Tomas is bearing down on Haiti and while it’s not the absolute worst case scenario, even a Tropical Storm or Cat 1 stands to be horrible enough.

This is going to be bad.

Haiti’s million plus living under tarps and in tents face the additional pressure of potential forced evictions and having nowhere to return to if they do try to leave what little they now have.

The rains have already begun and will only get worse on into the night.

• Haiti camps face dilemma as storm approaches: Stay and face possible floods, or risk eviction
• Tropical storm Tomas taking torrential rains to Haiti
• Panic grips Haiti refugee camps as million people are told to evacuate before tropical storm strikes
• Chaos for Haiti Refugees as Tropical Storm Looms
• Tomas increases landslide risk in Haiti
• Tropical Storm Tomas Strengthening, Satellite Images Show

This in addition to the ongoing cholera outbreak

Haiti cholera deaths rise sharply as storm threatens

Health officials say 105 more people have died since Saturday, bringing the total to 442. They said there had been a 40% jump in the number of new cases.

The optimism of the team leader from the US Centers for Disease Control may be vastly premature, though considering reports such as this still coming in:

Report of Overwhelmed Hospital in St Marc

Not that access to things like clean water or medical care were all that simple to begin with.

HAITI: Unarmed in the fight against cholera

Meanwhile, U.S. promised aid monies remain stalled,

Another obstacle stalls $1.15B in US aid for Haiti

The storm is coming, just as so many of us feared it would.

It’s going to be a very difficult night.

There are plenty of sources to get updates from, but here at least is an overview of the areas covered by the Hurricane warnings.

Coastal Watches and Warnings via NOAA:

While the reports focus on the porous border in terms of child trafficking for purposes of house slave or shoe shine boy labor, begging, or prostitution, once the kids have been taken across the border and simply have no documentation, they can be moved essentially at will.

Be certain to see the videos that go with the reports.

• Trafficking, sexual exploitation of Haitian children in the Dominican Republic on the rise 10/23
• Dominican street offers brazen come-ons 10/23
• It’s heartbreaking to see how easy it is to buy a child 10/24
• Exclusive investigation: Guards cash in on smuggling Haitian children 10/26
• Left on road, in the bushes 10/27
• How one little girl made it from 1 side to the other 10/27
• How series was reported and numbers tallied 10/27
• MP3- Child trafficking problem grows in wake of Haiti quake

Adoption-wise of course it will be very interesting/potentially heartbreaking to see how this plays out.

To date the Dominican Republic has seen very few American adoptions, only 181 since 1999. The highest number in a single year was 25 adoptions in 2007.

See the U.S. State Department Dominican Republic adoptions page-

The 2010 numbers should be in line, if they’re not, a close examination would be in order.

The Dominican Republic is a Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption signatory nation so the convention forms the framework under which adoptions take place. But as I’ve written previously, the Hague Convention does little if anything to prevent trafficking, and the Council on Accreditation, the non-profit regulatory duties have been outsourced to not only has a fundamental conflict of interest, but is utterly toothless and ill equipped to investigate much of anything.

One thing that may actually be serving to keep Dominican Republic adoption numbers down is that it is a nation with a residency requirement for would-be-adopters.

This of course, was the underlying rationale behind Laura Silby’s New Life Children’s Refuge planned revamp of the hotel into “Seaside Villas at Playa Magante” as an adoption tourism destination.

All of which certainly raises the question of just how connected to child traffickers Silsby and the New Lifers were at the time.

Their association with Jorge Torres/Jorge Puello has always left the door open to those unanswered questions. (See both my previous posts on Puello and Marley Greiner’s posts pertaining to him on her End Child Exportation and Trafficking in Haiti blog.)

Time will tell whether other such “villas” for would-be-adopters sprout in the Dominican Republic or not.

Beyond the idea of the Dominican Republic as a potential adoption destination, though, lies the much more difficult question; what happens if/when paperfree children are exported from the Domincan Republic and end up somewhere else, now remarketed as “orphans” for adoption from a more hospitable “sending country” without strict residency requirements?

When a pool of children this bought and sold and paperfree becomes available, where do they turn up next?

Sorrow because I pay attention, and I write what little I can get words around.

Yet at the same time,

I am angry.

Usually, I have a great deal to say.

Today, I almost feel done with words. (For the moment at least.)

Every time I try to string words together about this, I end up erasing them back out of this post.

I am angry.

Ahead of what was happening in media reports, I watched as the bits and pieces were coming in on Twitter.

I read what people on the ground were tweeting, and saw the pictures they posted.

I am angry.

As early reports from yesterday like this AP piece flatly stated what demographically, some of us knew was a very likely scenario unfolding,

Most are reportedly children.

I am angry.

I’m furious at what the global lack of attention span and genuine empathy for Haiti’s well over a million left homeless has come to: precisely what we all knew it would unless drastic changes came quickly. Drastic changes that didn’t come in time for far too many, and have yet to come at all.

Land restructuring, debris removal, housing, and long term solutions, not stop-gap band-aids were and are neccessary, but instead the people of Haiti got… well this.

I am angry.

This, and empty promises.

Promises of monies that the international community, and yes, to our shame my own country, the United States simply has not sent the money behind its promise.

I don’t delude myself into thinking that even if every penny promised had shown up in a timely manner that it would have fixed things, or that there’s any element of any ability to control anything in this.

I am angry.

Because ten months under these conditions is simply beyond measure.

Everyone knew things were not going to even begin to come together overnight, but still… .

I am angry.

Because rebuilding Haiti has been left primarily to those who capitalize on disaster: profiteers and evangelists. Both of whom view Haitians and Haiti itself as little more than a means to an ends for their own purposes.

There are others there, trying to do right by the people, but in many ways, it’s been left to whomever wants a piece.

I am angry.

Because Haiti is not alone in suffering.

As always around the world, there are kids going to bed hungry, people homeless due to natural disasters, wars… .

We humans whittle the completely overwhelming magnitude of it all down to what we can even begin to fathom at any given point in time.

I am angry.

Once the decision to not decide about how to go forward was made, this simply became a matter of time.

I am angry.

