Adoption Industry Propaganda Article

Another article requires some serious debunking….

This is the third  article in a trilogy of  adoption industry propaganda. Int’l Adoptions Part 3: Is the US State Dept. Opposed to Inter-Country Adoption? [Christian Post 2/18/12 by Napp Nazworth]

Our comments in red.

“In 2004, Americans adopted 22,991 orphans from other countries. That number has steadily declined to only 9,319 in 2011, according to State Department records. This decline is happening due to a set of complicated factors based partly upon different views regarding what is best for an orphaned child.”

[This is #1. No, it is not complicated. It is called corruption and trafficking. The views are only “different” if you refuse to accept the truth about the adoption industry.]

“The Christian Post spoke to several international adoption experts to understand why the decline is taking place, and why adoptive parents have recently run into difficulties with the State Department when trying to bring their children home.”

[This is #2. No, you didn’t. You spoke to agency shills. You only spoke to people that lobby for more adoptions or who make money from adoption.]

“Part one of this series was about Becky Morlock, a missionary in India who has been living there for four years because she has been unable to get a visa from the U.S. State Department to bring her child home. ”

“Part two followed the Carrolls, Gerigs and Reeveses as they struggled with alleged falsified information and witness badgering from State Department officials when they were getting visas to bring their adopted children home from Ethiopia.”

[This is #3. Ethiopia’s blame can be squarely placed at the foot of the adoption agencies, orphanages, and corrupt Ethiopian officials. There is ample documentation of falsified paperwork. How else would USE figure out what is falsified from truth unless they undertake detailed investigations?]

“It’s an enormous collapse of a really valid service to children. It didn’t just happen by accident. There’s a reason that this all happened,” Tom DiFilipo, president and CEO of Joint Council on International Children’s Services, said in a Jan. 19 interview with The Christian Post.”

[Yes, Tom, the reason is that YOUR JCICS is the organization that put the whole Ethiopia process in motion. JCICS LITERALLY WROTE THE RULES! See our post regarding 2008 activities here  That it is so corrupt is the fault of you, Tom! As a side note, that post also shows the partnering of JCICS with the Christian Alliance for Orphans and other influences they have.]

“Which is a priority: a child’s need for a loving family or a child’s race and ethnicity? How one answers this question drives some of the disputes over inter-country adoptions, according to Jedd Medefind, president of Christian Alliance for Orphans and former head of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the George W. Bush administration, in a Feb. 2 interview with The Christian Post.”

[Strawman alert! Jedd loves to deflect from the corruption and coercion issue.]

“Both internationally, as well as domestically in the U.S., there have been fierce debates over which is more important, a child’s ethnic background, or their need for a family,” Medefind said.”

[This is #4. There has not been ANY debate about this when it comes to Ethiopia. This is a total fabrication. The debate has ALWAYS been about corruption. Fly Away Children, ACT’s report…all about trafficking and coercion.]

“For those who place a high priority on keeping an orphan close to their country of origin and with families who share their race and ethnicity, an international adoption is a low priority.”

[And your point is? Ethiopia process is a cesspool. It is difficult to wade through it and THAT is why there are delays.]

“Most everyone is, theoretically, supportive of inter-country adoption,” Medefind explained. “Some just place it as such a last resort that it effectively never would happen.”
[This is #5. Your agencies are filling orders for young children. You know that there are NOT 5 million children in orphanages in Ethiopia and that most children who are adoptable are either older or disabled. YOUR agencies continue the problems by being concerned more about cash flow (by signing up as many PAPs as you can) than assessing WHICH children really need homes (older and disabled).]

“Though a diversity of opinions can be found, the United Nations and UNICEF, the U.N.’s program to help children, tend to be biased toward placing race and ethnicity at a higher priority than a family, according to Medefind.”

[This is #6. You know full well that UNICEF is not behind the issues in Ethiopia.]

“The U.N. is an important player in international adoptions due to the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption, which was designed to facilitate inter-country adoption and help ensure that every inter-country adoption is done ethically and in the best interest of the child.”

[This is #7. Actually, US adoption industry personnel who used to be part of JCICS helped write the weak Hague requirements. They were written to protect the PROCESS, not the children.]

“In every country where the Hague has been implemented, however, inter-country adoptions have declined, according to attorney Kelly Ensslin in a Jan. 10 interview with The Christian Post.”

[Yes of course they have as MORE children are being placed domestically and deinstitutionalization is occurring. That is a GOOD thing unless your goal is to proselytize, traffic in children, and defend corrupt adoption agencies. ]

“Ensslin specializes in representing parents in international adoption cases and was hired by the Carrolls, Gerigs and Reeveses. She first got involved with inter-country adoption cases when she adopted a child from Vietnam four years ago and also ran into difficulties with the State Department.”

“I’m a trial lawyer. I used to just fight about money. When my own kid got stuck, I realized there were not very many people in the country who could help me get her out. So, I had to figure out, on my own, how to fight the system, and when the system is your own government, it’s damn crazy,” Ensslin said.

