Under the Communist regime led by Nicolae Ceausescu, policies to promote big
families made contraception and abortion illegal. Meanwhile, miserable economic
measures in the late 1970s and 1980s created food scarcity, energy shortages, and
rampant national poverty which contributed to the institutionalization of more than
170,000 children. With no community-based childcare alternatives or civil society
involvement, doctors advised struggling families to place children in institutions.
Disabled children were further segregated, placed in isolated rural institutions with little
public scrutiny or decent medical care. By 1989, there were over 700 institutions
warehousing children—from infants to young adults up to age 18—across the country.