Canadian parents wary as China confronts baby trafficking

May 25, 2011 9:47 PM |
By Leslie MacKinnon

When Cathy Wagner of Bridgewater, N.S., heard a CBC story last week about babies stolen from their families several years ago in Hunan province, her reaction was that nothing has changed.

She's the mother of a 5-year-old girl adopted from the same region in China. "It's like a dirty secret", she says, "but it's time we started talking about it."

CBC News' China correspondent, Anthony Germain, interviewed two parents in China who said the family-planning officials who enforce the country's one-child policy seized at least 20 babies, including their own, and sent them to orphanages to be adopted abroad.

"By changing their identities and processing the stolen children through legally recognized orphanages, the chances of any impoverished Chinese parent ever finding their child are almost nonexistent," Germain reported.

The babies were given false papers and sold to orphanages who stood to profit from donation fees given by overseas adoptive parents. One writer has called this practice "child laundering."

This story first surfaced in 2009 in the L.A. Times.

But now for the first time this story is being reported by Chinese media in China. Suddenly, Chinese parents who had children taken from them know a little more about what might have happened to them, and they're starting to speak out in blogs and online message sites in China. This has prompted China to immediately open, or perhaps re-open, an investigation.

Janet Nearing of Family and Children's Services in Nova Scotia says her agency has been told that the Canadian embassy in Beijing will be informed by China of any kidnapped children who may have ended up in Canada. Nearing added, "This is as much action as I've ever seen on this."

Cathy Wagner says she's in contact with many other Canadian families who have real concerns about the origins of their adopted children. Many worry that the paperwork they were given could be false -- there are too many suspiciously similar stories about the places where their children were abandoned and then found. Most of these families want to stay quiet about their misgivings for fear of losing their children. But Wagner wonders, "Do we allow other people to be victimized to protect our own privacy?"

In Canada, it's hard to determine who exactly is in charge of overseeing international adoptions. The federal government says adoption is the jurisdiction of the provinces. The trouble is, no province has the resources to investigate what's going on in the countries that are supplying babies.

The federal government also says a safeguard against child trafficking is the fact that both Canada and China are signatory to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children in Respect to International Adoption, an agency that encourages member countries to comply with international adoption standards in the best interests of the child.

Peter Spadoni of the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services says that concerns have been expressed to the ministry about whether adopted children haven't been abandoned at all, but snatched from loving parents in China. These complaints, he says, have been forwarded to the federal government.

It does happen that the provinces and territories, in conjunction with the federal government, suspend adoptions from certain countries. This occurred last year in the case of Nepal, because of fraudulent adoption documentation, child trafficking, and improper financial gain, based on reports issued by the Secretary of the Hague Convention and UNICEF, as well as Canadian immigration authorities.

"No one wants to touch China," says Wagner.

She is worried that there could be a price to pay for speaking out.

Eventually she'd like to take her daughter back to the country where she was born, but she wonders whether she'd get a visa from the government of China.

Countries: China, Canada

Organizations: ACT IN THE NEWS

CHILDREN ON SALE

Neha Sahay

Imagine your only child being forcibly taken away by officials and adopted by foreigners who believe it’s an orphan. This is the terrible tragedy that has been taking place in some remote mountainous villages of Hunan, Mao’s birthplace. The irony is that this is being done ostensibly to implement the one-child policy. The victims form the most vulnerable section of Chinese society — migrant labourers who leave their children behind in villages in the care of grandparents or other elderly relatives. The children targeted need not be illegal second children. Even the first born can be taken away. In such cases, documents are forged: the father ‘confesses’ that he’d taken in an abandoned child without following due procedure. The documents show him voluntarily giving the child up to the government officials. These documents are prepared with the help of the village committee and the police. The child is then given to an orphanage, which puts in a notice for 60 days in the local papers giving details of the child. But the orphanage is in the city, and the grandparents living in mountainous villages may never get to see the newspaper in time. So, more often than not, no one claims the child.

Some families, tipped off in time, have traced their children to the orphanage. But the fines slapped on them by special family planning courts for having violated the one-child norm, or broken adoption laws, have been so prohibitive — 6,000 to 10,000 yuan — that they’ve watched helplessly as their own flesh and blood has been given away. Or, they’ve come to know too late, much after the child has been adopted. Parents have tried to petition Beijing, but party officials have quickly conducted “inquiries’’ which conclude that the parents were in the wrong, and the family planning departments acted correctly.

