Spotlight on a dark side of adoption

An investigation following the campaign of Dundalk woman Briege Hughes to keep a four-year-old Romanian child in Ireland alleges that a Romanian charity had brought children here without permission from the children's parents, who, contrary to the belief of would-be adopters here, were still very much alive. Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer report from Bucharest.

A year ago, Ireland was fascinated by the story of a Romanian child. Mihaela Porumbaru, a disabled four-year-old, was on holiday with Dundalk woman Briege Hughes, who campaigned for Mihaela to stay beyond the planned two weeks.

Mihaela lived in a grim dilapidated Romanian orphanage, she explained. When the little girl returned to Romania, she would be placed in an adult psychiatric institution because she had lost her place in the orphanage.

However, it eventually emerged Mihaela did not live in a grim Romanian orphanage - and that she had been living in a loving foster home.

Mihaela, who came here initially for a two-week holiday in July 2001, did not leave for five months. Briege Hughes said the child received medical treatment during that time.

The controversy over Mihaela's trip to Ireland prompted the Romanian authorities to investigate how a young child from outside Bucharest went on a short holiday and did not return for months.

Its confidential report, compiled by senior investigators from Romania's National Child Protection Authority, which has been seen by The Irish Times, reveals that Romanian children's charity FAMA, which brought Mihaela and her friends to Ireland, was not properly licensed to look after children and that the children travelled illegally, without proper documentation.

However, most damningly, the investigation alleges FAMA's main activity was not taking children on holiday.

Instead, the report claimed FAMA was an adoption agency profiting from bringing young children to Ireland on "holiday" as a way of introducing them to potential adoptive parents who were unaware of the background.

"[It was] an attempt to put together children in Romania with potential adopting parents in Ireland," the report states.

International adoptions out of Romania have been big business, although they are temporarily banned by Romania at present. They can cost between $10,000 and $30,000 - a fortune in a poor country like Romania where the minimum wage is just $50 a month.

According to Jonathan Sheele, the European Commission representative in Bucharest: "Having institutions full of adoptable children was advantageous to a system which then supplied the market for inter-country adoptions."

Experts believe that the huge sums of money involved can encourage the institutionalisation of children whose parents were unable to cope through poverty or illness.

The investigation also alleged that FAMA misrepresented many of the children, including Mihaela, as being available for adoption.

"FAMA told the local Child Protection Authority [in Dambovita, north of Bucharest, where Mihaela lived\] the children were going to Ireland for eventual adoption. They were allowed to go despite not being available for adoption because they had parents in Romania," the report states. "This showed a disregard for the law and has had severe consequences on the children's psychological development, because they started to form attachments to those families," the investigation alleges.

According to the report, FAMA was unlicensed when, on a number of occasions, it brought Mihaela and other children to Ireland. "Between 1999 and 2001 there were three trips to Ireland when FAMA was not authorised to work in child protection," the report says.

FAMA was also alleged to have used false and incomplete documentation to bring the minors out of the country. In Romania, as in most countries, permission from parents or legal guardians is essential before a child can leave the country.

Most of the children who travelled to Ireland under FAMA's auspices had parents but were living, often temporarily, with foster parents. However, just as in Ireland, the natural parents still had rights over their children, and the report found they were not consulted before they travelled. Moving children without such consultation is illegal in Ireland and Romania.

"As the children were not under the guardianship of the local Child Protection Authority, the consent given by these organisations [FAMA and the local authority\] was illegal. The parents as legal representatives of the children were not consulted about the trip," the report states.

The Romanian government has since written to every foreign embassy based in Bucharest, reminding diplomats of the exact documentation needed before a minor can be taken out of the country.

The report also gives details about Mihaela Porumbaru, which contradict assertions made by those campaigning for her to remain in Ireland to be adopted. Mihaela was consistently described as an abandoned child. However, the investigators, after examining her file, stated that the name of her mother was known. They also found that a man claiming to be her father had visited her. The report criticises the local authorities in Romania for not following up this visit to see if Mihaela could be reunited with her parents.

The investigators do not say why they think this follow-up did not happen. In Romania, if the parents are located, both must give their consent before an international adoption can be allowed - and if children are living with their family, they cannot be available for international adoption.

The report also heavily criticises the local authorities for not trying to reunite children with their families. "No investigation of the parents' homes or any other action to reintegrate the children in either the natural or extended family was carried out by the Child Protection Authority," the report states.

As a result of the report, the National Child Protection Authority recommended a senior Romanian child protection official responsible for Mihaela be dismissed and the Romanian Embassy in Ireland was advised that FAMA should have no further role in "any project in child protection between Ireland and Romania".

