Ceausescu haunts country 16 years after his execution

Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2005 | 8:35 a.m.

Most of Romania's current struggles, including the large number of abandoned and orphaned children, stem from the communist policies of Nicolae Ceausescu, local ministers Marian Bilauca and Matthew and Estera Duru said.

The dictator and his wife, who were executed for crimes against the people on Dec. 25, 1989, bull-dozed historic homes, schools and churches to make way for gray, cookie-cutter apartment and office buildings, and starved the people while he built his white marble palace, Bilauca said.

Ceausescu also exported most of the country's goods to pay off the national debt. The crippling recession, combined with a policy mandating that each family have at least four children to increase Romania's population, drove many parents to abandon their children, Bilauca and the Durus said.

Economics continue to lead parents to give up their offspring at almost the same rate as under Ceausescu, according to a January 2005 UNICEF report. About 4,000 to 5,000 newborns are abandoned each year to spend the first two years of their lives in hospitals.

Under pressure to crack down on a thriving black market, the Romanian government banned foreign adoptions two years ago. Even internally, adoption is difficult and expensive.

The government has been moving children into foster-home type settings, but nearly 32,000 still live in institutions with 100 children or more, according to government reports.

At least a couple of thousand live in the streets, where they organize themselves into miniature gangs, spending their days picking pockets and getting high. At night they take to the sewers.

Most of these children, Bilauca said, will die on the streets.