In 1966 Nicolae Ceauşescu, Secretary General of Romania’s Communist Party, passed a decree to ban abortion and birth control in order to increase the very low birth and fertility rates and increase the population in Romania. The decree stated that abortion was only allowed to women over 45, women who already had 4 children, the pregnancy endangered the life of the woman or was a result of rape or incest. Due to this drastic decrease in abortions the number of live births rose 92.8% from 273,687 to 527,764 in 1967 ("Demographic Policy"). Without birth control or abortion to keep them from having children, the amount of children abandoned to the government rose dramatically, landing hundreds of thousands of children in ill-equipped orphanages (Romanian Orphans).
When Ceausescu’s government fell in 1989 there were more than 100,000 children living in Romanian orphanages (Beckelmen). This problem only came to light for the rest of the world in the early 90’s but “poverty, illiteracy, homelessness and the habits of the past have left the rate of child abandonment unchanged” (Beckelmen). Some progress has been made to the orphanages but they are still over crowded, understaffed and the children get little or no attention. “According to a 2005 United Nations report, 9,000 Romanian children are left in hospitals and maternity wards each year," (Beckelmen) The appalling numbers of abandoned children in orphanages leave them with few caregivers with little time for each child. The consequences of this neglect are terrible.
