So I suspect this is going to be the new "big" thing for adoptive and prospective adoptive parents. This is a documentary about children being raised in institutions and how horrible that is. I totally agree with that. No child should ever have to be raised in an orphanage.
The focus of this whole documentary is on getting kids out of institutions and into families because every child deserves a family.
But here is
It's not about wanting kids to be raised in THEIR families.
It's about wanting kids to raise in OUR families.
I agree that every child deserves a family.
What I don't agree with is that every family deserves a child-
especially not someone else's child.
I guarantee you that the VAST majority of those children in the videos have at least one living birth parent and near 100% of them have living birth relatives.
Family that in most cases can not take care of them due to reasons directly related to POVERTY
(not abuse or neglect or indifference)
Families that can be restored with some help or support.
No mention is made of corruption, coercion and trafficking
No mention is made of illness, lack of education, POVERTY
No mention is made of food or resource scarcity
No mention is made of birth family searches
No mention is made of family preservation at all
The movie uses the "best interest of the child" argument to ignore the sociological and economic issues that result in abandonment or relinquishment and instead justifies the removal of children from the families, communities and culture because that is what is best for us for them. There will always be a need for adoption but it is not, and should not ever, be our first response, let alone, as this movie seems to suggest, our only response.
If what you actually care about is the children, you lobby the government for foreign aid, you support NGOs in other countries, you sponsor children and families through programs like Heiffer, Habitat International, and Doctors without Borders. If you actually care about the children what you do not do is lobby the government to allow more adoption. Wanting to see more kids adopted (especially in huge numbers) is about what WE want- not what children need.
One quote from the trailer sums it up best (and yes she means something totally different)
"The most frustrating part is that all of these kids have families."
That's the most frustrating part for us too.
STUCK TRAILER from Both Ends Burning Campaign on Vimeo.
That's the most frustrating part for us too.
STUCK TRAILER from Both Ends Burning Campaign on Vimeo.
ETA- there is a response to Nick's comment here
10 comments:
And the fundraising to do the adoptions...seems contradictory to me. Good post.
i agree with everything. just so you know.
Love your blog - very grateful for the awareness you create. However, I see not one bad intention with this documentary to promote greed, whiteness, and selfishness. I believe the intent was to shed light on the children who wait through horrid red tape. The sad truth is, their families have left them in orphanages, for various reasons that may be out of all control. So I think we're talking about a separate documentary to focus on ways to support keeping children with their families.
This movie is funded and produced by a group called Both Ends Burning (BEB). The stated goal of BEB is to increase international adoption up to and possible beyond 50K a year. That means their goal is to increase adoptions to 10x their current level and 5x their highest level ever. The reality is that many, if not, most of the children stuck in orphanages are not healthy infant children that most adoptive parents want. And while special needs adoptions are increasing there are not 50K families a year in line to adopt a child over 5, a sibling group or a child with a substantial medical need.
In addition, 2 of the 3 countries they are focusing on are hotbeds of child trafficking, corruption and orphan creation. And those problems exist now- when IA levels are relatively low. There is no doubt that a 10 fold increase in adoption will result in increased baby stealing, coercion, corruption and orphan creation.
I have no doubt that BEB wants to increase adoption out of concern for children being raised without parents, but in the ENTIRE movie, there are TWO- and ONLY TWO- sentences about birth families, reunification or the complex reasons that children are in orphanages. In fact, here are those two sentences
"For some parents, the reason they relinquished can't be solved with a monthly stipend. ...Reunification is great, but it's not going to work for every child."
Reunification is not an option for every and all children but it's a viable option for a great many of them and the best candidates for reunification are infants and toddlers- the same children in great demand for adoption. But rather than deal with the complexities of global resource distribution- the movie simply states it can't happen and no further mention is made of it.
I agree that some of the red tape is frustrating but removing it results in trafficked children. And given the very clear stated goals of BEB, I think this movie is about paving the way for unrestricted access to "orphan" children, with little thought to protecting them from corruption and even less thought to the rights of the birth family.
