Greetings! I made it to Indianapolis, Indiana. To recap: In my recent ICAV blogs, I was blogging from Oahu, which has been my home for half a decade. After my fellow Filipino American brother, a previous Honolulu resident, unexpectedly passed away last year, my life changed for me. And after that summer, I knew I had finished my time in Hawaii. All in all, I was ready to settle down. It was time to grow roots of my own as an adoptee.
After a lot of research and recommendations, I chose Indianapolis because of its affordable cost of living. This city was in the Midwest and I missed the Midwest since I grew up in Wisconsin. I missed the trees of the Midwest, and the four seasons, especially after living in Arizona and Hawaii most of my life.
To transition to the mainland, I moved from Hawaii to Southern Arizona to be near my adoptive family so that I could make visits with my grandparents. For one, rough school semester, I substitute taught, made visits to Phoenix and experienced my grandmother’s passing. After this loss, I gained more clarity on relocating to Indianapolis. Offhandedly, I secured a few part-time teaching gigs in the city. I found and contacted a Zen Center for residing in and practicing Zen downtown. It was the last days of my lease when I started driving to Indiana. Because somehow by then, I was able to secure a full-time job at the Indianapolis Public Library.
Taking a leap of faith, I drove with all of my possessions packed into my new Kia Soul. After living at the Indianapolis Zen Center for a week and starting my Zen studies, I found a cute apartment a few miles away in a quaint, walkable area called Broad Ripple, and made a permanent move. Old trees surrounded my patio. I furnished my place with enough furniture for one and settled in with Pualani, my cat that I brought from Hawaii. After a few more days, I brought in tropical plants. I re-started my junk journaling and letter-making, bought food from local Farmers Markets, and even started making friends with the Filipino and Asian adoptee community here.
My Goals For Next Year in Indianapolis: I hope to purchase a small, basic house where I can have a wood stove. I want to be able to burn wood and make fires everyday for myself. I envision having a small dog so that Pualani will have company. In this small house, I’ll have mostly re-used furniture and plants. I will be forever solo, just working full-time until I retire. I will have vacations where I can travel and teach English in other countries. I will take pictures and maybe publish my visual journals one day, from the collaging that I’ve been doing therapeutically. And lead a simple, peaceful life.
by Christina Soo Ja Massey, aka YooNett adopted from South Korea to the USA.
I shaved my Hair because of two Reasons: The upcoming Scottish Mental Health and Arts Festival in May 2021. My current state of declining Mental Health.
The Tears of Trauma I cried as a helpless Orphan in the past, I cry as an Adult throughout my entire Life.
I am an Overseas Korean Adoptee. Adoption is Not a Happy Ever After that some may try to make believe.
A homeless Overseas Korean Adoptee, telling of an Adoptive Family that does not discuss anything to do with his Adoption and previous Background. Loosing another Overseas Korean Adoptee through Suicide. Many Overseas Korean Adoptees who have been lied to about their past, present and Future. Many Suffering further Neglect or more Abuse of all Forms at the Hands of their Adopters. Just consider we have already experienced Traumas by loosing Birthparents in the first place.
In the 1970s and 80s Korea has been accused of child trafficking because of the increasing number of Korean Children sent Overseas for Adoption.
The Picture my Adopters received from Korea was of a Toddler with the Hair shaved off. I suffered from a rash on my head caused by Atopic Eczema. Atopic Eczema stays through out life retelling the story of every aspect of stress experienced by the Body. So does Post Traumatic Stress.
You may think of other people famous or not who shaved their head in a state of Mental Distress. Sinead O’connor, Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse … what ever their motive.
Shaving the head is recognised as a symptoms that can occur in connection to Mental illness, but not to any specific Form of Mental Illness. Sufferers often have gone on experiencing a mental breakdown soon After, maybe in a state of Mania … An attempt to regain control or a sign of loosing control.
There are numerous social media contributions online of people shaving their Hair off during the Lockdown of this Covid-19 Pandemic.
We urgently need to address shortcomings in the Mental Health Services. We need a safe and well resourced Environment in which Mental Health Professionals can continue Working. Better access to advanced Technologies and Social Media. More Diversity. More Holistic and individual tailored Therapies. Just to list a few.
As long as Mental Health Issues are continued to be unheard and unseen, there is little hope for more resources.