Horror stories

For everyone but the parents, this is a perfect situation. Successful implementation of the one-child policy is a factor in deciding promotions of party officials. The penalties imposed on parents who violate this policy are a source of government income. Then, there’s the money gained from foreign adoptions. The adoption fee for foreigners is US $ 3,000. This amount is shared by local party officials, adoption agencies and the orphanage.

This terrible tragedy was brought to light through an in-depth investigative report in New Century, a new Beijing-based weekly, considered a trailblazer in Chinese journalism. Between 2001 and 2005, says the report, which names the officials involved, 16 children were taken away from just one county. On the eve of its publication, the author of the report wrote a letter to his colleagues, expressing the fear that his story may be “harmonised’’ — removed from circulation from the internet. He requested it to be shared widely.

This isn’t the first such investigation by this reporter. Last year, a story he co-authored for another outspoken publication, Southern Metropolis Daily, featured in a list of 10 best investigative stories of the year. The seven-part story documented the case of an author detained for writing a book on the mass migration of villagers forcibly relocated in the 1950s due to the building of a dam on the Yellow river.

Expectedly, his latest story has created a sensation. But the authorities’ assurance of an investigation may not be enough. Editorials have demanded that the government must help the victims file suits against concerned officials, and reunite them with their children wherever possible. There have even been calls for a review of the one-child policy. The photographs accompanying the story — gaunt faces of grandparents staring out of dark and grimy homes — haunt you. Will they haunt the family planning officials?

Countries: China

'Frattini' Report Online:

16/12/2009

Comparative study on adoption procedures in the Member States
of the European Union, practical difficulties encountered in this area by
European citizens in the context of a European area of justice in civil matters,
and options available for resolving such difficulties and protecting children’s
rights

The Commission has received the final report on a comparative
study on adoption procedures in the Member States of the European Union,
practical difficulties encountered in this area by European citizens in the
context of a European area of justice in civil matters, and options available
for resolving such difficulties and protecting children’s rights.

The results of the study have been presented at the Council of
Europe and European Commision joint conference "Challenges in Adoption
Procedures in Europe: Ensuring the Best Interests of the Child" held on 30
November and 1 December 2009 at the Council of Europe Headquarters in
Strasbourg. You will find a link to this presentation and those of the other
speakers on the Council of
Europe website.

Summary (PDF File 32 KB)

Synthesis
report (PDF
File 715 KB)

Legal
analysis (PDF
File 1,8 MB)

Annexes (PDF File 1,8 MB)

Statistics-comments
(PDF File 1,1 MB)

Persons: Patrizia de Luca

Organizations: European Commission

Reporting in China

By Melissa Chan in

Asia

on Wed, 05/25/2011 - 09:59.

A recent survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China had some discouraging numbers about reporting conditions in the country. Ninety-four percent of journalists who responded felt the work environment had deteriorated over the last year. Seventy percent had experienced harassment or violence of some kind. And a whopping 99% said reporting conditions in China do not meet international standards.

While many people outside China might have a cognitive understanding that reporting here is difficult, there's less knowledge of just exactly what kind of difficulties we come across. Our most recent reporting trip serves as a good example of the particular challenges the press corps here faces.

The first thing we must consider as journalists is which hotel we plan on staying in. And by that, I don't mean checking out TripAdvisor to see which one has the best buffet breakfast. By law in China, all check-ins require passport identification, which the front desk photocopies along with our visa. Hotel staff must then send over the details of all foreign nationals staying at the hotel for the night to the local police station. It's unlikely officers carefully look over all incoming lists of names, but our journalist visas are different from your usual tourist or business visas -- and it tips local officials off there are strangers in their land, nosing about.

On our trip to Hunan Province, the nearest town center to the village we were trying to reach was about 40 minutes away, and we judged it would be too close to the area to spend the night without getting a knock on the door by police.

