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Americans adopting HIV-positive kids from Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Solomon Henderson inherited just three things from his birth parents, who left him at an Ethiopian orphanage when he was 1 year old: a picture of Jesus, a plastic crucifix and HIV.
As one of some 14,000 Ethiopian children born with the virus every year, Solomon's prospects for survival — much less adoption — were grim. But Erin Henderson's heart stirred when she saw him, and she decided, on the spot, to adopt him.
"They told me that they weren't sure he would live through the weekend," Henderson said by e-mail from her home in rural Wyoming, where she lives with her husband and 11 children, two of whom are HIV-positive adoptees from Ethiopia.
Solomon, now an active 2-year-old with chubby cheeks and a shy smile, is part of a small but growing movement: Americans adopting HIV-positive children from abroad.
Figures from U.S.-based Adoption Advocates International, the agency that arranges the majority of HIV-positive adoptions in Ethiopia, show a clear and steady rise, from two such adoptions in 2005, four in 2006, 13 in 2007, and 38 either completed or pending this year.
The U.S. Embassy corroborates the trend, although its numbers are slightly different because it counts adoptions according to fiscal year. So far this year, the embassy said, Americans have adopted 25 HIV-positive children from Ethiopia, up from seven the year before.
Ethiopia is at the forefront of the trend, in part because it is a well-established adoption hub. But countries including China, Ghana, Haiti and Russia also have seen increases, although the numbers remain small — fewer than five children in each country this year, according to U.S. adoption agencies that work with HIV-positive children. The figures could be higher, however, as many nations do not ask if a departing child has HIV.
The motivations are wide-ranging — some parents say they were driven by religion or a desire for social change, or that the disease is more manageable than ever before. Others, like Julie Hehn, gave more personal reasons.
"I was just scrolling through these pictures, and I saw the photo of Tsegenet, and I said, 'Oh my God, that's my daughter,'" said Hehn, a 53-year-old elementary school teacher from Edmonds, Wash.
Hehn said she was not looking for an HIV-positive child when she decided to adopt from Ethiopia.
"I fell in love with Tsegenet and it just happens she's HIV-positive," said Hehn, who has 27 children, 19 of them adopted from Ethiopia and five adopted from the U.S.
At a recent goodbye party at an orphanage in Addis Ababa, a 9-year-old girl who was heading to the United States with her adoptive family gave a shy smile as her friends ate doughnuts and sang farewell songs.
The children — all of whom have HIV or AIDS and are looking for new families — belted out an Ethiopian hymn called "No one is ashamed of you."
Ethiopian adoptions to the United States peaked at 1,255 in 2007, and the adoption of HIV-positive children is growing in step, according to U.S. government figures. American adoptions in Ethiopia have steadily risen from 135 in 2003, to 289 in 2004 to 440 in 2005 to 731 in 2006.
So far, none of the children adopted through Adoption Advocates International in Ethiopia since 2005 has died. The oldest is now 13 years old.
Margaret Fleming, the founder of Chances By Choice, an international HIV-positive adoption advocacy group that connects parents with HIV-positive children and adoption agencies, said her group also has overseen adoptions of children from Haiti, Guatemala and Russia.
Fleming said her group has helped bring about 52 international HIV-positive adoptions since 2002 from assorted adoption agencies and countries, including Ethiopia.
Fleming, who has three HIV-positive children in her own brood of 12 children, said she wanted to make a difference in the world.
"I feel like I'm on the cutting edge of making an impact on this epidemic," Fleming, 72, said by telephone from her office in Chicago. "It's given us a chance to be ambassadors, and our children to be ambassadors."
Over the past decade, HIV has become a manageable, chronic disease, rather than a death sentence. Some children, like Solomon, require daily medication that can cost between $700 and $1,500 a month, though all parents planning to adopt children with HIV are required to carry health insurance, so costs are usually less.
Others, like Tsegenet Hehn, have been told by doctors that the low levels of the virus in their blood mean they don't need any medication.
"She doesn't get sick any more than my other children," said Hehn, who said another daughter, who has a condition that makes her react violently to wheat and gluten products, requires more care than Tsegenet does.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt said HIV-positive adoptees pose no public health threat in America. Congress is set to repeal legislation that requires those with HIV to get waivers to enter the U.S. For adopted children with HIV, the waiver requirement can increase the nine- to 12-month adoption process by about two weeks.
