This year has marked 25 years since I began ICAV and as we near the end of the year, I reflect on the achievements and milestones made during these years. It has been my life mission to create a space for intercountry adoptees by intercountry adoptees. The changes over these years in our community have been massive and impressive. I can’t wait to see what is coming in the next 25 years as adoptees not only continue to find their voices, but turn it into purposeful action like we have seen published in the media recently. In Belgium, they have become the first country to make the changes necessary to their legislation to recognise illegal intercountry adoption as a form of human trafficking. This has been a huge barrier to prevent us addressing the wrongs in intercountry adoption, beginning 7 decades ago.
I am honoured as founder of ICAV to have played a role in some of these changes and to have served my community to help ensure others like me are seen, heard, validated, given appropriate supports, and changes made to address the wrongs and ensure they are not repeated.
I am contacted by hundreds of adoptees a year from all over the world, and through ICAV we provide peer support, validation, and understanding and refer them to services and spaces provided by fellow intercountry adoptees, as well as other professionally funded spaces, to be supported in the ways they are seeking.
ICAV plays a unique role globally by connecting many adoptee leaders and advocates together. We share, connect, collaborate in advocacy and education initiatives, and provide the core foundation of peer support. Its incredible to see the breadth of formal and informal services and supports adoptees provide to each other and you can see some of this at our Post Adoption Support pages.
The ICAV facebook group currently has over 2,000 adoptees (many of them leaders of adoptee led groups) and the space acts to help keep the community updated with what each other is doing, sharing news/info relevant to intercountry adoption, with calls to collaborate where we can and highlighting each other’s initiatives and how we can help support these.
The ICAV website provides a ton of information to the community, having gathered our stories and voices over the decades and providing one of the best resources in the world that gives voice to the complexities we live.
ICAV is one of the oldest adoptee led platforms available on the internet and was the first to include adoptees and adoptee orgs from any birth and adopting country. For this reason, ICAV has led by example for many years in demonstrating the power of collaborating together across birth and adoptive countries to share our voices with the complexities to educate and advocate for the changes we need.
Here’s a summary of the history, key milestone and achievements in Australia and internationally over the past 25 years.
Key Milestones and Achievements in Australia
1997: I contacted NSW PARC looking for support, there was none for adoptees of colour specifically. I gave them my name and number and said I would start a group for people like me.
1998: I formed InterCountry Adoptee Support Network (ICASN), created a website, and began to provide a space for peer support, running face to face groups in each State, and country of origin representatives. We told our stories to media, adoption professionals and social workers. Our book The Colour of Difference with NSW PARC was published in 2001 but it had taken 2-3 years to complete. We also provided adoptee speakers to each State for prospective parent education.
2005: collaborated with Operation Babylift documentary by Dai Le an ABC journalist, telling the story of the first en-masse group of intercountry adoptees into Australia. ICAV connected to the wider community, to State central authorities and NGOs in post adoption support.
Sept 2005: Senator Bronwyn Bishop launches an inquiry, Overseas Adoption in Australia to examine the inconsistencies between states on their intercountry adoption regulations. ICAV leaders testify at the Bronwyn Bishop inquiry. The inquiry resulted in the formation of the National InterCountry Adoption Advisory Group (NICAAG) that provided community consultation with the Attorney General who is the overall Central Authority for Australia in intercountry adoption. The group consisted of 14 adoptive parents and myself as the 1 adoptee representative role. The time in NICAAG was my introduction to the political setup of intercountry adoption by governments and the 1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption (1993 Hague Convention).
In summary, ICAVs first 15 years was spent connecting to each other, understanding our own adoptee experiences, building our knowledge and finding our voices. Then for 2 years, I took a break due to my own family commitments with young children. The next years is spent working directly in advocacy.
2015: I decided to directly challenge government and advocate without adoptive parents. NICAAG had included by then 3 adoptees but still the balance of power in advising the Australian government was heavily skewed towards adoptive parents and their needs. I changed our network name to InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV) to reflect the importance of our voices speaking out in advocacy.
