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.
The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs has just released a thoughtful essay on international adoption policy by Alison M. S. Watson, Head of the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. The piece,titled, Love and Legislation: The International Politics of Inter-country Adoption, focuses on the ethical limitations of the Hague Convention and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child where adoption is concerned, as well as the negative and incoherent attitude many international stakeholders display toward ithe issue. Professor Watson writes:
The debate surrounding inter-country adoption is not made any clearer by the somewhat negative tone that some of the most powerful intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (NGO's) that advocate for children assume in their views.
For example, UNICEF states that it supports inter-country adoption, when it is carried out in line with the standards and principles of the Hague Convention, but that it is a practice that can also pose significant problems and risks if children are unnecessarily denied the opportunity to live with their parents or relatives and/or are exposed to trauma and long-term emotional problems. UNICEF also states that the financial aspects of international adoption can encourage malpractice and accelerate the proliferation of poor quality orphanages, as well as diverting resources from the development of good quality alternative care for children in their own communities.
There is no doubt that there is truth in such statements—adoption does have a life-long impact on any child, and there are indeed financial incentives that can encourage malpractice. But many would argue that the amount of lip-service paid to these issues is out of proportion with the extent of these malpractices themselves. This is not to say that cases of corruption and child laundering do not take place—they absolutely do; however seeing inter-country adoption as somehow commensurate with such malpractice is to take a distorted view. Moreover, such sentiments take much away from the majority of bona fide adoptive parents who often spend significant time ensuring that their adoptions are ethical, and on trying to minimize the long-term ill effects on their child.
Read the entire piece if you can. It's well worth it.
Most of the adoptions already in the pipeline went forward under exceptions to the 2008 moratorium, but paperwork problems delayed... [cases from Vietnam's Bac Lieu province.] Vietnam now says it hopes to join the international Hague Convention on adoptions in October and that the pending cases must start over under those tighter rules, which bar prospective parents from even seeing the children until everything is finalized.
Some families blame the U.S. State Department for the hold up, arguing it has pressured Vietnam so hard to impose stricter regulations that their cases ended up getting stuck. They're now hoping for exemptions and have gained some leverage: Two U.S. senators have blocked President Barack Obama's pick for the new U.S. ambassador to Vietnam over the issue.
"If the Department of State can get a killer out of Pakistan, I think they can manage to get 16 unwanted orphans out of Vietnam," said Matthew Long of Merritt Island, Fla., referring to the U.S. mission that killed Osama bin Laden. He is waiting for the release of 4-year-old Ava. "They just need some help finding that will."
The orphanage is a two-room former prison deep in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Couples had rotated visits there before January, each time taking food, milk, clothes and toys for the children who otherwise receive very little.
Visits from prospective parents have now been cut off.
As with most newspaper stories of this kind, the writer focuses on the adoptive parents' struggle. Although I am sympathetic to them, I would like to see even more attention paid to the kids.
When significant concerns about ethics violations in a country's international adoption program arise, they need to be investigated. At the same time, we know from experience that every investigation results in collateral damage to children who are genuinely eligible for and in need of adoptive placement, and yet the international community lets this happen again and again. The 16 children featured in this story have been living in a two-room former prison for the past three years. Once those children reach adulthood, does anyone believe that they will view their prolonged institutionalization as a decision that protected their human rights?
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
According to the Government of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Education (MoE), all pending adoption dossiers that were not matched with children by December 15, 2010, will be returned and will have to be re-filed as Hague Convention cases once the Hague Convention is fully implemented. The Department of State will continue to monitor the developments in Kazakhstan and seek the confirmation of the Government of Kazakhstan when the new Hague Convention adoption process is in place. U.S. prospective adoptive parents whose dossiers are returned may refer to the description of the Hague Convention intercountry adoption process (the Form I-800A/I-800 process).
Affected prospective adoptive parents with an approved Form I-600A for Kazakhstan wishing to request a transfer of their approved Form I-600A to enable them to adopt from another non-Hague Convention country should refer to the USCIS website.
We travelled to Guatemala on March 4, 2007...to visit Anderson for the first time. We immediately bonded with him and felt like parents... The adoption was submitted to family court in Guatemala where it was determined in June 2007 that the mother relinquished the baby and that he was adoptable. During the week of June 16-23, 2007 we again visited Anderson for a week.