As an adult intercountry adoptee, having been outspoken now for 20 years in ICAV, I’ve often wondered whether my intercountry adoption was legitimate or not. That means asking questions like: did my Vietnamese parents really understand the legal concept of “adoption” and relinquishment? Were they offered any other types of support to keep me? Given I came out of war torn Vietnam, was my status really as a true orphan with no surviving parents or family? Was family and kin reunification even attempted before I was adopted out to Australia? And what about any attempts to place me in my own home country first? One day I hope to find the answers to these questions if I’m lucky enough to be reunited with my biological family.
I’m sure other fellow intercountry adoptees ask themselves similar questions at some stage in their life. These are the realities we face as we grow older, mature in our understandings of the complexities of intercountry adoption, and grapple to integrate our realities with the worldwide politics that created our lives, as we know it today.
To consider oneself as trafficked as an intercountry adoptee is challenging because of the legal definition which cuts us out and doesn’t allow any legal scope to take action against the perpetrators.
Human trafficking is the illegal movement of people, within national or across international borders, for the purposes ofexploitation in the form of commercial sex, domestic service or manual labour.
Trafficking in intercountry adoption certainly exists but we cannot take legal action because of the fact that no international law or framework exists to allow us to be legally considered as “trafficked” unless we can prove we fit the criteria of “exploitation for sex or labour”.
Yet within intercountry adoption, the degrees to which we can be trafficked can vary immensely. There are those who have:
outright falsification of documentation and were stolen from their birth families, sold into intercountry adoption for profit, where legal action was taken against those who profited and it was demonstrated in a court of law, that wrong doing had transpired.
documentation that could appear suspicious but at the time not questioned further; demonstrated years later to be inconsistent or incorrect.
paperwork that appears legitimate, but at reunion decades later, the story from birth parents does not match in any way the documentation provided by the adoption agency / facilitator.
no identity paperwork exists due to having been a “lost” child and with little attempt to reunify back with family, we became sold/transacted via intercountry adoption.
Where does the spectrum of having been “trafficked for intercountry adoption” start or end? Difficult to discuss when the concept is not allowed to exist in law. Even ISS International’s best practice learnings from these types of scenarios don’t label it “trafficking”, but refer to it as “illegal adoptions” in their Handbook. And out of the conclusions and recommendations in that handbook, the question has to be asked how many of the Hague signatories have a process to enable biological family, adoptive parents, or adult adoptees who suspect illicit practices (i.e., trafficking) be given any type of support or process – financially, legally, or emotionally?
On 7 December 2017, ICAV facilitated a small group of 7 intercountry adoptees representing India, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka to request the Australian Federal Government, via Department of Social Services (DSS), consider providing some financial support to those who have been trafficked in various degrees. For these adoptees, no amount of money is ever going to compensate for their losses and trauma directly brought on by the degree of trafficking they have endured. Not to mention their biological family! But we can at least ask that some forms of restorative justice be provided by the powers to be who facilitate adoptions and allow it to continue.
There is no way of ultimately fixing the dilemma caused by trafficking in intercountry adoption because adoption IS legally binding, despite the existence of cases of successful prosecution against those who falsified documents.
Sadly, the only legal case that can be made in intercountry adoption for known trafficking is for falsification of documents. The perpetrators get a slap on the wrist, some jail time, and a small fine (compared to how much they profited). In comparison, what does the adoptee or biological family get? Nothing. Not even services to help them move through and past this unnecessary trauma.
I want to raise awareness of the impacts trafficking has on those adoptees who have to live it, forever. Their voices are unheard and diminished by those who advocate for adoption. Their experiences go by without us learning from the mistakes and putting in place much needed processes and international laws to prevent further injustices like theirs. For them, even when the perpetrator is punished by law, they as adoptees are left to live the consequences with NO recognition of what they’ve had to endure. There is NO justice for them.
Please read Roopali’s story. Hers is an example of living the lifelong consequences of an adoption in which it appears her first parents did not voluntarily consent, nor was she a true orphan, and she was old enough to be listened to and given a choice. Her story gives voice to the extra challenges endured directly as a result of having been “trafficked” to some degree. She was brave enough to share her story to the Australian Government with ICAV in 2015 when we met the Prime Minister’s Senior Advisors. There was not a single dry eye in the room, we were all so affected by the obvious trauma she endures day to day. Trafficking of vulnerable children via intercountry adoption needs to stop!
