Haiti and the Hague Convention

If you're not adopting internationally, you may never have heard of the Hague Convention. Basically, it's a set of rules and guidelines that many countries have agreed to abide by when handling international adoptions - designed to try to prevent child trafficking and ensure ethical adoptions, etc.

Most people think the Hague is a good thing in principle, and a good number of countries have signed on. And apparently Haiti ratified the Hague Convention yesterday.

This may not be as good of a thing as it was intended to be. Haiti now has only 90 days to rework their processes, their ministries, their infrastructure - EVERYTHING - to match Hague requirements. Apparently it took the United States something like 14 years to become Hague compliant. Many other countries have closed down their international adoptions for a year or two while they figure out how to get their procedures lined up with what the Hague requires. And a number of people in the adoption community - naturally - worry that Haiti isn't logistically ready to comply with all the Hague rules, and will therefore have to shut down international adoptions too. Obviously, this would be a pretty big negative for a lot of children in orphanages right now, even though it's intended to be a positive in the long run.

We don't really know how this will affect US families in the adoption process, like us. Our home study is more or less complete, as is the rest of our paperwork, but none of our paperwork is actually IN Haiti yet. We're at the point where we would either be referred a child or two (and have to pay a massive amount of money), or else we'd wait for a referral that is appropriate for our family. At this point, though, we don't know when that might happen, or if it will happen at all. It sounds to me like we'll be waiting in limbo for at least a couple months to see how Haiti handles all this.

Please pray for this situation: for our family and others who are trying to adopt Haitian children, for the government officials and orphanage staff who will have to navigate this transition, and of course, for the children in Haiti who are waiting for families. Thanks!