More STUCK Conversation

I got this comment on the original post

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

And typed up this reply which is apparently too long to be posted as a comment.  So here you go:

However to use Cambodia as an example misses a huge very relevant point.  The reason there are no adoptions from Cambodia to the US is due to number of "orphans" that were being trafficked into the US when it was an open program. 

Or take Ethiopia currently- Most ethical agencies have all but closed their programs or moved to placing only older or special needs children.  However, there are many agencies still promising infants AYAP and parents are still flocking to those agencies, corruption be damned. 

So I am suspect that when we have agencies that want to make money and APs who want children under 5, we are never gong to really address the "orphan problem" through international adoption.  We will continue to see orphan creation - which is what happened in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Guat, is happening in Ethiopia and is beginning in DRC and Uganda

That said, my issue is not with whether or not IA is necessary- there is little doubt that for some kids IA is the means to provide them a loving family that they would not have otherwise.

Here’s the issue-  One is that any discussion of the orphan plight must, in my opinion, start with a discussion about how to prevent children from needing orphanage care in the first place.  Many NGOs are now working with reunification and realizing that in many cases it takes very little to reunify a family permanently.  The reasons a child ends up in a orphanage are as varied as the one child policy, to poverty (and related issues), to the death of a parent(s), to the stigma of single motherhood.  Therefore, obviously, for some kids, IA is their best (or only) option for a loving family that can successfully parent. 

If the pool of children available for adoption shrinks because some kids are successfully reunified- doesn't that meet the end goal of children in a permanent loving family?  That is the stated objective isn't it? 

Then barriers to adoption can be looked at for those children who do need an adoptive home.

However, the movie contains exactly 2 lines about reunification and birth families.  And while they are true, they minimize the complexities of the reasons and imply strongly that reunification isn't a viable option.

4 years is ridiculous to wait- but I can also introduce you to some adoptive parents who would tell you they would have gladly waited the 4 years to ensure their child hadn't been trafficked rather than deal with the emotional fallout from finding out they were. 

There is absolutely a middle ground, and I think it starts with reunification as the first considered option.  Just following a legitimate assessment protocol for determining if reunification is a VIABLE option (and acting on it if appropriate), would reduce the corrupt adoptions substantially.  For those children who reunification isn't an option, then get them into the adoption system efficiently and process the paperwork as quickly as possible- maintaining substantial checks on agency/orphanage behavior.

What BEB is advocating (using Stuck, and the stories of families like yours) is not a commonsense approach that combines reunification, more efficient governmental regulations and checks and balances, removal of financial incentives for agencies to "find" orphans, or the guarantee that the humanitarian work agencies are doing in county is not just a funnel for infants into orphanages.

What they are doing is advocating a wholesale removal of most checks and balances and an increase in adoption levels to 5 times its’ highest level.  A level that will unquestionably result in substantially more trafficking of created orphans

I too hope that there is a solution that stops trafficking and allows children WHO NEED loving homes to be adopted into them.  However, because of what BEB has left out of this conversation, very likely adoption will increase, corruption and orphan creation will increase, at the expense of the first families, the children themselves, and the adoptive families who have to put the shattered pieces their child's story back together.  

And to be clear since I have had to address it multiple times from multiple posters- at no time have I ever said any of the following things:

1.  All international adoption should stop

2. All children can be or should be reunified

3. There are no other reasons beyond poverty that lead to placement 

4. That every adoption is corrupt

5. That IA isn't necessary

6. That children should remain in orphanages until they age out

       7. That is acceptable for the process to take years

Please continue the conversation, but if you comment is based of my statement of any of the above 7 items, just note I didn't actually say, nor do I believe, and of those 7 things.