I hope Roopali’s story encourages others to speak out and demand from their governments that action towards legal recognition of “trafficking” via intercountry adoption AND restorative justice needs to occur.
I made “Roses” from old magazines at a time in my life when I felt lost. I tore up and cut out tissue paper from earlier art projects, from pages out of books and discarded scrapbook paper. I assembled the mixed media on square backing. The word “heritage” was glued in the background.
The roses became the focal point. These turned out most clear and prominent in the piece, which hadn’t been planned at all.
As I begin to blog on behalf of orphaned issues and intercountry adoption, I realize this art I’m making revolves around having an orphaned identity, that I’ll try to address with my own perspective in this post.
Overall, there are many hard things to confront with this disposition even before healing can begin. In my experience, I had to confront how I was born, which meant accepting the most difficult part of the past that had undergone the trauma of severe displacement. Next, I had to mend the trauma with ongoing personal efforts of reconstruction and the power of belief.
A resolution that I found in having an orphaned identity is the promise of a new day. A promise that the sun will rise. That within the complex landscape of our lives there is a rose growing in the midst. And if we focus on what is blossoming, we might be able to tend to this new growth.
To those who have an orphaned past, who have experienced ultimate displacement where there is no going back, I can relate.
My feeling on this, is that this is where one can begin to move forward.
Step by step, day by day, we can reconstruct our lives and what heritage means to us, today, and with every new day ahead of us.
Rarely do we hear or see intercountry adoption from our biological family point of view but without our mothers, there would be no us! Adult intercountry adoptees are gradually becoming aware of how we can collaborate with our biological families and encourage them to become more visible.
I would like to introduce you to one such adoptee, Yennifer Villa who was adopted to Germany and born in Colombia. She is about to fly to her birth country where she will undertake a 6-9 month project entitled No Mother, No Child to capture mothers and their stories of relinquishment via the art of photography. She plans to showcase the end result of her work as a pop up photo exhibition to be held in Cologne (and possibly throughout Europe) towards the end of next year.
Yennifer is currently 29 years old and was adopted at approximately 2 years of age. Her age is estimated because she does not have official birth information about herself. From some paperwork provided through the German consulate and orphanage in Colombia, it appears she may have been with her mother for the first 3 months of life until she was placed in her orphanage. At some point, her mother’s visits stopped and Yennifer has never known why her mother never returned.
Intercountry adopted and raised in a small German town with an adoptive family who never talked about adoption to “try and make things easier”, Yennifer grew up hearing a comment said about her biological mother – “she was probably a drug addict and now dead”.
What a harsh reality for a young adopted person to have to grapple with! I can relate to the damage this has on our psyche growing up for I was told a similar thing about my biological mother – “she was probably a prostitute”.
As adults now, Yennifer and I know our adoptive parents didn’t tell us things like this about our mothers to be mean – it was the propaganda adoption agencies/lawyers/governments told to justify not knowing the nuances of why we were needing to be adopted.
Understanding the good intentions of her adoptive family and not wanting to be rude or disrespectful, Yennifer feels compelled to see for herself the truths of mothers in Colombia. She suspects mother’s stories are more complex and nuanced and via her project, aims to open the door to a greater understanding of why mothers in Colombia give up their children.
Yennifer is currently studying Sustainability & Design at Akademie für Gestaltung (Academy for Design) and it is through this, that the funding she collects will enable her to complete her project. She has not travelled to Colombia since being adopted to Germany as an infant so this trip will be momentous and memorable. Yennifer has peer adoptee contacts who will support her during her year in Colombia taking time to locate the mothers, spend time with them, and photograph them after learning about their experiences. Yennifer has been planning this project No Mother, No Child for the past 2 years and is feeling very positive and excited. The importance of her project is to change the narrative of “she was just a drug addict” to bring the realities and nuances of each mother who has had to relinquish to light via her photography.
This is not the first adoption project Yennifer has been involved with. Decoding Origins, the first Colombian anthology of adult adoptees was completed last year and Yennifer utilised her art skills as the lead graphic designer for the book’s website. Proceeds from the sale of the book have been collected to fund DNA test kits for Colombian biological families, some of which Yennifer is taking with her for distribution to mothers who contribute to her photography project.
