{"id":2292,"date":"2011-04-26T19:24:17","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T19:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.againstchildtrafficking.org\/?p=2292"},"modified":"2011-04-26T19:24:17","modified_gmt":"2011-04-26T19:24:17","slug":"integrity-of-foreign-adoptions-in-armenia-still-in-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/integrity-of-foreign-adoptions-in-armenia-still-in-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Integrity of Foreign Adoptions In Armenia Still In Question"},"content":{"rendered":"
Source: http:\/\/www.azatutyun.am<\/a><\/div>\n
26.04.2011<\/div>\n
Emil Danielyan<\/a><\/div>\n

What is an informal payment made to an Armenian government official or civil servant performing their duties? Armenia\u2019s Criminal Code defines it as a bribe that could be punishable by a lengthy prison sentence.<\/p>\n

Yet some private U.S. agencies arranging international adoptions of children call it a mere \u201cgift of gratitude\u201d that reflects a long-established local custom and is not illegal. They have for years charged clients in the United States thousands of dollars for such payments which they say are necessary for adopting Armenian orphans.<\/div>\n

The practice appears to have continued unabated in recent years despite a major toughening of foreign adoption requirements and procedures set by the Armenian government.<\/p>\n

The government embarked on a thorough revision of its opaque rules following a June 2003 report by RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service which suggested that the process may be tainted by corruption. The report was based on online correspondence between Ara Manoogian, an Armenian-American activist, blogger and human rights advocate, and a host of U.S. adoptive parents. Some of them claimed to have paid between $9,000 and $13,000 to adoption \u201cfacilitators\u201d in Yerevan and said they believe a large part of that money was spent on financial \u201cgifts\u201d to Armenian officials dealing with foreign adoptions.<\/p>\n

Then-Social Security Minister Aghvan Vartanian asked Armenian prosecutors to investigate the report. Although nobody is known to have been prosecuted as a result, Vartanian acknowledged \u201csome worrisome practices\u201d in this area in September 2003.<\/p>\n

A set of administrative and legislative measures taken by the government in the following months was meant to make the process more rigorous. Armenia\u2019s Family Code adopted in 2004 stipulates that foreign nationals can adopt Armenian orphans only if the state fails to find local adoptive parents for them.<\/p>\n

Also, the Armenian parliament ratified in 2006 an international convention on inter-country adoption that was signed in The Hague in 1993. It aims to prevent the abduction, sale or trafficking of children through a better regulation of their cross-border adoption.<\/p>\n

In line with the Hague convention, the Armenian government approved in March 2010 a new adoption procedure that sets concrete time frames for every stage of the process handled by several state institutions, including courts and the full cabinet of ministers. Officials in Yerevan say that a foreign couple now typically spends between one or two years adopting an Armenian child, compared with only several months needed in the past.<\/p>\n

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U.S. — A screenshot of the website of the Hopscotch Adoptions agency..<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

However, some aspects of the process, chief among them being the payment of \u201cgifts,\u201d have clearly not changed. At least two U.S. adoption agencies, both of them accredited by the U.S. government, have specified such cash handouts in their service contracts offered to American clients.<\/p>\n

One of them, Hopscotch Adoptions, has placed several dozen Armenian children with American families since 2004. A sample contract sent by the North Carolina-based agency to a potential client in 2007 estimated the total cost of its facilitation services in Armenia and as well as neighboring Georgia at $30,540 per child.<\/p>\n

