Relinquishment hold in Oromia region

An email:

We have been told since September that there is a "hold" on relinquishment cases (Oromo Region). Does anyone have any information about this. How long is this hold supposed to last?

Requiring parents to appear in court

One US agency is reporting that the Ethiopian government is currently discussing the idea of requiring prospective adoptive parents to be present at their children's court hearings. This would mean either 2 trips for parents or an extended stay until embassy, and possibly the end of the escort and one parent traveling options. If anyone has any additional information to share, please feel free to email me or comment here.

For those who have not yet read the story about one family's recent experience with adoption corruption, please see this blog post (posted with permission).

Relinquishment hold in the Assela region

An email:

Two weeks ago we were told that the courts will not be hearing relinquishment cases in the Assela region. There is a hold due to MOWA revising their procedures and policies. Our case is the only one held up for our agency. I was wondering if there are any others out there. Our [children] are at the Numan Orphanage. Our referral was in September but we will not get a court date until they pass court regionally. Apparently the official court date isn't assigned until they are approved by their local MOWA and Courts. Then they will be transferred to the transition home and the Addis courts will hear their case.

If anyone is affected or has any information on this hold, I know this family would appreciate your response.

An email I received:

My agency informed us on November 13th that our case, among five others within our agency, is caught up in a delay due to an investigation of the local government (I guess this is called the Kebele) in the district that our son came from before he was moved to our agency's orphanage. We were told that this investigation is in response to the negative press that was aired by the Australian BBC a couple of months ago. We were told that the investigation has been going on for quite some time, but they are not sure exactly when it started or exactly when it will end.

If anyone has any information about this investigation, please email me or post a comment. Thank you!

Embassy Dates

Since the court re-opened, there has been talk of some new delays between court date and embassy/travel date. One US agency is saying it will now be 8 weeks from court to embassy, another is telling their clients to expect a 5-6 week wait (which for their agency is about 2 weeks longer than usual).

Similar to our court date list:
Those who have passed court after the October 2009 re-opening of the courts- please post when you passed court, and what your embassy date was or is expected to be. Hopefully we'll be able to get an idea of whether most people can expect a longer wait after court or if recent travel delays are more agency-specific. Thank you!

Court dates

(post bumped)

It was requested that a post be started about court dates so people could get an idea of current dates being assigned. Please post your newly assigned court dates here, whether it's the first date or a reassigned date, and when you got your referral (to see if earlier cases are being given priority).

The latest date I have heard of so far is:
-November 25