Well, the 2004 Romania Country Report on Human Rights Practices shows that the number of cases of trafficking increased after the foreign adoptions were completely stopped. Interesting, isn't it?

 

"I demand" that the baroness explains this paradox. "During the first 9 months of the year, police identified a total 964 victims of trafficking (573 women, 391 men). Of this number, 217 were minors (80 boys, 137 girls). A total of 934 individuals were under investigation for violations connected with trafficking, and, as of September, police had arrested 162 suspects and dismantled 208 trafficking networks. Authorities obtained 74 final convictions under the new trafficking laws. This contrasted with 2003, when police identified 658 crimes, investigated 488 persons and arrested 146, and dismantled 210 groups." (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41703.htm)

We always knew she was crazy! Those MEP 's that are now fighting for the children are MEP's that finally realize that everything is not in place to take care of all the children still sitting in Orphanages. They have seen first hand what is really going on. Mairead Mc Guinness an MEP from Ireland was part of several articles which were published in the Irish Independent of Oct 9th 2006. I'm glad that for once when Emma snaps her fingers things do not go her way,

Since Ms. Nicholson has claimed in the past there were many cases of trafficked Romanian children for their organs through international adoptions, can she present the source data for such claims? I wonder why a Romanian institution is preferred to a loving family abroad. If Romania respects the Hague Convention, could Ms. Nicholson explain why the children that cannot be adopted in Romania are not eligible for international adoption, as the Convention stipulate.

 

If there are problems with current practices under international law, why doesn't Ms. Nicholson also lobby for making the inter-country adoptions better, and safer for adopted children? I also hope Ms. Nicholson and Romanian Government can offer a rational explanation as to why Romanians living abroad are not allowed to adopt from their native country, as can Romanians living in Romania. I heard all the talk about Romania being the only place these kids can grow happily, but I do not believe a word of that propaganda....

What a fascinating article. The Baroness "demanding" press time and coverage? If we follow her reasoning to its logical conclusion, then people like us also deserve full and commensurate coverage. Indeed, people like us, to whom Romanian children were referred, who jumped through hoop after hoop, ensuring that the children were well-cared for until we brought them home, who waited years for that special moment when the children would be placed in our arms, only to have their dreams shattered while the Romanian Government, dragged around by the ring the EU placed in its nose, sold its and its country's soul byt casting these children into an abyss of certain doom. Every child deserves a loving home, but sadly, Romania believes otherwise. And I believe that there is a special place in Hell for the Baroness. She can demand all she wants down there.

Denisa is to be commended, as is the Bucharest Daily News, first for providing an honest and balanced view on inter-country adoptions (which has been severely lacking in the European press), but also for standing up to the "demands" of Nicholson. Much to her surprise, the world is realizing her warped self-absorbed political agenda imposed upon Romania's children is not truly "in the best interests of the children" after all.

 

Anyone who has spent time working with abandoned Romanian children will agree: more damage continues to be done by the Baroness in the name of "children's rights!" There are hundreds of thousands of inter-country adoption success stories, many being miraculous life-saving stories; yet she still refers to these parents as "child traffickers.". Anyone taking an honest approach to the child welfare crisis in Romania would question Nicholson's hidden agenda. Thanks for taking the time and space to show the other side of the story.

We are biological parents of Alexandre, who's almost 16 , and adoptive parents of Gabriel, 11, our Romanian born child . We live in France. We wish to say how happy we are for having read in a Romanian paper a so honest and balanced view on inter-country adoptions (this is very unusual in the European press) . As Maureen's son, we were not told before the adoption of the disabilities our son might have. He 's partly disabled, but he is doing as much as he can in school, due to special programs that help him learn, and special long term training programs in orthophony and psycho-motricity. Should we have known before about his problems, we would have adopted him anyway, because we love him so much with or thanks to his differences. It's undoubtedly a chance for Gabriel, of course, to be brought up in a family who cherishes him. But we , his parents and his brother, also consider we are lucky as we have met this 'fragile" child who has allowed us to strengthen our relationship in our little family, as he gives us some 'lessons of life' almost everyday. We are very proud of him , and our relatives are very surprised of what he can achieve now, knowing how difficult it was for him to do basic efforts in everyday's life, 4 1/2 years ago ...

