Ethiopian kids in limbo as adoption agency folds

Ethiopian kids in limbo as adoption agency folds

Last Updated: Thursday, July 16, 2009 | 6:18 AM PT Comments25Recommend20

CBC News

A woman from B.C.'s southern Interior who is in Ethiopia to adopt two children is calling on the Canadian government to help dozens of children stranded by the bankruptcy of an adoption agency.

The Ontario-based agency Kids Link, which operates Imagine Adoption in Ethiopia, went bankrupt Monday, jeopardizing hundreds of potential adoptions for new parents.

Arnica Rowan of Kelowna is one of the lucky ones.

She rushed to Ethiopia earlier this week, and on Thursday she is scheduled to meet the twin three-year-old girls who are set to become part of her family.

But Rowan worries that other children waiting in Imagine Adoption's transition home, where they stay while adoptions are completed, are in danger.

"There are about 50 children at the transition home and they only have money for food for about eight days now, [so] the children are at risk," Rowan said.

"The regular accounts that give money to the transition home to feed the children and pay the staff, they have been frozen. The former director of Imagine Adoption did arrive with some donations that will keep it open for a week or so, but after that they have no more money."

Nowhere to go

Rowan said many of the children at the transition home are only partly through Ethiopia's complicated adoption process and some will have nowhere to go.

"The staff at Imagine Adoption are doing their best. They are really awesome, dedicated people and they're working for free essentially right now, but I don't know how long that can last," Rowan said.

Other Canadian families have been trickling in, she said, hoping to take home children they've been matched with after a process that can take more than a year.

Rowan said the Canadian government should step in to help both the children and prospective parents deal with the fallout of the bankruptcy.