Anthony Gatto's first day with Anderson/Photo: Anthony Gatto
While we were in Guatemala, our attorney advised us of the “state of affairs” concerning adoptions in Guatemala. We were notified that at any time, the Guatemalan political system could vote on complying with the Hague Treaty as it relates to international adoptions.
In October 2007 Guatemala voted in favor of complying with The Hague Treaty but included no provision "grandfathering" all pending adoptions.
We appeared on the local news to bring attention to the issue. Despite the potential issues present in Guatemala, we again travelled to visit Anderson for the third time, December 7-15, 2007.
Due to the assistance of numerous members of the U.S. Congress, in February 2008, the Guatemalan government “officially” agreed to allow in-process adoptions to be exempt from the new laws. It should be noted that there was a significant amount of political turmoil in Guatemala at this time and as a result, the Guatemalan government during this four-month period was processing no adoptions.
Due to the uncertainty of the political climate, our file was not submitted for processing until March 10, 2008. During the last week in April 2008, President Colom dismissed the Attorney General of Guatemala. This also caused more delays since the Attorney General’s office processed adoptions.
On June 24, 2008, we were notified that Anderson’s “aunt” filed a petition in court to adopt him. Anderson’s mother told our attorney that she did not want Anderson to go with her sister. On July 1, 2008, we were asked by our Guatemalan attorney to write a letter to Anderson’s mother telling her how much Anderson means to us and provide photographs from our visits. We complied and were informed these were to be used at a hearing on July 17, 2008. Our attorney appealed the issue and it was brought before the Court of Appeals. After numerous postponements, a hearing date was set for March 17, 2009.
After eight months, our attorney asked if we still interested in adopting Anderson. We said yes. She informed us that the judge had not made his decision but the mother testified at the hearing that she wanted us to adopt Anderson, not her sister.
The birthmother went so far as to attend a formal deposition with the District Attorney, Attorney General and went on record stating she wants us to adopt her child, not her sister or other relatives.
On March 28, 2009, we were notified that the judge ruled in our favor and the adoption could continue. Despite the order form the Court of Appeals, the Guatemalan government refused to release our file for processing.
On May 30, 2009, we visited Anderson in Guatemala for the fourth time for 10 days.
We have been prohibited from visiting him since that time since the Guatemalan government raided the orphanage and took all the children in July 2009 into “protective custody.” The last we have seen or heard about Anderson was from a Guatemalan television station that showed footage of him being placed in a bus surrounded by Guatemalan Police holding machine guns.
This story left me feeling weak, for it echoes what I experienced in India in 2003, where dozens of children who were taken by force into "protective custody" have never been accounted for, and court orders to release children were unaccountably ignored by government officials.
Adoption critics will argue that Anderson should remain in Guatemala. They'll claim that his mother is being coerced into placing him with an American family, and that at the very least, he should be placed with his aunt. But what if Anderson's first mother genuinely wants the Gattos to raise her child? Don't her wishes matter? At the very least, can all the parties to the adoption debate agree that is unconscionable and repugnant for a government to take children by force and make them disappear?
My heart goes out to Anthony and Megan Gatto for having the courage to tell their story.
The State Department issued an adoption alert yesterday for the Ukraine.
The Eastern European nation is expected to pass a moratorium on inter-country adoptions, possibly as early as December 16, that would include a suspension of all adoptions in process. The moratorium is part of a bill designed to prepare the Ukraine to move to a system of bilateral agreements for adoption or to join the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption. The State Department alert notes:
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv is active in encouraging its counterparts to consider the Hague Adoption Convention as the best means to address concerns in the adoption process and to safeguard cases in progress. The Embassy is monitoring the situation closely. Any prospective adoptive parents with cases currently open in Ukraine are encouraged to contact the U.S. Embassy Kyiv Adoption Unit. The Embassy maintains a listserv to communicate with U.S. citizen prospective adoptive parents and will use this to send updates as information is available.
As of November 1, Kazakhstan is a party to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. The Central Asian country will not accept any new intercountry adoption dossiers until it completes adoption reforms, which is expected to be spring 2011, at the earliest.
