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Over 2,200 children were adopted from Ethiopia this year

United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Michele Bond, expresses concern over the sharp increase in adoption from Ethiopia.

QUESTION: Which countries do you see the sharpest increase in children ready for adoption? Is it related to conflict or poverty such as Zimbabwe?

MS. BOND: Well, the – one country that I could point to that had a sharp increase this year is Ethiopia, where the numbers that – it was up about 30 percent, and let me just – the – it was just over 2,200 children who were adopted this year from Ethiopia. That is not related to conflict. By and large, conflict is not one of the issues that tends to lead to a spike in adoptions, because children may be separated from their families but haven’t necessarily permanently lost those families as a result of population movements.

So we are watching adoptions and examining the situation in Ethiopia very carefully, because it’s a very serious concern when you – if you see the number of adoptions start to increase sharply, you want to be sure that the infrastructure if that country is equipped to monitor and carefully vet every one of those cases. Rapid growth isn’t necessarily a good thing.

QUESTION: You are mentioning experiences from other continents. How is the experience here in the Western Hemisphere between Latin American countries and the U.S.?

MS. BOND: When the United States joined The Hague Convention in April 2008, that made us a Hague partner for quite a few countries which prefer to limit their adoption interchanges with fellow – to fellow Hague countries. So there are some countries where we – American are now eligible to adopt that they might not have been before. And developing those contacts and those relationships is not something, again, that happens overnight. But I think that we may see a shift in some countries of more interest in looking for homes for children in the United States if they haven’t been able to have them adopted locally.

More generally, we have Guatemala, which is a country in which new adoptions cannot begin at this point. Guatemala is a Hague country and they are working to establish Hague-compliant procedures —

QUESTION: In Mexico?

MS. BOND: Mexico is a country where there are surprisingly few adoptions to the United States, and that is – it’s surprising in the sense that we have – we share such a long border. But there is a pretty strong reluctance in Mexico to allow children to be adopted by foreign families, even Mexican American families. And so by and large, the majority of the adoptions that we see are intra-family adoptions, not adoptions by people who are unrelated to the child.

QUESTION: On Ethiopia, you’re not entirely clear what’s causing the spike of adoptions?

MS. BOND: Well, I think what’s causing the spike of adoptions is that there are, first of all, many children in the country who are homeless and/or living in institutions and need homes. And there are people who are working to try to identify those children and match them with people in the United States and in other countries who are interested in adoption. Our concern about it is that you can easily find yourself in a situation where it’s difficult to tell the difference between children who genuinely don’t have a family and those who have been documented to look like they don’t.

And unless you have the host government with – well equipped to investigate itself, to document, to lock in the identity of these children, then it can be very hard to prevent the missed documentation of children, and situations where, for example, birth parents are coerced or persuaded to relinquish their children for money or not, but – when it’s something that they wouldn’t have considered doing if someone hadn’t been pressuring them to do it. Obviously, that’s not something that we want.

QUESTION: So there are some suspicions maybe that there’s a racket going on or –

MS. BOND: It’s something that the Ethiopian Government is carefully looking at and so are we and so is every other government whose citizens are adopting there. Ukraine, as it happens, is another country where we saw a 30 percent increase in adoptions last year. In the case of Ukraine, however, that’s not – it’s not something that we see as a trend. The numbers tend to go up and down a bit. So it can be hard to know whether you’re definitely seeing a movement in one direction or the other.

QUESTION: Let me just follow on quickly, if you don’t mind, please. What we want to know clearly, not just from one particular country (inaudible), let’s say from around the globe. As far as criteria for – like it’s a conflict or poverty or what causes or brings those children for adoption basically to the U.S.? Is it the regional conflicts? You are saying (inaudible) or elsewhere, war or homeless or the parents are dying and that – I mean, what are the major causes of the adoption of people (inaudible) of people, or children coming here?

