"Ceausescu's children"
and the Roumanian child protection services
This blog post took a bit longer and became harder to write than I thought. It is due neither to writer’s block nor lack of motivation, but rather all the thoughts which starts streaming through my mind when I try to attach something to the screen. To involve in poverty, social distress, and families and people in vulnerable situations, often includes meeting children who is facing the consequences of totally mistaken political experiments and reactionary, dysfunctional power structures, apparently without any ability or willingness to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable of the nation's inhabitants.
For most of us, the lives and destiny of these children are a well-displaced reality, which is far below in the shadow of our consciousness, and is not picked up unless we choose to expose ourselves to the discomfort. Actually, I think writing about the poor vulnerable children should be completely redundant. It should be obvious that the lack of security, care and love and the absence of a minimum of material resources such as food, clothing and shelter for all children was at the top of the political priority list and was continuous in the media's spotlight when and where this is not the reality. But sadly, that's not how it is.
The headline of this blogpost I have borrowed from an article in The Guardian, written by Wendell Steavenson and published on December 10, 2014. Wendell, like me, wanted to find out to what extent the situation of children under public care in Roumania had changed to the better since the disclosure of the grotesque conditions in Romanian orphanages spread in Western media in 1989 and early 90's. Many of you may also remember the pictures of the "sewage children" who lived in the underground tunnels of Bucharest published in spring and summer 2014.
See Massimo Branca's pictures here or the video made by Paraic O'Brien and Jim Wickens in 2014 for Channel 4 here.
Wendell Steavenson's article is the story of the tragic consequences of a political idea about the excellence of the Communist State as a caregiver. Combined with poverty and social structures that were collapsing, the children had become the losers. The article is also a portrait of a young man, Vişinel Balan, with a unique life story. The story about Vişinel, who himself grew up in one of Roumania's state orphanages, provides an insight into the life of one of these abandoned children, while also giving a glimpse of hope being an example that the impossible some times can be possible.
When Vişinel Balan was two months old he was left in a state infant centre. The year was 1987. When he was eight years old, Vişinel was later moved to a Placement Centre in Comănești. The life in the centre was extremely hard for the little boy. He was beaten by the older kids and also by some of the caretakers. A year later he ran off to live at a railway station. After running away from the placement centre, Vişinel was rescued and taken to one of the smaller homes that began to replace the giant placement centres in the 90s. He did not know anything about his family until he was 11. Two of his older brothers came to the same centre as he and told him that he had other brothers and sisters and that he had parents too. His brothers took him to see his parents and he learned that he was the last of 13 children. His father was violent was beating his mother. Four of their children died and the rest were placed in state institutions like Vişinel.
Vişinel is now 30 and in some miraculous way and by hard work he has got a master degree in both law and social work as well as a a theatre degree. He has worked as a project coordinator for the Ministry of Youth and Sport, as a drama teacher at a school for gifted children and as a consultant for Saatchi & Saatchi in Roumania before he got his current job in the parliament. He is also the co-founder of the NGO "Drawing Your Own Future" that works with children in Romania’s child-protection system.
To give some background information about how the Roumania child protection system evolved during and after the communist era, I share some of Wendel Steavensons article in this blogpost: (I’ve shortened a little):
"When he came to power in 1966, Ceaușescu had grand plans for Roumania. The country had industrialised late, after the second world war, and its birthrate was low. Ceaușescu borrowed the 1930s Stalinist dogma that population growth would fuel economic growth and fused this idea with the conservatism of his rural childhood. In the first year of his rule, his government issued Decree 770, which outlawed abortion for women under 40 with fewer than four children. "The foetus is the property of the entire society," Ceaușescu announced. "Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity."
The birth rate soon doubled, but then the rate of increase slowed as Romanian women resorted to homemade illegal abortions, often with catastrophic results. In 1977 all childless persons, regardless of sex or martial status, were made to pay an additional monthly tax. In the 1980s condoms and the pill, although prohibitively expensive, began to become available in Romania – so they were banned altogether. Motherhood became a state duty. The system was ruthlessly enforced by the secret police, the securitate. Doctors who performed abortions were imprisoned, women were examined every three months in their workplaces for signs of pregnancy. If they were found to be pregnant and didn’t subsequently give birth, they could face prosecution. Fertility had become an instrument of state control.
