Ethiopian Adoption Scam?

I read with interest today a story by CBS concerning a particular Ethiopian adoption in which three sisters were adopted by a family who were told they were 7, 6, and 4. They turned out to be 13, 11, and 6 and most of what they had been told was not consistent with the story the children gave them. CBS News reported that "Some American Agencies and their staff engage in highly questionable conduct". They were apparently referring to the agency cited in their story -- Christian World Adoption. I don't know anything about that particular agency, but ironically a friend of mine came home just this weekend with her Ethiopian children. She stated that the conditions they were living in were horrid and that there was mold on the walls and the orphanage was nothing more than a hut. The babies are small and under-nourished and in need of a great deal of TLC. They hadn't even been held and were in need of antibiotics and treatment for severe diaper rash.

The fact is, in third world countries where there is no Hague accreditation, there is no oversight of these orphanages or agencies there. It's true that there are American agencies who are not above board. The same can be said of anything or any profession. The bigger problem is what is going on behind the scenes in these foreign countries. Foreign facilitators are taking money from multiple U.S. agencies and are not putting it back into their facilities. They are essentially lining their pockets while the children are left to languish in conditions that you wouldn't allow your dog to live in. It's no wonder, then, that if they feel they can earn more for each placement, they may consider acquiring children in less than legitimate ways.

Some would say that no matter how the children are retrieved, they will have a much better life being adopted into foreign households where they will be treated well, fed, and clothed. But where do we draw the line? There have to be measures taken so that there is no incentive for these adoption brokers to do more and more in order to get rich, while the children suffer. I would love to go to Ethiopia and renovate an orphanage so that the children would have a clean, safe place to live while they await adoption. However, if those who run the orphanage are making thousands of dollars each week, then why aren't they improving the conditions themselves?

Hague compliant countries are on the right track, but what about the countries that are not Hague compliant? What are we going to do about that? It would be easy to say just stop all adoptions until they get everything in order, but the children would be the ones paying the price. This is a bigger problem than anyone can imagine without seeing it. I think this is one for Anderson Cooper.

It's Happening in Haiti

What can I say about the situation in Haiti? It's mind-boggling and atrocious. Looking from the perspective of a helicopter over the scene, it is rubble -- each house and building pancaked like the next. It would be a huge challenge for a community in our country to overcome. How can the Haitians, who had nothing to begin with, recover from this? Listening to the news last night, I was struck by the fact that in Port au Prince, a city of two million, even before the quake there was not even one ambulance. Perhaps this quake was a wake up call to the rest of us that, even in modern times, people are living without the very basic necessities. We have to help. We are all really one nation - the nation of humanity. I am glad to see that the powers of the world are coming together to help this island nation, but saddened that it is taking too long. During the interim, people are dying. There are people still, almost a week later, trapped alive in some of those buildings. Some are uninjured in elevators or supermarket refrigerators or bank vaults -- the only fortified portions of the buildings that collapsed. I think it might be more horrifying to live for a week without someone coming to help you than it would be to die in the initial quake. It's happening.

This could happen here. I live in California, on the ring of fire. We have earthquakes often. They are small tremors and an occasional sizable shaker, but when the San Andreas fault ruptures, we will have widespread devastation. Perhaps it won't be like Haiti because our building codes are better, but when and 8.0 hits (100 times stronger than the 7.0 that hit Haiti), building codes aren't going to matter much. This could be us. Can you imagine having a baby in the circumstances that are now going on in Haiti? It's happening.

The orphanages in Haiti were understaffed and ill-equipped to begin with. Now, there are children living in the street, sleeping in the street, with nothing to eat or drink. There are no diapers. Can you imagine two young American girls in their early 20's managing an entire orphanage and trying to care for 50 children under these circumstances. It's happening.

I want to urge everyone who reads this to write and phone and e-mail your congresspeople, representatives, and senators. Donate money if you have it, but that's not enough. We need to get the orphans out of Haiti and to a place of shelter. Whether it is for permanent adoption or just for the time being so that they will be safe and won't have to look at the dead in the streets and the dogs who are eating the corpses because they aren't being fed either. At the moment, Haiti is Hades. It's Hell on earth. Awful things that most of us can not imagine are happening. Children should not have to endure such hell. There has been some assistance and a few of the children have been given permission to leave. All adoption paperwork has been lost, but there are families waiting to take those children and love them. What is more important -- paperwork or lives? Thousands of people are being placed in mass graves and no one will ever know who they are or where some disappeared to. That paperwork will never exist. So why not get the orphans out now, with or without paperwork? That's the humanitarian thing to do. Children are dying in Haiti. Some died during the earthquake, but many will die after it without the food, shelter, and medical care that is needed. It's happening.