Adoption Services

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Ethiopa Adoption

Adopting from Ethiopia

Wasatch Adoptions is pleased to offer an international adoption program for the country of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the few countries in Africa that is favorable to intercountry adoption. U.S. agencies are licensed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MOLSA) which functions directly under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice. The MOJ oversees all of the inter-country adoption activity and the adoption process has many built-in safeguards. And, the U.S. Embassy coordinates closely with the Ethiopian government to ensure the eligibility of each child available for adoption.

Only married couples are allowed to adopt from Ethiopia at this time, although that may change later on this year. Their preference is couples be married for 5 years, but are somewhat flexible and have allowed couples with only 1 year of marriage to adopt in the past. There is no upper age limit for prospective adoptive parents, but do ask that there is no more than 43 years difference between the age of the child and the age of the adoptive parents. There is no limit to the number of children adoptive parents can have residing in their home at the time of the adoption.

Children are available from infancy to early teens. Sibling groups and special needs children are also available. All children are tested for HIV, Hepatitis B, and venereal disease. The children are also tested for TB, if suspected. They do receive medical care at the orphanage. Malnutrition and upper respiratory illnesses are common among these children.

Ethiopia Adoption Timeline

An adoption from Ethiopia takes approximately 6 to 9 months to complete once your dossier has been submitted. A realistic time line from the beginning to the end of the process is approximately 12 months.

By Ethiopian law, adoptive families are not required to travel to Ethiopia in order to adopt a child and escorts to bring your child to the U.S. are permitted. However, if adoptive parents want to travel to Ethiopia, we can help you arrange your trip to pick up your adopted child. The required stay in Ethiopia is approximately one week.

Our networking agency for this program, Illien Adoptions, has provided us with an established Ethiopia program and has placed many children from this country. When a dossier is submitted to Ethiopia, both agencies will be involved in the process but WIA will work directly with you as the adoptive family through all phases of your adoption.

Please see our Ethiopia FAQ Page page for more information.
* Pictures provided courtesy of http://www.traveladventures.org.

Fees for Ethiopia Adoptions

For more information about adopting a child from Ethiopia, contact Kathy Junk at kathy@wiaa.org.

Please note that the timeline for international adoption is not completely predictable and there could be many factors that might change our estimated timeline for completion. Some of these factors may include political upheaval, changes in policies and laws regarding adoption with foreign government officials or our own government, war, terrorism, natural disasters, the approval of the adoptive parents by either the U.S. government or the foreign government or possible reemergence of birth families. Wasatch does our best to help you as families to understand the realities of the international adoption process, but things can change quickly and timelines for adoption completion can lengthen through no fault of Wasatch International Adoptions.