Hague Convention Update
March 28, 2007
If you are involved in international adoption at all, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the “Hague Convention.” The Hague Convention is a multilateral treaty that was approved in 1993 by 66 member countries. Its purpose is to protect the children, birth parents, and adoptive parents involved in intercountry adoptions and to prevent child-trafficking and other abuses.
The United States signed the Hague Convention in 1994, and on February 15, 2006, the U.S. Department of State published the final regulations which include the standards that every international adoption agency will need to be in compliance with.
In order to demonstrate compliance with these new standards, agencies will be required to become “Hague accredited” by the National Council on Accreditation (COA). To date, over 300 U.S. adoption agencies have applied for this accreditation. December 2007 has been established as the target date for accreditation completion for agencies wishing to continue facilitating adoptions with Hague countries.
AAI has made application to COA to become accredited. We have been working diligently to make sure all of our agency’s policies and procedures are in full compliance with the standards. We anticipate that COA will conduct an on-site evaluation of our agency sometime this summer as part of the accreditation process.
All applicants receiving full accreditation will be announced at the same time on an undetermined future date, and ratification of the Hague by the U.S. will occur three months later. AAI will keep all of its clients informed of this process, as well as any changes that may come about as a result of this new convention and treaty.
