Hi - Time constraints require a narrow answer. There's more data for Romania than the others. It seems that the transition has not gone as well as was hoped. Real deterioration in quality of life for vulnerable groups, while the elites have gotten proportionately richer. Bright spot is some broadening of the private sector middle- class.
From mid-1990s UNDP report:
http://www.undp.org/rbec/nhdr/1996/summary/romania.htmRomania: The Report states that Romanian society has undergone deep economic and social changes in the last five years. At the same time, the new and complex process of transition to a market economy has been confronted with major problems, causing high social costs, with major consequences on employment, income and consumption, as well as on human development.
From UNESCO (2000)report:
http://www2.unesco.org/wef/countryreports/romania/rapport_2_4.htmlTwo major characteristics of the last period- social polarization and the increasing poverty degree - affects in a great measure the access of the population to education. This is the cause for the occurrence of a vicious circle: poverty reducing dramatically the access to education and the lack of education is leading to the increasing of poverty. As a consequence of the transition difficulties, resulted a rapid increase of the educational polarization through an important part of the young generation attends higher education while, at the opposite extreme, an increasing proportion of the population abandons primary or secondary school. At the moment, primary and secondary education- compulsory and free- registers a 5% rate of children that are not attending these forms of education, respectively; one child of seven children with ages between 11-14 years is facing this situation.
UN Human Rights System(2003):
http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord2003/vol5/romaniatb.htmThe Committee expressed concern about the following points, inter alia: the continuing discrimination between girls and boys in relation to the minimum age of marriage (for boys, 18 years; for girls, 16 years or, exceptionally, 15); the failure to revise the 1954 Family Code and the legislation on adoption; discrimination against children belonging to the Roma community; the insufficient allocation of resources to ensure the implementation of the Convention; the low budget allocations for health and education; the economic disadvantage of some counties and communities; the lack of an efficient, systematic and comprehensive compilation of data on all areas covered by the Convention for all persons under 18; the failure to implement the principle of non-discrimination for all children in all parts of the country; the traditional attitudes towards children in society which limit respect for their views within the family, at school, in institutions and at the community government level; the lack of measures to prevent the non-registration of children and the high number of stateless persons, in particular among the Roma; the high number of allegations of children being ill-treated and tortured by law enforcement officials.
Concerns were also noted in relation to the following points, for example: widespread poverty, affecting all sectors of society and, in particular, urban households with many children; the phenomenon of children being placed in institutional care or abandoned by their parents with no adequate means to raise them; the very low quality of care and the harsh conditions in some of the institutions; the increase in violence against women, and the fact that domestic violence against women may lead to child abuse in the family; the continued use of corporal punishment and other forms of abuse and neglect in the family; the poor quality and accessibility of primary heath-care services, especially in rural areas and for poor households; the high rate of child morbidity as a result of accidents, including traffic accidents; the number of suicides; the high number of young mothers and of abortions among teenage girls; the high rate of sexually transmitted diseases; the increase in the number of children addicted to drugs, the high rate of smoking and alcohol consumption; the continued disadvantage of children with disabilities in terms of enjoyment of their rights; the incidence of HIV/AIDS among young children and the high rate of new infections affecting young people, particularly among minorities; the high school drop-out rate among children in rural areas and girls; the continuing high number of children working in the city streets, in rural areas and in households, often in poor conditions.
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