Invalid death certificate puts BC couple in Ghana adoption limbo

VANCOUVER, B.C. — A B.C. couple has been separated for months after its effort to adopt twin boys from Ghana turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.

Andrea Bastin, a filmmaker from Bowen Island near Vancouver, has been living in the West African country since August as she tries to convince the Canadian High Commission there that the boys' mother died giving birth.

But her effort is complicated by the fact the death certificate she first submitted turned out to be bogus, raising a red flag in a region where child trafficking is common.

Bastin and her husband, builder Michael Segal, say they've since produced the proper death certificate, along with hospital records and affidavits from the woman's family.

The couple say Ghanian officials have also told their Canadian counterparts they're satisfied the mother is dead and the twins' elderly father has given up his parental rights.

"The Ghanaian authorities are 100-per-cent behind us," Segal said in an interview.

But despite an appeal to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and support from their MP, Conservative John Weston, the case remains in limbo while Bastin and the children live in the spare room of a friend's house in Accra, the capital.

The couple's odyssey began a year ago when the infants were given to the Royal Seed Home, an orphanage near Accra, by their father, a yam farmer from a village in the country's north.

Bastin and Segal were among other Bowen Islanders helping support the orphanage where a former island resident was working. They began the adoption process, which included Bastin flying to Ghana to begin fostering the boys, as required by the country's law.

In an interview from Accra, Bastin, who won a 2003 Gemini award for a short film, said she found the children malnourished and lagging in their development.

"I had really, really sick babies," she said Friday.

By fall, Ghana's Social Welfare Department had approved an interim adoption and the couple began the paperwork to bring the children to Canada. The requirement included a copy of the mother's death certificate.

That's where things went wrong.

Bastin said the twins' 24-year-old "senior brother" went to the family's village to get the document but was told he had to go to Accra. There, he paid an official to get the death certificate, which turned out to be invalid.

Bastin and Segal said they later learned the bureaucrat had no authority to issue the document, which should have come from local officials in the first place.

The invalid death certificate raised alarms at Canada's high commission in Ghana, which handles visa and immigration files from a dozen African countries. Ghana is a hub for human trafficking, including children taken out of the country.

The couple said Canadian officials refused to provide documents allowing Bastin to take the twins back to Canada until the 44-year-old mother's death was confirmed.

Both Bastin and the boys' older brother obtained copies of the genuine death certificate from officials of the village, along with hospital records confirming how she died and affidavits from relatives saying she was indeed dead.

The boys' father, who Bastin said is in his 70s, also formally gave up his parental rights.

The man, an elder in his village, visited her and the boys and cried as he gave them his blessing, saying "I'm sorry," through a translator, Bastin said.

Last month, Ghanaian social welfare officials waived a two-year temporary adoption period and granted Bastin and Segal full adoption - which was another condition Canadian immigration officials required.

Local representatives of the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration and Ghana's police have both investigated the adoption and found it to be above board, said Bastin.

"Now we've resubmitted everything in hopes that in light of the new evidence, they would reopen the case," said Segal.

He and Bastin said Weston, MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-To-Sky Country, has been a staunch advocate for the family.

The Conservative MP declined to discuss the case but Segal said he sent a letter to the Immigration Department suggesting the boys be given a temporary residence permit, landed-immigrant status or citizenship, which can be granted to adopted foreign children.

A department spokeswoman in Vancouver wouldn't discuss specifics of the case, citing privacy rules.

But Joanne Nadeau said in areas were child-trafficking takes place and where documentation is non-existent or unreliable, extra safeguards are needed.

"If there is evidence of wrongdoing in the adoption system or if there's limited infrastructure that exists to support or protect the children, we must in these cases do additional verification to ensure the best interests of the child," she said.

Even under ideal circumstances, international adoptions take six to eight months to complete, said Nadeau.

"Depending on the child's country of origin, it's not unusual for the process to last for two years or even longer," she said.

Segal said he does not blame high commission officials for their scrutiny, given the dubious death certificate and the region's reputation for human trafficking.

"They're in CYA (cover-your-ass) mode right now," he said.

But the drawn-out process has been hard on the family.

Bastin took their five-year-old son, Fin, with her to Africa last summer, expecting to stay only a few weeks. As the adoption dragged on, Segal visited them over Christmas and brought the boy home.

Fin bonded with his new brothers, she said, helping feed them and change their diapers.

"We're a family, there's no question," she said.

The ordeal has also taken an emotional toll on Bastin. While the boys, now 15 months, are beginning to thrive, she said she's witnessed the effects of extreme poverty on Ghana's children.

The global recession has hit the country's economy hard and the orphanage's population has mushroomed as more families are unable to care for their children, she said.

"I've witnessed children die for no reason," Bastin said.

If Canada does not allow her to bring the twins home, Bastin said she and her husband have discussed moving to a third country where they can all be together.

"I'm now at my wit's end," she said.