Mirror of Justice

International Adoption Agencies – Dealing When Dreams of Adoption Are Fading

July 15th, 2009 at 12:18pm Under Adoption Law

It had been three long years for both Karen and David Richards. They had been waiting to bring home a young Romanian girl to adopt. They had kept a photograph of Larissa on the side of their refrigerator only to be told at the last minute by their International Adoption Agency that she had been adopted and placed with a Romanian Family
The Richards’s are one of three families in New Hampshire and more than 100 in the United States that have been stuck in the middle of a complex political situation involving Romania, the European Union and the United States.
During the course of the families’ wait, Romania has continually tightened its policies on international adoptions in an effort to get into the European Union. It now looks as if more families may end up with news like the Richards’s
“Sometimes even with the help of the right International Adoption Agency, Overseas Adoptions don’t always end as well as some people hope”
For another family, the Cohn’s of Milford, the situation was just as bad. “For the first year and a half, we were very anxious,” said Julie Ann Cohn, who filled out her application in 2002 and was matched with a Romanian girl named Katherina in early 2003. “And now for us, it’s more like it’s sad. I feel like we’ve been in limbo for more than three years just hoping and praying, but we just don’t really know what’s going to happen. We’re waiting for a positive outcome.”
The situation in Romania was exacerbated by the fall of Romania’s Communist government in 1989, international attention was focused on the country’s thousands of orphans, many of whom lived in understaffed, state-run orphanages. Romania began offering abandoned children for international adoption in 1990, and many U.S. parents adopted them. But reports of corruption over the years led to a series of temporary bans. Such a moratorium was in place when a family such as the Richards’s applied to adopt.
The International Adoption Agency that took the families’ money and submitted their applications knew that there was a chance the applications wouldn’t go through. But when all of the families received case numbers, names and photographs of the children they would adopt, they assumed that their applications had met the conditions.
The agency based in Windham provides humanitarian aid in Romania and helped the New Hampshire families find children to adopt. The Director said that people familiar with Romanian politics did not take the ban too seriously at the time.
“If the moratorium is absolutely in effect, then Romanian officials would not be assigning children, but they did,” they said. “In many years Romania had rules, laws and regulations, but the sad thing is that in a country that’s recovering from Communism, everyone put their own interpretation into what was law.”
Once families had seen a face and heard a name, it became harder for them to consider that the adoptions might not go through.
In January 2003, Romania enacted a permanent ban on international adoptions, after the EU indicated that such a law would be a requirement for the country’s ascension.
The Romanian Prime Minister said that all of the pipeline cases would be placed with Romanian families, according to the U.S. State Department and Romanian press accounts. But last week, the European Union passed a resolution with an amendment recommending that the country place the pipeline cases with foreign adoptive families.
The outcome isn’t clear. Edgar Vasquez, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said it’s difficult to predict what will happen to the adoptive families.
“Of course we hope,” he said. “We’re deeply concerned.”
Julie Ann Cohn said that the recent news from Romania may mean the end of her wait.
“Once we know for sure that it’s a no, absolutely set in stone, then we’ll likely proceed to a different country,” she said. “When I think my heart is ready for it.”
Kathleen Richard said that she was relieved to hear that Larissa had found a loving family, even if it wasn’t her own.
“I’m thankful that she finally has a family, because if she can’t be with us, I wanted her to have a family,” she said. “That’s what I was praying for. For me, it was just like a Christmas gift for her.”

