Watch out your human resources, especially the most vulnerable parts

[khpalwaak]

Angst Over New Guatemalan Adoption Rules

(CBS/AP) Jeff and Diana Kerr fell in love with the Guatemalan baby girl the moment they saw her photograph. The Minnesota couple decorated her pink and white nursery with pictures of flowers and butterflies, but now they don't know if the 8-month-old will ever become their daughter.

The Kerrs are among thousands of Americans trying to adopt 3,700 babies who are caught in limbo as Guatemala's lawmakers debate new rules that could all but shut down a largely unregulated system that has become the speediest place in the world to finalize an adoption.

"It's an emotionally taxing process," said Jeff Kerr, a 44-year-old financial adviser from Lino Lakes, Minn. "Every day you look at her picture and wonder if you're going to bring her home."

CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports that the changes have been spear-headed by Guatemalan President Oscar Berger who ordered that adoptions halt on January first.

As early as this week, the legislature is expected to debate new rules to eliminate potential fraud in Guatemala's adoption process, which until now has been run from beginning to end by notaries who work with birth mothers, determine if babies were surrendered willingly, hire foster mothers and handle all the paperwork.

These notaries charge an average of $30,000 for children delivered in about nine months - record time for international adoptions. The process is so quick that one in every 100 Guatemalan children now grow up as an adopted American.

The small Central American country sent 4,135 children to the U.S. last year, making it the largest source of babies for American families after much-bigger China.

The adoptions are a $100 million a year industry for notaries.

But the system violates The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions, a treaty designed to prevent fraudulent adoptions. Both Guatemala and the United States have agreed to observe the treaty starting next year. Among other things, a government agency must oversee the process and determine if the child was legally surrendered by the birth mother.

Most agree the new rules will reduce the number of Guatemalan adoptions because the government doesn't have the resources to manage all the cases that notaries have handled and because of extra inspections intended to guarantee that each child is being given up willingly.

What this means for the Kerrs and other would-be parents whose adoptions are currently in process remains unclear.

The United States is pushing for a transition period so that the 3,700 adoptions now under way can be concluded under the existing law.

But scrutiny of the pending adoptions has turned up problems in about 1,000 cases, said Victor Mejicanos, a federal official who oversees adoptions.

"We have everything from altered birth certificates to birth mothers who change their minds and want their babies back," Mejicanos said.

And with only seven investigators, who deal with everything from parental neglect to domestic violence and other family issues, Mejicanos predicts adoptions will take much longer now.

Anticipating the new rules, the Guatemalan government has begun cracking down. In one high-profile case, it closed down the Casa Quivira adoption agency and took custody of 46 children. Just 10 of these have been cleared for adoption, Mejicanos said.

The rush to beat the deadline can be seen in the Guatemala City Marriott Hotel, so popular with adoptive parents that it has a play room where they can bond with their babies.

"We're some of the lucky ones," said Stephanie Rimmer, a 41-year-old attorney from Alabama who was just cleared to take home a 7-month-old baby girl. "I would be terrified to be starting an adoption in Guatemala right now."

The U.S. State Department has urged anyone wanting to adopt a child in Guatemala to wait until questions are resolved, yet adoptions of Guatemalan children by Americans rose 15 percent this year, to 4,758, according to the U.S. Embassy. In the last few months, however, these slowed to a trickle; most U.S. agencies have stopped referring parents to Guatemala.

Would-be parents have been lobbying U.S. lawmakers with letters and phone calls asking them to pressure Guatemala to allow pending adoptions to be completed under current rules. Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, is visiting Guatemala this week to check on the progress of those requests.

The notary system has made it easy for scam artists to coerce women into selling their babies and in some cases, put stolen babies up for adoption, critics say. This week, women who say their children were stolen for adoption pushed empty baby carriages and set up empty cribs outside the attorney general's Office, complaining that prosecutors weren't doing enough.

The Guatemalan government says it will allow all pending adoptions to move forward, but only after the government adoption agency confirms each child was willingly given up and the child passes a second DNA test now required by the U.S. Embassy.

Congressman Rolando Morales, a leading proponent of reform, said the new rules will require that all babies be in the care of government-registered orphanages, something that may deter adoptions. The new law also will reduce the cost of adoptions, he said.

"The business of Guatemalan children has been very profitable for these notaries, but the money will no longer go to them," Morales said.

