Fascinating read!!
Romania has had orphanages for centuries. But its orphan crisis began in 1965, when the communist Nicolae Ceaușescu took over as the country’s leader. Over the course of his 24-year rule, Ceaușescu deliberately cultivated the orphan population in hopes of creating loyalty to — and dependency on — the state. In 1966, he made abortion illegal for the vast majority of women. He later imposed taxes on families with fewer than five children and even sent out medically trained government agents — ‘The Menstrual Police’ — to examine women who weren’t producing their quota. But Ceaușescu’s draconian economic policies meant that most families were too poor to support multiple children. So, without other options, thousands of parents left their babies in government-run orphanages.
By Christmas day in 1989, when revolutionaries executed Ceaușescu and his wife by firing squad, an estimated 170,000 children were living in more than 700 state orphanages. As the regime crumbled, journalists and humanitarians swept in. In most institutions, children were getting adequate food, hygiene and medical care, but had woefully few interactions with adults, leading to severe behavioural and emotional problems. A handful of orphanages were utterly abhorrent, depriving children of their basic needs. Soon photos of dirty, handicapped orphans lying in their own excrement were showing up in newspapers across the world. ‘I was very taken with the kids in orphanages,’ Johnson says. Their condition ‘was a stunning contrast to most of the kids we were seeing come for international adoption who had been raised in foster homes’.
In his presentation, Johnson had mentioned that the head of Romania’s newly formed Department for Child Protection, Cristian Tabacaru, was keen on closing down his country’s institutions. After seeing the movies, Network scientist Charles Zeanah, a child psychiatrist from Tulane University who specialised in infant-parent relationships, was gung-ho about meeting Tabacaru and setting up a humanitarian project.
Nelson was touched by the videos, too. And he couldn’t help but think of the scientific possibilities of studying these children. ‘The animal model could allow us to dig into brain biology and all of that but, at the same time, we’d be running a parallel human study.’
Eleven months after that emotional hotel meeting, Zeanah and his wife, a nurse and clinical psychologist, travelled to Romania and saw the orphans for themselves. During their first orphanage visit, the couple couldn’t help but start bawling in front of the kids. One child reached out to comfort them, saying: ‘It’s OK, it’s OK’.
The Zeanahs also met with Tabacaru. He was eager to work with the MacArthur group because he thought that a rigorous scientific study could help his cause. ‘If there was scientific evidence to support the idea that foster care was better for kids, he thought he’d have more leverage with his political colleagues,’ Nelson told me. The data, in other words, could speak for the children.
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Still, institutional life is undeniably miserable. During my visit to the orphanage, I chatted with a 14-year-old Bucharest project participant named Maria. Maria was abandoned at birth and spent her first four months in two different maternity hospitals. She’s been in orphanages ever since, moving every few years. She has a normal IQ, which means she’s far more resilient than others with her history. She was shy when we talked, and didn’t make much eye contact, but otherwise seemed like a normal girl.
I asked Maria what she thought was the worst thing about living in the placement centre. She said it was the older boys who take drugs.
And what about the best thing? I asked. She paused for about half a minute, looking down at her purple Crocs. The times we get to leave for a little while, when we can take the bus to the park, she said.
Can research on Romanian orphans be ethical? – Virginia Hughes – Aeon
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