Most Americans are likely to think about celebrities when confronted with the issue of international adoption. But the drama surrounding celebrity adoptions overshadows the darker facts about the issue: over the last decade, international adoptions have declined by 60 percent, and more and more children are being forced to spend their lives behind the crumbling walls of institutions.
After a decade of complacency, we are long overdue for a public debate about the worsening plight of orphans.
International adoption is an issue that I never thought I would care about. I retired young, after being fortunate enough to build a company that hit the tech boom on the nose in the 90s. At that point, I had decided that I was never going to have kids. But one day, a friend told me how his life had changed after members of his family adopted an orphan from Haiti. Within a couple of months, I was in Haiti touring orphanages. The shock I felt about what I saw is hard to articulate. Children in these institutions were climbing over each other just to try to get a hug from me.
That experience led my wife and I to adopt three Haitian children, who are now 11, 10 and 6 years old, in 2006. Looking into their eyes when they first came, we were filled with a happiness we had never felt before. We offered love, attention and nutrition that led our children to grow so fast, it was amazing. But, I was constantly reminded of how kids living in institutions, deprived of such simple things as human contact, are robbed of the opportunity to grow into happy, healthy people.
That realization had a profound effect on my wife and me. We couldn't stop thinking about how many other children out there were languishing. We started an advocacy organization, Both Ends Burning, to start raising awareness of the plight of these children. We also created a non-profit organization called Chances for Children to provide support for orphanages in Haiti.
My advocacy goal was to break through the status quo, because we've come to a point where the international adoption system, which was created with the right intentions of safeguarding orphans from trafficking and abuse, has had an unanticipated and chilling effect on the number of kids who are adopted by loving families.
Recently, Senegal joined a growing list of countries -- China, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Guatemala -- that have suspended or curtailed international adoptions because of systemic weaknesses, corruption or other reasons. As with the other countries, the Senegalese painted the move as an effort to implement standards of The Hague Adoption Convention, the global pact on safe adoption signed in 1993.
The numbers tell the story. Successful international adoptions fell from 22,991 to 9,319 between 2004 and 2011. Meanwhile, the number of orphans worldwide who have lost both parents is often estimated at 20 million. While complex issues of poverty, conflict, national sovereignty and ideology are involved, the debate over why this has occurred unfortunately tends to feature the opposing sides poking holes in each other's arguments without addressing the real issue: how can we create an adoption system that is safe, effective and inclusive, so that numbers of children who find safe, loving homes ticks up year-by-year?
Instead of letting this conversation get swept away in politics, let's start with the universally accepted fact that institutionalization is an emotional -- and sometimes a physical -- death sentence for a child. During my travels to Haiti, I met Roberson, a 13-year-old boy who maintains the social, emotional and physical well-being of a 6-year-old. Roberson is unfortunately only one of millions of orphans worldwide that fail to develop critical human functions due to institutionalization.
If we aim to save Roberson and other kids like him from a life behind the bars of institutions, we have to fix the international adoption system. Far too many eager families are simply deciding not to adopt because the system has become so burdensome. Today, the average wait for adoptive families to welcome their children home is 33 months, and costs average $25,000.
Leadership is the answer for these kids, but unfortunately, there is no sense of urgency among those who hold the power to make the necessary changes. For every Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN), who relentlessly pursue justice for these children, there are many others who are content to let The Hague be their excuse for doing nothing.
There must be a way for us to improve the adoption environment without sacrificing safeguards and child welfare. We need to focus on getting kids safely out of institutions, in part by streamlining the time and cost of international adoption. If we can all agree that these children's lives matter, then why aren't we doing something to give them a better chance of realizing the dream of joining a loving family?
And it is a fact that growing up in an institution is far from ideal.
We can all sit around and debate opinions till we're dead, but the facts are the facts are the facts. Orphans exist. There are many in the world. And many are living in institutions.
So what do we do about it?
I sure would love to hear from commenters answers to that question, rather than opinions -- mostly formed by personal and emotional bias -- about intercountry adoption, genetic heritage, baby stealing, adopting vs. just donating, etc. etc. etc.
I am not trying to diminish personal experiences or deny anyone's right to share them or their opinions. It's just that I've heard these same arguments over and over and over.
Please read Craig's plea... please read each and every word because each and every word has merit and matters.
And most importantly, don't put politics or culture or bias or prejudice or assumptions or hearsay or opinions before the needs of children. Please.
- mother to a Guatemalan born daughter
I'd like to dispense with a few myths. Myth #1: adopting parents just want a "healthy baby girl". Many adopting parents adopt special needs kids and provide them with first-world medical care that radically improves their lives, compared to institutional living. Parents do often prefer to adopt infants, because they are aware of the damage done by years of institutional living. This is sad for older kids awaiting adoption, but the answer is not to blame adopting parents; the answer is to get kids out of institutions *before* damage is done. Myth #2: If only adoptive parents would throw money at the birth parents instead of adopting, the situation would be magically solved. This grossly oversimplifies the complex problems that lead to child relinquishment and termination of parental rights.
Adoption can play a role, but it's not the only way to think about child welfare. Debates are driven by actual research from all sides, but more needs to be done outside the West, since it's mostly non-Western children entering adoption. I hope other readers will explore with open minds the wider picture as well as ones that focus on adoption. Multiple solutions for a complex problem are going to benefit children.
Anyone reading interested in the points my initial post raised, please do actually explore the groups I suggested are worth looking into for broader insights. This article in the Huffington Post also moves away from alarmist language about orphanages:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-st-jean/haitian-adoption-are-good_b_442033.html
I also have to object to your claim about "removing massive numbers of children from a country" or "removing a huge part of their generation". Do you have any statistics to back up what proportion of kids from a country emigrate due to international adoption? Let's take China, one of the more popular sending countries in recent decades. Emigration due to international adoption is just a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous population of China.
As for "denying them their genetic heritage", I think that is also a lot more complicated than you imply. I don't really accept the biological essentialism that the phrase implies; but even setting that aside, I think that most kids sitting in institutions would place a higher value on having a family to love them, rather than living on the streets in the country of their "genetic heritage" (whatever that means).
Many children "abandoned" or "orphaned" turn out to have living, healthy parents who thought they were doing right by their children, but who were recruited by an unethical adoption agent to "have their children raised and educated by an American family." They think the child will come home in a few years. They don't understand our western concept of the termination of parental rights. International adoption is creating a demand for children. The market prevails, as adoption agents scour countrysides for unwed mothers and poor widows. The children languishing are not the healthy baby girls so popular with with western families, but often older children, boys, and disabled children.
International adoption has formed my family, and I am so thankful for that. I don't regret my children being my children for one minute. But I think it's a tragedy that they had to suffer through the loss of their first families who would have been glad to raise them if they only had a couple of dollars more a month.
I am a domestic adoptee, but like most adoption, mine was unnecessary. Adoption is always about taking advantage of someone else's misfortune.
The author and his wife could have either adopted children from the US foster care system (where kids actually need parents) OR used some of their "high tech" money to find ways to keep Haitian families intact.
They failed on both accounts.
Although I am a domestic product, my adoption was also unnecessary. Adoption is always about taking advantage of other people's misfortune.
If the author/adopter really cared about children, he would have either adopted from the U.S. foster care system (where children actually need parents) OR used his "high tech" fortune to find a way to keep Haitian families intact.
He failed on both accounts.