Presidential Waivers - Update

When an adoption file exits IBESR, it has to have four signatures on the Authorization to Adopt Document that gives a particular family the permission to adopt a specific child.

In the past, when there families who had biological children, IBESR would compile a list of the names of the families and other information and send the list to the President of Haiti's office where the President's Cabinet or the President's personal secretary would sign the list of names. That list would then return to IBESR and the files with biological children would get signed out of IBESR.

Now, for the files of prospective adoptive parents with biological children, three of the different department directors sign the Authorization to Adopt, with the last signature of the main IBESR director blank.

IBESR then sends the entire adoption dossier (in packs of 10 dossiers at a time) to the Ministry of Justice where the files are read. Once they are read there, they are forwarded to the Presidents Cabinet Minister who reads each adoption dossier. Once he is finished with it, he forwards the 10-pack of dossiers to the President's Personal Secretary who reads each dossier...and then signs the waiver letter.

Once that is done, IBESR can pick the 10-pack of dossiers back up to take back to IBESR. Then the main IBESR director signs the last signature on the Authorization to Adopt and the file is formally signed out of IBESR.

Because of the way the dossiers are processed in 10-packs of dossier and they can only be sent 10 at a time...keeping in mind that over 1,000 foreign adoptions were processed in 2008, you can imagine the slow down in getting dossiers with families who have biological children out of IBESR.

Now, for files that had previously been signed out of IBESR with families who have biological kids, Parquet has refused to process those files without a Presidential Waivers. However, IBESR and the Presidental Office were having difficulty figuring out how to go about getting waivers for those files since they were officially signed out and finished with in IBESR. I am hearing that this issue has been resolved and the Presidential Office is accepting those files to issue waivers. However, I do not know what the exact process is.