International Adoption – the Children of Guatemala

July 15th, 2009 at 12:18am Under Adoption Law

In the world of International Adoption, Guatemala is one of the most popular and least regulated Countries. Last year there were estimated to have been 1,500 Guatemalan Children and Babies who have started fresh lives abroad, but the spectre of Illegal Adoptions have haunted Guatemala for years. Stories have emerged of mothers being forced to give up their new born children and of a booming private adoption business that has now grown almost into a multi million pound industry.
One of the key questions to look into is, are illegal adoptions taking place and if so how widespread is the practice? Finally, what is in the best interests of the Children of Guatemala?
“With Overseas adoption, what is in the best interests of the children of Guatemala?”
Whilst organisations, such as UNICEF, do not claim that all of the overseas adoptions coming out of Guatemala are illegal or abusive, a new report issued from the organisation does highlight the increasing problem of child trafficking.
“Overseas adoption arose directly out of Guatemala’s harrowing history.”
Overseas Adoptions and International adoption arose directly out of Guatemala’s harrowing history. The 36 year civil war which ended officially only four years ago left nearly a quarter of a million dead or disappeared and one million homeless, half of them children.
Elizabeth Gibbons is the director of UNICEF, and a leading critic of adoption as practised in Guatemala:
‘Many, many orphaned children were taken into adoption by military officers sent into international adoption. Originally a humanitarian activity, but it became obvious that it had the potential for being a lucrative business. And the higher demand in the West the more birth control, more access to abortion so you have the problem of a huge demand, therefore a supply must be created.’
In recent years there has been a tightening up of controls in many of the major embassies and the UK, US and Canadian embassies now carry out DNA tests of both the birth mother and the baby to check out that the woman giving the baby up for adoption is the real birth mother.
‘The existence of DNA doesn’t in any way tell you whether the mother is willingly giving up the child or whether she is being coerced. The second concern is that the children who pass the DNA test are not the same ones who go with the adopting parents on the plane, they could be switched. And thirdly, that the child who is rejected for having a negative DNA result by one of three embassies that offer this test, can then be offered to another embassy with parents of a another nationality.’
‘No one respects the law or the state; everybody just does their own thing. And it’s the same with adoptions’
So with all of this abuse of the system going on, why hasn’t the government of Guatemala done anything to stop it. The general consensus is that Guatemala is in chaos with the country, now a fledgling democracy, only just emerging from under the shadows of years of Military rule
Guatemala is a difficult place from which to operate from and it is very hard to know who is in charge of what. There doesn’t appear to be a Minister in charge of Social Affairs and Adoption is very much bottom rung on the ladder.
The Chair of the Commission on the Child and the Family in the Guatemalan Parliament is Nineth Montenegro who is a vigorous critic of her own system and is campaigning to pass the “The Children’s Code” to protect the rights of the Child in Guatemala explains:
‘We’ve been working on it for three years now and parliament still hasn’t passed it. They say, if we try to regulate adoption in this way we will deny children better opportunities in wealthier countries. There has been terrible resistance to the new law. You know Guatemala is a democracy only in name, not a real democracy.
No one respects the law or the state; everybody just does their own thing. And it’s the same with adoptions.’
Part Two of this article will deal with the fun and games (euphemism for hassle) of dealing with Lawyers and Orphanages

Texas Adoption

July 13th, 2009 at 12:18pm Under Adoption Law

If you are looking for a Texas adoption agency, then get to Adopt Legal. Our agency was established on the 1st of January, 1994. Our agency has grown into a multi-faceted organization, and offers a variety of different services to birth mothers, as well as to people trying to expand their families through either adoption or assisted reproduction. We have successfully completed thousands of adoptions throughout the years in and around Texas and throughout the rest of the country. We’ve helped hundreds of patients in assisted reproduction, as well.

If you are looking for a Texas adoption agency in order to adopt a child, place a child with an adoptive family, donate eggs, or to engage in a surrogacy arrangement, then we are definitely the right place for you. We know that you will be faced with a lot of legal, financial, as well as ethical decisions, and we are here to assist you in all of these aspects. Any of the decisions you are here to take are very overwhelming and, thus, we do everything in our power to make this process a lot easier for you.

This Texas adoption agency is dedicated to making this journey a successful one for you. We try to make it as easy as we possibly can in order for it to be less overwhelming. We will handle all the legal aspects of both adoption and assisted reproduction cases. All the services that we offer are of the best quality and offered by trained professionals. We also offer counseling to birth mothers, which is greatly needed. We offer this crucial counseling to adoptive parents, surrogates, donors, intended parents, and recipient parents.

Our Texas adoption agency takes pride in looking out for your best interests, and this is exactly why we charge you a lot less than any of our competitors for these great services. Our services are truly the best quality at the very best prices, and this is exactly why we have such a great reputation. We hope we will be able to assist you with your needs. Our team of staff is highly skilled and well-trained to offer you the very best services. We will guide you through this process step-by-step to ensure that you feel comfortable.

Our attorney here at Little Flower deals with all our Texas adoption cases. His name is David Cole, and he specializes in cases regarding adoption, as well as reproduction. Mr. Cole is an active member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. In 1995, he received the American Bar Association Child Advocacy Award. He graduated from Pepperdine School of Law in Malibu, California. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Law at the University of Texas. He has many years of experience in this field of work.

