Niels's blog

Since on April 1, 2008 the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption entered into force for the United States, one of the shadier aspects of international adoption becomes even more prominent. I am talking about umbrella-ing here of course.

Umbrella-ing is the practice of unaccredited agencies to work with an agency that is accredited to gain access to a foreign adoption market that would otherwise be closed to them. The Hague treaty does not forbid this practice, though for several reasons, I think they should, especially now that the US has become a part of it.

In the article Guatemalan Adoptions Suspended by Overseas Crack-Down, an analysis is given about the situation in Guatemala. It states:

For very good reasons, I am not a religious person and whenever I see people use His name as an explanation for their deeds, my stomach turns.

"Lisa believes God can do everything and believes it is his will for this adoption, using her as an instrument".

In a world where one hand giveth and the other taketh we can find websites like RainbowKids.com, which claims:

Today, Forbes in their never ending urge to report about unnecessarily rich people, published its annual list of wealthiest people in the world.  

Today the NCFA announced they are going to award attorney Debbie Wynbrow and her husband and partner, Brad Oliver with induction in their notorious and self proclaimed Adoption Hall of Fame. Debbie and Brad can now join the ranks of people like Larry "I'm not Gay" Craig and organizations such as LDS Chilren's Services, awarded earlier for the great work they did in the case of Baby Tamia.

Now they've really done it.

The sharks of Amici dei Bambini, an Italian adoption agency which already came up in an earlier discussion, are going to hold an annual meeting in August, in their never ending promotion of adoption. One of the seminars is about demystifying the role of natural families as can be read in the description below.

WHAT?????

Friday 29 February 2008 the US state department published the agencies accredited or approved for the Hague.

Some of the agencies that didn't make the list are:

Current adoption practices require a homestudy performed by a licenced social worker, before PAP's are eligible for adoption. Over the years cases have reached the news that demonstrate home studies are an insufficient safe guard. Children have been:

Yesterday, 26 February 2008, Terre des Hommes Switzerland presented a new report Adoption: at what cost?