A good strategy is to check in to a hotel hours away from our final destination, so police officers don't necessarily make a connection between our arrival and that area's news story. That also gives us the opportunity to set out before dawn and hopefully get to our interview by mid-morning before most people would spot a TV crew in the neighborhood.

Depending on whether the family or person we're visiting has nosy neighbors, our team can get quickly reported to local officials who then dispatch a team to investigate. You might wonder why anyone would do such a thing to someone they know. I don't understand it myself, though I suspect it's a combination of just how the state has always operated, what people have been taught to do, a historical distrust of foreigners, and finally -- I do wonder about the legacy of the Cultural Revolution and the habit of tattling as a show of loyalty to the Communist Party and to the community.

In any case, we've nicknamed such men who show up "the Black Audis," after the vehicles they drive. I don't know why government officials here love Audis so much, but they do. Audis are almost synonymous with them. I hate looking up to see one of these vehicles appearing around the corner -- it usually means our filming will be delayed -- if not permanently over. And our opportunity to provide a report to viewers -- gone.

Sometimes men show up but don't do anything to stop us. It is against the law in China to obstruct foreign journalists from reporting freely. This was set out in a directive signed by Premier Wen Jiabao. Government officials therefore have come up with creative ways to make reporting difficult and circumvent the central government's rules without technically breaking the law. They might hire local boys to intimidate our team. By sub-contracting out intimidation to non-uniformed groups, there's no proof the government is behind any reporting interference.

It was sheer luck that thugs showed up at Yang Libing's house while he was away. Mr. Yang, if you've had a chance to watch our report (below), is the father whose baby daughter was forcefully taken away from him by corrupt officials looking to profit by handing children over to adoption agencies. He was running late that morning, and what ended up happening was a rather awkward uncertainty as our team and these thugs looked at each other. They knew we were from Al Jazeera. I don't know how they knew that. They had been driving around searching specifically for us. They stood there and sized us up. In the end, the men sauntered away, ambivalent about the situation themselves. Had Mr. Yang been there, I imagine they would have stayed, their very presence meant to unnerve the person we hoped to interview. I must say we are often saved by the fact that many of the "Black Audi" types don't really understand how television newsgathering is conducted. Perhaps they believed we would also saunter off after a time, given the absence of Mr. Yang. We did not walk away, of course, but waited until he returned to speak to him.

We later learned that after our interview and past midnight that evening, those men came back -- and were not so ambivalent. They interrogated Mr. Yang for more then ten hours and warned him to stop talking to journalists. Since then, Mr. Yang's phone has generally been off.

Intimidating sources and not reporters has become a more common practice by the Chinese government to block information. Often we speak to incredibly vulnerable people at the lowest socio-economic rung. It is easy to bully them into submission. But even then, it is remarkable that in my years of reporting in China, many people remain willing to speak to journalists despite the danger of retaliation. They perceive that a great injustice has been done to them and feel the need to articulate that. Many also feel they have nothing to lose. In the case of Mr. Yang, I do believe he must've felt he had nothing to lose. He'd lost his child. His house was a wood and brick shack, his floor of dirt, and his farming tools not much changed, it appeared, from the ones farmers used in the 19th century.

In the afternoon our team decided to drive around and film the town and surrounding countryside. It would be included in our piece to show viewers how remote this place was. At some point, our hired driver noticed a van had been tracking us for some time. My first inclination was to ignore the van -- they can be quite harmless, and the men from earlier in the day had chosen to check us out, then leave us alone. Sometimes these plainclothes officers or thugs would follow us around, taking digital pictures of us as we worked in order to have a record. As long as you're not self-conscious about it, it is fine.

The van drove past us, looking to leave. But, on a narrow street, it slowed... slowed... then stopped in front of us, blocking our way. We sat there a moment, and then the van doors opened and a number of men jumped out, looking ugly. We locked our doors.

One banged on the window. We didn't do anything. But -- following some hesitation, our driver opened the window cautiously, about halfway. They asked what we were doing there, and if we could come with them. They said we needed to stop what we were doing. My producer shouted back that we needed their identification. With no proof they were with police, on what basis should we do anything?

Remarkably, it was that question that eased the tension. The men scuttled off. I'm confused, but suspect these thugs had never been questioned over their authority by the villagers they terrorized. The question was unexpected and baffled them. After the incident, we continued to film, though much more warily.