As was pointed out on another online forum...
About 2 years ago Ethiopia announced they were significantly curtailing their adoption program to try to stem the flood of corrupt adoptions that were happening. JCICS went on a massive PR campaign including a petition to pressure the ET government to continue adoptions at a level that clearly was ethically unsustainable. They marketed it as wanting to "keep kids from lanquishing in orphanages" as well- but it was really about getting kids into AP's arms, corruption be darned. This too me reeks of the same AP-serving motivation.
To also add-
I don't think they have bad intentions- but I think they are heading down a road that they do not understand. They are looking at adoption as the only solution for children. And I am not sure if they don't understand or don't care that their suggested course will result in creation of thousands of orphans who do not need to be adopted (which also means that orphanages do not have room for kids in genuine need) They are not looking at the systemic issues and the considering that by stemming the flood of children into orphanages (by reunifying those who can be) that they will not only lower the number of kids growing up in orphanages, but that those kids would have greater access to resources and would be easier to process into the adoption system because there would be no doubt that adoption was the best option for them.
I am sure their intentions are good- but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Nobody will say that the current system of international adoption is working. However, I do take a bit of an issue with some of your generalizations of the movie. Now obviously, in a movie - you are going to craft a story, but I think you are making some assumptions that are not correct.
I am one of the families in the movie and there is a lot more backstory that you just don't see in the movie. Our case took 4 years. During that time, we had DNA tests to confirm parentage, we had 3 interviews (conducted both by DOS and the VN Government) with the birth mother who had leprosy and was dying. We believe based upon these interviews that she was the victim of rape. The local provincial authorities also interviewed the immediate family who because of the parentage issue did not want the child. When asked about our case, the Head of Adoptions for the entire country said that he was an orphan and nobody was coming to get him. He was 4 by the way - not an infant.
Do I think that there is corruption and trafficking that supports IA? Yes. But, I think the hard question is: do we consign children to orphanages because we don't have the means to prevent this trafficking and allow for ethical adoptions or do we invest the money and time to allow clean ones to come through?
I think of Cambodia which doesn't allow any adoptions to the US. So we can say with 100% certainty that no children from Cambodia are trafficked to the US. However, we also must say how many thousands of children are left in institutions. I don't have the answers, but I am hopeful that at some point, there will be a solution that stops trafficking but yet still allows children to be placed in a loving home (either domestically or internationally)
Nick
Hi Nick-
my response is too long to post as a comment so please see this link
http://pullthisblogover.blogspot.com/2013/04/more-stuck-conversation.html
As an adoptee and also an adoptive mother, I want to thank you for saying everything I want to say at this point in my life. When we adopted our daughter 10 years ago I did not know the things then that I know now. As much as I ADORE my daughter and can't imagine my life without her, I didn't have to be her mother. What is an orphan? I don't think she is really an orphan, and I know I wasn't, but I didn't get to find out the truth of my life until I was 46 years old.
Why are we do driven to "have a baby"? I wish my daughter had her original parents...I wish I had mine. I already had 3 biological children...why did I want/need another?
This is so much more complex than many people are capable of acknowledging, but you do a wonderful job of starting a dialogue...
Right now I can't watch Stuck...I am a different kind of stuck.
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“We (Pattersons) know that Vlad and Dima’s bio aunt has filed for custody of the boys. While I once thought that was a good thing, I have come to believe it might not be God’s plan for them. Apparently both the director of the orphanage, as well as the local inspector (similar to a social worker) who is in charge of the boys, are concerned about Vlad and Dima going to live with their aunt. That made me feel even more unsettled and conflicted than I was already feeling.”
http://www.allarepreciousinhissight.com/2011/12/prayer-for-mountains-to-be-moved.html?m=1
This kind of bad behaviour on the part of well-intoned but utterly misguided PAPs is unlikely to change anytime soon. Honestly, I don’t think you CAN talk sense into a PAP that brags about convincing a Ukrainian granny into letting them adopt her grandkids. The whose orphanage she works at for the EXPRESS purpose of seeing them daily.