The Kerrs said they chose Guatemala because babies are placed with foster mothers during the adoption process and not in orphanages, like in most other countries.

"We feel really good to know that she is in a good place while we wait for her," Kerr said.

But Morales argues orphanages would be easier to monitor.

"Right now, no one knows where all the babies are being kept, and that will have to end," he said.

There are only four registered orphanages, and Morales acknowledged the government doesn't have the resources to house the thousands of children waiting for parents.

In the meantime, Jeff and Diana Kerr are visiting the girl they have named Katie, and hope to take her home by Christmas.

"We just know that we have to go back and see her over Thanksgiving," Jeff Kerr said.

[khpalwaak]

Families Asunder over International Adoption Woes (newsdesk.org)

Several countries are tightening their adoption laws to avoid kidnapping scandals, such as the recent confrontation in Chad over a French charity group's attempt to take 103 children out of the country.

The new restrictions highlight the huge international demand for adoptions, and the lack of adequate safeguards, standards and corruption-prevention in many of the nations providing children for adoption.

Another result of the changes, however, is thousands of disappointed American parents.

The regulatory changes could affect as many as 4,000 children who were already bound for adoptive homes in other countries, reports the Lawrence Journal-World in Kansas.

One prospective parent of a Nepalese child told the Journal-World that she feared for the health and development of children in overcrowded Nepalese orphanages.

But the government there has suspended nearly all international adoptions, amid rumors of mothers paid to give up their children, or children being taken against a parent's will.

Guatemala will suspend all adoptions starting January 1, while Russia is pushing for more domestic family placements.

China, meanwhile, has placed restrictions on who may adopt a Chinese baby -- no single parents, or disabled or obese people.

China, Russia and Guatemala account for 70 percent of international adoptions
The Netherlands announced it was tightening rules after a Dutch TV show alleged that an adoption foundation may have provided hundreds of families with Indian children from parents who may not have given them up voluntarily, reports Reuters.

Guatemala, which has provided American parents with 25,000 children since 1990, seeks to reform a disorganized and corrupt adoption system where some mothers are offered $1,000 to give up their children and lawyers earn up to $20,000 to close the deal, according to the Chicago Tribune

Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein publicly alleged that U.S. parents were adopting Guatemalan babies in order to steal their internal organs, which turned many Guatemalan parents against the United States, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Would-be adoptive parents say they are being penalized for the actions of a few, and they charge the Guatemalan government with condemning their orphans to a life of poverty, illness and illiteracy.

Guatemala recently decided to join the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, and is refusing to allow any children to be adopted by countries that are not parties to the convention as well -- such as the United States.

The Inquirer reports that the United States "signed on" to the Hague Convention in the early 1990s but has yet to officially join due to concerns over several provisions.

Ironically, it was the United States, along with UNICEF, that pushed Guatemala to institute the adoption reforms in the first place.

[khpalwaak]

Few countries in the world especially the English speaking countries seem to be much in demand of babies, that's why their adoption companies are working through out the world and collecting babies by any means possible. See the report below.

I was wondering how many orphan Afghan babies have been brought to the western world for adoption, as surely there will be adoption agencies working for this, and these fair skin babies will be getting them a much better price. Does any one knows more about this.


AP Exclusive: US alleges baby-selling in Vietnam

By BEN STOCKING, Associated Press Writer

HANOI, Vietnam - Vietnam has failed to police its adoption system, allowing corruption, fraud and baby-selling to flourish, the U.S. Embassy says in a new report obtained by The Associated Press.

The nine-page document describes brokers scouring villages for babies, hospitals selling infants whose mothers cannot pay their bills, and a grandmother giving away her grandchild — without telling the child's mother.

"I'm shocked and deeply troubled by the worst of the worst cases," said Jonathan Aloisi, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.

Vietnam's top adoption official called the concerns "groundless." Bribery of orphanage officials may occur, but serious offenses such as baby-selling or kidnapping are not a problem, said Vu Duc Long, director of the Department of International Adoptions.

The dispute comes amid a boom in adoptions from Vietnam. Americans — including actress Angelina Jolie — adopted more than 1,200 Vietnamese children over the 18 months ending March 31. In 2007, adoptions surged more than 400 percent from a year earlier, with 828 Vietnamese children adopted by American families.

