Over 300 children who were in the process of being adopted before the devastating January 12 earthquake struck Haiti, have finally been cleared to travel to France with their adoptive parents. This photo shows some of the children waiting for their adoptive parents in Port-au-Prince on December 21. The French government chartered an aircraft to bring the adoptive parents to Haiti and fetch the children. Another flight is anticipated by the 24th. A total of 318 children are expected to arrive in Paris.
With The Sisters Missionary sisters of St Teresa wait with the children for their 105 adoptive parents. French television station France 24 reports that the children have been in the process of adoption for well over two years, with some of the parents waiting even longer. When the earthquake struck, many of the documents critical to the adoption process were destroyed or lost, substantially delaying the unions of the families.
Marked A volunteer draws an x on one of the 113 children. Mass adoptions of children from Haiti has proven controversial in the past. Last January, some members of an American church group tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country without the proper documentation, resulting in the temporary imprisonment of 10 of them. It was later revealed that all of the children had at least one living parent.
New Parents French families hold their adopted Haitian children. One of the mothers, Isabelle Frapat, described her experience as "pure happiness, and all that at Christmastime.
Haiti's Loss A Haitian mother cries after her son's adoption. Some of the children adopted were not orphans, though it is not uncommon for parents in Haiti give up their children to orphanages. Even before the earthquake, according to UNICEF, some 400,000 children, or about one out of every 10 Haitian kids, lived in some type of orphanage. Of those, only a few thousand were actually orphans. The rest were relinquished by parents who feared they wouldn't be able to feed and clothe their children at home.