Hague Working Group to Prevent and Address Illicit Practices

Dear Adoptee Community,

The Hague’s Working Group to Prevent and Address Illicit Practices in Intercountry Adoption will have a meeting next week, and only invited one adoptee organisation. Therefore we wrote to the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference and requested to be allowed to participate as well. Sadly a direct participation in the Working Group has been denied to us and other organisations. But with our letter we opened the door at least a bit. So now also other adoptee organisations are able to provide input by participating to a separate meeting, or make a written submission.

The reply we got from Laura Martinez Mora is: ” Therefore, as I told you, we are proposing that we (the Permanent Bureau) meet with adoptee associations that have contacted us at our offices in The Hague on Monday 20 May (11.00 – 13.00) to better get your views in advance of the meeting, and see how best we could have the voice of your organization and adoptees taken into consideration in the work of the Group.”

So please kindly get up, stand up and write to Laura Martinez Mora ([email protected]) at the earliest and coordinate directly with her.

Two dates for a meeting were given, 20 and 24 May, but considering that the last date is one day after the event, we prefer Monday 20 May.

We are glad that thanks to the UAI now also our voices will be heard!

UAI Board