Ethiopia to Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 Percent

While I have my reasons to keep my eyes on America's involvement in any and all dark adoption practices, let us not presume for one micro-second other countries are immune to the tricks played on those seeking a fast-tracked "adoptable" child.

Imagine my sick dismay and amusement when I read about the horrors an AP, (from Canada, my mother-land - as my kept papers prove), uncovered when she went to Kazakhstan to collect "her" daughter.  (You know, the one chosen for her).

The former Soviet republic is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and Drummond encountered many frustrating delays and moments of despair. After four months and $45,000, she was finally united with a baby girl, but getting her to Canada proved to be another challenge.

"There's absolutely no reason why these fees should be $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 to get this child out of a government-run orphanage," Drummond said.

Her trip was organized by the Winnipeg agency UAS Eastern European Adoptions, whose fees average $30,000 to $35,000. A consular official with the Kazakh embassy in Ottawa told CBC News those fees were, "crazy" and "fantastically high."

But UAS said the money pays for translators in Kazakhstan, medical bills to have the child examined and legal costs, among other things.

"You're pretty safe once you're there," said agency spokesperson Kris Condon. "[You go] from one secured area to another. Our staff meet the families at the airport immediately upon their arrival."

The agency also advises clients to bring part of the fees to Kazakhstan in cash in order to pay the Kazakh co-ordinators arranged through UAS.

Lindsay took $22,000, stuffed into extra pockets she sewed inside her pants. She was required to pay several additional fees for a whole host of reasons, including questionable "gifts" requested by the Kazakh orphanage.

The provincial government regulates Manitoba's international adoptions but has no control over fees paid outside of Canada.

Other adoption agencies told CBC News that Kazakhstan's adoption program is too expensive and unpredictable. China's program, by contrast, is much cheaper — and potential parents get to see the child before they travel to the country.

"The picture of the child and the medical information on the child — [prospective parents] get to see it before they travel," said Sharon Riches of Adoption Options Manitoba Inc., a non-profit organization that provides information, education, counseling and related services on all aspects of adoption to birthmothers, adoptive couples and the public.

Drummond's experience was quite the opposite.

"You show up, maybe you see a child, maybe you see a sick child, maybe you see a healthy child, maybe there are no children at all by the time you get there," she said.

She is now formally complaining to government and hopes her story will make international adoptions better for others.

[From:  Manitoba government looking into adoption concerns (March 2009)]

That's Kazakhstan.  PPL has quite a bit written about Kazakhstan.  Read what was written, in 2002:

it is necessary to adopt new laws so that to register all the Kazakh kids brought to foreign countries through Embassies of Kazakhstan in those states. "We do not have any records giving us exact number of our kids taken to foreign countries by their new parents, and their future destinies are unknown", - said Deputy Aytaly. He also added that Kazakh Parliament and Kazakh government should continue protecting rights of the Kazakh kids even after their move to other countries."Unfortunately, - said Deputy Aytaly, - there are no Kazakh Embassies in some countries, for instance in South African Republic, where our kids live with their new parents as well". The issue has been under discussion in Kazakh Parliament for about a year already.

[From:  ISSUE OF KAZAKH KIDS' ADOPTION BY FOREIGNERS AGAIN RAISED IN KAZAKH ]

The money-trail and corruption goes much deeper, in ways most will not want to dive-into -- it's that sordid and complex.

But let's make it easy, for now.  In just one article, like "Babies-for-sale trade faces a global crackdown", (written in 2004), we are able to see sparks of dark-truth written about foreign adopters and adoptions from Cambodia, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan:

Overseas adoption is big business, and growing: last year, more than 2,150 Ukrainian children and almost 8,000 Russian children were adopted to foreign countries. Most of those went to the US, where Russia is second only to China as a provider of adoptees and Ukraine ranks sixth. Italy and Spain adopt hundreds of children each year, as do Canadians. British parents applied to adopt 26 Russian children last year - none from Ukraine, where adoption is on hold over a disagreement over regulations.

