Review Nepal Online News reports that the government of Nepal is further revamping its intercountry adoption regulations after reforms approved just two months ago failed to reassure Western countries of the adoption program's integrity. US Ambassador for Children's Issues Susan Jacobs visited the country earlier this month, and it was widely reported that she was "not impressed" with the changes.
According to the political afffairs journal Republica:
The government, in the wake up of widespread questions over the adoption system, amended adoption-related provisions, making it mandatory for any children´s home, orphanage or children´s organization facilitating inter-country adoption to submit details about each orphan child to a Probe and Recommendation Committee (PRC) within seven days and to a Family Selection Committee (FSC) under MWCSW within 14 days after the concerned district administration office (DAO) verifies that the child in question is an ´orphan´ or a ´destitute´ seeking foster parents.
In addition, MWCSW has also made it necessary for the children´s home, orphanage or children´s organization to have been engaged for a minimum of six years in the field of child welfare to be eligible for facilitating inter-country adoptions.
The amendment has also provisioned to ´delist´ from its roaster of organizations eligible for inter-country adoption any children´s organization found involved in fraudulent practices. Once ´delisted´, such organizations will be barred from facilitating inter-country adoptions for the next five years...
Western countries have suspended adoptions from Nepal as investigations by The Hague Conference on Private International Law, an inter-governmental organization based in Holland, last February found the adoption system marred by widespread abuses...
“The U.S. suspension on new adoption cases involving abandoned children will remain in place until substantive progress is made on the issues raised by a February 2010 Hague Convention report,” the US embassy spokesperson further said in a statement to Republica.
The report had called on the government to overhaul the adoption system and even enact legislation so that children are better protected.
Jacobs, during her meeting with government officials here, encouraged the government to work with the international community, including The Hague Permanent Bureau, implement the Hague Convention and reform its adoption process to protect children and families.
Meanwhile, the 56 American families whose Nepalese adoptions are stalled by the current controversy are continuing their campaign to bring their children to the US.
Fifty-six American families awaiting US visas for their adopted Nepali children are circulating an online petition asking Congress to support the completion of their cases. The Nepalese courts have already granted adoptions to the Americans, but the US Embassy in Kathmandu is not allowing the children to enter the US. As I discussed in a previous post, the State Department became concerned about "inconsistent and unreliable documentation" in intercountry adoption cases from Nepal involving abandoned children earlier this year, and stopped processing new cases of this type on August 6. The Department of State (DOS) announced that cases already underway as of August 6 would be processed to conclusion -- but open-ended investigations have left many families in a terrifying limbo. Some parents have opted to remain in Nepal until a resolution is reached; others have had to leave their legally adopted children behind in institutional care while they wait for news in the US.
The families have created a website called They Wait, which features photos of the children and a link to the online petition. In their letter to Congress, the families write:
DOS will tell you that the visas are being withheld because “Nepali children were being taken from their families and fraudulent documents used to show abandonment” (The Kathmandu Press, 2010) but as DOS and [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] confirmed in a conference call with Prospective Adoptive Parents, Adoption Service Providers, and Adoption Stakeholders on December 15th, 2010, absolutely NO evidence of fraud has been found in any of the cases currently under review. NO fraud.
Each day that these children spend in an institution as opposed to a family, they are receiving (by necessity) less than prompt consistent care, a paucity of verbal and physical stimulation, and perhaps most significantly the love required for a child to reach normal developmental milestones (Davenport, 2006). Children who are institutionalized are at serious risk for significant delays in emotional, social, and physical development (Albers, 1997).
For growth delays, the rule of thumb is that a child will lose one month of linear growth for every three months in an institution. Research clearly indicates that love and nutrition do wonders for a child's physical and developmental growth. The gains made in physical, intellectual and social areas post-adoption have been described as miraculous (Ryan and Groza 2004; Bledsoe and Johnston, 2004; Judge, 2004). The younger the children are when placed in a home with a loving parent, the great the chance that he or she will make up any growth and developmental delays (Davenport, 2006). Every day counts.
