This was written upon request of ISS-IRC for their No.269 Nov – Dec 2023 newsletter, published on 16 Jan 2024. This is a Special Edition celebrating 30 years! The ISS-IRC provides technical assistance to the Central Authorities of the 1993 Hague Convention for Intercountry Adoption and their newsletter is distributed to the Central Authorities. In this latest newsletter, the ISS-IRC has kindly provided the 2022 intercountry adoption statistics and analysis. See their published report here.

I’m an intercountry transracial adoptee born in Vietnam in 1973, of Chinese origins, and questionably taken to Australia as a 5 month old baby with no birth or adoption documentation except for a passport. I was legally adopted later at the age of 16 years old and I grew up in a remote regional part of Australia where I lived an isolated life without any racial mirrors or people who had any understanding or openness to the issues a displaced person of colour experiences in a white majority, Australia. As a result, by my mid 20s, I was experiencing quite a lot of emotional distress which at that time, I didn’t connect to being adopted. I just knew I struggled and had no language to understand why. From exploring other areas of more obvious trauma I endured as a young child, I learnt about the power of group healing and connecting to others like me who shared similar experiences. From that lens, I sought adoption support but found nothing that captured the complexities I lived. Hence, I was inspired to create it myself. So began my 25 year long adventure into the world of connecting to intercountry adoptee peers and developing what is now one of the largest and oldest adoptee led spaces in the world, providing peer support, education and advocacy. My network of support is called InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV).

From this perspective, I am well placed to write about how things have changed over the past decades where adoptees weren’t visible nor heard, let alone sought for consultation or input into the very practices, processes, and legislation that control and determine our lives. Back when I first started ICAV, it was rare to read about or view an intercountry adoptee story. But over the past 25 years, I have witnessed and been part of this huge change where we have learnt so much from hearing many adoptee experiences. ICAV has played a role in enabling this via our website and the many resources we provide, possibly providing the largest online collection of voices across many birth and adoptive countries, but we have not worked in isolation as there are many adoptee led organisations and individuals who have also contributed to this massive shift to where adoptees today are now recognised as THE experts of our own experience. Many of us adoptees are professionally qualified and well educated, some working within adoption and related fields (like psychology, social work, and law), some like myself dedicating our lives to pushing for much needed changes. We have shown we are capable of speaking for ourselves from these multiple perspectives, no longer needing other professionals who don’t have lived experience to talk for us. Borrowing the phrase from the disability space and equally applicable for intercountry adoptees, there should be “nothing about us, without us”. 

The role I have played in leading ICAV and being at the forefront of advocacy, has been instrumental in having our voices recognised as experts and being sought after, and in some countries like Australia, being compensated for our expertise. I have always led by example to bring adoptee voices with me where possible, to every government meeting and encouraging governments to seek out their adult intercountry adoptee community so they can tap into the wealth of knowledge and experience, which only we can provide. One of the many benefits of doing this is that we provide an in-depth and nuanced perspective on how policy and practice actually play out over many years (decades), highlighting the deficiencies and the strengths so that we can aim to do better into the future for those who are already adopted and for any who are still being adopted. Our voices have contributed to governments coming to understand we are not perpetual children, we do grow up and speak for ourselves. We don’t remain helpless. We want to have input into the very practices and processes that control our lives. We want to help government and those involved in adoption facilitation to understand that adoption is lifelong and not just an instant in our life where we transition to new families. We speak out to highlight that support must be for our lifetime and into the next generations, that support is needed from culturally and racially informed perspectives, and that there are huge, complex nuances that make intercountry adoption different to domestic adoption, fostering or any other form of alternative care that requires specific supports. 

Due to the complex challenges many adoptees have faced over decades, we have also played a pivotal role in seeking that our voices be heard at the top most levels on the topics that are the hardest and toughest. To name a few, over the years ICAV has published resources on: the lack of citizenship for USA adoptees and the resulting deportation back to birth country; racism and its impacts; the extra challenges of living with disabilities and special medical conditions especially when adopted to countries with little medical support infrastructure; abuse and neglect within some adoptions; on suicide and deaths of our fellow adoptees and what’s needed for prevention; on searching for our biological families and being supported in reunion when we face so many barriers like lacking a common language and cultural understanding; and as victims of illegal intercountry adoptions. 

This year, we were invited to speak and present at the 1 year anniversary event of the UN Joint Statement on illegal intercountry adoptions. I made sure that for the very first time, the voices and experiences of biological family representatives from 3 different countries were included. You can view them here.

I hope to see the day that biological family experiences and voices come to be recognised by governments and non government organisations, as the true experts of their lived experience and be asked to attend and give input into adoption policy, practice, and legislation. It is important that platforms like the IRC, The Hague, and the UN help to illuminate the importance of having a variety of first family voices be heard and sought after, just as they have done for adoptees. What we must be mindful of in seeking this, is ensuring we support and empower biological families, who often have less and face more barriers so they can become visible. We need to help empower them, we have to actually care and ensure they are given adequate post adoption supports as a first priority. 

The shift I and other intercountry adoptees have made, from being isolated and alone, to connecting to each other, leading to healing and supporting ourselves to then becoming advocates and educators for much needed change and finding ways to influence intercountry adoption policy, practice and legislation, hopefully leads the way for the shifts our biological families step through too in the decades to come. As they start to find their voices, I hope we are ready to welcome and seek their input and assist to remove any barriers to include their input. They too are experts of their lived experience and I hope their perspective will add to shaping international standards in how we treat biological families in intercountry adoption. How we treat biological families, has a ripple effect in how adoptees experience adoption. It is immensely important that governments and professionals in intercountry adoption learn from and listen to lived experience from a range of perspectives, especially the views that challenge us the most, to do better and to address the harms that have occurred in the past.

Thank you to the team at ISS-IRC for seeking our input and elevating the voices of adoptees to government and professionals. 

Happy 30th anniversary! And happy 100th Anniversary to ISS this year! I look forward to your celebration in October!

Resources

A history of some of ICAVs Advocacy over the years

Lynelle’s latest interview with Adoption Unfiltered covering these years of advocacy and where to next