"The American people are compassionate people," Leavitt told the AP on a visit to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "I applaud their compassion and I'm delighted to know they're doing so."
But parents overwhelmingly say the reward is theirs.
"I have learned so much from Tsegenet," Hehn said. "I have learned to be more patient and kind through Tsegenet."
Like some parents interviewed, Hehn says she insists on being open with everyone about her daughter's condition.
"I'm a teacher. I want to educate everybody I can educate," she said. "And I believe it is the only way we can erase the stigma. I am not going to tell her that there is not one part of her that is not beautiful and wonderful and pure."
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Top UN aid official sounds warning on Ethiopia
ARBA MINCH, Ethiopia (AFP) — The top UN aid official John Holmes on Monday called for greater international efforts to help millions of Ethiopians suffering from a severe drought.
Some eight million people need urgent food relief and another 4.6 million need emergency assistance, accoring to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
"The response has been good in some ways, but we have a long way to go," said Holmes on his way to a southern Ethiopian region devastated by the drought.
The lack of rain in the main February to April wet season has left at least 75,000 Ethiopian children under age five at risk from malnutrition, OCHA said.
"In terms of the urgency of the food crisis, the risk of children dying of severe malnutrition is the most urgent," Holmes said as he started a three-day visit.
The United Nations appealed in June for 325.2 million dollars mainly for drought victims . Only 52 percent of the appeal has been met.
Holmes visited the Southern Nationalities and People's Region in the south and will on Tuesday tour the Somali region in the southeast.
In Arba Minch, some 500 kilometres (300 miles) south of the capital, the aid chief visited farmers, a feeding centre and food distribution centre.
Stunted and withered maize farms flanked the dusty road to Sorobo village -- whose residents have dependend on relief aid for the past three decades -- and where Holmes met local farmers.
"I have lost three previous harvests and hoped that this one would produce yield, but it hasn't. I'm now waiting for emergency support to feed my family," said 38-year-old farmer Kuse Gelebo as he slashed down withered maize stalks.
Holmes said relief operations were underway, "but we need to make sure it reaches averyone."
"We need to make sure that it (food shortages) doesn't degenerate into a famine that we've seen before," he told reporters at a local school.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative in the impoverished African country said the effects of the failed rains and rampant food inflation may drag on.
"The previous rains failed badly. It is very clear that many people in Ethiopia will continue to face problems in terms of food security," the official, Bjorn Ljungqvist, told AFP.
The southern region of Oromiya has also been badly hit, 6,700 children were diagnosed as suffering from severe malnutrition in early August.
Ethiopia suffered severe floods last year which destroyed most of the food crop. This year the drought has worsened the situation and food prices have soared 330 percent.
Unlike Sorobo, late rains in August have returned some greenery in Boricha, another town in southern Ethiopia, but the green maize fields belie the suffering of 200,000 residents eking out a living on dwindling reserves.
"It is very confusing. It is very green but you have people dying," said Gemma Difilippo, a nurse at a local clinic run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors With Borders).
Tens of thousands of Boricha residents queue regularly for relief food at distribution sites. Of the 45,000 locals in need of food, only 38,000 are receiving help due to low government supplies, according to aid groups.
Soaring commodity prices have worsened the crisis.
In May, the World Food Programme said the price of staples such as maize and sorghum had increased by 83 and 89 percent respectively in less than a year, while wheat increased by 54 percent between September 2007 and February 2008.
In recent years, Ethiopia has suffered alternate flood and drought disasters that has affected millions of people.
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Ethiopian food crisis (The World)
Ethiopia's new famine: 'A ticking time bomb' (USA Today)
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Meles Zenawi says no famine in Ethiopia in Q&A with TIME magazine
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Special Section: Food Shortage in Ethiopia
Ethiopia-Morocco qualifier postponed - FIFA
Source: FIFA
FIFA today confirmed that the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ preliminary match between Ethiopia and Morocco, originally scheduled for 7 September 2008, has been postponed due to the current suspension of the Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) from international football.
A Bureau of the Organising Committee for the FIFA World Cup will convene in due course to discuss this fixture and the situation in Group 8 of the African Zone.
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Special Section: Football news from nazret.com archives
UN's top aid official arrives in drought-hit Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — The United Nations' humanitarian chief John Holmes arrived in Ethiopia Monday to tour regions affected by drought, which has left some eight million people in need of urgent food aid.
