No Where For Them To Go

Our baby was born in Ethiopia.The kids and I are already here with her. In just a few days Hubby will be getting on a plane and joining us. In just a few weeks we will all get back on a plane and we will bring her home. She has spent seven months of her life in an orphanage. It would not have been unreasonable to run across more problems in this process. She easily could have been over a year when she came home. Even more unexpected things could have happened. She might have been in the orphanage until she was two. But somehow, someway she was always going to come home. But what if she was not? What if she was not matched with us? What if she was not matched with anybody? What if she was never going to come because she had no home to come home to? What if she was going to live in the orphanage until she was a teenager and then sent into the world to live? To survive on her own? What would become of her then?

This is the fate of many of the world's orphans. It is the fate of the orphans in Guatemala and Vietnam. Because while there used to be programs for those children to be adopted - they have both been shut down. America has shut down the doors to adoptions in those countries because our government claims that adoptions there are "corrupt." With both countries this has happened after the internet has gone all aflutter over some story of corruption - told by a one sided story teller, trying to make everything look terrible. At some point after the internet and the adoption boards get themselves all worked up and concerned someone like Dateline pics up the story.

And then everything falls apart. Our government reacts to this. A story on Dateline - or a video on the internet. The internet?!?! Our government takes what some moron posts on the internet and gets people talking about seriously? Yes, once some news magazine show gets a hold of them our government does react. Usually by deciding to come down on the country and program in question. They make things harder - under the guise of being sure things are not corrupt - and then the other country's government is left with no choice to react to our government. It becomes a battle between the two countries and no one wins. Least of all the kids who get left behind. The country shuts down and the children are left there.

It is sad. I have watched it happen twice now. First with Guatemala. Then with Vietnam. And now I see it happening with Ethiopia. Recently a video came out - made by and aired on Australian television - that accused one specific agency of very unethical practices in Ethiopia. And now I hear Dateline is going to do a story on it. But what I want to know is how much time has the reporter from Dateline spent in Ethiopia? How many people in Ethiopia have they spoken to? Have they spoken to any mothers or fathers who have decided (for any reason) to place their child for adoption? Have they researched the culture? Do they really know anything about Ethiopia and Ethiopian adoption? Or are they simply taking the word of this person who filmed this video? Do they even know who that person is? Or why they wanted to film that video? Or are they so busy trying to "get the story" that they do not even know what the story is?

And when they succeed and they get the story out. When the whole country is up in arms about "the corruption in Ethiopian adoption" what will become of these kids? Will they really have a better life because we do not bring them home? Or will they live out there lives in orphanages only to be turned out as teenagers because there is no where for them to go?

*edit - It has begun - check out what the US Dept of State is saying right now by clicking here.