While China remains the most popular overseas country for adoptions, a growing number of Americans are looking to Vietnam, which has fewer restrictions. The wait for adoption approval has also gotten longer in China after authorities there tightened rules.

U.S. adoption agencies active in Vietnam said that despite some cases of wrongdoing, most adoptions in the country are ethical.



"Our experience has been a good one," said Susan Cox, vice president of public policy with Holt International Children's Services, based in Eugene, Ore., which has operated in Vietnam since the 1970s. "We are concerned about any unethical practices, but I would not agree that these cases are indicative of adoptions in Vietnam."

Another adoption agency, Families Thru International Adoption, of Evansville, Ind., said that corruption exists everywhere and it is up to the adoption agencies to screen who they work with in Vietnam and other countries.

"There's always somebody that is trying to do something under the table, and when there are children involved, the results are even more horrific," said program director Salome Lamarche. "As an agency, we have a responsibility to be very careful who we work with in a country and to only work with organizations that work in a morally responsible manner."

She said her group has recently stopped taking applications for families who want Vietnamese children — but not because of concerns about corruption.

"We stopped because our waiting list is getting long and we thought it wasn't ethical to accept applications from families when we didn't know if we could match them with children," Lamarche said.

The U.S. suspended all adoptions from Vietnam in 2003 over concerns about corruption. Adoptions resumed in 2006 under a bilateral agreement intended to ensure they were above board.

That agreement expires Sept. 1, and many adoption agency officials believe the Vietnam program will be suspended again, at least temporarily.

"I can't see any possible way that this agreement is going to continue," said Tad Kincaid of Orphans Overseas in Portland, Ore. "There's certainly going to be a lapse."

The U.S. Embassy report is based on a review of hundreds of adoptions since they resumed in Vietnam in 2006.

Already, the U.S. Embassy concerns have left scores of Vietnamese adoptions in limbo, as American families wait for U.S. permission to bring the babies home.

Victoria Krebs of Chapel Hill, N.C., said that she and her husband have been waiting more than four months to find out if U.S. visas will be approved for the two girls they plan to adopt. They have pictures of the children and feel like they are already part of the family.

"They don't reply to my e-mails," Krebs said of U.S. immigration officials. "I don't have any specific information about my case."

A suspension in Vietnamese adoptions would not only put families on hold, but also threaten humanitarian work in Vietnam that is largely funded by American adoption agencies, such as foster care and programs that help keep families together, Cox said.

That occurred when the U.S. suspended Vietnamese adoptions in 2003, Cox said. "Since there were no adoptions, the groups didn't have the means to stay and help," she said.

Many people involved in Vietnamese adoptions strictly adhere to adoption laws, U.S. officials say.

But others have been flooding the system with cash to get babies for American parents, who pay up to $25,000 for an adoption.

With 42 U.S. adoption agencies licensed in Vietnam, the competition for babies is intense.

Some agencies have been paying orphanage directors $10,000 per referral, the report says, and some have taken orphanage directors on shopping sprees and junkets to the United States in return for a steady flow of babies.

"Adoption service providers have reported that cash and in-kind donations have been diverted by orphanage officials and used to finance personal property, private cars, jewelry, and in one case, a commercial real estate development," the report says.

Aloisi gave the AP a list of 10 particularly egregious cases, including the grandmother who gave away her grandchild.

The mother, working in another province for several weeks, had left the baby with her mother-in-law. She returned to discover the baby had been given up for adoption. Eventually, she got the baby back after U.S. officials uncovered the ruse during investigations as part of the U.S, visa approval process.

In another case, a baby was allegedly taken by hospital officials and turned over for adoption because the mother couldn't afford to pay her $750 hospital bill.

Hospital officials had inflated the bill, claiming the child had serious health problems. U.S. Embassy officials say they discovered the child was healthy. Again, the child was returned to its birth mother.

The report also says some orphanages have pressured birth mothers to give up their babies in return for about $450 — nearly a year's salary for many.

The problems have prompted U.S. officials to seek revisions before renewing the adoption agreement, including DNA tests for birth mothers and permission to conduct surprise investigations in provinces arranging U.S. adoptions.

Both of those conditions are unacceptable, said Long, the Vietnamese official.

Vietnamese law requires that Vietnamese officials approve and participate in any investigations, he said. And requiring DNA tests is impractical in a country where adoption is considered a private matter.

