thy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection. Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Article 27. (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. Article 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein. PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. DANA JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION CLINIC, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Commission members and representatives, for inviting me to address you today and for convening a hearing on the pressing topic of the impact of Romania's restrictions on domestic and international adoption on the well being of abandoned children. I appear before you to offer three perspectives on this issue. I am first a physician who counsels thousands of families each year throughout North America and Western Europe as they prepare to adopt children from abroad and after they bring their children home. I am also a researcher who has spent the last fifteen years studying the effect of institutionalization on child health and well bring as well as the outcome of post-institutionalized_children adopted internationally. The majority of this research has been conducted in the context of Romanian orphans. I was the director of the team of professionals that first published information on the medical status of Romanian adoptees in the United States; I have participated in a number of deinstitutionalization programs in Romanian neuropsychological institutions and camine-spitals under the direction of Christian Tabacaru, former head of child protection and the Romanian Adoption Committee. I serve as consulting pediatrician to the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, the first randomized, controlled study of the effects of foster and institutional care on early brain development and I am a founding member of the Bucharest Institute of Child Development. Finally, I offer my experience in my most satisfying role, as the proud adoptive parent of Gabriel James Sunil Sai Johnson. Once a fragile three-pound baby abandoned to die by his birth mother in Calcutta India, twenty years later he is a successful college student who can easily lift me off the ground. In summary, I am intimately acquainted on both a professional and personal level with the profound deterioration that occurs in abandoned infants and young children within orphanages and hospitals, the intense desire on the part of potential adoptive parents to provide homes for these children and the extraordinarily positive effects that nurturing, permanent families play in insuring normal brain and personality development. In the context of today's hearings, there are three main groups that share an interest and have played important roles in determining the fate of abandoned Romanian children; the government of Romania, the legislative bodies of the United States and the European Union and families who desire to adopt abandoned Romania children both domestically and internationally. All three groups would enthusiastically agree that the rights and well being of those abandoned should be our principal concern and all would agree that institutional care is utterly inadequate. There would be no disagreement that children are best served by remaining in their birth families and if that is not possible they should remain in competent, permanent families in Romania. As signers of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, the government of Romania, the countries that form the European Union and the United States have all accepted the statement that adoption abroad "may offer the advantage of a permanent family to a child for whom a suitable family cannot be found in his or her state of origin."1 However the means to achieve these goals differ which is why we face the current crisis. Two viewpoints can be distilled from the controversy defining the "best interests" of children deprived of parental care, particularly in the realm of international adoption: advocacy for children and advocacy for one child. Those who advocate for children as a group, represented by such groups as UNICEF and Save the Children UK, hold many aspects of international adoption to be in direct conflict with the articles of the UNCRC.234 From this perspective, sanctioning practices that downplay the value of birth family and culture and weaken legal protection for the parties involved undermines legal protections for all children. Those at the opposite pole are motivated by one of the most fundamental drives shared by humans: protecting and nurturing the individual child. From this viewpoint, the right of a single, identifiable child to grow up in a permanent family outweighs virtually every other consideration. While these viewpoints appear to be at odds, they are both centered in the well being of children, and within this arena there is considerable room for thoughtful compromise. Current adoption laws in Romania are an outgrowth of inadequate restructuring and implementation of child protection legislation in the post-Ceausescu era. Reports by the European Union 5 in 1999 and the United States 6 in 2001 highlighted a system in crisis and in need of a substantial overhaul. The process of Romania's accession to the European Union that began early in this decade provided the European Parliament the opportunity to examine child protection policy in Romania and bring it into compliance with accepted European standards. However, the resulting legislation, which we are discussing today, essentially eliminates international adoption and concentrates on birth family reunification as the solution to child abandonment. Superficially, the focus on reunifying an abandoned child with his or her family is consistent with both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Convention on International Adoption.1 However, the length of time an abandoned child spends outside a permanent family is not a factor considered in either document. Contemporary child development research has unequivocally shown that in infancy, hospital or orphanage care for 1 Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and Co-operation In Respect of Intercountry Adoption. Hague Conference on Private International Law. Available at: http://hcch.evision.nl/index_en.php?act=conventions.text&cid=69. Accessed September 11, 2005. 