HFC~Yes! UNICEF~NO!

Did you know that UNICEF is anti-international adoption? More specifically, they consider it as only a last resort for a child in need of care. Here's their position statement on the matter: http://www.unicef.org/media/media_15011.html

Now, in theory, their statement sounds good, and yes, I agree, that children firstly should be able to stay with their birthfamilies, especially if all they need is financial support. Great idea. Yes. Let's do that. Oh, wait, uh, where's the money going to come from to support the families? And what about the funds to provide the oversight to this kind of program? You don't want that money to be improperly used, so there has to be oversight, right? And what about birthfamilies who simply see no future for their children in Haiti even if they had just enough money to scrape by and possibly send their kids to school? (There are no jobs!)

Haiti is UNICEF's latest victim. They've been in Haiti for quite some time now and there's a peculiar coincidence that adoptions have ground to a crawl. They want to revamp the system there. And while I agree there is room for improvement, especially NOW since UNICEF has been there, let's take inventory of their "contribution" to the system:

*adoptions slowed down to 2+ years in many cases (not all of this can be attributed to UNICEF, but let's just say they have definitely contributed to the problem)

That delay effects lives, here's how:
*an individual child will be in institutional care (no matter if it is a good institution, it's still not a family) that much longer, increasing the likelihood of attachment difficulties or reactive attachment disorder, emotional and psychological problems.
*the bed in the institution where that child is cared for is occupied longer, denying availability for another child who needs to be cared for, many of whom die.
*costs of care for each individual child goes up because the child is there longer, therefore adoption fees go up...the money has to come from somewhere.
*when adoption fees go up and waiting times extend, prospective adoptive families chose to adopt elsewhere because it's easier and more affordable.
*when the prospective family pool decreases, children languish in institutional care indefinitely, if they find an opening at all. And if they don't they are left to suffer in grinding poverty or possibly sold or "given away" into the 300,000+ victims of child slavery system in Haiti (I challenge you, UNICEF, to solve that problem first!).

So while I'm sure UNICEF does a lot of good around the world in OTHER AREAS, there are also areas in which they screw up big time and therefore if you were looking to donate to them now, at Christmas, or ever, your money would actually help more effectively and less politically by giving directly to Hope for the Children of Haiti. They help individual children, real children, children that I know and love, and that are dear, life-long friends of our daughters. Here's their webpage with full instructions on how to donate and actually help kids who need it: http://www.hfchaiti.org/ .

For those of you that are keeping track and are wondering how we got Kerline home in 13 months, it came down to the Ministry of Interior. MOI is the step right before passports, where all the adoption documents are checked (again) and then approved. This step takes 3-12 months, yes, you read correctly. This is actually one of the offices that UNICEF is pressuring. We skipped MOI because we experimented to see if the US Consulate would care if Kerline had an "adoption passport" or just a regular passport. Turns out they DID care, but since we were the first ones to experiment with this loophole they let us through and then slammed the door shut for anyone else who tried the same thing. God was looking out for us.

To give you a perspective, Kerline has been home for almost 8 months. A family who got out of Haitian Social Services (IBESR) within a day or two of us in November 2006, JUST came home with their children this week! After IBESR comes a court process, MOI, passport printing, US Immigration approval and finally, visa appointment. Another family, who got out of IBESR two months before us should travel before Christmas to pick up their child. One can safely say that skipping MOI saved us 8+ months!!!!

Thanks UNICEF, on behalf of all the children waiting for forever families, thanks for nothing.

-----
Sorry, end of bitter tirade. =)