Ensslin represented 25 families who had adopted children in Nepal in 2010 and is currently representing close to 20 families who adopted children in Ethiopia.”

[Since Ensslin worked in Nepal, she is fully aware of just how dirty that country is, and how much trafficking really went on. Too bad she chose the wrong side to represent. When are you going to come clean about how many bribes make the adoptions in Nepal go ‘round, huh, Kelly? And maybe then you can discuss why Vietnam shut down too.]

“The U.S. State Department appears to take the position that all inter-country adoptions should, eventually, be done through the Hague Convention. Susan Jacobs was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the newly created Special Adviser for Children’s Issues in 2010. The Christian Post contacted her to get the State Department’s view on these issues, but she has not returned our call.”

[Did you try calling again? Or emailing? Or working a different source which is what a competent journalist would do? Maybe she would rather not be part of your propaganda piece. We don’t blame her. How stupid is it that the US is party to the Hague yet 71% of FY2011 adoptions were non-Hague? Seriously, what is the point if most adoptions are not going to follow it?]

“A press release announcing Jacobs’ appointment stated, “Secretary Clinton has created this new foreign policy position to address inter-country adoption and international parental child abduction.”

Concerns over child trafficking, or child abduction, could also be driving some of the State Department’s greater scrutiny of international adoptions. There was a case where a couple in Missouri had adopted a child from Guatemala in 2008. Three years later, the child’s birth mother claimed the child was stolen from her and went to court to get her child back.”

[This is #8. “Could be” driving it? How low are you going to stoop? And why hasn’t Anyeli been placed back with her victim-parents in Guatemala?]

“All three experts that The Christian Post interviewed believe, however, that concerns over child trafficking are overblown.”

[This is #9. You did not interview three experts. You interviewed THREE AGENCY SHILLS who make money from adoptions, period.]

“The claims of child trafficking are definitely not rooted in fact,” Medefind said.”

[This is #9, and the worst one yet. Medefind clearly does not have a clue. All he has to do is hit the Google button and he will find page after page of links to hard facts and documentation about countless cases of trafficking.  ]

“The Christian Post also spoke with a source in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) who confirmed that fraudulent adoptions are very rare.”

[Name your source, you hypocrite. USE checks paperwork. They don’t confirm ethical or unethical adoptions. It is coercion that is the concern and USE has let SCORES of falsified paperwork through. How do we know this? Because ADOPTEES end up telling their APs their true stories that—guess what!– DO NOT MATCH THE PAPERWORK! That means their paperwork was deliberately falsified = trafficking = corruption = exploitation of children.]

“There are so many truly orphaned children around the world that a potential child trafficker would have little to gain financially by stealing or paying for children. Those involved in adoptions still need to remain diligent, though, to avoid the possibility of child trafficking, Medefind believes.”

[This is #10. You are hoping that the reader believes your inflated orphan numbers and that they believe that orphans live in orphanages. Most DON’T. MOST Single and double orphans live with their surviving parent or extended family or in their community.  Furthermore, street children -a big issue in many countries (again these are not infants) are usually not available for international adoption. They usually have extended families and there needs to be some process established by the foreign government. Just because one of your agencies sees the child, does not mean that your agency has “dibs” on the child’s future.

Orphanages mostly have older or disabled children in them. Most PAPs want YOUNG kids so traffickers DO have reason to steal those young children or coerce poor families to make money. They ALSO steal older kids and prostitute them making the first wave of money and THEN sell them to orphanages to make a SECOND wave of money off of the SAME CHILD! The traffickers for adoption and sex trafficking ARE THE SAME!!!]

“Poverty, in some cases, is so severe that the promise of a certain amount of money could lure a parent who is on the edge of survival to give up one of their children in exchange for money.”

The most difficult adoptions do not have anything to do with fears of child trafficking. Rather, they have to do with figuring out what is in the best interest of the child when the mother is in a desperate situation.”

[This again is where a conflict of interest occurs when the adoption agency is the one offering family preservation.]

“The place where the hardest ethical decisions are made,” Medefind explained, “are when there is a parent, who is still alive, that potentially could still care for this child, but that parent has chosen to give the child up. And the decision of whether to accept that child for adoption or to force the birth parent to keep the child, and to do all you can in supporting them in that, can be a very difficult decision.”

While DiFilipo, Ensslin and Medefind all support the concept of a properly functioning Hague Convention, they all agree that is has not worked in practice.

DiFilipo put it this way: “A good law that can’t be implemented is a bad law.”

[And bad people in your industry cause lifelong devastation for many impoverished families!]

“One of the issues with the Hague Convention is that many developing countries do not have the resources to implement it. The Hague Convention requires a plethora of documentation to prove that a child is an orphan before she can be adopted.

“One of the complaints in Ethiopian cases,” Ensslin said, “is that the police don’t adequately document their investigation into abandoned infants. Well, you go to these police stations and they are essentially lean-to sheds with a desk and a cot and 64 officers. No computers, no filing cabinets. What would we have them do?”

