This article is the first installment in a series about adoptions from Haiti to the U.S., offering perspectives on the process from both countries.
In October, the media spotlight shone on Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and her family of seven children during the judicial confirmation process. Among the children, the two adopted from Haiti — Vivian, 16, and John Peter, 13 — received the most scrutiny.
Probes came from news outlets like The New York Times, which reported that the children were adopted in 2004 and 2010, respectively. Since 2010, however, the Haitian government has adopted stricter laws to comply with Hague Convention protocols, making international adoption more difficult.
“In the past, anybody could come and adopt a child easily,” said Erick Pierre-Val, a Delmas, Port-au-Prince pastor who counsels parents on the adoption process. “Now, because of the Convention, [they] try to control the process because they care about human trafficking.”
International adoptions to the United States from the rest of the world declined sharply after 2008, when the U.S. government first adopted Hague standards. Haiti itself tightened its laws in 2014 to comply with the Hague Convention, and the steepest decline in adoptions from Haiti took place in 2015.