So, for the very best Texas adoption agency, get to Little Flower. We will go to any length to make this process as convenient as possible for you.

Little Flower Adoption is your source for information on Birthmother Seeking Families and any other Unplanned Pregnancy Options related questions you might have.

International Adoption: Unicef’s and Other Critics’ War Against International Adoption

July 12th, 2009 at 12:18pm Under Adoption Law

UNICEF has been waging war against international adoption for many years contrary to popular understanding.  It’s a war with results that fall far short of real time solutions to the spoils of its victories.  UNICEF’s premise that parents in underdeveloped countries should be provided the means to keep their children is not arguable.  Neither is UNICEF’s stance that international adoption should only be a last resort.

However, UNICEF’s tough and effective pressure tactics and  lobbying efforts towards developing nations calling for ratification of the Hague Treaty for the Protection of Children and implementation of adoption law and policy models which effectively serve to close programs completely or almost completely to foreign adopters belies a misguided, unrealistic and out of touch policy contrary to the best interests of hundreds of thousands of legitimately orphaned and abandoned children around the world. These efforts have resulted in the semi or complete closure of adoptions around the world in such countries as Guatemala, Bulgaria, Paraguay, and Romania to mention just a few examples. Let’s take the example of Guatemala.  After intense pressure from UNICEF, Guatemala finally closed its doors to international adoption on December 31, 2008.  Prior to that time, foreign nationals adopted approximately 5,000 Guatemalan children per year.   Oscar Avila, “Guatemala Seeks Domestic Fix to Troubled Overseas Adoptions,” Chicago Tribune, October 26, 2008 indicated that “Guatemala has launched an ambitious campaign to recruit foster parents and even adoptive parents at home.”  So far, the program is failing miserably.  Avila reports, “Only about 45 families in a nation of 13 million currently have taken in foster children since the program began this year.”

The approach that Guatemala is taking by attempting to gain domestic attention to the problem is certainly meritorius; however, this approach could and should have been implemented concomitant with an international program which would ensure that thousands of children will find homes rather than waste away in institutions that are often underfunded, understaffed and unable to provide for the needs of these children.

One of the main criticisms of the Guatemalan adoption program prior to its closure was that it was in the hands of private attorneys who depended on sometimes unscrupulous middlemen to procure birthmothers wanting to give up their children and perhaps those not wanting to give up their children.  Of course this depiction glosses over the nature of how this practice developed in remote villages in Guatemala, far from the lawyers in Guatemala City who could arrange adoptions by foreign nationals.  It was a practical way to connect birthmothers, who were seeking adoption as an option to their usually dire circumstances, to attorneys who could then take the children into custody through the use of foster homes and then place the children with families abroad through adoption proceedings.  It is interesting to note that neither UNICEF nor the Guatemalan government could see that there could be a middle ground to solving the problem of unscrupulous middlemen who were supposedly forcing these women to give up their children, paying the women as an inducement, or even, as many reports claimed, kidnapping these children for adoption.  Many of these reports glossed over the fact that birth mothers had to relinquish their child to an attorney advising her of her rights, undergo an interview with the Family Court, DNA testing of the birth mother and child, review by the Guatemalan Solicitor General’s office, and once again, the birth mother’s consent to the adoption after the Solicitor General’s approval.  The Embassies regularly interviewed birth mothers and conducted investigations at random or of cases that appeared questionable.   During the last year of adoptions in Guatemala, a 2nd DNA test was required at the end of the process based on accusations of child switching with unimpressive findings to back up these wanton allegations. 

Avila’s report indicates that the Guatemalan Department of Social Welfare has now created satellite offices all over the country in an attempt to increase its pool of families interested in fostering or adopting these children.  Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of reform that many adoption attorneys called for which would remove involvement by middlemen but allow attorneys to work with the Department of Social Welfare in concert with its ongoing program to promote foster care and adoption domestically.  UNICEF would not come to the table nor would the Guatemalan government which was eager to completely shut the door on international adoption in response to UNICEF’s strong and effective lobbying efforts.

Another example of misguided criticism regarding international adoption is in Malawi, where the infamous Madonna adoption took place.  Malawi is a country of 13 million and approximately 1 million are orphans half of which are “AIDS orphans”. Solutions are slow in coming in a nation beset by an AIDS epidemic infecting almost one fouth of its population.   These orphaned children deserve a chance at having permanent homes and families.  International adoption is not a perfect solution to the problem in Malawi and so many other nations of Africa but it saves lives, gives children a chance, one adoption at a time.