MS. BOND: All right. The question is what are the typical reasons that children are placed for inter-country adoption. And when you talk about countries around the world, including the United States, which also has children that are adopted by foreign families and leave here to go and live in a foreign country —

QUESTION: Yeah. I’m sorry, let’s say India or let’s say sometimes they say – they seek asylum. What’s the difference between asylums or other adoption for children, let’s say? Are there children also in that category or for —

MS. BOND: Okay. Let me get to that question in a moment, if I may. The reasons that children are available for adoption by foreign citizens vary in different countries. In China, typically the reason has been that there were children, little girls, who were born and placed for adoption by families who were hoping that they might have a son.

And the fact is that – there was a reference in one question to age requirements and other requirements being imposed on adopting parents – the number of children available for adoption in China has diminished. And the number of people who are interested in adopting in China is much higher than the number of children that are – that need homes. And that’s one reason that the Chinese Government imposed the changes and the requirements for adopting parents. They were simply trying to reduce the pool of all well-qualified people who were applying to adopt. They had many more than they could vet and many more than they needed.

In some other countries, the children are in care because of local poverty. But what’s important is that in some countries, children may be placed in institutions by their families because the families know that’s a place where the children will be fed and cared for and educated. And there are countries where the families then anticipate that the children will return home when they’re a little bit older, maybe 10 or 12, old enough to contribute to the family and help their parents.

And so that’s one of the things that we have to be on guard against. The fact that a child is in an orphanage and has been there for some time doesn’t make him an orphan in the sense – well, in any sense, he’s not a child who needs a home. He has a family.

I think – I hope that that’s helpful in terms of the —

QUESTION: Yeah, only about asylum, if – if you had any case of the child or somebody had asked asylum for a child rather than adoption.

MS. BOND: The question is about whether children also come into the United States as asylees, as people who are seeking asylum from our government as opposed to adoption. Getting asylum is a very different sort of process. And in order to apply for asylum, a person has to show that he is facing some sort of persecution or threat in his own country. Typically, unaccompanied children would not be likely to apply for asylum. That would be rare.

MR. TONER: We have time for just one more question.

QUESTION: Can I just ask very quickly for you to speak in a little more detail about your comment that some other countries are approaching the United States about adopting American children? Who are those countries and how many American kids are adopted overseas?

MS. BOND: Since we joined The Hague, so since April of 2008, there are 71 American children who have been adopted by foreign families. Thirty-seven of those were adopted under The Hague, so that means that they were adopted to Hague partner countries and the adoption began after April 1, 2008 – the work on it, because as you know, it takes months to complete these things. So we’re still at a stage where the majority of outgoing adoptions are non-Hague, but we anticipate that they’re going to be primarily Hague.

The typical countries – Canada, Western Europe, Australia, countries that are our Hague partners and where local adoption opportunities are very limited, they’re very – relatively few children available for adoption. To their credit, several of the governments that have approached us have said that they are particularly interested in identifying waiting children in foster care as candidates for adoption by their citizens. They are not trying to compete for healthy newborn infants.

MR. TONER: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

QUESTION: Thank you.

(The above is part of the briefing by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond on National Adoption Day on November 20, 2009. Read the full transcript here)

4 thoughts on “Over 2,200 children were adopted from Ethiopia this year

  1. Can you imagine the amount of direct money TPLF is making money by selling these children. Now add to it the cost of travel ticket, the money they spend in boarding and room, also the nick nake they are buying as a memento. Now the multiplier effect of these transaction and the amount of money TPLF is collecting.

    I am sure, now that they know their a market for these unfortunate children, the TPLF must be snatching children from the street and labeling them as orphans ready to be exported.