ICAV requested to meet with the Australian Prime Minister and took a group to meet the Prime Minister’s advisors. We asked that our voice be included in policy and practice. It was granted and ever since, we’ve been actively consulted as our own group.
2016: Deborra-Lee Furness founder of pro adoption lobby organisation AdoptChange was successful in getting the Abbott government to commit AUD$33.6m across 5 years for pre adoption to get more children from overseas into Australia. In consultation with the Abbott government, we as adoptees, managed to get the government to recognise we had up to 20,000 adoptees with a need for Post Adoption Services (PAS) and to reallocate some of these funds to PAS, serving the adoptee needs. Previous to this, adult intercountry adoptees were excluded from the funding and were not allowed to access the ICAFSS service which Relationships Matters provided.
2016: ICAV worked with International Social Services (ISS) Australia to successfully be granted a Search n Reunification service funded and established, but it was seed funding only for 2 years.
2016: ICAV proposed an application/tool to assist in our searching, a bit like a wotif for adoptees wanting to search with search orgs/individuals listed and rated by users. The Australian government funded a thinktank workshop led by BlueChilli, run in July, to bring us together and outline what such an application would require. Unfortunately, without funding such an application could not progress.
2017: The Colour of Time: A Longitudinal Exploration of Intercountry Adoption in Australia, the book sequel to The Colour of Difference, was released which had been funded by the Australian government via ISS Australia. It brings half of the participants in the Colour of Difference to share their story 15 years on from the first book, an attempt to start to share the lifelong journey as intercountry adoptees.
2020: ICAV facilitated adoptees to participate in the ICAFSS consultation and our feedback allowed us to have Small Grants & Bursaries as well as mental health support.
2021: funding provided to ICAV to create the Video Resource for Professionals (teachers, doctors and counsellors) on what we want them to understand from our lived experience. The project was completed in 9 months and also includes a global list of resources for those professionals.
2021: ICAV was commissioned to source adoptee artwork for the Suicide and Adoption report completed by academics, Ryan Gustafsson (Korean adoptee) under the supervision of Prof Patricia Fronek at Griffith University.
July 2021: the ICAFSS Relationships Matters contract ended and is currently awarded to Relationships Australia until mid 2026. ICAV continues to be actively engaged to consult on the design of the Small Grants and Bursaries program.
Sept 2022: upon the publication of the UN’s Joint Statement on Illegal Intercountry Adoptions, I again wrote a letter to the Australian Prime Minister again seeking recognition and acknowledgement of the victims of illegal intercountry adoptions to Australia.
In Sept in Melbourne (VIC), ICAV and Ra Chapman co-hosted with Malthouse Theatre to provide a community evening event showcasing her play K-Box for the intercountry adoptee community.
2023: the anniversary of the Forced Adoption Apology – in collaboration with AUSKRG, ICAV created a petition letter, asking the Australian government to recognise our illegal and illicit adoptions. AUSKRG and ICAV also created a survey for those impacted by illegal adoptions to complete and in March, I met with the Australian government to present these findings and discuss my request to the Australian Prime Minister. Sadly, this again resulted in no change in Australia’s stance: there remains no recognition or formal acknowledgement of the history of illegal and illicit intercountry adoptions in this country.
July 2023: WhereTo, funded by the Australian government, sought ICAV to consult and feedback directly with the adoptee community on the current ICAFSS service. This has been the first time the consultation was led by us.
Oct 2023: ICAV met with the UN Special Rapporteur to submit a report from lived experience on the lack of acknowledgement from the Australian government on the history of illegal and illicit intercountry adoptions.
Key Milestones and Achievements Internationally
2017: Via the support of Brazil Baby Affair (BBA), I contact the Hague Permanent Bureau to find out the criteria to become an Observer at The 1993 Hague Convention meetings.