Yennifer flies to Colombia on 10 November this year. Her goal is to raise $5.500EUR to provide funding for her equipment, travel and living expenses. She is ready to go and has a vision of what the photos might be but wants to meet the mothers, talk with them, engage them, and allow them to contribute to define the project so that it is truly about them.
We look forward to seeing some of Yennifer’s work on this project in the next year and hope it inspires other intercountry adoptees to consider how we might collaborate with our biological families and encourage them to become more visible in the intercountry adoption arena.
Abandoned Adopted Here is an adoptee coming-of-age representation en masse whereby we see for the first time the older aged intercountry adoptees of the 1950s and 60s giving insight as to how they navigated the space between two identities, cultures and countries.
I loved seeing so many creatives/artists in one medium reflecting on their journeys and sharing with such openness on what it means to be transracially adopted.
As an inter-country adoptee from the 1970s era, I loved being able to see a reflection of my own experience! The words many shared, describes mine, yet they are the older generation who I hadn’t publicly heard a lot from. Lucy has enabled them to find their voice which is so important in modelling to the next generations of adoptees growing up! I also learnt about the mass movement of Hong Kong children to Britain interwoven with the history of Britain and how it was so similar to my experience of coming to Australia prior to the multicultural era!
The film is an honest portrayal of the difficulties we navigate to fit in and ultimately how we reconcile and embrace the differences between our identities we were born into but lost versus the identity we inherit from being adopted.
Abandoned Adopted Here also sharply portrays the lack of preparedness adoptive parents had in those early 50-60s days and how it impacted on the adoptee – of being forced to conform to their white surroundings, stifling their natural curiosity questions which could have allowed openness but instead emphasised Britishness.
The documentary depicts the common struggle most transracial adoptees share of being judged at a physical level by people who don’t know us and then their shock when we open our mouths and speak with such clear adopted-tongue accents!
I love how the film interweaves excerpts from Lucy’s play which gives us an in-depth look at her own personal struggles, layered with the other artists and showing the commonalities inter-country adoptees share.
Abandoned Adopted Here is not just for adoptees, it challenges East Asians in general to “own” their input to the British empire’s history and expect to be included!
Terrific documentary by Lucy Sheen, intercountry adoptee from Hong Kong to Britain.
Her website about her documentary: Lucy Sheen’s Abandoned Adopted Here.
Review by Lynelle Long
Founder of InterCountry Adoptee Voices
Adopted from Vietnam to Australia
On Monday 7 December, I met in Sydney with Federal Minister Christian Porter who looks after Australian Social Services portfolio, which includes adoption. I presented him with a copy of the book The Color of Difference: Journeys in Transracial Adoptionand DVD The Girl in the Mirror (huge thank you NSW Post Adoption Resource Centre, Benevolent Society who donated the copies!) The book was instrumental in ICAV’s early beginnings and my own experience of the power of “group” i.e. sense of belonging with people who shared a common experience – and it is uniquely Australia’s first collation of intercountry adoptee’s sharing about the experiences of being adopted.
Our meeting went for only 30mins (cos he’s a very busy fellow!) He started by making note that this was highly unusual to meet face to face with an organisation not receiving Federal Funding.
Next, Minister Porter referred to the success of migrants who are allowed to enter Australia and assimilate well and become quite prosperous if they work hard – I think his inference was that this happens also with intercountry adoptees. He also mentioned he has Korean adoptees in his extended family who have done quite well for themselves! He asked how many intercountry adoptees are in Australia and when it was at its peak in terms of children arriving. I provided estimates based on my recall of Peter Selman’s statistics.
At his asking, I shared with him the following:
our beginnings of loss and how adoption is a lifelong journey and that at different stages various issues can come up (he asked for further details on these issues so we talked about race, identity, feelings of difference to our adoptive families and I dropped in Nancy Verrier’s book The Primal Wound as a reference). I asked him to imagine how he’d feel being the only white person in a black family.
the biggest issue for adoptees (domestic and international) is that our identities and inheritance rights get obliterated in the process of adoption because we get given a new or false identity.
we need lifelong support systems in place and as per research (eg Swedish) international adoptees can suffer more from mental health, depression, suicide, imprisonment rates than the non adoptee population.
Sth Korean adoptees worldwide are leading the way in pushing for changes to their sending country to ensure better supports and options are in place for our biological families.
