U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

64–746 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HAGUE CONVENTION

ON INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1999

Serial No. 106–110

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international relations

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

TOM CAMPBELL, California

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

PAT DANNER, Missouri

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

KATHLEEN BERTELSEN MOAZED, Democratic Chief of Staff

KRISTEN GILLEY, Professional Staff Member

JILL N. QUINN, Staff Associate

(III)

C O N T E N T S

WITNESSES

Page

The Honorable Tom Bliley, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia ............................................................................................................. 7

The Honorable Mary A. Ryan, Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, U.S.

Department of State, accompanied by Jamison Borick, Deputy Legal Adviser, Office of Legal Advisers, U.S. Department of State ................................ 9

Ms. Patricia Montoya, Commissioner for Children, Youth, and Families, Department of Health and Human Services .......................................................... 11

Ms. Susan Freivalds, Hague Coordinator, Joint Council on International Children’s Services ...................................................................................................... 32

Dr. Jerri Ann Jenista, American Academy of Pediatrics ..................................... 34

Mr. David Liederman, President and CEO, Council on Accreditation of Services for Families and Children ............................................................................ 36

Mr. Sam Pitkowsky, Adoptive Parents Committee of New York ........................ 38

Ms. Kathleen Sacco, Adoptee .................................................................................. 39

APPENDIX

The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, a Representative in Congress from New

York and Chairman, Committee on International Relations ........................... 169

The Honorable Sam Gejdenson, a Representative in Congress from Connecticut .................................................................................................................. 171

The Honorable William Delahunt, a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts ................................................................................................................. 173

Representative Tom Bliley ...................................................................................... 103

Ambassador Mary Ryan .......................................................................................... 107

Ms. Patricia Montoya .............................................................................................. 115

Ms. Susan Freivalds ................................................................................................ 122

Dr. Jerri Ann Jenista .............................................................................................. 130

Mr. David Liederman .............................................................................................. 147

Mr. Sam Pitkowsky ................................................................................................. 158

Ms. Kathleen Sacco ................................................................................................. 164

Additional material submitted for the record:

Statement of the Honorable Mary Landrieu, a United States Senator from

Louisiana, submitted in lieu of appearance ....................................................... 176

Statement of the Honorable Dave Camp, a Representative in Congress from

Michigan ............................................................................................................... 180

Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption .................................................................................................. 44

H.R. 2909, The Intercountry Adoption Act of 1999 .............................................. 57

Statement of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys concerning H.R.

2909, The Intercountry Adoption Act of 1999 .................................................... 182

Supplement to Statement of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys ..... 188

Statement of the National Council of Birthmothers concerning H.R. 2909,

The Intercountry Adoption Act of 1999 .............................................................. 192

Statement of the Child Welfare League of America, Inc. concerning H.R.

2909, The Intercountry Adoption Act of 1999 .................................................... 195

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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HAGUE

CONVENTION ON INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION

Wednesday, October 20, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in Room

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman

(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.

Chairman GILMAN. The Committee will come to order.

I want to welcome all of you here today for this hearing on The

Hague Convention on Protection of Children and co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption. We greatly appreciate the experts

in the room who have made an effort to be here to share their

views with us.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

As an adoptive parent of two children, I can understand the importance of developing policies that work for the best interests of

the child. I also understand that when parents are seeking to

adopt, they should expect the highest standards in ethical behavior

of the agencies or persons involved with an adoption.

The fact is that there have been serious abuses in intercountry

adoptions, enough so that the international community coalesced to

produce The Hague Convention. The U.S. signature to this convention affirmed a commitment to approving the intercountry adoption

process, and recognized that international adoptions are increasingly part of establishing families in the United States.

With the volume of foreign adoptions in this Nation, more than

15,000 in 1998, it is important that international standards be in

place. These standards will provide parents with the confidence

that this emotional undertaking will not leave them open to fraud

or abuse. It will also protect the children and the rights they inherently hold.

Ratification of the Convention by the Senate triggers a need for

implementing legislation. In September, I introduced a bipartisan

bill, H.R. 2909, the Intercountry Adoption Act, that provides the

Administration with the necessary authorities to implement the

Convention. This bill also reflects the extensive work of key Members, Mr. Gejdenson, Mr. Camp, Mr. Delahunt, and Mr. Bliley. I

am grateful to them for their assistance. Today we have 41 cosponsors on that measure.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. We have made an earnest attempt to craft a

bill that matches our Nation’s obligations under the Convention.

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We have followed the recommendation of the Administration to

designate the Department of State as a central authority, and to

assign responsibility for the accreditation process, including oversight and enforcement, to the Department of Health and Human

Services.

The purpose of today’s hearing is to encourage a discussion of

The Hague Convention and H.R. 2909 by those in the international

adoption sector, adoptive parents, adoptees, and the Administration. The intent is to further our understanding of the range of concerns, and, if necessary, to try to improve the bill. This measure

is designed to carry out our international obligations and to institute consumer protections in the adoption process.

There are issues within the adoption community that do divide

and polarize. One such issue is access to identifying information

and privacy concerns. I know there are strongly held views on

these issues. The moderate approach taken in our measure, H.R.

2909, reflects an effort to try to accommodate both of those interests. There is no consensus on the exact formula for access to

records, as evidenced by the variance in the 50 State laws. In essence, the bill defers access to identifying information and records

to State law.

I believe our interests are best served by moving the process

along as promptly as possible. At this point, 36 countries have already ratified the convention. Our Nation should be the 37th. We

need to affirm to the international community the U.S. commitment to ethical and expeditious adoption practices.

For today’s hearing we have three panels. First, if they arrive on

time, we will hear from two Members of Congress. If they do not,

we will proceed with the next panel.

We will hear from our representatives of the Administration who

will be responsible for administering the obligations of the Convention. Last, we have a panel of experts in various areas of adoption.

At this point, I yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Gejdenson.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief.

I want to commend you and Mr. Delahunt for all the work you

have done in this area.

In the last decade we have had 150 percent growth in the number of international adoptions. As the globe continues to shrink, we

will see more and more of these international adoptions. While we

are at the beginning of this process—and this bill will go through

further changes trying to adjust to what the consensus is or the

general best approach is here—it is important for us to come forward with clear rules that make it easier for parents, that give

them the best and most accurate health care records available, and

that make sure America continues in its attempt to work within

the international community.

Clearly, international adoption solves problems. Children living

without loving families and in often terrible conditions have an opportunity for a very bright and optimistic future here in the United

States or with adoptive parents in other countries. We want to

make sure that the families that get involved in these adoptions

are not tortured by a bureaucratic process that often makes it difficult to make these children citizens, makes it difficult to change

their names, and complicated in so many ways.

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We want to make sure that some individuals who might be inclined toward unethical behavior in this area, as in any other, do

not have an opportunity to victimize these people who have such

great intentions.

I commend the Chairman and Mr. Delahunt again for their great

work in this area, and I hope that we will learn from these hearings and then expeditiously be able to move our legislation forward.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Gejdenson.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Last month I was very proud to join with you and Mr. Gejdenson

and over 30 of our colleagues in introducing the Intercountry Adoption Act of 1999. I genuinely want to commend you and Mr.

Gejdenson for your many months of hard and diligent work on this

bill and for holding this hearing today.

Prompt U.S. ratification and implementation of The Hague Convention is of enormous importance to many thousands of needy

children throughout the world and the American families who

adopt them. U.S. ratification will signal our desire to encourage

intercountry adoption and our commitment to creating a legal

framework that will better protect adoptive families and their children.

As many of my colleagues are aware, my younger daughter Kara

was born in Vietnam and came to this country as part of Operation

Baby Lift during the mid-1970’s, when Saigon was falling to the

Communists. So I am personally aware of how important it is that

we make it possible for children like my daughter to find safe and

loving homes through intercountry adoption, when they cannot be

placed in their country of origin.

The bill we are considering today is a blueprint that will enable

the United States to carry out its obligations under the Convention.

It is, as you, Mr. Chairman, reviewed, the culmination of many

months of hard work, during which time we consulted extensively

with the Administration and many interested parties within the

United States adoption community.

Again, I want to thank you as well as Mr. Gejdenson, Mr. Smith,

Mr. Bliley, and Mr. Camp for what has been a thoughtful and bipartisan effort.

From the outset of this project, we agreed that we should adopt

a minimalist approach, deferring wherever possible to the State

laws by which we have always regulated adoption in this country.

We tried to steer clear of extraneous and controversial issues, and

have resisted attempts to use this bill to carry out changes to domestic adoption practices that are not strictly required to bring our

laws into compliance with the Convention. I believe that process

was fundamentally sound, Mr. Chairman, and resulted in what is

in most respects a fine piece of legislation.

Having said that, I recognize that there are features of the bill

as introduced that can be improved. That is, after all, why we have

hearings. I want to assure those in the adoption community who

have concerns about the bill that we are listening.

This is particularly important with regard to one provision of the

bill which I understand has caused considerable consternation

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within the adoption community. I refer to the provision related to

disclosure of adoption records. To say this is an emotionally

charged issue would be a serious understatement. As an adoptive

parent myself, I share the feelings of many thousands of parents

about their children’s right to their birth records, whether for serious medical reasons or simply to satisfy the need we all have to

understand who we are and where we came from.

The Convention requires that records be preserved and that access be provided to the extent permitted by law. Most of the countries that send children to the United States do permit access. On

the other hand, some sending countries do not. In those countries,

birth families have a reasonable expectation that records would not

be disclosed. So in drafting this bill, we tried to balance the equities, to be sensitive to the concerns of all segments of the adoption

community, and to craft language that would allow access in cases

of genuine need while permitting the laws that govern access to

adoption records, both here and abroad, to continue to evolve.

Now we have reached that part of the legislative process when

we hear reactions from the field. The early returns suggest that we

may not have achieved the balance we were seeking. Some have

read our provision as barring access to records which today are

freely available as part of the preadoption process, as curtailing access even when permitted by the laws of the sending country, and

as subjecting those who share information to criminal penalties

even when this is done with the full knowledge and consent of the

birth family.

Without prejudging the merits of these concerns, I think we need

to listen to them and consider their ramifications for children and

for their families, and for the very goal we are trying to advance,

international adoption itself. I am sure that none of us would want

to create a situation in which penalties and restrictions we impose

on adoptees and their families might cause other countries to stop

sending children to the United States.

I know my colleagues and I will remain open to all points of view

on these issues, Mr. Chairman. I want to assure all segments of

the adoption community that Members of Congress will be listening carefully to what they have to say. That is what this process

is for. I have faith in the process, and I believe that in the end we

will get it right.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation to you

for scheduling this hearing. I look forward to the testimony.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Burr.

Mr. BURR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your willingness to hold this hearing.

I also would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues

who have joined us to discuss the intercountry adoptions. In particular, I would like to thank Senator Mary Landrieu, who, along

with Senator Helms, got the ball rolling on this important process

by introducing S. 682.

I would also like to thank my other Committee Chairman, Tom

Bliley, who will testify this morning, for his active interest and participation in the process.

5

Mr. Chairman, in the last 10 years almost 100,000 children have

joined U.S. families through intercountry adoption. For too long we

have heard horror stories from our constituents about the process

of adopting children from overseas. While the adoption process can

run smoothly, it is all too often plagued by unnecessary delay,

fraud, duplicative court processes, and exorbitant cost.

We are here today to discuss legislation that will make the process more transparent, more orderly, and less stressful for those

who want to provide a child with nothing more than a loving home.

On June 24, Representative Ballenger and I introduced H.R.

2342, the Intercountry Adoption Convention Implementation Act. I

am sure that it was not the Committee’s intent to leave that out

of the briefing papers.

This legislation, which is a companion to that introduced by Senator Helms and Senator Landrieu, would provide the framework by

which the United States will carry out its obligations under The

Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which the United

States signed in 1995.

The single largest difference between S. 682, H.R. 2342, and H.R.

2909 is the role of the Department of Health and Human Services.

One version of the legislation leaves HHS out. The other gives the

Department a major role.

