Law for amending para. (1) and (2) of art. 64 of Law 272/2004 on the protection and promotion of the rights of the child
Women in the Romanian Parliament are calling for the placement age in orphanages to be increased from 3 to 7 years old.
Context
The enrollment of children in residential placement centers has irreversible effects on the children, their behavior and on quantifiable development factors.
Children raised in placement centers have worse results regarding psycho-social and cognitive skills, although the effect seems more pronounced in the first category. The impact on their IQ is also significant.
According to the ERAS study, the average IQ for children placed with families starting from up to the age of 6 months is 101, but only 86 for those placed between 6 months and 24 months and 83 for those integrated between 24 and 42 months (Beckett et al. 2006 ). The effect is significant, especially before the age of 3, which is why Law 272/2004 on the protection and promotion of the rights of the child has been modified in the past to exclude children under 36 months from placement in residential placement centers.
The lack of qualified staff, the miserable and crowded conditions often guarantee a significantly slowed emotional and moral development for children raised in such centers. This was recently confirmed by the World Bank and UNICEF, which conducted a study together with DGASPCs on the 150 placement centers in Romania.
Romania still has one of the highest rates of children in residential placement centers in Europe and the recommendations in the study were to gradually disinstitutionalize. The 19,000 children from residential type centers would be moved to small parental centers, with social workers or in families placement. Regarding the old residential placement centers, the recommendation was to have them closed by 2020 (Stănculescu et al. 2016).
Legislative proposal: increasing the placement age in residential placement centers from 3 to 7 years old
Together with colleagues from all political groups, I submitted a draft law amending para. (1) and (2) of art. 64 of Law no. 272/2004 regarding the protection and promotion of the rights of the child.
In short, the legislative initiative ensures raising the minimum age from 3 to 7 years old for sending children from the protection system into residential services – commonly called “orphanages”.
Paragraphs (1) and (2) of article 64 of Law no. 272/2004 regarding the protection and promotion of the rights of the child, republished in the Official Monitor of Romania, Part I, no. 159 of March 5, 2014, will be amended and will have the following content:
“Art. 64 – (1) The placement of the child who has not yet reached the age of 7 can only be with the extended family, a substitute family or with maternal assistant, their placement in a residential type service being forbidden.
(2) By exception from the provisions of par. (1), placement in a residential service of a child less than 7 years of age can be established, if they have severe disabilities, depending on the care provided in the specialized residential services.”