You can read and/or sign the complete petition here.
Concerns about "inconsistent and unreliable documentation" in intercountry adoption cases from Nepal involving abandoned children prompted the US Department of State to suspend processing new cases of this type as of August 6. The State Department announced that cases already underway on that date would be processed to conclusion -- but as a couple of recent news stories show, "processing to conclusion" involves open-ended State Department investigations that have left some families in a terrifying limbo.
This story, from NPR station WBUR in Boston, lays out the plight of single mother Dee Dee Martin, who has been stuck in Nepal with her newly adopted daughter Bina for the last two months. The Nepalese court granted Martin's adoption of the 4-year-old girl, but because Bina reportedly came to the orphanage as an abandoned infant, State Department officials are wary of granting the child a US visa and are still investigating the facts of the case. Martin has been given no indication as to when the stand off might end. Reporter Monica Brady-Myerov writes:
The State Department says it’s reviewing the case of Martin and at least five other U.S. families in Nepal waiting for approval. U.S. officials say they are working hard to help these families caught in the middle of the process, but they say the Nepalese government is not cooperating...
Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown co-signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month, saying Martin and other families are “enduring extreme emotional and financial burdens while their childrens’ cases are investigated further.”
The letter urges the U.S. government to resolve the cases quickly. In Martin’s case, she’s on unpaid leave from her job selling skin care products to salons. Her company extended her leave, but she fears she’ll be fired if she doesn’t return by Oct. 25. Despite this, Martin says she’s not leaving Nepal without Bina...
“My daughter is 4-years-old. She is very aware of who I am. The orphanage when we first met let her know that ‘this is your mummy’ — it would destroy her psychologically if I ever did that.”
Dee Dee Martin and daughter Bina, waiting out a State Department adoption investigation in Kathmandu
Similarly, South Carolina's WBTW recently ran a story about Dr. Evan Lee and his wife, Jennifer, who are hoping to adopt two-year-old Maya Safalta from a Kathmandu children's home. The Lees have not yet been granted an adoption decree, but opted to travel to Nepal anyway to try to keep their case on track . Jennifer has vowed to remain in country with Maya until the case is complete. You can watch the story below.
Staff at the US Embassy in Kathmandu are in an agonizing position themselves: charged with maintaining the integrity of the visa process and guarding against ethical lapses in the adoption program; dealing with American families in extreme emotional and sometimes financial distress; and facing pressure from elected officials. Whatever the final outcome of this stalemate turns out to be, children, parents and officials will all have paid a high price to get there.
Isn't it time that US policy makers develop a process that verifies a child's visa eligibility before the adoption decree in granted? Sadly, the situation in Nepal is all-to-familiar to anyone who follows international adoption news.
This week, The Joint Council on International Children's Services, an alliance of adoption agencies and other pro-adoption stakeholders, issued a position statement on the Nepal crisis. The group's recommendations include:
1. Provide the Nepalese child welfare community with financial, material and technical assistance in building a full spectrum of permanency services including, direct family preservation interventions, timely and effective reunification efforts, temporary foster care programs, kinship care, domestic adoption and intercountry adoption.
2. Increased protections for children from all types of harm through;
a. The implementation of a DNA registry of children living in institutions.
Beginning with orphanages licensed for adoption and expanding to include all child-care centers, a data base of this type would provide an unquestioned means of validating any particular reunification or adoption and most
importantly, a verifiable process for birth parents seeking to find their child.
b. Increased efforts to eliminate the trafficking of Nepalese children for sex, labor, and servitude. The continued association of intercountry adoption with
child trafficking only serves as an insult to children trafficked for nefarious purposes and to adoptive families seeking a legal and ethical adoption.
c. The provision of immediate care for those children who have a finalized adoption, yet due to the suspension cannot enter their country of adoption. These children face an uncertain immediate future as they might not be
entitled to remain in a government or private orphanage.
d.Immediate assistance to the 65 Nepalese families, who as reported by the U.S. government, are actively searching for their missing children. The creation of the above mentioned database would be a major step in assisting these families.
