Ethiopia Update

We received a little update from our Ethiopia coordinator from the adoption agency that I thought I'd share. I referred to "longer wait times" in my first posting, and hopefully it looks like that might be changing slightly, according to Megan, the coordinator. A little background ... "referral" is a term that is used when a specific child is matched with an adopting family and the family is notified. "Addis" is the capital of Ethiopia.
(From Megan)
"Today, I thought it would be helpful to recap the court process in Ethiopia.

As you know, after you accept a referral, your case will be submitted to the Ethiopian courts, and a court hearing will be scheduled. Currently, we have been seeing court dates scheduled anywhere from two and a half to three months out. While these delays are frustrating, they are understandable since the vast majority of adoption cases (if not all) are heard at the First Instance Court in Addis. Therefore, thousands of adoption cases, as well as criminal and judicial hearings, are competing to get on the court’s schedule.

I was very pleased to hear from Ato Teklu (WACAP Director in Ethiopia) that he had been successful (along with several other agencies) in petitioning the court to schedule hearings within 1-2 months. We are hoping that court dates scheduled in the future will not be so far out. (For those of you who have court dates already, I do not expect dates to be rescheduled or moved up).

You might remember that the courts close from August 1 to the end of September for the “Summer Recess.” Even though the courts are closed during these months, we do expect to receive referrals as children become available and are in need."