The Department of State is committed to fostering an international environment for intercountry adoptions that protects the interests of orphaned and abandoned children, their birth parents, and American families. Romania's child welfare and adoption systems are of continuing concern to the Department of State.

In 2001, the Government of Romania imposed a moratorium on intercountry adoptions. This action was taken in response to concerns in the U.S. Government and elsewhere about the Romanian adoption system as it existed prior to 2001.

Specifically, a joint USAID and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report on intercountry adoption in Romania, published in January 2001, stated in part: "The nature of the child welfare services in Romania was susceptible to corrupt practices, and many of the financial resources generated for child protection programs through the intercountry adoption process were being misappropriated."

The report also stated that Romania had "virtually uncontrolled adoption activities that allowed prospective adoptive parents to fly to Romania and adopt directly from the birth parents or orphanage officials, and there was very little focus on the use of child-centered adoption procedures."

Clearly Romania's previous adoption laws failed to provide child welfare protection, and reform of the system was imperative. To that end, the United States, UNICEF, and other countries and organizations provided suggestions and guidance to the Government of Romania as it worked to craft a revised adoption law that would meet international standards.

Our objectives have been to restore transparency, improve the Romanian child welfare system so that it meets international standards, and lift the intercountry adoption moratorium as quickly as possible.

The department's efforts took on greater urgency and importance in June 2004 when the Government of Romania passed an adoption law that effectively bans intercountry adoptions in Romania by restricting such adoptions to the child's biological grandparents. This legislation went into effect on January 1 of 2005.

Because the current legislation failed to include a mechanism for processing cases that were registered by Romanian officials during the moratorium, its passage effectively froze action on such cases. Regrettably, this legislation is so restrictive that it has ended up harming the very children and families it ostensibly was designed to protect. Children continue to face long-term institutional care, the least desirable outcome.

Romania is a party to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and has therefore agreed to certain international standards and principles, one of which is that intercountry adoption is a legitimate option for children who cannot find permanent placement in their country of origin.

The Romanian Government's current adoption law, by effectively closing off this option, runs counter to this principle and to Romania's treaty commitment. Furthermore, the Romanian Government's handling of international adoption issues over the past 4 years has created an impasse for hundreds of children in need of families.

I think it important to describe to you in real terms the impact of the moratorium here in the United States. In fiscal year 2004, the Department of State issued almost 23,000 immigrant visas to adopted children worldwide. Almost 23,000. Our Embassy in Bucharest issued only 57 immigrant visas to Romanian children adopted by Americans.

Since January 1, 2005, our Embassy in Bucharest has issued precisely one immigrant visa to an adopted child. Since the moratorium began, the only immigrant visas we have been able to process have been on behalf of children who were registered for intercountry adoption before the moratorium was put in place.

As previously mentioned, while the moratorium was in effect between 2001 and 2004, until passage of the current adoption law, a court order required that the Government of Romania continue to register applications to adopt Romanian children from families outside Romania, including from the United States.

There are approximately, as we've heard this morning, 200 registered cases that involve U.S. families. Looking for a reasonable solution to these cases has been the primary focus of the department's most recent efforts.

The U.S. Government has repeatedly sought commitments from both the current and former Romanian Governments that they would process these pending cases to conclusion.

The matter was raised in a March 2005 meeting between President Bush and President Basescu. Secretary of State Rice discussed this matter with the Romanian foreign minister in May 2005. Past U.S. Ambassadors to Romania and other U.S. Embassy officials in Bucharest have repeatedly discussed this issue with Romanian officials.

At every opportunity, the U.S. Government has impressed upon the Government of Romania the importance we attach to processing the pending cases to conclusion in a legal, transparent, and expeditious manner.

Despite periodic commitments to establish a mechanism to resolve the pending cases, the Romanian Government has taken only tentative, intermittent steps. In fact, Romanian officials have offered many promises, but there has been little or no follow-through.

For example, in late 2004, then Prime Minister Nastase of Romania and Raffarin of France publicly suggested the creation of an international commission to review the pending cases. This did not happen under the former Romanian Government, and its successor similarly has not pursued it.

In March 2005, Romanian President Basescu, during a visit to Washington, met with a number of American families whose adoptions are still pending, and he committed to pursuing a solution to the pending U.S. cases immediately, but so far we have seen no such action.

I traveled to Romania 2 months later to followup on that meeting and met with President Basescu, his foreign minister, and other officials of the Government of Romania. My message was clear: We need to resolve the pending intercountry adoption cases just as soon as possible.

I received assurances from the Romanian officials that they are committed to resolving intercountry adoptions. I assured them that: Hope is not a policy, we need to get this done.

The Romanian Government has asserted that its adoption law and its failure to proceed with pending cases are being driven by concerns over Romanian accession to the European Union. It is the understanding of the Department of State, however, that there is no European Union law or regulation restricting intercountry adoptions to biological grandparents or requiring that restrictive laws be passed as a prerequisite for accession.

All current E.U. member states, with the exception of Ireland, have ratified the Hague Convention. The department has sought clarification from the European Union on its stance with regard to Romania and its adoption legislation.

I am hopeful that the European Union will be able to shed light on what are and are not the actual adoption-related requirements, if any such requirements exist for E.U. candidate countries. I will travel to Europe later this afternoon, where I will once again seek clarity on this issue.

The fact remains that there has been little real progress. This is a humanitarian issue, a child welfare issue. Hundreds of Romanian children are being denied the opportunity to live with families that are prepared to give them permanent, loving homes, and American families are being asked to suspend their lives in hopes of some future resolution.

