Romania has closed almost all the communist-era orphanages that shocked the world in the 1990s with harrowing television images of half-starved children chained to beds, authorities said on Wednesday.
Romania, which hopes to join the EU next year, has launched sweeping reforms to improve the plight of its orphans following heavy international criticism after the 1989 fall of communism which revealed 100,000 children locked up in filthy orphanages.
Large-scale institutions are a legacy of late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who banned birth control and abortion to boost the Black Sea state's population and fill its factories.
"There are only 30 childcare centres with over 100 children each, which we will modernise or close gradually with post-accession structural funds after 2007," Rodica Paslaru, adviser at the Child Protection Authority, told Reuters. Paslaru would not say when the process would be completed.
Comments
Comments are closed.