This policy, coupled with Romania’s poverty, meant that more and more unwanted children were abandoned to state care. No one knows how many. Estimates for the number of children in orphanages in 1989 start at 100,000 and go up from there. Since the second world war, there had been a system of state institutions for children. But after 1982, when Ceaușescu redirected most of the budget to paying off the national debt, the economy tanked and conditions in the orphanages suffered.
When the world press discovered Ceaușescu’s archipelago of orphanages and the appalling images went around the world: disabled children with bone-stick limbs tied to their beds, cross-eyed toddlers who couldn’t walk, malnourished babies left unattended in cribs with metal bars, little corpses stacked in basements. The pictures shocked Romanians as much as they did the rest of the world; institutionalised children were generally kept away from the general population.
"Since the fall of Ceauşescu, Roumania has come a long way in overhauling its child protection system. As Sandie Blanchet, the Unicef representative in Roumania, told me: "The ideology under Ceaușescu’s regime was that the state was better than the family. Nobody is saying that now." Today only a third of Romania’s children in the state system are housed in residential homes maintained by the state. Half of these are in what are known as "family-type" homes with five or six kids growing up together. The other half are in placement centres, larger institutional buildings that usually house between 30 and 100 kids. However, the majority of Romanian children in the state system are in foster care – Romanian foster parents are paid a salary from the state, rather than being subsidised volunteers as they are in western European countries – or placed with extended family. The government has made a public commitment to close all the remaining placement centres – roughly 170 – by 2020. But this progress conceals an ongoing problem; just as in Ceauşescu’s time, most of these children are not orphans, they are in fact "separated from their parents". The number of Romanian children separated from their parents has fallen from an estimated 100,000 in 1990 to some 60,000 today. But the birth rate has also steeply declined, which means that the proportion of Romania’s children in state care has remained stubbornly high. Things have improved little since the 1990s. And parents are still abandoning their children, largely it turns out, for the same reason as in previous decades: poverty."
During the day I more or less get Wendell Stevenson’s brief summary of how the policy of the Romanian child protection system has changed confirmed, though there are some quite alarming numbers that extends the picture as we shall see.
Entering a big, unknown city with more than 2 million inhabitants, without a guide, an appointment or some clear plan for what I'm actually going to do here is normally a bad idea. I have stayed at a 24-hour combined gas station and bar by the north-eastern highway and main entry to Bucharest to have as much time and daylight as possible to reach some possible contacts for information about the situation for some of Romania’s most vulnerable children.
Wendel Steavenson's article provided me a link to Vişinel Balan's NGO for street children and a website that states the organisation's visit address. Since Vişinel was at the top of my current list of possible contacts and informants, I take the chance just showing up at the address, hoping to meet someone who can help me further. My GPS shows it is not that far from the place I have stayed for the night and as often before, I am greeted by helpful people who do what they can for a traveller on the quest to know the life and country they live in.
When I finally get to the adress I've got, it appears that neither Vişinel nor his organisation stay here anymore. I push the doorbell, the door opens and I'm met by a young woman with a little child on her arm. I ask for Vişinel Balan and explain that I have found this address on his website.
The young woman does not speak much English, but understands what and who I am searching for and thankfully she knows Vişinel. She asks me to come in while she finds a phone and starts to call. After a couple of attempts, she gets in touch with someone and hands me the phone. "Hello, it's Vişinel Balan," says a voice in the phone. I apologise for coming unannounced, and explains that it's due to the fact that my trip has been a little unpredictable. "No, problem" says the voice on the phone, but you must come to the parliament building in the city centre. I'm working there now and do not live in the apartment at the old address anymore ". He promises to receive me as soon as I arrive at the parliament, and says I can just sign in at the parliament building entrance. It sounds simple enough and since the parliament building is a landmark in the city centre, my GPS has no trouble guiding me where I am going. The security guards at the entrance to the parking lot by the parliament building look a bit dubious at my little camper, but let me in when I have declared my errand and who to visit.
