Ethiopia

I thought my next post would be an update on the adoption process for our second child from Ethiopia. Instead it will be an update and a request for your help. Here's a picture of Bear and Mama at the county jail last weekend where Dodd and I had a new set of fingerprints taken for FBI background checks.

Last week we wrapped up our homestudy paperwork while events affecting adoptions were unfolding in Ethiopia. At the same time that we were writing statements about how Ethiopia has become part of the fabric of our lives, how strongly we feel that our second child is in Ethiopia, and how much we want Bear to have a brother or sister who shares his cultural heritage, the Ethiopian Ministry of Women's Affairs was announcing plans to reduce intercountry adoptions by 90%.

Our caseworker from the international agency called last week to check in and answer any questions. She said because we signed our contract very very recently, we are eligible to move to another country's program. This took me off guard. Dodd and I have never, never thought of that as an option. I explained that our hearts are in Ethiopia and that we are committed to seeing this through. And then, quite unexpectedly, tears began flowing from my eyes.

It's hard to tell right now how the situation will shake out. We are paying close attention to what's going on and praying. We hope the intense attention this has drawn will create the momentum needed for positive and necessary systemic changes in Ethiopia and the agencies it works with. We also hope that this can be done without bogging down the process causing children to wait unneccessarily in institutions. And we pray for the families we know who are in those last painful stages of waiting. This is excruciating news when you are so close to knowing and bringing your children home. And of course, we pray for the children. Always praying for the children.

We remain hopeful. I am taking the last packet of paperwork to the socialworker tomorrow with a big Ethiopian flag pasted to the front.

There is something you can do if you would like to help. The Joint Council on International Children's Services needs electronic signatures for a petition that will go to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. This is an organization I trust and I support their work. The petition takes just a minute to fill out. They will ask for your info but they won't use it for any purpose other than substantiating your name as a real person. Here's a link to the petition.

What follows is a statement from JCICS on Ethiopian Intercountry adoption. It represents our viewpoint well. I think the weeds analogy on the troubling issue of corruption is a good one.
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Post from Tom DiFilipo, Executive Director of JCICS


March 9, 2011



Statement on Children and Family Services in Ethiopia



The work of Joint Council on International Children’s Services includes the development and implementation of the highest standards and ethical practices, the support of children living outside of family care and advocacy for permanency. As a leader in the international child welfare community, we are deeply concerned about the well-being of Ethiopian children and the integrity of the intercountry adoption process. Respecting Ethiopian culture and sovereignty, we offer the following for consideration as we collectively serve Ethiopian children and families and partner with others in supporting the efforts of the Government of Ethiopia.

Children need families – Who we are as human beings is largely influenced by our genes and our environment. The attention, affection, responsiveness, consistency, communication and interaction of a family have profound effects on all aspects of human development especially in the earliest stages of life. No institution, regardless of how well organized and funded it may be, can replace the nurturing, safety and guidance of a family.

Birth families need accessible, efficient and well-funded alternatives – Relinquishing a child is a painful decision for any birth parent or extended family member. This is especially true in remote and rural areas where few alternatives exist. If intercountry adoption is to decrease over time, birth families need accessible and reliable social service programs to support them. To date, many adoption service providers and other NGOs, are filling this gap in Ethiopia. Joint Council partner-members are contributing over 16 million per year to family preservation and community development programs that strive to keep vulnerable children and families together. They are assisting 1.2 million vulnerable individuals per year that otherwise would not receive these services.

Institutionalization can hurt children – Quotas and other drastic measures mean that children currently living in orphanages will reside in an institution longer. Sixty years of multinational human development research on institutionalized children, such as the Bucharest Early Intervention Study, indicates that the longer a child is in an orphanage the progressively worse their social, language, fine motor and gross motor skills become. Any change to the intercountry adoption process needs to carefully consider its effects on all children currently in orphanage care and the length of time newly institutionalized children will reside in the orphanage to complete their adoption process.

There are nearly 5 million orphaned children – This is nearly 13 percent of the child population in Ethiopia. These children need a family for love and support so they grow into productive adult members of our global community and retain their inherent human rights. There need to be support services for vulnerable children including adoption. At present, intercountry adoption only serves .001 percent of all orphaned children in Ethiopia. This fraction of a percentage, while rising, is not disproportionate to the number of children in need.

Various manners to combat corruption – Corruption is deplorable in all its forms especially when children’s lives are at stake. There are numerous manners to prevent, discourage, and punish corruption without punishing children, families of birth and adoptive families. A gardener who wants to beautify a landscape does not cut the weeds in his garden by a certain percent. Rather, he mindfully detects the weeds and eliminates them from the root up. A quota, no matter how small, will not eliminate corruption. It simply reduces the quantity of ethical violations that can occur in an environment. In fact corruption, like a weed, can actually grow in a restricted environment if it is allowed to exist.

Children with special needs deserve special consideration – Children with special needs require care and resources that are not easily given in an orphanage setting. According to research conducted by Joint Council, 40% of children adopted from Ethiopia are considered special needs. When contemplating new policies or procedures, children with special needs deserve expedited processes or exemptions whenever possible.

Intercountry adoption is one of many solutions that can successfully assist vulnerable children. Forty years of outcomes research indicates that intercountry adoption is a positive solution for most children. While there are several other programmatic alternatives that can be designed over time, it is one of the few permanent solutions currently available that situates children in the optimal environment to reach their full potential as human beings – a family.