The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) released a report a few days ago on unsatisfactory conditions in orphanages in Liberia.

Again. Sheesh! April must be their "trash Liberian adoption month". I wrote about the same darned thing this time last year!

Apparently, this time around they surveyed ninety-seven orphanages and found that, "Sadly, living conditions in orphanages, especially those lacking ministerial accreditation, were frequently well below the minimum standards ..." and came out with a list of abuses children suffer including poor hygiene, bedding and clothing, lack of education, lack of access to adequate food and water supply, exploitative child labour, inhuman and degrading treatment and separation from families.

Not at all surprisingly, they found most of the people running orphanages had no training in child protection and/or care, and that the government agencies responsible for oversight don't have the resources necessary to monitor the institutions, or even to take action to protect the kids they know are in harm's way.

Of course, since this is a UN gig, the report proposes URGENT ACTION ... don't you love it? ... and takes the opportunity of being able to put orphans and abuse in the same sentence to slam international adoption, again.

It never ceases to amaze me that the UN can go into a country, pay a fortune for a study that finds that life is very hard, people are desperate, horrible things are happening to citizens every single day, food is scarce but weapons aren't, everyone has post-traumatic stress scarring that impacts every relationship, then come up with international adoptions being the root of all the problems children face, as if if no one from America ever adopted a child from the country all the children would be happily and safely living long lives in the bosom of their loving biological family.

Hello!

Liberia is a little over three years on from their second civil war in 17 years ... the first raged from 1989 to 1996 ... that made child soldiers a common currency, killed 150,00 people, displaced entire populations AND, like so much of Africa suffers a rising AIDS rate that has parents dropping like flies.

Over the past five years, 673 Liberian children were adopted into the US.

Do the math.

Here's the State Department's page on adoption from Liberia, which outlines in-country procedures that sound as formal and legal as most, including written consent of any living bio parents, public open court hearings and involvement of the Liberian Ministries of Health and Social Welfare.

For another previous look I took at Liberia and adoption, see this post.

And this post from Holly, our Africa Adoption Blogger takes a look at the kind of work the UNMIL actually does in Liberia ... donates clothes, toys, shoes and traveling bags. Big whoop! She also covers Liberian adoption here.

Transracial adoption blogger, Erin, looks at that angle of Liberian adoptions here.

And here's the Adoption.com page on adoption from Liberia.