Haiti Adoption Ramifications UPDATED

“Haiti is one of the top ten donor countries in international adoption.The deterioration of living conditions carries thousands of parents to surrender their children for adoption in order to guarantee a better tomorrow. As adults, these children often want to find their parents. Most often in vain,

“In my heart, there’s like a vacuum. I do not know who I am in reality. I did not mark. I would regain my memories just to feel full “, says Katia Marie, who after 21 years of adoption in France, attempted the challenge of finding his biological parents in Haiti.

To escape the horror days without bread, his mother entrusted in 1993 to a nursery run by nuns at Port-au-Prince.In her adoption file, it is reported that his father did not want to recognize it. As 90% of children adopted in Haiti, where Katia-Marie is in the category of full adoption, which finally cut ties with the biological parents.

“I have not much information about my biological family, if not the name of my mother who was called Lorvecia Dorelice. And I know she had two other children, and Stephanie Manoucheka “

Despite the comfort of Western life, these adopted children have often unbearable gaps. They are questioning the meaning of their existence. Their skin color is different from that of the adoptive family is a factor determining their disorders. What drives them find their biological parents in Haiti.

“I do not know anything about my biological family. No information had been forwarded to the orphanage that was helping my adoptive parents in their efforts “, deplores Wilmise Anais Hamel. There are 22, she was placed in the orphanage of Our Lady of Victory in Port-au-Prince, before being adopted by a French family.
A necessary evil for Haitian families   

85% of Haitian children placed for adoption are not orphaned. Many parents because of poverty, have no choice but to put their children in foster homes. Often these poor parents do not understand too well the consequences of their act. Getting rid of the burden is both a relief from their difficult daily life and an investment in their own future.

“People entrust their children for adoption in the hope that once large, these children will relieve them of their poverty,” reveals Erick Pierre-Val, a social worker in an institution working in child protection.

According to a UNICEF report, together with the organization Terre des Hommes, over 50% of Haitian children are considered poor and more than three million of them live in difficult conditions. Many children are deprived of their families. The Institute of Social Welfare and Research (IBESR) has identified nearly 770 orphanages in Haiti now.

In 2010, after the earthquake of January 12, two thousand four hundred (2,400) Haitian children were adopted.This represents 6% of all adoptions registered in the world this year, explained the President of the United Nations Children’s Rights Committee, Jean Zermatten, after an assessment visit to Haiti in 2012.

The Haitian authorities were alerted by international organizations on the strong increase in adoption in Haiti.Many children had left the country without legal permission.

A reform to change the game  

The adoption aims to meet the needs of a child by establishing a desired affiliation by the host family. However, during the 60s in Haiti it had lost its humanitarian sense. Abuse, trafficking, a grim picture that worried many.

The following decade, 1960-1970, international adoption has been established in world manners, a set of laws was adopted to regulate this new practice. Thus, the first Haitian law on this subject was adopted February 25, 1966 .

Only 24 April 1967 that member states of the Council of Europe had opened for signature the first European Convention on adoption of children. (The Adoption, Joelle Duchet-Nespoux, Vecchi Editions, 2001). Eight years later, Haiti had to change its legislation according to global trends by the Law of 4 April 1974 because it did not meet the new principles of child protection enacted by international instruments of the time.

The various abuses suffered by children worldwide have focused the international community to mobilize the states around the issue of child protection. Thus, the new Haitian legislation on international adoption came into force November 15, 2013.

Before this period, the Haitian authorities have lost control over the system, some foreigners have the same opportunity to abduct children and try to make them cross the Haitian-Dominican border clandestinely, as was the case of American missionaries ( Paris-Match, 2010; Rudaz, 2011). [ Laura Silsby case]

Furthermore, nurseries could refuse some children with HIV-AIDS or according to their age, because they only practiced international adoption. What seemed paradoxical, since adoption is precisely to protect vulnerable children. This problem does just part of the neglect and exclusion of children with special needs in all international adoptions (Hofstetter and Freire, 2005; Piché, 2013).

In addition, some kindergartens significantly reduced visits biological parents or guardians after the placement of children (Hofstetter and Freire, 2005; Jean-Louis, 2008). International adoption in Haiti and was compared to a mercantile activity. 

According Arielle Jeanty Vildrouin, Director of the Institute of Welfare and Research (IBESR) organization responsible for the protection of children in Haiti, these reforms aim to better protect children against abuse of all kinds of adopters . “Today we can rejoice this reform on adoption in Haiti. With this reform, the adoption process has many more security “, she reassures.

Reconnection, a major problem

Very often, when entrust their children, mothers sign documents without being imbued with the contents in the case of children adopted by foreigners, the new Haitian law favors the full adoption pronounced in Haiti. This form is mandatory for Haitians in the case of an orphan or abandoned child, since de facto parentage is gone.

Simple adoption remain in force for intra-family adoption, nationally or internationally when adopters are Haitians in the diaspora.

