News from Ethiopia: Not ruling out troops return to Somalia

I read up on Ethiopian news every day as

part of my morning routine. I have decided it would be interesting for everyone else to be able to read some news from that part of the world. So I will be posting a news article on the blog every so often (probably once a month). Hope you enjoy this new feature to our blog.

Ethiopia Not Ruling out troops return to Somalia

By Tsegaye Tadesse and Barry Malone (Editing by David Clarke)

ADDIS ABABA, June 25 (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has not ruled out sending troops to Somalia if the situation there worsens, but said there are no plans to intervene for now.

Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement from the capital in which new President Sheik Sharif Ahmed played a role. That sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite the withdrawal of the soldiers in January this year.

"We do not want to find ourselves in a situation where a so-called Ethiopian horse would be trying to take the chestnut out of the fire on behalf of everybody else," Meles told a news conference late on Wednesday.

"And this horse being whipped by every idiot and his grandmother."

Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, fled into exile after the Ethiopian intervention but joined a peace process last year and was elected in January. His government is now battling hardline insurgents who were once allies in the Islamist movement.

Addis Ababa has said it supports the new government, but is wary of the hardline Islamists, who are seen as a proxy for al Qaeda, because they control large areas of Somalia and have threatened to destabilise neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya.

With reports of foreign jihadists streaming into Somalia, Western security services are worried al Qaeda may get a grip on the failed Horn of Africa state that has been without central government for 18 years.

"We want to wait and see how the international community as a whole responds and then see if there is any need to revisit our position on the matter," Meles said. "We believe the deployment of Ethiopian troops would be unwarranted because we are not convinced there is a clear and present danger to Ethiopia."

Violence from the Islamist-led insurgency worsened this month, with the killing of three officials. The government, which controls little but a few parts of the capital, has declared a state of emergency and appealed to neighbouring countries for military assistance.

The Ethiopian leader played down claims from the speaker of Somalia's parliament that the country's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) risked being overthrown without foreign help.

"Our reading of the situation in Somalia is slightly different from the one of the speaker of the parliament that if there is no foreign military intervention ... the transitional government will collapse," Meles said. "The TFG is facing a very difficult situation with al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam militias supported by hundreds of jihadists, but we don't believe they will be toppled."

Isen has been quite the big brother, planning out where our babies will sleep, what they will eat, which toys he will share with them and which he will give them...he has a lot already planned out. I just know that he will be a great big brother to all four of his little siblings.
The other day he came to me and said that he couldn't wait to bring our babies home and that we need to bring home two because he wants more brothers. I told him that maybe we would have girls and he said, "No Mumma, I really think we are going to have boys. We have enough girls and I think God wants us to have more boys." I started laughing and told him that I was the only girl in the family, to which Isen replied, "Yeah, your enough Mumma." So much for reasoning with him :)

Ethiopia Program Webinar

I participated in a Webinar provided by CHSFS regarding their Ethiopian adoption program. Here are some questions/answers from this that I found helpful and happen to be questions others have asked of me.

Question: My question is if CHSFS can give an estimated wait time by age and gender. For example parents that are looking to adopt a girl 0-12 months are waiting 15 months, parent adopting 0-36 months are waiting 12 months. I know there are many variables that affect the time but I think the more information you have the better families can cope with waiting.

Answer: No we can't. We don't have a way of knowing exactly what child is going to come in to care when. This is the reason that we have a wide window (12 to 18 months) as our estimated wait time. When we try to get more specific than that, we are setting everyone up for disappointment. In general, we can say that if you are open to a child over the age of 36 months, and/or with more medical issues, your wait will be on the short end of the spectrum.

Question: When you are discussing wait times, please be very clear on the starting event of the wait time. In the past, in other discussions with CHSFS, I have heard "6 months" or "12 months," but it has never been made clear to me as far as 12 months from when or what event? I am assuming it is 12 months from the "officially waiting" designation, but that has not been made clear in the past.

Answer: The wait is meant to start at what we consider to be your "starting point" IN the Ethiopia program. Right now the starting point is considered to be when you turn in your dossier.

Question: When is the expected court closure and will referrals be given through out the closure?

Answer: The federal court's closure occurs during the months of August and September. We hope to continue making referrals during the closure, although families must understand that the acceptance of a referral during the closure means the total wait time to get a court date and decision will be that much longer.

Question: What is the average length of time between referral and court dates?

Answer: Eight to 12 weeks.

Question: Do you think the courts in Ethiopia will expand staffing to accommodate for these increases in adoption cases so we get through court in a more timely manner?

Answer: CHSFS and the Joint Council of International Children's Services (JCICS) is working positively with the Ethiopian government to make sure the adoption process is efficient. This advocacy work, however, is limited by the administrative needs and challenges that are a part of the federal bureaucracy in other countries. There is a rumor that the federal Ethiopian court has hired 3 more judges, but this has not been confirmed by our source close to the court's affairs.

