BBC Article on Adoptions in Liberia

In an effort to be completely transparent about the Liberia adoption program and to keep people who are interested in it updated so that they can pray, I thought it important to site an article from the BBC and refute the misinformation it contains.

First, let me say that inaccurate and negatively biased news articles are not uncommon when it comes to any international adoption programs. Because all societies agree that the welfare of a country's children is of utmost importance, adopting children between countries needs to be done under well thought out and enforced regulations. When they are not, people need to know about it and the media has a right and obligation to report on it.

However, what I have seen happen in Liberia and other countries is that people and organizations who are against international adoptions in principle steer the media into writing articles that are inaccurate to create a climate of fear and mistrust around international adoptions. This has been the case several times in Liberia. In this case the only thing I am surprised about is the fact that the BBC allowed this article to be published since it is so obviously inaccurate and biased.

I plan to file a complaint with the BBC about this article and recommend that others do as well. The BBC has a complaint process that requires someone at the paper to look into each complaint and respond to each one. My hope is that a retraction will be published and that a new article about current Liberian adoptions would be published.

Link to make a complaint with the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaints_stage1.shtml

Here is the link to the BBC article on adoptions in Liberia: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7726687.stm

Here are the problems I have with this article:

1. The article leads one to believe that there can be a bait and switch tactic used with Liberian families who send their children to an orphanage with the goal of providing their children with food and an education but then discover their children have been adopted without their permission.

Under the current adoption process, their are four times that birth parents (or the closest blood relative if both parents are deceased and there are death certificates) are interviewed and choose to relinquish their children for adoption. First, the birth relative does an interview with the adoption coordinator and indicates his/her desire for the child to be adopted. At a later date, a social worker with the Ministry of Health does an interview with the birth relative. It is the social worker's job to ensure that the birth relative understands what adoption means. The social worker does not work for any adoption agency and has no incentive to promote adoption to families. The social worker must then write a report that indicates that it is in the child's best interest to be adopted. When the adoption is processed in a Liberian court, the birth relative must also go to the court and sign a relinquishment that indicates he or she wishes for the child to be adopted. Finally, if the child is being adopted by U.S. citizens, the Consular at the U.S. Embassy also interviews the birth relative to determine that the child does have orphan status and that the birth relative understands the permanency of adoption.

2. The journalist who wrote this article did not make an effort to speak with any sources who are directly involved in adoptions in Liberia. She did not speak to any sources on the committee for Adoption of Liberian Children, which President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf formed in October (http://www.theliberianjournal.com/index.php?st=news&sbst=details&rid=592&comesOf%5CTheHome=1). No government officials from the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Justice or the US Embassy who work directly with Liberian adoptions were interviewed. Nor were any adoption workers from any of the adoption agencies in Liberia interviewed. It should not be a surprise to anyone that a journalist could find people in Liberia who have negative opinions about international adoptions.

3. The journalist inaccurately states that there is a moratorium on Liberian adoptions and slanders Bishop Kofi by making it seem that he himself is processing adoptions illegally. The truth is that there was a moratorium on Liberian adoptions for several months this year while the Liberian legislature, the Ministry of Health and six adoption agencies in Liberia worked together to revise adoption laws in Liberia to ensure that children, birth parents and adoptive parents are all protected throughout the process. The legislature has yet to adopt new adoption laws, but the moratorium has been lifted and adoptions are legally proceeding in Liberia while all of the parties mentioned continue to work together. Bishop Kofi himself does not process any adoptions. The ministry that he runs, ACFI, does have an adoption staff and are a recognized adoption agency in Liberia.

4. The journalist chose to interview Bishop Edward Kofi and made him out to be a criminal with language like "self-styled" "bragged" "adoption business" "deliver a child" none of which were Bishop Kofi's words. The journalist first misrepresented who she was and was unable to find any information to support her claims that he is running an illegal adoption business. In fact, when she revealed that she was a journalist, Bishop Kofi still stood by the information he had given her.

5. There was no mention of the fact that Bishop Kofi's ministry, African Christians Fellowship International, works with Christian Adoption Services to place children into permanent, loving families. Christian Adoption Services is a licensed U.S. adoption agency that is Hague accredited, so even though the government of Liberia does not subsribe to the Hague Convention, the agency that ACFI works with processes their adoptions in accordance with high international standards.

6. The article states that "Most of the children in orphanages like the one Mr Kofi runs are not actually orphans. Most have at least one living parent, many were placed there by desperately poor parents." According to U.S. immigration laws which can be found at uscis.gov, "Under U.S. immigration law, a foreign-born child is an orphan if he or she does not have any parents because of the death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents. A foreign-born child is also an orphan if his or her sole or surviving parent is incapable of providing care of the child and has, in writing, irrevocably released the child for emigration and adoption." Even the Hague Convention categorizes a child as an orphan if his parents are unable to care for him and relinquish him for adoption.

7. The claim that agencies receive scores of money from adoptions and that is why orphanages are established is ludicrous. ACFI receives $5000 for each child's adoption. (Their fees are reduced to $4000 for a second child adopted by the same family and $3000 for a third child adopted by the same family.) It costs them about $2000 to process the adoptions. That leaves $1000 to $3000 per adoption, which goes to supporting the orphanage the child lived in. ACFI maintains two orphanages, one that cares for about 400 children ages 4-16 and one that cares for about 60 children who cannot hear ages 4 and above. It costs ACFI over $17,000 per month to provide food, medical care and an education for these children and to pay the worker's salaries. ACFI receives less than $3000 every quarter in state subsidies to care for the children. At the moment, it looks like about 30 children could be adopted in the next year from these orphanages. Most of these adoptions are sibling adoptions, so I would project that a maximum of $75000 would go to the orphanage support from the adoptions ACFI does in this next year. Combining state subsidies and orphanage support from adoptions would still only provide ACFI with about 5 months a year worth of support. There is a donor program that is run in the US that attempts to make up for the shortfall, but even that does not provide enough money to care for the children at the level that ACFI and CAS desires. I have personally been to the ACFI office and of course to the CAS office in the US as well as ACFI's office in Liberia and can attest to the fact that no one is making scores of money on adoptions. Personally, I will earn less than $10,000 from CAS for my work in coordinating the Liberia program in a year's time.

8. The journalist makes the claim that running the orphanages is a business. If that were true, ACFI would care for children ages 0-6 instead of 4-16. At least 75% of the requests I receive from parents interested in adopting from Liberia are from people wanting to adopt children under the age of six, usually most want to adopt babies or toddlers. Since we do not find children for parents but rather we find parents for children, ACFI and CAS have to turn away many prospective adoptive parents whose criteria do not fit our waiting children. ACFI began the orphanages during Liberia's civil wars, when international adoptions were not even a consideration for the country. In addition, there are parents in Liberia who simply want their children to receive care and an education and not be adopted. ACFI cares for these children as well. The fact is that most of the children in ACFI's orphanages will not be adopted. If ACFI were running an "orphan trade" business this would not be the case.

What I find particularly interesting is that this article was published the day before National Adoption Day in the U.S. For the first time, a coalition of adoption agencies is going to celebrate this day in Liberia since most of the international adoptions from Liberia are to U.S. families. The adoption agencies want to help Liberian families understand adoption, so that these rumors of an "orphan trade" or "adoption business" will subside in the face of truth. Organizations that oppose international adoption, (UNICEF being one of them), would prefer for misinformation to continue to be promoted through the media. The way for all of us to counter this effort is to insist that our news medias accurately report the facts.