The next morning, as we were heading to the airport to fly back to Beijing, we received word that a domestic Chinese journalist we'd given a ride to in the countryside had been told that by doing so, she was complicit in "colluding with foreigners on anti-China missions." It was a completely absurd charge, and the journalist stood her ground at the police station. It reminded me that though we may run into trouble out in the field, Chinese journalists remain in far trickier positions, and an easier target for authorities to go after.

You develop a level of paranoia sometimes, engrossed in the mission of filming enough footage before getting stopped. On this mission in Hunan, we managed to gather enough material and information to build the report you see below.

Countries: China

Court strikes down anonymous sperm-donor law

BY KEITH FRASER, THE PROVINCE MAY 20, 2011

Olivia Pratten

Photograph by: ?Ian Smith -PNG, The Province

A B.C.-born woman has won a long-running battle to strike down a law that prevents her -and thousands of others -from learning about their biological parents.

Olivia Pratten fought for more than 10 years to find out the identity and other information about her biological dad, an anonymous sperm donor.

T h e B . C . g ov e r n m e n t blocked her efforts, so Pratten, a 29-year-old journalist who now lives in Toronto, took her case to court.

On Thursday, a judge found that the Adoption Act, a law that applies to anonymous sperm and egg donors, is discriminatory.

"I'm thrilled, I'm really happy," said Pratten. "It's definitely the right thing. It just feels really good to know that what we've been saying about the law for years is validated."

Pratten added that she had always known that the files about her biological dad were "probably destroyed" and doesn't know if she'll ever find out. "I just know that my experience, which was not good for me, will help people for the future," she said. "The government has been, at the provincial and federal level, absolutely appalling, that's why I had to go to court."

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair found that the Adoption Act was unfair because it allowed adopted kids to find out information about their biological parents, but prevented donor offspring such as Olivia from finding out anything about their parents.

"In my view, the evidence in this case provides strong support for the conclusion that the circumstances of adoptees and those of donor offspring with regard to the need to know and have connection with one's roots, are closely comparable," said the judge.

The judge suspended her decision to strike down the law for 15 months to give the B.C. legislature a chance to pass a new law in compliance with the Charter of Rights.

kfraser@theprovince.com

Reamore:http://www.theprovince.com/health/Court+strikes+down+anonymous+sperm+donor/4814921/story.html#ixzz1NBcVOKCx

Countries: Canada

Kosovo: “stop all’abbandono dei bambini”

Data: 20-05-11

Kosovo: “stop all’abbandono dei bambini”

Il 18 maggio 2011, nel nostro Centro Akti si e’ organizzato un
dibattito, in collaborazione con i partner locali, Akti, Movimento di famiglie e
i Servizi Sociali di Pristina e Fushe Kosova, con il tema: “I
bambini abbandonati e i bambini di strada”.

I bambini che vengono abbandonati dalle madri giovani sono molti, sono quei
bambini che tutti i giorni girano per le strade facendo vari lavori. Il loro
numero tende a crescere sempre di piu’.

Siccome da molti anni la nostra associazione si e’ concentrata nel campo
dell’infanzia abbandonata in Kosovo in ogni aspetto della vita, da quello
scolastico, sanitario, familiare, emozionale, ecc., l’operatore di CSW di Fushe
Kosovo, sig. Abaz Xhigoli, dichiara che i bambini abbandonati nella
nostra società in generale sono in aumento sempre di piu’ sopratutto a causa dei
divorzi dei genitori che un volta divorziati, non sono in grado di
farsi carico dei minori e li abbandonano.

Countries: Kosovo

Organizations: Amici dei Bambini

Sierra Leone: Former HANCI Boss Testifies in Adoption Case

Concord Times (Freetown)

Sierra Leone: Former HANCI Boss Testifies in Adoption Case

19 May 2011

Freetown — Former executive director of Help A Needy Child International (HANCI) on Tuesday testified under oath before the Justice Adeliza Showers Commission of Inquiry. The commission, which recommenced hearings on 1 May 2011, was set up by President Ernest Bai Koroma to investigate the HANCI/MAPS adoption of 29 Sierra Leonean children over a decade ago and to establish whether or not the biological parents had consented to the adoption of their kids.

