Call for halt to new child adoptions in Haiti

We’re calling for an immediate halt to all new adoptions of Haitian children affected by the disaster. Efforts should focus on reuniting children who have lost their parents with extended families, rather than adopting them out of the country.

Thursday 21 January 2010

A girl in a camp in Leogane's main square, Haiti. We have teams identifying lone children in the country, and are launching a family tracing programme.
Credit: Adriana
Zehbrauskas/Polaris

All the agencies of the Disasters Emergency Committee, of which Save the Children is a member, are calling for an immediate moratorium on any new adoptions of children left on their own until full extended family tracing and reunification has been completed.

Any hasty new adoptions would risk permanently breaking up families, causing long-term damage to already vulnerable children, and could distract from aid efforts in Haiti. Experience in such major emergencies shows that most children currently struggling to survive on their own will have living family members and efforts must be concentrated on finding them.

Adoptions already in process should go ahead, as long as the appropriate legal documentation is in place and the adoptions meet Haitian and international law.

“Taking children out of the country would permanently separate thousands of children from their families — a separation that would compound the acute trauma they are already suffering and inflict long-term damage on their chances of recovery,” said Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children’s Chief Executive.

“People wanting to help protect vulnerable children in Haiti will make the most difference by giving to agencies working to reunite children with their families and supporting relatives to care for them long-term,” Whitbread continued.

Unregulated adoptions could open door to traffickers

“The extreme poverty in Haiti already makes children extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and new unregulated adoptions could open the door to child traffickers,” said Justin Byworth, World Vision’s Chief Executive. “We’re concerned not only about premature overseas adoption but also about children increasingly being sent unaccompanied to the Dominican Republic.”

“The International Committee of the Red Cross continues to work closely with the Haitian Red Cross to help Haitians re-establish contact with their loved ones,” said Pete Garratt, British Red Cross Disaster Response Manager. “The ICRC has opened an office at the headquarters of the Haitian Red Cross in Crois de Prez to help people to locate and get back in touch with relatives.”

As of 18 January, more than 22,000 people had registered on the ICRC's special website, www.icrc.org/familylinks, which was activated on 14 January to help people searching for their loved ones.

Family tracing programme about to launch

Save the Children has teams on the ground in Haiti identifying lone children, and is launching an emergency family tracing and reunification programme to reunite families and help put in place long-term support for their care.

DEC members, including Save the Children, also strongly discourage western governments from moving large numbers of children out of Haiti unless essential for medical reasons. If children are taken for treatment, the evacuating authorities must make sure that they have a caregiver or parents with them, and proper records are kept of their whereabouts so they can be reunited with relatives when they are physically better.

World Vision and Save the Children also call on the Government of Haiti to develop a policy on separated and unaccompanied children, providing clear guidelines on how to respond to this issue. This policy should draw on the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children and the UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusion on Children at Risk.

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