He asked specifically about our views on the push for adoptions to be faster and with less red tape – I told him this might all be happening but the reality is worldwide international adoptions are on the decline and it is in the hands of sending countries who are now finding more local solutions first, which is in the interests of the child. I also said as per United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child adoption should never be the first resort.
I also spoke about some of the pitfalls of intercountry adoption, namely that the 1993 Hague Convention on InterCountry Adoption allows the exchange of unlimited amounts of money for a child and that this, together with the lack of legal framework to prosecute any wrongdoing, except for falsifying documents which has minimal consequences, allows the very dark sides of international adoption to occur ie trafficking.
He asked specifically had I met with AdoptChange and Deborra Lee Furness, when I said yes he asked what my views were. I mentioned we clashed because I raised the issue that their name at the time “Orphan Angels” was a one sided view of adoption ie not taking into account the experiences of adoptees and our sensitiveness to spreading the impression of us (the orphans) needing to be “rescued” by white wealthy westerners (the angels). I said the organisation needed to embrace political sensitiveness around including all people’s experiences of adoption, not only adoptees but also biological families and the truths about adoption i.e. that it is about serving the interests of the adoptive parents just as much as serving the interests of the child in need.
Minister Porter made mention that it was good ICAV was not too extreme on either end of the spectrum because it makes it easier for Govt to work with us and find commonalities on how to tackle issues.
He ended by making it known that there was an open door for us to himself and his Chief of Staff, Danielle Donegan, who was present and Paula Gelo (who ICAV met in previous Federal meeting) and that he was impressed by our work to date with Federal Govt.
He spoke about the need for reform giving example of how so many children in WA were in out of home care but only 3 adopted but acknowledged the pendulum can swing too far on each extreme and that it was about finding a balance. I mentioned the huge number of domestic adoptees in Australia who would also like to be consulted with to share their views on Australian adoption policy.
I asked what his intentions were for intercountry adoption and he noted he wasn’t going to get involved or change the current direction or mechanisms in place. I spoke about how we have had a 45 year history of intercountry adoptions in Australia and that we hope to work with Government to focus on improving things for adoptees and families involved. I stressed that if Government wants to keep costs to a minimum long term, we need the right supports in place to ensure positive outcomes. I also mentioned how Post Adoption Support for current adult adoptees continues to fall between the gaps of responsibility in the Australian Commonwealth-State Agreement.
All in all, I felt it was largely positive given the Minister requested the meeting. I feel the efforts over the past 17 years of building our adoptee networks and pushing for adult intercountry adoptees to be recognised in their own right to be consulted with by Government in policy is bearing fruit. It’s also a breath of fresh air from the previous Abbott Govt to see current Federal Government actively consulting those who are involved and impacted the most!
Many thanks go to Flora Carapellucci who recommended ICAV to the Minister for his second round of meetings on Intercountry Adoption!!
The Australian government has a biased and narrow view of intercountry adoption. Intercountry adoption has become a market fuelled by lobbyists insisting upon their right to parent, especially when biology fails them. Adoption lobbyists insist there are millions of orphans needing homes and so they ultimately lead the unknowing down the path of blindly believing it’s a win-win situation : let’s match the millions of children who deserve a family to couples who cannot have any through natural means. In the middle there are many unscrupulous baby traffickers who make money by taking advantage of this market driven system.
In the meantime, there are adult intercountry adoptees like me who think critically about what’s going on today and what went on over 40 years ago where it all began.
Stories in the media are rife with feel good images of adoptees who have lost their homeland and families. Adoptees have managed to survive and flourish and see themselves as benefiting but at the same time, confront the reality of their homelands where poverty, lack of education, and opportunity means their what-if-reality might have been a harder life. Why does media continue to promote a black or white image of adoption rather than a critical look at what’s really happening? Is it because lobbyists looking to adopt have wealth, influence, and social standing and hence take priority and have greater access to Government?
Since the Abbott Government came into power, we have seen many media stories portraying the adoption lobby agenda which happens to match the current government’s stance. Tony Abbott is seen personally engaging with AdoptChange founder and at one stage, even had the whole group meet and dine with photos published. By early this year I had enough of sitting by and watching the current government continue on in such a one sided fashion so I wrote to the Prime Minister requesting a meeting with a group of us, adult intercountry adoptees, who are not typically seen in the political arena of adoption.