The issue then becomes, how much should be demanded to ensure that a child is an orphan before allowing them to be adopted? The more that is demanded, the more orphans there will be without a chance to be adopted by a loving family. The less that is demanded, the more the possibility that children could be adopted for whom adoption is not the best option.

The U.N. and UNICEF also tend to be biased toward making inter-country adoptions more rare, Medefind believes, because officials at these agencies generally believe that orphans are better served by reducing poverty and government corruption than by inter-country adoption. The two approaches to caring for orphans do not need to be exclusive, however.”

[Why should ANY country want to get rid of ANY healthy child who could make a difference in the future for their country?]

“Many in the foreign aid world see a zero-sum game between a focus on investing in programs and an openness to inter-country adoption. It doesn’t need to be that way,” Medefind said.”

[Why do you think foreign aid should come AFTER adoption?]
“The recent events in Ethiopia and elsewhere suggest that the U.S. State Department may also share a bias against inter-country adoption.

“What you’re seeing is a clear position by the U.S. government,” DiFilipo said. “There is a strong preference for international adoptions to be completed through the Hague Convention. And, countries that are not party to the Convention, you’re seeing a lot of push, and a lot of criticism, and a lot of accusations about corruption and poor practice.”

[Wonder why, Tom? It’s because you continue to defend the indefensible. The agency members of the JCICS are plagued with grotesquely inhumane  and overpayed directors and employees. They cloak their lies in “Christian values” and “only in it for the children.” ]

“Ethiopia decided this past October, just a few weeks before the backlog in adoptions occurred at the U.S. embassy in Ethiopia, that it would not sign onto the Hague Convention.

Governments and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) also tend to favor solutions that can be delivered on a mass scale, such as food aid and rooting out corruption in government.

“Adoption cannot be delivered by governments, so, those seeking to solve problems through large scale programs naturally would emphasize the types of solutions that they are best at delivering,” Medefind explained.”

[How stupid! Every Hague country delivers adoption by government. Many did so PRIOR to Hague-all the ones with centralized systems did so. WHY do you think adoption is the solution for poverty?]

“Domestic politics can also be a source of reductions in the number of adoptions, according to Medefind. A party out of power may criticize a party in power by pointing to the number of adopted children leaving the country as evidence that the government is not working well. The party in power may respond to the criticism by reducing the number of inter-country adoptions.

The USCIS official said there are no current plans or discussion of plans to stop inter-country adoptions from Ethiopia. They also said that they were working closely with officials at the U.S. embassy in Ethiopia to alleviate some of the problems the embassy had processing the adoptions, and they are satisfied with the progress made thus far. The Christian Post also discovered from a congressional source that a meeting was planned for mid-February among the State Department, USCIS and members of Congress or their staff to work out some of the difficulties in the inter-country adoption process.”

[This is #11. Oh give us a break! The Christian Alliance for Orphans spilled the beans in their blog post when they promoted their faux survey, claiming it was “official”!]

“In the Ethiopian cases investigated by The Christian Post, the problems that the Carrolls, Gerigs and Reeveses faced were not simply a matter of the embassy being more diligent or applying greater scrutiny. They were problems that could only have been created by either incompetence or an intentional desire to reduce adoptions.”
[This is #12. What kind of “investigation” did you do? Talk to a couple of agencies who are subjects of exposes on coercion, and then the JCICS? Come clean with your sources and name them. Any incompetence is on the part of the adoption agency. The ones that the PAPs paid $30K to!]

“What we’re finding, in every [Ethiopian adoption] case,” Ensslin said, “is that the children are orphans. The indicators of fraud are nonexistent and are really the product of sloppy work, at best, by the embassy.”

[This is #13. Sloppy work? PAPs have been complaining for years about sloppy work by their agencies. One orphanage used a template with the same relinquishment information for each kid. See ACT report analysis here]

“DiFilipo offered suggestions for improving inter-country adoptions out of Ethiopia and making the Hague Convention more workable.”
[Tom ALREADY wrote the messed-up regulations in Ethiopia. WHY should he do the re-write?!? The only thing that you want workable in the Hague is to make it easier for your agencies to make money. It has nothing to do with protection.]
“The U.S. embassy in Ethiopia should have more resources to deal with the number of inter-country adoptions from that nation. Plus, the embassy should have a USCIS officer on site to help process the visa applications.”

[Why? Is the Embassy in the adoption business? The industry should have to fund that if they want more help—the problems are from the adoption agencies’ incompetence, fraud and corruption. Why should taxpayers fund a no-limit adoption business for your buddies?]
“Also, if a developing country is encouraged to sign onto the Hague Convention, there should be resources offered to help that nation implement the convention so that there is not a sudden drop in adoptions.”

[Why? Actually, a country should NEVER be open for international adoption until an ethical, centralized process is in place. In the meantime, a lot of aid and training should be given to the country. But, you see, THAT would be money OUT of the industry’s pocket and they want money IN their pockets.]

“Partnerships must be brought to bear. Resources must be brought to bear. Not just encouragement. Not just criticism. There needs to be partnerships and financial assistance,” DiFilipo said.”

[Why should a foreign government partner with people making money off of their (mostly healthy) children?]

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