It is a fundamental difference, though, Mr. Chairman. I am concerned about adding yet another layer of bureaucracy to an already

unwieldy, inefficient, and bewildering structure of HHS. Doing so,

in my opinion, will do no one any good, let alone the children and

parents involved in intercountry adoptions.

Second, I feel that opening the door of agency accreditation to

HHS, a domestic agency, will only encourage the agency to pursue

greater involvement in domestic adoptions, where most regulations

are left to the States, and the Federal role is limited.

This hearing and this legislation is largely about overseeing the

activities of adoption providers overseas. If further staffing and resources are needed to allow the State Department Office of Children’s Issues to meet its obligation under S. 682 or 2342, so be it.

But to say that State is not up to dealing with the issue is disingenuous.

To quote from the State Department’s Web site, ‘‘The Office of

Children’s Issues formulates, develops and coordinates policies and

programs and provides direction to Foreign Service posts on intercountry adoption. The Office of Children’s Issues coordinates policy

and provides information on international adoption to the public.

We offer general information and assistance regarding the adoption

process in over 60 countries.’’

I fail to understand how State is suddenly incapable of dealing

with accreditation of agencies it works with on a daily basis.

I am pleased to see that representatives of both State and HHS

are scheduled to be here today, and I hope that they can address

my concerns that I have raised this morning.

Mr. Chairman, once again, thank you for your willingness to hold

this hearing, and as one who has ventured through some 43 hearings on electricity restructuring, and we are still not there, I am

hopeful that you will not go for 43 on this. But I am hopeful, Mr.

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Chairman, that you will air this issue, because I think there is a

huge difference between the HHS and the State Department.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you. We will try to short-circuit the

hearing.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Pomeroy.

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I regret that after giving this statement, I have to go to the Committee on the Judiciary

to present testimony.

Chairman GILMAN. We understand those problems.

Mr. POMEROY. I commend you for holding this hearing, and commend the sponsors for introducing this important legislation.

For years American families have reached across cultural and

national boundaries to embrace children through international

adoption. In 1998 alone, almost 16,000 children are uniquely and

forever enriching families into whom they were accepted in this

country.

By signing The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children

and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the United

States and over 60 other nations recognize the importance of international adoption. The Hague Convention creates a structure to

strengthen cooperation among nations in adoption, protects adoptive families from fraud and abuse.

Although this was signed in 1994, we have yet to ratify it. The

Intercountry Adoption Act provides the necessary changes to implement The Hague Convention. It would strengthen the process that

builds thousands of international adoptive families every year. Our

legislation sends a strong signal that the United States is committed to providing permanent homes for its children and for children all across the world that need those homes.

There are some individuals in the audience who I would just like

to recognize for their outstanding work in this area: Bill Pierce, the

head of the National Council on Adoption; and Susan Cox of the

Holt Agency, who herself was one of the very first young children

brought over from Korea and placed with a home, which became

a wonderful family in Oregon.

I just want to say, my interest in this legislation perhaps exceeds

in a very personal way any other legislative proposal that not just

this Committee will consider, but Congress will consider, in light

of the fact that since I have been a Member of Congress my family

has been changed with the adoption of two children born in Korea.

Kathryn and Scott have made such a profound difference in our

lives that I can only know too well the beauty and the blessing and

the miracle of intercountry adoption, and also the absolute imperative of making certain that adoptions across countries, across cultures, are free of fraud and free of the kinds of issues addressed

in The Hague Convention.

So this is truly the Lord’s work this Committee is attending to

this morning, Mr. Chairman. I commend you for your leadership in

it.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Pomeroy.

Chairman GILMAN. Now we are pleased to welcome our first

panel. We have testifying as part of the first panel Chairman Tom

Bliley, and we are still expecting Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, both on our first panel.

7

Chairman Bliley represents the Seventh Congressional District

in Virginia. In addition to his duties as Chairman of the Committee

on Commerce, he also Chairs the Adoption Caucus.

We welcome Chairman Bliley, and I invite you to summarize

your statement. Your full statement can be made part of the

record. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM BLILEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

Mr. BLILEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for

allowing me to testify.

As an adoptive father, I have taken a great interest in the subject of intercountry adoption. Over the last couple of years, I have

had the pleasure to meet with Russian Duma Deputies, Russian

judges and prosecutors, and the Director General of the China Center on Adoption Affairs.

All of these officials raised concern about the lack of a Federal

Government authority they can turn to in case there is a problem

with an international adoption. Accordingly, I cosponsored The

Hague Intercountry Adoption Act because it establishes a central

authority in the State Department to monitor intercountry adoptions.

Prior to my cosponsorship of The Hague Convention, I was deeply alarmed by the terrible conditions of Russian orphanages. Most

orphanages lack sufficient funds to pay for food, clothing, training,

health care, and fuel. It pains my heart to know that the majority

of these children are never adopted and are consequently in need

of a loving family.

As a result of the dire news and the fact that Americans have

adopted more children from Russia than any other country, Representative James Oberstar and I were able to secure $3 million in

foreign aid for orphans and displaced children in Russia in the Fiscal Year 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Act last October.

I believe helping disadvantaged children overseas is an important investment that improves our relationships with other countries and advances our foreign policy objectives. Accordingly, Representative Oberstar and I set out to significantly increase the foreign aid budget for orphans and displaced children to $30 million

for fiscal year 2000. We were successful in securing these funds in

the House-passed Foreign Operations Appropriations Act this year.

Unfortunately, we lost out in conference, but as you know, the

President’s veto means we will have another attempt to increase

aid for orphans.

As a supporter of The Hague Intercountry Adoption Act, you and

I and many other Members of this Committee are answering the

cries of help of thousands of Russian orphans and abandoned children worldwide in their search for a loving family to join by working to keep intercountry adoption as a viable option.

I owe it to my constituents to view legislation with a wary eye

if it tramples the rights of the States. In particular to The Hague

Intercountry Adoption Act, there are some activist groups with a

political agenda of opening State adoption records. It is their right

to work in the States to advance their legislative goal. It is my

right to say that this matter is best left to the States.

8

I also understand the Committee is getting pressure to open

adoption records. My response to you is to leave access to adoption

records for the States to decide. I can assure you that you will always hear from people advocating support for open adoption

records. You will rarely hear from birth mothers who desire to preserve the privacy guaranteed to them when they placed their child

up for adoption.

During the drafting process, we adhered to what is required by

The Hague Convention in the area of adoption records. If the legislation is amended, and a precedent is established by the Congress

regarding access to identifying information to adoption records for

international adoptees, it will lead to the Federalizing and disclosure of identifying information for all domestic adoptions. In doing

so, we will set a precedent that ignores the laws of 50 States.

Access to identifying information is an issue that deeply divides

men and women of good character throughout the adoption community. I speak from experience when I say that the Congress should

defer this issue to the 50 States.

Passage of The Hague Intercountry Adoption Act will rely on two

strong and simple principles. If there is a conflict unrelated to The

Hague Convention between the Federal Government and the State

government, the Congress should side with the States. If there is

a conflict unrelated to what is required in The Hague Convention

concerning access to adoption records and the disclosure of identifying information between foreign governments, our Federal Government and our 50 States, the Congress should side with the

States.

Thousands of children worldwide are waiting helplessly for parents to read to them, to teach them how to tie shoelaces, to say

bedtime prayers with them, and to eat ice cream with them on a

summer night. It is in the best interests for a child to be part of

a loving family. The Hague Intercountry Adoption Act gives the

U.S. Congress an opportunity to stand up and reaffirm our support

for intercountry adoption. I am proud to support this bill because

I have been blessed by my own experiences with adoption, so now

I am doing what I can to help thousands of innocent children find

a home.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bliley appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Chairman Bliley. I want to thank

your staff as well for their assistance in helping to draft this bill.

We know you are in a markup, so we will not detain you. Again,

thank you for taking your time and for your contribution today.

We will now proceed to panel No. 2, and we may have to interrupt that panel if the Senator arrives, and give her an opportunity

to make her statement.

Our second panel consists of Ambassador Mary Ryan and Commissioner Patricia Montoya.

Ambassador Ryan is currently the Assistant Secretary of State

for Consular Affairs. She has been in that job, much to this Nation’s benefit, since 1993. Secretary Ryan holds the distinction of

rank of Career Ambassador, reflecting an outstanding career in the

Foreign Service. She has served in many nations in her more than

30 years in the Foreign Service and holds degrees from St. John’s

University in New York.

9

Ms. Montoya is a Commissioner on Children, Youth, and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services. In that position she oversees the implementation of Federal programs that

assist vulnerable children and youth. She also serves as the Administration’s spokesperson on issues relating to child and youth

development, child protective services, foster care, and adoption.

Prior to this position, she was Regional Director of Region 6 for

HHS, where, among other duties, she was the liaison to Federal,

State, and local elected officials and businesses and community

leaders. She is a nurse by training, and throughout her career she

has worked to improve outcomes for children and families, through

her work in pediatrics, school health, and community outreach. We

welcome you to this panel.

Ambassador Ryan and Commissioner Montoya, you may summarize your statements. Your full statements will be made part of the

record. The entire statements will be accepted by the Committee,

without objection.

Please proceed, Ambassador Ryan.

STATEMENTS OF MARY A. RYAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR

CONSULAR AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, ACCOMPANIED BY JAMISON BOREK, DEPUTY LEGAL ADVISER, OFFICE OF LEGAL ADVISER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Ms. RYAN. Thank you, Mr. Cairman and Members of the Committee, I am delighted to be here today to have the opportunity to

discuss with you international adoption and the 1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect

of Intercountry Adoption, and the proposed implementing legislation for that Convention.

I have with me today Jamison Borek, the Deputy Legal Adviser

from the State Department’s Office of Legal Adviser, in case you

should have legal questions that are better answered by an expert

attorney.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and other Members of

the Committee and the Congress who have shown such an interest

in the Convention and its implementation, as well as the dedicated

staff who have devoted long hours and worked so diligently on H.R.

2909.

While there are some differences, we are pleased that the legislation is very similar to the Administration’s own proposal. The protection and welfare of American citizens is the State Department’s

highest priority. This includes American parents building families

through international adoption, and American children finding

families abroad through international adoption.

We want to ensure that our children are protected once overseas

and that those brought to this country and their adoptive parents

are equally protected. These are concerns that many Members of

Congress and the Senate share.

The United States, particularly since World War II, has opened

its arms to orphaned and abandoned children around the world,

and many parents look to international adoption to build American

families and to provide a better life for these children. These families are as diverse as America itself, including extended families,

10

married couples, multicultural families, and single-parent households.

However, sadly, along with all the positive benefits of international adoption, there have been some abuses. This fact ultimately prompted 66 countries to convene in The Hague to prepare

The 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which provided standards to protect children, their birth parents, and their

adoptive parents.

State, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Health

and Human Services have consulted with the private adoption community, with parents, with lawyers, and with other professionals

on the general concepts of the proposed Federal implementing legislation, which resulted in the Administration’s submission to the

Congress in May 1999. Senate bill 682 was introduced in March

1999, and H.R. 2909 in September 1999.

Mr. Chairman, while there is some divergence of opinion between

H.R. 2909 and S. 682 as to which agency might be best suited to

establish and oversee the accreditation of international adoption

service providers, the Administration strongly believes that the accrediting function should rest with the Department of Health and

Human Services, as proposed in H.R. 2909. HHS, as the only Federal Government agency with relevant experience in evaluating

and working with domestic adoption programs and social service

providers, is better suited to handle this function than the Department of State.

In our collaboration over the past two years with Health and

Human Services in working on the implementing legislation, we

have built a strong working relationship which has only convinced

us all the more that HHS is the appropriate agency to handle the

accreditation function. It has the experience, it has the knowledge,

and it is best for the children.

The world will watch how the United States implements this

Convention and how it protects children, birth parents, and adoptive parents. Several of the largest source countries have indicated

to us that they are looking to us to ratify and implement the Convention quickly, and that they plan to model their own programs

after ours. This latter point is particularly important as it bears directly on the ability of Americans to adopt abroad.

Mr. Chairman, we are very pleased that the Congress has taken

such an interest in this Convention’s implementing legislation.

