With Nowhere Left to Harvest, Infamous CWA Closes up Shop

 DLTDHYOYWO (Don’t Let the Door Hit You On Your Way Out)

David McCrary’s new article also touches on Adoption Ark’s closing. See whole article at  2 US Adoption Agencies Closing, Citing Woes Abroad[ABC News by David McCrary/Associated Press].

Of Course this leaves 15 Kyrgystan PAPs in the lurch.

The impressive Australian Broadcasting Company’s Ethiopia Expose on CWA’s harvesting of children from villages in Ethiopia is still available to watch here.

“”We see no other choice but to close our doors,” said Christian World Adoption, which had handled Kyrgyz adoptions, in an e-mail to the waiting families. The agency, based in Fletcher, N.C., said an array of factors, in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere abroad, had boosted its costs and cut its income to the point where it would file for bankruptcy.”

“Chuck Johnson, CEO of the National Council for Adoption,[What no mention that he sits on the Board of Directors for the agency accreditation organization COA ?Let’s see…of Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia…which of those are Hague Convention countries? Oh, that’s right, none ,but Kyrgyzstan had some bribes-for-accreditation issues] said he expected that many more agencies would be closing. Those with the best chance of persevering, he said, would be agencies with professional fundraising operations that have lessened their reliance on client fees.

For the families trying to adopt from Kyrgyzstan, most of whom have spent many thousands of dollars on their quests, the sudden shutdown of Christian World Adoption came as a shock. The families said they had received no prior warnings before getting an e-mail from the agency on Friday announcing that it was ending operations “effective immediately.”

There was no immediate response Monday to e-mails and phone messages sent to agency officials seeking further comment.

A Christian World Adoption client, Shannon Fenske of Reeseville, Wis., said she and her husband, Kevin, were dismayed by this latest of many setbacks in their quest to adopt a Kyrgyz girl they were matched with in 2008.

“They did not reach out to us beforehand to allow us time to try and make any sort of arrangements,” Fenske said of CWA. “They just dumped it on us on Friday afternoon and ran. We have no idea what the future holds or what our options are at this time.”

However, Fenske said she and her husband would not give up their efforts to adopt Kamila, who was afflicted with a severe cleft lip and palate when they were matched with her in July 2008. The Fenskes, who have four other adopted children with special needs, arranged for two operations for Kamila that improved her condition, but pain and speech problems linger.

“We are fighters,” Fenske said of how the waiting families would deal with the new setback. “This does not change the fact that our children continue to languish in institutions and that we continue to love them as much as we did yesterday.””

“Christian World Adoption, founded in 1991, said the expense of trying to cope with these [Kyrgyzstan]disruptions was among many factors that had depleted its financial resources. It also cited the Russian adoption ban, a continued U.S. freeze on adoptions from Cambodia, and longer time frames for adopting from China and Ethiopia, the two leading countries of origin for children adopted by Americans.”

“While the closure of adoption agencies can be jarring — emotionally and financially — for their active clients, there remain enough agencies to the meet the overall demand, according to Kathleen Strottman, executive director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.

“I do not anticipate that there will ever be a day when a family is looking to hire an agency and cannot find one,” she said.”[Really? You can’t picture that with all the corruption? Well dimwit, no one can hire a Kyrgyz agency right now, can they? How about all of those other countries that shut down? Oh that’s right, this is not really about the children, but the client and the you can get from the client.]

REFORM Puzzle Piece