Ajita* doesn’t know how to lace her shoes yet, but she has a good habit of wearing them whenever she goes outside. Maybe she is just glad to have a pair of shoes, this smiling 4-year-old who was found abandoned near a bridge outside Kathmandu when she was 2. An active girl who likes to scribble with crayons and sing rhymes, she loves younger children and is happy to care for and play with them.
Ajita is one of about 24 children living at the Nepal Child Conservation Home in Kathmandu, where Holt International’s Sponsorship Program helps provide food, medical care, loving nurture and safe shelter for children who are otherwise without a safe home. Read the rest of this entry »
Kathmandu, Nepal—Intercountry adoption is suspended in Nepal as the government deliberates on a new set of regulations. Meanwhile, over 400 children who have already been matched with foreign families are stuck in the system waiting for final government approval.
This scenario is not new on the intercountry adoption scene. Controversies and changes in adoption systems have impacted children in places like Cambodia, Romania and Vietnam. Significant changes in adoption processing, licensing of agencies and government restructuring are evident in other significant countries from which children are placed in intercountry adoption such as Russia, Ukraine, Guatemala, and China.
Obviously children are not aware of the issues that swirl around them that so profoundly determine their destiny. They just want to be held, protected, cared for and loved. I am visiting child caring centers in Nepal as Holt is setting up its program in this majestic country. Children in these centers are abandoned, they have lost parents and they are not getting any younger. Families already matched with Nepali children are acutely aware of these needs and the politics, and hang on every bit of news.
With colleagues from other agencies and Holt staff working in Nepal, I am speaking with Nepali government and child welfare associates to help move the process forward. We are working to balance the immediate needs of children stuck in the system and the longer term task of advocating for a system that offers the best safeguards for children in need of families. These two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Many Nepali people agree. Clearly, the children who are awaiting final approval need to be processed through as soon as possible. Read the rest of this entry »