(Because I know this will only drive would be adopters and the adoption industry into an even higher frenzy, ramping up pressure still further to remove Haitian children for adoptions, though I haven’t the stomach to look at such just yet.)

I am angry.

By the time I post these, they will already be out of date.

Outbreaks are like that.

I am angry.

• 142 dead in rural Haiti valley where cholera outbreak is worst health problem since quake
• Haiti’s first cholera epidemic in a century kills scores
• Haiti Cholera Outbreak ‘Most Dangerous Strain’
• Disease Outbreak in Haiti, Possibly Just Beginning, as Money Goes Unspent and Shelters Remain Unbuilt
• Cholera outbreak spreading in Haiti

• Partners in Health is coming up with 160 deaths just at these sites as of this morning.

As of Friday morning October 22, 2010; there have been more than 2000 cases of acute watery diarrhea and 160 deaths reported at the facilities in St. Marc, Petite Riviere d’Artibonite, Mirebalais, Lascahobas, and Verretes…

So I am angry.

Why the hell aren’t you?

But the adoption industry has certainly not forgotten Haiti.

In the post-quake grab and go period United Adoptees International tried to compile some basic statistics about the flights and where the kids were being taken to (see the UAI sidebar “EXPEDITION LIST HAITIAN CHILDREN“

EXPEDITION LIST HAITIAN CHILDREN
In order to have an overview of numbers, the UAI herewith tries to collect the numbers of Haitian adoptions or airlifts since the earthquake:

• Netherlands: 6+92 =98
• Belgium: 14
• Canada: 100 ?
• France: 326 (900 awaiting)
• Germany: 30+63=93
• Italy: 50 ?
• Luxembourg: 14
• Spain: 40 ?
• Switzerland: 11
• USA: 800 (1100 awaiting)

TOTAL NO 11.02.2010

• 1.356 intercountry adoptions from Haiti since the earthquake.

• 190 unknown.

• 33 known attempts of childtrafficking.

• 2000 scheduled.

TOTAL NUMBERS 3.546 children endangered by fast-speed adoptions.
—

The Dutch numbers of Haitian adoptions since 1974 (1983) – 2010 = + 1000.

As far as the child trafficking numbers, I’d have to go higher, up to a minimum of 73 due to Laura Silsby’s team’s earlier attempt at extracting a busload of 40 kids other than the 33 they were later caught with:

I wrote about that trip on February 9th, in my post Thwarted by a police officer in an earlier attempt 3 days before their arrests to export 40 *Other* kids- more on Silsby and the Scavengers. The post and my comments contain links to the initial reporting I was able to find on that previous child procurement trip the New Lifers’ made in to Haiti.

This is why I have repeatedly referred to the child victims of the New Lifers’ child trafficking attempts as at least “73″ not merely the 33 from the attempted trip on the 29th.

To date we know of at least two attempts by the New Lifers at child trafficking. It is unclear as to whether or not there were any other additional or previous attempts.

But these are merely the 73 we know about via the Sislby team. As I wrote back in February, You’ve got the kids, I’ve got the cash, let’s make some adoptions there have been other “orphan” adoption entrepreneurs as well.

For comparison with the Dutch numbers, adoptions from Haiti to the U.S. from 1999- 2009 according to the State Department totaled 2,574.

In 2009, Americans adopted 330 Haitian kids.

The notion of 800+ brought in and granted “humanitarian parole” as an intake path into American adoptions, in 2010, let alone an as of yet untold number more is insanity. It’s an adoption feeding frenzy.

Even the highest number of kids exported from Haiti to the US in that period, back in 2004, only resulted in 355 adoptions. 2010 has easily more than doubled the highest year on record, collecting 800-900+ kids in a mere couple of weeks.

To American adopters and the adoption industry, the earthquake and enduring human misery in the aftermath has been nothing if not a boon.

Some are more than willing to admit how the suffering of Haitians has directly benefited them.

As inter-country adoptions had been declining here in the U.S., Haiti and the unprecedented access to a supply of children suddenly made available to would-be-adopters (around the globe) provided an industry bail out the likes of which agencies could only dream of before the quake.

Far from listening to the cautions of those familiar with the pre-existing situation in Haiti, and rejecting the industry’s urging of mass adoptions in the wake of natural disaster, how such was a sure recipe for a human rights disaster, governments created the conditions for the “orphan” industry to act quickly to gather whatever it could, while it could.

After first extracting kids allegedly already in an adoption process prior to the quake and some, particularly 12 on the Rendells’ Raid that were extracted (apparently) illegally who were not in any adoption process before the quake, there was a pause in adoption processing before new applications were being accepted again.

Then, back in April the U.S. State Department issued a notice on the state of Haitian adoptions:

IBESR Accepting New Adoption Cases

April 29, 2010

Haiti’s adoption authority, the Institut du Bien-être Social et de Recherches(IBESR), has informed the U.S. Government that they are now accepting new adoption applications for Haitian children who were either documented as orphans before January 12, 2010, or who have been relinquished by their birth parent(s) since the earthquake.  The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince has also resumed normal visa processing.  We encourage prospective adoptive parents to verify that their application is being processed in accordance with Haitian legal requirements and the procedures established by IBESR.

and pointed readers across to it’s Haiti page.

Reopening in the wake of this catastrophe is nothing if not an open invitation to continue to capitalize on the misery the Haitian people have been left to.

And by left to, I genuinely mean, left to. The U.S. pledged 1.15 billion towards Haitian reconstruction, yet as reported at the end of September the Haitians have been stiffed with empty promises and little more than an IOU.

Jonathan Katz reports for the Associated Press on the status of aid the US had pledged for reconstruction efforts in Haiti. The verdict: “Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived.”

From the AP article 5 days ago:

With just a week to go before fiscal 2010 ends, the money is still tied up in Washington. At fault: bureaucracy, disorganization and a lack of urgency, The Associated Press learned in interviews with officials in the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the White House and the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy. One senator has held up a key authorization bill because of a $5 million provision he says will be wasteful.

Meanwhile, deaths in Port-au-Prince are mounting, as quake survivors scramble to live without shelter or food.

“There are truly lives at stake, and the idea that folks are spending more time finger-pointing than getting this solved is almost unbelievable,” said John Simon, a former U.S. ambassador to the African Union who is now with the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank.