Americans adopt more children internationally than any other

country. Our citizens will benefit the most from the safeguards in

this important treaty. We are eager to work with the Congress and

the adoption community to safeguard and facilitate intercountry

adoptions for all those qualified, and to bring children and parents

together to bond as quickly as possible.

Mr. Chairman, as I conclude my testimony today, I would like to

reiterate my thanks to you, to the Members of your Committee,

and to the Committee staff for the wonderful spirit of collegiality

and cooperation which we have enjoyed as this important implementing legislation was developed.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify before you

today. Thank you, sir.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Ambassador Ryan.

11

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ryan appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Commissioner Montoya, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF PATRICIA MONTOYA, COMMISSIONER FOR

CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES, DEPARTMENT OF

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Ms. MONTOYA. Chairman Gilman and Members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear before you to discuss the role that

HHS expects to play should we be given responsibility for implementing the accreditation provision contained in the Intercountry

Adoption Act of 1999.

I would like to commend the approach that Members of the

House have taken in the bipartisan and cross-committee development of H.R. 2909. Both the Administration’s proposed legislation

and your bill represent sincere efforts to develop consensus on the

issues raised by the treaty and to implement the Convention’s provisions with the best interests of children firmly at the forefront.

As you know, this treaty is an important step toward protecting

the interests of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents in the

rapidly expanding practice of intercountry adoption. In my statement I will comment on the purposes of accreditation under The

Hague Adoption Convention, address why we believe that HHS is

the Federal agency best suited to implement the accreditation provisions of the bill, and discuss how we envision the accreditation

process working once legislation is enacted.

The purpose of accreditation is to measure an organization’s compliance with national standards of best practice. The Hague Adoption Convention requires that adoptions between party states be

conducted only by organizations or persons that meet certain

standards. Intercountry adoption services performed in the U.S.

under the Convention would be covered by accreditation and approval here, while those performed in another country would be

performed by providers accredited by that nation.

Accreditation and approval are intended to assure that agencies

and persons operating under the Convention have the organizational capacities to perform the functions for which they are responsible.

Accreditation will not replace the process of State licensure

under which adoption agencies now operate, but rather will supplement it where intercountry adoptions under the Convention are

concerned. It is not our intent to create an excessive or burdensome

set of rules, but only, as the Convention specifies, to establish a

sound standard of practice.

The vast majority of States’ licensing standards currently relate

only to domestic adoptions, and therefore, lack the means to assure

that agencies are knowledgeable about intercountry adoptions or

their responsibilities under The Hague Adoption Convention. In addition, licensing standards vary greatly among States, while accreditation standards must be consistent in order to assure other

nations that we have a uniform standard of quality that they may

rely on when they entrust their children to a U.S. agency and the

prospective adoptive parents that they represent.

As you are aware, there has been some discussion as to whether

HHS or the State Department should be assigned responsibility for

12

implementing the accreditation provisions of the legislation. While

either HHS or the State Department would carry out the accreditation function through one or more private entities, the responsible

Federal agency would need to be involved in establishing the accreditation standards through promulgation of regulations and in

overseeing the accreditation process. Because HHS has extensive

experience in adoption and child welfare issues, the Administration

believes that HHS is better positioned than the State Department

to have responsibility for this function.

As you may know, this Administration, along with Members of

Congress from both parties, has focused a great deal of attention

on the issue of adoption over the past several years. Within the

Federal Government, HHS has primary responsibility for carrying

out a wide range of programs and activities related to adoption.

HHS operates the Adoption Assistance Program authorized under

Title IV–E of the Social Security Act, which provides nearly $1 billion to States to operate programs of subsidized adoptions for special needs children leaving the foster care system for loving homes.

We are also implementing very successfully the Administration’s

Adoption 2002 Initiative, the goal of which is to double by the year

2002 the annual number of children from the public child welfare

system placed in adoptive homes or other permanent living arrangements.

Our Adoptions Opportunities Program provides $25 million per

year in grants to public and nonprofit agencies to demonstrate a

variety of adoption-related services to increase the number of children with special needs adopted from the foster care system.

HHS also operates a National Adoption Information Clearing

house, which, although it specializes in domestic adoption issues,

does provide information about intercountry adoption. Approximately 30 percent of the requests received deal with intercountry

adoption.

We fund a National Resource Center on Special Needs Adoption,

which provides technical assistance and training to States. HHS’s

institutional experience in working with State and local agencies

involved in adoption will be invaluable to our national efforts to establish an accreditation process for intercountry adoptions.

I would now like to address briefly how we anticipate the accreditation process being implemented. Once legislation is passed, HHS

would designate one or more accrediting entities and would work

with them to develop accreditation standards to be established by

regulation. Agencies seeking accreditation would apply to an accrediting entity which would, through visits to the agency’s site

and examination of their established procedures and policies, determine whether or not the standards for accreditation are met.

The accrediting entity would collect fees from adoption agencies

applying for accreditation to cover the costs of the accreditation

process. We hope to keep these fees as low as possible and to scale

them to agency size so they will not become burdensome.

As you are aware, the Convention requires that accredited agencies be not-for-profit service providers. But in many nations, including the U.S., adoption services are offered by a variety of agencies,

only some of which are nonprofit organizations. Under the ConvenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:01 Jul 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 64746.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
13

tion, each nation may decide whether for-profit entities or persons

may participate in intercountry work.

Both your bill and the Administration’s proposal allow for approved persons as well as accredited agencies to perform adoption

under The Hague Convention. The Administration believes that the

qualifications of the agency, not its IRS status, should determine

whether it is allowed to offer intercountry adoption services. Provided a for-profit entity or person is able to meet accreditation

standards, we do not believe it should be barred from operation

under The Hague Adoption Convention.

Let me conclude by assuring the Committee that in implementing the accreditation provisions of the bill, we envision full cooperation with the State Department and the Immigration and

Naturalization Service to assure that each of our activities enhances the process of intercountry adoption for children and families.

Over the past 2 years, as our agencies have discussed implementation of the Convention, we have developed a positive working relationship. We have taken the time to learn about each other’s

agencies, activities, and organizational culture, and have learned

about each agency’s strengths. We developed our proposal with

these strengths in mind to best make use of the strategic advantages of each agency. We fully expect that this positive working relationship will continue as the implementation phase of activity begins.

This concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Montoya appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.

We will be continuing right on through the votes. We intend to

vote and continue without a recess.

Let me start the questioning, and I am sure my colleagues have

some questions.

Secretary Ryan, regarding the new fee collection provisions in

the bill, I know you have experience with the use of fees for consular services. There will be a lag between initiating the new office

and collecting fees to cover the cost of the office.

Will appropriated funds need to be used to cover the gap? Do you

have an estimate of startup costs and what is included in that cost

assessment? Do you have an estimate of the amount that will be

collected in fees during the first year?

Ms. RYAN. Mr. Chairman, I will get those answers to you for the

record.

We are going to engage in a cost-of-service study which will determine the fee, and I am not sure at this point whether we will

be able to operate just on the fees or whether we will continue to

need appropriated funds. I would have to get that answer to you,

sir.

Chairman GILMAN. If you would supply it for us, and we will

make that part of the record.

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir. Thank you.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

14

Chairman GILMAN. Does the Consular Affairs Bureau in the fiscal year 2001 budget request to OMB reflect the increase in the

workload and the responsibilities the Department is going to have

to assume as the Central Authority?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir, it does. We have asked for an additional five

positions in 2000. If we should be given the accreditation function,

however, we would need additional staff, and we believe that we

would have to at least double that number. But we have in both

the fiscal year 2000 and the 2001 budget requested additional staff

for the Office of Children’s Issues.

Chairman GILMAN. Have you made that request?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir, we have.

Chairman GILMAN. Will there be any new responsibilities or instructions to consular officers working at the overseas posts with

regard to international adoptions? Who will act as the State Department’s liaison with foreign governments on the convention

issues?

Ms. RYAN. Sir, in anticipation of The Hague Convention, we have

asked each post that issues visas to identify an officer who will be

responsible for children’s issues and who will be responsible for

dealing with these cases with us. We will also, once the legislation

is passed, should it be passed, instruct posts as to the new procedures that will be required under The Hague Convention. I do not

anticipate any problems in doing that at all, sir.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Ambassador.

The American Bar Association has posed that there should be a

requirement for a nationwide criminal background check for foreign

persons adopting American children. Do you have any thoughts

with regard to that?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir. I certainly do understand the concern of the

American Bar Association. I frankly share it, because we want to

make sure that children adopted from the United States are going

to loving homes with people who really want them as children and

who are not engaged in any nefarious practices like trafficking in

children or anything like that.

I just do not know how it would be carried out. I think it would

be very difficult. I am not quite confident about the criminal

records in a lot of countries, and so it would be a difficult process,

but I do share the concern that the ABA has.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.

Commissioner Montoya, one last question. Concerns have been

raised that the cost of accreditation, meeting the requirements of

the regulations, would unduly hurt smaller adoption agencies.

Has there been any consideration of that problem? Is it something which HHS will work with the accrediting entity on? Does

HHS anticipate some form of subsidy for agencies to encourage

other organizations to enter the accreditation field?

Ms. MONTOYA. Mr. Chairman, as mentioned in my testimony, we

have looked at this issue regarding the smaller adoption agencies

and have said that we would scale the accreditation fee to the

agency size.

HHS will work in partnership with an accrediting entity to ensure that fees do not become a barrier. But we are not considering

any type of subsidy at this time.

15

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Commissioner.

Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I only have one question. I understand the rationale for conferring the accreditation

process on HHS. You are correct, Commissioner, when you stated

that it falls within the gambit of the experience and knowledge of

your agency.

But in response to the concern that others have expressed in

terms of creating an additional bureaucracy, and I would pose this

question to both the Ambassador and you, Commissioner, it is my

understanding that HHS in effect contracts out the accreditation

process to the private sector, presumably nonprofit operations, to

do the evaluation and the assessment.

Ms. MONTOYA. Right.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Whether it was the Department of State or HHS,

that process would be exactly the same, so I have reached the conclusion that, in fact, there is no additional bureaucracy here. In effect, it is just expanding what you do domestically into the realm

of intercountry adoption.

Is that a fair statement on my part?

Ms. MONTOYA. Yes, it is, sir.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Ambassador Ryan?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. DELAHUNT. In other words, if there is an additional bureaucracy that would be created, it would presumably be created within

the Department of State by the addition of more personnel within

a separate division within the Department of State to do exactly

what the mission or the purpose of the accreditation process is.

Ms. RYAN. That is precisely right, sir. There would be great opportunity costs to our doing it, because we have no experience. We

would have to learn how to do it. We would have to have additional

staff, whereas HHS already has the staff to do it. That is one of

the reasons why we are concerned about that.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Presumably, in terms of tax dollars, the expenditure of public moneys would be considerably more if the Senate bill

were enacted as opposed to the House bill that we are presently

considering?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir. That is what we think, too.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt.

Just a few more questions before we have to break for the vote.

Commissioner Montoya, an important issue that is going to have

to be addressed is the matter of privacy or openness of adoption

records, as you have already indicated in your testimony. What is

the position of HHS with regard to full access to these records?

Ms. MONTOYA. Mr. Chairman, I would actually have to defer for

a fuller response on that to my colleague from the Department of

State. The Department of Health and Human Services expects only

general information, not identifying information about individual

adoptions, and therefore privacy issues would not apply.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.

I understand that the consortium, The Hague Alliance, has prepared standards based on the requirements of The Hague Convention. Has HHS started to review these standards? Since HHS will

16

be involved with drafting regulations for the accreditation process,

can you give us an idea of how complete these standards are?

I’m looking for some estimate of how much work is left to be

done in drafting regulations with respect to the accreditation process: 6 months, 2 weeks? What is your estimate?

Ms. MONTOYA. Mr. Chairman, I have to say that we have not

fully focused on the pieces that have already been pulled together.

We are aware of them, and they definitely would provide a base

from which we would start, which would definitely increase our efficiency in being able to move along in moving through the process.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Smith of New Jersey will take over.

Mr. SMITH. [Presiding.] Good morning.

