Read more at the VOA:Ethiopia to Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 Percent
Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa March 04, 2011
Photo: AP
Aaron Lieberman holds his son Theodore, 2, adopted from Ethiopia, as he shows his citizenship certificate, during U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Adoption Day ceremony in New York, 18 Nov 2010
Ethiopia is cutting back by as much as 90 percent the number of inter-country adoptions it will allow, as part of an effort to clean up a system rife with fraud and corruption. Adoption agencies and children’s advocates are concerned the cutbacks will leave many Ethiopian orphans without the last-resort option of an adoptive home abroad.
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs has issued a directive saying it will process a maximum of five inter-country adoptions a day, effective March 10. Currently, the ministry is processing up to 50 cases a day, about half of them to the United States.
A copy of the directive provided to VOA says the reduction of up to 90 percent in cases will allow closer scrutiny of documents used to verify a child’s orphan status.
Ethiopia to Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 Percent | Africa | English
I left this comment figured I’d make it a post:
I do feel some sympathy for those perspective adoptive parents who were waiting. Many picked Ethiopia for its ease, quick turn around and lax policies. I hope they, like you can see that protecting the children and original families from fraud and abuse is paramount. No mother should have her child taken by force or even have to choose to sell one child to feed her others. Adoption is a viable option for true orphans and abused children, but the risk of trafficking is great and we must be vigilant in the quest to establish ethics in adoption.
As a former foster child, I will say there are plenty of children - right here in this country who need stable homes. And while some believe that adopting children internationally is somehow a “safer” option that is just not true. Anytime a child is removed from their familiar environment, institutionalized and or passed from stranger to stranger they are bound to have some emotional baggage at the least, whatever their mother country. Children are a gamble no matter how they come to you.
I do hope that some of you perspective adoptive parents, who have been sidelined in Ethiopia, take some time to reconsider the thousands of children waiting in the U.S. foster care system
