A Georgia-based agency active in international adoptions
has decided to go out of business after being punished with a 90-day
suspension over allegations of improper documentation in its operations
in Congo.
In a letter to the roughly 120 families it was serving,
One World Adoption Services of Sugar Hill, Georgia, said that because of
the suspension, "our continued operation as an agency is no longer
feasible."
The letter said the families would be provided with
referrals to other agencies that would accept transfers of pending
cases. One World, which says it has served hundreds of families since
its founding in 2003, was currently working on adoptions from Belize,
Bulgaria, Brazil, Latvia and Ukraine, as well as Congo.
The 90-day
suspension — announced Wednesday — was ordered by the New York-based
Council on Accreditation, the authority designated by the U.S. State
Department to monitor and accredit American adoption agencies that
operate abroad.
According to the council’s investigation, the
suspension was warranted for several violations of international
adoption regulations that occurred in Congo. These included failing to
obtain proper documentation to prove that a child was eligible for
adoption, providing a prospective adoptive parent with a document that
may have contained false information, and forwarding to another
prospective adoptive family a lawyer’s request for a $2,000 payment "to
motivate public officials to act."
Joel Ferdinand, One World’s lawyer, said the adoption agency disputed the findings.
Richard
Klarberg, the accreditation council’s president, said the council
offered a settlement to One World that would have lessened the penalty,
but the offer was not accepted. Ferdinand said the offer was for a
30-day suspension.
One World, in its letter to client families,
said it had been "cooperative, truthful, and transparent" throughout the
two-year investigation. It suggested there was "an underlying agenda to
stop international adoptions" and urged the families to contact the
council to vent their feelings.
The letter also highlighted the
challenges of doing adoption work in the Congo, which is not a signatory
to the main international treaty setting adoption standards.
"The
issues we’ve faced in Congo are not unique to our agency," the letter
said. "They are a result of many challenges existing in that country,
including inadequate infrastructure, corruption, and cultural issues."
One
World became the latest of several international adoption agencies in
the U.S. to close down as the number of foreign children adopted by
Americans continues to plummet. There were 7,094 adoptions from abroad
last year, down almost 70 percent from the high of 22,884 in 2004.
One
World’s closure comes amid continuing turmoil over pending adoptions of
children in the Congo by families in America and elsewhere. Hundreds of
adoptions have been stalled since September, when Congolese authorities
stopped issuing the exit permits needed for the children to leave the
country, even in cases where the adoptions had been officially approved.
The
State Department and members of Congress have been working to break the
stalemate, and some children have been able to join their adoptive
families in the U.S. But many other cases remain stalled.