Center for Adoption Policy Newscap Archive

December 16, 2009. Washington D.C. City Council Approves Gay Marriage. The City Council of Washington D. C. has given its blessing to same-sex marriage. Most observers believe that the bill will become law by the spring; because Washington does not have home-rule, any such vote must be reviewed by Congress which can block the measure. While opponents of gay marriage have pledged to lobby Congress against this legislation, Democrats in Congress who support gay marriage believe that they have the votes to make this measure law. Washington D.C. currently gives recognition to gay marriages in the four states it is legal: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont. More Information.

December 15, 2009. State Department Issues Updates on Guatemala; UNICEF Agrees to Meet with Representatives of the Guatemala 900 Group. The Department of State has issued an update summarizing status updates on the Guatemala transition adoptions-those potential adoptive parents whose adoptions in Guatemala had begun prior to December 31, 2007. The most recent update can be found at http://adoption.state.gov/news/guatemala.html. At the same time Guatemala PAPs were cheered to learn that in response to the Guatemala 900 campaign, Unicef officials will meet with their representatives in the near future. More Information.

December 14, 2009. Samoan Adoption Outrage: It Should Never Happen Again. The CBS 48 Hours episode on the Focus on Children adoption agency and its fraudulent adoption program in Samoa put into sharp relief the need for everyone in the field of adoption to work with the highest ethical standards, thereby ensuring that each adoption will be safe, ethical and transparent. However dreadful the pain experienced by innocent adoptive parents and duped birth parents, it shrinks beside the dreadful wrong done to children who were brought to the United States under false pretenses. We must as a community make "never again" a reality.

December 10, 2009. CAP's Annual Adoption Law and Policy Conference to Take Place on March 5, 2010. We are proud to announce that CAP's Annual Adoption Law and Policy Conference will take place on March 5, 2010 at New York Law School. The topic this year is Permanency for Children: national and international policies that promote the preservation and reunification of families and the creation of permanent families for unparented children. The co-sponsors are the Child Advocacy Program of Harvard Law School, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute and New York Law School's Justice Action Center and the Center for Children and Families as well as the Safe Passages Program. Registration will open after the first of the year. We urge all members of the adoption community to attend.

December 9, 2009. Liberian International Adoption Will Soon Resume. According to the Department of State, the government of Liberia has stated that it will be issuing exit clearances for internationally adoption children on a case by case basis for children who have full and final adoptions which were completed before January 26, 2009. DOS recommends that prospective adoptive parents who believe that their pending adoption falls into this category should contact the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia at adoptionsmonrovia@state.gov. DOS also cautions PAPs that each IA from Liberia will require a consular officer to complete a Form I-604 investigation before the child is issued an orphan visa to come to the United States and that this investigation may require DNA testing. More information.

December 8, 2009. CCAA NSN Referrals and China's Waiting Child Program. The China Center of Adoption Affairs sent referrals last week for prospective adoptive parents whose dossiers were logged in with CCAA between March 28 and 31, 2006. That means that these PAPs will receive their children close to four years from the day their dossiers were logged in. This slowdown, although predicted, is unprecedented for Chinese international adoption. It has taken CCAA all of 2009 to refer dossiers with March 2006 log in dates. At the same time, the waiting children program process is speeding up. PAPs who have dossiers previously reviewed by CCAA have taken less than 12 weeks to bring home a child, from the date of the waiting child referral. The average time from referral to arrival home is around six months but currently dropping. Also dropping is the age of some of the children in the waiting child program. We have seen children as young as three months being referred while many babies and toddlers are listed on the shared list. Some waiting children have very minor issues while others have more significant medical issues. This year has shown us a Chinese international adoption program that is being transformed from a non-special needs to a waiting child program.

December 7, 2009. State Department Responds Positively to Guatemalan Central Authority Invitation. The State Department has submitted a letter of interest in response to the Guatemalan Central Adoption Authority's (CNA) invitation to foreign central authorities to declare their willingness to participate in a pilot Hague compliant Guatemalan international adoption program. According to DOS eight countries have submitted such letters; the CNA has stated that four countries will be selected for the pilot program. The represents the first sign of progress in IA from Guatemala since the program shut down to new applicants at the end of December, 2007. We are pleased by this step but it is very important for prospective adoptive parents and agencies to understand what this step means and what it does not mean. Guatemala has not yet established a program that DOS believes to Hague compliant. Until DOS can certify that an IA program from Guatemala is Hague-compliant, no U.S. PAPs will be able to process a Guatemalan adoption to completion. While USCIS is obligated by law to accept I-800As for Guatemala, filing this form with CIS does not mean that PAPs can currently now or at any known time in the forseeable future bring children from a Hague adoption home from Guatemala. We hope that agencies who work with Guatemala will explain these facts very clearly to any PAP who enquires and once again remind PAPs that at this time there is no functioning IA from Guatemala nor is there any reliable timetable for the reopening of IA from Guatemala.

December 2, 2009. Minority-Run Foster Care Agencies Decline in New York City. Twenty years ago New York City made the creation and substance of minority-run foster care agencies a priority. As a result the number of such agencies, which were linked to and located in the communities in which most foster children lived, soared. By last month, when Family Support Services Unlimited lost its city contract, the number of such agencies had declined from 15 to just four. Analysts attribute this change to the stricter performance standards instituted by Mayor Bloomberg and John B. Mattingly, the head of the Administration for Children's Services and also to the recession which has left newer agencies short for funds and without the endowment safety fund older organizations possess. More Information.

December 1, 2009. Unicef Report Apparently Condemns Vietnam's International Adoption Program. We have learned that Unicef, long a foe of international adoption, has released a report roundly criticizing Vietnam's now defunct international adoption program. These accounts of Unicef's findings are coming to us from Irish newspapers. One source quotes the report as stating that "the availability of children who are adoptable in Vietnam appears to be driven more by demands from foreign adopters than the actual needs of 'abandoned' and orphaned children. As a result 'the overwhelming majority of adopted children are under one year of age, the age group most sought after by prospective adopters'. Declarations that the child was 'abandoned' are 'notoriously difficult' to investigate and intriguingly the numbers come in 'peaks and troughs' ". While the United States and Vietnam's bilateral agreement on IA expired in September 2008, the Irish government permitted Irish couples to continue adopting from Vietnam until May of this year. At the time of the cessation there were hundreds of families in process from Ireland; these potential adoptive parents and their referred children remain in limbo. We would like very much to read this report for ourselves but have been unable to procure a copy. More Information.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

November 24, 2009. CDC Sets New Standards for Healthcare for Intenrationally Adopted Children and their Families. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new recommendations on Hepatitis A and B. Concerning Hepatitis A, the CDC now urges all family members, babysitters and childcare workers who care for children who are adopted from countries where Hepatitis A is common to have the Hepatitis A vaccine. At the same time the CDC is recommending to families with internationally adopted children that these parents of newly arrived children from countries where Hepaitis B is common have their children screened for Hepatitis B. At the present time, adoptions processed under the I-800/A rules require such vaccinations and screening. More Information.

November 23, 2009. Guatemalan Central Authority Takes First Steps Towards Reopening International Adoptions. The Guatemalan National Council of Adoptions (CNA) has announced that it is beginning the process of reopening international adoption from Guatemala. Consonant with the requirements of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, CNA, the Guatemalan central authority, will be in charge of a new system which will not resemble the old notarial method of IA. In it official invitation to other central adoption authorities, the CNA has also made it clear that the new Guatemalan adoption program will be far smaller than the previous program and will consist of "children who are older (around first years of school age and older), groups of siblings, children with health, mental or emotional issues and children that they haven't been able to place in national families." We have not yet heard from the State Department concerning any talks U.S. officials have had with their Guatemalan counterparts since this new announcement. We have heard that the Austrian Central adoption authority has been in contact with CNA.

November 19, 2009. We Say to ABC: Go Back to the Drawing Board! ABC will air a sneak preview of "Find My Family" next Monday. The creators of this show, who are responsible for Extreme Makeover-Home Edition believe that there is an audience who wants to participate in soap opera style birth family searches. The promo is cast is the most sensational way possible -- "Some people have spent their whole lives searching for the one thing that matters most... Their wish will now come true. Let's find your family." It seems to have escaped the notice of the producers that those who grow up in families formed by adoption already have families - real families. While we support any adult who wishes to search for his or her family, we believe that it is equally necessary to recognize that adopted men and women have strong bonds with their adoptive families. Just as previous generations made a mistake in disregarding birth families, we should not now disparage or disrespect adoptive families. More information.

November 18, 2009. New USCIS Procedures for International Adoptions. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services has updated its procedures for filing I-600/A and I-800/A forms. We urge all involved in International Adoption to take notice of these changes. The new procedures are listed under the "Bulletins" button to the left.

November 17, 2009. We Salute Dr. Jane Aronson: Woman of the Year. We are delighted that Dr. Jane Aronson, founder of World Wide Orphans Foundation, international adoption pioneer physician and a speaker at CAP's Annual Adoption Law and Policy Conference has been named a Woman of the Year by Glamour Magazine. Dr. Jane has been responsible for helping thousands of internationally adopted children and their parents. She was practicing adoption medicine practically before it existed. Her Worldwide Orphans Foundation has raised millions of dollars for assistance and for unparented children who remain in their birth countries. WWO's Orphan Rangers have aided children in Bulgaria, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Serbia. Congratulations, Dr. Jane.

November 16, 2009. Australian Prime Minister Apologizes to "Orphans of Empire". Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today apologized on behalf of the Australian government for its part in the post-World War II resettlement program which involved sending British children to be raised in Australia. The cash-strapped, blitz-ravaged British government thought sending children whose parents had died or who had left their children in orphanages to Australia would better the children's lives (and save the British taxpayer money) while underpopulated Australia welcomed the idea in order to buttress its white-Australia policy which aimed at populating Australia with people of British and Irish heritage. But instead of receiving schooling and kind treatment, the children were shunted to orphanages where many were abused. Worse still, these children were told that their parents were dead when many parents were not only alive but wanted to retain connections to their birth children. More Information.

November 12, 2009. New York Case Illustrates: Adoptive Parents Be Careful. A 69- count indictment against Long Island lawyer Kevin Cohen illustrates how potential adoptive parents can be swindled out of their hopes and dreams, as well as money. Cohen allegedly took $300,000 from 13 couples in order to place non-existent children. "We can't find you a baby. We can tell people how to place ads where the birth mother can contact them, whether it's Penny Savers, or college newspapers. But we can't go and say, 'Oh, I know a girl who's a sophomore at Oneonta and she's pregnant, and she'd be perfect for you'," said Benjamin Rosin, a partner in Manhattan's Rosin Steinhagen Mendel and a former speaker at CAP's annual conference. But Cohen's misdeeds allegedly went far beyond crossing the line of proper practice. Cohen was also accused in a separate indictment of real estate fraud. The accounts given by PAPs in the New York Law Journal (November 10, 2009) also make it clear that Cohen's activities should have set off warning bells far earlier than was the case.

November 10, 2009. Adoptions Not Being Processed in Ukraine and Guatemala. International adoptions are not being processed currently in either Ukraine or Guatemala. In the case of Ukraine, the existence of the H1N1 virus has motivated the Ukrainian State Department for Adoption and Protection of the Rights of the Child (SDAPRC) to ban vists by potential adoptive parents (both foreign and domestic) from making orphanage visits. Effectively this prevents adoptions from going forward. SDAPRC estimates that this ban will be in effect for three to six weeks. The problem in Guatemala is that the U.S. embassy is currently not administering the second of the two required DNA tests for children who will be adopted by U.S. citizens. From what we understand, the Department of State and the U.S. embassy in Guatemala City are reevaluating its methods of DNA testing. Guatemala is generally closed to international adoption; the cases under discussion here are grandfathered ones dating from December 2007 or earlier. More Information.

