How Can You Walk Away?

Posted on by adelerickerby

By Adele Rickerby

The tragedy of Romanian mother’s abandoning their babies.

According to data published on the website of the National Authority for the Protection of Children’s Rights and Adoption, (A.N.D.P.C.A.) two hundred and seventy six babies were abandoned by their mother’s in Maternity hospitals and other health facilities in the first nine months of 2022. Forty-eight less than the similar period in 2021. Of these, two hundred and twenty were left in Maternity wards, fifty-four in Pediatric wards, and two were left in another hospital ward. One hundred and three were returned to their families, two were placed with the extended family, fifteen with families/individuals and one hundred and thirty-four were placed with foster parents.

According to U.N.I.C.E.F Romania, (the United Nations Children’s Fund), one in ten pregnancies in Romania are teenage mothers and that poverty is one of a number of risk factors.
The following reports, Authored by; Andrea Neculau, Diana Negut, Mihai Vacaru and Cristina Vladu states that ”Teenage pregnancy in Romania is a complex social phenomenon”.

  1. UNICEF Romania County Reports on teenage mothers
    1. Policy framework to prevent teenage pregnancy and its consequences
    2. POLICY BRIEF: Prevention of teenage pregnancy and its consequences

Save the Children Romania reports that forty-five percent of the births registered among girls under the age of fifteen in the European Union, of which there are twenty-seven countries, are in Romania. This number is the highest in the European Union. Romania also ranks highest in the E.U. in terms of infant mortality, the main cause being premature births.

In collaboration with the O.M.V. Petrom Foundation, Save the Children Romania have launched the ”Baby Box” program, which aims to reduce infant mortality and support families immediately after birth.

https://www.salvaticopiii.ro/ce-facem/Sanatate/Cutia-bebelusului

According to statistics from the A.N.D.P.C.A. Website, the number of babies abandoned from January to December 2020, was four hundred and thirty-one. The numbers for 2023 are significantly lower.

You can find official statistics at the following link https://copii.gov.ro/1/date-statistice-copii-si-adoptii/ at category „Copii Părăsiti în Unitățile Sanitare”.

The Promise I Kept; 2020 Revised Edition.

Posted on by adelerickerby

Promise I Kept 6×9 text_21.09.20(updated)

#love #family #amwriting

Newly updated for 2020, This revised and updated book documents Adele’s experiences with her daughter since the book was first published in 2013, and Adele’s ongoing involvement in highlighting the plight of Orphans in Romania. In 1991, unable to have a second child because of a medical problem and struggling to cope in a failing marriage, New Zealander, Adele Rickerby, decided to take her future in her hands by adopting a child from Romania. The misguided policies of the recently deposed Ceausescu government on family planning had led to the birth of an estimated 100,000 unwanted babies in that country. The Promise I Kept is Adele’s story of her nightmare journey halfway around the world to find and adopt a baby, to negotiate her way through the barriers created by red-tape and corrupt officialdom, and finally to carry her tiny new daughter safely home to a life where she could be properly loved and cared for.

Toni Tingle, Mereo Books, an imprint of Memoirs Publishing, Gloucestershire, U.K

Orphan advocacy and child welfare in Romania; Community facebook page; thepromisekept.co

A heartfelt autobiographical work, The Promise I Kept chronicles the journey to adopting a child from post cold-war Romania. With incredible honesty, Adele shares her lifetime with Endometriosis and the resulting surgeries, her amazing first daughter, Melannie and the desire for Melannie to have a sister- leading to the decision to adopt and a difficult trip to Romania to meet baby Natasha and bring her home. It is a book that is equal parts relatable and eye-opening, at times confronting, but ultimately showcases a woman’s incredible determination and love for her child.

Review; RUTH Magazine @RUTHmagazineAustralia  · Magazine

Copies are available to borrow or purchase from the following sites;

Dunedin Public Library, New Zealand, Heritage Room Collection.

Brisbane City Council Libraries

South Australian Libraries

Trove, National Library of Australia; https://trove.nla.gov.au/

Amazon, paperback, or kindle edition.

Please also see the link above to the pdf (text only) of the 2020 Revised Edition.

Children of Decree 770. by Adele Rickerby

Posted on by adelerickerby

This is what happened in Romania when Abortion was banned.

Photo of an abandoned child in a cot in the Institute for the Unsalvageables located in Sighetu Marmatiei, a town in Transylvania at Romania’s Northern border with Ukraine. 1992. Copyright, Thomas B. Szalay photography.

On the first of October, 1966, Nicolae Ceausescu enacted Decree 770, which caused untold suffering for the women and children of Romania.

Decree 770 declared abortion and contraception illegal, except for women over forty-five, women who had already borne four children ( later raised to five), women whose lives would be in danger if their pregnancy were to go full-term, and women who had conceived through rape or incest.

In 1966, the population of Romania was approximately nineteen million. With decree 770, Ceausescu’s aim was to increase the population to thirty million by the year 2,000, in the belief that population growth would lead to economic growth. By 1976, the population had increased to approximately twenty-one million. An increase of about two million or twelve percent.

Women of child-bearing age were subjected to monthly gynaecological examinations to monitor a pregnancy or ensure that an illegal abortion was not carried out.

There was a monthly tax on childless people twenty-five years and over, married or not.

Any doctor convicted of performing an illegal abortion faced a jail term of between ten to twenty years. Despite this, illegal backyard abortions took place, sometimes resulting in sterility, infections and even death.

During these dark days of Communism, thousands of babies were abandoned by their impoverished parents into State-run institutions. After Ceausescu and his wife, Elena were executed by firing squad on Christmas Day, 1989, journalists from around the world descended on Romania and discovered the horror of these institutions. Approximately one-hundred thousand children had been abandoned in these institutions, where children were malnourished, neglected and physically and sexually abused.

Children born during this time were called ”Decretei”, children of the Decree. Decretei comes from the Romanian word ”Decree” meaning ”Decree”.

Empty shop shelves and queues for food were common during Communist era Romania. Lack of food meant malnourished mothers gave birth to premature and underweight babies. Hospitals fed these babies intravenously with unscreened blood. Hypodermic needles were in short supply and used over and over again without proper sterilisation. As a result of which more than ten thousand babies were infected with H.I.V causing an epidemic of A.I.D.S.

Once a baby or child had been abandoned into a hospital or institution, it was uncommon for biological parents to visit on a regular basis or to take their child back home.

thepromisekept.co is my facebook page where I share posts to the global community about Non Government Organizations working on social justice issues such as; child abandonment, poverty, education, and human trafficking.