China is still a reliable source of girls but eastern European countries are also popular. A child who looks like his or her parents leads to fewer embarrassing questions in the playground or supermarket. It is often faster to get a baby or toddler from abroad and adopting from another culture, particularly a country where adoption records are sealed and poverty is rampant, takes away some of the fear of a birth mother coming knocking.

In an industry fuelled by money and the desperation of would-be parents, and complicated by haphazard or non-existent regulations, private agencies and corruption among poorly paid officials, there are countless tales of fraud - babies sold twice to different families, adoption facilitators who have made off with thousands, mothers who were duped into giving up their newborns.

Some families spend thousands only to go home empty-handed, after finding the child referred to them is ill, or not the right age, or gender, or that the official required to approve an adoption is ill or has been fired. Even in above-board adoption cases, large donations to orphanages are considered mandatory, whether as money or in clothing, food or medical supplies and adoptive parents are counselled to bring gifts for a long list of government officials to help things go smoothly.

'I have to be careful what I say, but an awful lot of $100 bills were floating across tables in Kiev and Odessa. It did appear to open things up and get things moving,' said Brad Parr, a 47-year-old Texan who adopted a two-year-old Ukrainian girl two years ago, after weeks of arguing with officials, weeding through listings and travelling from orphanage to orphanage. 'It worked out we got a great kid but we had to put a lot of pressure on them - you're not going there to be a tourist. You're going to conduct business.'

And the business is lucrative. A decade ago, several doctors and nurses in Lviv were charged with accepting bribes and forging documents, even coercing mothers into giving up their newborns or telling them their babies had died, to allow them to be adopted abroad.

Today, Ukrainian adoption officials won't talk about that case, except to say it was the catalyst for sweeping changes to foreign adoption laws. Families from abroad who could once take babies straight from maternity homes, must now wait for older children who have spent a year listed with the National Adoption Centre's registry, and may not look at any child other than the given referral. Private agencies, which flourish in other countries, are now illegal in Ukraine, though a number operate outside Ukraine to co-ordinate documents and arrange translators.

But baby-selling accusations have popped up in almost every country that permits foreign adoptions. In June, British Children's Minister Margaret Hodge suspended all adoptions from Cambodia over charges of falsified documents, illegal adoption facilitators and the coercion of mothers to hand over their children.

For many young Cambodian orphans, adoption means a much sought-after ticket to prosperity and security but the darker side is widespread reports of unscrupulous brokers buying infants from poverty-stricken parents and selling them, at a huge profit, to Western couples.

More than 2,300 children have been adopted by foreigners in Cambodia in the last six years. The Prime Minister, Hun Sen, suspended all foreign adoptions for a short period four years ago but then lifted the ban, pending legislation regulating the industry.

'It's the worst form of exploitation. The parents are often desperate and will turn a blind eye or simply do not want to know,' said one charity worker in the capital, Phnom Penh. 'This country is without a proper system of law and pretty much everything can be bought: officials, permits, people. The problem is the demand not supply. If we stamp it out here it will go elsewhere.'

Middlemen persuade women in dirt-poor villages to give up their babies for between $20 and $50 or babies are bought directly from orphanages in Cambodia, which has a long tradition of children being sold into prostitution or slavery.

Hmmm.... big sending countries.... big money.  Now, if I recall, not that many impoverished countries (with poor care systems) can afford to host Olympic Game events.

And yet, some very popular Olympic Hosts have been known to cut-corners on child welfare programs.

NEAR BEIJING – In a Beijing suburb far from the sizzle of the Olympic Games, Bonney Lake weightlifter Melanie Roach takes us to visit some new friends.
It's a group foster home for special needs children, as well as for kids waiting for and recovering from surgery.
Melody Zhang of Children's Hope International runs the home.
"They are orphans. They were either abandoned or found in local areas where there are orphanages," said Melody. 
Most were given away by parents who were overwhelmed by the challenges and the medical costs.
"Some of the parents will put a little note in their clothes saying 'my child got sick. We cannot afford the surgery," said Melody.
Roach learned of this place by chance, visited once and had to come back.
"I have my hands full, I think, right now with my three little ones, but I guarantee that if I didn't have children, I would definitely be going home with a few of these little guys," said Melanie.
It is the government that handles adoption procedures here. The foster home houses kids on hold, waiting for some love, often from overseas.
One little boy proudly shows a book with photos of what will be his family in America.
But these children know the score. The fuss over the book draws immediate attention. While it makes one child happy, it makes another child who has been here for four years sad.
"It makes my heart warm when I get to snuggle, give a piggy back ride, but when I leave and see the looks on their faces, you know they want to leave. They want a home. They don't want to stay here," said Melanie.
The clinic has a staff of seven and many volunteers. It operates on a budget of about $50,000 a year, entirely on private donations. They don't seek or receive government help.