November 9, 2009. New Report on Adult Transracial Adoptees Provides Much Information. The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute has just released a study entitled, Beyond, Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation In Adoption." This work, based on interviews with 179 adults adopted from South Korea with two Caucasian parents, presents us with important information which is relevant to the over 500,000 Americans adopted internationally since 1953. The key recommendations of the report include: "Expand parental preparation and post-placement support for those adopting across race and culture, develop empirically based practices and resources to prepare transracially and transculturally adopted youth to cope with racial bias, and educate parents, teachers, practitioners, the media and others about the realities of adoption to erase stigmas and stereotypes, minimize adoption-related discrimination, and provide children with more opportunities for positive development." While it should be noted that the survey respondents grew up in a very different, that is to say, much more homogenous population than what represents the United States today and also that the adult adoptees were born at the end of the repressed and closed era of adoption, we salute this report and its recommendations. More Information.

November 5, 2009. Legal and Medical Experts to Testify Before InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights in Support of International Adoption. We are pleased to announce that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hold a hearing regarding the "Human Rights of Unparented Children and International Adoption Policies" in the Americas on Friday, November 6, in Washington, D.C. The hearing, requested by the Harvard Law School's Child Advocacy Program and the Center for Adoption Policy, will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the Organization of American States, Ruben Dario Room, GSB Building, 1889 F St. N.W., Washington, D.C. Professor Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard Law School will be making the presentation. More Information.

November 4, 2009. Maine Voters Defeat Gay Marriage. Voters in Maine supported a measure to repeal provisions allowing gays and lesbians to marry yesterday. With 84 percent of the precincts reporting, the opponents of gay marriage obtained 53 percent of the vote. This result, however, should not be seen as decisive. Rather, looking at it from the other direction, it is astonishing that almost half of the voters in Maine supported gay marriage-something that would have been anathema a generation ago. The battle for the right of women to vote took 70 years; the fight for race-blind civil rights took even longer. The victories won for gay civil rights will continue. More Information.

November 3, 2009. Obama Adminstration Ruling on Travel to U.S. by People Who Test Positive for the HIV Immigration Will Help Unparented Children. Last Friday President Obama announced that his administration was ending the 22-year old prohibition on travel to the United States by people who test positive for HIV. According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, the change will go into effect on January 1, 2010. While this decision applies to all those who seek to travel to the United States, it has particular import for potential adoptive parents; among other things, this change means that PAPs adopting children with the HIV virus will not have to obtain 601 waivers before their children can come home. We hope this change will make it easier for HIV affected children to find permanent, loving homes. More Information.

November 2, 2009. Number of International Adoptions to the U.S Plummets. We have received preliminary totals for international adoptions to the United States for fiscal year 2009 (October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009). As expected the number of children adopted through IA to the United States has dropped precipitously - the total of 12,700 represents a decline of 27 percent since FY 2008. While IA from China ranked first, the total number of 3,000 adoptions to the U.S. in FY 2009 is the smallest since 1995. Ethiopia was the second largest sending country; the number of internationally adopted children reached 2,275, a 25 percent increase over FY 2008. Given the fact that approximately 10 percent of the children adopted internationally in FY 2009 were from countries that are now closed to IA (Guatemala and Vietnam), the number of children who will be adopted internationally in FY 2010 is set to decline again.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

October 28, 2009. Russia Shuts Down International Adoption From Ireland. Russian authorities have blocked any international adoption from Ireland because of the failure of Irish agencies and/or couples to comply with Russia's post-placement reporting requirements. Obtaining compliance with post-placement report requirements has been a major issue for Russia as well as for other sending countries such as China and Ukraine. Russian authorities have blacklisted U.S. agencies for not obtaining compliance but the shutdown of the entire Russian IA program to Ireland is a stiffer penalty, especially for the children who many now be relegated to institutional life. Approximately 100 children are in the process of being adopted by Irish families for Russia. More Information.

October 27, 2009. Why We Don't Trick-or-Treat for Unicef, Again. It's almost Halloween which brings us to our annual explanation of why our children do not trick or treat for Unicef. Over the past decade Unicef officials have been relentless in their opposition to international adoption. Unicef reports and advice favors in-country institutionalization or foster care over IA. Indeed Unicef officials generally dismiss IA as fraudulent, or at best, a band-aid approach that distracts countries from pursuing "better" options. We agree that efforts should be made to support biological families who want to parent their children but for those children whose biological families cannot or will not parent them, ethical and transparent IA should remain a viable option.

October 22, 2009. DOS Responds to Reports of Vietnamese Officials' Conviction in Fraud Involving International Adoption. Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR) wrote to William Bistransky, Adoption Division Chief of the Department of State's Office of Children's Issues concerning the possible notification of U.S. families who adopted from Nam Dinh Province. According to PEAR, the three U.S. adoption agencies licensed to work in Nam Dinh were Los Ninos, Orphans Overseas and Faith International. In response to PEAR's question about whether OCI was considering pressing visa fraud charges against these three agencies, Bistransky responded: The Office of Children's Issues does have a role in monitoring and collecting information regarding the activities of U.S. adoption service providers working overseas and when appropriate for referring complaints by U.S. citizens to the State licensing offices with jurisdiction over the adoption agency. I want to assure you that we have taken note of these convictions and, once more information becomes available, will determine what, if any, follow-on action would be appropriate." Bistransky's letter, posted on PEAR's website, also explains how adoptive parents can access their children's adoptive records. More Information.

October 21, 2009. Study Finds that Most States Don't Protect the Legal Rights of Abused Children. A study by First Star and the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law has published a study called, "A Child's Right to Counsel: A National Report Card on Legal Representation for Abused and Neglected Children." The report states that almost 800,000 children were abused or neglected in 2008 and most of these children did not have access to adequate legal counsel. Paradoxically, the parent-perpetrators do generally have sufficient access to a lawyer. The study's authors graded each state and the District of Columbia and 29 states earned a C or lower. We must do better by the most vulnerable of our children. More Information.

October 20, 2009. Could International Adoption From Romania Resume? Last week the Romanian Adoption Office (ORA) recommended to the Romania government that International Adoption from Romania resume. Recognizing that unparented special needs children and children of Roma background were doomed to an institutionalized existence, ORA suggested that if children who fell into these categories remained without parents, they could be adopted internationally. Predictably opponents of IA, such as Baroness Nicholson, well known to Newscap readers, criticized this suggestion immediately. Unfortunately as the Romanian Times reports, Acting Prime Minster Emil Boc, believes the present laws on international adoptions are in accord with international legislation and European standards. We hope his is not the last word. More Information.

October 19, 2009. CAP Obtains Clarification and Consistency from CIS Offices on Grandfathered I-600/As. In response to our reaching out to Citizenship and Immigration Services and Department of State officials last week, we have been assured by DOS officials that all USCIS offices were informed specifically that initial I-600/A filings go to the Texas Lockbox but grandfathered, extension and change of circumstances forms will go to the USCIS field offices. DOS officials also stated that these firm rules will be in effect in all USCIS offices and that during a conference call this week, field offices were reminded again what the new procedures are. We thank the CIS and DOS officials who worked with us to obtain this clarification and standardization.

October 15, 2009. Quebec's Government Considers Very Different Kind of Adoption. Kathleen Weil, Justice Minister of Quebec, is proposing that Quebec's adoption laws be changed to allow some children to be legally connected both to their adoptive parents and to their biological parents. Weil said she was inspired by French legislation. In both cases the goal is to make it easier to find adoptive homes for older children who may be living in foster homes and who retain emotional as well as legal ties with their birth parents. The proposed legislation also provides a legal framework for open adoptions which are becoming the norm throughout much of the world. More Information.

October 14, 2009. HIV positive orphans in Vietnam Barred from School. Children who carry the HIV virus are discriminated against throughout the world. No group faces more barriers than HIV positive children or children who have AIDS. The New York Times today has a heartbreaking story, accompanied by vivid pictures, of children from the Mai Hoa orphanage in An Nhon Tay, near Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Fifteen of them, all infected with HIV, were told, as government rules mandate, that they could finally attend the local school. But prejudiced parents of other children refused to allow the orphanage students to attend classes; by the end of the day the children had been told to leave school forever. International adoption to Vietnam is closed. More Information.

October 13, 2009. CAP Requests Clarification as USCIS Revises Rules for Filing I-600/As. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has altered its rules for filing I-600/A forms. Effective immediately I-600/As should be mailed to a lockbox in Lewisville Texas (mailing address: USCIS, PO Box 299027 , Lewisville , TX 75029; courier or Fed Ex address: 2501 S. State Hwy 121, Bldg 4, Lewisville, TX 75067.) However, it is come to our attention that different CIS offices are giving families and adoption service providers different instructions as to where grandfathered I-600/As should be filed: some states are instructing families to mail all I-600/As to the lockbox while others are informing families that grandfathered I-600/As should be filed at the local office. Making matters more difficult, the penalty for filing in the wrong location is loss of grandfathered status. We have contacted CIS officials requesting timely clarification on this point.

October 8, 2009. Adoption and the Universal Classroom. Gone are the days when a monochromatic sea of children from nuclear families filled American schools. Today's widely diverse school population includes traditional families, transracially adopted children, children of single sex partnerships and children of single parents. Concurrently educational pedagogy emphasizes bringing the personal into the classroom. With the proliferation of assignments requiring children to disclose details from their private life the classroom can become an unhappy place for many students. Assignments which can be particularly tricky for adopted students include the baby picture, the family tree, the story of a child's name and charting personal genetic traits. The keys to making school safe and comfortable for all children are agency and empowerment. Instead of creating mandatory assignments, teachers need to provide a menu of choices which empowers each child to select a topic with which he or she feels comfortable. Every child in the classroom will benefit for a rich assortment of choices; each child will be pleased to know that she can decide what, if anything, about her home life should be shared with others.

October 7, 2009. CAP Attends Meeting with CDC. The Center for Adoption Policy was pleased to be included in a meeting among officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and representatives of adoption community stakeholders. One of the most important goals of the meeting was to create communication channels so that the serious problems caused by the CDC's implementation of the TB Technical Instructions in China and Ethiopia will not reoccur. We were particularly happy to have the opportunity to provide suggestions to the CDC, which is in the process of reaching out much more broadly to the international community, on ways to implement U.S. based medical protocols without stigmatizing or harming unparented children.

October 6, 2009. CCAA Explains to CAP Citizenship Status of Chinese Born Children Adopted Internationally. During our recent meetings with Director-General Lu of the China Center of Adoption Affairs and his staff, we were able to pose a question we have long sought to have answered: what exactly is the citizenship status of children born in China and adopted abroad. Director-General Lu informed us that China does not recognize dual citizenship for any of its citizens. Therefore, when children adopted from China become citizens of the receiving country, in our case, the United States, the children lose any rights to Chinese citizenship. This policy is consonant with Chinese citizenship policy generally. If Chinese graduate students, who intend to return to China, have a child in the United States, that child, an American by birth, is not a Chinese citizen either. If the situation were reversed, the child would be an American citizen. However, the lack of Chinese citizenship for children of overseas Chinese nationals clearly does not affect their sense of identity.

October 5, 2009. International Adoption From Guatemala Remains Closed. We are receiving disturbing reports that some agencies have told clients that international adoption from Guatemala may reopen soon. These reports are, to our knowledge, completely erroneous. We have seen no evidence that Guatemalan authorities have disclosed any plans to reopen IA. Any agency who is discussing Guatemalan IA is acting prematurely, if not dishonestly. We hope that every country can have an open, transparent and accountable IA program. But such a program is not currently available from Guatemala.

