Thursday night we got an email from our agency with this notice from the DoS. (The original notice can be found at http://adoption.state.gov/news/ethiopia%20alert.html )

Adoption Alert

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Children’s Issues

May 13, 2009


Adoptions of Abandoned Children Halted by Ethiopian Court:
The Ethiopian First Instance Court has temporarily stopped accepting cases involving abandoned children from orphanages in Addis Ababa, citing concern over a recent increase in the number of abandoned children being brought for adoption. The number of abandoned children from orphanages in Addis Ababa has grown dramatically in recent months and Ethiopian authorities have become aware of possible cases of unethical practices associated with some of them.

Currently neither MOWA nor the First Instance Court are accepting any abandonment case from any orphanages in Addis Ababa pending an inquiry.

Please continue to monitor adoption.state.gov for updated information on Ethiopia.

As you can imagine, this about stopped my heart. Then I read the additional information from our agency and it indicated that this does not affect our adoption because it applies only to children who were abandoned in Addis Ababa and taken directly to an orphanage there. Children abandoned in other areas and taken to orphanages in those outside areas, as our baby was, are not affected.

On Friday I talked to our agency. They have been in contact with their attorney in Addis Ababa many times in the last week, and he indicated that officials are very busy investigating this. It appears to be isolated to the capital, and there is no indication at this time that they will widen the range of the investigation.

As scary as this seems, it reassures us that we made a good decision in choosing to adopt from Ethiopia. I am impressed that the Ethiopian government, of their own accord, took action to investigate a possible problem. Many countries have looked the other way when discrepancies arose, thinking that the children will get a good home anyway, so it's for the greater good to just continue as usual. In reality, that usually ends up in adoptions being closed in those countries. In addition, the attorney has indicated that officials are very busy with the investigation, so they aren't wasting time or being casual about it. They are truly concerned with making sure the children of Ethiopia are safe.

That rational response is easy for me to have now that I know this does not affect us. Before I was sure of that, my fears far overshadowed my rational mind.

My heart goes out to those families and children who are caught up in this.