A number of adoptions are beyond the control of the authorities. This process does not always follow the legal procedures. Foreigners returned to the country and took advantage of the bad living conditions of poor families starting with children in defiance of the legal framework. This is the case of Florida Raphael. His daughter, Carline Joseph, was adopted at the St Michel Attalaye (northern Haiti) by a Belgian family in 1980 at the age of 2 years through a Catholic priest. “They promised at 18, I could see my child. This has never been done, and I have no record, no contact with these people “, she complains.

After more than 21 years, Katia-Marie cited above, has finally found traces of his biological mother in Haiti after the broadcast of a report on Caribbean radio waves to Port-au-Prince after she launched her Research on social networks. “This is something I was hoping for so long now that it happened, I hardly find the words”, she testifies

His mother, Marie Lorvecia Dorelice, 49, lives with her four children in Cité Fort Dimanche, a poor neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Katia entrusted to an orphanage was the only option for her after her husband’s refusal to assume its responsibilities as a father, “When Katiana was born, the situation was unfortunate for me. I did not want to lose it. So I looked for a safer place to keep her alive “, she says, relieved.

While his living conditions were precarious in 1993, over twenty years later, the situation has not changed Lorvecia Marie.

Despite the disappointments and unhappy experiences caused by the illegal adoption of the post January 12, adoption remains in the eyes of the poor families of Haiti a life expectancy improved for both the child and the biological family. For its part, the adoptee often wears a severe judgment on the decision of the biological parents for having given to others. Poverty is not an argument to justify such a decision by a mother or a father.

Between 2012 and 2015, a total of 1113 children were adopted by foreign families Haiti, according to statistics of the adoption of the Institute Service Social Welfare and Research (IBESR), state agency – falling the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour. Among the 10 host country, the United States, France, Belgium and Holland arrive in first position.

Today If these adopted children, in search of information on the traces of their original parents, testify to their astonishment, the biological parents in Haiti are inconsolable. Some suffer in silence while others multiply approaches and continue to harbor the hope of one day restore contact with their offspring.

Lorvecia Katia and Maria are a rare reunion exceptions. They have been possible only through the magic of social media and the chance that an announcement on a Haitian radio was heard by a relative of Lorvecia, mother. Katia Maria was lucky. But the thousands of children likely to be in such a situation they do not have the right to refer to an institution that tell them under what conditions and by whom it was entrusted for adoption. ”

 Haiti Adoption – Cry of despair [RadioTelevision Caraibes 12/31/15 by Michel Joseph]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: a Haiti adoption alert was issued on July 21, 2016 here:
“Alert: IBESR Transition Case Update

The Department of State and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have received a list of cases from the Haitian Central Authority, L’Institut du Bien-Etre Social et de Recherches (IBESR) indicating which families and children IBESR has provisionally matched or will provisionally match as pre-Hague Adoption Convention transition cases. The families on this list filed dossiers with IBESR on or before February 15, 2016, but IBESR determined final processing steps are necessary before IBESR is able to issue an official referral. Please continue to monitor our websites for updates on Haitian adoptions. For case specific inquiries or questions about IBESR’s list, please contact USCIS at Haiti.uscis@uscis.dhs.gov.
Families on IBESR’s list will be eligible to continue as a transition case under the “orphan process” if they previously filed a Form I-600 petition or have a valid Form I-600A approval for Haiti at the time they file their Form I-600 petition with USCIS, with evidence of their IBESR referral.” However, families who have a Form I-600A approval for Haiti that has expired or will expire before they are able to file a Form I-600 petition with USCIS will not be eligible to complete the intercountry adoption process with Haiti as a transition case under the orphan process. Families in this position who still wish to adopt and immigrate a Haitian child need to file a Form I-800A, Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country, to begin the Hague Adoption Convention process. Information on adopting a child from Haiti through the Hague Adoption Convention process is available on the Department of State’s page on adopting from Haiti.
Note: For families who have already filed a Form I-800A for Haiti, please notify the USCIS National Benefits Center (NBC) at NBC.Hague@uscis.dhs.gov if you receive an official IBESR referral while your Form I-800A application is pending adjudication. “

Update 2:”Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
July 28, 2016

Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Thoren Bond will travel to Haiti July 28-August 3, to review consular operations at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince.
In Port-au-Prince, Assistant Secretary Bond will meet with representatives from numerous civil society organizations working on child welfare and family assistance programs.
Assistant Secretary Bond will host a series of meetings with representatives from the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), l’Institut du Bien-Etre Social et de Recherches (IBESR), and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), to discuss U.S. and Haitian intercountry adoption policies and practices, as well as Haiti’s activities related to adoption, family assistance, and child welfare.
For press inquiries please contact CAPRESSREQUESTS@state.gov or (202) 485-6150.
The Office of Website Management, Bureau of Public Affairs, manages this site as a portal for information from the U.S. State Department.External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein.”

Press Releases: Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs to Travel to Haiti[Newsroom America 7/28/16]

Update 3: DOS issued an alert on October 14, 2016.You can see it here.

“Delay in Passport Processing