Nor is Haiti getting much from other donors. Some 50 other nations and organizations pledged a total of $8.75 billion for reconstruction, but just $686 million of that has reached Haiti so far — less than 15 percent of the total promised for 2010-11.

While that finger pointing continues, forced evictions are ongoing, multiple storms that have killed a number of Haitians now and destroyed the tent shelters of thousands more, and hunger, rape, and poverty that defies words are simply some sick version of the new norm.

This new norm has led already desperate parents who leaned on the “orphanage” system before the earthquake to care for their kids as a temporary measure (yes, which means many Haitian kids in “orphanages” were most definitely not “orphans”) to now simply outright abandon their children.

Unable to feed or care for them, or to protect them from violence or even rape in the camps, if their tents are even still standing that is,  desperate parents with no other options are simply abandoning their children.

When people are stripped of any other way to provide even the basics of life for ones’ child, even a tarp over their heads,  is it any wonder that they then leave them at “orphanages” in hopes of assuring the child’s most basic survival?

All the more so when you have “orphanages” advertising their ability to take in more kids and white Americans coming down talking about how much they want to take kids home and give them that “better life”?

These kids are not “orphans” these are casualties not merely of the earthquake, but of the man made humanitarian crisis in the aftermath. The outright refusal to live up to promises of economic aid trickles down through societally until parents are left with no other options by which to keep their children fed or safe.

It’s systemic, not individual.

It’s an impossible situation. In order to better one’s child’s hopes of surviving, you must be willing to never see them again.

The nations that both stall on their obligations and then benefit on the back end by extracting Haiti’s children are nothing short of predatory.

But Haiti is in no position to say ‘not one child leaves for your country until you pay what you promised’ and even if Haiti could, the business relationship would then become all too clear all too quickly. Countries promise “aid” and they take children.

No moratorium on taking these kids, left in desperation in hopes of not some mythic “better life” but of any life AT ALL, has been forthcoming. The price of survival for these kids has been their ties to their families, their parents, their brothers and sisters.

Potential adopters COULD do the only ethical thing and refuse to adopt from Haiti, understanding that their cash and demand is an engine driving this misery. But instead, they flock to Haitian adoptions, viewing such desperate situations as merely their opportunity, their own personal silver linings, and demand adoptions be opened further, and expedited utilizing the ever worsening situation as their excuse. Never once understanding that they themselves are part of the system driving such.

They work on their own behalf, not on behalf of the Haitian people or the country as a whole.

The money they expend on a single child, (their efforts rooted in their own personal desires,) could aid a people were they willing to give without expecting a child for themselves in return. But reciprocity lies at the core of adoption, and I have yet to see American would-be-adopters willing to hand over the pile of cash with no expectation of a personal gain on the back end.

The industry, seeing the profits to be gained off the backs of every Haitian child has no qualms ramming through as many placements as they possibly can, all while lobbying for more, and painting the Rendells and their raid that brought in 12 kids now trapped in diplomatic limbo as nothing less than  “heroic.”

Meanwhile, in Haiti… providing “orphans” has become even more of a key economic engine than it was prior to the natural disaster.

Selling kids to white people, while nothing new, is what’s left.

“Adoption and child sponsorship is the biggest money-making operation in Haiti right now,” Susie said last week. “Everybody and their aunt is starting one. You can raise a lot of money if you have kids in rags who look hungry. A lot of them will round up 50 kids from the neighborhood every time a white person shows up — and once the foreigner leaves, everybody goes home.”

Of course, Mercy & Sharing is just another side of the christian evangelism coin, “indigenous” or “contextual” leadership training, by which rather than exporting kids, evangelicals maintain “orphans” and “abandoned” kids in country, raising them in their belief systems without “family interference” to one day hopefully grow up to be leaders in government, industry, and other areas of influence in order to “take a nation for christ.”  All of which is what lies behind code words like Mercy & Sharing’s “We are very adamant about raising the kids to become leaders in their own country.”

Mercy & Sharing of course also benefits directly from the children now disconnected from family ties and their records destroyed national child welfare crisis. Both economically and in terms of prestige and becoming a ‘go to’ ministry in a country wherein most social programs are administered by NGOs, not the state. The concept of “indigenously” raising of kids de-contextualized from their families for christian leadership is well deserving of it’s own post eventually, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

Meanwhile, kids are being handed over to groups like Mercy and Sharing routinely.

Haiti’s government-run hospital unit for abandoned babies in Port-au-Prince was destroyed in the earthquake, and Mercy & Sharing had worked closely with the children there. The government is now moving abandoned or orphaned kids directly into tent cities temporarily while they process them in the social services system.

“The social affairs offices are pretty much inoperable,” Susie said. “They lost all of their records, too. So the children are being placed in the tent cities right now and then moved, directly after their paper work is done, to orphanages like ours.”

That’s what passes for child welfare in Haiti, desperation, abandonment, adoption,  or being handed off to groups like this.

It’s a free for all.

Not that most Americans seem to have any problem with that.

Meanwhile, in Haiti… Kids are the new economic model. Everyone in position to benefit from such is doing just that, just as quickly as they can.

Last Thursday, as a result of actions taken by the State Department, numerous media outlets reported that the charges against the 9 American Baptist Missionaries arrested in Haiti for attempting to export at least two busloads of Haitian children for potential eventual adoptions had been dropped.

See, Charges dropped against Amarillo man and 8 others arrested in Haiti as but one of many examples.

(Laura Sislby, of course, remains in her jail cell in Haiti.)

The article makes mention of the State Department official who appears to have been part of the chain of events that led to this impression:

“We did get word from the chief of the western hemisphere affairs office at the Department of State, his name is Ted Coley, that the judge down there in Haiti informed the U.S. Embassy today that the charges against nine of the missionaries have been dropped, and no additional charges are expected to be filed against them,” said Bill Harris, senior counsel to Thornberry.

The article also lays out the remaining process on the Haitian end:

“All of the information on the investigation on her has been completed and submitted to the judge,” Harris said. “They (the State Department) said the judge ought to have a recommendation within seven days … it sounds like it’s been progressing.”

