Ethiopia Revokes Licenses of 9 Orphanages

Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR) is reporting that Ethiopia has revoked licenses of 9 charities running orphanages there. In Ethiopia, most adoption agencies run orphanages from which they adopt children. The PEAR post quotes from a subscription-only article:

Ethiopia revoked the license of nine orphanages (charity organizations) who they claim to be involved in "illegal" activities of child rights abuse, APA learns here on Wednesday.

The nine charity organizations have been working to adopt children for the past few years to Europe and America.

However, the office, which is in charge of registering charity organizations at the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice refused to give details as to what kind of illegal activities the organizations were involved with regards to child rights abuse.

PEAR says it is trying to identify the orphanages/adoption agencies. I wonder if there is a link between this story and a previous report from PEAR that the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia has notified adoption service providers that they will be taking additional time with visa clearances for children from the Gelgela orphanage because of the need for "significant additional review of each case and field investigations" because of "recent serious allegations and news reports involving Ethiopian adoptions." Click above if you want to see a list of agencies placing through that orphanage. Perhaps not surprisingly, Christian World Adoption, the subject of investigations about unethical practices in Ethiopia like "harvesting" and child buying, is on that list.