It explained that almost $5,000 of that sum would be spent on \u201cgifts to foreign service providers and government functionaries performing ministerial tasks as an offer of thanks for prompt service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is customary [in Armenia and Georgia] to provide a nominal gift to a government functionary who, for instance, prepares a passport, notarizes a document or places a seal after the service is provided,\u201d reads the draft Hopscotch contract obtained by Manoogian recently. \u201cThe custom stems from the economic reality that a service provider or entry level civil servant earns less than $75 a week \u2013 hardly enough to feed a family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The document also notes that such payments are \u201cnever offered to any government official who renders a substantive decision regarding a Client\u2019s adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her written answers to questions from RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service, Robin Sizemore, Hopscotch\u2019s founder and executive director, declined to comment on these provisions. \u201cIn Armenia and in any other country that prohibits gifts or gratuities, no gifts or gratuities are distributed or permitted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The draft Hopscotch contract claimed the opposite, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cGifts and gratuities\u201d is also a separate spending category in a sample agreement which is currently offered by another, Pennsylvania-based agency, Adopt Abroad. The latter will charge clients $1,200 for that purpose. The agreement does not elaborate on such payments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an absolutely illegal practice in Armenia, and it is punishable by articles of the Criminal Code dealing with bribery,\u201d said Varuzhan Hoktanian, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Center, the Armenian affiliate of Transparency International. \u201cOne just needs to clarify whether the American agencies simply try to extort additional payments from their clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hmayak Navasardian, head of an Armenian Justice Ministry department coordinating foreign adoption procedures since 2010, agreed. \u201cNaturally, if there is such a thing, it means not paying for [legal] services but paying bribes,\u201d Navasardian told RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is such a thing, any individual, especially an official, must be concerned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Armenia — Lala Ghazarian, head of a department on family, women\u2019s and children\u2019s issues at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But Lala Ghazarian, head of a department on family, women\u2019s and children\u2019s issues at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, was more dismissive. \u201cI am sure that there are no such processes,\u201d she said, ruling out the possibility of corrupt practices within relevant state structures.<\/p>\n

Ghazarian\u2019s department draws up and maintains a national registry of orphans eligible for adoption and thus plays a major role in their referral to prospective adoptive parents. Under the Family Code, Armenian children can be made available for international adoption only three months after their inclusion on that registry — if they are not taken in by Armenian citizens.<\/p>\n

This legal restriction appears to have been violated in at least two cases in 2007. In one such example, an American couple living near Washington, DC adopted a little Armenian girl through Hopscotch in May 2008. Sonia Vigilante, the adoptive mother, revealed on her blog that the girl was less than one month old when she and her husband were first shown her pictures and offered to adopt her in October 2007.<\/p>\n

The Hopscotch contract stressed that the U.S. Embassy in Armenia is aware of the fact that \u201cthe customary \u2018gift\u2019 is built into the international fee which our foreign attorney charges.\u201d \u201cThe payment of these nominal gifts does not affect the legality of the adoption under U.S., or foreign law,\u201d it said. According to Sizemore, the Embassy has received full copies of Hopscotch\u2019s agreements signed in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The embassy did not confirm or deny this. It said only that U.S. consular officials in Yerevan interviewing American adoptive parents investigate \u201cany case where we suspect illegitimate fees have been tendered.\u201d \u201cCases where we suspect these fees have been paid are referred to the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services for review,\u201d an embassy spokesman told RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service in a written statement.<\/p>\n

The official did not specify whether the stated \u201cgifts\u201d are deemed illegitimate by the U.S. mission, saying only that any form of \u201cchild buying\u201d is illegal in the U.S. \u201cFees paid to expedite processing an application do not constitute \u2018child buying,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The informal payments are channeled through Yerevan-based facilitators working for U.S. and other adoption agencies and essentially brokering adoptions in Armenia. The agencies reward them quite handsomely. Hopscotch paid its Armenian \u201cattorneys\u201d $10,500 per child at least until 2007, while Adopt Abroad currently charges a \u201cfacilitators fee\u201d of as much as $19,000. None of these adoption brokers is known to be officially licensed or registered with tax authorities.<\/p>\n

Their fees, which do not include thousands of dollars spent on the translation and certification of adoption documents required by Armenia, are suspiciously high given the fact that Armenian authorities levy a state duty of just 30,000 drams ($80) for a single adoption. Whether a part of the hefty attorney fees is also spent on \u201cgifts\u201d is anybody\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n

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U.S. — A screenshot of the website of the Adopt Abroad agency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Posing as a childless man from Texas, Manoogian privately (and separately) spoke to three Adopt Abroad clients in the U.S who paid the agency up to $40,000 each to adopt babies from three different Armenian orphanages in 2007 and 2008.<\/p>\n