October 1, 2009. Americans May Not Adopt From Kenya. The Department of State has announced that adoptions from Kenya by U.S. citizens will not be processed by DOS and therefore is warning U.S. citizens not to begin an adoption process from Kenya. Both Kenya and the U.S. are parties to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. The Hague Convention requires that both signatory parties follow Hague procedures in order for adoptions to proceed between the sending country and the receiving country. DOS has concluded that the Government of Kenya's international adoption procedures do not comply with Hague procedures. Until the GOK creates the infrastructure and regulations necessary under Hague standards, DOS will not issue the documents that a child adopted from Kenya needs to obtain a U.S. immigrant visa. More Information.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

September 29, 2009. Important Notices Regarding Adoption From China-I. We have learned of two U.S. government advisories that provide important information for adoption service provides and potential adoptive parents. The first is that the Adopted Children's Immigrant Visa Unit (ACIVU) at the U.S. Consulate at Guangzhou, effective immediately, is requiring that any family making a visa appointment must have a current approval notice from CIS matching precisely the age, gender and health status of the child being adopted. (Previously an updated home study was sufficient if there were discrepancies.) The ACIVU at Guangzhou has therefore advised ASPs not to allow families to travel to China until the CIS approval notice as updated if necessary (I-171H or I-797C) matches the actual child to be adopted. This notice is of great importance to NSN adoptive families who may have received a referral that differs in age or gender from what their home studies specified and to parents from the Waiting Child program whose new son or daughter does not meet the original approval based on the home studies.

September 28, 2009. Will Recession Limit Family-Friendly Policies? We have seen a steady growth in corporate policies such as flex-time, adoption benefits, increased leave time over the last fifteen years. An important question is whether the economic downturn as well as the huge increase in unemployment will motivate companies to trim if not do away with these pro-family policies. For example, Eli Lilly has just announced that it will eliminate the "compressed work" option which allowed employees to work forty hours over four days. It is questionable whether this change would have occurred in a more robust economy. For More Information see September 22, 2009 entry on http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/.

September 24, 2009. Vietnam's National Assembly Considers Draft Adoption Law. The Vietnamese government is considering a draft adoption law to replace the current law which has been criticized for being susceptible to corruption. The draft law will encourage more domestic adoption; over the last five years 20,000 children were adopted, 7,000 of whom were adopted abroad. A major change in the draft law is that only the Ministry of Justice will be allowed to process international adoptions. This centralization follows the rules set forth in the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption which requires the creation of a central authority for international adoption and will make it easier for Vietnam to join the Hague Convention. Vietnamese officials estimate that there are around 200,000 orphans in Vietnam. The total population of Vietnam is 86 million. More Information.

September 23, 2009. Australian Television Report Investigates International Adoption. Foreign Correspondent, a show on ABC, Australia, has done a report on Ethiopian adoption. This story describes practices of one American adoption agency which, if true, clearly violate any IA ethical norm. Joint Council for International Children's Services, a group whose members are adoption agencies and children's issue stake holders and which advocates for children, has put the named agency on notice and is sending a delegation to Ethiopia to investigate the allegations on the ground. We support the actions of JCICS and hope that the evidence uncovered disproves these allegations. More Information.

September 22, 2009. Changing the Culture of the Government. One of the top priorities for the Center for Adoption Policy is to change the culture of the State Department and other U.S. governmental entities. Reflecting society as a whole, government officials and the media relegate women's and children's issues to a far secondary place. Take, for example, columnist Marty Peretz of The New Republic's Spine blog. In a recent post he said when speaking of Hillary Clinton, "... the president keeps her cooped up and when she is let out of Foggy Bottom she deals with women's issues. Hortatory stuff." In other words, because she is focusing attention on women's and children's issues, she's now a second-rater. It is this view that allows the rights of women and children to be ignored and promotes their marginalization. What ambitious official wants to advocate for children's issues if he or she knows it will damage his career? More Information.

September 21, 2009. CAP, Together With other Groups, Convinces CDC to Change TB Instructions. We are proud to announce that after months of discussions, the Centers for Disease Control announced on Friday that it had modified the Technical Instructions for tuberculosis testing for children aged 2 through 10. The revised TIs will much more accurately reflect the medical consensus for pediatric TB, both for testing procedures and for treatment for children who have TB. The Center for Adoption Policy has been working hard on this issue since last spring. We would like to thank Dr Jeffrey Starke, Dr. Jane Aronson and Dr. Danny Benjamin whose medical expertise was invaluable in this campaign. This is not a victory for us but for children in the process of being adopted to the United States. The revised protocol may be found posted under CAP Projects.

September 17, 2009. Don't Believe Everything You Read. Those who work in the field of adoption are used to reading or hearing erroneous news reports. But everyone once in awhile a statement is so egregious that it bears repetition as a reminder of how skeptical we all need to be of what is reported in the media. Today's Daily Beast blog has an article by writer Doree Shafrir entitled "10 Ways to Have a Baby." As Shafir discusses various ways to form a family, she naturally touches on adoption writing that "Dan Savage, editor of the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger and the writer of the Savage Love sex advice column, adopted his son D.J. from a homeless woman before the child was even born." This statement cannot possibly be true because no adoption of a child can occur before birth. Every state protects birth mothers by ensuring that their adoption plan can only take place and be finalized after the child is born. A cautionary tale to be sure. More Information.

September 16, 2009. CCAA Ends Role of Non-Hague Accredited U.S. Agencies. The Center for Adoption Policy was privileged to meet with Director General Lu of the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) and other Chinese officials in Washington on September 15. Among other things, Director General Lu announced that as of December 1, 2009 any U.S. potential adoptive family whose papers are logged in with CCAA must be working with a Hague accredited adoption service provider. Therefore, any adoptive family who is currently listed with a non-Hague accredited agency must change to a Hague-accredited agency and notify CCAA accordingly. Director General Lu also confirmed that CCAA will continue to accept I-600/A documents unless the State Department and CIS require that a family change to the I-800/A process.

September 15, 2009. Washington State Will Also Vote about Gay Rights. This November election day Washington voters will vote on Referendum 71 which will either uphold or nullify a recent law which gives domestic partners virtually all the rights of married couples. The vote comes in the wake of a petition drive which gathered 120,000 signatures requesting the referendum votes. Many western states have referendum, proposition or recall provisions: all part of the Progressive era movement to extend to the voting public a major role over legislation. But this progressive legacy of open and participatory government has been partly stymied in Washington because federal district court Judge Benjamin Settle ruled last week that the list of petition signers could be kept secret. We believe that the very spirit of the referendum rule demands that those names be made public: open government tools are being used and correctly so but these provisions should be used openly. More Information.

September 14, 2009. What Josie's Story Can Teach Us About International Adoption. Josie King wan a toddler who died by mistake at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2001. She was one of an estimated 98,000 Americans who die as a result of medical mistakes in U. S. hospitals. Josie's family decided that the best memorial for their child was to establish a foundation dedicated to preventing medical errors. Their work and the dedication of doctors and nurses who are eager to do anything to avoid being the person who makes a fatal error has led to a new openness in many hospitals: increasingly medical professionals realize that transparency and accountability are the best cures for errors. The effects of sunlight are vital to any process. If we want to see International Adoption continue as a method of finding families for unparented children, everyone who is part of the adoption community must make transparency and accountability a central part of the adoption process.

September 10, 2009. Good News on Child Mortality. Unicef reports that the global child mortality rate has decreased by 25 percent in the last two decades, from 12.5 million children under five in 1990 to 8.8 million last year. As Unicef's executive director Ann Vdeneman put it: "That's 10,000 less children dying per day." The reasons for this progress include better prevention of malaria and measles, smaller families and increased chartiable efforts aimed at childhood health. Experts are now starting to focus on pneumonia and diarrhea, both comparatively neglected. While even one unnecessary death is too much, we are much pleased by this significant progress. More Information.

September 9, 2009. A New School Year. As children start school all over the country, we can all remember how wonderful it was to start school each year with our mothers and fathers cheering us on. But for many unparented children, there is no one who cares, no one who encourages them, no one who will come for picture day. Our hope is that every child has a permanent, loving family who will take the first day of school as a beacon in a life.

September 8, 2009. Unintended Consequences of TB Testing. As reported in this column earlier this year the Centers for Disease Control have been rolling out a more stringent tuberculosis testing protocol on all immigrants to the United States, aged two and over. In July this requirement was made applicable to China and Ethiopia. Children in the process of being adopted by U.S. parents are processed as immigrants, therefore this protocol governs in process adoptions from both countries. Since July adoptive families have been unable to bring their children home because of the unintended consequences of the testing. Making the situation untenable is that no public health interest indicates the need for TB testing for children: medical opinion is virtually unanimous that children develop a different form of TB which is not contagious to either other children or adults. We are actively working to ameliorate if not end the applicability of the TB testing protocol to internationally adopted children.

September 3, 2009. A Personal View About Culture and Adoption. Mei-Ling Hopgood was born in Taiwan and was adopted by American parents in 1974. She grew up at a time when the United States was a much more homogenous society, when there were many fewer Asians and Asian-Americans living in the U.S and when adoption from Asia was relatively rare. Hopgood in her book, Lucky Girl, and in the attached article details her life as an Asian-American from the perspective of someone who feels comfortable in both her cultures and with her adopted and birth family. Her very positive perspective is well-worth reading. More Information.

September 2, 2009. Tragic Death of Child Adopted From China. Lavender Banks was adopted from China as a toddler by single mother Sabrina Banks. She was in the waiting children program as she was cleft-affected. Eighteen months later, in May 2008, at the age of three, Lavender died. Now police in Elk Grove, California have arrested Sabrina Banks and charged her with the murder of her daughter. Because Sabrina Banks was at one time a frequent poster on various China Yahoo groups this death is one an entire community mourns. More Information.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

CAP Supports the Families for Orphans Act (H.R. 3070) which is designed, in the words of the bill itself, "To encourage the development and implementation of a comprehensive, global strategy for the preservation and reunification of families and the provision of permanent parental care for orphans, and for other purposes." This legislation will create a new U.S. diplomatic and economic initiative to support existing families and to provide permanency for unparented children. It will replace the current decentralized and sometimes contradictory, government efforts with a consistent, pro-active approach led by a State Department Office of Orphan Policy, Diplomacy and Development. For the first time the development of a continuing strategy to ensure that all children grown up in permanent, loving families of their own would be part of the State Department's responsibilities. For More Information see "Legislation" at left.

CAP Supports S. 1376 which will allow adoptive parents to obtain their child's immunizations in the United States after travel, which is standard international adoption procedure for Hague countries. It also conforms the age requirements for siblings adopted internationally to a consistent standard. For More Information see "Legislation" at left.

Please go to our Legislation page to see what you can do to help.

July 9, 2009. Employer Adoption Benefits on the Wane. The economic downturn has affected employee adoption benefits. In the last decade adoption assistance had grown. It was one of the "feel-good" benefits that made a company attractive to job applicants but were economical for employers as on average only 0.1% of employees use the benefits each year. The deep recession has changed that: employers are short of cash and employees are doing the wooing now. As a result employers with adoption assistance programs dropped from a high of 22% in 2006 to 10% this year. Unfortunately this decline comes at a time when the cost of adoption has risen and the number of children needing extra help because they have medical needs, are older or were institutionalized has soared. It is particularly important for parents to be able to have paid parental leave whether or not their children joined the family by birth or adoption. We regret this disturbing trend. More Information.

July 8, 2009. Familes for Orphans Act-Adoption Legislation III. Representatives Diane Watson and John Boozman introduced HR 3070-the Families for Orphans Act (FOA) on June 29. This legislation would establish in the State Department the Office of Orphan Policy, Diplomacy and Development. The act, if passed, will grant this new office authority to comprehensively aid unparented children as well as children in vulnerable situations. The focus will be on permanecy for children - that is permanent, loving families. The head of the office, an ambassador level appointee, would be responsible for advising the president, secretary of state and other senior governmental officials on all aspects of children's care, including support for birth and kinship families as well as domestic and international adoption. The office would coordinate U.S. economic and technical assistance to orphans as well. More Information.

