UNICEF and Haiti

I am going to jump on the bandwagon of many of my fellow adoption bloggers.....UNICEF.

I work with Haitian adoption, and have for about 8 years now. I have helped many children go to their forever families and have ached and rejoiced with the adoptive families as they rode the roller coaster that is Haitian adoption.
Until the last little bit, a Haitian adoption would take about 9-11 months to complete...any longer and you were the odd family that happened to hit a snag or two during the process.
NOW, families are waiting 2 years for their children, often times 10 months or so of this wait is AFTER the children are legally adopted by their American families. Adoptive families throw the names IBESR (Haitian Social Services) and MOI (Ministry of Interior) around like old pro's by the time they have finished their processes. These are two offices that seem to hang most families up. The IBESR problem seems to be coming to a close and files are being processed at about 6 months or so typically. MOI on the other hand has had its fair share of crap. First there was a couple of people asking for bribes....if you didn't bribe you didn't get files out. Now that those people are gone (arrested...PTL) UNICEF has stepped in to the office along with a new MOI Director, to take care of business. Well, for those of you that do not know, UNICEF is STAUNCHLY AGAINST International Adoption. Please read their page below where it states their position.

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_15011.html

I would love to agree with UNICEF. In a perfect world biological parents could love, feed, clothe and educate their children without interference or help of others. Haiti is FAR from perfect. In Haiti the majority of children are given up due to poverty and the hope that their child will have a better life and opportunity somewhere else. I tell you, to look in the eyes of your child's birth mother and father is something amazing and sad at the same time. To see people who know nothing about you, the place you are taking their child and hoping all the while that you will give them what they cannot. It is an extremely humbling experience.
I would challenge UNICEF to look outside their ignorant small box and step inside of Haiti and see what they could do to help with the true problems....Restavek's (Child slavery), Child Prostitution, Sweat Shops...etc...and clean up that MESS before they try to fix International adoption.