An independent voice for ethical adoption
State Accuses Adoption Agency of Fraud: Attorney General Alleges $215,000 in Unpaid Refunds; Commonwealth Says It’s Been Working With Families
The state accused a Tucson-based international adoption agency of
consumer fraud Tuesday, claiming in a lawsuit the company failed to
refund nearly $215,000 to adopting families. Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc. shut down earlier this year after it was denied the accreditation required by many countries to place children with foreign families.
Families who had already begun the adoption process, some of whom paid thousands of dollars, were denied repayment, documents filed in Pima County Superior Court show. More Here
U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa
Monday,
November 10, 2008
Dear Agencies,
As many of you are aware, the Ethiopian Ministry of Women’s Affairs now requires additional documentation for adoption cases in which a living birth parent or parents has/have abandoned their child to an orphanage. MOWA now requires that the regional social affairs bureau authenticate the letter issued by the local Kebele court that acknowledges the
abandonment. We understand MOWA implemented this requirement in response to
reported instances in which fraudulent letters were obtained from Kebeles.
MOWA believes the new requirement will result in a more secure process because
it requires an in-depth investigation by the Bureau of Social Affairs. We
understand that this requirement is permanent and that MOWA expects it will
eventually be incorporated into the Family Code. We expect that this new
requirement will contribute to delays in the processing of cases in which
living birth parents have abandoned a child. Agencies should inform PAPs of
such delays as they see fit. The U.S. Embassy encourages all agencies to
cooperate with MOWA in order to ensure that all intercountry adoptions are
completed in a legal and ethical manner. The Embassy also encourages agencies
to work together in order to find productive ways of bringing concerns or other
issues to the attention of Ethiopian governmental bodies. Thank you,
Scott Driskel
Vice Consul
U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa
The Lie We Love
EJ Graff – Foreign Policy
We all know the story of international
adoption: Millions of infants and toddlers have been abandoned or
orphaned—placed on the side of a road or on the doorstep of a church,
or left parentless due to AIDS, destitution, or war. These little ones
find themselves forgotten, living in crowded orphanages or ending up on
the streets, facing an uncertain future of misery and neglect. But, if
they are lucky, adoring new moms and dads from faraway lands whisk them
away for a chance at a better life.
Unfortunately, this story is largely fiction.
Westerners
have been sold the myth of a world orphan crisis. We are told that
millions of children are waiting for their “forever families” to rescue
them from lives of abandonment and abuse. But many of the infants and
toddlers being adopted by Western parents today are not orphans at all.
Yes, hundreds of thousands of children around the world do need loving
homes. But more often than not, the neediest children are sick,
disabled, traumatized, or older than 5. They are not the healthy babies
that, quite understandably, most Westerners hope to adopt. More Here
To Save Adopted Girl, California Couple Gives Her Up
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Jennifer and Todd Hemsley had to give up their child to save her.
Like
thousands of other would-be parents, the California couple made a
$15,500 down payment to a U.S. agency that guaranteed quick,
hassle-free adoptions of Guatemalan babies. And like the others, they
were caught in a bureaucratic limbo after Guatemala began cracking down
on systemic fraud last year.
Many Americans with pending
adoptions lobbied hard for quick approval of their cases, trying to
bypass a new system designed to prevent identity fraud and the sale or
even theft of children to feed Guatemala’s $100 million adoption
business.
But Jennifer Hemsley did what Guatemala’s new National
Adoptions Council says no other American has done this year: She
refused to look the other way when she suspected her would-be
daughter’s identity and DNA samples were faked.
She halted the
adoption of Maria Eugenia Cua Yax, whom the couple named Hazel. And she
stayed in Guatemala for months, spending thousands of dollars, until
she could safely deliver the girl into state custody. More Here
Follow Us