ICAV publishes it first paper directly focusing on one of the core human rights abuses in the USA for intercountry adoptees who are being deported and still fight to this day to be granted automatic citizenship, resulting from their intercountry adoptions. We present this to the US Dept of State in a meeting with US adoptee leaders.
2018: ICAV via the Australian government and consulate presented to the Vietnam Ministry of Justice seeking post adoption supports for the global community of Vietnamese intercountry adoptees.
2019: ICAV invited to be part of the Working Group on Preventing and Addressing Illicit Practices in Intercountry Adoption. The resulting toolkit was finalised and published in 2023 and provides advice to all governments who sign the 1993 Hague Convention.
With the Hague Permanent Bureau, ICAV helped to facilitate the gathering of adoptee association leaders to meet face to face at The Hague on 29 May 2019.
ICAV invited to represent intercountry adoptees at the ICAB 15th Philippine Global Consultation of Child Welfare Services (Sept 4-6).
ICAV invited to represent intercountry adoptees at the Central Authority for the USA, State Department’s Intercountry Adoption Symposium (Sept 17 & 18). Since then, the US Dept of State has been running a regular Adoptee Town Hall event, inviting adoptees to connect to the US Dept of State to have their say and voice their concerns.
2020: ICAV presented our perspective paper Lived Experience Views on How Authorities and Bodies Could Respond to Illegal and Illicit Adoptions to The 1993 Hague Convention Working Group.
2021: ICAV presented our Video Resource for Professionals to the Quebec Central Authority. A few months later, ICAV provided a forum with Canada’s adoptee leaders to the Quebec Central Authority who were seeking consultation on the development of their Search and Reunification Services.
Mar 2022: ICAV represented illegal adoption victims in our global collaborative, Voices Against Illegal Adoption (VAIA) to the UN and gave input into drafting the Joint Statement on Illegal Intercountry Adoption, published in Sept 2022. ICAV raised the issue of post adoption services, eg search and reunion, to also be included with having the need for scrutiny and guidelines to ensure adoptees are not taken financially advantage of during this vulnerable stage of our journey.
Together with Child Identity Protection (CHIP), ICAV worked to draft this briefing note: Safeguarding Search for Origins from Illicit Post Adoption Practices and gather adoptee organisations wishing to jointly sign.
In June, ICAV presented 8 representatives from a broad range of birth and adoptive countries to represent our interests at the Hague Special Commission meetings.
June 2023: ICAV represented adoptee interests in The 1993 Hague Working Group on the Financial Aspects of Intercountry Adoption.
In July, ICAV provided an adoptee presentation to represent New Zealand intercountry and transracial adoptee interests to the Oranga Tamariki Ministry for Children, New Zealand.
In Sept, ICAV leads the English speaking collaborative VAIA to work together and we presented at the UN Joint Statement 1 Year anniversary event. ICAV ensured the voices of biological families are heard for the first time with representation from 3 countries: Uganda, Ethiopia and South Korea. ICAV also presented the paper: Victims of Illegal Intercountry Adoptions Speak Out.
Through all of this advocacy work, ICAV continues to provide peer support to our community, raise awareness and provide education via our webinars, ongoing blogs and perspective papers.
So it’s time to celebrate our gains and say Happy 25th Anniversary to ICAV! With thanks to Relationships Australia ICAFSS for organising this cake as a surprise and helping us celebrate earlier in Adelaide this year.
A huge thanks to all adoptees who have worked tirelessly with little to no funding for these past 25 years to provide for our adoptee community! It’s amazing what we can achieve through sheer hard work and passion!
To the one generous family who donated substantial funding to ICAV during the past 5 years – a huge heartfelt thank you!
What a great way to end the year. In 2024, I’m looking forward to our first international European gathering of intercountry adoptees via the INEA congress on 23 March in the Netherlands and our ICAV social event in Belgium afterwards! Stay tuned for more info!
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