Romanian orphans are, once again, on Brussels' agenda. Elsewhere in the news, reporters talked to the family of the Romanian woman investigated for the kidnap of a British boy in Pakistan. Last but not least, Romanian might be recognised as the official language in the Republic of Moldova.
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 lawy