After reaching the right entrance, (not that easy since the Roumanian parliament building is the world's largest of it’s kind) and through the compulsory registration and security check, I'm met by a smiling young man reaching out his hand to welcome me.
I repeat why I have come and how I found him. He welcomes me once again and explains that he has some a few things to finish for the deputy, but than he’ll have the rest of the day at my disposal. He says that the Deputy would like to see me and have invited me for lunch. I am left almost speechless by the way I am met just by taking a random phone call early in the morning, in a country where my notions about the political system have not just been a concept of flexibility and openness. But for Vişinel and his boss it still seems to be the case. As it turns out that he has a new job as adviser at the deputy chamber in the Romanian Parliament. He is working for a new political party, the USR (Union Save Romania) in the secretariat of deputy Iulian Bulai (29). Iulian has lived and studied (art) for 9 years in Norway and is married to the Norwegian NRK journalist Eva Marie Bulai.
Since it is already mid-day when I finally get checked in to the Parliament, we meet for lunch shortly after my arrival. We meet Iulian, a young man with an open, friendly face, at the parliament restaurant. He speaks fluent Norwegian, almost without accent. During our lunch we have an interesting, and to me a very informative conversation. Iulian states that the USR, the party he represents, is an alternative to the existing political parties (and the governing social democratic party), which largely constitute a continuation of existing power structures and, to a rather limited extent, have shown the ability to develop the Romanian society after the revolution. USR got 8,9% of the votes in the last election a year ago (not bad for a party only one year old) and was represented in Parliament for the first time ever with 13 seats in the senate and 30 in deputy chamber. The two most important issues for USR are the fight against corruption and for protecting the environment. The party can be considered liberal and placed in the centre of the a right/left political landscape. What separates the USR party from the bunch, is primarily that it’s representatives are all coming from the outside of the present power structures. Except for their anti corruption campaign and radical environment protection program though, I have a hard time seeing what solutions they offer for the society, the economy and for the children. But that's me.
After lunch, I sit down with Vişinel to learn more about the situation and development of the Romanian child protection system. We talk about Wendell Steavenson’s article and Vişinel confirms her presentation of the orphanage-history, the child protection system and the story about his life. He tells me he chose to work in the political system and in the parliament hoping his experience and knowledge could be used to improve the child protection system and get more political attention to the abandoned children.
In the three years that has passed since the article in the Guardian not so much has changed, neither the numbers of abandoned children, children under child protection or the number of street children. Still there are around 5000 street children in Bucharest, many living in the tunnels under the city. Only 400 are rescued from the streets every year, meaning a lot of children still live and die in the tunnels 18 years after the revolution.
Vişinel has many ideas about possible changes to improve in the child protection system and how to mobilise the churches (Romania has 30 000 churches with a strong position in most communities), local authorities and the child protection system. However, when I ask him to what extent his ideas and suggestions are supported by the USR party or any government authorities, the answer is negative.
Before we leave the parliament I'm taken on a guided tour inside the enormous building. It is still a symbol of an era and Nicolae Ceausescu’s attempt prove to the world how wealthy, prosperous and powerful he and his Socialist Republic of Romania had grown. The building is both impressive and bit disgusting with it’s size and luxurious interiors, knowing it’s history and it’s creator. At least it gives some comfort knowing it can be used as a functional administrative centre for the people’s representatives.
It's become early afternoon when we are leaving the Parliament for a visit to a private orphanage in one of the Bucharest suburbs. Visiting a state orphanage is impossible, Vişinel has explained, even for him because the authorities do not want more negative publicity than they already have, and many sees him as a a trouble maker. But not all orphanages are owned by state and Vişinel wants to take me to a privat NGO/Orphanage by the name Acasa. After struggling through the Bucharest afternoon traffic in my camper for a while, trying to keep up with the left – right – left - straight orders from my guide, we finally reaches a school-like building with an iron gate and a security guard. Vişinel explains that the area is one of the least secure in the city so a security guard is absolutely necessary. However, the security company provides this service for free to support to the organisation and orphanage.
