Something very odd went down with Unicef yesterday. We were instructed in writing to pick up patients from the U.S. Comfort Ship. When our driver got there to get the people we were to be transferring to our care, there were Unicef vehicles taking them to some camp.

The unicef folks were not talking, they were just large and in charge. When asked why we had been told to come by the U.S. Comfort ship, they would not talk with us about it.

I'd love to believe somebody just got their wires crossed, but I'm not so sure. Something smelled wrong about it. The Comfort ship went to the work of getting us patient names, details, lists and a time to come get them. Clearly they were unaware of what was about to happen.

The problem is, giant worldwide organizations have power, and they have policies. Giant organizations are so giant that they cannot see the forest for the trees and they cannot see the individual person with the individual situation. We all know power corrupts. The Unicef we're seeing is not as interested in putting people/children first as it is in setting policy, precedent, and moving forward its own political agenda. I've watched people get up in arms and say that it is wrong to not support this long-standing and "worthy" organization. I recognize that will likely happen again here. We can easily agree to disagree if need be.

We're simply stating that the policies and procedures are a long way off from meeting real people with IMMEDIATE NEEDS where they are. (And things are not what they appear to be. Not at all.) The anti-adoption rhetoric has some merit but it is also maddening. Kids abandoned to an orphanage by their birth parent PRE earthquake are now being held in Haiti thanks to pressure placed on the Haitian government by the giant and powerful Unicef.  It is asinine and lacks all logic.

We are all for legal, careful, smart adoption. None of us want to see children taken from a birth parent or extended family that wants to raise them. That would be a terrible thing.

The fact is, Unicef is openly anti-international-adoption and what is happening now is nothing more than political grand-standing and a massive power trip. And all at the expense of children with waiting and approved families abroad.  I am saying, approved and in process adoptions are being used as a political tool by the giant organizations. While I agree policies need to be changed and systems of corruption need an overhaul --- maybe right this minute, when the country has no resources, it is not the very best time to make a stand and hold children here in crumbling institutions while adoptive parents wait eagerly.

Large powerful organizations with money can "encourage" and "convince" and put the pressure on ... and a government in crisis will bend to the will of a single powerful organization.

Meanwhile, children and people in crisis are not being served, cared for, or respected.  I understand the nuance and that UNICEF does some good work. You'll never convince me that an machine that large is actually in touch with real human beings and their real stories. 

Haitian children stand by waiting plane for clearance to fly to Utah

Published: Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 12:14 p.m. MST

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — With a single signature, the prime minister of Haiti seems to have cleared the way for at least 50 Haitian children to leave their island nation to join the American families who are in the process of adopting them.

Joy that the days'—long logjam had apparently ended was tempered as Americans and Haitians haggled over how many children had completed the appropriate paperwork to leave. What started out early Friday with a report that 141 orphans would leave dwindled to 66 and then down to 52.

There were long faces and tears as 14 children were told they won't be going today because their paperwork isn't complete.

Utahns working on last minute deal for Haitian orphans

Reported by: Brent Hunsaker

Reported by: Brandy Vega

Last Update: 10:48 am

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Friday, January 29, 2010 7:04 PM

With one last flight to Haiti,

Operation Stork winds down

Jane Taber

The Air Canada Airbus A330 was just beginning its descent into Port-au-Prince last Saturday when the message came through the cockpit’s data system from the airline’s operations centre: “Attn: AC2150: Confirmed 24 children for your return. Take care of them.”

Setting Orphans' Path to U.S.

Haiti-Based Officer Hears Hundreds of Cases, Ruling on Which Children Can Go

By Miriam Jordan

The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2010

Dozens of times a day, Pius Bannis helps decide the fate of a Haitian orphan.

Koblenzer Adoptionsverein holte Kinder aus Erdbebengebiet in Haiti

Frankfurt Sie wollten Waisenkindern aus Haiti die Chance auf ein besseres Leben bieten.

Aus dem Elend Haitis in neue Fami lien: Der Koblen zer Verein "Help a Child" holte diese Waisen nach Deutsch land. Nach dem langen Flug waren sowohl die Kinder als auch "Help"-Vor sit zende Bea Garnier-Merz am Ende ihrer Kräfte. Fotos: Help a Child

?

Dann kam das Erdbeben. Nach Tagen der Sorge konnten 60 Paare ihre Adoptivkinder endlich in die Arme schließen.

Adoption: neuf enfants haïtiens sont arrivés en Suisse

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.

Senators speak out for Haitian orphans

TAGS: Senate, Haiti, Mary Landrieu, Frank Lautenberg, Orphans

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By JAMES HOHMANN | 1/27/10 4:41 AM EST

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