Children uprooted in Ethiopia

Children uprooted in Ethiopia

The demand for adoptions unties all kinds of irregularities in the African country

CÓZAR ALVARO - Addis Abeba - 17/12/2007

Aynalem Zacharias, an Ethiopian woman of 22 years, is not where she supposed she would be to talk to this newspaper about the disappearance of her two twin children, robbed by the police of the region three months ago and given irregularly to an orphanage of the town nearby. After all morning looking for her in the city of Zwai, three hours by car from the Ethiopian capital, an old blind person opens the door and tells that Aynalem also has disappeared. "After they took her twins from her, the woman became crazy. All day she walked alone by the street crying and she asked everybody if they had seen the children. Days have passed by and I have not seen her again", tells the broken voice of the old woman.

The history of the old woman corresponds with the version of Kemal Nagu, a civil employee of the Office of Social Affairs of Zwai in charge of the case. Kemal corroborates the information with the aid of the archives he stores in his office and he expresses his anger with the police performance. "We do not know where the children are. Some witnesses have said that they were taken to an orphanage near here, but there they say they never had them. We suspect that they have ended up in the adoptions circuit", he explains.

Ethiopia has in the last years become one of the destinies most asked for by the western families who love to adopt, with about 2,000 cases the year, according to the Ministry of Women. In Spain, Ethiopia occupies the third position in the list of countries with the highest number of children adopted (304 in 2006) after China and Russia. And the forecast is that it will occupy the second place in the next years, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs. Although the present Ethiopian legislation establishes very high exigencies for the adoption processes, it is for sure that the continuous demand of the families allows some Ethiopians to bypass the system. One of those flaws is being corrected little by little, but still it persists: the representatives of some 60 foreign agencies established in Ethiopia to facilitate the adoptions. Most of the workers of the agencies are local. In a country that occupies position 169 on a list of 177 countries that indexes the development (Report on Human Development, 2007, of United Nations) the commissions (money) can cause irregularities. For that reason some governments, like the one of the Community of Madrid, have prohibited that system of payment. In its place, the employee receives a wage.

"It is one of the problems we encounter. Too much pressure on the orphanages and the poor families so that they give the children for adoption ", indicates Kemal Nagu. The civil employee of Zwai continues his story with other similar cases. He talks about money paid to some poor families to take to the children and of others left by unmarried mothers who are recruited for the work in the field from very young: "We decided what to do with a boy in that situation. Any agreement or transaction with small money is punished with jail ".

The supposed anomalies in the adoptions are pointed out by Kassaye Haile, engaged by one of the biggest orphanages of the country, in the city of Nazareth. AS responsible, it does not surprise him too much that there are continuously failures in a system he considers strict and with "many eyes watching". "The traffic of children exists. It can happen that somebody tries to jump steps, that he gives money to some woman that begs with her children, that he tries to do business ", he comments.

Kassaye uses the word business without much hesitation. According to him, if there is money to intermediate, it is because there is supply and demand and it does not mean that norms are being failed to fulfil. The certain thing is that in all adoptions there is intermediary money, although justified. The price which the families pay by the transaction of the files is around 6,000 euros. But it is before all this when the irregularities take place. According to Kassaye, the problem is in the small villages, where the small offices like the one of civil employee Kemal in Zwai do not have the capacity to control what happens with all the children who walk the streets.

The Spanish families with whom this newspaper has spoken indicate that their experiences with the Ethiopian adoptions have been positive. "It would surprise me much that there were problems, but if there are irregularities at that first moment, before the children enter the adoption process, I hope that measures are taken. The maximum control is necessary so that the parents do not have any doubt that everything was done with rigor ", concludes an adoptive mother.

The papers said he was an orphan

A young person who acted as translator in an adoption process told this newspaper that the boy, of five years, confessed to him that he had relatives shortly before marching to Spain. "The parents did not know anything. They thought that he was orphaned, according to the official papers that they had. But the boy said to me that he had parents and brothers ", assures the young person, who prefers not to give his name.

The continuous controls make such cases more and more difficult. There are many filters placed so that nothing like that occurs. In Spain, the process to adopt is an autonomic competence. After obtaining the certificate of suitability of the community the families must enter into contact with one of the Spanish agencies accredited by the region and the country, in this case Ethiopia. These agencies are called Collaborating Organizations for International Adoptions (ECAI). They are the ones who transact the process, which can take about 18 months. After verifying the documentation, the Ethiopian government assigns a minor to the adoptive parents. Finally, a judicial authority gives the approval with the consent of the biological parents or the nearest relatives of the child, if these exist.

The ECAI assures that the processes are rigorous. "All of us are audited in Spain and Ethiopia. Our work and the management of the accounts are verified", assures the representative of the ECAI accredited in Madrid. "There are things that need to improve. Not only adoption of babies is needed. There are children with siblings or with diseases that also need family ", he explains.