This is a colorful email because it is broken into two parts. The first is written by a friend of ours requesting assistance in making changes for her adoption from Liberia. The second part is the email she asking you to send. This process is so easy. Just read her story, read the sample letter and copy and paste it into an email. Your five minutes of time, can make a difference ... maybe even 21 months of difference. Thanks for your help!
I am writing to you to ask for some help. More information has come to light about the visa process in Ghana. As you know I am adopting two children from Liberia. In order to bring the children to Canada I must obtain a permanent resident visa. The office I must go through is the High Commission in Ghana.
Ghana changed their visa process this past summer. They changed from where parents were able to pick-up their children stay three weeks and get their visa, to sending all the paperwork back and forth to Canada. As a result, only one child has come home from Liberia since the summer. They were profiled in a media story. There are approximately a dozen families waiting to bring home their children. The longest wait so far is 8 months. When the family inquired as to when their visa would come, the response was the wait could be 21 months. This is too long. To put this in perspective, when you adopt a child from China the visa takes one week. One week vs. 21 months!!! There is no logical reason for this delay.
A group of adoptive parents is starting to action (me included). Write now we are writing to a variety of MP to ask for their assistance. We are not accepting form letter answers, but action. There will be children dying in the orphanages if they are made to wait 21 months.
I am asking that you join in and help by writing letters. I have included a list of MPs to write to, as well as some statistics about Liberia. Thank you all for you help, these children need to come home.
___________________________
EMAIL TO: Finley.D@parl.gc.ca
CC TO: communications@oag-bvg.gc.ca; Folco.R@parl.gc.ca; Martin.K@parl.gc.ca; Minister@cic.gc.ca; MacKay.P@parl.gc.ca
The Honourable Diane Finley, P.C., M.P.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Ottawa Ontario K1A 1L1
Dear Madame Findlay,
I am writing you concerning the situation of visa processing in Accra, Ghana, specifically the visas of children adopted from Liberia by Canadian citizens. It is my understanding these children and their families are being forced to wait an exorbitant amount of time to receive a visa for a legally adopted child to come to Canada. A person adopting a child from Liberia has touched my life, and I feel I must speak on their behalf.
This situation is putting the lives of children at risk. In Liberia, the infant and under-5 mortality rates remain among the five highest in the world. Malaria and measles, as well as other preventable diseases are the leading killers. Further, thousands of children die each year due to malnutrition. When my own High Commission could be doing its best to ensure that these children are some of the lucky ones and is failing to do so, I think it is unacceptable.
Why is it when Liberia, a third world country with no running water or electricity, can complete an adoption in two months, can my own High Commission not process the visa in a timely manner?
These children are legally adopted by Canadian citizens but are being left in an orphanage in a third world country. Why is the Canadian government abandoning these children? Why are the families not being allowed to bring their children home?
This is an issue, which must be addressed. It must be addressed now, before more children die while waiting. Please have compassion and take action in this matter.
5 comments:
Done and done! 21 months is brutal... what could possibly take that long??
Wow Sheri: I can't imagine how tough this is for your friends (and everyone else waiting). I just sent the letter.
Warmly,
Sebrina
Hope our emails make a difference. Hoping the best for your friends.
Nancy
Sheri, I hope this starts some action. We sent the letter also.
Tracey & Garry
I do not ordinarily submit entries onto blogs; however, in view of the interest in this particular issue, and the justifiable concerns expressed by adoptive parents and other interested parties with respect to processing times I thought I would make an exception.
The figure (21 months) that is quoted is from a form letter and is sufficiently misleading that I am in the process of having all of the Acknowledgement of Receipt form letters modified. The figure of 21 months is actually the time it took to process 80% of all dependant child applications processed in Accra in 2006. International adoption cases represent only a small percentage of this group. Most international adoption cases from Liberia have been processed within time frames of 2 to 6 weeks of receipt of all the documents at the High Commission (I checked myself each file number, application received, and visa issued date for every file submitted since August 2005 to confirm that this figure is correct). There are two cases which made it into the press where additional checks were required that delayed processing (to roughly 5 and 9 months respectively). We are concerned that there is the potential for trafficking of children. UNICEF, the US Embassy, even the adoption agencies themselves have warned us of the potential due to the lack of government controls. That is why we put the warning on the website. The vast majority of cases still proceed within the much shorter timeframes above.
Within the greater “dependent child” group, because of widespread incidence of fraud many cases are complicated by the need to undertake DNA testing to establish relationship, bone density testing to establish age (we have large numbers of overage dependants often claiming to be in their early 20’s when they are clearly much older), and a large number of field investigations to check various birth and school records throughout the Ghana and the other eleven countries in the region covered by out office. The time required for these additional checks, in addition to other cases where we initially refused and the appeal is allowed (we re-open the case, but the original date of application is the “start” date for time in process purposes) are the factors that make the processing times seem so shockingly long.
I hope this information is of help.
Regards
Michael Watts
Immigration Program manager
Canadian High Commission, Accra
Accra.immigration@international.gc.ca
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