I assure you that the Department of State will continue to press Romania to resolve the pending cases with concrete, transparent criteria so that Romanian orphans and abandoned children can have the future they deserve.

I thank the chairman and the members of the Commission for your attention to this important subject, and I'm pleased to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so much.

We are joined by Senator Burr.

Do you have any opening statement?

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD M. BURR, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE Mr. BURR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador, I know what you said about the European but there's some belief out there that the European Union in some way, shape, or form pressured for this policy. Why is that the case?

Amb. HARTY. Sir, it remains a mystery to me. We have demarched a number of capitals in this regard, and will continue to do it.

It seems inconsistent with the various countries' accessions to the Hague Convention. It simply seems inconsistent. But I don't have a satisfactory answer for you to that question, and it's one I continue to ask, myself.

Mr. BURR. From the standpoint of your request to the European Union, is this for written clarification of what their adoption policy is?

Amb. HARTY. I'll certainly take your question with me to Europe today and try that, sir, as well.

Mr. BURR. Thank you.

How much foreign aid and technical assistance has the United States provided to Romania toward its efforts to reform the child welfare and adoption system in that country?

Amb. HARTY. I'm so sorry, sir, I'm going to have to take that question-and I don't have a figure for you. I don't know, but

I'll

Mr. BURR. Is it safe to say we have supplied

Amb. HARTY. Romania is a recipient

Mr. BURR [continuing]. Foreign aid specifically for that?

Amb. HARTY. Romania is a recipient of foreign aid, sir. I'll have to get the breakdown for you.

Amb. HARTY. All right.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Let me, Ambassador Harty, ask you a couple of questions, if I could.

Baroness Nicholson has publicly alleged that intercountry adoption is an "international trade in children, controlled by criminals, not only for pedophilia, child prostitution, or domestic servitude, but for organ transplantation as well"-which are very highly inflammatory and, if true, would be an absolute indictment against intercountry adoption.

While there's no doubt that Romania has a problem with human trafficking, and I have spoken to this issue myself on numerous occasions, both in-country, in Bucharest, as well as here, the issue of intercountry adoption as a means by which those nefarious and evil practices are committed ought to be prosecuted absolutely and those who commit those crimes get life imprisonment.

Has Baroness Nicholson provided any proof, especially as it relates to the Americans who have, I think, so lovingly and so effectively, provided homes in the past?

Like I said, I've been going to Romania since the beginning of my career in Congress, and when many people, even in the State Department, thought that Romania was somehow different from other countries that make up Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, because of the infamous Securitate and their crackdown on religious believers, including Father Calciu and others, saw that that regime was evil to the core.

But in 1989, when the December Revolution occurred, many of us thought that a new day had begun, and Americans and others in Western Europe opened their arms and their homes in a loving way to these children.

While there may have been some abuses-and where there's an abuse in any system, you need to crack down on it and tighten and restrict and hold to account those who commit abuses-those kinds of statements-you know, organ transplantation, pedophilia, child prostitution-where is their proof?

Amb. HARTY. Sir, I agree with you completely. I think this country, everyone in this room and everyone in this country, finds all of those abhorrent crimes, absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable. They have nothing to do with intercountry adoption. I have never

seen any such proof, or I certainly haven't seen any such proof provided by the baroness.

Mr. SMITH. What precisely does the United States want Romania to do? You did allude to much of this in your testimony, but encapsulate "what we want."

Amb. HARTY. In a nutshell, sir, in the very first instance, we want to take care of those 200 pipeline cases. We're working very hard with the other affected countries. A member of the commission earlier noted that there are several other countries.

There are approximately 1,000 children in the pipeline, and as much as we care about the 200 American children, we care about all of those children, and we'd like this pipeline situation addressed as expeditiously as we possibly can, to get those children-who have in some cases for so many years now been sitting in unacceptable situations-matched up and brought into the loving families of American citizens who are doing nothing but opening their hearts to kids who need a place to call home.

Mr. SMITH. Do you think Baroness Nicholson is aware that we do a very vigorous process here in this country, with home studies and all kinds of other safeguards, to ensure that the families are able and willing-willingly, no, but able to accommodate and to love that child?

Amb. HARTY. Sir, I am certain that she is aware of our procedures. I am not certain that she is persuaded. Quite the opposite, given what she has said.

Mr. SMITH. I mean, one can only wonder why she is obsessed with trying to end adoption.

You pointed out that nearly all E.U. members except for Ireland are parties to the Hague Convention. Can you elaborate on whether a citizen of an E.U. country could be legally adopted by someone from another country.

Amb. HARTY. Yes. That's in fact what the Hague is talking about. Mr. SMITH. So, in other words, Romania's adoption law is more restrictive than the laws of the countries that are imposing as a precondition of accession into the E.U.?

Amb. HARTY. It goes much farther than the Hague Convention, sir, absolutely.

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you, finally: Are other countries-like Bulgaria-facing E.U. pressure to ban intercountry adoptions?

Amb. HARTY. I'm not entirely sure, sir. But Americans adopted 110 Bulgarian children last year. So you can rest assured that we will watch this issue very, very carefully.

Mr. SMITH. Because I'm trying to discern whether or not this is one person's obsession

Amb. HARTY. Right.

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. Or an E.U. move in the direction against. Which is bizarre, when we finally have an intercountry process, the Hague Convention-as you note so well, was hammered out over the course of a decade

Amb. HARTY. Yes, sir.

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. And I attended myself many of those meetings and talked to people at the United Nations, there were a lot of contentious meetings, but they finally come up with a con