Paperwork Issues and Program Closures in Ethiopia UPDATED

Adoption agency websites have been hinting at some recent issues spinning things to blame the US Embassy and “the process.”

West Sands Adoption website explains that on July 1, 2011 the US Embassy staff changed. It additionally states that “Since this change we are experiencing greater delay with case processing, in addition to new requirements and multiple requests for additional documentation or evidence. ”

This is in step with discussions on forums and blogs which indicate that paperwork discrepancies are delaying the issuing of visas. “Additional evidence” is the industry’s way of saying that the documentation does not meet the standard of “orphan.” The change of staff likely indicates that paperwork is being looked at more thoroughly, which is a good thing for the Ethiopia program. Since so many agencies have had paperwork issues, this also means that many current PAPs are at risk for delays or NOIDs  due to paperwork “discrepancies”.

It is not the Embassy’s fault that the paperwork has issues. It is the agency’s fault. Remember that it was the JCICS agencies that developed much of the current program and boasted about training the personnel in the orphanages. So if the paperwork is faulty, pressure should be placed on the agency to figure out why.

Holt places a different spin on the same theme for closing their application process: “As many of you are aware, there have been many changes to the adoption process in Ethiopia lately. Several orphanages have been closed, including one of Holt’s partners. There has been a slow down in the number of children referred to Holt over the last few months.

In an effort to maintain reasonable wait times for the families currently in process with Holt, we have decided to place a hold on accepting new applications. We expect this to be a temporary measure, but at this time, we are not sure how long it will be before we begin to accept new applications again. ”

CHSFS gives the same spin as Holt for closing applications for their nonspecial needs program: “Recent reports have been published about procedure and process changes to be implemented by the Ethiopian government for international adoption. Given the uncertainty of these changes and how they may affect CHSFS’ Ethiopia program, we are temporarily not accepting new applicants to this program, except for identified children on our Waiting International Child” list.

Update: This post about new closures and new agency comments needs to be read in conjunction with our July post Ethiopia Orphanage Closures and US Agency Activities in Awassa (we quote the August 3, 2011 specific DOS closure message there), with our July 19 post Ethiopia Yes Unethical Behavior Begins at the Orphanage Level , and our analyses of the the Dutch investigative piece Fruits of Ethiopia report  Background , Part One  and  Part Two . The October 7th post about 80% of dossiers are not meeting requirements found here also needs to be read in the context of these closures.

DOS issued an updated closure list on Monday October 17, 2011 that you can see here and it is pasted below:

“Notice: Confirmation of Orphanage Closures in Ethiopia

Ethiopian government officials confirmed the closure of several orphanages in the Southern Nations state due to revocation of the orphanages’ operational licenses. Each orphanage in Ethiopia receives an operational license that the Charities and Societies Administration administers and monitors to ensure compliance with Ethiopian regulations. This is an update to the previous Adoption Notice posted on August 3, 2011.

These orphanages are:

• SOS Infants Ethiopia (Arbaminch, Dila and Awassa branches)
• Gelgella Integrated Orphans (Tercha and Durame branches)
• Bethzatha Children’s Home Association (Sodo, Hosaena, Dila, Haidya, Durame, and Hawassa branches)
• Ethio Vision Development and Charities (Dila and Hawassa branches)
• Special Mission for Community Based Development (Hosaina branch)
• Enat Alem Orphanage (Awassa branch)
• Initiative Ethiopia Child and Family Support (Hawassa branch)
• Resurrection Orphanage (Hosaina branch)
• Musie Children’s Home Association (Hadiya, Hosaina, Dila, and Kenbata branches)
• Organization for Gold Age (Kucha, Dila, Hawassa branches)
• Hidota Children’s Home Association (Soto branch)
• Biruh Alem Lehisanat, Lenatochina Aregawiyan (Hosaina branch)

According to officials in the Charities and Societies Agency office, which oversees the licensing and regulation of orphanages in Ethiopia, the children in the care of those facilities have already been transferred to other orphanages.