We enter an area with several buildings and are met by Alin Manole, a tall, smiling man with a fatherly warmth in his eyes. A man I immediately like. We are expected since Vişinel has called him earlier in the day, and I tell him my errand and why I wanted to visit the orphanage. Alin tells me I’m very welcome and take me to see the houses and meet some of the children.
On a shelf inside the first building we enter, I discover a Norwegian flag and stop to ask what is the link to Norway. Alin tells me the Norwegian NGO, "Europa i fokus" and Frantz Johansen and later his son Leon (when Frantz passed away in 2014) has been involved in Acasa since the start in 1999. Acasa (And the NGO behind it – "Metropolis Philantropic Foundation) today has several sponsors, and is also partly funded by the government. The Norwegian support however is important and stands out because it is always timely and dependable, Alin says.
Since day one, when the Acasa orphanage was established in a small rented house I Bucharest in December 2004, the foundation has given shelter, care and protection to more than 685 children. Their goal is to "help children who don’t have a chance to live in a loving family, who don’t have a place they can call home.
Most of the children comes to the centre from the state’s child protection system. Some comes from families who cannot take care of their children anymore and many are street children. About 60% are Roma/gypsies.
The Acasa foundation is also giving family support and is running a day care centre for children who are still living with their parents, but the residential center (orphanage) are their main facility.
The center can raise children aged 6 to 18. Children who work hard to get an education, a job or wants to attend university can stay until they are 26. The center can accommodate 39 children. Each child have an individual intervention plan aiming to mobilise the child’s potential and is optimised for their specific needs. Education is the most important for all the children and the center works in close collaboration with school no. 153, which is located close to the center.
Alin explains the center philosophy, the activity programs and the professional guidelines for the interaction between the staff and the children. The staff is a mix of professional social workers, psychologists and staff member without a professional background but with a common engagement in helping the children. Some of the children brought to the center are severely traumatised from being neglected, from violence or sexual abuse and are in need of therapeutic treatment which is provided by the psychologists or specialists utside the center if needed.
In short, this center seems to be extremely well organised and facilitated to meet the needs of it’s target group. However, what touches me most is not the plans, the activities and programs, but rather the whole atmosphere at the center. Most professionals, whether in Roumania or any other country, will agree that growing up in an institution is not ideal for most children. However for some it is the only solution, and what is crucial is how the institution manages to establish the relations, and trust between the staff and the children. In Acasa I experienced a certain tranquillity, respectful communication, and friendliness in all the interaction, that is hard to describe. I believe Acasa has managed to recruit staff that really care for the children and give them the love and affection only loving parents normally can provide. I think this is also at least be some of the explanation why Acasa has never experienced any runaways among the children, according to Alin, and that more than 90% of the children grows up in the centre and stays there till they enter adulthood.
During my short visit to Acasa this afternoon I also get a chance to talk with some of the children. Gabi (14) was 5 when he came to Acasa. He loves computers and dreams about becoming a computer engineer.
Larisa (18) came to Acasa when she was 14. "Acasa is my home, and Alin is my father", she says, and takes Alins hand. She lived for some years in a foster home, with an elderly man and his daughter. When the old man died and the daughter got her own family, Larisa had nowhere else to go and moved to Acasa. Her dream is to become a prosecutor or lawyer.
I leave Acasa with the impression of a very special institution, unique in it’s ability to combine professional, individual programs for each child with personal care, trust and relationships that hopefully can compensate for some of the losses, hardship and suffering these children have experienced. Alins information, the children’s own words, their hopes and their smiles gives me a lot of hope on their behalf. Sadly, however, only two centres like this exists in the whole city of Bucharest.
It’s early night and dark when we leave Acasa. Vişinel has invited me to stay at his house for the night and have dinner with him, his brother Virgil (who has become and works as psychologist) and his boyfriend Bogdan. We share a lovely meal, baced, stuffed pepper from Bogdans mother and some good wine. A better host and better company is hard to find.
Next Up (in due time): "Istanbul - An Other Turkey"