"The American side is trying to make it seem like this agreement is ending because of violations by the Vietnamese side," Long said. "It's not fair for them to blame us."

U.S. Embassy officials began raising questions last year, after their routine investigations turned up widespread inconsistencies in adoption paperwork.

They also noticed a suspicious surge in the number of babies listed as abandoned on adoption papers. That makes it impossible to confirm the infants were genuine orphans, or that their parents had knowingly put them up for adoption, as required by U.S. law.

In adoptions before 2003, 20 percent were abandoned babies. Since they resumed under tighter rules, that has risen to 85 percent, the embassy report says.

U.S. officials believe paperwork problems and reports of abandoned infants have risen in part because corrupt adoption workers are trying to cover up baby-selling.

They say their efforts to investigate have been blocked in six provinces, holding up adoptions for about 70 American families who have been matched with babies.


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[khpalwaak]

World outsources pregnancies to India

By SAM DOLNICK, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 30, 3:02 PM ET

ANAND, India - Every night in this quiet western Indian city, 15 pregnant women prepare for sleep in the spacious house they share, ascending the stairs in a procession of ballooned bellies, to bedrooms that become a landscape of soft hills.

A team of maids, cooks and doctors looks after the women, whose pregnancies would be unusual anywhere else but are common here. The young mothers of Anand, a place famous for its milk, are pregnant with the children of infertile couples from around the world.

The small clinic at Kaival Hospital matches infertile couples with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and counsels them afterward. Anand's surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies.

More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years. But the program raises a host of uncomfortable questions that touch on morals and modern science, exploitation and globalization, and that most natural of desires: to have a family.

Dr. Nayna Patel, the woman behind Anand's baby boom, defends her work as meaningful for everyone involved.
"There is this one woman who desperately needs a baby and cannot have her own child without the help of a surrogate. And at the other end there is this woman who badly wants to help her (own) family," Patel said. "If this female wants to help the other one ... why not allow that? ... It's not for any bad cause. They're helping one another to have a new life in this world."
Experts say commercial surrogacy — or what has been called "wombs for rent" — is growing in India. While no reliable numbers track such pregnancies nationwide, doctors work with surrogates in virtually every major city. The women are impregnated in-vitro with the egg and sperm of couples unable to conceive on their own.

Commercial surrogacy has been legal in India since 2002, as it is in many other countries, including the United States. But India is the leader in making it a viable industry rather than a rare fertility treatment. Experts say it could take off for the same reasons outsourcing in other industries has been successful: a wide labor pool working for relatively low rates.

Critics say the couples are exploiting poor women in India — a country with an alarmingly high maternal death rate — by hiring them at a cut-rate cost to undergo the hardship, pain and risks of labor.
"It raises the factor of baby farms in developing countries," said Dr. John Lantos of the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Mo. "It comes down to questions of voluntariness and risk."

Patel's surrogates are aware of the risks because they've watched others go through them. Many of the mothers know one another, or are even related. Three sisters have all borne strangers' children, and their sister-in-law is pregnant with a second surrogate baby. Nearly half the babies have been born to foreign couples while the rest have gone to Indians.
Ritu Sodhi, a furniture importer from Los Angeles who was born in India, spent $200,000 trying to get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization, and was considering spending another $80,000 to hire a surrogate mother in the United States.
"We were so desperate," she said. "It was emotionally and financially exhausting."
Then, on the Internet, Sodhi found Patel's clinic.
After spending about $20,000 — more than many couples because it took the surrogate mother several cycles to conceive — Sodhi and her husband are now back home with their 4-month-old baby, Neel. They plan to return to Anand for a second child.
"Even if it cost $1 million, the joy that they had delivered to me is so much more than any money that I have given them," said Sodhi. "They're godsends to deliver something so special."

Patel's center is believed to be unique in offering one-stop service. Other clinics may request that the couple bring in their own surrogate, often a family member or friend, and some place classified ads. But in Anand the couple just provides the egg and sperm and the clinic does the rest, drawing from a waiting list of tested and ready surrogates.

Young women are flocking to the clinic to sign up for the list.
Suman Dodia, a pregnant, baby-faced 26-year-old, said she will buy a house with the $4,500 she receives from the British couple whose child she's carrying. It would have taken her 15 years to earn that on her maid's monthly salary of $25.
Dodia's own three children were delivered at home and she said she never visited a doctor during those pregnancies.
"It's very different with medicine," Dodia said, resting her hands on her hugely pregnant belly. "I'm being more careful now than I was with my own pregnancy."

