Just learned some big news from El Salvador this week that does very much affect our adoption – in fact all adoptions there. 

At 8:45 on Thursday night, Sonia Cortez de Madriz was sworn in as El Salvador’s Procuraduría General de la República [Attorney General].

(photo credit elsalvador.com)

The process to select one has been going on since last April, in anticipation of the new administration under Mauricio Funes.  When the government turned over last June, no one was named, so there has been an acting Procurador with limited powers ever since.

Why is this important to us?

Our referral must come through the Procuradora’s office.  Once the file on our family gets approved by OPA, where it is now, it is the Attorney General’s office that will match us with a waiting child (or hopefully two waiting children).  They will then send us the information on those kids, and we will respond back to them about whether we will accept that referral and thus adopt those kids.

Without a named Procuradora, all adoptions have halted (not that there were that many moving along at all smoothly to begin with).  Our file hasn’t been effected directly because we’re not out of OPA, yet.  But it’s been effected indirectly, since the folks at OPA knew that there was no hurry in getting files approved just to have them sit there waiting for a Procuradora.

Until now.

Hopefully, Cortez de Madriz will make sure things move along smoothly so that the children who truly do need adoptive families will be matched with them more quickly than they have in the past.  She has said she has a heart for families, children in need, and women in need.

We’ll see how this plays out, but at least we know our file has someplace to go after the phase it’s in now!