Question: Why are there so few children from Ethiopia on the waiting child list?

Answer: Ethiopia does not have a waiting international child (WIC) program, per se, as other countries do, e.g., China and Korea. This means that children from Ethiopia are not referable for adoption unless there is a presumptive family known by the placing agency. In other words, licensed orphanages and/or partnering agencies do not seek children with a specific special need. Nor can placing agencies put the photographs of children on the internet to recruit interested families. In short, the only children viewable on our WIC list are those children for whom there was a qualified and approved family; that in fact did not accept or match in the end, with the individual child(ren). One example of this is a child who ends up, upon a thorough medical examination, to be older than originally stated.

Question: Given recent concerns about abuses of the adoption system in Ethiopia, what safeguards does CHSFS have in place to prevent any possibilities of encouraging child trafficking?

Answer: Children's Home Society & Family Services Ethiopia (CHSFS-ET) does what we consider to be the best child background investigation work of any international agency working in Ethiopia. In other words, we believe no other agency does a better job than CHSFS-ET to verify the personal history and background information that is presented on the child by the licensed orphanage at the time of referral. A social worker, an interpreter and a videographer work as a team to corroborate the child's background and information related to how the child came into legal care and custody of the orphanage. In addition, most of the adoptions facilitated by CHSFS Ethiopia are sole parent or guardian relinquishments, In the vast majority of these cases, the adoptive parents meet and talk with the birth family and/or child's former legal guardian in what is a private entrustment ceremony between the two parties.

Question: What experiences are families having waiting for sibling groups of two or more children and various ages?

Answer: I think you are asking what is the current wait time. Most recently, the wait for a sibling group of two young children (under the age of 6) has been up to 18 months.

"Orphan" due out in July

On July 24 Warner Brothers will release their horror film "Orphan." The movie is about a family who adopts an older girl, Esther, who "is not what she appears to be." The film is currently being promoted, and the trailer can be seen here. The adoption message is extremely negative, and plays into the stereotypes of adopted children, particularly older children, as damaged.

The adoption community is protesting the release of the film and was successful in getting the line "It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own" removed from the trailer. Executives at Warner Brothers claimed they "messed up" and have re-cut the trailer to remove the offensive line. However, the promotional posters still use this tag line. If this movie focused on a (insert a word) child, would Warner Brothers be able to get away with it? But, stick an adopted older child into the storyline and its okay? This message plays into the fears of the general public. I can attest to the fact that adoptive parents and those planning on adopting deal with these fears, misconceptions, and prejudices on a daily basis.

While I myself love a good horror movie, I find it difficult to understand why Warner Brothers would promote a movie in such a way. I have to agree with Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Institute, who says “The film preys on who these older kids are. That's why we have so much trouble getting older kids adopted. I fully respect that they are not going to pull a multi-million-dollar movie out of the theater, but they can mitigate the damage and make the ads less corrosive.” I have only seen the trailer. I will NOT see the film. And right now I don’t feel like seeing anything that Warner Brothers, Dark Castle Entertainment, or Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way (who claims to support the world’s orphaned kids) has produced or distributed.

I urge you to contact, with me, the makers of the film, as well as your local movie theater chains, with your concerns. Maybe I am overly sensitive like many people think, but when it comes to my children can I really be too sensitive?

Contact information:

Warner Bros.

4000 Warner Blvd.

Burbank, CA 91522

818-954-6000

Silver Pictures

4000 Warner Blvd. 90

Burbank, CA 91522-0001

818-954-4490

Time Warner Inc.

One Time Warner Center

New York, NY 10019-8016

212-484-8000

I wish there was more time during the day!

Things have been quite hectic here lately. I just returned a week ago from San Antonio, TX, where my youngest brother, Steven, graduated from Air Force basic at Lackland AFB. He graduated with honors, which means he was in the top 10% of a 632 graduates. He is now in Wichita Falls, TX completing his technical training.

Since there I have been trying to catch up on things around the house such as laundry and general cleaning and children. However, it has been so nice here in De Pere, WI (until today) that I have been working outside with Matthew on our gardens.

Our vegetable garden is in with the exception of leeks, lettuce and basil seeds, along with, the lavender I purchased yesterday. If it ever stops raining, I will be planting those. Tomatoes, sage, asparagus, rhubarb and cilantro are in, along with the chives that were already here (I just need to transplant those). Our flower gardens are coming along nicely. We have

removed many bushes from around the house that were overgrown or placed in the wrong spot (shade when they are sun-loving plants). Sunday we are heading out to get more of our flowers from Edgar, WI and then coming back and putting those...well, we have not decided where they will go yet but we will find room.

The adoption is coming along. We are STILL waiting to hear if all the background check went through. Until then I have just about completed my portion of our adoption paperwork and we have our physicals coming up on June 21st. In addition, I did participate in an Ethiopian adoption webinar put on by CHSFS and I continue to read the books I have purchase on the recommendation of other adoptive parents.