July 7, 2009. FACE Act: Adoption Legislation II. Senators Mary Landrieu and James Inhofe along with Representatives Diane Watson and John Boozman have introduced the Foreign Adopted Children Equality Act (FACE). This proposed legislation will amend the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 to ensure that children adopted internationally have the same rights as do biological children of Americans. Specifically it will grant U.S. citizenship[p to foreign born children immediately upon their adoption, rather than, as now, upon entering the United States. This change will eliminate the need for adoptive parents to obtain visas for their children to come to the United States. Instead PAPs will apply for passports for their newly adopted children. Moreover, adopted children will be rescued from the possibility that a failure by PAPs to obtain citizenship will later lead the adopted child to lose the right to reside in the United States or obtain citizenship. More Information.

July 6, 2009. Adoption Legislation Moving Forward-Part I. This week we are delighted to discuss three adoption-related bills that have been introduced into Congress. This first bill is S.1376: a bill which will restore the immunization and sibling age exemptions for Hague Convention international adoptions of children by U.S. citizens. Introduced by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, this piece of legislation will extend to Hague adoptions the exemptions for immunizations for children under the age of 10 which governs non-Hague adoptions. It will also allow siblings in Hague adoption cases under the age of 18 to be eligible for international adoption into the U.S. The goal is to make Hague and non-Hague standards for immunizations and siblings consistent. We understand that this bill should quickly become law. More Information.

July 2, 2009. Romanian Newspaper Reporting that the UN Commission Recommends that Romania Reopen International Adoption. We are delighted, if surprised, to read in Ultima Ora that the United Nations Commission for Children's Rights has recommended to Romania's National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of the Child that Romania end its moratorium on international adoption as well as "accelerate the procedures for national adoptions." International pressure from the European Union as well as some UNICEF sources had led Romania to close its international adoption programs in 2004. The glaring failure of foster care programs to provide permanency for unparented children in Romania has been a tragedy for the most vulnerable in society, as it always is. We hope these recommendations will soon become reality.

July 1, 2009. The Tide of History and Adoption. The twentieth century and the first decade of this century have seen terrible crimes committed in the name of humanity. Indeed both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia mobilized their citizens to unspeakable acts by appealing to idealism - that the holocaust, on the one hand, and the murder of the kulaks on the other, would bring a better world for the Germans and the workers of the Soviet Union, respectively. If there is one thing we should take away from these ghastly lessons of history it is that focusing on the good of the group allows terrible sins against the individual. And it is that only "an ethical commitment to the fate of the individual" which will make such crimes impossible. In the case of adoption policy, it is the right of each child to grow up in a permanent, loving family and of every child to have his or her own, singular best interests judged that should be the focus of all of our work. For More Information see Timothy Snyder, "Holocaust: The Ignored Reality, New York Review of Books, vol. 56., no 12. I have used Snyder's formulation in the quote above.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

June 29, 2009. Adoption Tax Credit Set to Expire Without New Legislation. The federal adoption tax credit, which allowed a credit for adoption related expenses for families whose income was less than $190,000, is set to expire at the end of December, 2010. Now legislation has been introduced in the House to make this credit permanent. It is crucial to get widespread support for this legislation, known as The Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2009, H.R. 213. We urge members of the adoption community to contact their Representatives to obtain the broadest coalition possible in support of this legislation. This link: http://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml allows people to find the name and address of their Congressman or Congresswoman.

June 25, 2009. Sean Goldman Case Shows Weakness in Enforcement of Other Hague Treaty. We normally talk about the Hague Convention on International Adoption. However, this is another child-related Hague Convention: the Hague Convention on Child Abduction. This treaty is meant to stop child snatching by family members who flee a court's rightful jurisdiction and find a country friendlier to their position whose courts will allow the relative to retain custody. Under the Hague Child Abduction treaty, once a valid custody order has been made, other Hague member countries must honor that order. The United States and Brazil are both signatories to the Hague Abduction treaty. American David Goldman and his wife were divorced seven years ago. Thereafter the wife (a Brazilian national) took their son back to Brazil in violation of a court order. Sean has never been returned to his father although his mother is now dead and his step-father is the one fighting to retain the boy. Under the terms of the Hague Abduction treaty, the proper outcome of this case is perfectly clear. Yet despite the intervention of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, the Brazilain government has not upheld its responsibilities under the abduction treaty. We salute Representative Chris Smith (R-N.J.) for his stalwart assistance to David Goldman. Congressman Smith has also been a steadfast ally in the fight to keep international adoption available as an option for unparented children.

June 24, 2009. DOS Travel Alert for China. The State Department has issued a traveI alert concerning American traveling to China. This warning relates to quarantine measures the Chinese government has instituted in response to the H1N1 pandemic. Although only a small number of Americans have been detained in a week long quarantine, for those citizens so affected the trip becomes far more problematic. Especially worrying is the State Department's comment that "in some instances, children have been separated from their parents because either the parent or the child tested positive for 2009-H1N1 and was placed in quarantine for treatment. This situation presents the possibility of Chinese medical personnel administering medications to minors without first having consulted their parents." One family who went to China to adopt their daughter has been split; the mother and three children are in a quarantine hotel while the father, who tested positive for swine flu, is in a Beijing hospital. Anyone planning to take their children to China for adoption or heritage trips should consider this warning seriously. More Information.

June 23, 2009. CAP Joins With Other Child Advocacy Groups as Amicus in Florida case. We are pleased to announce that the Center for Adoption Policy has joined with the most highly regarded children's health, welfare and legal groups to file amici briefs asking the Florida appeals court to strike down the Florida statute that bans adoption by gays and lesbians. In the particular case, a gay man and his partner are seeking to adopt two brothers who have been with them for over four years. The best interests of the child standard clearly demands that the petitioners be allowed to adopt the children they have loved and nurtured for so long. Joining CAP in these briefs are, among others, the Child Welfare League of America, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychological Association and the Family Law Section of the Florida bar. More Information.

June 22, 2009. CCAA Sends Referrals For Non-Special Needs Children. The China Center of Adoption Affairs has sent referrals to potential adoptive families whose dossiers were logged in with CCAA between March 15 and March 20, 2006. In addition a limited number of expedited referrals were sent for families with dossiers logged in early in April, 2007. The last three months of referrals have been slower than what we are used to; these delays are apparently due to the H1N1 virus. During the first half of 2009 the CCAA has sent 20 calendar days of referral-March 1 through 20, 2006, the slowest the wait has ever been. The ages of referred children range from 6 months to close to two years. Families whose child is close to two years old should check with their agency to learn what the impact of the new TB testing requirement could be on their trip.

June 18, 2009. Alert: Current Status of Proposed TB testing in China. As of today, starting July 1, 2009 (twelve days from now), all children to be adopted from China who are two as of their medical examination day in Guangzhou must be tested for tuberculosis. Families who are in process with referrals of children two or older should discuss the TB testing timing with their adoption agencies in order to adjust their travel plans accordingly. We urge all agencies to discuss their view of the effect and logistics of this requirement, which was instituted by the CDC not the State Department or CIS. More Information.

June 17, 2009. Nepal Reopens to International Adoption. The State Department has verified that the Nepalese government, having enacted new international adoption legislation and appropriate regulations, has reopened its international adoption program. There are important differences between the new procedures and those in effect in prior years, such as the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, not orphanages, will match children with potential adoptive parents and the Ministry will place a much higher value on finding domestic adoptive parents. Nepal is not a Hague country so PAPs should use the I-600/A form. However, the State Department has warned PAPs that "despite the passage of the new intercountry adoption law, procedures for foreign adoptions in Nepal remain unpredictable. More Information.

June 16, 2009. Gender Ratios Among Families of U.S. Born Asians Show Bias Toward Boys. Academics who study census data have found that the Asian proference toward male children has carried on in U.S. families of Asian descent. This trend was particularly noted in the Chinese-American community but also was displayed by families of Indian and Korean descent. In these families if the first child was a girl, it was more likely than random chance would allow that the second child would be a boy. And if the first two children were female, the likelihood of the third child being a boy was fifty percent higher than would be normal. "That this is going on in the United States - people were blown away by this," said Prof. Lena Edlund of Columbia University. Interestingly, this preference does not appear to affect American families of Japanese descent. We are all aware that U.S. culture influences people outside of the United States; these studies are a reminder that foreign cultures change American culture as well. More Information.

June 15, 2009. Mercy for Mercy. We are delighted to report that Malawi's Supreme Court has overturned an earlier ruling denying a petition by Madonna to adopt Chifundo "Mercy" James, and has granted a full adoption. According to the New York Times, Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo, in reviewing the lower court's ruling, said that the first decision was a narrow interpretation based on old laws and that "in this global village a man can have more than one place at which he resides." We agree. Moreover, in our increasingly inter-connected world, a child should not be viewed as the sole responsibility of his country of birth. Together with other individuals and interested groups, the Center for Adoption Policy is proud to have supported the position that the most important determinant in adoption policy should be the best interests of each child. More Information.

June 11, 2009. WHO Declares Swine Flu a Pandemic. The World Health Organization has declared the H1N1 swine flu a Level 6 pandemic, the first time since 1968 that such a declaration has been made. This ranking is WHO's highest level of threat. Many question whether the number of cases and the fatality rate of the H1N1 flu justifies such a high level warning. WHO responds by saying that although this virus is currently generally mild in form, the virus is spreading rapidly and may well mutate into a more lethal virus. There are many ramifications to the potential pandemic. Among them is what the effect on international adoption will be; heretofore the Chinese government has acted very proactively on this issue. We also hope that the swine flu issue is not distracting international health officials from other, equally pressing, issues. More Information.

June 10, 2009. Homeland Security Chief Sets Right Tone On Immigration Questions. Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, made the following statement about immigration law: "Smart immigration policy balances strong enforcement practices with common-sense, practical solutions to complicated issues." While she was speaking about the plight of foreign-born spouses of deceased U.S. citizens, her views are welcome to us. We all know of the cases where immigration policy relating to international adoption seems to lack the attributes the secretary cites. We look forward to working with CIS on this basis. More Information.

June 9, 2009. Language Matters. We generally take a relaxed attitude toward adoption language issues. But we were shocked this morning to hear Natalie Morales, one of the anchors of the Today show, make the following comments to actress Melissa Gilbert: "You had parents who loved you, you were an adopted child but they took you in as if you were their child..." Ms. Gilbert looked stunned at these statements and we were dismayed. Adopted children are not "taken in." They are not treated as if they were their parents' real child; adopted children are the real children of their parents. We hope Ms. Morales and NBC News understands that they have erred. More Information.

June 8, 2009. News About the Congressional Coalition Adoption Institute. The Congressional Coalition Adoption Institute (CCAI) is an important force advocating for better adoption policies in the belief that every child deserves a permanent loving family. CCAI's goals are "to educate federal policymakers about the need for reform; coordinate Congressional and community efforts to bring about change and facilitate opportunities for communication and awareness." We are proud to say we have worked with CCAI on many projects; CCAI Executive Director Kathleen Strottman was one of the speakers at our annual adoption law conference this year. CCAI has recently re-launched its website, which can be accessed by clicking here.

June 4, 2009. Ukraine Adoption Issues. We understand that a committee of the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) has recommended that the Ukranian Parliament pass a moratorium on International Adoption. We deplore this development and hope that a moratorium on international adoption it does not become law. Every child deserves a permanent, loving family.

