From Wikipedia

Ceauşescu's Kids

Romanian orphans is a reference to the thousands of children in the care of state orphanages in Romania. In 1990, the plight of these children came to the attention of the West.

Under Nicolae Ceauşescu, both abortion and contraception were forbidden, leading to a rise in birth rates. This resulted in many children being abandoned and these were joined in the orphanages by disabled and mentally ill people. Together these vulnerable groups were subjected to institutionalised neglect and abuse, including physical and sexual abuse and use of drugs to control behaviour.

Orphanages lacked both medicines and washing facilities, and children were subject to sexual and physical abuse.

The conditions in orphanages had declined after 1982, as a result of Ceauşescu's decision to seize much of the country's economic output in order to repay its foreign debt.

As the realities of life in Romanian orphanages emerged after December 1989, the reaction outside Romania was of shock at the plight of the orphans, and numerous charities were established. Numerous fund-raising activities have been conducted by various parties, such as the 1990 album Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal, which was compiled by George and Olivia Harrison.

In 2006, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was criticised for a joke in which he said there were so many orphans "over there you feel they breed them just to put in orphanages." 

Dealing with the notorious problem had been made a condition of Romanian entry into the European Union, but investigations by the BBC twenty years after the original scandal revealed that conditions in some institutions are still very poor and large numbers of institutionalised and traumatised people are still held in inadequate conditions, with many apparently having entered the system post-Ceauşescu.