Dr. Roland Foday Kargbo, who was HANCI's executive director up to November 2010, told the commission that the agency is a registered non-governmental organisation that has been working under the ambit of the laws of the country. Dr. Kargbo informed the commission that HANCI commenced operations in 2004 with the main aim of providing social support to orphans and vulnerable children. He said at that time, they were working in displaced camps thereby providing basic services such as comforting children, providing them with teaching service and a host of other things.

The academic doctor maintained that at the end of 1995 they established a partnership with a British non-governmental organization called Hope and Homes for Children which at the time was concerned with running an orphanage at No. 3 Mission Road in Makeni. He said the British NGO later built an orphanage back of Birch Memorial Secondary School in Makeni and promised to fund the home for one year. Within this period, HANCI came in contact with Maine Adoption Placement Service (MAPS) with the latter demonstrating a keen interest in adoption while Hope and Homes focused on reintegration. And because they had no interest in adoption and did not want to use their tax payers' money on such a venture, the organisation requested HANCI to separate their reintegration programme from the MAPS, Dr. Kargbo explained.

He further informed the commission that such an arrangement brought about the establishment of the Reintegration Center which was located at the back of Birch Memorial Secondary School in Makeni. The center hosted children that were to be reintegrated with their families and that was completely separate from the Child Survival Centre also known as Adoption Centre which was established for overseas adoption and upon the request made by Hope and Homes for Children, HANCI ended partnership with MAPS by the end of 1998, he said.

Dr. Kargbo noted that for those parents who took their children to the Child Survival Centre at 3 Mission Road, Makeni, a well codified multimedia approach was used to educate them about the implications of overseas adoption and this, he said, brought down the number of children that were in the centre from 33 to 29. He said three biological parents demanded for their children, which were returned to them, on the ground that they were no longer interested in the adoption process and that these parents were the Fofanah Family who had their twins adopted, the Jalloh Family and the Sheriff Family.

The former HANCI executive director stressed that those parents who consented for their children to be adopted were registered and the social history of their wards were taken by HANCI's social workers particularly John Gbla and Henry Abu. He said the parents and the programme manager Henry Abu went to the ministry of Social Welfare regional office in Makeni in which the former were interviewed by the probation officer and later went to the Makeni Magistrate Court for supervision court order.

Dr. Kargbo said at this juncture HANCI hired the services of a solicitor in the person of Fio Chrispin Edwards Esq. who applied to the social development officer at the ministry of Social Welfare in the person of Mr. Jawara for him to grant permission for the process to be looked into by the High Court. He revealed that the permission was granted and the adoption issue was taken to the High Court where the Chief Justice assigned senior justices to preside on the matter and later granted permission for the children to be adopted by overseas parents.

Dr. Kargbo also told the commission that HANCI fully facilitated the adoption process and saw the departure of 15 children from the Lungi International Airport in early 1998 while the process for the remaining 14 was initially facilitated by HANCI but later completed by MAPS through Cherith International, which was their local partner and John Gbla and Henry Abu serving as heads.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201105200729.html

Organizations: MAPS (Maine Adoption Placement Services), Help a Needy Child International (HANCI), Hope & Homes for Children

Countries: Sierra Leone

Orphaned Children Age Prematurely, Study Finds

17/5/2011 - A study of Romanian orphans found that children who spent more time in orphanages when young had shorter lifespans as a result of premature aging.

Hardships endured by children early on in life can lead to genetic damage that can prematurely age their DNA and cut short their lifespan, researchers studying Romanian orphans for more than a decade have found.

The study, known as the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), studied 136 children who lived in Romania’s orphanages for varying periods of time. The BEIP began in 2000, when state orphanages were still common and the children studied. Around the time that the children were about two years old, some children were assigned to live in orphanages while others were sent to live with foster families.

During Communist rule, the country’s orphanages became infamous for their terrible conditions.Orphaned and abandoned children suffered extreme deprivation in these institutions, with less care and attention than most children.

While some children under three years old who are taken into care are returned to their biological parents, most children in Romania are either sent into to foster care or institutional care. As of 2009, there were about 290,000 orphans in Romania, according to United Nations sources.