Ethiopian officials indicate that cases involving orphaned children from these facilities which are already pending with the Federal First Instance court will continue to move forward. The Embassy in Addis Ababa is working closely with Ethiopian officials to determine if children from these facilities who had been previously referred for matches will be allowed to continue in the adoption process. Regional officials have confirmed that the affected children’s case files are currently being reviewed on a case by case basis by regional Ministry of Women’s Affairs offices.

We continue to ask prospective adoptive parents and agencies that are hearing news of specific closures to inform the Department. Please send any specific information regarding orphanage closures to AskCI@state.gov with the subject line “Ethiopia Orphanage Closures.”

Prospective and adoptive parents are encouraged to remain in contact with their adoption service provider to stay up-to-date on any information pertinent to their individual case. The Department will post any confirmation on www.adoption.state.gov as we receive it.”

The new orphanages that are now officially on the closure list are as follows:

• Haidya and Durame branches of Bethzatha Children’s Home Association
• Hawassa (aka Awassa) branch on Ethio Vision Development
• Musie Children’s Home Association (multiple spellings and related to Bethzatha)-Hadiya, Hosaina(aka Hosanna), Dila, and Kenbata branches)
• Organization for Gold Age (Kucha, Dila, Hawassa aka Awassa branches)

• Hidota Children’s Home Associatoin (Soto aka Soto branch)

• Biruh Alem Lehisanat, Lenatochina Aregawiyan (Hosaina aka Hosanna branch)

Those highlighted in red text were mentioned as possibilities in our July post Ethiopia Orphanage Closures and US Agency Activities in Awassa from bloggers who were receiving that information from their agencies .Tinsae Old Women Ministry, Orphaned and Vulnerable Children Care Organization in Hosanna is the only one of those blogger-reported orphanages that is not on the official list yet.

IAN (International Adoption Net) reports on their official blog the following letter. IAN is part of the JCICS organization. Their letter indicates that multiple agencies were part of this letter. We have yet to confirm whether that is true. If it is not true, then there is a question of why they would say this in their letter that they are sharing with their clients:

It is evident that Us Embassy has greater responsibility in ensuring the US immigration law is full enforced in the issuing of visas to adoptable children. We also feel that we all have the same purpose of finding permanent home and loving families for children with dire need.

Having this common objective the US Adoption agencies with the unreserved support they received from the US Embassy had placed more the 9000 children during the past 7 years (2004-2010)

From our understanding of the Embassy in the past we have been encouraged to share concern and bring any question to the table in order to create more understanding and cooperation.

To this end we recently had a meeting to discuss on the Embassy’s prescreening process that has been put into effect since some time now.

Here is summary of the comments forwarded by participants in our meeting we had on August 27, 2011.

1. General

· The new Embassy screening process came into perspective without enough preparation from the government side. As a result getting responses for some of the questions asked by the Embassy were not that easy.

· These include posting announcement for finding birth parents of abandoned children, information on abandoned children, information on witness which include statement, signature, occupation, and death certificates or burial letter, life history based on the new form, etc.

2. Agencies requested to do things beyond their mandate

· Agencies are requested to put public notice to find parents who abandoned their children. The truth is that Agencies are not mandated to put notice to find the parents who abandoned their child. Anyone who abandoned his or her child is simply criminal by the Ethiopian law and searching for criminal is the right reserved for the law enforcement institution which the police, not for adoption agencies.

· It took a lot of effort and time to convince the Embassy that the Ethiopian law did not recognize the parent-ship right of step fathers/mothers.

· In some cases the Embassy Adoption Unit ask Agencies to bring amended court decision, Court decision as we know is the final step and should not be amended or altered unless there is a major error committed in the approval process.

· Eg. One Agency had a court decision on a case of abandoned child. The court decree says’’ Abandoned Child” but the Embassy Adoption Unit asked the Agency to correct the court decree by saying” Child abandoned by the mother”. The unit could have seen the details from other documents attached in the Embassy paper work instead of asking the Agency to get the court decree amended.