2 Intercountry adoption. UNICEF International Child Development Center. December 1998. Available at: www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/digest4e.pdf. Accessed September 11, 2005. 3 Position on international adoption of children from Bulgaria. Save the Children UK. October 2003. 4 Dillon S. Making legal regimens for intercountry adoption reflect human rights principles: transforming the United Nations Convention On the Rights of the Child with the Hague Convention On Intercountry Adoption. Boston University International Law Journal. Fall 2003; 21(2):179-257. 5 Ad hoc Report on Child Protection in Romania A/RO/SOC/99003, 22 July 1999, OMAS Consortium. 6 Ambrose MW and Cobun AM. Report on Intercountry Adoption in Romania. January 22, 2001. Available at: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/romanadopt.htm accessed September 11, 2005. Convention on the rights of the child. UNICEF. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/crc/ crc.htm. Accessed September 11, 2005. 9 longer than 4-6 months can cause permanent alterations in cognitive, emotional and behavioral development.8 A reasonable estimate is that an infant looses about 1-2 IQ points/month, and sustains predictable losses in growth as well as motor and language development between 4 and 24 months of age while living in an institutional care environment. The second finding is that placement in a permanent, nurturing home in early life can immeasurably improve outcome. Finally, though foster care can prevent the deterioration in growth, cognition and emotional development seen in institutionalized children, it is at best a stopgap measure as it does not provide the permanent, committed caregivers that are need to optimize development. We need only look at the problems in our own foster care system to realize that our goal should be permanence. 10 11 12 13. Therefore the duration of time when reunification is the priority must be informed by scientific evidence. Failure to do so will violate a child's right to develop normally. The virtual elimination of international adoption as a option for child protection in Romania is particularly surprising since countries such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Spain have the highest rates of international adoption in the world 14 and all members of the European Europe aside from Greece and have signed, acceded or ratified the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.15 The ban on international adoption in the current Romanian legislation directly reflects the personal views of Lady Emma Nicholson the Rapporteur of the European parliament to Romania from 1999-2004. Charged with overseeing the progress of Romania towards membership in the European Union, Nicholson devoted much of her effort to reforming the child protection system. Within that context, Nicholson spent an inordinate amount of energy promoting an outright ban on international adoption in Romania by tarnishing the character and motives of those involved in the process. 16 17 18 19 Central to her campaign to 8 Johnson DE. Medical and developmental sequelae of early childhood institutionalization in international adoptees from Romania and the Russian Federation. In: Nelson C, editor. The effects of early adversity on neurobehavioral development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.; 2000:113-162. 9 Johnson, DE. Adoption and the effect on children's development. Early Hum Dev 2002;68:39– 44. 10 Halfon N, Mendonca A, Berkowitz G. Health status of children in foster care: the experience of the Center for the Vulnerable Child. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 1995;149:386–392. 11 Takayama JI, Wolfe E, Coulter KP. Relationship between reason for placement and medical findings among children in foster care. Pediatrics 1998;101:201-07. 12 Simms MD, Dubowitz H, Szilagyi MA. Health care needs of children in the foster care system. Pediatrics 2000;106:909-18. 13 Murphy Garwood M, Close W. Identifying the psychological needs of foster children. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 2001;32(2):125–135. 14 Selman P. The demographic history of intercountry adoption. In: Selman P, editor. Developments, trends and perspectives. London: British Agency for Adoption and Fostering (BAFF); 2000:15-37. 15 Status table. Hague Conference on Private International Law. June 16, 2004. Available at: http://hcch.e-vision.nl/index_en.php?act=conventions.status&cid=69. Accessed on September 11, 2005. 16 Nicholson N. Red light on human traffic. Guardian Unlimited. July 1, 2004. Available at: http://society.guardian.co.uk/adoption/comment/0,8146,1250913,00.html Accessed September 11, 2005. 17 Mitu F. Interview granted by Baroness Emma Nicholson. TELE7ABC Italy. February 19, 2001. Available at: http://www.peds.umn.edu/iac/pdf/ABCtranscript.pdf. Accessed September 11, 2005. 18 Nicholson has proof on children abused by adopting foreigners. ZIUA. March 13, 2004. Available at: http://www.ziua.net/display.php?id=7019&data=2004-03-13. Accessed September 11, 2005. Continued |