The BEIP study found that Romanian children who spent their earliest years in orphanages had shorter telomeres than was usual for their age. Telomeres are the caps on the tips of chromosomes. These caps protect the chromosomes (which contain DNA) from damage.

The more time children spent in orphanages before the age of five, the shorter their telomeres were between the ages of six and ten.

Other variables the study did not consider were the conditions the child encountered in his or her mother’s womb.

Researchers believe that it is this early shortening of the telomeres that shortens life expectancy. This is because of the nature of telomeres in cell biology. Each time cells divide, the telomeres are shortened until they become so short that the cell can no longer divide and eventually dies.

The results of the study are important because, while previous studies have noted the link between shorter telomeres and adults who reported to have experienced childhood adversity, this is the first study to find such a link by studying children directly.

Earlier studies have also linked shorter telomeres to an elevated risk of diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancers.

It is unclear whether or not time spent away from the orphanages in better conditions (such asfoster and family-based care) can help repair telomere length. There have been studies that found that telomeres can be lengthened.

The results of the BEIP study will be published in this week's Molecular Psychiatry.

Organizations: Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Probe into Chinese baby adoptions

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

China is investigating reports that about 20 babies were seized under the country’s one-child-per-family policy and put up for international adoption.
Chinese media say family planning officials in Hunan province took the children from poor homes unable to pay fines for having more than one child.
The children were allegedly listed as orphans and adopted by foreigners for fees of about US$3,000 each. Xinhua news agency said some were now in North America , the Netherlands and Poland.

The reports first appeared in Caixin magazine and caused such outrage that the Hunan provincial government has launched a formal investigation.
The Caixin Magazine reported that at least 20 babies were forcefully taken away from families in Hunan province. Birth control officials sell the babies to welfare agencies. They’re then put up for adoption overseas.

Caixin says this has been happening for ten years. Officials reportedly receive 1000 Yuan — or 155 U.S. dollars — for each child they sell. Welfare agencies can then receive up to $3,000 for each adopted child.

In their move to reduce population growth, the Chinese regime allows most families to only have one child. The policy has long been criticized because family planning officials often abuse enforcement laws to make a profit.

One couple said their only child was taken away by mistake while they were working in another city. Migrant worker Yang Libing told Caixin he had since tracked down his daughter, now seven years old and living in the US.

Tens of thousands of Chinese children have been adopted by foreign couples since the one-child policy came into force in the 1980s.
The policy was aimed at curbing China’s surging population.

Latest census figures revealed last month showed China’s population grew to 1.34 billion people by 2010, with a sharp rise in those over 60.
The figures showed China’s population was growing more slowly than in the past.

Under the one-child policy, aimed at controlling China’s world-leading population of more than 1.3 billion, people who live in urban areas are generally allowed one child, while rural families can have two if the first is a girl.

This has put a premium on baby boys, while baby girls are often sold off, abandoned or put up for adoption.
In a report released in December, the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) cited widespread abuse including forced abortions, sterilisations, insertions of intrauterine devices and coerced testing for pregnancy.

Both men and women found to have violated the policy have been beaten, detained, or fined. Others have lost their jobs, or been denied household registration permits for their children, CHRD alleged.

China is also battling a severe gender imbalance. A census recently completed in the country found 118.06 males were born in China to every 100 baby girls over the past 10 years.
Up to 80,000 Chinese children have reportedly been adopted by overseas families in recent decades, with most finding homes in North America.
In 2009 the Canadian government called on China to respond to claims that Chinese babies are being kidnapped from their parents and sold to orphanages so as to be adopted by Canadians and other Westerners.

The Canadian embassy in Beijing has reportedly requested that an investigation be conducted by the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA), the Chinese federal agency in charge of the country’s international adoption program, according to lifesite news.

This news follows an investigative report last month in the Los Angeles Times, which revealed horrific stories of babies being kidnapped from their parents by Chinese ‘family planning’ officials who later sold them through orphanages for a U.S. $3,000 adoption fee.

In 2007, the U.K’s Daily Mail and other media reported that approximately 70,000 babies in the country disappear every year, or 190 per day.
The Netherlands expressed concerns in 2008 to China about corruption in their adoption system, according to World Children, the largest adoption agency in Holland. Their questions were met, however, with threats of trade retaliation.