First of all, I want to thank you for your testimony. I think this

is, again, one of those issues where we can all join together and

work on what will be a mutually satisfying outcome.

I have read The Hague Convention and was very touched by its

repeated insistence of the best interests of the child language, and

I think it clearly does that, and hopefully it will be implemented

faithfully by the many countries.

I do have a couple of questions I would just like to pose, the first

being that the American Bar Association proposes that there

should be a requirement for a nationwide criminal background

check for foreign persons adopting American children.

I was wondering if you could tell us what your thoughts were on

that.

Ms. RYAN. Yes, Congressman. Thank you.

I said earlier that I share the ABA’s concern. We certainly want

to make sure that American children who are adopted by foreign

couples or foreign people are protected and are not being taken

abroad for criminal purposes.

I just do not know how we could do it, because a lot of countries’

criminal records are not as complete or perhaps not as honest as

ours. I do not know how we would do it. I share the concern. I understand the concern, and it is something that we are worried

about as well. But making it work is something that I think will

need a lot of time and consideration, and also I am not so sure that

we will get honest answers, perhaps, from criminal records checks

in some countries.

Mr. SMITH. Do you have a sense as to how it might be——

Ms. RYAN. No, sir, Congressman.

Mr. SMITH. Is it something under review by yourselves——

Ms. RYAN. We will certainly look at it. We will talk to the American Bar Association to see what ideas they might have. But we are

talking about people from any number of countries, not just Hague

countries or countries that have signed onto The Hague Convention

on Intercountry Adoption, but any number of countries where people may wish to adopt children and may wish to adopt American

children.

It is a concern. It is certainly a very legitimate concern and one

that we share. We would just have to figure out how we might do

the criminal checks.

Mr. SMITH. I look forward, as that evolves, to have a dialogue

with you. I think criminal checks, whether it be for teachers or for

17

those who are in proximity to children, certainly have been in ascendancy with the explosion of pedophilia and other kinds of misdeeds.

Ms. RYAN. Absolutely. It is the same worry that we have.

Mr. SMITH. Let me just flip that. Do you think that background

checks ought to be applied to American parents who are adopting

overseas children?

Ms. RYAN. As I understand it, the American parents go through

a very thorough home study and review by the adoption agencies,

so I think that children who are being adopted by American parents are protected well by the mechanisms that are in place currently.

Mr. SMITH. Is that something that you could at least take a look

at, because it has been my observation that some home studies are

extraordinarily well done. Others are less than adequate. It all depends on the agency, and it depends on how aggressive the individual might be.

It would seem to me, just like we do, and I fully support it, it

may seem like a stretch, but like background checks for handguns

just to make sure that there is no record, there is no criminality

involved with the person or any kind of mental problems, it seems

to me when you are thinking of the best interests of the child, it

would be in the best interests of that child that we go the extra

mile to ensure, because there have been problems, as we all know,

with adoption.

I take second place to no one in supporting adoption. I believe

it is one of the greatest ways of building a family on the face of

the Earth, and for helping the child and parent, as well as birth

mother complete something that is very good.

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you, do international adoptions compete with adoptions out of foster care?

Ms. RYAN. What we have seen with international adoptions, Congressman, is that people who are adopting internationally are looking for infants or very, very young children. Somewhere over 89

percent of the children who are adopted from overseas are under

the age of three or four or something like that, whereas children

in the United States are older. Also, American children who are in

foster care often have special needs, and parents seeking children

from abroad are seeking children who have only, perhaps if they

have any special needs, very minor special needs. So I don’t think

that there is a real competition between American children in foster care and children from abroad.

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you, in terms of when there is a disruption in the adoption case, I know I have worked on a number

in Russia with my own constituents. We have also, my staff and

I, and I have actually gone to Romania when Ceaucescu failed to

work on a number of adoption cases that were pending, and very

often those kids get lost in the bureaucratic tangle.

What is your sense as to what happens when there is a disruption? Do you think The Hague Convention will help mitigate those

disruptions?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, I think The Hague Convention will mitigate the

disruption. First, it will assure that the child is really adoptable before the case can go forward. Second, there is a provision for very

18

stringent release of medical information, and we will have a panel

of physicians on contract, as we do now, to us for the medical

exams, and those doctors will sit down with the parents and go

over any medical problems that the child might have to make the

parents aware and understand what they may be confronting in

the future with a child who may have, separation anxiety or any

of the problems that we see in children who have been in orphanages in Eastern Europe certainly for any length of time.

So I think that the protections are enhanced even by The Hague

Convention on Intercountry Adoption over and above what we are

trying to do now with the way we do it currently.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Ballenger.

Mr. BALLENGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Ambassador, if I may, let me throw out a personal experience that has occurred in an adoption situation in Vietnam because

of a cousin of mine who happens to be on TV and the lady who is

the producer of Seventh Heaven, that TV program, you may or may

not have seen it, but anyhow she was having all this trouble. There

was a young girl—she went to Vietnam with the intent of adopting

a young lady. I think she was 6 years old. She met the young lady.

She did everything, filled out all the paperwork, came back to this

country, and nothing happened. So she went back to Vietnam and

she ran into a stone wall. She didn’t know what it was that was

causing all the difficulty, but there was nothing she could do. She

somehow would not be allowed to adopt this child.

So by this time the child had gotten to be 8 years old and she

was still trying—she spent close to a hundred thousand dollars in

an effort to somehow make the arrangements to bring this child

back to this country. She went to the star of the program. He happened to be my cousin. He said why don’t you get in touch with

Cass Ballenger in Congress.

So this lady got in touch with me and my wife, and we got to

work on the thing and I would say in a period of 6 months with

an effort on our part to somehow ease this whole difficulty that was

going on, eventually we got an Ambassador there. It turns out the

embassy itself, without an Ambassador, was one of the reasons—

there were people actually in the embassy somehow not wanting

children to be adopted and brought to the United States. Anyhow,

the Ambassador worked out and straightened the whole thing out

and we got her to this country.

But the difficulty—here is a lady that was perfectly qualified as

far as I could tell. She now has the daughter. They are all getting

along fine, and we get pictures and all this other stuff about the

child, but my understanding is in this situation now for adopting

children, is anybody in our government overseas responsible for the

adoption of children?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir. In every consular section in every embassy

and consulate, that is one of the things that we do is to assist parents to adopt foreign children. There is, however, a considerable

amount of fraud involved in this. There is in some countries the

buying and selling of children, and I don’t know the particular case

that refers to. It sounds as if that woman went through more than

she really should have had to experience, and so I apologize to you

and to her for that. But it is possible that there was some suspicion

19

on the part of the consular officer that there was something wrong

with the adoption proceeding, that the child was not really an orphan, that the child might have been taken from a birth mother

against the birth mother’s will. I don’t know, but those are the

kinds of considerations that come into play sometimes in some

countries on adoption, and I think that The Hague Convention will

ameliorate those problems because the child will be identified early

on as being adoptable and also being able to come into this country,

and so there shouldn’t be any further problem like that.

It is one of the most satisfying things that we do as consular officers, is to issue an immigrant visa to a child who is being adopted

by American parents. I find that frankly, sir, one of the most moving and one of the most rewarding things that we do as consular

officers, and so I apologize for the delay and the problem that that

woman had.

Mr. BALLENGER. I haven’t had the same difficulty in Honduras,

where it turns out the Honduran government is well organized as

far as helping friends, that we just happen to be very involved in

Honduras.

But let me ask you a question. If the State Department and the

embassy and the consular people are the ones that are doing the

job now, what changes would our bill do to that? Since they are the

ones on the ground, how could somebody else do it?

Ms. RYAN. It wouldn’t change that. They would still continue to

do it, but what it would do is to ensure that the child is in fact

adoptable as the process begins instead of having a couple or a parent, would-be parent going to a country, finding a child that they

bond with and that they want and then coming in to us and finding

that there is some problem with the fact that the child is not really

an orphan or that the child has been taken from a birth mother.

Those kinds of things are what happens. That is what we are trying to get at with this Hague Convention, to eliminate that, to ease

that terrible sorrow that people have if they have found a child

that they think of as their own, that they desperately want, and

then we are the ones to tell them that, no, the child is not adoptable because the child is really not an orphan or the surviving parent has not agreed to allow the child to be taken abroad.

All of those kinds of considerations come into play, and that is

what we don’t want.

Mr. BALLENGER. Who would then be responsible to get that information?

Ms. RYAN. That would be done under The Hague Convention and

part of the whole process as the agencies are accredited, as the

American parents come to those agencies and want to adopt in a

Hague country, then the whole process begins way in advance of

their going to the country and finding a child on their own.

Mr. BALLENGER. But would we have to build a whole new system?

Ms. RYAN. No, sir. It would be all part of it. We can do it with

what we have in place now.

Mr. BALLENGER. I sure hope—like I say, I had excellent working

relations in Honduras as far as helping people get to the right people and get the adoptions done, but I have never had any problem

as great as the one we had in Vietnam, and I think if we had not

20

had—the Ambassador finally came and he used to be a Congressman, so I knew him. If it hadn’t been that situation, I don’t think

we would have ever been able to do it, namely, because somebody

in our embassy there was against having this child adopted. I don’t

understand it.

Ms. RYAN. I don’t understand that, and I will be happy to look

into it.

Mr. BALLENGER. Just pose that problem to that embassy and say,

the Congressman asked why did we have so much trouble.

Ms. RYAN. I will.

Mr. BALLENGER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Ballenger.

Mr. Sherman.

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to use this opportunity to ask the Ambassador about a situation in Costa Rica

where both American and Costa Rican courts have awarded custody to the American father, and yet the law enforcement authorities in Costa Rica seem not to be following the dictates of either

court. Have you had similar problems in Costa Rica? I realize this

relates more to the custody issue, which you face, but it is not the

exact purpose of these hearings here today, but I would like you

to address that.

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir, we have had difficulty with Costa Rica over

the return of children. Even when the courts have determined that

the custody should go to the American parent, we have not been

able to get the legal mechanism to kick in that will deliver the

child to the American parent. It is one of the problems that we are

dealing with with The Hague Convention on International Child

Abduction. It indicates to us that that convention is not working

the way we believe that it should work, and we are going around

to all these countries where this kind of thing happens to try to get

them to understand what their obligations are under The Hague

Convention on International Child Abduction and working particularly with Costa Rica because Costa Rica I think is on the verge

of signing that Convention, if they have not already done so. But

Costa Rica has been one of the more difficult countries.

There are any number of cases like that. I don’t know the one

particularly you are speaking of, but we have had very great difficulty. We are going to hold a conference in this country next year

with countries like Costa Rica that are not, in our minds, fulfilling

their obligations under the treaty, first for us to try to understand

what the problems that that country confronts are, and also to get

them to understand how we see and how we believe The Hague

Convention actually is and to get them to fulfill their obligations

under the law.

Mr. SHERMAN. Ambassador, my concern is that while you would

be working very hard on these issues, and I admire your efforts,

that this is somehow a stepchild literally in the State Department.

We have had the Administration recommend that Costa Rica be eligible for special treatment under CBI, the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Before that decision was reached, was there any consultation

with you as to whether Costa Rica or any of the other countries

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21

duction or do we just not care about child abduction when we pass

out tremendous economic benefits?

Ms. RYAN. Sir, child abduction, at least as far as my bureau is

concerned, the Bureau of Consular Affairs and the Office of Children’s Issues within that bureau, that issue is not a stepchild for

us. That is center.

Mr. SHERMAN. I know it is very important for your Department,

but is your whole Department a stepchild when it comes to things

that are important to Costa Rica’s economy, such as the Caribbean

Basin Initiative? Were you consulted before the Administration

proposed including Costa Rica in the Caribbean Basin Initiative?

Ms. RYAN. No, sir, I don’t believe we were directly consulted.

Mr. SHERMAN. I don’t think children are going to be protected

until your Department is consulted before we award important benefits in the diplomatic and economic sphere, and I look forward to

you being consulted on more of the big headline trade and international agreements.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Cooksey.

Mr. COOKSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate your

being here to testify today, Ms. Ryan. Let me ask you, what are

the major obstacles to implementing this Hague Convention as you

see them today?

