Saturday, May 30, 2009

UPDATE: DOS Alert for Ethiopia - Addis Ababa Abandonment Cases


From:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Children’s Issues


May 26, 2009

Adoptions of Abandoned Children Halted by Ethiopian Court

On May 4, 2009 the Ethiopian First Instance Court temporarily stopped accepting cases involving abandoned children referred by orphanages in Addis Ababa, citing a substantial increase in the number of children being brought for adoption. The number of abandoned children from orphanages in Addis Ababa has grown dramatically in recent months and Ethiopian authorities have become aware of possible cases of unethical practices associated with some of them.

Neither the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) nor the First Instance Court had been accepting abandonment cases from any orphanage in Addis Ababa pending an inquiry. However, on May 23 the Court confirmed that while the investigation into cases of abandoned children continues, it has begun accepting cases of abandoned children referred from Addis Ababa government orphanages. These include the following orphanages:

  • Kebebe Tsehay Orphanage
  • Ketchene Orphanage
  • Kolfe Youth Center

Please continue to monitor adoption.state.gov for updated information on Ethiopia.


Source: http://adoption.state.gov/news/ethiopia%20alert.html

Friday, May 29, 2009

Ethiopa Addis Abandonment Cases: Information and Support Resouces for PAPs


PEAR is attempting to bring you the latest in reports from Ethiopia and the US government. We suggest the following resources for PAPs and interested parties to keep abreast of developments as they occur:

Yahoo groups:
PEAR Newsletter Group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PEARnewsletter

Blogs:
Current News on Ethiopian Abandonment Cases http://ethioadoptionnews.blogspot.com/
PEAR's blog http://pear-now.blogspot.com/

Government Websites:
http://www.adoption.state.gov/news/notices.html

Support for PAPs affected by the current situation with abandonment cases from Addis Ababa can be found here:
http://www.adoptionboard.net

We also encourage all adoption service providers with Ethiopian programs to provide complete and accurate information to their client families.

If you have information to share, please contact PEAR at http://us.mc01g.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=reform@pear-now.org and Current News on Ethiopian Abandonment Cases at http://us.mc01g.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=EthioAdoption@gmail.com

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Ethiopia Update from US Embassy Addis Ababa


PEAR has confirmed that the following email was sent this week by the US Consular Section in Addis Ababa to all US adoption agencies for which the Embassy has contact information:

Dear All:

We contacted the Ethiopian Federal First Instance Court today. Court
President Ato Dessalegn told us that the investigation into cases of
abandoned children is still pending. But, the Court has begun
accepting cases of abandoned children referred from Addis Ababa
government orphanages. These include the following orphanages:
* Kebebe Tsehay Orphanage
* Ketchene Orphanage
* Kolfe Youth Center

I hope this information is helpful.

Regards,
Paul Cantrell
Consular Section Chief
U.S. Embassy, Addis Ababa

Updates will be published on the DOS website www.adoption.state.gov and by PEAR as we receive them.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Important Notice on the Hunagrian Adoption Process


The following notice was recently published by the Hungarian Central Authority concerning adoptions from Hungary. The US DOS website does not currently contain information on adoption from Hungary . If you are a prospective adoptive family currently working with an agency and hoping to adopt a young child (under 8) from Hungary, please forward this notice to your agency.

Information for the prospective adoptive parents about the number of the applications the Hungarian Central Authority can accept in 2009
:

"The Hungarian Parliament ratified the Hague Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption in 2005.

The Hungarian Central Authority has been dealing with intercountry adoptions since October 2005 and according to the three years long experience, the number of the children, their age and health status as well as the high number of the applicants being registered in the international registry the Central Authority determines how many applications they will accept in 2009.

The Central Authority is responsible for the applicants. We informed the accredited bodies several times the last months that there is almost no chance of adopting healthy children younger than 6 years old and in spite of this fact, we received applications wishing a healthy child under 6 even in the last days. There are more than 100 prospective adoptive parents in our registry who want to adopt a healthy child or a child with small, correctable problem under six. So far in 2008 we could only help three international adoptions of children with these characteristics. (There were some other young children, but they had older siblings.) There are plenty of applicants waiting in Hungary and the children under 6 can be adopted in Hungary as well.

According to the above mentioned facts, we do not accept applications in 2009 that are for the adoption of healthy children under 8 years old.

We accept 10 applications from every accredited body (competent authority) that are

* for the adoption of a child (or siblings) above 8.

We accept 5 applications from every accredited body(competent authority) that are

* for the adoption of a mentally disabled or ill child who is under 8.

We accept 5 applications from every accredited body (competent authority) that are

* for the adoption of minimum three siblings.

Regarding the fact that there are a lot of couples waiting in our registry, and according to the Hungarian rules the couples are privileged, therefore we do not accept applications from singles as we do not see any chance that they could adopt from Hungary.

Besides these we do not wish to start cooperation with any new country or accredited body in 2009 regarding the high number of the applications and the low number of the adoptable children in our registry.

We will look through our registry every year and we will inform You at the end of every year about the applications we can accept in the future."

http://www.szmm.gov.hu/main.php?folderID=16497&articleID=40767&ctag=articlelist&iid=1

Sunday, May 17, 2009

First Mother Letters


We were recently made aware of a project by one of our members at PEAR and we would like to share this idea with our friends:

First Mother Letters is a project of Weaving Families Adoption Ministry.

The First Mother Letter project as a way for adoptive parents, adoptees and first parents to share letters from the heart. Letters that for whatever reason are unable to be physically sent to the intended recipient.

PEAR encourages members of the triad to participate in this project. To do so, submit a letter or letters to be posted to letters@weavingfamilies.com You can submit letters either with your identifying information or anonymously. Please do keep in mind that your child’s history belongs to him or her and to protect the identity of your child’s birthparents if you do have identifying information.

For more information on this project and to view current submissions, please visit the website:
http://firstmotherletters.wordpress.com/about-the-project/