Processing of Convention adoptions from Kazakhstan
On or after November 1, 2010, a U.S. citizen seeking to complete a Convention adoption of a child habitually resident in Kazakhstan may file a Form I-800A as specified in the Form I-800A instructions. Prospective adoptive parents and adoption service providers should be aware that the Government of Kazakhstan continues to revise its intercountry adoption regulations, including those that will establish the number of and requirements for foreign adoption service providers. The Government of Kazakhstan stated it will not accept any new intercountry adoption dossiers until the adoption reforms are complete and its intercountry adoption process meets Convention standards. The Government estimates these reforms will be in place and that new intercountry adoptions may resume in March 2011. Prospective adoptive parents are warned not to enter into any agreement, implied or stated, regarding the prospective adoption of a child in Kazakhstan until such a time as the Government of Kazakhstan establishes the requirements and regulations governing the intercountry adoption of its citizens. The United States Central Authority cautions adoption service providers that they should not offer or appear to offer adoption services in Kazakhstan (other than for those transition cases still being processed under the former regulations) until the Government of Kazakhstan authorizes specific adoption service providers.
Transition (orphan) cases
Prospective adoptive parents who may already have filed a Form I-600 or Form I-600A should also be aware of the Government of Kazakhstan’s position on “transition” cases. The Government of Kazakhstan announced that cases will qualify as transition only if the Kazakhstani Embassy or Consulate General sent the dossier to the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs on or before May 25, 2010. These transition cases will be processed under the former procedures. Hague implementing measures will not affect the processing of these adoptions. Thus, prospective adoptive parents who filed a Form I-600A or Form I-600 before November 1, 2010, may need to file a Form I-800A, if the dossier was not sent by May 25, 2010. Information regarding adoption requirements and procedures in Kazakhstan will be posted as soon as it is made available.
I've been meaning to write about the Guatemala 900 political campaign for months. (Information about Guatemala has been missing from this blog for too long!) According to Guatadopt, the most comprehensive source of information about international adoption from Guatemala on the web:
On January 1, 2008 adoptions in Guatemala abruptly changed from a privately run system to government run entity. The 5000 adoptions that were “in process” at the time were “grandfathered” to finish under the laws in which they began. Although the Guatemalan government promised to expeditiously process all of these grandfathered, pre-Hague adoption cases in a timely and reasonable manner, now almost...[three years] later approximately 900 children are still waiting to join their families.
The Guatemala 900 campaign...[was] launched as a voice for these 900 children and asks the governments of the United States and Guatemala to work together to ensure speedy due process for the remaining grandfathered cases.
DO NOT contribute to Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF supported by Toys”R”Us this year!
At this point in time, the Guatemala 900 and its vast community of supporters cannot endorse UNICEF’s Halloween drive due to the following:
While UNICEF is known to be the largest advocate and provider of child welfare worldwide, in reality, its policies and influence in Guatemala and other developing countries have left hundreds of thousands of children without the love and stability of a permanent family.
UNICEF currently provides financial and technical support to organizations in Guatemala that are actively terminating legal, legitimate adoptions leaving children to languish for years in institutions while loving adoptive families await them.
UNICEF endorses legislation worldwide that severely restricts a woman’s right to choose an adoption plan for her child as well as her right to privacy.
UNICEF offers no reasonable interim plan for children who are currently living outside parental permanency and little support for countries like Guatemala to care for the children who would otherwise live secure lives with a loving family.
We need you to do 3 things in the next week leading up to Halloween!
Your actions can help change the futures of thousands of orphaned and abandoned children in Guatemala and millions worldwide, and it won’t cost you a dime (well…maybe a stamp)!
Notify your social networks, schools and churches immediately. DO NOT accept the status quo and DO NOT donate to UNICEF this Halloween. Give candy instead, kids like it better anyway! Use the attached flyer to help educate your friends, family, and social networks on how UNICEF’s policies deny children around the world the right to a permanent and loving family.
Email Gerald L. Storch, Chairman and CEO, Toys”R”Us, Inc., letting him know you DO NOT accept the status quo. See attached letter for reference. Feel free to personalize. Please also mail a hard copy.
If you are a waiting Guatemala 900 Family notify your MOCs and press contacts about this campaign and ask them for their support!
Someday I will write the complete story of my own failed adoption of a little girl from India. There, too, UNICEF played a role in sparking and exacerbating the crisis. During the 18 months I spent in Hyderabad trying to pull the adoption through, I met extensively with UNICEF workers. They were good people -- who exhibited a range of opionions about inter-country adoption. I came away from the experience with respect for these individuals, but also with the conviction that UNICEF as an organization is indeed anti-adoption at its core. UNICEF's size and diffusiveness also make it a highly inefficient dispenser of aid. I stopped giving to UNICEF a long time ago.
This report from the Ethiopian press of US Senator Mary Landrieu's recent visit mentions plans for Ethiopia to sign the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption.
