Anxious adoptive parents wait for agency's bankruptcy to be sorted
Anxious adoptive parents wait for agency's bankruptcy to be sorted
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 | 7:43 PM MT Comments38Recommend19
CBC News
Three-month-old Wondimu was approved to be adopted by a Calgary couple before an adoption agency went bankrupt. (Courtesy of Thurmeier family)
Children approved to be adopted by Canadian parents using a now bankrupt adoption agency are in good care, according to the bankruptcy trustee for Imagine Adoption, which specialized in adoptions from Africa.
The Cambridge, Ont.,-based agency's parent company, Kids Link, went bankrupt on Monday, leaving roughly 200 Canadian clients in the lurch. For the last two years, it had facilitated adoptions from Ethiopia, Ghana and Ecuador.
Wednesday's update comes as a relief to Calgary couple Joel and Jodi Thurmeier, who were approved this month to adopt three-month-old Wondimu from Ethiopia.
"Our only concern is for our son over there. That's it," said Joel Thurmeier.
"Who's looking after him? Is everything OK? Are the caregivers still working? Is there anything we can do to speed up the process? And we've been told by everybody that the process has to take its course, and so now, we're kind of stuck in limbo."
Officials from bankruptcy trustee BDO Dunwoody told Imagine's clients on Wednesday that the children in Ethiopia are safe and being taken care of at Imagine's transitional house in the country's capital, Addis Ababa.
The average cost of adopting a child with Imagine started at about $10,000.
CIC warns parents not to fly to Africa
Karen Shadd, a spokeswoman from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said the department is working to resolve 23 active cases in Ethiopia and nine in Ghana but advised prospective parents to refrain from travelling to Africa.
"There's too many uncertainties," said an anxious Joel Thurmeier. "We've been told by our own adoption agency before this happened that if you get on a plane and go that the process could take even longer because Ethiopian immigration … I guess they frown upon ... [people] trying to step up the process."
Kids Link finances
Total liabilities: $1,086,004.
Total assets: $723,004.
Source: BDO Dunwoody
A Canadian adoption would have taken the Thurmeiers eight to 10 years because they already have two children, so they decided to adopt from Ethiopia.
The Thurmeiers were in the middle of arranging citizenship for Wondimu when Imagine's operations were halted. For now, they have only the infant's photo, which was sent to them last month.
Shadd said the cases in Ghana have been complex because the Canadian government suspended the processing of those files earlier this year.
"Processing was suspended because local authorities closed the orphanage in question due to concerns over child trafficking and halted all adoptions," she explained in an email.
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