The prosecutor in Silsby’s case can recommend additional investigation, or come back with a finding of “guilty” or “not guilty.”

But it appears the American State Department got it wrong.

Despite the resulting statements from U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, U.S. Sen Jim Risch, attorney Caleb Stegall, Rev, Clint Henry, Drew Culberth, and others, Haiti’s  Attorney General Joseph Manes has since clarified, the charges still stand.

Drew Culberth actually sat down for a 14 minute long interview with KTKA on Friday. The video, available here Topeka missionary says closure will only come with final missionary’s release from Haiti goes into a fair amount of detail about how the aftermath of the arrests unfolded from Culberth’s point of view.

At the time of course, he was under the mistaken impression that the charges had been dropped, which was incorrect.

This piece from CNN (from today Sat.) makes it clear that the charges have not been dropped to date, and by Haitian law, cannot be until a the ruling is handed down  Haiti denies charges dropped against American missionaries:

Haiti’s top prosecutor on Friday denied reports that charges have been dropped against nine of the 10 American missionaries accused of kidnapping children after a devastating earthquake hit the nation in January.

Attorney General Joseph Manes was responding to news from the office of U.S. Sen Jim Risch, R-Idaho, whose staff on Thursday said the charges had been dropped against all but one of the Baptist missionaries. Group leader Laura Silsby remains in a Haitian jail. Risch spokesman Kyle Hines said the senator had been contacted by officials at the U.S. State Department, confirming that the kidnapping charges against the other nine were dropped.

However, Manes said that information was “absolutely incorrect.” He said that under Haitian law, all charges against the 10 Americans stand until the examining judge, Bernard Saint-Vil, renders his final decision on whether to proceed to trial.

Risch’s communications director, Brad Hoaglun, said: “We are standing by what we were orginally told by the State Department. We did, however, ask the State Department to reconfirm for us, and we are waiting that response.”

A senior State Department official told CNN Friday the charges were dropped, but deferred questions to Haiti’s government, saying “this was a Haitian decision.”

On Thursday, Saint-Vil could not be reached for comment and Manes declined to respond to CNN’s questions until he could do so in person on Friday.

and

The Rev. Clint Henry of the Central Valley Baptist Church said the missionaries were notified by a State Department e-mail that the charges were dropped and no other charges were pending.

Meanwhile, Manes said his office received the documents pertaining to Saint-Vil’s investigation and that his staff has five days to derive an opinion, which will remain confidential, on whether to move forward on a trial or dismiss the charges. At that point the case will be returned to the judge for a final decision.

In addition to the emails, there were also phone calls from the State Department to Idaho legislators and the missionaries themselves.

This entire affair has had numerous twists and turns, but this latest, apparently sparked by yet more ignorance of Haitian law this time on the level of the American State Department, is pretty darn remarkable.

Baby Jean or Baby Jenny’s journey makes for a kind of a real case study in just how much of the South Florida child care system has been outsourced to a variety of religious subcontractors, and how despite how these Haitian children have been assumed to be “orphans,” family reunions are sometimes possible, when attention and resources put behind efforts to reunite them.

That said, she is but one of many kids, “unaccompanied minors” who have traveled from Haiti.

Clearly these other kids, by and large glossed over in the media accounts, and unlikely to have such resources brought to bear on their cases may not be so fortunate.

So let’s look at her case. While all the focus has been on her journey and eventual reunification, very little attention has been given to the fact that from the moment she landed in the Florida system, she was being dual tracked, in other words, aim for a reunion if possible, but simultaneously she was tracked for adoption.

I first reported back on January 27th on the plight of the “unnamed Baby Girl” found in the rubble in Haiti, and taken by an ABC News journalist to a field hospital. Thereafter, she was taken out of the country on to the U.S. for the necessary medical care. See my post  Adopting kids out of Satan’s Haiti, the For His Glory kids & the slowing of child export flights.

She was described in this article at the time as:

…the first survivor of Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake to enter foster care in Florida. A Miami judge ordered the baby — who is being claimed by a family in Port-au-Prince — into the custody of state child welfare administrators.

As I emphasized this piece of the article at the time, Florida DCF:

…asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri Beth Cohen to place the infant under the state’s care while investigators try to determine whether she has family in Haiti.

Cohen asked the agency to look “diligently” for the girl’s family, while at the same time beginning efforts to place the girl up for adoption in Miami should no family be found.

“We want to help,” Cohen said in court. “We don’t want to further traumatize this family. We must make sure we work very diligently to find her family. That is very, very important.”

The baby girl, whose name remains unknown, is believed to be the first child brought from Haiti to enter foster care in Florida. Another child may have been sheltered by federal immigration workers last week, Colyer said.

I noted:

So in Miami at least, they’re dual tracking those kids coming in under medical necessity; search for family, BUT AT THE SAME TIME begin adoption proceedings.

Yet another tale of yet another kid not in any adoption mechanism pre-quake undergoing at least the preliminary steps towards an American adoption now that they’re on American soil.

The article continued:

While the infant was recovering at JMH last week, her identity a mystery, a man and woman who thought their baby daughter had died in the rubble got word that their child had been found and flown to Miami.

A journalist working for ABC News who was passing by the rescue took the baby to a field hospital in Port-au-Prince and later returned to the crumbled home to find the family.

There, a relative gave her contact information for Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme, who believe the baby in Miami is their daughter Jenny. Alexis, 24, had searched for the baby for days after the quake, which knocked Devilme, 23, unconscious.

The couple moved to a camp in front of the Canapé Vert Hospital.

Last week, they told a Miami Herald reporter that they had no proof that the baby in Miami was theirs. But Alexis said he was prepared to take any test necessary to prove fatherhood.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was contacted by officials at the hospital as well as the journalists who brought the baby to the triage center in Haiti.

Workers with the organization in Haiti have been trying to get in touch with the couple, according to the Red Cross.

“Baby Jenny’s” case was spotlighted across multiple news channels. Here’s just one of many such typical pieces, Haitian Baby Isn’t Orphan, After All. Once again, we see all those assumptions about how these children somehow must be “orphans.”