Ms. RYAN. I don’t see any real obstacles. If the Congress ratifies

the treaty, I don’t see any problems with our ability to carry out

the provisions of the Convention, sir.

Mr. COOKSEY. Do you feel comfortable with the way it is written?

Do you feel that most of the potential problem areas are anticipated and solved with the Convention as it is written today?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, sir, I do.

Mr. COOKSEY. Let me ask you this, in this country I know Americans that have tried to adopt American children, and they end up

putting a lot of money into the system and spending a lot of time

and going through a lot of frustration, and quite frankly, it seems

that a lot of it goes to lawyers and legal fees and so forth. How

much of the problem with adopting children from other countries,

international children, is related to problems with the, say, the

legal profession, or people that are involved in the process on this

end of the adoption process? Some of the obstacles that are involved in adopting American children by Americans, do they exist

with Americans adopting international children?

Ms. RYAN. The process is a very, I think a very trying one for

the parents who want to adopt a child, because they have gone

through so much perhaps trying to have their own children and not

being able to and perhaps trying other adoptions that might have

failed, and so it is a very time consuming and very emotional process. I am quite sure that nobody is trying to make it more difficult

for people who want to adopt children, but there are certain things

that they must, the parents, that is, some certain standards that

they must meet, the home study, finding a reputable adoption

agency, working with perhaps a lawyer in the foreign country to

ensure that the child is legally adoptable. In some cases, unfortunately, and in some countries, some of these lawyers are not reputable and are actually trading in children, which makes it that

22

much more difficult for the parents who go into this in all good

faith.

I am not sure that I really understand your question, but I don’t

think that it is any more difficult for parents adopting abroad except getting and understanding the culture and some of the problems that the child may have faced in the early part of his or her

life. We have seen all of these stories about children in Eastern Europe, some perhaps even in China, where they are institutionalized

and where the staff is not sufficiently large enough to give them

the attention that they need as small children, as babies, and so

what difficulties they may have as a result of that as they are

growing up, all of those kinds of considerations come into play I

think more so overseas than in the United States.

Mr. COOKSEY. Good. Thank you. Another quick question, has the

INS been able to work in a relatively efficient manner, expeditious

manner in accomplishing these? Are they a problem and obstacle

in this area?

Ms. RYAN. No, sir. We work very closely with the INS on adoption issues, and I think that they have been very responsive and

very responsible.

Mr. COOKSEY. Good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADY. [Presiding.] The Chair recognizes Mr. Burr.

Mr. BURR. I thank the Chairman. The great thing about this is

that even with competing bills, we are all headed to the same end.

It is unfortunate that, in my particular case, I look at it one way,

many on the Committee and in the House look at it a little bit differently, but I also try to take into consideration the scope of my

involvement with HHS on the Commerce Committee and a better

understanding of the scope in total of what is before HHS.

Let me ask you, Commissioner Montoya, you highlighted in your

statement under the accreditation experience because HHS has extensive experience in adoption. Tell me what extensive—or experience HHS has in international adoption today.

Ms. MONTOYA. Congressman, that is not an area that HHS has

been involved in per se because what happens is parents decide to

adopt and will usually go either directly or through an a private

agency to adopt a child internationally. So, at this point in time,

we have not had involvement with international adoption.

Mr. BURR. International child smuggling?

Ms. MONTOYA. No, sir.

Mr. BURR. Any experience there? International child abduction?

Ms. MONTOYA. No, sir.

Mr. BURR. How about the State Department, Ambassador Ryan,

experience?

Ms. RYAN. Yes, Congressman, we do have experience in international adoption, and we do unfortunately have experience with

international child abduction.

Mr. BURR. If, take for a minute that the bill were passed and

HHS were given the responsibility for accreditation, State Department would continue to facilitate their role on the ground of helping the adoption process work smoothly. Who would be responsible

for oversight of the accredited companies?

Ms. MONTOYA. Congressman, that would fall to HHS.

23

Mr. BURR. So HHS would accredit these agencies, they would

have oversight of the agencies, and the State would be the one that

worked intensely on the movement of children from countries to

families?

Ms. RYAN. Right.

Mr. BURR. So given that you would have the oversight responsibilities then, how would you know whether it is working? Would

you be relying on what information State supplied for you?

Ms. MONTOYA. No, Congressman. What would happen under this

accreditation process is that we would designate one or more accreditation entities that have the experience and have been working in this area of accreditation in the area of adoptions.

Mr. BURR. But wouldn’t you have oversight responsibility over

that agency that you accredit?

Ms. MONTOYA. Right.

Mr. BURR. How would you know if they are doing their job? How

would you know if they are doing a good job?

Ms. MONTOYA. What we would do to support our oversight responsibility is to have things put into our contracts with them that

indicate reporting mechanisms, so that they would let us know

what they are doing. There might also be an on-site visit and frequent discussion with them, those types of things. It is not something we could contract out and then just forget about.

Mr. BURR. No, but I think it is real important to determine up

front as we talk about what the appropriate agency is to look at

who ultimately has oversight responsibilities on the function of

adoption, and I would contend to you that we will be relying on the

State Department to facilitate these intercountry adoptions, and in

fact, there is no one better to know how the process is working

than the State Department officials who are on the ground. Given

that I believe both of you would go through the same process of

choosing an agency for accreditation, when we look further down

the line and look at oversight, clearly I think the State Department

is in a better position to determine whether the functions are happening like they were designed to, whether we have a problem with

accredited agencies. HHS is going to be relying on the reports that

the accredited agencies are going to turn back in to HHS, the same

reports that I question often whether anybody reads in other parts

of HHS.

Ms. MONTOYA. Congressman, the other piece, though, is that, as

was mentioned, that currently the State Department is involved

with the international adoptions, but HHS has the experience and

has the responsibility for child welfare and adoption. So from that

perspective we have been working in this area and have the expertise already in place as we move ahead to start working on pooling

together the information of the standards for accreditation and in

moving ahead with the regulation that would have to be promulgated.

Mr. BURR. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent for

two additional minutes.

Chairman GILMAN. [Presiding.] Without objection.

Mr. BURR. So HHS has a wealth of knowledge about how to set

up the criteria for accreditation, is that what you are saying?

24

Ms. MONTOYA. We have the experience having that responsibility

in this country, yes, sir.

Mr. BURR. Is there any reason that that wealth of knowledge

couldn’t be shared with the State Department and let them still be

the accrediting agency and department and be responsible for oversight?

Ms. MONTOYA. Sir, what would then have to happen is that there

would have to be an additional step, actually, because then they

would have to be coming to us for that experience and expertise.

Ms. RYAN. If I might, Congressman, that is the opportunity cost,

because we would have to learn how to do it, and it would take us

a while to learn how to do it, whereas HHS already knows how to

do this, and they have the network in place already because they

are already accrediting, and we have never had a domestic responsibility because we are a foreign affairs agency, and so, yes, certainly we can do it, we will be able to do it, but it will take us

much longer to get started doing it and getting it up and running

the way it would work in HHS from the start. So I think that we

conceivably are disadvantaging American citizens who are anxious

to adopt children internationally.

Mr. BURR. Let me suggest to you, Ambassador, that in fact we

are not here talking about domestic adoption, that we are here

talking about international adoption, and when you weigh it, the

experience for international experiences lies in the State Department. Yes, I believe that HHS has some statistical information that

might lead one to set up the guidelines for accreditation. I don’t

think that is too tough to share, too long to learn, too tough to

work hand in hand with, but the question is who ultimately is responsible to make sure that the program runs correctly, the person

closest to it, the agency closest to it, the one who actually has individuals around the world who face those real people who are trying

to place children in homes or the individuals in Washington who

have all the statistics but aren’t there to see the real life.

This is clearly a fundamental difference. I shared it with the

Chairman at the beginning, and I shared it with my good friend

Mr. Delahunt, even though he and I are on totally different ends.

If everything worked perfect at HHS, I might be one that looked

at it and said, gosh, here is a great way to expand. My fear is that

with the experience, we are 3 years away from HHS running the

adoption process domestically. I think that is a very dangerous

thing that I want to make sure stays in the hands of the States

for the most part where they have that jurisdiction today.

I want to thank the Committee and the witnesses for their willingness, and I would yield back.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Burr.

Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just take

a minute, and I am pleased to hear that my friend and colleague

from North Carolina has implicitly endorsed the high quality of the

Department of State. I hope you have taken note of that.

Ms. RYAN. I did take notice.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Please convey it to the Secretary. She will be

very happy to hear that. But my question seriously is to the Commissioner. I think it is important for Members of the Committee to

25

hear how you currently go about the accreditation process. If you

could just give us a minute overview in terms of what the process

is that you currently execute of accreditation and how that would

carry over into the international area.

Ms. MONTOYA. Yes, Congressman. What we look at when we are

looking at the whole accreditation process is that we are setting the

standards or the bar for good social work practice, and that there

is good ethical practice in what is being done, and so what has happened is we have set up the guidelines for that and then contract

with agencies out there that have actually had the experience of

doing accreditation, and then they are the ones that are actually

pursuing it.

Mr. DELAHUNT. In other words, you set the standards and then

you contract out and the agencies that you contract with ensure

that there is compliance with the standards that have been promulgated by HHS?

Ms. MONTOYA. Yes.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Presumably your oversight and your monitoring

is in continuing consultation with the contractees.

Ms. MONTOYA. Congressman, excuse me, let me actually backtrack on that. Actually, we are not doing current actual accreditation in the adoption area right now. The Department has experience in other arenas with accreditation, but we are not actually accrediting adoption agencies. So, excuse me, I misspoke in that area.

Mr. BURR. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. DELAHUNT. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. BURR. Let me go back to an area you and I just discussed

then. What experience, as stated in your opening statement, do you

then bring to the accreditation of adoptions?

Ms. MONTOYA. Congressman, what ACF and what HHS brings to

this is that we have had the responsibility for child welfare and

adoption and the experience in dealing with the child’s well-being

in this country. So, again, all the experience that we have had in

working with issues of children and families, particularly those involving children in the child welfare system, is the experience that

we bring. It is that understanding and then also then having had

the experience of dealing with accreditation through other parts of

our Department.

Mr. BURR. I think Ambassador Ryan was concerned with the

State’s curve up in education of learning this, and in fact, with the

exception of accrediting other areas, HHS doesn’t have experience

with accreditation currently of adoption, do they? You start at the

same point, am I correct?

Ms. RYAN. Sir, we have no experience whatsoever with accrediting anyone in any way. I don’t think we are really starting at the

same point. HHS does have accrediting responsibilities, if not in

the adoption field, in the health field, and so they have the experience. They know how to do it. We don’t. We would have to learn

how to do this.

Mr. BURR. But you do know how to facilitate children being

adopted and actually moving through the process, which I would

tell you is a much greater experience that I would look for in the

process. I want to go back, and then, Mr. Chairman, I will yield

back the balance of my time.

26

Mr. Delahunt hit on a very important thing and that is the process, that you are going to rely on an agency to do the accreditation,

to be responsible, to make sure that everything is done like it is

supposed to meet the standards, the guidelines that HHS has set.

Who is responsible to know whether adoptions are taking place?

There is a big difference between does the system work and are we

adhering to the rules and the regulations that we design. Who is

responsible for that under the HHS model?

Ms. MONTOYA. Under the HHS model you are talking about for

U.S. adoptions or international—you are talking about U.S.?

Mr. BURR. I am talking about intercountry. You are going to find

a company that you are going to license with a credit, you are

going to give them the standards, the rules, the regulations. You

are going to say, it is your job to make this happen and to make

sure that everybody is compliant, right? That is what you said to

Mr. Delahunt.

Ms. MONTOYA. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURR. Whose concern is it as to whether adoptions are taking place?

Ms. MONTOYA. I would believe that the way the bill is currently

written, HHS only has the role of the accreditation and not actually dealing with the individual adoption process.

Mr. BURR. The answer is nobody?

Ms. MONTOYA. I would defer to the State Department.