Countries: Netherlands, China

Organizations: Wereldkinderen aka NICWO

Ethica’s notes from U.S. Department of State meeting – Ethiopia Adoption: Solutions into Action

January 28, 2011

On Monday, January 24, 2011, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) hosted a meeting for stakeholders in Ethiopian adoption. Ethica will post the official DOS minutes as they are available.

Ethica was present at the meeting. The following are Ethica’s notes from that meeting.

Ethiopia Adoption: Solutions into Action – January 24, 2011

Overview: (Department of State – Abigail Rupp, U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Jill Larsen, Office of Children’s Issues)

*Adoptions are mostly from two regions of the country.

*80% of the adoption cases are relinquishment cases, majority relinquished by one birthparent. Most have siblings. In the earlier phase of adoptions from Ethiopia, the youngest children in a family were relinquished; now it is the middle and older siblings in a family.

*40% of the children involved are under the age of two; 25% are between 2-4 years old, and 35% are over the age of 4.

*90% of the cases handled by the U.S. Embassy call for further investigation for clarification of facts. The kinds of abuses they are seeing relate to misrepresentation of facts and concealment of facts in hopes of making the process going more quickly, including a false perception that if there is no birthparent reported that the case will move more quickly (so fathers will say that they are uncles, for instance). The problems in Ethiopia begin at the local level long before the children reach Addis.

*There are 22 licensed US ASPs (Adoption Service Providers) in Ethiopia, but over 70 who operate there. That is a lot of umbrella-ing.

*The top 10 ASPs account for 67% of all adoptions from Ethiopia.

Vulnerabilities:

*There is no central mechanism for referrals for children.

*There are three different parts of the Ethiopian government that have jurisdiction over adoptions: Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA), and Charities and Societies, which registers NGOs and ASPs

*MOJ evaluated 200 orphanages; recently indicated that they were planning on closing 50 of them due to malfeasance

*MOWA has an office of 5 people to review all adoption cases; the process requires two reviews of adoption cases.

*ASPs choose orphanages to work with, orphanages choose ASPs; there is neither transparency nor regulation in this process

*Irregularities are found after the adoption is finalized and the child is legally the child of American parents.

*Expediting the process means that there is not enough time for due diligence

*There is no standardization of fees, no standard fee structure

*Lack of monitoring at the local level

*At one point, it seemed that there was some movement toward Ethiopia becoming a Hague Convention country, but it does not appear to be on the agenda now.

Investigation of children’s backgrounds:

ASPs are inconsistent in their due diligence in investigating children’s backgrounds. In one example, a 6-year old child was found abandoned at a bus station and kept in an orphanage for 1.5 years. The first time the child was asked about his biological parents was during his visa interview at the Embassy, and he told the officials the name and address of his biological parents. This information could have easily been procured prior to this point.

Some adoption agencies do more due diligence than others, with social workers and investigators operating in the best interests of the child. Some ASPs create lifebooks as an investigative tool so they have more information on the child prior to court. The life book includes video interviews of the parents, neighbors and others involved in the case, and they document evidence of the child’s background, how s/he came into care, and provide timelines. Other agencies are passing along paperwork that the agency has failed to look at themselves which show discrepancies, missing information and clerical errors; one example provided was a document that stated in one place that “father unknown” and in another place, “tried to call father; no answer.”

The Transparency Survey administered by Ethica can provide some information into the different practices of agencies (found here).

The US government and the Embassy in Addis Ababa is increasing scrutiny and increasing field investigations based on fraud markers they’ve observed. They continue to collect detailed tracking information on all cases to detect patterns.

Hague accredited agencies are not necessarily operating in a transparent and ethical manner, either. Most agencies are not investigating kids’ histories across the board, Hague accredited or not.

According to COA, part of the problem is umbrella-ing. COA pledges to examine the connections between all organizations and determine whether those relationships are appropriate. They want to become more rigorous in their investigations. COA also suggests that reputable agencies will broadcast clearly the problems that are happening in Ethiopian adoptions, and encourage families to register their complaints with COA about problem agencies if those agencies are Hague-accredited.