And this doesn’t even touch on how $$ from wealthy Americans causes a demand for AYAP babies — many of whom are stolen from the biofamilies that love and desperately want them.
Or how adult adoptees feel about their adoptions. I’m neither adopted not an AP but utterly horrified at how dismissive PAPs / APs are to adult adoptees like Von and Peter Dodds, for no reason other than their *actual* experiences aren’t sunshines and unicorns.
Or the horrific number of adoptees mistreated by their APs that the justice system does NOTHING about — the most recent being little Max Shatto. Texas ruled his death accidental, despite the fact that he was covered in bruised, nobody knows exactly how his bowel artery was severed and forever mommy Laura Shatto admitted she knew he was prone to self-harm and left him (age 3) and his bio brother outside unsupervised outside for 10+ minutes!
(I live in New York and leaving two toddlers outside unsupervised is straight up neglect — even if nothing bad happens to said kids).
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No one seems to have mentioned the fact that there’s a horrific amount corruption/coercion even in the international adoption of older kids, special needs kids AND older kids with special needs:
- Even in the wake of the 2010 Haitian earthquake many of the kids who were evacuated to the US *had* surviving families or extended families able and willing to care for them — many of those kids were nonetheless adopted by Americans.
Kristin, I understand that your son may well have pointlessly spent 4+ yrs waiting in an orphanage — but letting SOME kids who have families get adopted by foreigners as collateral damage” in order to expedite international adoptions and avoid unnecessary 4+ yr waits is not something MY conscience could live with. How would YOU feel if a giant earthquake hit your town and some enterprising soul arranged for YOUR kids to be adopted by a Haitian family while you/your husband were unconscious in a hospital? Or because phone service was down for 8 weeks??
If a giant earthquake hit MY state (killing or severely injuring both my husband and I) knocked out communication/electricity for weeks, I would absolutely want every effort to be made to reunite my kids with me/hubby/relative BEFORE letting them be adopted by someone in MY state, let alone in another state or another country. It is reprehensible that folks clearly did not believe Haitian kids were entitled to that kind of effort:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/world/americas/04adoption.html?pagewanted=all
- The Martis “hosted” 2 Ukrainian girls and wanted to adopt them – the girls said no because their granny worked at their orphanage (saw them daily!) and lived with her on weekends/holidays. They made a special trip to Ukraine for the express purpose of convincing/coercing granny to encourage the girls to be adopted:
“Our girls’ grandmother started out as an adversary. If you remember, she was the one that worked at the girls’ orphanage and made it clear to the girls before they visited two years ago that they “are not to go find a new mom and dad in America”. She was the one with the influence on our girls at the time and she was the first one to almost prevent the adoption (of course others followed in her foot steps but that is another story). She ultimately came around after we shared our hearts with her in a letter. The letter and our facilitator were finally able to convince her that adoption was what was best for the girls. Our “enemy” (although we of course never viewed her as such) become our advocate”.
http://martitimes.blogspot.com/2012/06/babushka-is-coming.html?m=0
http://martitimes.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-princess-and-model.html?m=0
- Older “special focus” kids from China often have biofamilies and falsified paperwork that PAPs, Chinese officials and American officials merrily ignore:
http://research-china.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-ha-moment.html?m=1
And do not even get me started on the behaviour of self-proclaimed godly, evangelical Christians who LOVE “Stuck” and really, truly believe they’re doing their part for the so-called orphan crisis by doing whatever it takes to rescue “orphans” –many of whom have biofamilies that love them, visit them, take them home for holidays or use the orphanage as a sort of boarding school (since there are literally no other options for poor parents of kids with special needs):
- this family complained that birthmom regularly visited the Ukrainian baby (illegally photolisted on Reece’s Rainbow) they hoped to adopt — and that they were unable to adopt this particular “orphan” because he had a mom! Over entitled much??
http://savenathaniel.blogspot.com/2011/10/following-lords-purpose.html?m=0
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