Ms. RYAN. We have an analogy I think, Congressman, on refugees and refugee programs, where we do the international part of

that refugee work and HHS does the domestic services for refugees

who come to this country. So I think that the sharing of responsibilities already exists, and we have over the past 2 years of working on The Hague Convention and the implementing legislation,

developed a very effective working relationship with HHS, and I

think that they are better equipped to do this work.

We would continue, obviously, to do the work that we do on actually issuing the visas to the adopted children and having the children come to the United States, but the accrediting of the agencies,

I think, is better in the hands of a domestic agency than an international agency.

Chairman GILMAN. Gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Brady.

Mr. BURR. Don’t understate your experience and your good work.

I thank the Chair.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Brady.

Mr. BRADY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your leadership on this issue. I appreciate the hard work that has been done

to try to meet our commitments and implement The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, and I want to be a help in this

process.

I have a couple of concerns that I hope can be addressed, and it

comes from the standpoint that I want to encourage more of these

intercountry adoptions. I want to make sure that parents get it

done right, that the adoption is permanent, and that it is strengthened through the process. My own experience is very limited, serving on the state legislative committee dealing with adoptions, being

an adoptive parent myself. My wife and I also chose to begin an

27

international adoption. So we have done the homework and met

with about 50 couples that have adopted internationally.

So my concerns are these. Anytime we certify in the effort to illuminate abuses, it is tempting to create a process that tends to set

a barrier to access, where only some agencies can meet certification. While small practitioners, faith-based organizations who do

it as part of their missionary work, for example, are driven out of

the process, and I know at the State level in almost every instance

where we have really taken a hard look at adoption, we found that

the number of the drivers of the cost have been ourselves. In our

efforts to try to make sure every adoption is perfect, we find we

also have driven a lot of very good families out of the adoption

process.

So here are some thoughts. First, I think State Department has

far too much on its plate as it is. We need more resources for you

in other areas. I have not had as much experience with HHS, but

it makes sense that you play the key role here. I am concerned that

we don’t have enough accrediting entities in this legislation. There

were some 15,000 adoptions last year. I am sure it is rising. Five

does not seem adequate, because the worst thing in the world

would be to have a date certain for the implementation of this to

have agencies who have good track records and parents who have

been waiting 2 or 3 years who have children they are ready to

adopt and because we don’t have enough accrediting agencies out

there and working, that that adoption might be held off for that

family or an agency just may not be able to get through the funnel

in time. I think we need to have as many accrediting agencies as

needed to implement by the date certain the time this goes into effect.

I am concerned that the paperwork and the standards are either

redundant or will drive up the costs in different ways, and again,

choosing an international adoption process ourselves, we found a

good agency after a long search. It cost about $20,000 to start the

process, but since then we have also met couples who have had

success through smaller, private practitioners or faith-based organizations where a local church, as part of their missionary work,

once or twice a year have a child who needs adoption, and they arrange it and they are much more affordable because, obviously, it

is ancillary to their work. But they have good relationships and

make it work at a much smaller fee, and my concern is we will

drive them out of doing good work because of the burdensome paperwork and accreditation process.

The registry to me does not seem to be necessary. I think while

it is important to know—back to accreditation, as we know from licensing doctors, attorneys and other professionals, accreditation

and licensing itself doesn’t guarantee a quality practitioner. What

is more needed I think for families looking to adopt is, in effect, a

credit bureau for international adoption agencies where we can

look at the experience of those agencies, where we can find out

from real people who have been part of it, rather than a registry

that, even though it starts out confidential, we know ultimately

will be public. I think we would do better to focus on providing

more information, more knowledge to potential parents rather than

creating a higher bar or more costly bar that doesn’t provide us

28

with the type of quality information the parents need when choosing that adoptive agency.

My other concern, is on those who were looking to adopt outside

of America, it seems to me that the requirements of the 12-month

waiting period are absolutely unnecessary. I think requiring a married couple to be the ones adopting on the other end misses a whole

group of people. After my dad died, my mom raised five of us by

herself. Now, if she moved to Ireland, agreed to adopt a child from

here, a friend of somewhere, I can’t imagine someone saying she is

not a qualified parent, and I think there are a lot of very good families out there that don’t happen, in this case, widowed or single

or whatever the situation is, I think would be very good—I think

best interest of the child ought to be the standard we use. I don’t

know what problem we are really trying to solve there from my

standpoint.

So I will stop at this point to just say I am concerned that we

are going to drive up costs, drive out opportunities and people, especially the small practitioners, and we are going to discourage

rather than encourage adoptions, and because I know, knowing

Chairman Gilman and the approach he takes, this is so important.

We want to do it right. I would like to be part of the process to

make sure whatever we do implement ultimately helps rather than

harms.

Ms. RYAN. Yes, Congressman, that is exactly what we want, too.

We share your concern on the 12-month waiting period, because if

we instituted it here for American children to be adopted abroad,

other countries will do that and that will disadvantage American

parents who want to adopt a child, and on the other point that you

made, which was——

Mr. BRADY. Accreditation.

Ms. RYAN. On the accreditation, I can’t speak to. The Commissioner can speak to that, but there was one other point.

Mr. BRADY. Cost.

Ms. RYAN. The whole purpose of The Hague Convention is not to

make it more difficult for people, single parents. That is what you

were talking about. We also think that all the 50 States allow a

single person to adopt children, and we would not want to see any

change in that. We think that the States should be able to determine who adopts, and we also think that single parents should be

able to adopt if they pass all the background investigations and all

of that.

Mr. BRADY. Do we have anything in this legislation dealing with

age, because I have found that some countries are real restrictive

on age, and being an old father myself, we discovered that we

weren’t eligible for a number of countries in looking at adopting,

and while at times I feel old, I think we provide a pretty good family for children. The concern is not to get into a reciprocity, but is

there a way, and again, to encourage more adoptions here, is there

a way to encourage more countries to lift what may be old fashioned or outdated age limits on adoption?

Ms. RYAN. We have tried, and we continue to try to do that by

discussing with those countries our concerns about age limits, and

many countries tell us that they are looking to see what we do with

The Hague Convention, and so they will follow our lead, and that

29

will be one of the points that we will use with them to see if they

really are sincere in following our lead because we don’t have any

restrictions like that in your legislation, or in the Administration’s

proposal. So if that passes as written, that is what we will be talking with them about, trying to get them to do exactly what we have

done.

Chairman GILMAN. Gentleman’s time has expired. Thank you,

Mr. Brady.

Mr. Gejdenson.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you very much. Just a few brief questions. I met some constituents yesterday, or the day before yesterday. One of the things they said was important was to have a mandatory disclosure of all fees involved in the adoption process so that

those fees were made public. They worried obviously that we were

creating additional layers of bureaucracy. They worried that the

present process, oftentimes after you adopt there is a nightmare to

get the visa for the child you just adopted into the country. Beyond

that, they said that, in some States, they have had—obviously this

is not your issue—trouble changing their child’s name to the parent’s name. They also said that it is a complicated system to make

them citizens. What they were suggesting is that there ought to be

a process by which, once you adopt a child, if you are an American

citizen, they ought to become citizens automatically.

One of the things they said is that some people in the State Department were worried that parents could change their mind and

then leave the child and then there would be an American child behind. I thought that the easy fix there would be that you could simply say that within 6 months of returning to the United States

with an adopted child the process be automatic. So parents don’t

forget and Congress passes some crazy laws that say if you end up

on welfare for a weekend we throw you out of the country, and 30

years later somebody is getting energy assistance and being deported because their parents forgot to make them citizens.

So do you have any problem with having some provision in the

legislation—we may have to do this through another Committee—

that would make citizenship automatic over, say, a short period of

time?

Ms. RYAN. Congressman, no, but it is the Immigration and Naturalization Service that does citizenship. There is a gentleman here,

Mr. Cuddihy, who is prepared to talk on that if you so wish. I think

that State Department would like to see that, as long as it doesn’t

disadvantage American citizen parents with natural children, as

long as it doesn’t make a distinction between kind of an automatic

naturalization for an adopted child, but that if you were an American citizen recently naturalized, have a child abroad and can

transmit, that your child also—it would be those kinds of considerations that we would want to see in any bill that might be developed, but I think Mr. Cuddihy is here if you would like to hear

from him.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Love to hear from him.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Cuddihy, would you please identify yourself and your title.

Mr. CUDDIHY. My name is Joseph Cuddihy. I am with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and I am currently working in

30

Washington, D.C., on a temporary assignment in the Office of Immigration Services Division, which has responsibility for the processing of numerous immigration applications, including applications for adoption.

We, too, share the panelists’ concerns and interests in this entire

process. We are very willing to work with members of the staff,

Members of the Committee, to look at the process of naturalization

as it occurs now, and to see where some activities can occur that

would make the process more transparent. We know some of the

concerns that are inherent in this, and anything that we can do

along the line to assist in the naturalization and the citizenship

process, we are very willing to meet and try to discuss and work

out.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Do you have any problem with saying if you

have two American citizens, they adopt a child from whatever

country you pick, they come back to the United States, the adoption has gone through, the child is living with them now for 6

months, that it should be automatic that the child becomes a citizen, and if the parents fail to register or whatever they are still

citizens?

Mr. CUDDIHY. We want to be careful to make sure that we look

at all sides of the issues, particularly with the rights of the children and the parents’ desires. I would be a little concerned with

something of that nature that a parent might want, for whatever

reason in his or her own mind, that child to keep the citizenship

of their adoptive country, whether it be for cultural reasons or natural reasons, and for that reason, I think we would want to take

those kinds of considerations.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Fine. So you could easily provide an option so

they could choose whether to be binational, but I think the fear

here is that parents come back very excited, they are focused on

this child, not on the bureaucracy. They are American citizens.

This child has been adopted. You wouldn’t have any problem if,

within the options that are presented to make sure that there is

no legal hassle later, there is an automatic process that makes

them a citizen?

Mr. CUDDIHY. We would have no objection to a process——

Mr. GEJDENSON. Providing they were given guarantees that they

could keep binational citizenship and everything else?

Mr. CUDDIHY. That is correct, and we recognize the issues and

the concerns that you have, that through some lack of an administrative process that has taken place someone ends up in a position

where, in fact, they are subject to deportation laws of the United

States.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Great. I think one of the examples was that a

kid gets caught with some drug or something in college, and next

thing you know they are being deported because somebody didn’t

file the right papers. It is a terrible thing, they ought to pay the

penalty, but they should pay the penalty as any other American

citizen would.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Gejdenson, may I just make a comment that

when I adopted my daughter I think it was a 3-year wait before

she could become a citizen, and I found that personally offensive,

and there ought to be an option. I can appreciate these cirVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:01 Jul 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 64746.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
31

cumstances that you describe where it might be a choice by the

parent to delay, for whatever reason, I can’t really imagine, but it

is my belief that once an adoption is finalized in this country, that

that child should be a citizen.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt, Mr. Gejdenson,

and I want to thank our panelists for their patience, and for providing valuable input on this issue. We will now proceed to the

next panel.

We welcome the five panelists who are here today from all over

our Nation. First, Dr. Jerri Ann Jenista is testifying on behalf of

the American Academy of Pediatrics, where she is the adoption

representative of the Academy’s Committee on Early Childhood

Adoption and Dependent Care. She is also the Chairperson of the

same committee for the Michigan state chapter, the Academy of Pediatrics. A practicing pediatrician in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Dr.

Jenista specializes in infectious diseases, emergency medicine and

in the medical care of adopted and immigrant children. She is the

Editor of Adoption Medical News, a monthly newsletter for adoption and health care professionals on the medical issues of adopted

children. Dr. Jenista is also one of the organizers of the Adoptmed

Group, a coalition of 200 health care practitioners who are involved

in the medical care of adopted children. Her current research is in

the pre-adoption evaluation of medical records and the education of

parents on the issues of children adopted from institutional care.

Dr. Jenista is a single parent of five adopted children, three of

whom have special needs, and she still has time to come to Washington to give us the benefit of her thinking. We thank you for

being here.

Ms. Susan Freivalds is the Coordinator of The Hague Convention

policy for the Joint Council on International Children Services, the

oldest and largest affiliation of state-licensed not-for-profit child

welfare agencies servicing children through intercountry adoptions.