It took a couple of months until I got a response but in the end, we were finally granted a meeting late in April with the Prime Minister’s Senior Adviser and Minister Morrison’s Adviser (note, we are not high priority enough to be granted a personal meeting with the PM). The meeting was attended by 6 adult adoptees from 4 states of Australia ranging in age from early 20s through to mid 40s, representing 3 of the main sending countries, Vietnam, Korea, and India.
As a group of adult intercountry adoptees, we presented the truths of our experiences to the PM and Morrison’s advisers. Our first point being – we do grow up! We don’t remain children forever! The Australian Government’s concept of intercountry adoption focuses on the needs of the child but fails to address that adoption does not end at the arrival of a child into the arms of a waiting couple. We grow up and we struggle at some stage to find a balance between what we’ve left behind involuntarily (our heritage, our genetic backgrounds, our culture, our language, our communities, our sense of belonging, etc) and what we gain from being raised in a wealthy western country. We continue to experience challenges along the way and hence, it is the responsibility of the current government to conduct ethical programs with sending countries and ensure post adoption support starts before we arrive and continues forever after.
It is normal to expect a good portion of adoptees to want to know at some stage what their birth information is – whether it be from natural curiosity or a medical necessity. We want accurate information – not made up information that leaves us following a paper trail that causes frustration and dead ends because it’s incorrect! The government needs to be ensuring we have appropriate avenues to explore this without having to fend for ourselves and be taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals who will again, gain from our vulnerable position. Many intercountry adoptees find we have to scrounge around for basic information that is our human right – to know our correct birth name, date, place of birth, and parentage. The government also needs to be ensuring we don’t blindly believe sending country governments claims that we are legitimate orphans. Something needs to be done to further vett this due to corruption in sending countries. The Korean adoptees who presented to the advisers shared about how they found they were never “orphans” – that upon reunion with their families, their stories were not about being abandoned because their parents died but because at the time, their families were struggling with poverty and lack of opportunities. Often as we grow to adulthood and reunion, many adult intercountry adoptees find adoption was the only available means of solving the problem of keeping us alive. Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) our government should be doing more to ensure, without doubt, we are true orphans before agreeing to bring us into this country via intercountry adoption.
We also shared the struggles of a trafficked adoptee – and we know there are at least 9 intercountry adoptees with this experience to date growing up in Australia. What has the Government put in place to support these children as they age? Who looks after their rights and interests to ensure they have an appropriate and impartial avenue to turn to? What happens to them should their adoption break down or their adoptive parents not be willing to help investigate any potential truths to their memories or claims from birth countries until they reach adulthood? Why should a child have to wait that long if they have real memories that could be investigated earlier rather than later? The harsh reality is a child is forced to wait but finds out their biological parent has passed away during this waiting time. Currently the Australian government does little to assist and has created a Trafficking Protocol . The reality of this protocol is its high level and does nothing to ensure state or federal government ownership to take the lead and ensure the well being of the adoptive family, adoptee, and biological family. The end result for the adoptee is the protocol simply highlights the gaps in roles and responsibilities between state and federal government because neither will take appropriate action. Perhaps they should speak to trafficked adult intercountry adoptees if they aren’t sure what “appropriate action” should look like? This is a prime example of how the federal government views its role in adoption as ending at the point where a child enters the country.
Trafficking situations should be thoroughly investigated by an impartial body who understands the key stakeholders involved (i.e. sending and receiving country central authorities, the federal police, lawyers, translators, etc). The current lack of any avenue or impartial investigation ultimately results in further compounding the trauma which the adult adoptee experiences. Our current protocol also offers no legal assistance to the adoptee – yet this is the one area in which expertise is absolutely necessary to ensure the rights of the child are protected and enforced. Australia runs the risk that we learn nothing from our worst case experiences and fails under their obligations as set out by both the UNCRC and The Hague on Intercountry Adoption.
Most notable about the current government’s Adoption Reform is their commitment, and pending launch, to spending approximately A$21m on a 1800-hotline that will provide a National One Stop Shop for couples looking to adopt internationally. This one stop shop is nothing new, just a shop front that will act to refer the couples back to their State/Territory Depts who will educate and ready them as best they can for the journey of intercountry adoption to begin. This one stop shop will not make the process of gaining a child move faster as we only have control of the vetting and readying prospective parents process – Australia has very little ability to increase the numbers of children or the pace at which children are sent to our country – this is totally within the sending country’s control. Worldwide, sending countries are declining in their desire to export their children and are focusing more and more on family preservation and maintaining community ties. We should be encouraging countries to continue in this manner and following guidelines as per the UNCRC to enable the child to remain within their birth country,if we are truly child focused.