 

Needless to say, we have always felt Nicholson's attitude and attacks against foreign adoptive parents , very disgusting and at millions miles of the reality that hundreds of thousands adoptive families have to face everyday throughout the world. Mass manipulation using strongly mediatized declarations in the press and TV, has always been one of the favorite ways of spreading horrific lies among various peoples, between 1917 and 1990 . We have often been surprised that such a prominent rep of a UK Conservative (then Liberal) party of UK could act this way in various countries in Eastern Europe and also in the European Parliament and in the EC, without being investigated by some honest journalists who undoubtedly exist and work in these different places ... until to-day and your article ?

 

In the memory of all children and teenagers who turned mad in the last 'camin spitals' (that in fact, many foreign adoptive families contribute to close through financial involvement in various NGOs), and / or are still starving (either in Romania or in other countries that are Nicholson's future targets), we really believe she 'll have to respond of her crimes to her creator .

Who amongst us is willing to hold the Baroness accountable for the havoc she has wreaked upon the Romanian child protection system and, ultimately, the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent orphans who have lost the chance at a permanent family? It is a basic human right that the Baroness has denied these children. She is personally responsible and must be held accountable. There must be a ground-swelling movement to right these wrongs. If we do nothing, we are all just as guilty as the Baroness.

 

The child we waited for 2.5 y ears to bring into our family is one such child who needlessly did without a permanent family during very formative years. It is to our Cristina (Ina) of Craiova , and the children like her, that the Baroness owes the most.. It is unthinkable that a family was available to her for years and adults who were "looking out for the best interest of the children" said "no" to her. We are good people who adopted in our own country first and then sought an older child via international adoption. Despite the lies the Baroness has spread about prospective adoptive parents from the United States and other countries, we are amongst the most highly scrutinized families on the face of this planet. We have to satisfy two governments, our own and a foreign government, as to our suitability to parent a child. What other group of parents in this world have to do this!!?? Cristina's basic human right to a family all those years was denied. The adults responsible should be held accountable for this child's loss. I will forever be Cristina's other mother, and this is something the Baroness can't take away.

at last ! at last articles which show the real problems of international adoption. At last the testimonies of Romanian children ! Thank you, thank you so much ! At last articles showing how bad is the point of view of the "baroness". How many babies now in hospitals because no more institutions ? How many children without hope ? how many children without real families ? how many roma children never adopted in Romania ? I have a dream : may be one day the actions of Mrs. Nicholson will be considered as crimes against humanity, against childhood, against happiness.

 

Jocelyne, adoptive mother of a Romanian girl. She is French, she is Romanian, she is roma and she is a very beautiful and intelligent and happy little girl with a real family. in spite of baroness Nicholson and others....

I have never understood why the Baroness says keeping children out of families who happen to live in another country is in their best interest. My husband and I are not trying to adopt our little girl for our sakes, but to give her an opportunity to have a loving family, which is her desire above all else. Her last letter says she prays "in every evening" to come home. This is her home and we are her family. She does not understand why she cannot come here. She was abandoned at birth - 11 years 7 months ago. She does not know her biologic family, but she knows us very well. Returning to her biologic family is NOT "in the child's best interest." That was attempted when she was about 4 years old, and was nearly fatal. The Romanians have had over 11 years to adopt her. How long does she have to wait to decide her only chance for a real family is international adoption. Why can she not have her prayers answered? Food and clothing and shelter are NOT enough for a child's development. However, even after she is 18 and is not in an institution, she still needs a family. Where did you go for Christmas? I went home to my parents. Where will my daughter go? Who will give my daughter away when she gets married? Who will be the grandparents for her children? We are the best family she has, but long distance is not a family. I cannot be there when she has a bad day at school and comfort her. I cannot be there when she is petrified of the dark, which she is. I was not there when she was in the hospital twice - alone and afraid. No child should have to do that, especially when there is an appropriate alternative. Who decides what is in the best interest of the children? It should be someone who understands that the best place for a child to develop fully is with a loving family. Thank you again helping to show all sides of this difficult situation. The broken hearts of children all over Romania, waiting parents, and people who love children thank you deeply.

 

Claudia Tolleson