In a statement, the local Child Protection Authority in Dambovita county said it thinks the sanctions suggested by the investigation team were too severe because of its previous record of success in child protection in the county.

Baroness Emma Nicholson, a British MEP and EU rapporteur for Romania, said the report raised questions about the rights of children travelling abroad. Mihaela had been treated "disgracefully".

"I shall recommend to the Irish government that they examine the movements of foreign unaccompanied children in and out of Ireland since loopholes have been exploited by people who use children like Mihaela simply as a pawn on a chessboard," she said. "Inter-country adoptions out of Romania have gone completely out-of-hand and beyond all doubt destroy the children's rights."

Ireland is not unique in hosting these types of "holidays". Last month, the US State Department turned down visa applications for 18 institutionalised children from Romania because their "holiday" was being organised by an adoption agency. The decision provoked outrage. Politicians and potential adopters lobbied hard to have the ban reversed. In a letter to one senator, J. Thomas Smyth, the US consul in Bucharest, was blunt in his reasons for the refusal.

Smyth said the embassy was originally told the trip was planned by the Foundation for American Assistance for Romania, a New York charity. The purpose of the trip was described as "traditional camping activities", the letter said. But documents showed the organiser was International Family Services, a US adoption agency. "[The trip] appeared to be designed to facilitate the identification of prospective adoption matches - a far cry from the rationale originally presented," Smyth said.

Gabriella Coman, the head of National Child Protection Authority in Romania, questions the value of foreign holidays for veryyoung Romanian children.

"I think it is better if a child goes to the Romanian seaside. Then Romanians will see the children and realise that these are their children. This breaks down barriers and Romanians realise they are normal human beings. Also, for these children to have their first holiday in Ireland is too much of a shock," she said.

Gabriela Stanescu, the head of FAMA, declined to answer questions about the report's findings. "I am not allowed to speak about this matter and all questions must be referred to the local child protection authority," she said.

Ivan Ivanoff, president of the Child Protection Authority of Dambovita described the report as flawed and released his organisation's rebuttal to the document. This admits the children travelled to Ireland illegally on a number of occasions but states the irregularity should have been noticed at national level. "We agree that parents' consent was needed but this was the fourth time children went to Ireland so the National Child Protection Authority should have remedied the situation," the rebuttal says.

However, since 1997, as part of a policy to try to improve life for children in care, all child welfare matters have been decentralised to give local authorities more flexibility.

In its statement, the authority also admits that FAMA was not licensed to carry out child welfare initiatives or adoption during most of the trips but said the confusion was caused by a clerical error.

Barry Mulligan, the Irish honorary consul to Romania, has seen many Irish charities working in the country during his nine years there. Almost all were well-meaning and honest, he says.

"However, I would urge everyone who gives to charities to be more thorough and ask questions about where the money is going. Is it doing something worthwhile that fits in with international best practice or is it simply helping to fund private businesses?"

Hughes: doesn't know who to trust

When contacted by The Irish Times with details of the Romanian authorities' report (see main article), Briege Hughes says she now doesn't know who to trust. But she still wants to adopt Mihaela Porumbaru.

She says she formed the Frank Hughes Memorial Foundation in Ireland to facilitate holidays for Romanian children and insisted to the Romanian children's charity, FAMA, that those coming to Ireland were to be eligible for adoption because they would form attachments with the Irish families.

She says to facilitate the trips, the Frank Hughes Memorial Foundation has been incorporated as a charity and is registered in Ireland for tax exemptions.

However, Hughes declines to comment on apparently contradictory statements she made last summer when she was campaigning to keep Mihaela in Ireland.

Then she told reporters - and was widely quoted as saying - the aim of the Frank Hughes Memorial Foundation was to raise funds for a hospital to treat sick Romanian children from the country's institutions. She said then plans were advanced and she needed to raise £15 million. Many newspapers published a bank account number where people could donate money.

Hughes now declines to comment when asked what has happened to the money raised for the hospital. But she says the Frank Hughes Memorial Foundation money paid the children's airfares.

She also said they had to pay $500 for their visas. Hughes says she still wants to adopt Mihaela and was unaware of any suggestion Mihaela has any birth parents interested in her or that the child is not eligible for adoption.

She says she paid for all the medical treatment the child underwent last year in Beaumont Hospital.

Hughes says she sent £5,000 of her own money last December to buy presents and clothes for a group of children the Romanian authorities said could visit Ireland. However, Hughes says she did not go ahead with planning the holiday because the group did not include Mihaela.