June 3, 2009. Romanian Study Shows Superiority of Foster Care over Institutionalized Care. Melissa Ghera, Peter Marshall, Nathan Fox, Charles Zeanah, Charles Nelson, Anna Smyke and Donald Guthrie, who directed the Early Intervention Project which studied institutionalized children randomly assigned to foster care or institutions, have published their findings in the March issue of Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. They have found that the groups assigned to foster care as opposed to institutions had much higher levels of positive emotion and attention. These findings held true for the children at 30 months of age and also at 42 months of age. The researchers were not able to study adopted children but we can only imagine how well children who were not only raised in a family setting but were given permanence as well would fare. What testimony this report provides for the importance of finding a permanent loving family for every unparented child. More Information.

June 2, 2009. New TB Testing Requirements for Children Adopted From China Starting July 1, 2009. The U. S. Center for Disease Control have announced that as of July 1, 2009 new screening and treatment requirements for Chinese immigrants will go into effect. These requirements will also be applied to children being adopted who are two years and older on the day of their U.S. government required medical exam in Guangzhou. Doctors will be required to give each child a tuberculin skin test. The results must be read 48-72 hours after the test is given. If the results are positive, the child must have a chest x-ray. Thereafter the doctor will assess the child's exam and medical status. In some cases the child might be required to have further treatment in China before entering the United States. Agencies and families should factor in this new requirement in their Guangzhou timing. More Information.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

May 27, 2009. Ethiopian Court Stops Adoptions of Abandoned Children. The Ethiopian First Instance Court has stopped accepting cases involving abandoned children living in orphanages is the capital city, Addis Ababa. The Court says that it has taken this step, which the State Department has termed "temporary", because of the increase in the number of abandoned children and the possibility that some of these adoptions could involve unethical practices. Neither the Ministry of Women's Affairs, the government department responsible for international adoption, nor First Instance Court will accept any abandonment cases from Addis Abba until the related inquiry takes place. We urge anyone considering newly applying for an Ethiopian adoption program at this time to exercise caution. More Information.

May 26, 2009. California Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Gay Marriage. As expected, the California Supreme Court, by a vote of 6 to 1, upheld Proposition 8, which overturned an earlier California Supreme Court decision, and banned gay marriage. However, the Court also held that the almost 18,000 marriages between same sex couples which took place after the Court's first ruling in May 2008 but before Proposition 8 blocked gay marriages should be allowed to stand. In upholding the ban, the Supreme Court rejected arguments that the ban on single-sex marriage violated the federal and state constitutions. It is ironic that on matters of gay and lesbian marriage, California is now less welcoming than Iowa. More Information.

May 21, 2009. Benefits Challenge Made by Same-Sex Couples. Although gay marriage is legal in various states, gay spouses and survivors are finding it difficult if not impossible to obtain marital and survivor benefits from the federal government because of the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton. Now seven gay couples and two gay survivors are challenging their exclusion from such benefits. What makes these plaintiffs unique is that all of them are or were legally married in the state of Massachussetts, where the federal lawsuit was filed this past March. Constitutional scholars give the case a good chance of succeeding; the consensus is that this precise and limited attach on DOMA will fare better than broader challenges have done. More Information.

May 20, 2009. CCAA Sending Out Referrals and More TAs. We have received reports that the China Center for Adoption Affairs is sending out non special needs referrals for dossiers logged in with CCAA between March 9 and March 14, 2006. The interval between NSN referrals this month was two weeks longer than usual; a delay most observers are attributing to fears concerning swine flu. We are delighted that families are receiving their referrals, particularly since these families have waited for their referrals more than three years and two months from their LIDs. We are also hearing that more Travel Approvals are arriving at agencies-good news indeed for families waiting to pick up their children.

May 19, 2009. Vietnam's Goal: Become a Hague Country by January 2011. Vietnamese officials have informed their Irish counterparts that the Vietnam government will try to join the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption by January 2011. These high level discussions came in the wake of the May 1 expiration and non-renewal of the bilateral agreement on intercountry adoption between Ireland and Vietnam. (The United States and Vietnam did not renew their bilateral agreement which expired in September 2008.) As with the expiration of the U.S.-Vietnam agreement, prospective Irish adoptive parents have been caught n the middle as the grandfathering provisions are not generous. Minister for Children Barry Andrews said that the U.S. State Department's findings concerning adoption problems from Vietnam had influenced his views as well: "No one is going to thank us if we sign without exercising due caution. We have to absolutely satisfy ourselves that the best standards apply. "In 15 or 16 years these children will see the American report and ask what we did to ensure their interests were protected." The Vietnamese decision to pursue Hague ratification will likely mean that intercountry adoptions from Vietnam will remain closed to U.S. as well as Irish citizens until Hague ratification. More Information.

May 18, 2009. Unique Perspective of Prospective U.S. Ambassador to China. Governor Jon Hunstman of Utah is President Obama's selection to be the new U.S. ambassador to China. Governor Huntsman is a fluent Mandarin speaker who lived in Taiwan while he participated in LDS missionary work; he later served as Ambassador to Singapore during the administration of the first President Bush. Of special interest to the adoption community is the fact that Governor Huntsman is the father of Gracie Mei, adopted by Huntsman and his wife from China and Asha Bharati adopted by the Hunt family from India. We think Governor Hunstman, if confirmed as expected by the Senate, will take an active interest in adoption issues.

May 14, 2009. Victory for Children in Florida. The Florida Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Florida must honor second-parent adoptions granted by other states to gay and lesbian parents. The Florida ruling held, correctly, that Florida must obey the U.S. constitution and grant these adoptions full faith and credit. The National Center for Lesbian Rights led the legal team that won this victory; Legal Director Shannon Minter (a CAP Conference speaker) said "This is the tip of the iceberg -- we're going to see many more of these cases in the country." While the opponents of recognizing out of state second parent gay adoptions could theoretically appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, the decisiveness of the Court of Appeals' ruling makes a further battle unlikely. More Information.

May 13, 2009. Swine Flu and China Adoptions. The H1N1 flu strain has complicated international adoptions from China. No non-special needs referrals have yet been received for the month of May even though the month is almost half over. Some agencies are reporting that the China Center for Adoption Affairs will not give any referrals until the questions swirling around this flu are settled. (The Chinese government reaction may be partly due to the criticism it received for its initially slow response to the SARS epidemic.) Travel approvals appeared to be delayed although some waiting children TAs have arrived in the last few days. We have seen confirmed reports that some adoption agencies have been unable to make appointments for their clients holding TAs with provincial officials to adopt their referred children. Affected provinces as of now included Jiangxi, Shanxi, and Guangdong. We have also heard that adoptive parents currently may not visit the orphanage from which their child came. We hope that this situation is clarified in the days to come.

May 12, 2009. New York Times.com Discusses International Adoption. "Room for Debate," an internet discussion forum, addressed the subject of international adoption yesterday. We were pleased to join the debate, which also featured Professor Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard and noted adoption doctor, Jane Aronson. From our contribution:

"I share the concerns of international adoption critics about corruption, accountability and the lack of transparency in some countries. And I believe that every child has a right to know and appreciate her birth nation and heritage. But my primary concern is for best interests of the individual child.

Madonna is, by all accounts, an excellent mother who is devoted to her children, including, David, her Malawi-born adopted son. Her foundation, Raising Malawi, has brought much-needed international attention to Malawi and provided significant assistance to its people. In Madonna's care, Mercy will have the love of a mother, brothers and a sister while at the same time retaining a connection to her birth family and her birth country. She will receive the education and nurture that will allow her to fulfill her potential, be it in Malawi or wherever her dreams take her. Instead of assailing Madonna, we should be saluting her."

The entire article, as well as the other contributions to the series and the numerous comments left by readers, may be found by clicking here.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

April 28, 2009. Roma Increasingly at Risk in European Slump. The worsening economic situation in Europe has led to increased hardship, discrimination and even death for Europe's Roma population. As the recession causes economic hardship, many in Eastern Europe are turning to a familiar scapegoat: their Roma neighbors. Attacks have been reported in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. Some have led to the deaths of children and parents. Unparented children from a Roma background have a particularly difficult road now that international adoption in Romania is no longer an option. More Information.

April 27, 2009. Foster Care to Adoption Rising During the Recession. The combination of the high cost of private adoption, the effects of the recession and the closing or constricting of international adoption programs has increased the popularity of foster care to adoption programs. It is true that many of the well-over 100,000 children available for foster care adoption are older and may have physical or emotional challenges but these characteristics are also increasingly common in international adoption. Just in Michigan, the number of licenses issue for potential parents to eligible to provide foster care (a requirement for those seeking to adopt from foster care) virtually doubled from November to January. Other states are showing similar increases. More Information.

April 23, 2009. Immigration Cases Make for Troubling Adoption Decisions. It is estimated that over one-fourth of illegal immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens. The U.S. state and federal governments' decisions to ramp up deportation proceedings has caused particular difficulty for their citizen children. What should happen to these children if their parents are first incarcerated and then deported is an issue that has been settled in different ways in various states. In Missouri a Circuit Court judge terminated the parental rights of Encarnacion Bail Romero and allowed her son Carlos, now 2, to be adopted by the local family that was caring for him. Judge David Dally wrote: "The only certainties in the biological mother's future," he wrote, "is that she will remain incarcerated until next year, and that she will be deported thereafter." In May the Nebraska Supreme Court will hear the appeal of a woman whose parental rights to her daughter and son were terminated after she was jailed and then deported. By contrast, officials in South Carolina are trying to send the baby girl of an arrested couple back to her relatives in Guatemala in advance of the parents' deportation from the United States. More Information.

April 22, 2009. Madonna Gets Right of Appeal on Her Adoption. A Malawian appeals court will consider Madonna's petition to adopt Mercy James on May 4. In early April a Malawian court denied the petition. According to various sources, the appeal will be heard by Malawi's Supreme Court of Appeal and Madonna need not be present during the hearing. We hope that the Malawian judges will focus on the best interests of Mercy and not on ideological issues extraneous to Mercy's well-being. More Information.

April 21, 2009. Father of Slumdog Millionaire Actress Accused of Trying to Sell Daughter. According to the British tabloid, News of the World, Slumdog star Rubina Ali's father Rafiq, and uncle, Mohiuddin, tried to sell her to the highest bidder but instead were caught by a sting operation run by the newspaper. The purported buyer was a man from Abu Dhabi. The meeting between the girl's family was to be held in Dubai but Rafiq could not get a passport to leave India because he is under criminal investigation for knife fighting. After bidding up the price, the Ali brothers settled on $200,000. Save the Children, the UK charity which stirred up anti-Madonna sentiment, quickly proclaimed that "Rubina's case should force India to take a harder look at child and human trafficking." We believe that Rubina's sorry situation should also prompt Save the Children to exchange its anti-adoption attitude for a more child-centric view that what matters is that every child have a loving family of their own, wherever that family may be found. More Information.

April 20, 2009. Orson Mozes-Accused of Tragic Swindle of Potential Adoptive Parents. It is rare that someone from the world of adoption makes America's Most Wanted list but Orson Mozes has that distinction. Mozes, reportedly a dual national of the United States and Canada, ran an agency called American International Program. He claimed to have extensive contacts in Eastern Europe and promised potential adoptive parents that if they would fed ex him between $7, 000 and $11, 000, they would be able to adopt the children pictured on the AIP website. Authorities say that on at least ten separate occasions Mozes promised the same child to several sets of PAPs. Mozes was apprehended in December 2008 and stands accused of 62 felony counts of Theft by False Pretense. More Information.