[From: Olympian Roach visits Chinese orphanage, (2008) 

HMMMMMM.... 

Russia has hosted the Olympics, haven't they? <re-focusing my wandering self this early dawn>

How are adoptions from Russia and from Ukraine looking these days?  What about the condition of those kids AP's are receiving?  Any complaints?  How are the "orphans" responding to the many changes they have to face post-placement?  Have they been adjusting well after all the excitement, hype, fanfare, and care given to "saved" and "rescued orphans" found languishng in those horrible over-crowded orphanages?   Sadly, many of those much wanted children have been sent away because the new "forever" APs could not deal with the new problems they had to face.

They began arriving in the early 1990s.Then, in 1993, a York, Pa., agency that specializes in finding homes for difficult children began getting phone calls from their adoptive parents. The couples had traveled to remote cities and, in some cases, exhausted their savings to build their families. But now they had made the agonizing decision to give their children away.

"It was frantic. We had calls coming in from all over the country," said Barbara Holtan of Tressler Lutheran Services. "We started getting calls from families we did not know asking us to replace their children."

Their parents had found them too much to handle.

The children who were supposed to be their joy had become their torment. Some would go into rages that lasted for hours, leaving their parents exhausted as they tried mightily to control the violence. Others attacked pets or other members of the family. Some rejected the love of family but lavished affection on strangers.

[From:  Agony, Not Joy; Greatly torn, some give up adoptees they can't handle (1997) ]

Imagine... rejecting others, and showing displaced rage on smaller "lesser" creatures (that seem to get more love and attention than the child standing in the shadow of adults with all sorts of complaints).  Why I can't imagine what a child must be saying to others when he/she is seen playing with feces, or picking apart a dead animal, or setting fires with "new-daddy's" matches. Nor can I imagine life as the child who feels as though a total re-creation or transformation must take place before any stranger offers kindness that feels something like love and care (for a little while, at least).  Nope, can't imagine one bit what happens to the poor useless orphaned bastards put in equally bad-care.

Do we see where the sarcasm is going?  Putting MORE children in poor-care is not helping anyone but those who proft from an adoption.  Fast-tracking international adoptions, and repairing the damage AFTER a foreign adoption-plan will only make this on-going problem worse, not better.

I don't know what it takes -- what it will take for pained PAP's to recognize the madness for what it really is:  corrupt child-trade.

Meanwhile, places like Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan have been trying to fix internal problems related to the broken-family, poverty, and the new-age of "social orphans" -- children who have "parents de jure".   The following was published in 2009.

Steven Allen, UNICEF regional director for central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, said that in times of economic crisis many parents were simply unable to provide for their children, which meant there was a greater risk more children would end up in care homes.

He said many families were handing over their children to care homes in order to survive.

“For governments in Central Asia - and for Kyrgyzstan in particular - measures aimed at preventing children from becoming separated from their biological families must be the priority,” he said.

Kyrgyzstan should try and turn big state care institutions into smaller ones and/or gradually phase them out. Other options such as children’s family houses, foster families, rehabilitation centres and day-care centres should be pursued, he said.

[From: CENTRAL ASIA: In search of new child protection strategies ]

If it's up to the misguided foreign adopter, these efforts will be aborted, so foreign adoptions can resume.

Here's the insanity:  Adopters will complain (and send away) the less than desirable/wanted child.  [I call the displaced adoptee the living abortions, no mom would ever want, (unless of course, the abandoned adoptee was alone, and didn't have to compete with other kids or people, or problems that plague most adults).]