She was dubbed “Haiti’s miracle baby” and used as an archetypal metaphor for Haiti’s children surviving in the rubble and remains. She has in effect, been turned into a poster child of sorts, despite the extraordinary circumstances surrounding her rescue, news crews seeking her parents out etc.

Florida’s Department of Children and Families placed her in fostercare with a lay guardian at His House in Miami Gardens, where she’s been for the past two months as both efforts to reunite her with her family and place her for adoption have continued as she underwent physical therapy. (We’ll get to “His House” down below.)

After weeks of news crews following each twist and turn in the “Baby Jenny” saga, last Tuesday news finally came of a DNA match between the child and her mother.

A match: DNA in Haiti leads to infant in Miami (see link for pictures of the girl’s parents.)

Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme are still sleeping in a tent in Haiti’s crumbling capital, but on Tuesday, the couple’s lives improved dramatically:

An infant — known in Miami courthouse records as “Unnamed Baby Girl” — was identified by DNA as their missing daughter.

The infant, found by an ABC News crew under the rubble of the couple’s Port-au-Prince home shortly after the earthquake, was whisked to Jackson Memorial Hospital by a University of Miami medical crew, and is recovering from life-threatening injuries at a Miami Gardens shelter.

Though recent DNA tests confirm the infant’s identity, Devilme said Tuesday she still had not been given the news.

Devilme provided DNA samples to the International Committee of the Red Cross earlier this month, and the samples matched those of “Baby Jenny,” sources told The Miami Herald Tuesday. Alexis did not provide a sample.

Red Cross workers drove Devilme and Alexis to their offices for an important phone call Tuesday, Devilme said, adding that the call did not come.

Meanwhile, here in America,

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman, who has been overseeing Jenny’s odyssey in child welfare court, will be given the test results at a hearing at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Eunice Sigler, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade courts, wrote in a brief statement Tuesday afternoon.

Jenny was flown to Miami by doctors with Project Medishare, who began treating trauma patients in Haiti almost immediately after the magnitude 7.0 quake on Jan. 12.

Though Jenny has been under the supervision of the Florida Department of Children & Families for only two months, child welfare administrators and children’s advocates already see the girl as a relatively rare happy ending — both for Haiti and the state’s child welfare system.

At a hearing before Lederman last week, the infant’s court-appointed lay guardian and her attorney said she was recovering remarkably well, and meeting all the developmental milestones one would expect from a 4-month-old.

But this article also makes small mention of what is in fact the larger story here (emphasis added)

Olga Miltcheva, spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Port-au-Prince, said Tuesday that the agency is following 70 cases of unaccompanied children as a result of the earthquake. So far, they have assisted in four family reunions.

“We have a lot of children that were brought out of the country just after the earthquake,” Miltcheva said.

Despite the attention spent on this one case, there are in fact, a number of children who have been removed from Haiti.

Without the glare of the cameras, it remains to be seen whether these other kids cases will receive the attention, the DNA testing, and other such measures towards reunifications. Those who landed in Miami for example may be somewhere in the course of the dual tracked system, resulting in reunions for some, but potential eventual adoptions or foster care for others.

Miracle Baby’s Fate Decided Today

The results of a DNA test on the unidentified infant who became known as Baby Jean or Baby Jenny will determine whether she’ll return to the parents in Haiti who have claimed her.

A family court judge will make the announcement during a 9:30 a.m. hearing.

In this one high profile case though, DNA testing was done.

Baby Jean, at just two months old, was found buried under rubble, covered in dust and maggots and clinging to life a day after the Jan. 12 earthquake hit in Port-au-Prince. She taken in by UM doctors and flown to Miami, where she was quickly nursed to health by doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital and dubbed “Haiti’s Miracle Baby.”

Thought to be an orphan, Jean has remained in South Florida until parents Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme came forward.

The DNA test confirmed Jean belonged to Alexis and Devilme, and now legal procedure is all that stands between them and their miracle baby.

Most of the attention, even in this case has been put on the ‘rescue’ aspects, ignoring the feelings of the parents, searching through the rubble for their child who had been taken out of the country:

Back when the story first broke, a lawyer involved in the case talked about the agony of a parents not knowing the fate of their child.

“I try and put myself in the position of a parent frantically trying to find their son or daughter only to find they have been taken to another country, Jesse Eaves said.

After Wednesday morning’s hearing, it was determined the child would be returned to her parents. See  Next for miracle Haiti baby: reunion with parents:

Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme, a couple in Port-au-Prince who lost their infant daughter during the deadly Jan. 12 earthquake, were told Tuesday that the girl recovering in a Miami Gardens shelter is, indeed, their daughter. Devilme had provided a DNA sample that was tested against the DNA of “Baby Jenny.”

Florida utilizes a “Guardian-ad-litem” system of volunteers (”faith based” or otherwise) to aid in making decisions on behalf of dependent kids (often victims of abuse or neglect) allegedly based on notions of the child’s “best interests”:

Donald “DJ” Cannava, an attorney for the state Department of Children & Families, delivered the news in court Wednesday morning that many in both Haiti and South Florida had been anticipating: “I am happy to report that, within a 99.9 precent chance of certainty, Mrs. Devilme is the biological mother of the child.”

As Cannava spoke, Jenny’s court-appointed guardian-ad-litem, Gail Appelrouth, clapped her hands quietly. “Yay!” she said.

Baby Jenny has become a kind of touchstone for the hopes of Haitians, Haitian-Americans and well-wishers who see her journey as a blueprint for the embattled island nation.

It appears her parents will receive humanitarian parole status for the time being, in part so the girl can continue therapy relating to her long term recovery:

A spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the agency could not comment on the couple’s status or travel to the United States because of privacy laws. But Cannava, as well as attorneys for both Jenny and her parents, told Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman Wednesday that federal immigration authorities had agreed to provide Alexis and Devilme humanitarian parole so they can reunite with their daughter while she continues to receive therapy in Miami.

“I’m happy that it’s finally known that it’s our baby, even though I have always known she was our baby,” Alexis said Wednesday in Port-au-Prince.

Not surprisingly, her mother has expressed her desire to remain in the States:

Devilme said she would like to stay in the United States with her baby.

