children. There are also 217 pending case in view of initiating the adoption procedure.

The general conclusion of those analyses:

-the number of children that entered in the residential care system decreased following the development of services to prevent child's separation from his/her family;

-the number of children protected in the family care system increased compared to the number of children protected in the residential system and the total number of children benefiting of a special protection measure decreased as a result of the development of services to prevent child's separation from his/her family and of the services for the integration of children within their families;

-the number of national adoptions increased while international adoptions decreased.

The mentioned results indicate the progresses obtained in this respect, progresses noted by the European Commission in the periodical reports that monitor the evolutions registered in Romania in view of joining the European Union. Also, according to the European Parliament's report of December 3, 2004 (raporteur Pierre Moscovici), the EU Parliament "congratulates Romania on responding to international appeals and Parliament's requests by introducing national child protection standards and strict rules to govern inter-country adoption; considers that this new legislative framework should serve to protect children's rights even more effectively and must be properly enforced".

Also, in May 2005, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Mr. Ollie Rehn, wrote to the Romanian Government: "I take note of and appreciate your willingness to explore any possible solutions to respond to the various concerns expressed, as long as such solutions are not contradicting the current legislation in force in Romania. I am convinced that your position should be solely based on the best interest of the child. We also naturally expect you to fully implement the new Romanian legislation, which is in line with international standards. To deviate from these principles would require amendments to your new legislation which would re-open the debate and whose results could become worse than the initial objective

Taking into consideration the fact that foreign citizens applied for the adoption of Romanian children during the period when the moratorium on international adoptions was in force, the Romanian Office for Adoptions decided to clarify the situation of those cases by analysing each file, with the aim of ensuring that in each case the respect of rights of the child is beyond any doubt.

This analysis will be performed by a Romanian national Working group, established on June 29, 2005. It is composed of Romanian specialists with qualifications and responsibilities in the field of child protection employed in several ministries/other central institutions. They are currently analysing the files existing at the Romanian Office for Adoptions as well as the information regarding the situation of each child.

The audit report will be finalized by the working group within 4 months from its setting up, probably in October 2005. Based on the results of this audit, suitable measures will be identified with the aim of finding the appropriate solutions for these cases.

The Romanian Office for Adoptions will share the results of this domestic effort and consult with the European Union, in compliance with Romania's accession commitments, as well with American and all the other concerned parties, in a transparent manner. Romanians are engaged to address the issue of abandoned children within the framework of the present legislative framework creating the premises for the prevention of the abuse and corruption that may occur in the adoption system. All the institutions and public authorities involved in the adoption procedure as well as those with an important role in preventing child's separation from his/her family shall improve the function mechanisms according to the new legislation in view of respecting and guaranteeing the rights of the child.

In Romanian culture and tradition, such as in the culture of many other nations, children represent a supreme treasure and the best hope for a better tomorrow. It is matter of national pride and responsibility to prove to ourselves and to the international community that we can take care of our own children and overcome an unflattering past of abuse and corruption.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ELLIOT FORSYTH, PROSPECTIVE ADOPTIVE PARENT

Dear Chairman Smith and distinguished members of the Commission,

My name is Elliot Forsyth and I first want to express my sincere gratitude to you and the Commission on behalf of my wife, Whitney, our daughter Simona, and on behalf of over 200 American families and thousands of families around the world that currently await Romania's decision on processing their pending inter-country adoption cases. We are thankful for the Helsinki Commission and its leaders who, despite your overwhelming responsibilities to domestic and international issues, show concern for the rights and welfare of abandoned children in Romania. Thank you for hosting this hearing.

I was requested by the Commission to provide testimony today in this hearing to bring you a perspective from my personal experiences on the ground in Romania, as an adoptive parent of a Romanian child, and as one of over 200 American families with current pending adoption cases from Romania whose final approval has been delayed for years due to Romania's moratorium and subsequent legislation essentially banning inter-country adoption. Though I am greatly honored to testify today, I fear it is not without risk; a risk that exposing my name and speaking out publicly for the children of Romania could somehow jeopardize our own pending adoption case, as has happened to some families we know. However, we are committed to being a voice for abandoned children in Romania, and pray their rights to a permanent loving family will be honored as a result of this hearing.

For two weeks each summer for the past eleven years, Whitney and I have taken time away from our jobs as a university professor and an engineer to serve as volunteers for a private Romanian nonprofit organization. Our first trip in June of 1994 was only four years after the revolution in Romania, and the experience deeply impacted our lives. We fell in love with Romania's beautiful landscape and its warm and loving people. But we also saw the brutal effects of the former communist government: people stripped of all they had and tens of thousands of children left abandoned. We worked in one State-run institution housing over 300 children in cramped, deplorable conditions, and where the environment had developed into a survival of the fittest. We saw a disproportionate number of abandoned children from Roma decent and witnessed unfair discrimination of these children. In sharp contrast, we also worked with a private children's home, whose ministry focused on rehabilitating abandoned children and placing them in permanent families, both domestically and internationally. We saw the life and hope of abandoned children, including the Roma, restored through meeting basic physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Since that first trip, our work in Romania has focused on ministering to a variety of needs, but especially the needs of abandoned children, both in State-run institutions as well as private orphanages and foster homes. Over the years we've seen some improvements, but in our experience, the needs of abandoned children are as great now as they were when we first went in 1994. I have compiled a slide show of recent images from Romania that I showed

before the hearing and will show again afterwards, documenting the reality that some abandoned children in Romania still face. Note too that many photos show American volunteers working alongside Romanians to help these children. The slide show also includes just a small sample of the thousands of miraculous stories of inter-country adoption from Romania, sent to me by families across the United States, where children are united with loving families. The contrasts speak for themselves.

