Romania May Soon Resume Adoptions : Europe: They were halted to put an end to international ‘sales’ of children. New procedures will be tighter.

A representative of the Romanian government, which recently halted international adoptions in an effort to shut down a flourishing black market in children, said Friday that adoptions by foreigners could resume by the end of this year or early 1992.

Dr. Alexandra Zugravescu, president of the newly established Romanian Committee for Adoptions, said legislation enacted by the Romanian Parliament in July was intended to halt unregulated “sales” of Romanian children through private channels. The law prohibits foreign adoptions directly from biological parents and imposes a six-month waiting period during which efforts are to be made to place children with suitable Romanian families.

The changes required by the new legislation made it necessary to interrupt international adoptions to give the committee time to organize the new screening process, Zugravescu said.

“The main goal of (the committee’s) activity is the registration of all really abandoned children and orphans, of actually all children whom we can provide with a home, with a family of their own,” she said at a news conference here.

Bucharest enacted the new policy in response to problems associated with private adoptions after the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in December, 1989.

Concerned families around the world, reacting to reports of wretched conditions in state orphanages, applied to adopt Romanian children. But many became frustrated by governmental red tape and opted for private adoption instead. As a result of the large demand, a “baby trafficking” industry evolved, in which large sums of money or expensive gifts were offered to biological parents in exchange for their children, often by profit-seeking middlemen.

In addition to prohibiting private abortions, the new law makes the acceptance of money or material goods in exchange for the adoption of a child a criminal offense punishable by one to five years’ imprisonment and confiscation of the cash or goods involved.

Of 7,014 Romanian children adopted during the first seven months of this year, Americans took in 2,388, Zugravescu said. Only about one in five adoptions involved Romanian families, she said, although the number has been increasing.

More than 7,000 Romanian infants under the age of 3 and 40,000 children between ages 3 and 7 are currently considered abandoned, Zugravescu said. It is not yet known how many of those are legally adoptable.

The law requires American families interested in adopting Romanian children to work through U.S. adoption agencies registered with the Romanian committee. So far, no agencies have been selected to work with the committee.