By Liz Lightfoot, PhD

The following is part one of a five part weekly blog series providing an overview of the history of institutionalization of children in Romania and its effects on children both in Romania and on those adopted in the United States. We’re pleased to have guest blogger and School of Social Work faculty member Elizabeth Lightfoot who is currently participating in a Fulbright scholarship in Romania. She will be joined by Young Ji Yoon, MSW, who conducted simultaneous research about adoption from Romania in the United States.

Want to learn more? Join us for a webinar on June 25th, 2019. Dr. Lightfoot will host “History and current trends in institutionalization and inter-country adoption of Romanian children: Implications for child welfare practice in the USA” live from Romania. More details on registration coming soon.

When I was initially considering applying for a Fulbright scholarship, one of the factors that drew me to Romania was its history surrounding the institutionalization of children and people with disabilities. The orphan crisis in Romania had made international news in the 1990s, shortly after the Romanian Revolution in 1989, when video clips of Romanian children living in orphanages surfaced. In later years I’d followed stories of scandals regarding international adoption and research regarding the long-term effects of institutionalization on children that were conducted in Romania. As a social work researcher who has been primarily interested in promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities in society, I was interested in going to a country where my research background related to people with disabilities and child welfare could be of use.

I’ve since learned so much more about Romania. This includes the rebirth of the social work profession, filled with Romanian social workers committed to improving the lives of Romanian people, as well as the complicated recent history that led to the widespread institutionalization of children, the ongoing institutionalization of people with disabilities, and the opening and closing of international adoption. Likewise, I am hopeful about the current efforts being made to close down all institutions for children and the growing efforts to improve the lives of people with disabilities. I’ve also enjoyed meeting the wonderfully gracious Romanian people, as well as visiting the stunningly beautiful countryside. Since receiving my Fulbright award, I found that many of my social work colleagues in the United States were aware of the extensive institutionalization of children and people with disabilities in Romania and the issues surrounding adopting children from these institutions, but this knowledge was not necessarily widespread. My goal of this blog series is to provide accessible information on this topic to help U.S. based social workers and others working with current and future children/adults adopted from Romania and their families.

Short History of the Rise of Institutionalization in Romania

Romania, located in East Central Europe and bordering Hungary, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria and Serbia, is currently the seventh largest country in the European Union with just under twenty million people. Its citizens speak Romanian, a romance language that is most similar to Italian. It is a country with a rich cultural heritage and stunning natural beauty. Many North American social workers also know Romania for its history of institutionalization of children and people with disabilities.

After a long and complicated history, the communists gained control over Romania just after World War II. Nicolai Ceaușescu assumed leadership of Romania in 1965, and began a series of efforts to accelerate industrialization, including promoting urbanization through a program called “systematization”. Many people were moved from their rural homes to cities to take jobs, and houses were destroyed, replaced by apartment blocks. Extended families, and even spouses, were separated when assigned to distant job sites. In the capital of Bucharest, multiple families were often assigned to live in one small apartment. Under Ceaușescu’s version of communism, workers, not family, became the fundamental unit of society.

When Ceaușescu became leader of Romania, Romania had the highest rates of abortion and divorce in Eastern Europe and its birthrate was decreasing. To stimulate the economy, Ceaușescu implemented a series of pronatalist policies that grew increasingly draconian through the 1970s and 1980s. Pronatalist policies are policies which encourage childbirth with the purpose of increasing a nation’s birthrate. Ceaușescu’s policies included a ban on most abortions and contraception, and placed major restrictions on divorce. Women received financial incentives for having multiple children, and all childless people over age 25 had to pay a 30% childlessness tax. There were also special designations and financial bonuses for women who had large numbers of children, such as “Heroine Mothers” who had delivered and raised ten or more children. In the last few years of his dictatorship, he had instituted rules that required women to undergo regular gynecological exams to monitor their fertility, primarily to ensure that they did not have an abortion.

While citizens were rewarded for raising children, the state became increasingly responsible for raising the many unwanted children that resulted from the pronatalist policies, as well as the children whom family could not raise because of forced urbanization away from their extended kinship networks who had traditionally provided childcare. In response, the government increasingly built institutions for children, separating children who were typically developing from children with disabilities. The institutions provided limited care, and there were limited social services available to children with or without disabilities as the government had abolished the profession of social work completely in the early 1960s. The underlying message was that the government could effectively raise children without disabilities, who would grow into capable workers. For children with disabilities, there was no expectation that they would ever leave the institutions, and instead would be transferred to institutions for adults when they were older.

After the collapse of the Ceaușescu regime in 1989, Romania and the rest of the world learned that there were roughly 170,000 children living in approximately 700 overcrowded institutions across Romania. Estimates of between 2-4% of all Romanian children were living in an institution. The conditions of most of the institutions was horrible, and various news teams broadcast shocking photos of children to the rest of the world. This led to many organizations setting up humanitarian missions to assist the orphans in Romania, and the beginning of a surge in international adoptions from Romania in the early 1990s.

Suggested Citation:  Lightfoot, E. (2019, May 22). Short history of institutionalization in Romania. [Blog post] Retrieved from https://cascwoldsite.com/featured/lightfoot-institutionalization-romanian-children/

Resources:

Ahern, L., & Rosenthal, E. (2006). Hidden Suffering: Romania’s segregation and abuse of infants and children with disabilities. Disability Rights International.

Kligman, G. (1992). The politics of reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania: a case study in political culture. Eastern European Politics and Societies, 6(3), 364-418.

Kligman, G. (1992). Abortion and international adoption in post-Ceausescu Romania. Feminist Studies, 18(2), 405-419.

Morrison, L. (2004). Ceausescu’s legacy: Family struggles and institutionalization of children in Romania. Journal of family history, 29(2), 168-182.

Moskoff, W. (1980). Pronatalist policies in Romania. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 28(3), 597-614.

Nelson, C. A. (2014). Romania’s abandoned children. Harvard University Press.