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| Hana Williams |
Greetings to all.
As we celebrate the Ethiopian New Year, let us think of solutions that we, individually and collectively, can propose to stop the horrific crimes that are being committed against children under the cover of adoption. This past week, a court in the state of Washington found a husband and wife guilty of the death of a young Ethiopian girl they adopted. Little Hana died in 2011, aged thirteen, after suffering unimaginable physical and emotional abuse.Following the guilty verdict, a Reuters news story, published on September 9, 2013, reported that Hana, at the time of her death "was found unconscious outside shortly after midnight in temperatures hovering around 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius)". The article, quoting investigators, also stated that Hana endured "beatings, starvation, being forced to sleep outside and use an outdoor toilet and that she had lost a significant amount of weight since her adoption."
Hana's adoptive parents, Carri and Larry Williams, were willing to give her their last name; tragically, they denied her the basic love and protection that a child is entitled to get from a parent or a guardian. For the sake of all vulnerable children, all of us need to demand a more accountable adoption process and for the implementation of an effective post-adoption mechanism.The article I referred above mentions a Texas case in which a little boy who was adopted from Russia died under suspicious circumstances; his adoptive parents were not charged. But, the article states, "Russian officials seized on the case as justification of a 2012 ban on adoptions by Americans." Given the many horrible incidents involving adopted Ethiopian children around the world and, also, Ethiopian women in the Middle East, where do we stand, as a nation, when it comes to defending the safety and dignity of Ethiopians?
I sincerely hope that the price of life that Hana paid will bring a better future for adopted children everywhere.
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