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.
