The Other Hague Convention

The NYT has a strong, heartbreaking article on international adoption programs. This article is about programs in the Ukraine where children visit with host families in the USA, then made to return before the families can adopt them. The families then have to travel to Ukraine to finalize adoption. The process is ripe with graft and misinformation, and neither the children nor their prospective adoptive families are guaranteed that they will ever see each other again.

The article as a throwaway mention to an international adoption treaty which would require accreditation of adoption agencies, so I looked it up. The US, after fifteen years, will probably ratify the Hague Convention on International Adoption and implement it in 2008.