Adult intercountry adoptees like myself view the Adoption Reform by Tony Abbott as very one sided. How can the Australian government act for only one group (the demand side) but fail to do anything for the actual children who are here growing up and the children who will arrive as a result of this push to make adoption easier and faster? How biased is this action by federal government yet within their own mandate, as can be seen at the Attorney General’s Department website of Roles & Responsibilities, it is federal government who ultimately hold general responsibility to ensure Australia’s obligations under The Hague Convention of Inter Country Adoption are upheld. Federal government is also responsible to ensure the state central authorities are upholding their roles within the convention and to which they’ve also jointly signed the Commonwealth-State Agreement for the Continued Operation of Australia’s Intercountry Adoption Program.
Under Australian law, the signed Hague Convention in Part 2 Section 6 says, “The functions of the Commonwealth Central Authority are to do, or to coordinate the doing of, anything that is necessary: (a) to enable the performance of Australia’s obligations under the Convention“.
Here are just a few questions based on known experiences of adult intercountry adoptees and I ask – what is the Australian government doing about upholding their obligations to those whom adoption impacts the most, us adoptees, given they are pushing for Adoption Reform?
As per Part 2 Section 6 “Recognising that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding,”
Q: what do we do to help those who aren’t lucky enough to have this? and how would Australia even know if an adoption is working well or not 2, 5, 10, or 20 years into the adoption?
As per Schedule 1
“Convinced of the necessity to take measures to ensure that intercountry adoptions are made in the best interests of the child and with respect for his or her fundamental rights, and to prevent the abduction, the sale of, or traffic in children,”
Q: what is Australia doing to request proof of “necessity” and “last resort measure” as outlined in the UNCRC to have children removed for intercountry adoption? And what are we doing to prevent trafficking – especially after the event?!
Article 4
“An adoption within the scope of the Convention shall take place only if the competent authorities of the State of origin—”
Q: how does Australia ascertain if the authority is “competent”? How is this measured when we are seeing generations of adult adoptees with forged/fake birth papers?
Article 4 a have established that the child is adoptable; b have determined, after possibilities for placement of the child within the State of origin have been given due consideration, that an intercountry adoption is in the child’s best interests; c have ensured that (1) the persons, institutions and authorities whose consent is necessary for adoption, have been counselled as may be necessary and duly informed of the effects of their consent, in particular whether or not an adoption will result in the termination of the legal relationship between the child and his or her family of origin, (2) such persons, institutions and authorities have given their consent freely, in the required legal form, and expressed or evidenced in writing, (3) the consents have not been induced by payment or compensation of any kind and have not been withdrawn, and (4) the consent of the mother, where required, has been given only after the birth of the child; and d have ensured, having regard to the age and degree of maturity of the child, that (1) he or she has been counselled and duly informed of the effects of the adoption and of his or her consent to the adoption, where such consent is required, (2) consideration has been given to the child’s wishes and opinions, (3) the child’s consent to the adoption, where such consent is required, has been given freely, in the required legal form, and expressed or evidenced in writing, and (4) such consent has not been induced by payment or compensation of any kind.
Q: what is done to PROVE or at least double/triple check outside the sending country that proper consent is obtained without coercion and the biological family correctly understand our western concept of adoption? And what is done when the child is old enough to understand and have a say for themselves? Why isn’t this being taken into account?
Article 9
“Central Authorities shall take, directly or through public authorities or other bodies duly accredited in their State, all appropriate measures, in particular to— a collect, preserve and exchange information about the situation of the child and the prospective adoptive parents, so far as is necessary to complete the adoption”
Q: what does the Govt do to follow this and make sure the data is accurate and not forged?
c “promote the development of adoption counselling and post-adoption services in their States”
Q: what does the federal government do to ensure an appropriate standard/level of service is available and how does this get measured without asking adult adoptees?
d “provide each other with general evaluation reports about experience with intercountry adoption”;
Q: surely these evaluation reports should include feedback from adult intercountry adoptees to central authorities on how it really has been and what’s going wrong or right and this feedback should be taken seriously and acted upon up through to federal level?