They said they would have been charged $5,000 less had the orphans been aged over 18 months at the time. All three women dealt with the same Armenian facilitators identified by them as David Tevosian and Marine Manukian.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like doing a domestic [U.S.] adoption where you have attorneys and everything is by the book, cut and dry,\u201d one of them confided to Manoogian. \u201cWhen we were over there [in Armenia,] we were told that \u2018You know, we had to give the orphanage so much money to hold your child so no one else could adopt him at the time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she replied to the two facilitators that \u201cI paid $20,000 for you to do what you did and I don\u2019t want to know what it cost you and what you had to do under the table, behind the books.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m under the impression that my child was put in a state-run orphanage to be hidden until she was old enough to be put up for international adoption,\u201d said another Adopt Abroad client.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost a business for them [Armenians,]\u201d explained the third American woman. \u201cWho gets that $5,000? I don\u2019t know \u2026 That part we didn\u2019t care. It didn\u2019t matter to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just how legal the activities of the adoption agencies and their middlemen in Armenia are is another question. Article 115 of the Armenian Family Code prohibits any \u201cintermediary activity in adoption.\u201d At the same time, it allows Armenian and foreign nationals to manage the adoption process \u201cthrough their legal representatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armenian officials claim that the adoption agencies do not actually operate inside Armenia and that their activities are confined to the collection and dispatch of necessary documents to relevant Armenian state bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not working with [foreign agencies,]\u201d insisted the Justice Ministry\u2019s Navasardian. \u201cWe are only in touch with the central [adoption] authorities of foreign states.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, U.S. adoption brokers are known to regularly fly to Yerevan and meet government officials there. Carolina Adoption Services (CAS), another U.S. agency, announced on its website last November that its assistant director, Julie Glandt, has just traveled to Armenia and can report that \u201cArmenian officials would like to continue to work with CAS.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Armenian official dealing with adoptions acknowledged that Sizemore, the Hopscotch director, visits Armenia once a year. According to the Hopscotch contract, the agency has a whole \u201cin-country team of translators, attorneys and administrative support\u201d in Yerevan. Adopt Abroad likewise refers to Armenian \u201coffice expenses\u201d in its service agreements with clients.<\/p>\n

This might explain why the number of foreign adoptions has barely decreased in the last several years despite the more stringent rules set by the Armenian authorities. Data from the Justice Ministry show that 142 Armenian children were adopted last year and 69 of them were taken abroad. According to the U.S. State Department, less than one-third of them found adoptive families in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The total number of foreign adoptions in 2010 was down from the peak level of 76 reported in 2003. There were 68 and 63 such cases officially registered in 2005 and 2009 respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that the toughening of procedures was supposed to affect adoption statistics,\u201d said Navasardian. The government\u2019s main goal was to increase the integrity and transparency of the process, added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad to say that we really have results in terms of ruling out legal loopholes, making the process as transparent as possible and bringing it into conformity with international standards,\u201d said Ghazarian, the Labor Ministry official, said.<\/p>\n

Both officials insisted that most of the Armenian orphans placed abroad had some mental or physical health problems. Armenians are less willing to adopt such children than foreigners, they said. According to Ghazarian\u2019s department, about 90 children are currently available for international adoption and less than a fifth of them are completely healthy.<\/p>\n

Ghazarian believes that for many of these orphans foreign adoption is the only realistic chance of regaining their \u201clost family, lost childhood and lost happiness.\u201d Sizemore made a similar point, saying that media should highlight not only the integrity of foreign adoptions but also \u201cthe gift of a permanent family for these children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHopscotch is honored to have the opportunity to serve these children in particular, and the families we have had the pleasure to work within their placement are exceptional, even remarkable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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Ara Manoogian, an Armenian-American activist, blogger and human rights advocate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But Manoogian, who has lived and worked in Nagorno-Karabakh since 1998 as a representative of the Shahan Natalie Family Foundation, an Armenian-American charity, dismissed these arguments. He said agencies like Hopscotch and Adopt Abroad must be banned from doing business in Armenia, comparing their activities with human trafficking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find nothing wrong with international adoption when the system works to the letter of the law,\u201d Manoogian told RFE\/RL. \u201cBut for me, there is nothing more outrageous than cashing in on these voiceless children, who are being deprived of their birthright as Armenians as a result of the circumvention of the system in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe adoption process in Armenia today on the surface appears to be more transparent than it did in 2003, yet the sophistication of the way the system is manipulated has surpassed that of how adoptions were carried out in 2003,\u201d he said.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: http:\/\/www.azatutyun.am 26.04.2011 Emil Danielyan What is an informal payment made to an Armenian government official or civil servant performing their duties? Armenia\u2019s Criminal Code defines it as a bribe that could be punishable by a lengthy prison sentence. Yet some private U.S. agencies arranging international adoptions of children call it a mere \u201cgift of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2294,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292\/revisions\/2294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}