Where is the Outrage?

It’s interesting to watch and read what goes on within the USA, the largest adopter of children internationally, into so called “forever homes”.

I’ve seen a plethora of internet articles from people and organisations who espouse saving children from their desperate situations or institutions and are upset that intercountry adoption numbers have plummeted in the past 15 years to the USA. Check out the latest from the National Council FOR Adoption by Chuck Johnson and by Elizabeth Bartholet, Harvard Law Professor.

I’m guessing these proponents barely hear the voices of adult intercountry adoptees who live it and can share what the experience has been like growing up in the USA or elsewhere, and whether we should be calling for more intercountry adoptions or to save the business or not — especially without learning lessons from the past.

I asked adult intercountry adoptees are we upset that intercountry adoptions to America (and elsewhere around the world) have plummeted? Should we make the process less stringent, with less balances and checks via government oversight, allowing private agencies to do as they had in the past? Membership within ICAV, an informal worldwide network of adult intercountry adoptee leaders and individuals who advocate for the needs of intercountry adoptees, answered with a resounding NO to both questions.

Why? Because many of us live the reality knowing intercountry adoption is not as simple as what the proponents try to gloss over. Adult intercountry adoptees talk openly about wanting to prioritise and ensure children are never stranger adopted internationally when families, social structures for support, or extended family and communities exist within their birth country.

Adoptees celebrate that intercountry adoption numbers have plummeted!

The reasons for numbers plummeting is complex and specific to each sending country, but overall we see our birth countries finally starting to create better alternatives for vulnerable families and are coming to understand their most valuable resource is their children! Imagine where our birth countries would be, if instead of exporting us, they’d kept us, raised us and been able to access resources from our adoptive countries?

Perhaps our birth countries have realised intercountry adoption doesn’t always equate to a “better life” for vulnerable children. Point in case are the thousands who sit fearful of deportation in the USA because if adopted prior to 1983, they are still not granted automatic citizenship. Intercountry adoptee led organisations, like Adoptee Rights Campaign, will tell you that US Congress and President don’t appear too outraged by the citizenship situation which intercountry adoptees face! Certainly not a lot of jumping up and down or drawing attention to this fact either by Bartholet or Johnson!

I hear from adult intercountry adoptees daily from all over the world. Many of our lived experiences, especially those who manage to find biological family, learn that often our adoptions were faciltiated because our biological families were not offered financial or social supports at the time. Then there are some cases (too many for my liking to ever thoughtlessly promote adoption) where our biological families were coerced, given false expectations e.g., education, without fully understanding the consequences of legal “relinquishment“.

As an adult intercountry adoptee, I do not see adoption agencies as “saviours” but rather as “exploiters” – financially benefiting from our vulnerabilities.

As adult intercountry adoptees, we prefer more government oversight and taking of responsibility for the lifelong journey of adoption! In the past, our adoption agencies have not always done the right thing: in preserving the truth of our origins, in ensuring we are true orphans, in making sure no undue financial gain from the adoption transaction, in providing adequate post adoption support for the duration of our life, etc. In the past, our birth and adoptive governments have sometimes (often) turned a blind eye to the troubles persisting that give intercountry adoption it’s legacy of illegal adoptions. We as adult intercountry adoptees could never state enough how necessary it is to have independent oversight of any intercountry adoption process with direct and real input from those who live the experience, the adoptees themselves!

Lessons learned from the past should include a country only taking us on via intercountry adoption IF they can also provide the much needed comprehensive and lifelong support services to ensure positive outcomes and a guarantee of permanency! This should include free psychological counselling, free search and reunion, free DNA testing, free returns to birth country, free translation services, etc.

A country should only give us away if they can also provide the much needed comprehensive and lifelong support services to our biological families who face the consequences for generations of having relinquished their children.

The emotional, social, financial and generational impact that relinquishment has on a birth family and country has never been studied!

As intercountry adoptees we face relinquishment not only from our biological families but also from our birth country. We live the emotional consequences of those decisions throughout our lifetime. We often question why the money spent on our adoption process could not have been provided to our biological family to facilitate us to remain with them, therefore giving the whole family better life options and resources.

I hope this blog will stimulate questions and thoughts about what’s missing from one-sided articles that proponents like Bartholet and Johnson promote. Instead of Bartholet asking “Where is the outrage over the institutionalised children denied adoptive homes?”, we should be asking these questions instead:

• Where is the outrage that vulnerable families are not given adequate support to prevent them from institutionalising their children?
• Where is the outrage for the children (now adults, some with children themselves) who were intercountry adopted to the USA prior to 1983 and are still denied permanency (i.e., Citizenship) via intercountry adoption?
• Where is the outrage over the institutionalised children being intercountry adopted and denied their human right to grow up in their own birth land – knowing their culture, language, values, customs, religion, and family heritage?
• Where is the outrage over the insititutionalised children who are intercountry adopted to countries like the USA, who end up in abusive or worse situations that should be prevented if agencies did adequate education and screening? In my mind, this is exactly why the US State Dept should be heavily overseeing all accreditation of adoption agencies and ensuring families are adequately prepared – and most importantly, implementing measures when an agency fails.

What is not in the child’s best interest, is to experience adoption disruption because of failure by adoption agencies who are rarely held accountable for adoptions that fail to provide for a child’s safety and well being, for their lifelong journey!

Bartholet, Johnson and other proponents of adoption write articles that fail to address the lived experiences of the hundreds of thousands of intercountry adoptees around the world, who can tell you what we think about plummeting numbers in international adoption. We can also share where we believe the focus should be to address the real issues.

What I find fascinating and inspiring are the adult intercountry adoptees who spend their life creating and maintaining ventures that provide support to one’s country, without taking away their most precious resource – their children via intercountry adoption. Ventures like NONA Foundation in Sri Lanka to help young women and girls who are disadvantaged, Foster Care Society in India focused on creating alternative forms of care, Family Preservation 365 in the USA, 325Kamra who provide free DNA tests to Sth Korean families in the attempt to reunite them, Centre for Social Protection of Children in Vietnam to help special needs and disadvantaged children obtain an education.

We need the focus to be more about keeping families and societies together and we should be celebrating when intercountry adoption declines — because it should always be the last resort for vulnerable families and countries, as per our human rights!