“We lost everything,” she said. “Haiti is not safe for a baby. The doctors are dead, the teachers are dead and a lot of great people are dead.”

Sure enough, just as I’d suspected, the article confirms the role “His House” christian orphanage and academy has been playing in Baby Jean’s case:

Jenny — who was taken by an ABC News crew to a United Nations triage hospital shortly after workers freed her from the rubble of her parents’ home — is receiving occupational and physical therapy at His House children’s home while she recovers from her trauma, said the shelter’s lawyer, Liz Anon.

I’ve been working on a longer piece about His House in Maimi, but a number of the Haitian kids being brought into the south Florida system are being entrusted to it.  You can find a brief characterization of it here, in this important piece pertaining to how the history of Korean American adoptions holds important lessons pertaining to the current situation, Korea to Haiti: Lessons in Overseas Adoption Corruption:

Lessons from Korea further suggest that the best interests of the child need slower and thorough consideration rather than giving into the religious zeal of missionaries whose real purpose “is religious conversion. Some families have taken four or five children. Certainly, the literature of His House, a large Christian orphanage in Miami which is coordinating adoptions, says it aims to turn children into ‘Christ-like beings’ ”.

Returning to the Miami Herald piece:

“We want to make sure the baby’s best interests are protected, and the family is reunified as soon as possible,” said Markenzy Lapointe, a private attorney who is representing Jenny.

At the end of Wednesday’s hearing, the judge said the state will not need to oversee Jenny’s care after Alexis and Devilme arrive because “these parents are clearly good parents, which is not something you see here often” in Miami’s child welfare court.

Interestingly, the lawyers are talking about a return to Haiti even as her mother, Nadine speaks of her desire to stay in the States:

After the hearing, Lapointe told reporters that he and Bob Martinez, the attorney representing Devilme and Alexis, informed the parents in Port-au-Prince Tuesday of the DNA match. “Of course, they always knew that,” he said, “but they were absolutely ecstatic. They look forward to seeing their child.”

Eventually, the two lawyers said, both Jenny and her parents will return to Haiti. But first, Lapointe said, “I want to make sure she gets a full, clean bill of health.”

Even the University of Miami physician who made the decision to send Jean to the United States cannot frame her flight and medical care as anything other than a useful christian parable:

Dr. Arthur Fournier, a University of Miami physician who was working in a field hospital in Haiti when the critically injured baby was brought in for care and made the decision to fly her to Miami, said he was thrilled that she would be reunited with her parents.

“Easter is coming,” he said. “This is death and resurrection. This child was dead and she’s rising up again and her family’s rising up again.”

Today news came that the kids will be returned to their families. According to the release from SOS the verification process to ensure those claiming them are indeed family has been part of the reason the kids have no returned before now.

The children arrived on 30 January, when SOS Children’s Villages was assigned the task of taking care of them temporarily by the Haitian child welfare authority IBERS (The Institut du Bien Etre Sociale et De Recherches), following the arrest of a group of ten US nationals who had tried to take them out of the country under dubious circumstances and without proper documentation.

Following a lengthy process of family verification handled by IBERS, the children, aged four months to twelve years, can now return home.

“It has turned out that all of the 33 children have parents. SOS Children’s Villages is convinced that in most cases, the best place for a child to be cared for and protected is within the family. In any case, poverty and lacking resources must not be allowed to be the cause for separation. We are therefore very supportive of the decision of the Haitian authorities to reunite these children with their biological families,” says Celigny Darius, national director of SOS Children’s Villages in Haiti.

During their stay, all 33 children participated in the daily life of the SOS Children’s Village and have each been integrated into a household. Siblings and cousins lived under the same roof and all received medical care and professional help from psychologists and SOS social workers.

“I have made some good friends here and enjoyed playing football, but I miss my mother and now it will be nice to go home,” says 9-year old Michael.

The return of the kids is far from some ‘end’ to the story though, as the release points out, the climate of desperation that led to these kids being placed on the New Lifer’s bus is every bit as present today (if not more so) than it was back in January:

“This case has highlighted the risks of separation in emergency situations, when destitute families see no other way than to give up their children. Even before the earthquake many families in Haiti were at risk of being separated due to poverty. Unfortunately, as access to medical care, food, water, shelter, and other services continues to be more limited than before, the situation still puts children at risk. It is essential that relief efforts focus on preventing separation by ensuring that families have access to basic necessities,” Celigny Darius says.

The voices of the kids have been largely absent from the coverage though this piece, The child snatchers: Special report from Haiti on the U.S. missionaries accused of ’stealing orphans’ and why – most shockingly of all – their parents say they would give them away again in the (odious tabloid) Daily Mail UK does a better job of profiling the kids themselves than most.

For example, it makes the rare mention of the anger at least one of the boys has expressed towards his mother who “gave him away:”

One boy has told staff he will never go back to his mother because she gave him away. Another girl talks repeatedly about the bus journey, before bursting into tears. As for Benatide, a lot of the time she stays silent and deep in thought. Every day, she begs to make a call to her brother.

We have read very little about the families and parents other than portraits such as the below in this article, AP finds all Baptist group’s ‘orphans’ had parents:

One mother who gave up her four children, including a 3-month-old, is in a trancelike depression, occasionally erupting into fits of hysteria.

Her husband and other parents in Citron said they relinquished their children to the U.S. missionaries because they were promised safekeeping across the border in a newly established orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

Clearly part of the “pitch” the New Life team used to gain the kids was fear based, rooted in providing that mythical “better life” we so often hear about in adoptionland, after all, how can an apocalyptic landscape of rubble and promised “epidemics” compete with the New Lifer’s full colour brochures featuring a former hotel and its swimming pool?

Silsby had been working since last summer to create an orphanage. After the quake, she hastily organized a self-styled “rescue mission,” enlisting missionaries from Idaho, Texas and Kansas.

She was led to Citron by Pastor Jean Sainvil, an Atlanta, Georgia-based Haitian minister who recruited the 13 children in the slum. Sainvil had been a frequent visitor to the neighborhood of unpaved streets and simple cement homes even before more than half of the houses collapsed in the quake.

“The pastor said that with all the bodies decomposing in the rubble there were going to be epidemics, and the kids were going to get sick,” said Regilus Chesnel, a 39-year-old stone mason.