Current situation in Ethiopia:

*As the number of children coming out of Ethiopia increase, there are increasing concerns about their well-being, particularly in a country that lacks the infrastructure necessary to support the numbers. There are increasing attachment issues in children coming from Ethiopia.

*There is a dichotomy in agency practices: on one end of the spectrum, agencies that go into the village, interview leaders in the village, families. On the other end of the spectrum, child is not asked about their circumstances and paperwork is suspicious. There are significant concerns about how children come into care. There are also concerns in the fact that the children now stay in the government orphanage before coming to transition homes.

*There are significant development projects in Ethiopia as a result of adoption agency involvement that affect far more than the children who are adopted.

*Adoptive parents’ entitlement are one of the most damaging issues in Ethiopian adoption. There have been reports of parents hitting their children, yelling at their children. This is extremely harmful to newly adopted children and has serious consequences for the future of the program. This is why APs are now required to stay in guest houses. There needs to be a real change in the way parents behave in country.

Speed of the process:

*From the USG perspective, it is fairly expeditious. If the agency provides appropriate and reliable paperwork, and the Embassy knows that the agency did its due diligence, they can act more quickly. The delays are often on the Ethiopian side, especially because of the limited resources of MOWA and MOJ.

*One big issue is that the USG is often seen as the “bad guy” when they have to disclose to the AP that the child being referred has two living parents who want to parent. This is not the fault of the Embassy.

“The way forward” panel: (USAID, UNICEF, and Buckner International spoke)

*PL 109-95 mandates a consistent, coordinated, effective approach to helping orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). It includes 7 US government agencies and PEPFAR. One can find all of the USG projects to address OVC here (this is mandated by PL 109-95).

Some of the results: strengthening capacity on the ground; increasing capacity to meet basic needs

*There are significant concerns about coercion, paperwork irregularities. The increase in adoptions from Ethiopia did not coincide with an increase in family options, which is notable and concerning.

*The Ethiopian government requested technical assistance from UNICEF regarding the Hague. They have also asked for assistance in providing training guides on topics such as subsidiarity, assistance developing foster care, reunification with birth families.

*With USAID, UNICEF has created a minimum standard of care, referral networks, cadre of welfare professionals, and strengthening child support frameworks.

*Buckner: They served 400K families in Ethiopia, but only 6 kids placed in adoptions overseas.

*Invited by the ET government to set up a local NGO – Buckner Bright Hope” – supported by private donors with the hope that it will be self-sustaining. They work to preserve biological families.

*Children are brought into assessment centers given medical evaluations/social history taken; first goal is to preserve a child’s cultural connections. Sometimes ICA does serve the best interests in the child but they work to explore other options first. In 2010, Buckner placed 2000 kids in foster care domestically, and 6 found homes through ICA.

Take-home messages for adoptive parents:

1) Agency selection is critical for prospective adoptive parents. Select an agency that has a solid track record of investigating children’’ histories and knowing their facilitators and the situations in which children come into care. PAPs should avoid agencies that umbrella and sign only with Hague-accredited agencies that are legally allowed to operate in Ethiopia. It is highly advisable to join adoption agency research internet groups to fully vet one’s agency choice.

2) Adoptive parents should seek out pre-adoptive education on child development and attachment. They should check their attitudes when in-country, but more than that, realize that practices such as hitting, smacking, or yelling at children are extremely harmful for both the children themselves and the future of the program.

3) When a Hague-accredited agency presents inconsistent paperwork or the adoptive parents have ethical concerns about their adoption in the process of completing their adoption,, PAPs and APs are strongly urged to report the behavior to the Department of State here. If it is a non-accredited agency that behaves unethically, the Department of State would still like to hear about it; families can emailaskci@state.gov. For questions about making a complaint, families can email Ethica atethicainfo@gmail.com.

4) It cannot be overstated that we urge adoptive parents to use only Hague accredited agencies and ask many questions about a referral once it is made about the circumstances surrounding the child’s history. For more information or help determining whether an agency is Hague-accredited, contact us: ethicainfo@gmail.com.

Countries: Ethiopia, United States of America

Organizations: ACT CASE : Wereldkinderen RESEARCH ETHIOPIA