MOI Update

We met with Chief Cabinet Stanley Joseph Thursday afternoon. One of the things discussed was the MOI's failure to send finished files to Immigration after the interview has been done.

Mr. Joseph pulled out a paper with a list of dossiers (the 8 that I had done the interviews on were on the list), and said that these dossiers (about 45 files were listed) had been sent to Immigration. We told him that this was not true because we knew for a fact that our 8 had not been sent to Immigration. Mr. Joseph told us that he had even let them use his personal car to drive the dossiers over to Immigration (I felt bad for him). So, he sent an email to the Dir of Pol Affairs (who actually called him on the phone just as we were leaving).

We shared with Mr. Joseph the excuses that I had been told as to why the dossiers had not been sent to Immigration:

1) The office had run out of stationary paper and thus could not write/print out the individual letters.

2) The DOPA takes his job very serious and reads all the papers in each dossier.

3) The DOPA is so overloaded with all his other jobs that he does not have time to sign the dossiers.

I do not think that Mr. Joseph was too happy to know that he had been lied to. He also shared with us that he got a list of 50 names from the U.S. Embassy of the files that had been in MOI for more than one month (that is the same number that Mr. Duffy from the U.S. Embassy had told me about). He said that he had made it his priority to get those files out.

We also talked about how Mr. Guerdy is working really hard to get interviews done (which he really is doing) and how he really needs some additional help to get more interviews done per day. Mr. Guerdy had told me that as of September 1st, two more people will be assigned to his office so that three (3) people will be doing the interviews. Mr. Joseph told us that his goal is to have files only stay in MOI for 15 days.

Mr. Joseph said that some of the problem is that there are "mistakes" in some of the files that have to be corrected and thus the files cannot be released until the mistake has been corrected.

Barbara Walker, who was in the meeting also, brought up the "mistakes" are usually related to Archive papers and that MOI is making a very unnecessary and expensive request.

Let me explain...when there is a birth certificate or death certificate issued, they are recorded in a book that is located in the issuing office (which are small local offices in the different geographic areas of Haiti). Once per year (though it usually does not happen until once every two years) the recording book is sent to the main Archives Office/Library in Port au Prince. If the birth or death certificate has been issued longer than one year ago from the point it reaches MOI, the MOI office is requesting that the certificate is accompanied by a full page of Notary paper (that is typed and basically states that the certificate is recorded in a particular Archive book).... It is raining hard and the satellite goes out when it does....so I will continue this later.

If the certificate is less than one year old, it receives a "Half Page" notary (half-page archives) that certifies the signature of the offical that issued the certificate. That one is quick to get and many times the child's birth certificate or a parent's death certificate only has a half-page. HOWEVER, by time the file gets to MOI and especially with the long wait inside of MOI, it has usually been longer than one year since the certificate has been issued. So now, MOI won't sign out the file and say that they have to have a "Full Page" notary archives.

To get the full-page, it is expensive to get and also takes a long time. Most of the time, Archives does not receive the books that the local offices record in every year, but every two years, especially from remote places. Then somebody has to get paid to go and get the book from the town. It can take up to three months to get that document. Barbara explained the full process to Mr. Joseph. It can cost up to $1,200 Haitian extra (about $300 U.S.) for one full-page archive paper or more if you end up having to "pay" somebody to go and get the book (transportation, food, lodging) and it has to be an Archive employee who has to get the book to PAP.

I am sure that you guys get the picture.... Mr. Joseph was very attentively listening to Barbara as she explained the process to him and why they should not be asking for the full-page Archive paper for the birth or death certificates that were perfectly okay with a half-page archive paper for IBESR and the courts, including the U.S. Embassy that accepts it like that.

We are really hoping that he understood and agrees and that he will put a stop to asking for that additional document.
The good news is that he is very pro-adoption and wants to get the kids to their families.

Also, he said that he read something about the "cake story & MOI" on the internet, so he might be reading Haitian Angels? I told him what I did and that the cake came from me...LOL

Okay --- what else....while I was in the "country" with the senator this weekend, a newspaper journalist and TV reporter/cameraman came with us the entire time. I spoke with the newspaper guy about the issues in MOI and adoptions...he told me that because the kids are used for body parts, the process had to be detailed to avoid those kinds of things. I almost lost it! Nice educated guy and he says that?! So, I explained to him the process a US family has to go through, how there are adoption reunions and follow up photos that families send to Barbara Walker to give to birth families....etc. He said that he was interested in doing an article on that, I am hoping to set this up before I leave so that Barbara can meet with him, etc. (It is so hard to type on a sticky keyboard!!!)

Also, Hurricane Dean is supposed to come across Haiti tomorrow and into Sunday. Port au Prince is kind of protected because the storm has to travel across some mountains from where it is coming from, so there probably will be a lot of rain and wind, but not a Hurricane level storm through PAP.

The southern part of Haiti might get it though...

I will be back in the U.S. on Tuesday night with Tamarah and Josh & Teddy. It will be hard to leave Erna behind, but she is with an excellent nanny.