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... ild you must be between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five. If you are between the ages of twenty one to twenty-five or over forty-five you may be allowed to adopt with the consent of the Social Welfare Department. You must be married for at least three years if it is the first marriage. If it is the second marriage you must be married for at least five years. You also have to be financially stable.
All of this is required to insure that the child will be cared for properly and to show that the couple adopting is financially stable. The average waiting time to adopt is at least ten months. On the other hand in Haiti you have to be in Haiti to adopt a child. You have to be over the age of thirty-five if you are married. If one person is younger than thirty-five you have to be married for at least ten years and have no children together.
If you are a single parent you are not allowed to adopt a child from Haiti. You must have consent from both prospective partners to adopt. You are not allowed to take an abandoned child until it has been adopted into Haiti. There are three basic steps that should be followed when looking to adopt from Haiti. You first have to get release papers from the surviving parent (s) or whoever has custody over the child. You can get these release forms from the Justice of Peace.
Then you have to submit the birth certificate of the adoptive parents, the childs birth certificate, the marriage certificate of the adoptive parents, and if the natural parents are dead their death certificate, tax returns, and police clearances from the prospective parents. You also need medical and psychological reports from the adopting parents and the child. Haiti's consulates in the United States must translate all of these documents into French and authenticated. They will in turn investigate the prospective parents and the child to see if the parents meet their standards. If they approve they will send you a document known as the Authorization of Adoption. This can only be from the Port-au-Prince office.
No other office can authorize an adoption. Last but not least you have to submit the Authorization of Adoption to the Tribunal Civil Court having jurisdiction over the child and get a legal document know, as the Act of Adoption which is the final decree of adoption. This process can take an average of six months to more than a year. The cost to adopt a child from Haiti is approximately three thousand dollars or more not including airfare to the United States. As you can see there are many similarities and differences when adopting from Haiti and Hong Kong. Since international adoption is becoming a big trend here in the United States it is preferred that you only use well reputable agencies or lawyers to prevent fraud.
You should always know something about where you are adopting from; also learn the laws in that country to avoid problems. There are many differences as there are countries. Although you have a choice in the United States to either have a closed or open adoption you should still be careful. Always remember Careful planning is the key to safe and swift travel (Ulysses).
How do we decide whether adoptions should be open adoptions or closed adoptions? In the past twenty years the sealed record issue has become part of the public discourse on social problems (Brodzinsky & Schechter 72). We must now make a stand and move to open adoption; it would surely benefit all persons involved. Open Adoption is a process and the adoptive parents meet and exchange identifying information.
The birth parents relinquish legal and basic childbearing rights to That is the basic definition of open adoption, although there is room for either more or less contact between the parents involved. Communication tends to vary during different times in the childs life. This all depends upon the parties and whether they are willing to cooperate. To really understand why we should move to open adoption you have to understand the history. Open adoptions went as far back as the. Adoptions were never closed and secret.
Secrecy or anonymity was seen to be morally wrong. Over time to supposedly prevent abusive adoptions, they were made closed. Closed adoptions lead to the yearning of information by both parties. The birth parents wanted to know what happened to the child they gave up. The child wanted to know things about their birth parents.
They wanted to know who were their birth parents; why they gave them up; do they have any brothers or sisters; do they have a medical history; and the list goes on. Not finding this information out has a negative impact on their lives. It affects their self-esteem, and their own child bearing years. This is clearly stated in the Opposition of Adoption magazine.
Statistics support claims that knowledge about our genetic past, our roots, plays a vital role in who we are, and that the lack of such information can be detrimental to the adopted child. Here is an example of a child who has been affected by a closed adoption. My friend Lionel lives with his father. He has an older stepbrother named Antoine who lived with Lionel's mother until their grandmother died. After their grandmother died Antoine was given up for adoption. It was a closed adoption.
After this Lionel lost all contact with his mother. He still does not have contact but knows a little about his stepbrother adoption. He would love to contact him and create a bond with him again but because it was a closed adoption he cannot have any information. This has affected Lionel periodically throughout his life. Although it has been some years the memory never fades of his stepbrother.
Some parents who gave up their child using closed adoptions live in fear that one-day adoptions may become open. Some think that they are not emotionally ready to handle the situation if approached with it. Many also fear what their family might think if they did not know that they gave up a child for adoption. They are also fearful of resentment. They think that the child may not want them. Some think that the child only wants to see the life they would have had.
Many who are for opening adoptions feel that they have the right to know things about their own past; especially because they did not have anything to do with the agreement to withhold their past. Adoption was supposed to protect the children not the adoptive parents or the birth parents as it is today. Open adoptions let the child understand why they were adopted instead of them fantasizing why they were. They understand why they have green eyes and black hair for instance. Most adoptive kids birth certificates were taken away from them and were sealed, leaving them with not even a name. Some kids were not even given a race, whether they were black or white.
We should not deny a child of their heritage. They have the right to it. If the open adoption were put into place it would allow every kids over the age of eighteen to decide whether they want to see their birth records. Those whose records were closed would be open upon request.
It would also allow special adopted kids to keep with them memories they carry from previous associations. Those who want adoption open have already begun forming agencies to help find their lost ones. They have to pay hundreds of dollars just to find their birth parents. Some even get scammed out of money. Should it have to be taken this far; is a birth certificate and some information from the company they were adopted from too much to ask? No one should have to resort to this.
Adoptees do not want to disturb their birth parents lives. They just want answers. Should they have to learn that a deadly disease is inherited through their family by being diagnosed, knowing that it could have been treated earlier if known. In order to continue to keep in the best interest of the child the community must keep aware of the ongoing effects society has on adopted kids.
Open Adoption is not a plan to cure all the problems that exist with adoptions, though it helps all parties involved to handle the situation in a healthier way. Adoption has undergone many changes and we must continue to fight for the childs right. "In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are, and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning; no matter what our attainments in life, there is the most disquieting loneliness. " Bibliography:
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