As the Coordinator, Ms. Freivalds has led the effort to assure workable implementation of The Hague Convention on Intercountry

Adoption, including defining standards and procedures to accredit

agencies to work in intercountry adoption. She was a Member of

the U.S. delegation to the treaty negotiations at The Hague that

produced The Hague Convention of interest to us today. She holds

degrees from the University of California—Davis, and Georgetown

University. She is also an adoptive parent.

The Committee also welcomes David Liederman, the President

and CEO of the Council on Accreditation of Services for Families

and Children. Founded in March 1977, COA is an international,

not-for-profit standard setting accrediting agency. Mr. Liederman

has a long career in child welfare. He most recently was the Executive Director of the Child Welfare League of America. He has been

recognized for his years of service by numerous awards, such as the

1999 Award for Excellence in National Executive Leadership for

the National Assembly and the 1997 National Lifetime Achievement Award for the National Association of Social Workers. He

holds degrees from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst

and the University of Pittsburgh. He has also served on the faculty

of the Yeshiva University in New York and in Boston. We welcome

Mr. Liederman.

32

I am pleased to welcome from New York, Mr. Sam Pitkowsky, a

Vice President of the Adoptive Parents Committee. The Adoptive

Parents Committee is a parent support group that provides education information to prospective adoptive parents and adoptive

parents and has over 2,500 member families in the tri-state area.

Mr. Pitkowsky is an adoptive parent of two children, and has been

involved in the Adoptive Parents Committee for many years. We

welcome your comments, Mr. Pitkowsky, on behalf of your membership and your personal experience. We welcome you to the panel.

We also welcome Ms. Kathleen Sacco of Connecticut. Ms. Sacco

is an adoptee from Korea and has been good enough to join us

today to provide her views as an adoptee and also from her professional experience as an adoption social worker for the Family and

Children’S Agency. Her work has involved assisting and educating

families adopting both domestically and internationally.

So we thank all of our experts who are part of this panel for taking time out of your busy schedules to be able to provide us and

share with us your experiences.

Please proceed, Ms. Freivalds, and if you would summarize your

statements. We will make your full statement part of the record

since we are running out of time. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF SUSAN FREIVALDS, HAGUE COORDINATOR,

JOINT COUNCIL ON INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S SERVICES

Ms. FREIVALDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the

Committee. We want to thank you for holding these hearings to explore how the United States might best implement The Hague Convention, and for giving me the opportunity to address you. I have

submitted a prepared statement for the record and will be summarizing it in this oral presentation.

As you mentioned, I am the Hague Convention Policy Coordinator for the Joint Council on International Children Services.

That is the Nation’s oldest and largest affiliation of state-licensed,

not-for-profit child welfare agencies that provide services to children through intercountry adoption. The Joint Council has 130

member agencies and provides services in an estimated three-quarters of all intercountry adoptions to the United States.

I was a Member of the U.S. delegation to the meetings at The

Hague that prepared the Convention in 1992 and 1993, and I am

also the lucky mother of a daughter adopted from Korea as an infant 24 years ago.

The Joint Council calls for U.S. ratification of The Hague Convention. We believe that the Convention provides many benefits

and that its goals of cooperation and safeguards are not only laudable but also necessary to the continuation of intercountry adoption

as a means to provide homeless children overseas with new, permanent, loving families.

The Joint Council supports enactment of legislation that will enable the United States to implement the Convention in a manner

that will allow intercountry adoptions to proceed ethically and expeditiously. We feel that H.R. 2909 is such legislation, and we endorse its passage. We salute the authors for their hard work and

spirit of compromise that has produced this bipartisan bill that the

adoption community can embrace.

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H.R. 2909 has been written with a minimalist approach to implementation of The Hague Convention. It rightfully addresses only

the implementation of the Convention and does not attempt to impose any conditions or corrections of adoption law or practice that

are not required by the Convention.

While Joint Council endorses H.R. 2909, I would like to comment

on several of its provisions. First, it is always in the best interest

of children that there be a large pool of prospective parents from

which to choose the most appropriate ones for any child. H.R. 2909

rightfully does not place restrictions on appropriate adoptive parents. Specifically, single persons are a very important resource for

children without families and Joint Council would oppose any legislation that limits their participation in intercountry adoption.

Additionally, H.R. 2909 appropriately exempts from accreditation

or approval agencies or persons providing home study services only.

This exemption will allow continued convenient access by prospective adoptive parents to home study services throughout the country. Quality control will be assured in most cases by the fact that

an accredited body or an approved person will provide the balance

of the adoption services.

Countries of origin are counting on those of us in the receiving

countries to appropriately screen and prepare intercountry adoptive

families. If we allow adoptions with no input from accredited bodies

or approved persons then the Convention will have failed in its

goal to protect children.

The mandate becomes clear when we remember that intercountry adoptions should be about finding families for children, not

children for families.

Regarding accreditation and approval, some may argue that

State licensure of agencies or persons would be sufficient. H.R.

2909 has rightfully determined that State licensure is not sufficient

to assure compliance with the Convention, and to secure its protections.

The thoroughness of State licensing varies from State to State

too much for it to be a meaningful national standard. Although it

would be convenient and easier for Joint Council agencies to rely

only on State licensure, after 6 years of deliberation we have determined that State licensure does not rise to the level of quality

standard that is needed for high quality intercountry adoption

services.

As part of its minimalist construct, H.R. 2909 has deferred to

State law determinations concerning access to identifying information. In light of the evolving child welfare practices, Joint Council

supports, at a minimum, access to identifying information that

takes into account the needs of all parties. Joint Council historically has supported access to adoption records and provision to parents of all available information at time of placement.

A caution regarding these provisions in H.R. 2909 is that they

not have the unintended consequence of restricting the provision to

prospective adoptive parents of information for which no guarantee

of privacy has been either sought or intended.

In a number of countries identifying information is routinely provided to adoptive parents, either because it is required for compleVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:01 Jul 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 64746.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
34

tion of the adoption or because the adoption authorities prefer that

families have this information.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Freivalds appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.

Dr. Jenista.

STATEMENT OF DR. JERRI ANN JENISTA, AMERICAN

ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS

Dr. JENISTA. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee,

thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Today I am representing the American Academy of Pediatrics, an

organization of 55,000 primary care pediatricians and specialists

dedicated to the health and safety of children.

I have submitted separate testimony from the Adopted group

which is a coalition of adoption practitioners in the United States.

[The referenced material may be found in the appendix]

I have been involved in intercountry adoption since 1982, performing research, providing education to parents and other persons

involved in adoption, and providing direct care for patients. In the

last 3 years alone, I have provided preadoption medical review on

more than 6,000 cases, and ongoing consultative medical care for

approximately 300 to 500 new patients each year.

The Academy is concerned about the numbers of children being

adopted from overseas who have significant medical and behavioral

problems that are poorly understood before arrival in this country.

Over the past 10 years there has been a dramatic shift in the demographics of international adoption. In 1989, there were 8,000

adoptions with over half of the children coming from excellent foster care in Korea and Latin America. In 1998, the number of adoptions doubled, but only 20 percent of children came from foster

care, with the remainder coming from orphanages of variable quality.

Fifteen years ago, the typical adopted child was from Korea, adequate information was provided to the family, the child was kept

in experienced foster care, and after arrival in the adoptive home,

most Korean children have done remarkably well, with only a few

problems specific to intercountry adoption.

Today, however, the typical child comes from one of two regions.

The first child is one from China. She is invariably abandoned by

her birth family because of the one-child policy. There is no available medical information about the family or the child’s care. The

child will wait for an adoption in an orphanage. The family will receive little or no useful information about her health, and much of

the written documentation will be unreliable or inadequate. She

will arrive in the United States as a toddler with a more difficult

adjustment.

After arrival, that child and her adoptive family immediately face

issues of malnutrition, growth retardation, nutritional deficiencies,

inadequate immunizations, and a markedly increased risk of many

infectious diseases. For some children there are long-term challenges, including undiagnosed congenital defects and medical conditions, global developmental delays, and behavioral problems.

35

The second child is one from one of the nations formerly under

Soviet control such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, or Romania.

An orphan from one of these countries may be relinquished by the

birth family because of economic hardship, but more than 25 percent of the children offered for adoption are available because of an

involuntary termination of parental rights because of significant

abuse or neglect in the birth family.

The rates of prematurity, low birth weight, prenatal exposure to

drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, to sexually transmitted diseases, such

as HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis, are at unprecedented high

levels. The incidence of previous physical or sexual abuse, physical

or mental disabilities, chronic medical conditions, are exactly the

same in Russia as in children entering into foster care in California.

These children will live in regimented orphanage settings with

inadequate stimulation. Medical care is practiced on a model unintelligible to Western practitioners, with unusual medical diagnoses

and widespread use of potentially dangerous drugs. Scanty medical

information provides bizarre terminology and may be falsified.

The child will not arrive into a home until he is a toddler or an

older child. About 10 percent of these children will arrive to new

adoptive families with a biologic or other unrelated sibling. The

high-risk medical and social background, prolonged institutional

living, and added stress of competing with another adopted child

set up a situation fraught with difficult transitions.

After adoption, this child faces all the problems of the Chinese

child and more. All studies of these previously institutionalized

children have shown long-term developmental, cognitive, and behavioral issues that persist well into the school years and perhaps

beyond. The degree of impairment is clearly related to the length

of institutionalization. The longer the time the child is in an orphanage, the worse off he is.

In my own research, approximately 50 percent of children coming

from orphanages referred to families today are considered at high

or moderate risk of an irreparable medical, developmental, or emotional condition.

In summary, all children coming from institutional settings to

the United States today should be considered to have special needs.

Because of that, the American Academy of Pediatrics has four concerns about adoption practice today.

Our first concern is about the adequacy and availability of information released to prospective adoptive families. Currently, approximately 40 percent of records submitted to my office fall in the

category of ‘‘unable to assess’’ because of inadequate information.

Family expectations based on inadequate information and an unrealistic idea of who their child might become are reflected in a significant increase in the number of wrongful adoption suits against

agencies and facilitators. The basis of these suits has been

undiagnosed or should-have-been-foreseen medical and behavioral

problems that were not disclosed to the family.

Second, we have concerns about the education and preparation

of families about potential or medical or behavioral issues. Currently there is no requirement that families receive any information or education, or when no information is available, at least

36

about the circumstances of the child that they would be adopting.

The extraordinarily high cost of intercountry adoption instills in

families a high expectation for the health of the child.

The current new ‘‘entreperurial’’ types of agencies, some of whom

are not the philanthropic or missionary institutions referred to by

Mr. Brady, may not practice using accepted child welfare standards.

Third, we have concerns that agencies and adoption facilitators

are not providing adequate services after the child arrives in the

United States. An extreme example of an unprepared family would

be the death of the Russian child in the hands of an adoptive mother in Colorado. If that family had received appropriate services,

perhaps that situation would not have occurred.

Finally, we have concern about inadequate data on the outcomes

of intercountry adoptions, since there is no mandated followup.

Our summary recommendations are in our written testimony,

but in essence, we are most concerned that Health and Human

Services should require accreditation standards for agencies and

adoption facilitators that would require that appropriate information is obtained from orphanages about individual children and

their conditions, that facilitators and agencies are not allowed to

have families sign waivers absolving the agency of responsibility,

that agencies should provide education for families, and that they

should provide adequate time after referred information for families to consider those children; that agencies should be required to

give families sufficient time after that information is received to

process ‘‘who’’ this child is, that they should provide post-adoption

services to families and make efforts to determine the well-being of

the child after adoption.

A method of collection about the numbers and progress of international adoptees also should be founded.

In conclusion, it is important to reemphasize that we strongly believe that such adoptions are positive and desirable solutions for

the placement of orphaned or abandoned children. The vast majority of intercountry adoptions are successful. However, our goal is

to advocate for these children by trying to ensure that the adoption

process is medically ethical and reasonable.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Jenista appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you very much, Doctor. Thank you for

your recommendations.

Mr. Liederman.

STATEMENT OF DAVID LIEDERMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO,

COUNCIL ON ACCREDITATION OF SERVICES FOR FAMILIES

AND CHILDREN

Mr. LIEDERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for all of

your leadership over the years. We are appreciative of both your

sponsorship and Mr. Gejdenson’s sponsorship of this important legislation. Thank you.

