MOI Update --- October 25, 2007

I again confirmed that 107 files did get delivered to Immigration. However, there are lots of families whose files are still stuck inside of the Ministry of Interior (MOI) and have been in MOI for months.

This week the Director of Political Affairs, Mr. Pierre Guignard had a meeting with several adoption organization directors and a delegate from the Dutch government. This was a similar meeting to the one that was held with U.S. Embassy personnel in August.

Mr. Guignard told the Dutch government delegate that 100 files were signed and taken to the Immigration Office on a weekly basis. This is similar to what he has said in the past. Some of you will remember what he posted in a Haitian Newspaper in April, namely that he had signed out 2,000+ files in one weekend.

Let's do the math, again! At the most about 800 children are adopted to various countries (incl. France, Canada, U.S., Holland, etc.) per year.

Many families are still waiting for their file to be signed out of MOI.

We are in the process of compiling the names and file information of the parents/adopted children who are still waiting on the MOI approval letter to have the child's passport issued. We want the waiting children home by Christmas!

To clarify, this is not a petition letter, this is a letter to show the Minister of Interior the exact numbers of files and who is still stuck inside of MOI.

Please go to the following link to update your MOI record:

http://www.2girlsandawebsite.com/blog_stuff/MOI.asp?piq=View

As far as the Chief Cabinet Stanley Joseph and the Minister of the Interior Bien-Aime have been told, MOI does not have a back-log of files and there are no parents who have been waiting for their child's passport for months!

Just a reminder of the MOI process:

1) The O-representative brings the child's file with the original Haitian documents (that includes birth certificate; archive paper - it is like a notary paper to authenticate the birth certificate; adoption documents, etc.) to the Immigration Office. The O-rep. is given a paper receipt that has a number on it = MOI number.

2) The file is taken to MOI and brough to the Office of "Unit Juritique" where two lawyers look over the paperwork to ensure that there are no errors. (Remember, that used to also be part of the "old" process before the Director of Political Affairs became involved.)

3) The file is then taken to the office of Mr. Guerdy who conducts the "parent interview". This interview consists of him filling out a two-page form by looking over the adoption documents, i.e. birth parent's or parents' name, where they live, their id#, child's name, address, date of birth, etc. and then the information about the adoptive parent (parents), which includes address, id# (passport or state i.d.), birth date, place of work, work address, profession, telephone numbers (work and home).
It is really important that the orphanage reps come to MOI on a regular basis because without their presence, the "interview" does not take place. The reps come and ask for their files by name and number. Mr. Guerdy goes downstairs and retrieves the file to get the interview done.

4) Once Mr. Guerdy is done with the "interview" and has filled out the two page form, the form, the child's and the adoptive parent's (parents') passport photos are attached to the child's MOI file. Then, somebody else within that office, re-writes the form in nice penmanship and cuts & glues the passport photos on the interview form.
Recently, additional personnel was assigned to Mr. Guerdy's office so this process should be going faster. When I was there in August, the people in that particular office were hard at work to get the interview papers done.

5) If there is a problem with the file, i.e. most of the time it is MOI requesting that new Archive papers are issued, the O-rep is then told by Mr. Guerdy what needs to be done. Though, there might be a "real" problem with a paper in the file, i.e. a mistake on the adoption decree, most of the time, it is a request to get a "new" archive paper.

Any birth certificate or death certificate requires an Archive paper. Like mentioned above, it is basically a paper that notarizes the authenticity of the certificate. However, the system is such that if a birth or death certificate is less than one year old (say in the case of a baby adoption), a "half-page Archive" is issued. When a certificate is issued, the local office that issues it logs the certificate into a big book that is kept for one year. The "half-page Archive" certifies that there is an entry in the big book that corresponds to the certificate.

The recording system is such that after the calendar year is over, the big books from the different recording offices are sent to the Central Archive Office that is located in downtown Port-au-Prince. Once the certificate is one year old, supposedly, it is to have a "full-page Archive" attached to the birth or death certificate.

This requires a person to stand in a line of about 300 people that are at the Archive Office daily. Once you get to the front of the line, if you are lucky at the end of the day, you request the "full-page Archive" . This paper is typed via old-fashioned manual type writer and is basically a full page that records the entire history of the originally issued birth or death certificate. It can easily take one to three months to obtain this "full-page Archive" paper. Why? Because even though according to the rules, the big book per office is supposed to be sent to the central office once per year, but often, that does not happen. Maybe the book is not full yet? Or, maybe they have not gotten around to getting the book? --- If that happens, somebody from the Archive office has to travel to the remote office to get the book. (It took me 12 hours to travel 100 miles, travel is not easy in Haiti.) Then, somebody has to do the actual typing. With about 300 requests of Archive papers per day... you can see why this can take months.
In my humble opinion (for what it is worth), if the adoption process was not going to take as long as it does, these Archive papers would not have ot be requested once the file is at MOI, the adoption is already finished. It is legal! --- Why request new papers at that point?

6) Once the file is finished with the interview, it gets sent to Mr. Guignard's office so that he can issue the letter to Immigration that a passport can be issued for the adopted child. The letter is composed on a computer wordprocessing program. It is not a simple form letter as each letter has to be edited with the child's specific information. The letter has to be edited and printed out by a clerk or secretary. It is attached to the file for Mr. Guignard's signature.

Here is another issue. Three clerks usually share one computer. Unlike what we are used to, only secretaries or clerks use computers. If somebody above a clerk wants to write a letter, they will hand compose and write the letter and then the clerk or secretary will typed the letter on a computer, very similar as it used to happen in the old days with a typewriter. Since several clerks or secretaries share one computer, not much work gets done per person because of the limited resources. However, I noticed that most of the computers and furniture were donated by the U.S. government because there are USAid stickers on them. Maybe we can ask for more computer to be donated so the work can get done faster? Just a thought...

It took my daughter's file three months to get from Mr. Guerdy's office through Mr. Guignard's office to the Immigration Office. That is an awefully long time to issue a letter and to send the file back to the Immigration Office.

From my observation, the slow-down is in that office. I have been told three reasons why there is such a slow down:

(a) Mr. Guignard is so overwhelmed with his work load because aside from the adoption passport letters, he has a lot of other work assignments and he is working as fast as he humanly can. - If this is the case, then why is not an additional person assigned to that office to take care of the letters? Somebody who has the authority to sign the letters and who can assure that the letters and adoption files make it back to the Immigration Office in a timely manner?

(b) Mr. Guignard is very thorough and he examines each file, including all the documents item by item. This takes a long time and it is because he takes his job seriously. If this is the case, then why have trained lawyers look over the paperwork in the first place when the file is inside the MOI - Unit Juritique Office?

(c) Mr. Guignard was not able to sign any letters because the letters have to be issued on MOI letterhead and they ran out of stationery paper. Please remember this is Haiti and sometimes this kind of thing does happen.

Mr. Guignard's superiors have received lists of names of files that supposedly were taken back to the Immigration Office. However, the names of the files that are on the lists are files that in reality were/still are in the MOI office, namely in Mr. Guignard's office! That kind of thing is incomprehensible for many of us.