April 16, 2009. Senator Landrieu's Foster Care-Financing Reform Legislation Passes Senate. Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, one of the greatest friends children have ever had in Congress, has shepherded through the Senate legislation which will allow federal foster care funds to help children who have left the foster care system. As Senator Landrieu said, "Federal dollars should follow the needs of children at all stages of the process - whether their placement is reunification, adoption or guardianship. My amendment ensures that the foster care system is focused on children in care and the families that provide loving homes." Kathleen Strottman, executive director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (and a speaker at this year's CAP Conference) further explains: "...over 70,000 children spend five years or more in a system that was never intended to be permanent replacement for a family. Federal law makes it clear that foster care is not the preferred solution, but federal funds promote the opposite. Senator Landrieu's amendment lays the foundation for a financing system that gives states both the flexibility and incentive they need to get children out of foster care and into loving families." We salute the efforts of both Senator Landrieu and Ms. Strottman. More Information.

April 15, 2009. Steps Towards Equal Rights. In the last two weeks we have seen a double victory for proponents of the right of gays and lesbians to be married. On April 3, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Iowa statute banning gay couples for marrying violated the equal protection clause of the Iowa state constitution. Iowa is the first state in the "heartland" to accord marriage rights to gays and lesbians. On April 7, Vermont's legislature overrode the veto of the governor of a bill to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage. Vermont is the first state to give equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians by act of its legislature, rather than by judicial ruling.

April 14, 2009. A Great Source of Information Concerning International Adoption on the State Department's Adoption Website. We would like to draw members of the adoption community's attention to the very helpful reference materials authored by State Department officials concerning international adoption. These publications include information for adopting parents, agencies, attorney and judges, social workers and adoptees. Additionally there is a Hague guide for parents, a guide to Hague outgoing cases and a guide for individual state adoption authorities. All of these materials may be accessed at http://adoption.state.gov/.

April 13, 2009. CCAA Sends New Referrals for Non Special Needs Children. The China Center for Adoption Affairs mailed out referrals last week for non special needs children. These referrals went to potential adoptive parents whose dossiers were logged in with CCAA on March 7 and March 8, 2006. These are the first PAPs who have waited in excess of three years from LID to referral. The children covered in this month's referrals generally were older than in previous batches with a significant number of children being 14-24 months and older. We urge any family who has received a referral to make sure that the age of their new child at adoption (not at referral) will match the age of the child they have been approved to adopt by their social worker and CIS.

NewsCAP Viewpoint, April 10, 2009. So What is the Answer for Unparented Children? This week we have highlighted problems with in-country foster care and in-country adoption. The answer for unparented children, in our opinion, is very clear. Child welfare advocates, members of the adoption community, government officials: we must all focus on the best interests of each child, free from cant, free from pre-conceived beliefs and free from ideological blinders, with due regard for the Hague Convention for Intercountry Adoption. Only then can every unparented child be assured of a permanent, loving family, wherever that family may be found.

April 9, 2009. In-Country Domestic Adoption is not Always the Answer Either. Russia Times is reporting on two terrible cases of child abuse stemming from domestic adoptions in that country. In one case, the adoptive parents are accusing of severely beating and mistreating a three year old boy and one-year old girl who they adopted. The children were not only physically abused but often left to sleep outside with the dogs. In another case the adoptive parents are charged with murdering their four year old adopted son. More Information.

April 8, 2008. What Happens After Foster Care? A family is forever, foster care is not. As an article in today's New York Times explains, children who age out of foster care are especially vulnerable in our present difficult economic climate. While New York has tried to provide a safety net of sorts for children between the ages of 18 and 21 who are too old for foster care but incapable of making their own way, the fact remains that many of these young men and women cannot make it on their own and have no family resources to fall back on. Economic times like these see so many young adults returning to their family for resources and support. For former foster children the outlook is bleaker. One of the bigger New York agencies, New York Foundling, is urgingaging out clients to immediately apply for welfare because officials there see no alternative. Another child welfare official is quoted as saying, "it's like falling off a cliff...." More Information.

April 7, 2009. What Foster Care Can Mean. During the current controversy over Madonna's attempt to adopt from Malawi we have been told by commentators, by the judge in the Malawi proceeding and by NGOs such as Save the Children that institutionalized care and/or foster care are preferable outcomes for an unparented child than international adoption. The news account that follows should give people with that viewpoint some pause. Two brothers in foster care in Britain, aged 10 and 11, are under arrest for allegedly attacking and torturing two boys with knives, bricks and burning cigarettes. One of the victims was left for dead. The Doncaster (Yorkshire) Council that had legal custody of the boys has already been under heavy criticism because of the deaths of seven children in the council's region since 2004. Social workers for the county council have reported being unable to attend to individual children's needs because of their heavy workloads. Wouldn't a permanent, loving family be better than this? More Information.

April 6, 2009. CAP Response to Madonna's Adoption Setback. Madonna left Malawi after a family court judge denied her application to adopt four year old Mercy James. In response CAP Executive Director Ann Reese stated, "The moral responsibility of the judge is really to look at Mercy's particular situation, to look at the adoption application and to ascertain if it's in her best interest," says Ann Reese, co-executive director of the Center for Adoption Policy. "Every child deserves a permanent family. A permanent family is not an (orphanage)." More Information.

April 2, 2009

ACT for Adoption
SAVE the CHILDREN from SAVE the CHILDREN
April 2009

This week a Malawi court will make a life-changing decision about Mercy James. Will Mercy be allowed to grow up in a permanent family with Madonna as her adoptive mother?

Spokesman for Save the Children, UK, Dominic Nutt, says that Mercy and other children in her position should remain in a Malawi orphanage. For no better reason than that these children may have living relatives, he believes that they should always remain in their original communities. Unfortunately, Nutt ignores the fact that these children's presence in an orphanage is the surest indication that their relatives are deceased or, if alive, unable to care for them.

The usual justification for Save the Children's approach is that children who remain in their country of origin can enjoy their racial, ethnic and national heritage. But children doomed to grow up in orphanages or on the streets cannot expect to enjoy their cultural heritage in any meaningful way. And the real choice today for most existing homeless children in most of the countries of the world is between life - and often death - in orphanages or on the streets in their home country and, for a lucky few, life in an adoptive home abroad. Research on children who started their early life in orphanages demonstrates vividly the damage such institutions do.

International Adoption has come under fire recently from UNICEF and others who share Save the Children's views. But International Adoption provides children the possibility of finding the permanent nurturing homes they need to thrive, homes that are typically simply not available in their countries of origin. And International Adoption is completely consistent with other positive social responses to the problems of unparented children, bringing new resources into poor countries to support such efforts, and developing new awareness of and concern for the plight of poor children and poor communities worldwide.

We are not in possession of all the facts relevant to appropriate resolution of Mercy's particular case. But we urge policy-makers, including judges making decisions in such cases, to review and consider the International Adoption Policy Statement and Supporting Report, endorsed by the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, the Center for Adoption Policy, and the Harvard Law School Child Advocacy Program.

Links:
Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School Adoption Resources

April 1, 2009. A Wonderful Site for Adoption History. The Adoption History Project was started by Professor Ellen Herman at the University of Oregon. It is a wonderful compilation of on-line material which includes an adoption timeline, documentary archives and articles on adoption history. A brief time spent reading selections from the archive will convince anyone that the place of adoption in our society has definitely shifted over time. To access this great resource go to http://www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

March 30, 2009. Mercy for Mercy. Will Mercy James will be allowed to grow up in a permanent family with Madonna as her mother, or be relegated to institutional care in her homeland? More broadly, the question is: shall international adoption remain a solution for unparented children or shall the Save the Children UK position - that international adoption is never a good option - become the global standard? Both questions are equally important. Those of us who believe in the validity, usefulness and morality of international adoption believe that the particular - the life of a child, this child - is just as crucial as policy-making in general. If Mercy James has no one to parent her in Malawi, then international adoption can and should provide the permanent loving home every child deserves. More Information.

March 26, 2009. Change in Indian Adoption Procedures. The U.S. embassy in New Delhi has announced that as of April 1, 2009 adoption procedures in India will be centralized. All cases will be processed in New Delhi and not, as formerly, at consulates throughout the country. The State Department is of the opinion that this centralization will be good for international adoption. It will allow the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) and the U.S. embassy to work together in a timely and consistent manner on all IA cases. These new rules affect both Hague and Non-Hague cases. More Information.

March 25, 2009. Guatemala War Orphans Put Up for Adoption During Dirty War. Guatemala's government has conceded that it has found evidence supporting the long believed rumors that children whose parents were killed during the country's three decade long Civil War were sent to orphanages rather than be reunited with suriviving family members. Investigator Marco Tulio Alvarez, who is focusing of the foiles of adults and children who disappeared between 1976 and 1986, the height of the conflict, said that evidence exists that hundreds of children were taken to orphanages and many were placed with American couples who later adopted them. We salute the efforts to trace the whereabouts of these missing children. Adoption can only be the a positive outcome for unparented children if the procedures are transparent and accountable. More Information.

March 24, 2009. Shannon Minter, CAP Speaker and Friend, Named California Lawyer of the Year. Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, was named California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer magazine. This award recognizes Mr. Minter outstanding service in the fight for Gay rights and specifically in the battle for marriage equality in the state of California. He was instrumental in last year's arguments before the California Supreme Court that resulted in a plaintiffs' victory and in the new case which grows out of the passage by California voters of Proposition 8. More Information.

March 23, 2009. Hopeful Surrogate Parents Find Agency Closed. A popular California surrogacy agency, SurroGenesis, closed last week as did its escrow company. Millions of dollars are missing and almost 100 clients have sustained major financial and emotional losses. For some, the unraveling of SurroGenesis means that they have missed their last chance to become parents. The recent saga of the California mother and her octuplets has focused national attention on the loose regulation of surrogacy agencies in California. SurroGenesis claimed to have 60 global locations where would-be parents could find surrogates. It turned out that many of these addresses were post office boxes. The supposedly independent and bonded escrow agent was revealed to be another corporate incarnation of the same person who began the surrogacy agency. Clearly stricter enforcement of existing rules and the drafting of new ones are called for. More Information.

March 19, 2009. Oregon Puts Moratorium on Sending Foster Children Out of the U.S. Concerns over child safety and compliance with the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption have motivated state officials in Oregon to place a 60 day halt to out of country placements of foster children. This decision immediately affects five children who were slated to be sent to relatives in Mexico who wished to adopt them. The state has hired an international law firm to make sure that its procedures comport with the Hague Convention and the federal regulations on out-going cases. Child welfare officials are also cognizant of two high profile cases involving outgoing adoptions, including the tragic history of a four-year girl who was murdered in Mexico while still under the stewardship of the Oregon child welfare system. More Information.

March 18, 2009. Romanian Orphanages Overflowing Due to Financial Crisis. The Romanian periodical Curentul reports that many poor families are abandoning their children in Romania to hospitals or placement centers. As the spokesman for the Child Protective Services of Iasi County explained, "In rural areas there are many families who have no food and no wood to heat their homes. Consequently, they do not have any way to feed their children or to keep them warm..." Romania has been battered twice over by the world economic recession-its own economy is faltering and many of the millions of Romanian migrant workers who have supported their families by taking jobs abroad are losing their jobs and returning home to impoverished families. Romania remains closed to international adoption.

March 17, 2009. Birth Parent Assistance Act of 2009 Introduced. Representative Jean Schmidt (R-OH) introduced the Birth Parent Assistance Act of 2009 last week. Co-sponsored by Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN), co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, this bill would authorize $30 million over five years for new counseling programs and additional post-placement support services for birth parents after they have placed a child for adoption. The funds may also be used for training for social workers and hospital personnel who work with birth parents and adoptive parents. This bill is supported by the American Academy of Adoption Professionals, the National Council for Adoption, the On Your Feet Foundation, and Spaulding for Children.