To my friend from Massachusetts, Bill Delahunt, thank you for

all your great work on this. We appreciate it. Bill and I were in

the legislature together in Massachusetts. We thought that was the

highest political calling, but then he decided Congress was a higher

political calling.

37

Mr. DELAHUNT. It was, believe me, the highest political calling.

Mr. LIEDERMAN. I wanted to use my few minutes to talk about

the accreditation provisions of the legislation and speak to that

issue.

Let me first say a word about the Council on Accreditation,

which I head. COA has been in business for 22 years. We accredit,

or are in the process of accrediting 1,200 organizations in the

United States that serve children and families. It is a well-developed system. It is a terrific system that accredits both public and

private agencies.

For example, we are in the final stages of accrediting the Department of Children and Families in Illinois, the largest department

serving children and families in our country. Illinois is also requiring that all of the private agencies that they contract with have to

be accredited by the Council on Accreditation.

We are accrediting all of the 37 community mental health agencies in North Carolina. The entire mental health system in North

Carolina is being accredited by the Council on Accreditation. The

State of Kentucky is in the final stages of accrediting their system.

Missouri has just applied to accredit their entire child welfare system. Ohio is accrediting their counties. Maryland is accrediting

their counties.

So we believe accreditation is the way to go, and I think in the

future every agency serving children and families in the United

States, public and private, will have to be accredited. It will be the

minimum requirement for serving vulnerable kids and families in

the United States, as it should be. It is the bar that needs to be

set if agencies are going to provide quality services to kids and

families.

The question that I always ask people is, would anyone go to a

hospital that was not accredited? No, of course not. Would anyone

send their child to a university that was not accredited? No, of

course not. Those are minimum standards.

As Mr. Brady pointed out, and I agree with him, there is no foolproof system in the United States. We have not come up with one

yet. But the fact is that accreditation is the single best system that

I know, having spent 35 years in this business. To ensure that

there will be quality services for children and families who need

our help.

The Council is sponsored and supported by 23 national organizations, including the Alliance for Children and Families, the Association of Jewish Family and Children’s Agencies, Catholic Charities of the United States, the Child Welfare League of America,

Lutheran Services of America, the Joint Council for International

Children’s Services, and the National Council for Adoption.

They are all national sponsors or supporters of the Council on

Accreditation, which is an independent not-for-profit accrediting

body with an independent board of directors. So the accreditation

process has integrity to it.

It is a well-thought-through process which includes a self-study

that is conducted by the agency themselves. Following the selfstudy, there is a site visit where we have trained 1,000 peer reviewers across the country who visit agencies to review their materials, to look at some of the issues that they have identified in their

38

self-study, and to score the agency according to the standards that

we have developed.

The Council developed standards for international adoption in

1992. We revised those standards in 1997. Of the 1,200 agencies

that we accredit, 226 are adoption agencies and 11 provide international adoption services. So we already have standards in place

that speak to the issue of international adoption, and these standards are supported by the 20 organizations who make up The

Hague Alliance, who participated in their development.

The standards speak to issues like legal regulatory compliance

and service delivery. They also speak to human resource requirements and outcomes as well as quality assurance, all of the things

that we would expect that an agency providing the highest quality

services to kids and families.

We always have to ask ourselves the bottom line question: Are

the services being provided by the agency services that we would

want for ourselves, our own kids, our own families? I believe the

way you get a yes to that question is through accreditation. I am

very pleased that you have included the accreditation provision in

this bill, and we look forward to working with you to implement

it. We look forward to working with HHS and the Department of

State to make sure that we have a terrific program that does well

for our kids and families.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Liederman appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Liederman.

I see we have a series of votes. That would mean a lengthy delay.

What I am going to suggest, if Mr. Pitkowsky and Ms. Sacco would

be very brief in their testimony, and we will submit written questions to the panelists, rather than have them have to stay around

waiting for the votes to be concluded.

Mr. Pitkowsky.

STATEMENT OF SAM PITKOWSKY, ADOPTIVE PARENTS

COMMITTEE OF NEW YORK

Mr. PITKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Sam

Pitkowsky. I am the adoptive father of two internationally born

daughters, Helen and Irene. I am Vice President of the Adoptive

Parents Committee.

The Adoptive Parents Committee is a volunteer organization

dedicated to promoting and improving all areas of adoption. APC

is a non-profit, non-sectarian parents support group run solely by

unpaid volunteers. APC is dedicated to a belief that every child deserves a secure, permanent, loving home.

APC was organized in 1955 by a group of people united by their

adoption experience. APC currently has over 2,500 member families of married and single persuasion who are involved in intercountry adoption as well as independent adoption.

The Adoptive Parents Committee views The Hague Convention

on Intercountry Adoption as a progressive step toward promoting

adoption and protecting children, birth parents, and adoptive parents from unscrupulous adoption practices. The Convention acVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:01 Jul 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 64746.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
39

knowledges adoption as a positive alternative for children whose biological parents are unable to care for them.

Fortunately, the Convention gives adoptees the same legal status

as those who are born into families, confirming adoption as a legal

process of merit.

APC supports these underlying principles that led to the drafting

of the Convention. We support the ratification of the treaty, providing appropriate implementing language is enacted. Such implementing legislation should fully support the Convention in both

spirit and practice, without placing undue burdens or obstructions

on the adoption process.

Provisions that may result in delays to the adoption process or

may prohibit qualified individuals from adopting would be contrary

to the spirit and purpose of the Convention, and have no place in

U.S.-implementing legislation.

We appreciate the efforts of this Committee and other Members

of Congress to ensure that the legislation will benefit children and

families.

In reviewing H.R. 2909, we saw several items that were in implementation that continues to support all avenues of adoption. S. 682

imposes an additional 12-month wait for U.S. citizens to be eligible

for international adoptions, and limits adoption of U.S. children to

married men and women. Not only would this be an obstruction to

placement for U.S. children, but also may force reciprocal regulation by other countries which would inhibit certain U.S. citizens

from adopting.

In contrast, H.R. 2909 promotes adoption by allowing children

who are available for adoption to be eligible for international adoption. It also provides for both single and married persons to adopt,

thus providing a larger pool of prospective adoptive parents for

children who are waiting to be adopted.

We also applaud section 202 of H.R. 2909, which allows for the

role of approved persons in providing adoption services. By making

provisions for approval of persons as well as accreditation of agencies we would provide a broad base of adoption services for use by

U.S. citizens to adopt.

Chairman GILMAN. If you would summarize your statement, we

will put your full statement into the record.

Mr. PITKOWSKY. Yes, I will.

The main issues we would like to comment on are about consumer protections, that we would like to make sure that consumer

protections are an issue that is here, and that the issues of wrongful adoptions are addressed; also, that the accreditation process allows small agencies to participate. We feel that this is a progressive step, and hope that these changes will allow for it.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pitkowsky appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you very much.

Ms. Sacco. Please summarize your statement. We may want to

ask you a couple of questions before we leave.

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN SACCO, ADOPTEE

Ms. SACCO. SURE.

40

I am an adoption social worker for Family and Children’s Agency

in Connecticut. My work includes assisting and educating families

adopting internationally. However, my first experience in adoption

occurred on Christmas Eve, 1976, when my sister Kristy and I arrived in this country from Korea to meet my awaiting parents. So

I come before you today not only as a professional, but also as an

international adoptee.

In my personal experience and as a professional social worker, I

have come to know adoption as a process rife with paradoxes. Birth

parents must grieve the loss of a child which, for a variety of reasons, they choose to relinquish. Adoptive parents choose to experience the abundant joy and uncertainty of building their families

through adoption. The adopted child goes through life often experiencing bittersweet feelings of loss and abandonment, mixed with

the security and comfort within their ‘‘forever families.’’ As birth

parents, adoptive parents, adoption agencies, and governments

make life-transforming choices, the child is at the fate of these

monumental decisions.

My career is based on a two-tiered set of values. The first value

focuses on the needs of the adopted child and their need to have

a voice in the adoption. Adoption agencies can often vary in their

commitment to education and child advocacy. Mechanisms of accreditation will help ensure high uniform adoption standards to

prevent abuse and exploitation of children.

The second value focuses on birth parents and adoptive parents

who make difficult life decisions about adoption. Both birth families

and adoptive families require more preparation and support. Education needs to begin as soon as families consider adopting. While

adoptees must accept their lack of choices in their early life, there

is no reason why families should enter adoption blindly. Areas of

education should include loss issues, a child’s identity questions,

and medical concerns.

Post-placement support is also integral to a smooth adoption

process. The story of my adoption did not end when my plane landed. Adoption is a life-long process that impacts both the adoptee

and the adoptive parents. Agencies can serve as lifelong resources

for families, offering such services as cultural information, counseling, and reunion support.

I sit before you as one example of both the successes and the lessons to be learned about intercountry adoption. The adult adoptee

community can be a new voice for both adoptees and for ethical

adoption practice. International adoptees can provide a unique perspective on what is truly a transcultural experience. We can learn

immensely from listening to these pioneers in adoption.

An area of great importance to the adoptee community is the necessity to preserve our records and other information related to our

adoptions. Adoptees have a need to better understand their beginnings. The choice to search and to have access to records is a powerful one for the community. In the paradox of adoption, the destiny of the child is changed irrevocably by the choices of others. Including a provision to access records in H.R. 2909 would respect

the rights of adult adoptees to make decisions in regard to their

birth histories. By having access to records, we as adoptees can

provide a connection to our families past, as well as our own.

41

My husband Paul and I are expecting our first child this December. Once again, I see my life through the lens of adoption. I wonder about my medical history and how my adoption will affect my

child. In our society, with its knowledge of the role of genetic history, adoptees and their families live in ignorance of their genetic

legacies. I also know that my child will ask, as I have, about his

or her own ethnic connection to Korea.

On our return trip from Korea, Paul and I escorted two babies

to join their new families. Twenty-three years ago my sister and I

were also carried off a plane into the waiting arms of my parents.

As I was entrusted into the care of others, I was now helping to

guide these two children through their journey of adoption. My life

had truly come full circle. As an adoptee and an adoption professional, I have come to know the profound impact of the choices

made by agencies and individuals. Ratification of The Hague Convention can serve as a vital framework in ensuring that these decisions are made prudently and that the needs of adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents can remain paramount.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sacco appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you very much. I regret that we are

being cut short by the voting time.

Just one question, and then I am sure Mr. Delahunt has a question. How can we improve the medical information for adoptive

parents? Who would like to speak?

Mr. PITKOWSKY. I would like to just say that we believe that it

is the process that the agency should be responsible for providing

medical information, because they are the ones that are more experienced and have the translators right there, rather than the adoptive parents going to try and find it.

Chairman GILMAN. Anyone else have a comment?

Mr. LIEDERMAN. One of the requirements in our standards requires that full disclosure of appropriate medical information be

made, and that is a standard that has to be met by the agency.

Chairman GILMAN. Dr. Jenista.

Dr. JENISTA. It is not just disclosure of the information you already have, it is also an active effort to obtain information which

exists, which is what is not being done currently.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you very much.

Did you have a comment?

Ms. FREIVALDS. We agree with Dr. Jenista that there needs to be

an active effort to get information, not just what is provided.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. The Chairman posed a question which I had intended to ask. I also want to apologize, we have less than 5 minutes for a vote. But your testimony was very important. We look

forward to submitting questions.

In response to the testimony by Ms. Sacco, I have those same

concerns that you articulated for my daughter in terms of her medical history and her desire at some point in her life to connect with

her birth parents.

Chairman GILMAN. I regret that we only have 3 minutes to get

to the Floor to vote. I want to thank our panelists for their time

42

and input. We may have some written questions that we will forward to you following this hearing.

[The prepared statement of American Academy of Adoption Attorneys appears in the appendix.]

[The prepared statement of the National Council of Birthmothers

appears in the appendix.]

[The prepared statement of the Child Welfare League of America,

Inc., appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. The Committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

(43)

A P P E N D I X

OCTOBER 20, 1999

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