Patel said she carefully chooses which couples to help and which women to hire as surrogates. She only accepts couples with serious fertility issues, like survivors of uterine cancer. The surrogate mothers have to be between 18 and 45, have at least one child of their own, and be in good medical shape.
Like some fertility reality show, a rotating cast of surrogate mothers live together in a home rented by the clinic and overseen by a former surrogate mother. They receive their children and husbands as visitors during the day, when they're not busy with English or computer classes.
"They feel like my family," said Rubina Mandul, 32, the surrogate house's den mother. "The first 10 days are hard, but then they don't want to go home."

Mandul, who has two sons of her own, gave birth to a child for an American couple in February. She said she misses the baby, but she stays in touch with the parents over the Internet. A photo of the American couple with the child hangs over the sofa.
"They need a baby more than me," she said.

The surrogate mothers and the parents sign a contract that promises the couple will cover all medical expenses in addition to the woman's payment, and the surrogate mother will hand over the baby after birth. The couples fly to Anand for the in-vitro fertilization and again for the birth. Most couples end up paying the clinic less than $10,000 for the entire procedure, including fertilization, the fee to the mother and medical expenses.

Counseling is a major part of the process and Patel tells the women to think of the pregnancy as "someone's child comes to stay at your place for nine months."

Kailas Gheewala, 25, said she doesn't think of the pregnancy as her own.
"The fetus is theirs, so I'm not sad to give it back," said Gheewala, who plans to save the $6,250 she's earning for her two daughters' education. "The child will go to the U.S. and lead a better life and I'll be happy."
Patel said none of the surrogate mothers has had especially difficult births or serious medical problems, but risks are inescapable.

"We have to be very careful," she said. "We overdo all the health investigations. We do not take any chances."
Health experts expect to see more Indian commercial surrogacy programs in coming years. Dr. Indira Hinduja, a prominent fertility specialist who was behind India's first test-tube baby two decades ago, receives several surrogacy inquiries a month from couples overseas.
"People are accepting it," said Hinduja. "Earlier they used to be ashamed but now they are becoming more broadminded."

But if commercial surrogacy keeps growing, some fear it could change from a medical necessity for infertile women to a convenience for the rich.
"You can picture the wealthy couples of the West deciding that pregnancy is just not worth the trouble anymore and the whole industry will be farmed out," said Lantos.

Or, Lantos said, competition among clinics could lead to compromised safety measures and "the clinic across the street offers it for 20 percent less and one in Bangladesh undercuts that and pretty soon conditions get bad."
The industry is not regulated by the government. Health officials have issued nonbinding ethical guidelines and called for legislation to protect the surrogates and the children.
For now, the surrogate mothers in Anand seem as pleased with the arrangement as the new parents.
"I know this isn't mine," said Jagrudi Sharma, 34, pointing to her belly. "But I'm giving happiness to another couple. And it's great for me."

[khpalwaak]

African girl's dad doesn't want Madonna adoption

NEW YORK – The father of an African girl Madonna hopes to adopt says he wants to take care of his daughter himself — even though he's never met her.

James Kambewa, believed to be the biological father of Chifundo "Mercy" James, said he doesn't want the pop star to adopt the 4-year-old.

"I want to take care of her, and I'm capable to take care of my baby," he told CBS' "The Early Show" in an interview to be aired Monday. "Mercy, she is a Malawian — so (I) need her to grow as a Malawian as well with our culture."

Kambewa wears a necklace bearing his daughter's name but has never met her and says he has only seen her "in newspapers and TV — not face to face."

Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg said in an e-mail message Saturday she doesn't know if Kambewa is the father of the girl, who lives in an orphanage.

"All I know is that Mercy has been in an orphanage since the day she was born," Rosenberg said.

Madonna's appeal of a court ruling denying her request to adopt the girl is to be heard Monday in Malawi, in southeast Africa. The "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin" singer already has adopted a son, David, from there.

Malawi requires prospective parents to live there for 18 to 24 months while child welfare authorities assess their suitability. The rule wasn't applied when Madonna was allowed to take David to London in 2006.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090502/...donna_adoption

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/entertainm...ption_na.shtml