A legislative project for granting moral reparations to those who survived the orphanages in Romania from 1947-1997 will be submitted to the vote of the Parliament.
Vișinel Balan, one of the survivors of orphanages in Romania PHOTO Vișinel Balan
Several senators have submitted a bill to grant compensation to those who survived orphanages in Romania between 1947-1997. So that the people who have this right can be compensated after the law comes into force, the Voice of Abandoned Children organization started creating a database that includes all these people. The link to the registration form is the one that the orphan association provides: https://forms.gle/WWRQsqxBgkUjaCFJ8.
“This database is only showing Parliament, showing the Government that there are still survivors and that this is an opportune moment to show that we exist, that we are here and that we deserve to be recognized and heard. I believe the time has come for the realities suffered to stop being overlooked and for the Legislature to take note of our living presence that is full of hope“, said the president of the Voice of Abandoned Children Association, Vișinel Balan.
Vișinel Balan expressed his hope that the people who lived in orphanages during the mentioned half century will be able to receive a monthly allowance in the amount of 750 lei and will be able to have the costs of the necessary therapies covered by the state budget after the trauma experienced during the period in which they were in the care of the state.
The horrors that happened in the orphanages in Romania came to be known after the images published by Western televisions. The children lived in unimaginable conditions, and the Romanian State indulged in that lack of empathy shown to little ones.
Another part of the sufferings to which the children raised in the orphanages were subjected came to light with the stories of some of the children, who have become adults in the meantime. A horrifying report by the Swedish state television has as main heroes Vișinel Balan and his brother, Virgil Balan.
Vișinel Balan still remembers the moments when the children who pretended to be were paraded in front of everyone else and made fun of, after which they were severely beaten. And because of this, the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of the orphanage is running away, because he ran away from there as often as he could, to escape the terror.