Of course, most would agree that international adoption should not be the sole answer to poverty faced by nations around the world.  No rational person would think so.  International adoption should be seen as a stopgap emergency measure taken while the United Nations, human rights groups, humanitarian organizations and the governments of these underdeveloped countries seek answers to the abject poverty, high birth rates, AIDS epidemic, malnutrition, lack of education, lack of women’s rights, and massive unemployment which lead to parents making these hard decisions about the future of their offspring.  International adoption is one temporary cog in the wheel.  UNICEF and other detractors and critics of international adoption have continually failed to recognize the vital emergency role of international adoption and how compromise and middle ground solutions could serve the orphaned and abandoned children.

International Adoption – Reasons For Its Popularity Among North Americans

July 11th, 2009 at 06:19am Under Adoption Law

, there may be legal complications as well as state and provincial adoption law matters as well as foreign immigration laws to deal with effectively, which gets further complicated with additional issues like language differences and cultural aspects that also need to be considered in order to make the adoption a successful one. Due to these reasons, an International adoption process comes with added tension for some and fees for this type of adoption process may be quite high, including travel overseas.
Even though babies are aplenty in countries like China, Columbia, Russia, Romania, Vietnam and Korea and thus, the waiting period considerably less for American and Canadian couples looking to adopt, the legal processes are different from those in their native countries and require many expenses such as hiring a suitable and expert foreign adoption agency, going through pre- and post-adoptive formalities, clarify the age-group, sex, race and health conditions for their preferred adoptive child. This freedom is curtailed a bit in China as most children given up for adoption are girls but, other countries do allow prospective parents to select a child based on a series of photographs after going through various applications an agency or the central registry of the child’s country of origin that has these records.
However, these are not the only concerns involving an International adoption: among the major drawbacks a couple considering foreign adoption are the series of cumulative expenses on their shoulders. Fees for foreign adoption range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand dollars and since adoptive parents are requried to bear legal as well as administrative costs, just attending to the costs of translating documents, using the services fo a notary, travel and living besides medical needs brings the expenses up considerably. All of these costs depend on how much time is spent in the foreign country finding a child to adopt and these figures may differ, based on this factor.
But, all is not lost for those couples looking at foreign adoptions and willing to learn about a different culture while using their valid passports to build their family; getting a child is quicker through International adoption as many children may be abandoned or brought up in orphanage that the hurdle of a birth mother backing out on her decision doesn’t exist. Besides, there are children available for adoption at all times and the rules and eligibility criteria for American couples is easier overseas than it is in North America.
Once, couples have armed themselves with proper, updated information and laws regarding International adoption and have the time and finances resources to travel and stay overseas for finding their adoptive child, cutting through the red tapism, language barriers and eliminating the fraudulent intercessors comes naturally if they keep their eyes and ears open to these existing challenges.

Child Adoption With Gay and Lesbian Couples

July 10th, 2009 at 06:18am Under Adoption Law

Family Law can be involved in your professional career as homosexual. The labor law or business law power is to consider in employment process. Sometime, if you work aboard america, few immigration law can help you to solve conflict in multicultural context.The legal and social situation in child adoption with gay and lesbian couples is an actual issue.The legal and social situation:Several ways offered to the homosexual couples, for which carnal filiation is impossible, in order to create a bond of filiation :The recourse to the procreation medicaly assisted with third donor for the women, but this practice is not authorized by the French laws in current state of the right (Law bioethics of July 94 which does not give access to these techniques qu’to the couples heterosexuals). However, the laws Dutch and Belgian makes it possible to the women alone to resort to the LDCS, certain women French thus will be made inséminer in the Netherlands or in Belgium, which gave the name children of Thalys for these children.Conventions of surrogate mother are prohibited in France (Stop of the Supreme court of appeal, 1995), however certain assimilable cases arised :a man engaged in a homosexual relation has a child with a woman who did not recognize this one with the birth, child is thus raised by his biological father and the companion of this one.two members of two homosexual couples (a male couple and a female couple) have a baby recognized by his father and his mother and raised by them in the two distinct relations.adoption whose finality is to offer to a child without family a family framework considered to be more favorable to its development than the institutions reception.In France one estimates at 100 000 the number of homosexual families of which a hundred per annum results from adoption by a homosexual single person. rest of the article at : CHILD ADOPTION LAW AND GAY COUPLES