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.

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!

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