Children’s charity bemoans Bulgaria adoption controls

By David Cronin and Martin Banks

Date: 11/03/04

BULGARIA has even more lax controls on the adoption of its children by foreigners than neighbouring Romania, claims Save the Children.

MEPs are today (11 March) likely to seize on Romania's acknowledgement that a moratorium on international adoptions - imposed due to reports that trafficking of children may have occurred - has been circumvented to demand a new EU accession strategy for the country. But Save the Children is disappointed that child protection issues in Bulgaria have not received the same attention.

A recent study by the group says "international adoptions currently take place in an environment that presents significant opportunities for malpractice and exploitation".

The study cites allegations that intermediaries have received more than €150,000 for arranging adoptions with child care institutions. It also says the transactions involved in international adoptions "run to millions of euro", with parents wishing to adopt paying private agencies up to €32,000 per child.

"Bulgaria could be worse than Romania," said Diana Sutton from Save the Children's Brussels office. "The international adoptions from Bulgaria are not properly regulated."

The Sofia government has calculated that 971 passports were issued to children adopted by foreigners last year. This was slightly below the 1,022 issued in 2002 - the highest ever recorded number in the country's history. But Save the Children believes this does not suggest a downward trend, as a temporary moratorium was introduced on foreign adoptions for a few months last year, while new child care legislation was put in place.

The group is particularly concerned about the large concentration of Roma gypsy children in foreign adoptions, stating that 90% of such children belong to that ethnic community.

Geoffrey van Orden, the British Conservative MEP who has written the Parliament's latest report on Bulgaria, said it would be "quite untrue" to claim the international adoption question is not being addressed as part of discussions on the country's EU membership bid. He added a greater push is needed to integrate Roma into "mainstream society" by allocating more resources towards their education and training, as well as providing them with better access to family planning services.

Socialist MEP Michael Cashman said he plans to ask deputies from the Sofia national assembly to investigate the allegations when they attend an EU-Bulgaria joint Parliamentary committee meeting next week. But a Bulgarian diplomat said the national laws on international adoptions have been "tightened up". This means that adoptions require approval from the ministry of justice and are subject to judicial review.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament's rapporteur for Romania, Liberal deputy Emma Nicholson, urged Bucharest to quicken the pace of its reforms if it is to join the Union by 2007. "Whether Romania joins in 2007 is entirely up to Romania. We want it to join but not at a price too high for Europe's citizens to pay," she said.

The charity Save the Children says that Bulgaria has even more lax controls on the adoption of children by foreigners than Romania.

• Primary Source

http://www.savethechildren.net/alliance/index.html http://www.savethechildren.net/alliance/index.html

---