Jolie's quick foreign adoption not typical
Jolie's quick foreign adoption not typical
Updated Mon. Jul. 11 2005 10:54 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
It took Angelina Jolie just two days to adopt the newest addition to her family, an orphaned Ethiopian girl.
The adoption agency insists Jolie did not receive any special treatment to get such fast service, but many Canadians who have adopted from overseas would tell you the process for them took considerably longer.
Audrey Macklin adopted her daughter Adeena from Ethiopia. She's an immigration law professor at the University of Toronto and told Canada AM that even with all her expertise about foreign adoption, the process still took her almost two years.
Macklin says that in Canada, there are a number of steps along the road to adoption that can draw out the process.
"You need a social worker to do a home study," she explained. "You need approval from provincial social service agencies. You need approval from Canada Immigration. The adoption agency itself has toy to approve you."
"And that's only the Canadian side. Then you go to Ethiopia and authorities there have to approve you for adoption."
Hadosh Halefom, head of Ethiopia's state-run adoption agency, says Jolie met the 10 conditions for adopting.
"The two most important are economic capabilities and check with the police," Hadosh said. "Although she is a film star, she still has to meet the same requirements as everybody else."
"If people's paperwork is in order, it can take only two days to finalize everything."
But adoption experts in Canada say prospective parents hoping to adopt from overseas should expect a much longer wait than two days.
- The home study takes about six months to a year to complete
- Preparing the dossier and all the paperwork typically takes five to nine months
- Getting a child referral: two to six months
- Getting ready to travel to the country of adoption: four to nine months
- Stay in country: seven to 14 days
At the end of it all, the process typically takes about a year.
Macklin says she understands the reasons for the bureaucratic hurdles: they're meant to protect the interests of the child.
"The country of origin has legitimate concerns about how their child is going to be treated. They want to ensure that prospective adoptive parents are emotionally and financially stable and able to provide a healthy upbringing for the children. The parents and Canadian immigration have a concern about the health of the child.
"There's a Hague convention on trans-national adoption which hopes to prevent concerns like trafficking in children, the selling of babies. So there are reasons for the delays. From the position of one adopting, one feels it could be done more quickly. But certainly, you can't complain about the reasons."
Macklin says she decided to adopt from Ethiopia because she has some good friends who are Ethiopian. She also liked that she wouldn't be rejected for being single
"I was glad to learn that it's one of the diminishing number of countries where one can adopt an infant and where single women can also still adopt," she says.
Ethiopia, a country of 70 million, has more than five million orphans, with many of the parents succumbing to famine, AIDS and war.
The country has gone out of its way in recent years to make adoption easier. The number of children being adopted from the country reached a record in 2003 with 1,400 children taken abroad -- more than double the number in the previous year.
Macklin says her adoption experience was a positive one and hopes that more prospective parents will consider the east African nation.
"One of the things that impressed me when I went to Ethiopia was the quality of care that (Adeena) received in the orphanage and the foster home run by the transnational adoption agency."
But Macklin says despite the ease of adoption in Ethiopia, most Canadians still think of China and Eastern Europe when they think of foreign adoptions.
"Relatively few people consider adopting from Ethiopia. There's only one agency in Canada that does it, located on the Prairies. For those who live in other provinces, they don't consider Ethiopian adoption or are not aware of it."
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