Ana, 10 and her brother Marian, 8 – trancript from 2001 documentary about Romanian street children.
“Why did I take my brother from home? Because he wanted it too, not only me. He wanted it too, because he says he doesn’t like it at home. We were living in a bad situation. We didn’t have electricity, we didn’t have anything. We didn’t have clothes.” [Ana].
“I met Ana last May, I think. She was alone in the street without her brother Marian. Then somehow she got home, and when she came back she had Marian with her. He says he likes being with Ana, but it seems he doesn’t like life on the streets. Every time I see him he hugs me and wants me to kis
s him. He needs attention and affection. I could never understand why [Ana] left home. Because she says everything is perfect at home, that she loves her parents and that her parents love her. That her parents have a car, have a wonderful house. And I could never understand why she left. Her answer has always been, ‘Because that’s how I want it’. Ana never says how she makes a living in the street. She never says whether the other children beat her, whether someone tried to rape her. She never says anything about herself.” [Angi Preda, social worker].
A social worker tries to get Marian and Ana into a shelter:
Staff: Would you like to go to a center, Marian? Do you wan
t to see how it is to sleep in a shelter? Hmm, Marian? Why can’t you speak? [Talks to the social worker] It’s terrible to just take him and dump him in a shelter, because it seems to him, he is fine where he is. If you had brought him earlier, it would have been completely different. The problem is that he got to the street. After a few weeks, a month at most, is when they need to be taken out of the street. Because if the thing drags on they get hooked on the street. I asked him about his house, too. He avoids, he avoids. They don’t speak about this. So the first thing that must be done is to contact the family, to see the environment that they come from, in order to discover the truth. 
That’s the hard part.
Ana and Marian visit their mother and stepfather.
Mother: I’m unemployed. That’s why they left, because of poverty. I worked at the paper factory, after 10 years, I was laid off. They don’t care that I have children. Ana left two years ago [when she was eight]. I’m sorry, I can’t offer you anything, I don’t have coffee. I didn’t have food for days at a time. I would try to bring them back home, there would be hardships, and they would leave again. If they were somewhere else for a while they probably got used to eating well. And since we didn’t have money, I didn’t know where to look for her. The train is very expensive. How could I look? I am sorry because any mother would want her children to live with her. Because I am not, I am not an irresponsible mother. As you can see, I live from one day to another.
Stepfather: Their father gives them 20,000 in alimony. 
With 20,000 you can’t even buy a loaf a day. I am not an antagonistic man, the children can tell you. Have I beaten you? [No]. And nobody sent them to beg. But our situation was so bad, they ran away. I went and brought the children back home twice. Can you believe that [the mother] cries at dinner? At night, she cries, because they are her children. The way they are, sick as they are. I don’t cry, because they are not mine. But in a way I miss them. I spent four years with Ana. It was four years of torture. I wanted to leave their mother because of them. He, for one, wets his bed. I didn’t say a thing. He is a child who, I would avoid the words, must be examined, must be treated. The girl is a psychopath.
Social Worker: But what does Ana do to make you think that she is sick?
Stepfather: You take a look. She cut her arms. A child, a normal child, would cut their arms?
Social Worker: Aside from that, all the street children do that.
Stepfather: One year after Ana ran away from home, she came back and took Marian. Broke the window, and stole him from home. You know what made me happiest? They went to Bucharest, they went to other places. But please, I apologize. She’s still a virgin. The Aurolac kids didn’t take her, with their bags and stuff.
Social Worker: How do you know? Did she tell you?
Stepfather: Miss, I can tell you anything.
Social Worker: No, honestly, how do you know?
Stepfather: I bathed her.
Social Worker: You bathed her?
Stepfather: She stayed with me for eight months, and, I don’t know how to say this, there’s a contact, stuff comes up. She hasn’t been touched. And she’s not a paint kid, she doesn’t do drugs. Had she taken drugs 
I wouldn’t have had a choice, I would have had to sell things from the house to take her somewhere and check her in.
Mother and stepmother ask their children to choose:
Stepfather: Ana, are you staying home or are you going back to Bucharest? Are you staying, or are you going back to Bucharest? Speak! Are you going with them to Bucharest?
Mother: Marian, what do you want?
Marian: You say, Ana, yes or no.
Mother: What do you want, Marian?
Marian: What she wants.
Stepfather: So it’s better in Bucharest where she makes 80,000 than here, that’s the situation, see. Why are you condemning me? You can see the child would stay, but we can’t provide for her. So they go where they can make money.
Mother: Ana, are you going, or are you staying here? I can’t keep you here by force, you’ll be gone in two or three hours.
Marian: She said you would get made if we go. Say, Ana, they won’t get mad.
Stepfather: She wants to go to Bucharest, that’s it.
Mother: Are you going to Bucharest? [Ana nods].
Stepfather: Yes. That’s it. I’m telling you, nobody beats her, nobody terrorizes her, nobody upsets her. When we find a house, we’ll bring them home. It’s not called abandonment; it’s not called that.
One Year Later: Marian was admitted to a private residential centres. Ana was sent home, and her parents threatened with an abandonment charge if they did not keep her.
Marian: I like it here. I get to play with children, I play with the computer. I have a place to stay, and if I’m in the street I don’t have a place to stay.
Mother: Ana is impulsive, irritable, she has no patience. Somewhere in this area there is a centre for people like that. They have a children’s section, and she can get an education.
Ana: She wants to place me!
Mother: It has a school, a hospital, and all of that. I should take her there to get schooling and treatment too.
Ana: You’re not taking me, no.
Mother: I want her to be somewhere where she will be supervised. Until that mind of hers comes back into her head. Now she’s promised me she won’t run away, but we’ll see for how long. [Ana’s mother later did send her to a residential centre].