Too many adopters want healthy children, like the kind you get if the mom received decent prenatal care, didn't drink or do drugs, didn't take any medication that would pass the blood-brain barrier, did not ingest anything toxic like mercury or lead, did not have any exposure to any radiation, or teretogenic agents during a pregnancy.... (I can go on, if necessary).  Adoption facilitators KNOW this!

<shaking head... looking for some damn coffee to drink>

I don't know where adopters expect these healthy young babies to be.  Still in the bellies? Still in the IVF cryobanks?  Being birthed in private state-of-the-art Maternity homes Health Centers?  Places where strict inspections are made to ensure quality and care are given to all sorts of seemingly insignificant details?  Funny thing about inspections.... a lot of people seem to have serious problems with too many inspections.  

Private agencies that provide foster care and other youth services want to exempt themselves from state inspections, saying they already must abide by rigorous accreditation standards.

But the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, along with some child care facilities, are opposing the move.

The dispute is over House Bill 2356, which would exempt maternity centers and child care facilities from being inspected by KDHE if the center or facility is accredited by The Joint Commission; the Council on Accreditation for Children and Family Services Inc.; or the Commission of Rehabilitation Services.

A second hearing day on the measure is scheduled for Wednesday before the House Health and Human Services Committee.

In earlier testimony, a number of private organizations that contract with the state for family preservation, foster care and adoption services supported the bill.

The private sector accreditation agencies have stringent requirements and review processes that ensure the safety and quality of care, they argued. Relying on accreditation would remove costly regulatory duplication, they said.

“We believe the changes in House Bill 2356 maintain high safety standards to ensure safety for children through accreditation and contract, but without unnecessary duplication that may deter families from volunteering,” said Robin Clements, who represents The Child Welfare Companies, a consortium of companies with state contracts for foster care and other youth services.

But KDHE argued against the bill.

Richard Morrissey, interim director of the Division of Health for KDHE, said the legislation needed more research and vetting.

“A blanket removal of the department’s authority to inspect would significantly reduce existing safeguards and consumer protection for Kansas children and families. Research clearly associates frequency of inspection with increased compliance,” Morrissey said.

[From:  Inspections of child care centers in dispute (2009) ]  HB 2356 Passed on March 30, 2009 

<taking a cleansing breathe.... because the ignorance gets to me>

Today's PAP has sooooo many advantages adopters in the 80's and 90's and early 2000's did not have:  internet resources that expose the truth about the adoption industry.

And still, look what's happening because ignorant PAP's are making their demand made known:

Romania closed their foreign child-trade doors, (but the international adoption lobby had something to say about that), Cambodia closed their foreign child-trade agreement, (but the US is trying to do something about that...)

The United States is the world's largest source of adoptive parents. Other countries have also been moving to restart adoptions in South-east Asia, with Cambodia drafting regulations for children to be adopted by French parents

<putting on thinking-cap>

<think, think, foreign parents, wanting to adopt, adoption agencies, adoption programs, Hague treaty.....>

Ever think WHY hard-core foreign adoption advocates want these improved care-systems to re-open for foreign business purposes?

Is it because foreign adopters really want (and demand to have) the left-overs even a local (domestic adopter) won't touch?

I dunno... maybe the smart folks at Amici dei Bambini know a lot more about this foreign adoption stuff than I do.

Neglect was reported for 54% of all children entering foster care by their parent or primary caregiver.  Parental substance abuse was a circumstance present for 28% of the children entering care.

States spent a mere 1.2-1.3% of available federal funds on parent recruitment and training services even though 22% of children in foster care had adoption as their goal. Over 3 years is the average length of time a child waits to be adopted in foster care.  Roughly 55% of these children have had 3 or more placements.  An earlier study found that 33% of children had changed elementary schools 5 or more times, losing relationships and falling behind educationally.

[From:  Where will adoptable American children go? (Amici dei Bambini wants to know.) 2011 ]  

(Not bad leg-work, for a former Newfie, forced into a bad care-system, eh?)