Discouraging News

Friends and Family,

We received discouraging news coming out of Liberia on Friday regarding adoptions from Liberia. We will need your help in writing letters to Senators/Congressmen to help us get the word out. I will get you information in the next couple days if you are interested. But for now I'll just share the e-mail we received.

The consular is requiring adoption agencys to make an appointment for a pre-visa interview. That can only be done on a certain day and only for a couple hours that day.After the petition has been filed; the consular requires 3 weekss to conduct a mandatory I-604- Determination on Child for Adoption. Due to security concerns; the consular staff is requiring that agencys Bring in the relinguishing birth parent for an interview with the consular. Families within the city will be required to come in as well. Furthermore DNA testing will be required for all cases which consular staff cannot determine parentage by interview. Adoption providers can drop off documents pertaining to adoptions on Thursdays from 2-4:00pm. Adoptive parents should not schedule return flights to the U.S. until the consular provides the date a visa will be issued. Parents cannot meet with the consular unless they have a visa interview which can only be thursdays from 2-4.The embassy gets its directions from the state dept. in Washington. They dont want to stop adoptions. They just want to slow them down to such a point that parents will be discouraged and not adopt from this country. They are now considering requiring parents to stay in country for a month. If the agency cannot locate the parent to your child; then they will not issue a visa. Parents need to be Very concerned and get involved now. We need families to write letters. Use statistics. Child Institutional care is not what is best for kids no matter what country. They want the kids to be kept here ( what kind of culture is an orphanage?) yet we just read last week how they are closing orphanages and returning kids to parents who cannot care for them. Letters need to be written reminding the state dept of the Geneva convention- a child's right to be adopted. This goes far beyond clothes, food, medicine, and education for kids. Institutional care is not the answer. Patty is making plans to go to the embassy early next week with other people. She needs your help. She needs as much as we can find on research/statistics/studies/ proof - what happens to children raised in institutions. What has happend to the kids growing up this way in other countries where they have closed adoption./ We should be flooding Patty with as much information as possible to take with her. We need doctors reports, psychologist, and the like imput on this. We know that 70% of kids in private foster care in the U.S, alone end up in prison. And that is in the U.S.! what is this doing to the children in Liberia? Realize that this affects everyone adopting. No one is left out. This will cause the cost of adoptions to rise again as it will take so much more longer for the kids to come home. Families whos kids are home- take action. Dont think that because your children are home you can breathe a sigh a relief. You have an obligation to get involved for your adopted childrens sake. This is their home country and many more children need your help. My 2 cents- UNICEF is a driving force. They fund the social services department of Liberia. They are convincing them that adoption is big business and all these kids are going to leave the country.I hope this stirs everyone into action.