Efficient adoptions attract U.S. couples to Ethiopia

By Jane Gross and Will Connors

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — Ethiopia was not on Mark and Vera Westrum-Ostrom's list when they first visited Children's Home Society & Family Services here to explore an adoption.

Ukraine was first, because of their family heritage, until the couple discovered that the adoption system there was chaotic, with inaccurate information about orphans' health and availability. Vietnam was second, after they saw videos of well-run orphanages. But the wait would be at least a year and a half.

Then they learned about Ethiopia's model centers for orphans, run by American agencies, with an efficient adoption system that made it possible for them to file paperwork in early September and claim 2-year-old Tariku, a boy with almond eyes and a halo of ringlets, at Christmas.

From Addis Ababa, the capital, they traveled to the countryside to meet the boy's birth mother, an opportunity rare in international adoption. The process was affordable compared with adoptions in other countries, and free of bribes, which are common in some nations.

It is no wonder, given these advantages, that Ethiopia has become a hot spot for international adoption by Americans. Even before the actress Angelina Jolie put adoption in Ethiopia on the cover of People magazine in 2005, it was growing. The number of adoptions there by Americans is still small - 732 children in 2006, out of a total of 20,632 foreign adoptions. But the growth curve, up from 82 children in 1997, is the steepest that adoption officials have ever seen. Ethiopia now ranks fifth among countries for adoption by Americans, up from 16th in 2000. In the same time period, the number of American agencies licensed to operate there has grown to 22 from one.

The growing interest in Ethiopia comes at a time when the leading countries for international adoption - China, Guatemala and Russia - are, respectively, tightening eligibility requirements, under scrutiny for corruption in its adoption system, or closing the borders to American agencies.

Ethiopia's sudden popularity also comes with risks, U.S. and Ethiopian government officials say.

"I don't think we'll be able to handle it," said Haddush Halefom, an official at the Ministry of Women's Affairs, which oversees adoption. "We don't have the capacity to handle all these new agencies and we have to monitor the quality, not just the quantity."

Capping the number of agencies is one solution. And that is what some international adoption officials in the United States are now urging the Ethiopian government to do.

Late last month, the talk of the Ethiopian adoption chat rooms was Christian World Adoption, an established agency, although relatively new to Ethiopia, that gave three children to the wrong families. That case prompted inquiries by the U.S. State Department; the nonprofit Joint Council on International Children's Services in Virginia, a child welfare and advocacy organization; and the adoption agency itself, Thomas DiFilipo, president of the joint council, said.

Officials at Christian World Adoption did not reply to e-mail messages or telephone calls. But DiFilipo said the agency was reviewing its procedures and had hired immigration attorneys to reverse adoptions if the families wished to do so.

Ethiopia, with a population of 76 million, has an estimated five million orphans, according to aid organizations. Many African countries have outlawed or impeded the adoption of their children by foreigners.

Ethiopia has welcomed American and European families who are willing to provide homes for children who have lost both parents to AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis or starvation, or who come from families too destitute to feed and clothe them. Two elements distinguish Ethiopia's adoption system, according to dozens of experts. One is the existence of transitional homes for orphans, in the countryside and in the capital, that are paid for by American agencies. These provide services and staffing rare in the developing world.

Not long ago, Sandra Iverson, a nurse from the first U.S. international adoption clinic, at the University of Minnesota, visited the Ethiopian centers of the Children's Home Society. She left confident that Ethiopia's orphans enjoyed unusual care.

"You don't hear crying babies," she said. "They are picked up immediately."

The other signature of Ethiopian adoption is that adopting families are encouraged to meet birth families and visit the villages where the children were raised. Some adoption agencies provide DVDs or photographs that document the children's past. Russ and Ann Couwenhoven, in Ham Lake, Minnesota, recently showed one such video to 6-year-old Tariku, one of three children they have adopted from Ethiopia. The boy seemed proud of the uncle who had sheltered him for as long as he could.

Linda Zwicky brought 2-year-old Amale home last month with a letter from her grandmother that described holding the motherless infant at her breast even though she had no milk.

Sometimes such vividness is too much. Melanie Danke and her husband, who live in Minneapolis, adopted siblings, 6-year-old twins and a 3-year-old. One of the twins "would work herself up until she was inconsolable" looking at photographs of the aunt and grandmother who raised her, Danke said. So she has tucked the photos away for now.

Some parents anguished, as did Karla Suomala of Decorah, Iowa, when she arrived in Addis Ababa to adopt 5-year-old Dawit and his 21-month-old sister, Meheret. "It's hard to know what the right thing is to do," Suomala said. "Should we just give all the money we're spending on this to the children's mother?"

Suomala and her husband, David Vasquez, had already spent time with her. "It was obvious the birth mother loved her children. She said to us, 'Thank you for sharing my burden,' " Vasquez said.

Will Connors reported from Addis Ababa.