Holmes will visit the country's drought-hit Southern Nationalities and People's Region in the south and the Somali region in the southeast, said Greg Beals, the UN's humanitarian office (OCHA) spokesman in Ethiopia.
He will also hold talks with Ethiopian officials during the three-day trip, Beals told AFP.
According to OCHA, 4.6 million Ethiopians need emergency assistance and eight million need immediate food relief.
In June, the UN had appealed for 325.2 million dollars mainly in food aid for drought victims. Only 52 percent of this appeal has been met.
Other badly hit areas include the southern region of Oromiya, where 6,700 more children were diagnosed as suffering from severe malnutrition between 23 July and August 12.
Ethiopia was hit with severe floods last year which destroyed most of the food crops, while this year a drought has worsened the situation, leading to food prices that soared 330 percent.
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Related Links
ETHIOPIA: Urban poor finding it harder to get food (IRIN)
Ethiopian food crisis (The World)
Ethiopia's new famine: 'A ticking time bomb' (USA Today)
EU gives more aid to Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea
Meles Zenawi says no famine in Ethiopia in Q&A with TIME magazine
Pain amid Plenty (TIME)
Ethiopia faces a new food crisis (Los Angeles Times)
Special Section: Food Shortage in Ethiopia
Ethiopia's Tadesse Tola finished 2nd in Half Marathon
Tadesse Tola of Ethiopia finished second at the 8th Annual Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in Virginia Beach. Tadesse, winner of last month’s New York City Half Marathon, finished in 1:02:33 after Kenya's James Kwambai. Tadesse Tola takes a prize money of $2,000. In the Women's Half Marathon, Ethiopia's Adanech Zekiros finished 4th and Teyba Naser 5th winning $1,000 and $750 respectively. Kenya's Edith Masai, 41, won the Women's Half Marathon.
Click here for complete result
Ethiopia Prepared To Pull Out Of Somalia
By Akwei Thompson
VOA
Washington, DC
31 August 2008
Akwei's interview with Rashid Abdi - Listen (MP3) audio clip
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi last week said his country is prepared to withdraw troops from Somalia. In 2006 Ethiopia invaded Somalia to oust an Islamist militia and re-install the transitional government. The withdrawal of Ethiopian troops has been a key demand of the Islamist insurgents.
Rashid Abdi is an analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).From Nairobi, Kenya he told VOA’s Akwei Thompson that the Ethiopians are signaling that they are frustrated with this constant infighting and that at some point their patience will run out.
“The recent comments made by both Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his foreign minister that Ethiopia is “not going to stay any longer and wants to pull out” – comes in the context of sort of a growing frustration within the Ethiopian government,” Abdi said.
The ICG analyst said the operation itself might be proving too costly for the Ethiopians.
“Also as the prime minister himself indicated it’s very costly to maintain troops in Somalia. Ethiopia is a poor nation with a massive population and can ill afford that kind of financial commitment,” Abdi added.
Abdi thinks Ethiopia is also discontent with the help it is getting from the West.
“As the prime minister said Ethiopia is a convenient horse which the West sometimes rides and flogs,” he said.
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A major blow for football fans in Ethiopia
FIFA, the world football governing body, announced that it canceled Ethiopia's upcoming world cup qualifier game with Morocco which was scheduled for September 7 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. FIFA suspended Ethiopia's Football Federation (EFA) last month in a dispute over the dismissal of the EFA's leaders.
Ethiopia was in third place with 6 points in Group 8 for the World Cup qualifier from Africa. In its last game in Addis Abba, Ethiopia's national football, the Waliya's trashed Mauritania 6-1 last June.
The suspension of Ethiopia from FIFA is a major blow for the football crazy country. Ethiopia has slipped in the FIFA rankings recently, which is now placed 107th in the world.
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Related Links
Ethiopia to go to court over FIFA ban
Ethiopia suspended by Fifa
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Ethiopia rejects calls to reinstate federation president
Ethiopia moved up 15 places to 90th in FIFA ranking
Ethiopia defeated Mauritania 1-0 in World Cup Qualifier
Rwanda beats Ethiopia 2-1 in the 2010 World/Africa Cup qualifier
Special Section: Football news from nazret.com archives
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