Cambodia making progress!

I was so excited to read this story today! Our daughter was adopted from Cambodia in early 2001--just before everything got very sticky and the world learned what a mess the Cambodian adoption system was.

We were young and VERY naive at that point. Even when I saw red flags (like our agency asking us to lie about things) I thought I must just not understand how things get done. This must be the way it has to be right? We're dealing with people in Cambodia that just don't understand our US way of doing things. UGH! GAG! But that's the truth. That's how I saw things because that's how my agency told me to see things.

We were blessed to receive our amazingly beautiful daughter during a moratorium that was taking place. We got "special permission" (which I'm now sure included some "special payments") by the Prime Minister. But I didn't know then. All I knew was we had the most amazing almost 6 month old that needed us.

Things started to deteriorate after we got home and by Christmas of 2001 the US had stopped issuing visas to children adopted from Cambodia. For the first time in history the US put a moratorium in place rather than the "sending" country.

Lots of things started coming out. Horrible things. Babies being bought at the market. Bad people training other people how to do all of the "tricks" of the trade. Through the years we've received information that causes us to believe that our precious one was one of those "acquired" babies. We'll never know her history. It's been stolen from her. Her true identity is lost forever.

But there ARE true orphans in Cambodia! And for the last 6 years kids have been few countries that allow their citizens to adopt from there. The US will not allow it until Cambodia revises its adoption law up to standards that protect the children from the past ever repeating itself. The article I read today states that Cambodia is working on it, and we might have a new law by end of next year!

It gives me chill bumps. If Cambodia would have had a good adoption system we wouldn't have our Samren from Vietnam, or our Bright from Ghana. Our kids would have come from Cambodia. I can't imagine my life without our other kids, so I know it was all in God's plan. But I will be so happy for adoptions to once again be possible from Cambodia. Good, clean adoptions. It's an amazing country with a difficult past. The people are so resilient, but there is much work to do to improve upon the standards in the country.

Go Cambodia go!

Anita