Chesnel’s wife, 33-year-old Bertho Magonie, said her husband persuaded her to give away their children — ages 12, 7, 3, and 1 — and a 10-year-old nephew living with them because their house had collapsed and the kids were sick.

“They were vomiting. They had fevers, diarrhea and headaches,” she said, leaning against the wall of the grimy two-room hovel the couple shares.

Later, after coming to the realization that they might never see their children again (and that the missionaries pitch was a patchwork of lies) one of the mothers was profiled thusly:

Under one of the blue tarps sheltering the Chesnels’ homeless neighbors, 27-year-old Maletid Desilien lay Saturday on a bed of two soiled rugs. Only her eyes peered out from under a bedsheet.

“She has been like that ever since someone told her she will never get the kids back,” said her husband, Dieulifanne Desilien, who works in a T-shirt factory.

That was eight days ago. Most of the time she lies catatonic, he said, warning a reporter not to go near because she periodically has fits.

“She would get up, take her clothes off and run around pulling her hair out,” Desilien, 40, said of his wife. “She would jump up from sleep and say, ‘Bring me my kids.’”

He said she only calms down and is able to sleep after speaking by phone with her children, who are at an orphanage in the capital run by the Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages charity.

The day they arrived, orphanage officials said, the Desiliens’ 3-month-old daughter, Koestey, was so dehydrated she had to be hospitalized. The other children are ages 7, 6 and 4. Their father — but not their mother — has visited them.

Desilien said a police commander has assured him that he will get the children back. The Social Welfare ministry, however, has yet to decide whether some or all of the 33 children will be returned to their parents.

“My wife is sick so I have to find a way to get the children back,” Desilien said.

Fly Away Children, Broadcast: 09/15/2009

In Australia, due to the country’s history pertaining to adoption (which is well beyond the scope of this tiny post, but by way of one starting place, you can read about the Parliamentary Inquiry and Australia’s Origins work here,)  inter-country adoptions are run solely by the government instead by private agencies as they are here in the United States.

Yet clearly, that supposed ’safeguard’ built into the Australian system has failed to prevent precisely the sorts of child-trafficking so common to inter-country adoptions.

Instead of providing any form of a ’safeguard’, the ABC has obtained a document in which:

A parent of an adopted child implicates Australia’s representative in Ethiopia in the child trafficking racket.

Which is to say that rather than thwarting the system of bribes and lies, it appears Australia’s representative simply moved right into the vacuum or niche in the adoption ecosystem left when no private agencies are able to work there.

As a result of the broadcast, yet more families have come forward to share their stories, and so earlier this month, the ABC ran a follow up piece which I feel is in some ways stronger than the initial report:

Fly Away Home Broadcast: 03/02/2010

Both video segments are rooted in a consumer protection model focusing on the ‘wronged’ adopters, who are dismayed that the children they adopted were not as advertised. Though both segments also go well beyond such, by spending some time on both the Ethiopian mothers and the voices of some of the Ethiopian kids, and thus touching on the human/identity/heritage/cultural rights aspects of these abuses.

For example, viewers once again hear the all too familiar refrain of how the “adoptee” was told they would be going to the United States by way of an educational opportunity, that they could go home to see their families, etc.

Naturally, once they arrive here in the states, they find themselves in a completely different situation, that of now being expected to live up to the role of, as well as legally now the new child to the the family that purchased them, unable to return to their country of origin until after they reach the magic age of 18.

Both programes offer up the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption as if it were some form of solution to adoption corruption when clearly, it is by its very nature, not.

The ABC has also done a number of pieces, such as this, “Adoption Special,”  Australians caught in Ethiopian adoption nightmare, added today.  Be certain to explore the sidebars and supporting documents, such as this letter from Against Child Trafficking (ACT) which was accompanied by ACT’s collected evidence.

This is all set against the backdrop of Australia’s Ethiopia adoption ban having just been lifted:

The Attorney-General’s Office said the program would resume on April 6, 2010.

To the ABC’s credit, they are doing a genuine service by raising the issues involved, providing a broader microphone and audience to voices almost never heard, and doing real educational work before the new adoptions start up again. This is a crucial period in which opposition must be heard.

The decision to reopen Ethiopian adoptions is not grounded in evidence of the situation improving, nor of the human rights situation actually changing, if anything, the gold rush mentality is on in Ethiopia, just as it has been in country after country.

Take the American inter-country adoption suspensions track record for example:

Americans rushed in to grab whatever kids they could in Romania until adoptions were suspended in June 2001.

Next to suspend was  Cambodia in December 2001.

Then Georgia, in August 2003.

Followed by Azerbaijan in May 2004.

Belarus suspended in October 2004.

Then Guatemala, December 2007.

Next came Vietnam, September 2008.

and more recently, Kyrgyzstan, September 2008.

Haiti suspended all but adoptions already in process (although there are questions about how thorough that suspension is in practice at the moment) back in late January.

At the beginning of March, Swaziland just suspended all U.S. adoptions, pending an investigation by the Department of Social Welfare reviewing its adoption procedures. No date has been set for completion of the review. In the mean time, only adoptions already underway are being completed.

You would think certain lessons might be learned from that litany of suspensions, but nope. When a country like Guatemala closes, hotels near the airport in Ethiopia begin filling up with would-be-adopters in the next destination du jour.

Those of you who have been following along on my twitter, have likely seen a number of articles I’ve been pulling relating to the Ethiopian mess, such as this misnamed piece, Adoption watchdog suppresses Ethiopia findings.  Horribly misnamed, in that the Joint Council of International Children’s Services, or JCICS is anything but a “watchdog” group, it is an adoption industry trade lobby.

Core to it’s very function is to fight off industry regulation by falsely positioning itself as an advocate working on behalf of children. The industry cannot, by definition, “watchdog” itself.

As I mentioned on my Twitter, how bad has it gotten? Apparently bad enough for the industry trade lobby to suppress its own report on how bad its gotten.

The Joint Council of International Children’s Services (JCICS) says it has completed its probe, but to release its conclusions would not be “appropriate”.

In”appropriate” only in that releasing said findings might just mean a one one ticket to having to find themselves new jobs.