March 16, 2009. U.S. Not Processing International Adoptions From Guatemala. The State Department is again advising potential adoptive parents and adoption service providers not to begin new international adoptions from Guatemala. Neither the State Department nor USCIS will currently allow any adoption from Guatemala to be completed. Guatemala is a Hague Convention country as is the United States. At this time Guatemala does not have a Hague-compliant procedure for IA. For that reason the State Department cannot issue the necessary documents required by the Intercountry Adoption Act which are a prerequisite for I-800/A visas. Guatemala is working on implementing the Hague Convention but there is no time frame for agency accreditation. The U.S. government agrees that legitimate transition cases begun before December 31, 2007 should be processed to completion under the previous legislation. More Information.

March 12, 2009. What a Wonderful Thing! A Child's Right, which is a Washington state based NGO, has announced that it has both funding and Chinese government permission to install water filtration units in every orphanage in every province and municipality of China. Instead of encouraging the digging of new wells, which can have unintended negative consequences, this foundation focuses on purifying the water from existing sources. A Child's Right was very active in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake as well. "This means, simply, that every institutionalized orphan in China will have clean and safe drinking water," stated Eric Stowe, the NGO's Director. We couldn't agree more. More information.

March 11, 2009. Adoption in the Schools. Anyone working in the field of adoption knows that the way in which adoption is regarded and discussed has come along way from the excluding and secretive pattern prevalent a generation ago. But any parent with children in school understands that educational assignments, especially ones purporting to make children more comfortable, can pose problems and cause great discomfort for adopted children. Topics such as discussing where a child's name came from, the request to bring in baby pictures and of course the "family tree" are not the simple homework teachers may assume. Fortunately there is a wealth of information on these issues available to parents and educators. One of the best such studies, Adoption Awareness in Schools: A Guide for Parents and Educators by Christine Mitchell, is available at Tapestry Books: http://www.tapestrybooks.com/product.asp?pID=716.

March 10, 2009. Culture of Corruption Concerning Romanian Medical Care Blights and Costs Lives. Romania has long struggled with corruption. Nowhere are the effects more tragic than in the country's medical system where patients must offer substantial sums of money in order to be treated. The "black" price list is even advertised according a recent article in the New York Times: a simple appendectomy costs $127 while brain surgery could require a bribe of $6,370. The Times' reporter recounts the particularly tragic story of Lungu family. Alina Lungu paid her obstetrician $255 and also gave $32 to a nurse to ensure an epidural and around $13 to an orderly so that he would not drop her stretcher. But apparently this money wasn't enough. When Alina went to have her baby, her doctor did not show up. When another doctor finally arrived he found that her son had the umbilical cord wrapped double around his neck. The baby was born blind, deaf and has severe brain damage. If this is the standard of medical care Romanians with decent incomes receive, imagine what unparented children are left with. More Information.

March 9, 2009. State Department Human Rights Report on Vietnam Highlights Trafficking in Persons Problem. In its annual Human Rights Report, the State Department has turned a spotlight on the significant issue of trafficking in people in Vietnam. According to this report women were primarily trafficked to Cambodia, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, and South Korea for sexual exploitation but also to Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, and the United States. Poor, rural women are most at risk and the perpetrators use false advertising, debt bondage, confiscation of documents, and threats of deportation as well as family pressure to achieve their wicked purposes. While the report also records cases of baby selling, clearly the incidence of corrupt adoption practices is far less prevalent than sexual trafficking is in Vietnam. More Information.

March 5, 2009. Oral Argument Today in Legal Challenge to Proposition 8. The California Supreme Court will be the setting today for oral arguments in the case which is challenging Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that successfully banned gay marriage in California in November 2008. Proposition 8 undid the action of the California Supreme Court last spring which struck down the ban on gay marriage. Last year's decision of California's highest court had a significant effect on various election ballot initiatives and referenda around the country. It remains to be seen what will be the fallout from these arguments.

March 4, 2009. CCAA Sends New Referrals for Non-Special Needs Adoption from China. The China Center for Adoption Affairs has sent referrals for potential adoptive parents whose dossiers were logged in with CCAA on March 3, and March 6, 2006. This is the first group of PAPs who have waited three years from the time their dossiers were logged in to the time they received their referrals. This is an unprecedented wait in the history of modern international adoption.

March 3, 2009. Second Referrals In Very Rare Circumstances For Vietnam PAPs. Vietnam's Department of Adoption (Ministry of Justice, Socialist Republic of Vietnam) has acknowledged that the U.S. government has requested that it issue new referrals in situations where the referral was lost for reasons not in control of the potential adoption parents and where the first referral had been issued prior to September 1, 2008. The Vietnamese government has decided not to grant second referrals unless the child referred to the PAPs died after the referral was made. In that limited situation PAPs will receive a second referral. More Information.

March 2, 2009. Arksansas Modifies Consent Revocation Period for Domestic Adoptions. Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe has signed Act 230, effective immediately, which allows birth parents to agree to waive the ten day revocation period for their binding consent to adoption down to five days. The ten day rule has been in effect since 1991. During the revocation period the court cannot hold a hearing on an adoption petition. All states have different laws and procedures for domestic adoption and vary widely on the time limit for birth parents to revoke their consent to the adoption.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

February 25, 2009. Kentucky Trying to Ban Singles From Adoption. State Senator Gary Tapp (Republican) introduced a bill into the Kentucky legislature which would "prohibit someone who is cohabitating with a sexual partner outside of marriage from becoming a foster parent, providing relative caregiver services, or adopting a child." This proposed legislation is similar to the ban on adoption by singles or people in a relationship outside of marriage which Arksansas voters approved at the polls last November. We regret that such a bill is being contemplated as we know that its passage will limit the number of available permanent loving homes for unparented children.

February 19, 2009. Samoan International Adoption Case: A Terrible Injustice Wreaked on Families. The perpetrators of a terrible international adoption fraud are awaiting sentencing in Utah. Focus on Children adoption agency owners and employees Karen and Scott Banks, Coleen Bartlett, Karalee Thomock and Dan Wakefield have pled guilty to fraud and immigration violations in connection with a scheme to create false orphans in Samoa who would in turn be adopted by U.S. families. Two Samoan citizens were apparently also involved in the crimes but they were not able to be extradited to the U.S. The birth families, the adoptive families and most importantly the children were all victimized by a fraud that can only be described as wicked. We hope that all the perpetrators will be given the maximum sentence allowed by law. More Information.

February 18, 2009. Hague Sanctioned International Adoption from Brazil Not Yet a Reality. The State Department has updated its information on International Adoption from Brazil. When the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption went into effect in the United States last year, there were high hopes that an IA program between Brazil, already a Hague country, and the United States might soon begin. However, while the U.S. government is apparently working closely on IA issues with Brazilian authorities, the State Department is warning prospective adoptive parents to "expect a lengthy process because there is currently no U.S. Hague-accredited adoption service provider working in Brazil. If you are not an immediate relative qualified to adopt via the Brazilian national adoption system, it is unlikely you will be permitted to adopt in Brazil for the foreseeable future." More Information.

February 17, 2009. U.S. Official Speaks on International Adoption from Vietnam. Assistant Secretary of State Janice L. Jacobs gave an interview last week to VietNamNet. According to the account published by VietNamNet, Jacobs said that she expects Vietnam to join the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption soon and that thereafter, she expects international adoption from Vietnam to the United States to resume. Moreover, Jacobs stated that the U.S. has offered technical assistance to Vietnam in order to make its IA law Hague compliant. Among other things she cited the need for increased transparency in fee structures and a reduction in the number of accredited agencies from the 42 U.S. adoption agencies (out of a total of 69) that operated in Vietnam prior to the September 2008 shutdown. More Information.

February 12, 2009. Final Schedule for CAP Conference. We are delighted to post the final schedule for our March 6 conference at New York Law School. We are also pleased to note that we will have a fourth panel on the role of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in facilitating international adoption which will include the District Director of the New York CIS office and her colleague. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Final Schedule of Events: CAP Conference 2009: "International Adoption: One Year After the Hague."

8:30 a.m.
Check-in for pre-registered guests

• Continental breakfast will be available in the conference center.

9:00 a.m. - 9:10 a.m.
Welcome

• Diane B. Kunz, Executive Director, Center for Adoption Policy
• Elizabeth Bartholet, Morris Wasserstein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Faculty Director, Child Advocacy Program

9:10 a.m. - 10:50 a.m.
Panel I: The United States as a Hague Member: What Are We Doing, What Do We Need To Do?

• Moderator: Joan Hollinger, Lecturer in Residence, University of California Berkeley School of Law
• William J. Bistransky, Chief of the Adoption Unit, Office of Children's Issues, U.S. Department of State
• Anna Mary Coburn, Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Department of State
• Miki Stebbing, Accrediting Entity Liaison Hague Adoption Unit, Office of Children's Issues, U.S. Department of State
• Richard Klarberg, President & CEO, Council on Accreditation

11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Panel II: The Hague: Impact on and Implications for Sending Countries

• Moderator: Kathryn Webb Bradley, Senior Lecturing Fellow, Duke University School of Law
• Paolo Barrozzo, Lecturer, Harvard University; Visiting Assistant Professor, Boston College Law School
• Cheryl Appell, Canadian Fellow, American Academy of Adoption Attorneys
• Susan LoBosco, MSW, Clinical Social Work Supervisor, MAPS

12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Lunch and Keynote Speaker: Human Rights and International Adoption

• Ambassador Jerome J. Shestack, Former President, American Bar Association; Director, American Bar Association Human Rights Center; Senior Partner, WolfBlock

1:35 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.
Panel III: Ensuring the Future: A New Way Forward for International Adoption

• Moderator and Speaker: Elizabeth Bartholet, Morris Wasserstein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Faculty Director, Child Advocacy Program
• Dr. Jane Aronson, Founder and CEO, Worldwide Orphans Foundation
• Tom Difilipo, President and CEO, Joint Council for International Children's Services
• Kathleen Strottman, Executive Director, Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute (CCAI)

3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Panel IV: Bringing Children Home: The USCIS's Role in International Adoption

• Moderator: Lindsay Curcio, Adjunct Professor, New York Law School; Codirector, Safe Passage Immigration Project, Justice Action Center
• Robert Gottfried, Partner, Hodgson Russ LLP
• Denise Noel, New York office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
• Andrea J. Quarantillo, District Director of the New York office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Audience Discussion

February 11, 2009. CCAA Apparently Makes Waiting Children Adoption Easier. We have seen reports that the China Center for Adoption Affairs has changed its policy to allow potential adoptive parents who are logged in with one agency to change to a second agency in order to make possible an adoption of a waiting child. This policy, as far as we know, will apply to PAPs logged in either through a non-special needs or special needs program and will allow PAPs to proceed with the waiting child adoption without losing their place in the LID queue. Further, PAPs who were grandfathered under the pre-May 2007 rules can take advantage of this new rule without jeopardizing their grandfathered status. Such flexibility on part of CCAA will be warmly welcomed as it accelerates the adoption of waiting children.

February 10, 2009. Has Moldova Closed its International Adoption Program? We have learned of media reports that Vladimir Voronin, President of Moldova, has announced that his country will ban, at least temporarily, the adoption of Moldovan children by foreign adoptive parents. Moldova, a Hague country which used to be part of the Soviet Union (and before that Romania), sent 33 children to the United States last year, up from 20 the year before. However, the State Department contends that a Moldovan government official told his American counterpart that no such ban has been implemented. More Information.

February 9, 2009. Gay Marriage Hopes May Be Dimming in New York. Proponents of marriage for gays and lesbians had high hopes that New York State, with both its legislative and executive branch run by Democrats for the first time in decades, would legalize same-sex marriage this year. Gays and lesbians had contributed hundreds of thousands to campaigns for State Senate seats, partly in the hope that overturning the 43-year Republican leadership would effect policy changes on the issues most important to the gay and lesbian community. But in response to Senate Majority Leader Malcolm's Smith warning that "Although we do not have the number of votes at this time needed to pass the marriage equality gender bill this legislative session, we are committed to pursuing its passage," some gay rights activists remained optimistic. As Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire State Pride group, put it: "Hope doesn't deliver legislation. Hard work does....A Democratic majority in the Senate is not the finish line for marriage equality in New York State; it's the starting line." More Information.

