All the Social Orphans Suffolk University Law Professor Sara Dillon on International Children's Rights and Social Orphan Policy
Center for Adoption Policy Center for Adoption Policy provides research, analysis, advice and education to practitioners and the public about current legislation and practices governing ethical domestic and intercountry adoption in the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute Educates federal policy makers about the need for adoption reform, and coordinates efforts of policy makers and public groups to improve the lives of children.
Harvard Law School Child Advocacy Program The Child Advocacy Program (CAP) at Harvard Law School is committed to advancing children's interests through facilitating productive interaction between academia and the world of policy and practice, and through training generations of students to contribute in their future careers to law reform and social change.
Over at Huffington Post, a teenage girl adopted from Cambodia at the age of eight has shared her story of love, loss and healing. Lea S.'s father abandoned her, her mother and her siblings. Soon after, her baby brother grew sick, and Lea's mother placed the boy for international adoption. After her mother's death, Lea lived with relatives, until her brother's adoptive parents unexpectedly found her and asked if she wanted to be adopted too. She did. Lea writes:
The first time I saw my new parents was in a hotel lobby. I told the translator that they had long noses. I didn’t know I was being rude; I just wasn’t used to seeing Caucasian people. I was really nervous around them. I think they were nervous too. I didn’t smile until we went to the hotel room and my new mom showed me the clothes she had brought me. My face lit up fast! We didn’t talk much because I didn’t know how to speak English, but she made flash cards with pictures to help us communicate.
The day we left Cambodia I was filled with emotions. I was eager, worried, upset, and confused because I didn’t know where we were going and I had never been on a plane before. All I remember about my trip was that I threw up for most of the 21-hour flight. It was like the plane was a gigantic sickening machine. It felt as though the trip would never end.
When we landed in the United States I was so happy. After we waited in a bunch of lines, we walked out of the airport. The air was a lot colder than in Cambodia. In the distance, I saw a strange man waving at us. He looked excited and happy. I also saw a little boy next to him. I knew immediately it was my brother. I didn’t act excited to see him because I was still feeling so sick from the plane, but I was really thrilled.
My new grandpa drove us to my new home. In the car I looked out the window and saw strange yet beautiful houses. I kept peeking at my brother. He was now three years old and looked so clean and healthy compared to the last time I had seen him. At that moment I knew that I was going to be happy again.
And that is where I am now. The nightmares have ended because of two wonderful people who adopted my brother Shane and me. Adjusting to life in the United States wasn’t easy, but getting adopted is the most beautiful feeling. Even though we are not related by blood, I knew from that first day that my dad and mom cared about me very much. They filled up all the holes in my heart.
Lea's story was originally published in the magazine Teen Ink.
Everywhere I turn lately, it seems I find a story about the challenges of assisting Cambodia's poor and orphaned population.
Aljazeera English recently ran a report on the apparent trend of volunteer tourism in Cambodia. According to the network, Cambodia has more than 600,000 orphans. Young Western volunteers are paying thousands of dollars to tour companies to arrange volunteer gigs, but frequently none of that money is passed on to the orphanages where the volunteers serve. The story raises concerns about the qualifications of the volunteers, and the safety and emotional well being of the children, who grow attached to the visitors who will ultimately leave them behind.
Over at Huffington Post, Ken Wong, director of the Face-to-Face AIDS Project, asks, "Is Charity Doing More Harm than Good in Cambodia?" He describes a repeating scenario there that's reminiscent of the cycle of urban gentrification here in the US: the government forces a poor community to relocate. NGOs come in and improve the new slum with schools, sanitation, etc. These improvements make the adjacent areas more attractive to commercial development, and soon government and commercial interests push the poor out again to take over the improved land, and the cycle repeats. Says Wong:
We go in to places like Samron Meanchey, help improve the quality of life of its people, make the area look better... And then someone sees profit in the area and in come the bulldozers and out goes our people. Better today, gone tomorrow -- and gone without a trace...
That leads us to question if our charity is doing more harm than good -- are we supporting an environment where charities like SCC and Face-to-Face are helping others make profits, while they leave us to support their own peoples?
In other words, shouldn't Cambodia be striving to develop itself so that it's able to help its own? And shouldn't nonprofits like us be working toward a future where we're no longer needed?
Yes, yes, and well, definitely yes.
Now that's settled, the question is how to go about doing this. I'm thinking that Face-to-Face and SCC should place more emphasis on nurturing a culture of charity in the places we work. Take our poorest of the poor, and as we raise their quality of life just a bit, we also nurture them to develop into future role models who help their own.
Some might say this is capacity building. Others might say that it's not holding the reins of charity mission so tightly.
I say it's about changing our charity attitudes. Better today, gone tomorrow. Well, we might just be able to turn that into a good thing.
Finally, from the Poverty New Blog, I learned that the Cambodian government has drafted a strict law to regulate NGOs, giving authorities the power to shut down any NGO without appeal. Critics say the bill is an attempt to restrict public freedom.
As I sift through these various articles, it seems clear to me that:
-Cambodia has a population of children who would benefit from the resumption of the country's international adoption program
-It's unclear if the government has the capacity and/or will to create a program that won't be plagued by allegations of misconduct, as it has in the past -- even though Cambodia has long been expected to begin accepting new adoption dossiers as early as next month.
According to the US State Department website:
On December 3, 2009, new legislation on intercountry adoption was signed into law in Cambodia. The new law seeks to create a country-wide comprehensive child welfare system and an intercountry adoption process in compliance with the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention (the Convention) to which Cambodia is a party. This is an important first step in Cambodia's expressed commitment to reform its child welfare system and meet its treaty obligations under the Convention. In order to be able to establish necessary regulations and standard procedures to implement the new Law on Intercountry Adoption, the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation has announced a temporary suspension of the receipt of all new intercountry adoption dossiers until March 2011. This will not adversely affect any U.S cases since no new cases have been submitted in the last several years.
At this time, it is not possible to estimate when adoptions will resume between the United States and Cambodia. In order to implement the new law in full, Cambodia will first need to establish the necessary government structures to support it, draft and finalize prakas (Ministerial orders/regulations), and determine and fill staffing and training needs. Issues related to transparency in fees, procedural safeguards, determination of a child's eligibility for intercountry adoption, criminal penalties and the creation of a strategy to formalize and strengthen the domestic adoption system will all need to be addressed effectively.
The United States continues to support Cambodia's desire to create a child welfare system and an intercountry adoption process that fulfills its obligations under the Hague Intercountry Adoption Con