    That is what we got for the first time in the history of Ethiopia. Oh well, it seems it is the time we live in

  2. This is a very sad development. The number of children adopted from Ethiopia has increased dramatically over the years. Here are the figures I found on the website at http://www.tapestrybooks.com/International_Adoption/Ethiopian.asp
    :
    2002: 105
    2003: 135
    2004: 289
    2005: 441
    2006: 732
    and now
    2009: 2200

    I am sure there are many needy children and also decent parents who can’t have their own children, but the Ethiopian government does not really have the capacity to monitor the wellbeing of these children once they are ‘exported’. Many gay and lesbian couples are finding it very easy to adopt kids from Ethiopia. Eventhough it is illegal by national law to do so, lesbians and gays mainly from Western countries are managing to adopt children from Ethiopia. Adoption agencies care only about their money and the Ethiopian government is turning a blind eye too as this is a huge business. Adoption currenlty brings over USD 100 million per year for the government (please watch an Australian ABC documentary entitled ‘Fly Away Children’ at http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2686908.htm ).

    If anyone really cares for Ethiopian orphans, they should send money to support them in orphanages and boarding schools in Ethiopia; that would be the best thing to do for the orphans and that’s what matters ultimately. Sadly what is taken into account today is the interest of the adopting parents.

    There are some mentally sick adopting parents out there and who knows what kind of life the orphans will have once they join their new families? What kind of upbringing will they have if they are raised in a family with a homosexual couple? And for those of you who are homos or support them, all I have to say is you can’t have it both ways: if you decide on a homosexual life, you’ve made a choice not to have children. That’s your choice and you should suffer the consequences when you age alone … the last thing society needs is for you to brainwash an innocent kid from the third world.

    Engedih, there is nothing to be proud of over the increase of adoptions from Ethiopia; if anything there should be a lobby to change this malpractice and make sure that orphans stay in their home country hopefully with the support of everyone. Orphans are not commodities for export!

  3. There have already been a few orphanages in Ethiopia closed down due to fraud. They are selling the children and fabricating “relinquishment” papers to qualify the children / babies as “bonafide orphans”
    This always happens in poor 3rd world nations, where a few people involved in these baby / kid selling rings can make a fast buck!
    Have we not learned from Guatemala, Vietnam, Bulgaria, etc.,
    This is human trafficking at it’s worse, these poor kids have no voice no one to defend their rights. Self rightous American Adoption agencies believe they have the right to decide what is better for these children. Even the government of Ethiopia is getting bribe money for turning their heads!
    Next we will find out about baby factories, poor Ethiopian women getting pregnant just to sell of their children for $50.00 enough to feed their other children.
    What about the children in America that want a home? 1 out of 7 American children live below the poverty standards, it has gotten worse in the last 2 years!
    Yet some naive couple will spend $35,000+ and travel 5,000 miles to buy an African child when the US foster to adopt program is full of beautiful African-American children waiting for a forever family. What about your fellow American children? 150,000 are paper-ready for adoption
    http://www.adoptuskids.org photos are available

  4. Dear Concerned Ethiopian,

    Your fears about Ethiopian adoptions are understood but from my experience not very likely. Passing the inspections and exams needed for the home studies was tedious. I have a friend and have met another who could not get a clearance because of their psychological exam. Gay and lesbian couples have a lot more hurdles than this because it is difficult for many of them to show stability in their relationship.
    We adopted 3 children from Ethiopia who are siblings. I do not see that they would have been better off at home. Their mom had died and dad gave them up after abandoning them to start a new family. The oldest daughter was too old to be accepted into the orphanage and they would have been seperated. These children blended well with our 3 sons, but still maintain a uniqueness in that they are a family within a family. We plan to send our older daughter (17) back to Ethiopia next summer to work in the orphanage and refresh her Amharic.

    As adopted parents we will see that they obtain at least a 12th grade education and encourage college. The children participate in choir in church. They have been all over the world including living in Korea and Hawaii, yet we still keep in touch with the pastor’s family who kept them for 4 years and help support their mission school. There is hope and God has a plan.
    We are so thankful that Ethiopia encourages sibling adoption I thnk because of this that Ethiopia’s heritage is rich and is being miraculously preserved.

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