Couple wait for adoption paperwork to be approved by Canadian High Commission
10 March 2010
Couple wait for adoption paperwork to be approved by Canadian High Commission
A Canadian couple from the province of British Columbia have been caught in bureaucratic limbo while in the process of adopting twin boys from Ghana.
The Canadian High Commission in Ghana was not convinced that the death certificate of the children’s mother is a legitimate document, a concern in the region where child trafficking is common.
Andrea Bastin and her husband Michael Segal, from Bowen Island near Vancouver, say they have since produced the proper death certificate along with hospital records and affidavits from the mother’s family.
The couple also say Ghanaian officials have told their Canadian counterparts they're satisfied the mother is dead and the twins' elderly father has given up his parental rights.
Despite an appeal to Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and support from their MP, Conservative John Weston, the process is still in limbo and the family remains separated as Bastin and the children live in the spare room of a friend's house in Ghana and Segal in Canada.
A year ago the infant children were given to the Royal Seed Home, an orphanage near the capital of Accra, by their father, a yam farmer from north Ghana.
Bastin and Segal were helping support the orphanage where a former island resident was working when they began the adoption process, which included Bastin flying to Ghana to begin fostering the boys, which is required by the country's law.
Ghana's Social Welfare Department approved an interim adoption and the couple began the paperwork to bring the children to Canada, including the requirement to include a copy of the mother's death certificate.
Unfortunately, the twins' 24-year-old ``senior brother'' went to the family's village in Northern Ghana to get the document but he was told he had to go to Accra. There, he paid an official to get the death certificate, which turned out to be invalid, and Bastin and Segal later learned this bureaucrat had no authority to issue the document, which should have been issued by local officials.
At the Canadian High Commission in Ghana, which handles Canadian Visa and immigration files from a dozen African countries, the invalid death certificate raised concerns as the country is a hub for human trafficking.
Ghanaian social welfare officials granted Bastin and Segal full adoption, one of the conditions Canadian immigration officials required, and the couple have supplied to Canadian immigration the legitimate death certificate and along with hospital records confirming how she died and affidavits from relatives saying she was indeed dead.
The boys' father, who is in his 70s, also formally gave up his parental rights.
''Now we've resubmitted everything in hopes that in light of the new evidence, they would reopen the case,” Segal told The Canadian Press.
The Canadian Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people lodge their Canadian Visa with the Canadian High Commission London.