2 - Romania: what underlay the orphan crisis

Summary

Children's institutionalisation policy before 1989

The 1989 Christmas was not just another Christmas with news about festive lights and gifts. Anyone who was old or young enough to watch the news will remember the execution of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife, Elena; followed shortly by the black and white images of malnourished children in institutions. They were the so called ‘Romanian orphans’ and they were going to be portrayed by the media for many years to come. No other Eastern European country overthrew communism so violently or had an ‘orphan crisis’ that the international media picked on. So, what was so special about Romania?

A member of the European Union since 2007, Romania has a population of 20 million people. It includes several ethnic minorities, the largest being the Hungarian minority, located in Transylvania, followed by the Roma. Romanian is a Latin language which makes the country a linguistic island in the region. It is one of the most religious countries in Europe, with Orthodox Christianity being the main denomination (80 per cent). The country is rich in resources and before World War Two (as a result of which communism was imposed in the country) Romania's care for vulnerable children had been provided by philanthropists, churches and monasteries. According to Bejenaru (2017, p 172), Romania had then ‘one of the most modern European welfare systems’.

At the same time, Romania experienced one of the most oppressive authoritarian communist regimes in the CEE bloc (Morrison, 2004). King Michael was forced to abdicate in 1947 by a government imposed by Moscow, and the country's political, academic and spiritual leaders were placed in prison (as ‘enemies of the state’) where many were tortured and died. For almost half a century the Romanian people lived in isolation; only selected and trustworthy members of the communist party were allowed to travel to the West.

During the Cold War it was the only country in the region that did not border with a non-communist state, which meant that most people had little or no opportunity to access alternative sources of information other than the state newspapers, radio and television. Deletant (2006, p 277) claims that ‘it was only with the fall of the Romanian Communist regime in 1989 that the Second World War … finally came to an end for Romania’.