February 5, 2009. No Word on New Guatemalan International Adoption Law. Guatemala closed to new International Adoption on December 31, 2007. Guatemalan officials predicted a Hague complain international adoption law would be developed with deliberate speed. However, fourteen months later, Guatemala does not have such a law, even in draft form. What the country does have are thousands of unparented children in sub-standard care. Yet again, once an IA program closes, the spotlight of public attention moves on but the children do not. They pay the price in their lives, hopes and dreams.

February 3, 2009. Liberia Halts International Adoption. The State Department has reported that the Liberian government halted all international adoption on January 26, 2009. The Liberian President's Special Committee on Adoption had previously recommended this action because of allegations of mismanagement in IA programs. Moreover, the Liberian government the previous week had suspended any adoption activities performed provided by West African Children Support Network (WACSN) and Acres of Hope (AOH). Any American family who has a dossier or pending adoption with either agency should contact the U.S. embassy in Monrovia, Liberia. More Information.

February 2, 2009. How the Adoption Community Keeps on Helping. One of the wonderful facts about international adoption is that the connections made between adoptive parents and their child's homeland is often the beginning rather than the end of a relationship that changes the lives of countless people. Of course the adoptive parents and their children benefit. But so do the many children who are helped by various non-profits created by adoptive parents and family members designed to improve the lives of children who remain in care in their birth country. We would like to announce and celebrate the alliance between two of the best such organizations: Half the Sky and China Care. Half the Sky, founded by adoptive parents, specializes in improving the physical and nurturing quality of life in Chinese orphanages. China Care, began by a 16 year old boy who had lived in China, specializes in providing medical care for orphans. China Care also has numerous campus chapters which not only raise money but work with adopted children. We are delighted to see these two great organizations flourish. More information.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141

January 28, 2009. What Happens To the Children? International Adoption ended in Romania five years ago. Periodically we look at what has happened to the lives of children whose birth parents cannot take care of them. This week we learned one answer. According to the Romanian newspaper, Gandul, there has been an overwhelming number of abandonments in Bacau county. In the previous three weeks, more than 140 children have been abandoned but the Child Protective Services of the county could only take 44 of them. (Indeed it only had money and space for 20). According to Sorin Brasoveanu, director of CPS Bacau County, "We are being confronted with an avalanche of abandonments. It's regrettable that it's happening. I think the problem exists because local communities have not gotten sufficiently involve. We have no more room in placement centers and we have room for maybe two children under age two. In all the placement centers, we have only 30% of the personnel help that we need. At this moment, it is impossible to even take one child in an emergency placement." This situation should never have existed in the first place.

January 27, 2009. The Move Toward Hague-Only IA. We were not surprised to learn (as detailed in yesterday's posting) that CCAA is moving toward a wholly Hague system of international adoption. Now comes word that a Russian region wants the Apostille that authenticates documents for a Russian IA to meet Hague standards. Besides the (not small) matter of how an Apostille from an American state would do that, this development reflects the growing trend, supported by the U.S. State Department, for all IA to meet Hague standards. For this reason, we urge prospective adoptive parents to work with agencies which have Hague approval or agencies who are working with supervising Hague-approved agencies.

January 26, 2009. State Department Information Concerning IA from China. The State Department has sent out an advisory explaining the new procedures that have been generated by the China Center for Adoption Affairs. CCAA has proposed to the State Department to treat all international adoption cases from the United States as Hague adoption cases starting on January 1, 2009. The State Department has acceded to this request. However, this change does not affect the way any prospective adoptive parents with grandfathered I-600/A cases will proceed; these cases will be dealt with in the U.S. as non-Hague cases and Hague rules will now apply to them. But CCAA will not send all PAPs, together with their "Letter of Seeking Confirmation from the Adopter," a "Letter of Seeking Confirmation from the U.S. Central Authority." All PAPs must fill out and return the first document but the Central Authority letter is required only for PAPs using I800/A Hague forms. More information.

January 22, 2009. The State of the Union on Gay Unions. In 1996 Congress passed the federal Defense of Marriage Act which "defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman for purposes of all federal laws, and provides that states need not recognize a marriage from another state if it is between persons of the same sex." As of December 2008, 37 states have their own Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMAs). Thirty states have constitutional amendments protecting traditional marriage; three states (Arizona, California, and Florida) passed constitutional amendments in November 2008. While proponents of such legislation proclaim during campaigns these laws will only affect marriage, the legislation often has far-reaching effects on gay rights in general. More information.

January 21, 2009. Potential Adoptive Parents Beware Cont. During this time of constriction in international adoption programs, both potential adoptive parents and international adoption agencies are under great pressure. The normal reaction for PAPS and agencies is to find, begin and participate in new international adoption programs. We support any outreach effort which will bring unparented children together with permanent, loving families. However, it is essential that every member of the adoption community proceed with great caution when embarking on new programs. There are great advantages to being a "pioneer family" but commensurate risks. Agencies should be careful to explain completely to PAPs the potential pitfalls and delays consonant with any new program.

January 20, 2009. Potential Adoptive Parents Beware. In the last months an increasing number of international adoption agencies have either closed their doors or ended their international adoption programs. These agencies run the gamut-Mandela Adoption in North Carolina, a mid-sized international adoption agency, Heritage Adoption Services, a Pacific-coast based agency known widely for a well-run China waiting children program and Hope for Children, a small Christian agency, are just three of the casualties. The closing or constriction of almost every International Adoption program largely contributed to these closings as did the increasing professionalization of the adoption field, as marked by the passage and implementation of the Hague Convention on International Adoption. However, potential adoptive parents need to be aware that many other agencies could face serious financial and other difficulties. It is imperative for any family beginning an adoption to protect themselves legally against the risk of losing its chance to bring home a child because its agency is no longer in business.

January 15, 2008. Presenting the Sixth Annual Adoption and Policy Conference Schedule. On Friday, March 6, 2009 the Center for Adoption Policy, the Child Advocacy Program of Harvard Law School, and the Justice Action Center at New York Law School present: International Adoption, the United States and the Reality of the Hague System. The 2009 conference will address all aspects of international adoption to and from the United States, one year after the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption became effective in the United States. The conference will be held at New York Law School, 47 Worth Street in Tribeca, New York City. Speakers include Elizabeth Bartholet, Professor, Harvard Law School and Director, Child Advocacy Program, Harvard Law School, State Department officials William J. Bistransky, Anna Mary Coburn, and Miki Stebbing, Richard Klarberg of COA, Dr. Jane Aronson, Worldwide Orphans Foundation, Tom Difilipo, from Joint Council for International Children's Services and Kathleen Strottman, Director of the Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute. The keynote address will be given by Ambassador Jerome J. Shestack, Past President of the American Bar Association. One click registration will be available next week.

January 12, 2009. (Very Limited) International Adoption from Nepal Resumes. The Government of Nepal, through its Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, has announced that International Adoption from Nepal will resume. However, according to the State Department, "only 10 applications will be processed from each Embassy, Mission, or enlisted Agency in 2009." The MWCSW has also announced that there will be no grandfathering of families who had filed adoption applications prior to the 2007 shutdown. Moreoever, again according to the State Department, "It is not clear that the new adoption procedures will provide sufficient safeguards to ensure that intercountry adoption procedures will be transparent and will adequately protect the rights of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents." Moreover, the State Department also believes that there will be further "delays and challenges" to Nepal's IA program. More Information.

January 8, 2009. Harrison Case Roils IA From Russia. The acquittal of a Virginia father in the death of his 21-month old son, adopted from Russia three months before his death, threatens to seriously affect international adoption from Russia. Chase Harrison, originally known as Dmitry Yakolev, died after his father left him unattended in a swelteringly hot car for nine hours. The state charged Harrison with involuntary manslaughter but the judge in this case acquitted the defendant. The reaction of the Russian Foreign Ministry was swift: "We consider it to be repulsive and unprecedented, even if in this case -- unlike in others -- it was criminal negligence that led to a tragic outcome, rather than deliberate ill-treatment. The decision of a judge, who did not see the crime in Harrison's actions and released him without any penalty, goes beyond any legal and moral framework." As has happened before, Russian legislators are calling for an end to all IA to the United States. State Department officials are trying to assure Russian authorities that all steps are being taken to ensure the safety of U.S. children adopted from Russia. More Information.

January 7, 2009. 2008: The Year in Review: Difficult Times. In 2002, the year we founded the Center for Adoption Policy, there were 21,378 children (these are fiscal year numbers) adopted internationally to the United States. ICA to the U.S. peaked two years later at 22,884 and has been declining ever since. In 2008 only 17,438 children came home which represents about a 25 percent drop in four years. These tragic numbers do not even tell the whole story of the precipitous decline in ICA. Over 4,000 of the children who came home last year came from Guatemala, a country whose program is now closed. Vietnam is also closed. Adoption from Russia has declined each year while South Korea is viewing 2012 as a target year to end ICA. China's non-special needs referral time has ballooned from seven months in 2004 to almost three years now. China has also greatly restricted the number of families permitted to adopt. We believe that international adoption is a legitimate and welcome method of family creation and greatly regret the frustrating obstacles wherever we turn. Every child deserves a permanent, loving home of his or her own: that is our goal and what we will work to achieve.

January 6, 2009. 2008: The Year in Review: the Accomplishments. Last year will be remembered as the year the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption became effective in the United States. It took fifteen years for the United States to amend its laws and practice to allow adoption to be governed by an international charter. The Hague Convention's authors intended it to bring uniformity, transparency, and accountability to international adoption and we can see the positive results. This is truly a milestone in the history of international adoption. We at the Center for Adoption Policy are also proud of two accomplishments that we helped bring about. The first is that we were very active in the fight to grandfather the approximately 18,000 families who had filed I-600 applications with CIS prior to the April 1 Hague effective date. Secondly, we were part of the team that worked to have the American Bar Association pass a resolution endorsing international adoption as a legitimate method of family creation. We hope, together with other like-minded individuals and groups, to build on these successes in the coming years.

January 5, 2009. JCICS Issues Call to Action for Vietnam. The Joint Council for International Children's Services has issued a three day "Call to Action." JCICS is asking members of the adoption community to contact their representatives between today and Wednesday to do the following (as posted on the JCICS website).

1.    Contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators and ask them to sign the letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam regarding the future of intercountry adoptions from Vietnam. Also, note that if they are interested in signing, they should contact Sarada Peri from Senator Landrieu's office (Sarada_Peri@landrieu.senate.gov) by Wednesday, January 7th. For a list of Senators and Congressman that have signed the letter as of the time of this writing, please see below.

You can find your Senators' phone numbers and email address at www.senate.gov
You can find your Representatives' phone numbers and email address at www.house.gov

2.    Send a notice of support (and ensure that you receive updates on this initiative) via the Joint Council website. To finalize your message, you will need to follow the steps below.

·       Click here to go to Joint Council's Webpage

§  Please note that this is a donation and sign-up page. This initiative is not an appeal for a donation.

·       Once on this page, please click, "Sign me up for Joint Council news."

·       Under the communications preferences, select the drop down menu for "Newsflashes and Updates."

·       Click "Sign me up."

·       Fill in your information

·       Under the comment section type "Letter to Vietnam Prime Minister."

Joint Council will also be forwarding the names of individuals who contact us to Senators Landrieu and Coleman.

Click here for more Information.

Center for Adoption Policy (CAP)
168A Kirby Lane
Rye, New York 10580
(914) 925-0141