Whitney and I again returned to Romania last month and worked with 20 children under the age of four in the previouslymentioned private children's home. The same children are still there that were there during our last visit, only now a year older. Some children have been fortunate enough to be placed in foster care, but most face a difficult future without a family. Unless the pending cases are processed, and the current law changed, the nonprofit organization anticipates raising these children until they are out of high school as very few, if any, Romanian nationals are inquiring to adopt these children. If the pending inter-country adoption cases were processed today, seven children from this organization would have permanent loving homes. While in Romania last month, I also accompanied a social worker for a day and learned that the new law has created a paperwork nightmare. Since it requires new signatures from parents who had already terminated their rights, social workers now spend most of their time locating parents or relatives for signatures instead of working on finding children permanent families. My understanding is that social workers are also obligated to explain to the parents or extended family that the government will pay them to care for the child if they take them back, even if the conditions are unfit to raise a child. On that particular day we searched for the parents of two girls from the children's home and finally found them living in the city garbage dump. Another child's grandmother who lived in similar conditions wanted to reclaim the child so she could receive money from the government; despite the fact that she has never seen the child, and the child has been living with a wonderful foster care family for over 3 years who want to adopt him. Though I was not granted access to a State hospital, I was told that because the new law prohibits adoption of children under two years of age, there are once again entire floors filled with abandoned babies, reminiscent of the Ceaucescu era. I also understand that in an effort to meet EU admittance criteria requiring closure of large government institutions, many foster parents are required to accept more children than they can support. According to the social worker I was with, some foster parents have up to 16 children. These are some of the experiences I had just one month ago, but the organization said that these are common experiences that social workers in Romania currently face. Clearly, these are not in the best interests of the children.

Whitney and I first considered adopting a Romanian child after our summer trip to Romania in 2000. Our motives for wanting to adopt a child were very simple: to provide a home to a child who needs a loving family. Our experiences had confirmed to us that, though Romania has made some progress over the years in providing for abandoned children, the need is too great for Romania to meet by itself. Statistics tell us there are still over 80,000 chil

dren in State care and another 9,000 babies abandoned annually. However, less than 1,500 of these children are domestically adoption each year. Further, there are a disproportionate number of Roma children, older children, and children with medical problems that statistics show will never be adopted domestically. In fact, according to the UNICEF report of 2005,1 approximately 66% of abandoned children are Roma.

Our daughter, Simona, is of Roma decent and her story is a testimony to the miracle that inter-country adoption can bring to a child who needs a loving family. She was abandoned at 3 months of age at a State hospital in Romania. She spent the next 2 years of her life in State institutions where she was largely neglected. Fortunately, she was then placed with a loving foster care family for 9 months, which in many ways saved her life. But had intercountry adoption not been an option for Simona, she likely would never have been adopted domestically due to her age and Roma heritage. We celebrate the day we brought her home, June 20, 2001, which was less than a week before the moratorium on intercountry was first imposed by the Romanian government. At that time, Šimona was about 3 years old. She had just learned to walk and was speaking less than ten words in her native language. Four years later, Simona is now a beautiful, healthy, and thriving 7 year old who loves to run, jump, play, and laugh. Šimona has added immeasurable joy to our family and we thank God for her life. We celebrate her Romanian heritage though there are days when we look at her and wonder what would have become of this beautiful child had inter-country adoption not been an option for her.

Our story is not unique. There are literally thousands of miraculous inter-country adoption stories of Romanian children from all over the world. We have even documented many of these stories in a book that will serve as an appendix to this hearing. From our perspective, it is outrageous and offensive to hear that certain influential members of the European Parliament have repeatedly threatened Romania with denial into the EU if they allow international adoption, calling it nothing more than the "selling of babies."

After returning again from volunteer work in Romania during the summer of 2003, we filed papers to adopt another abandoned child we had spent considerable time with at the private children's home. Despite the moratorium, we received confirmation of a case number and assignment of our child from the Romanian government in September of 2003, hoping to get approval under the Emergency Ordinance. In February of 2004, we joined efforts with hundreds of families with pending cases and Romanian-adopted children to form an organization called For The Children-SOS to actively seek resolution for these pipeline cases and promote fair and transparent legislation for abandoned children in Romania. The extensive efforts of FTC-SOS are detailed in an appendix to this hearing. Collectively our organization has spent thousands of hours not only working with our local, state, and federal governments, and with the past and current Romanian leaders, but also working on the ground in Romania helping abandoned children. On

1 The Situation of Child Abandonment in Romania, UNICEF report, January, 2005.