Well that, and for what their own report might reveal concerning Christian World Adoption and former JCICS President Tomilee Harding.

Prominent adoption reform advocate Maureen Flatley claims JCICS is stacked with adoption agency figures and does a poor job of self-regulating.

“We’ve really let the fox guard the henhouse,” she said.

“They are the ‘big tobacco’ of adoption. They are a trade association that nominally espouses the highest standards but which is harbouring the very people who have been involved in some of the biggest abuses in adoption – and they haven’t laid a hand on them.

“The JCICS has one goal and one goal only, and that is to avoid federal regulation of adoption.

All of this is the big picture.

But at the end of the day, what the international community should be listening to are the voices of the mothers, the families, and those subjected to these adoptions themselves, particularly those few old enough to speak out on their own behalf:

Tonight Foreign Correspondent exposes more cases, including that of Journee Bradshaw, who claims CWA told her she was heading off on a study trip to the US, only to learn after her arrival that she would not be returning to Ethiopia.

“I didn’t know that I’m going to stay here,” she said.

“They never told me that I’m going to have a family I’m going to stay with and I’m supposed to be their daughter. They never told me that. I just find out when I got here.”

She is already facing kidnapping and criminal-association charges stemming from the New Lifers’ January 29th attempted child export trip that ended in ten members of the team being arrested. (At least seven other team members were on the Dominican Republic side of the border at the time of the arrests.)

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil has added a new charge of “organization of irregular trips.”

As explained in this article, Haiti judge: New charge for US missionary leader:

Saint-Vil has added the new charge of “organization of irregular trips,” from a 1980 law restricting travel out of Haiti that was signed by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.

The judge said Friday he has until early May to decide whether to release Silsby or order a trial.

The new charge stems from the trip the 10 missionary scavengers made 3 days before, on January 26th.

Assumedly this would pertain to the bus trip with 40 kids that a Haitian police officer put a stop to, telling them what they were doing was illegal, and that they could not go about it that way before offering to help them.

Importantly ten missionaries were on the bus at the time the officer stopped them and told them their child export attempt was illegal.

Whether or not those were the same ten who were then arrested three days later, or merely a subset of that group filled out by others who were on the Dominican Republic side of the border at the time of final fateful trip and arrests is unknown. But in light of the incident with the police officer on the 26th, to later claim they were unaware they didn’t have the appropriate paperwork certainly rings hollow.

I wrote about that trip on February 9th, in my post Thwarted by a police officer in an earlier attempt 3 days before their arrests to export 40 *Other* kids- more on Silsby and the Scavengers. The post and my comments contain links to the initial reporting I was able to find on that previous child procurement trip the New Lifers’ made in to Haiti.

This is why I have repeatedly referred to the child victims of the New Lifers’ child trafficking attempts as at least “73″ not merely the 33 from the attempted trip on the 29th.

To date we know of at least two attempts by the New Lifers at child trafficking. It is unclear as to whether or not there were any other additional or previous attempts.

What we can piece together by way of a very bare bones sketch with just a few details added begins to look like this:

• January 12 was the earthquake
• January 22, we have this report telling the story of the children on the New Lifers’ final bus trip and their families from Calebasse (a rare bit of useful reporting from the otherwise tabloid rag, the Daily Mail UK.) The piece includes a number of details pertaining to the New Lifers trip to Calebasse marketing their “orphanage” and attempting to collect kids:

…”ten days later when the U.S. Baptists arrived at Calebasse and began knocking on doors. They handed out flyers saying they wanted to ‘help children who have lost their mother and father in the earthquake or have no one to love and care for them’. The flyers said, inaccurately, that the group had the Haitian government’s permission to take 100 children abroad to the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti.”

• January 26th, was the foiled attempt to move the busload of 40 kids out of Haiti from which, assumedly the latest charge stems
• January 29th, (a week after marketing in Calebasse) the final attempt to take the Calebasse kids out of Haiti, which eventually results in the arrests of the ten missionary scavengers.

Clearly the New Lifers were in Haiti as early as the 22nd, the question remains whether they only attempted two trips, or whether there were other trips or attempts in that week that have yet to come to light.

The article pertaining to the new charge describes the trip on the 26th as a:

newly discovered, alleged attempt

Despite the fact that the articles I found at the time mentioned the officer who stopped their bus on the 26th and got the 40 children out MAY HAVE already been questioned by the court in relation to the incident (although it is unclear, the two articles I was able to find here and here, may be speaking of separate officers. If so, the New Lifers would have had multiple Haitian officers trying to help them export the kids. As I have been trying to piece this together from secondary sources, I am unfortunately unable to clarify that point.)

Perhaps by “newly discovered” they mean by Judge Saint-Vil, as the CNN piece refers to:

The Americans, who were interviewed Wednesday by Judge Isai Jean Louis, are to appear Thursday before the attorney general, who is handling the case, lawyer Edwin Coq said.

(Coq is no longer representing the missionaries, it is unclear the extent to which information did or did not travel between the two Judges as the case moved along.)

All we can hope is that a case is being carefully constructed and that the additional jail time will provide additional time for further details to come to light and some clarifications.

Not exactly surprising, especially considering her medical condition.

(How insane do you have to be to be diabetic and yet run off to a post earthquake disaster zone where access to electricity and access to refrigeration is marginal at best?)

In any case, she was released this afternoon and taken to the airport by U.S. Embassy staff.

See Haiti frees US missionary; group leader still held

and American missionary held in Haiti released

Silsby answered questions in Saint-Vil’s office Monday. Later, she refused to comment on what the judge asked her, but she said she was happy Coulter had been released. She added that she expected to be released soon.

Silsby repeated comments denying she’d done anything wrong and said she was still in custody “because I’m the leader.

Saint-Vil said that he has some additional questions that he needs answered but that he expects to make a decision about Silsby’s detention by the end of the week.

While Laura Sislby is listed as the New Life Children’s Refuge “Executive Director and Founder” Charisa Coulter was certainly more than merely Sislby’s live in nanny.

Coulter was listed in the Central Valley Baptist Church online marketing material for the mission as New Life Children’s Refuge “VP and co-founder.”