1.3 Knowing the Context

· We believe it would be helpful to know the context to give proper judgment on adoption cases. Although it is true that the Embassy’s current practice would definitely contribute to the effort being made by the government to improve the adoption screening process it would also be important to know the country’s situation and the practices carried out at different levels in order to set relevant criteria for reviewing cases.

· Sometimes the requested additional documents are not obtainable within the law of the land. So in such situation the best way Agencies can do is provide explanation on the case and bring documentation that can be provided within the law of the land. However in most of the cases the Embassy did not seem to give attention to the explanations.

2. Document Review Process

2.1 Issue related to consistency

· Agencies have noted some inconsistencies in the document review process. This problem is further revealed when similar cases are reviewed by different Embassy staff.

· Further sometimes the Embassy’s adoption unit gives documents back to Agencies without providing enough explanation, only stating ‘’ something is missing”.

· There have been situations where cases were cleared the next day after Agencies submitted copy of announcements for abandoned cases while it takes some weeks for the Embassy to clear some other cases even after it has received copies of the announcements.

2.2 The need to give comments exhaustively and oversight in reviewing documents

· Agencies have experienced that some time comments are not given exhaustively, as a result Agencies are called by the Embassy now and then to provide additional information for the same case.

Such practice has become a cause of delay in processing the paper work at the Embassy leaving many adoptive parents to despair and frustration

· Agencies are sometimes asked to provide additional information while the same information is already available in the attached documents submitted earlier.

2.3 Conclusions not based on general practice

· Sometimes conclusions are drawn based on single or few experiences that do not represent the overall agencies’ practice in Ethiopia.

· It is true that all Agencies are not the same; it is possible that irregularities could be seen more in some Agencies than others, However it would not be correct to assume that agencies are dominantly corrupted.

2.4 Birth parent or Relinquishing Care Takers’ interview

While many of us realize that the Embassy must do its own version of investigation we feel that the Embassy needs to consider some situations when planning to interview birth parents.

· Birth parents or relinquishing care takers travel a lot, from Kebele, Woreda to Federal level, to process the paper work, coming to Embassy for interview would be additional burden for them.

· In most cases birth parents come from remote areas, from entirely different environment. The interview apparently will create some stress especially when they are persuaded to say what the Embassy staff would like to hear from them.

· Some birth parents find it difficult to travel to Addis Because of different reasons, like chronic health problem, physical disability, and older age problems etc.

In summary we would like the Embassy – Adoption Unit to consider the following

1. We believe there should be lead time between the initiation of a new procedure and the execution of the same so that we could prepare ourselves and our stakeholders who in most case are not receptive to changes, This period will also help to explore areas where the new procedures needs to be improved or changed before they are enforced.

2. Although we know it is partly the responsibility of Agencies to keep the government stakeholders informed about changes of procedures and polices it will also be helpful if the Embassy takes the initiative to create awareness on changes of procedures and policies among relevant government bodies, This will obviously help all involved in the service have informed understanding and better cooperation in their duties intended to address children with dire need.

3. We are asking the Embassy to make the interview process birth parent friendly if this tool is considered to be indispensable in the prescreening process.

4. It is our hope that the document review process would be more consistent, comments are given exhaustively at one go to save our time and all agencies are not judged based one or two specific cases.

5. We all believe we are learning agencies; we should be ready to learn from our mistakes. We are asking the Embassy to give us more time and opportunity to discuss on our issues and irregular practices before these are communicated to the government regulatory bodies.

6. We believe training should be an integral part of the pre-screening process so that we all provide the service with capacity and efficiency.

Otherwise we very much appreciate the Embassy’s effort to make sure that the adoption cases are ethically processed and children who qualify for the service get a permanent home and loving families in USA.

Thank you

US Adoption Service Providers in Ethiopia.”

Update 2: IAN gives up on 4 troubled referrals from Ajuuja according to Tuesday November 8 IAN Official Blog Post and check out the comments before they are removed.

“Update on Families Impacted by the Southern Region Standstill