Romanian Foster Mother Requests Annulment Of Autistic Child Adoption

Mihaela P., 43, from Hunedoara county in western Romania, says she was told the three year-old was healthy at the time of the adoption. In 2007, however, the girl violently attacked the woman's one year-old biological child, she said.

In early April, after the death of the woman's mother, who had helped with rearing the girl, the child was admitted to a foster home for children with special needs.

The child's medical file, to which her foster mother first gained access two months ago, reveal that the girl was given Phenobarbital for five days prior to the adoption. The woman says she had no knowledge of this at the time.

Local child care authority spokeswoman Zvetlana Mihulet has confirmed that an adopted child has been admitted to a foster home, and that the child's parent has requested that the adoption be annulled. The adoption can only be annulled in court, she said Monday.

The state secretary with the Romanian Office for Adoptions, Bogdan Panait, also said that the adoption cannot be invalidated. According to him, the foster mother has refused to pay the mandatory monthly fee for placing the child in a foster home.

The child was adopted in 1999, at age two, and was then diagnosed as autistic, a disease which can only be identified after the age of three, said the state secretary, adding that autistic children do not benefit from specialized care, which is why they are abandoned in foster homes.

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