Ethiopia: The Hand That Rocks the Broken Cradle (Part II)

02/22/10

01:41:57 am, by nazret.com, 2000 words, 1174 views

Categories: Ethiopia, Alemayehu G. Mariam

Ethiopia: The Hand That Rocks the Broken Cradle (Part II)

Former President Bill Clinton on Haiti, Orphans, & Adoption

2010 FEBRUARY 22

by Jason Kovacs

The following is a transcript of Fox News’ Major Garrett’s interview with former President William Clinton:

GARRETT: Speaking of children who survived, what do you make of the orphan situation involving the folks here in the United States. There was confusion — is that a way for Americans to help? Is that something that you advise? What’s you take on that whole situation, because it obviously touched the hearts of a lot of Americans?

Nepal's Adoption System Unreliable: US

KIRAN CHAPAGAIN

KATHMANDU, Feb 23: The United States has accused Nepal´s inter-country adoption of being unreliable and cautioned prospective adoptive US parents to find out orphan status of the minors before taking any decision on adoption from Nepal.

"We caution prospective adoptive parents who have yet to choose a country that the inter-country adoption system in Nepal is not yet reliable," said the US State Department in a notice last week.

The US allegation comes after the finding of US Embassy in Kathmandu which found that a child set for adoption was not a true orphan and its biological parents were actively searching for it.

Die verlorene Tochter - Die Geschichte einer Auslandsadoption

Eine WELTWEIT-Reportage von Golineh Atai

Dienstag, 23. Februar 2010, 22.00 - 22.30 Uhr

Montag, 01. März 2010, 14.30 - 15.00 Uhr (Wdh.)

Anisha (l) mit ihrer leiblichen Mutter Fatima.

UNICEF Seeks to Keep Kids Out of Haiti Orphanages

By TIM PADGETT AND JESSICA DESVARIEUX / PORT-AU-PRINCE Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010

ENLARGE PHOTO+

Children wait for a visit from UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman at the Notre Dame orphanage in Port-au-Prince

Eduardo Munoz / Reuters

Domestic adoption of children promoted in SKorea

By Channel NewsAsia's Korea Bureau Chief Lim Yun Suk | Posted: 23 February 2010 1159 hrs

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SEOUL: For several years now, the South Korean government has been trying to reduce the number of Korean children sent overseas for adoption. It prefers the children to be adopted in Korea, as a way to stem the country's falling birth rate.

Activists seek a central adoption registry

M Ramya, TNN, Jan 28, 2010, 04.49am IST

CHENNAI: When they gather enough strength to confront the most basic of questions — who am I, where did I come from — time would have consumed their childhood. The emotional pull to find answers grows with those who have been put up for inter-country adoption that one day they embark on a journey to an alien land, scouting for their parents, clenching a pack of sketchy letters and greying pictures, and placing their bets on luck.

To make parent-hunting a much more smoother affair, activists have been rooting for a central adoption registry that will maintain the names of the biological parents giving their child for adoption to foreign parents. Esther, who was adopted by a Belgian couple, would have been spared of the wanderings in Chennai in search of her mother and sister had there been a registry. A comprehensive central adoption registry will allow children to trace their roots later if they are so inclined, and enable their biological parents to reconnect with their past.

"Esther was given up for adoption in 1985, much before the guidelines for adoption were drawn up. But there are more recent cases where tracing biological parents have been futile. When I tried to help trace a person's biological parent, I failed for want of available records. The adoption agency concerned, which could have had the details, had closed down," says Andal Damodaran, former chairperson of the Central Adoption Resource Agency and current honorary general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Indian Council for Child Welfare.

Govt to set up body to check illegal adoption

TNN, Feb 23, 2010, 09.19pm IST

RANCHI: The government has decided to set up a State Adoption Resource Authority to put check on cases of illegal adoption that has plagued Jharkhand for the last 10 years.

The decision was taken at end of a two-day workshop on "Adoption" organized jointly by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), state social welfare department and Action against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children (ATSEC) on Tuesday.

State ATSEC convener Sanjay Mishra said since the formation of Jharkhand they had been trying to streamline the process of adoption.

"Activities of Child Homes Suspicious"

Gorkapatra, 23Feb10

Kathmandu - The Ministry of Women, Child and Social welfare has taken action against one orphan home for presenting fake documents. Only last week the Hague Convention submitted a report saying that the Nepalese orphan homes are not transparent. As a punishment, the said orphan home cannot send any child on international adoption for 2 years.

According to the ministry the Ranibari based orphan home presented fake documents to send a child to USA. The parents of the child who are working as labour in Kathmandu were not aware of this conspiracy. The case was revealed when the parents of the child came looking for their child in the ministry after she went missing from the orphan home.

Minister of MOWCSW Mr. Sarbadev Ojha said, the orphan home was trying to send the child on adoption using fake documents. This action is very positive for the adoption. As there are many irregularities, we are soon coming up with minimum criteria for the orphan homes.

Don't suspend inter-country adoption

PHILIP HOLMES

Inter-country adoption is once again receiving a bad press. First we had the arrest of a group of Americans in Haiti who were allegedly trying to remove children from the country without the permission of the authorities. Then in this past week UNICEF in Nepal has endorsed the findings of the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference that inter-country adoptions from Nepal should once again be suspended. This they state is in response to the Government of Nepal’s failure to fulfill commitments that it gave to reform adoption practice and improve child protection after it signed the Hague Convention in April 2009.

Of course, aspects of the inter-country adoption process as it stands at the moment are totally unacceptable and if the interests of the child are not central and being ignored then UNICEF and others are duty bound to adopt a robust stance. My concern is that a blanket suspension is an overreaction that will be to the detriment of very many children who will be denied a future and loving homes abroad. Instead they will be condemned to remain in grim “orphanages” or they could face an even worse fate. I also believe, after 10 years of working in grass roots childcare in Nepal, that it is overly simplistic to champion the use of family-based care alternatives in Nepal.

In the joint UNICEF/Terre des Hommes report of August 2008 “Adopting the Rights of the Child” it was stated that over 60 percent of children in orphanages were not true orphans. The contention restated in a BBC interview this week by Joseph Aguettant, Country Representative of Terre des Hommes, is that these children could be better supported within their natural families. The status of “orphan” or otherwise is not the key issue; children do not need to be presented as orphans for inter-country adoption. Being a step child is enough. In this regard, I offer an alternative statistic that is much more relevant than the 60 percent figure.