Update From CHSFS about Mussie Closure

In mid-July, we shared that one of our partners, Mussie Orphanage, had its license to operate orphanages revoked by the Ethiopian Charities and Societies Administration (CSA). Although we continue to have more questions than answers, we would like to share what we have learned in the past several weeks:

• The license revocation continues to be:
• attributed to organizational leadership and community development shortcomings and does not indicate a problem with child care or adoption processing
• an issue separate from and unrelated to CHSFS
• unrelated to the manner in which children came into care
• CHSFS continues to be reassured by government officials that
• our adoption work in Ethiopia is not under scrutiny
• our practices are revered as best practices by agencies and governments in numerous countries, including the USA and Ethiopia
• Mussie Orphanage is
• cooperating with the authorities; the director was detained for questioning for a period of time (which is not uncommon in Ethiopia) and released without charges being filed
• appealing the revocation of its license at the regional and federal level
• advocating for the best interest of the children who had previously been in their care
• maintaining its administrative functions which include processing post-placement reports and post-placement service requests
• CHSFS staff in Ethiopia:
• have had many conversations with Ethiopian officials about the cases of families affected by the closure
• have communicated with government officials almost daily regarding adoption cases that were already in-process at the time of the orphanage closure
• MOWA in Awassa:
• is still in the initial stages of investigating the possibility for children who were referred for international adoption to be permanently reconnected with their birth family and receive financial assistance from the government to ensure their basic needs are met
• has not yet reunited any children with their birth families
• Families who had been referred a child through Mussie Orphanage prior to the closure are making difficult personal decisions about how they would like to proceed--continue pursuing the adoption of the child referred to them through Mussie, pursue the referral of another child, or end their pursuit of an adoption from Ethiopia