April 14, 2004

The Central Adoption Authority in the Marshall Islands plans for its first legal overseas adoption to take place by July.  For more information please visit Yokwe Online.

Expert from Yokwe Online:

Marshall Islands Licenses Only One Adoption Agency

By approval of the Cabinet, the Central Adoption Authority of the Marshall Islands has announced that effective March 1, 2004, one U.S. adoption agency is licensed to facilitate international adoptions between the Marshall Islands and the United States.

This agency is Journeys of the Heart out of Hillsborough, Oregon*. According to the RMI adoption advisor, the Journeys of the Heart agency and Susan Tompkins, executive director, have demonstrated a history of highest ethics, respect for the Marshallese culture, and utmost competence in dealing with complex international adoptions. It was the only agency among the applicants to be accredited under the Hague Convention**.

U.S. families interested in adopting a Marshallese child are required to work through this agency only, under Adoption Act of 2002, P.L. 2002-64.

The news of the RMI decision of March 5, 2004, was released by Jini Roby of Brigham Young University. Roby, who is a lawyer and assistant professor of Social Work at BYU in Utah, has worked with the Marshall Islands government, helping to draft the adoption law which makes solicitation of birth moms and off-shore adoptions illegal.

* JCICS Note: Contact information for Journeys of the Heart, a JCICS member, can be found in our Membership Directory. For your reference we have also listed it below:

Journeys of the Heart Adoption Services
P.O. Box 39
Hillsboro, OR 91123
503-681-3075 (ph)
503-640-5834 (fax)
info@journeysoftheheart.net (e-mail)
http://www.journeysoftheheart.net (web)

**JCICS Note: The United States has not yet ratified the Hague Convention therefore U.S. agencies cannot yet be Hague accredited, but they are able to seek independent accreditation through Council on Accreditation at the present time.

U.S. acts to end adoption abuses

The amended Compacts of Free Association -- which allows Pacific Islanders unrestricted access to residence, employment, education and health care without a visa -- was signed by U.S. President George W. Bush Dec. 17 with a clause specifically to end potential abuses in the American adoption of Marshallese children.

The revised law prevents a person coming to the United States for the purposes of adoption to enter under the Compacts and requires them to obtain a visa. The law applies to any person who is or was an applicant for admission to the United States on or after March 1, 2003.

"U.S. immigration law endeavors to protect the interests of adopted children," said U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, adding that the Compacts are intended to permit adoptions in accordance with both U.S. and Marshallese law. "Schemes to circumvent these safeguards must be ended -- they are an abuse of American law and [Marshall Islands] law."

U.S. Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., in a letter dated Dec. 19 to Tom Ridge, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, asked him to implement procedures to enforce the law and prevent the circumvention of the immigration-visa process. The three senators are members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which oversees the Compacts.

The state in recent years has emerged as a staging ground for Marshallese adoptions. This has prompted a Hawaii Attorney General's Office investigation into allegations that agencies have placed pregnant Marshallese on Medicaid so taxpayers foot the bill for prenatal and birth expenses.

Adoptive parents pay between $25,000 and $35,000 for a Marshallese child. Agencies allegedly have turned to Hawaii to bypass U.S. immigration and international adoption laws since a baby born here becomes a U.S. citizen and qualifies for a domestic adoption -- a simpler, faster and potentially cheaper process, which means higher profit margins for agencies.

Marshall Islands' new Central Adoption Authority

The Marshall Islands has already taken action to halt the practice with the Oct. 1 creation of the Central Adoption Authority, a regulatory body that imposes penalties of up to a year in jail and $1,000 fine for agencies or facilitators who coerce mothers into giving up a child or facilitate their transport to the United States for adoption of their babies.

"The dots are being connected between all the people that need to come together and talk to each other in order to clean up these practices," said Jini Roby, a lawyer and social work professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, who helped to write the Marshalls' adoption law.

While it's too early to assess whether or not the Central Adoption Authority and U.S. measures have curbed the practice, Michael Jenkins, head of the authority, says an initial increase in adoption-system abuse cases is expected while the authority moves closer to prosecuting agencies.

July 9, 2003 -- Expert from Yokwe Online

Marshall Islands' Government to Set up Central Adoption Authority
under New Law

In November 2002, the Nitijela, which is the legislative body of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, passed and enacted an Adoption Law in efforts to correct and control adoption irregularities of the past 5 years. Now, the Marshall Islands' Internal Affairs Ministry is making efforts to set up a Central Adoption Authority established under the new law to regulate adoptions. According to Kristen Payne, who is currently serving as an intern, the Ministry is trying to raise awareness about the adoption law, and are currently working with the clerk of the Nitjela to get the law translated into Marshallese.