In who’s interests is current media and federal government promoting intercountry adoption reform? I say not in the interests of the “child” who grows up to become adults.
The federal government and media has an inaccurate perception of “the child” portraying a Maslow Hierarchy of Needs type view : that a sense of belonging, self esteem and self actualisation is at the top and only necessary after we’ve met the physiological survival needs through our first world offerings. Mistakenly our need for food and shelter become priority because our countries of origin struggle to provide this due to poverty. The reality is, if you listen to enough adult intercountry adoptees, you will begin to get a sense of the reality that our needs are not a bottom up ladder we climb in order of priority – these needs cannot be segmented, divided and prioritised. These needs must be seen as a whole whereby our need to remain with our community and heritage, being loved by them, is as important as our need for food and shelter or our ability to be loved by strangers.
Most importantly, our need to reach self actualisation comes from having adequate post adoption support in place from the beginning to cope with the separation from our beginnings. If Tony Abbott was serious about intercountry adoption and serving the interests of the child, we should be measuring outcomes and ensuring we have everything in place to best support what should be the last place option to give a child a good home/family in Australia.
The Australian government does very little to seek input into adoption reform policy from the realities of adult intercountry adoptees living here. This year, I have actively contacted on numerous occasions the Liberal, Labour and Green Parties. To date, we have only met with one of the PMs Senior Adviser and Minister Morrison’s adviser and time will tell whether they in fact took any of what we said seriously. Wouldn’t it be a change to see some commitment to the actual “best interests of the child” if a portion of, or a majority of, the $21m for the 1800 hotline was to be spent towards seriously upgrading the national post adoption support services that are hugely lacking for adult intercountry adoptees in scope, reach, and affordability.
To be serious, the Australian government needs to be creating diplomatic ties into each sending country to help facilitate adoptees returning to find biological family and community. The government should also be establishing long term central database of the children imported to Australia with as much of their accurate origins information as possible, so that in future years, we shall be able to have access to our basic information without it being in its altered form. This database should also be tracking and maintaining long term outcome information so we can actually evaluate as per the Hague Convention, whether the interests of the child are obtained. The Govt should also be advocating for those sending countries to ensure the biological parents have actually given educated and informed consent. How then can we consciously advocate for intercountry adoption and adoption reform if we have done nothing to ensure all measures were taken to help keep a child within its country, community, and culture?
In who’s interests is the current adoption reform? From an adult intercountry adoptee perspective, I say it is in the interests of couples wanting to adopt a baby. If we are serious about advocating for the best interests of the child, we would be following our ratified UNCRC more fully. There is a difference between being a true child advocate versus being an adoption advocate. True child advocates do all we can to empower communities and families to support their children and help them remain together eg. micro credit loans to help impoverished families find an income, community homes where orphans can be raised within a family environment with other children who are like themselves with parents from their own culture and race, etc. True child advocates focus on finding solutions for the child ahead of promoting adoption.
If we truly think critically about adoption and it’s long lasting impact forced upon our abandoned/given up beginnings, we would be fully aware of the additional impact that legally severing a child’s biological information in the form of creating new and false birth certificates has long term. Giving us falsified birth documents leaves no trail to trace our biological heritage if we desire. If adoption didn’t eradicate our original birth certificate and replace it with a new one listing our adoptive parents as our as-if-born-to-parents, it would be more suitable as a long term solution for children that truly aspired to being in the best interests of the child. We are not an object to be owned or purchased and creating falsified birth documents creates this reality for waiting couples.
Adoptees, us children who grow up, are what adoption is all about and we should be consulted at every level of policy development by governments in a real, not token, fashion.
Many in adoption circles and the wider public incorrectly assume if an orphaned and relinquished child could be adopted via intercountry adoption into a family of same race – the issues of racial identity, feelings of belonging, and cultural understandings wouldn’t be as difficult to deal with growing up.
I recently interviewed Prema, an intercountry adoptee, adopted into a same race family, who has experienced just as many difficulties as those of us, like myself, adopted into an adoptive family of differing racial background. This isn’t the first time I’ve listened to an adoptee expressing this. I guess it’s similar to the experience domestic adoptees have in-country, adopted into same race families, where some of them have expressed to me that at least for us intercountry adoptees of differing race to our adoptive families! “People can’t help but notice” the difference whereas for those in same race families, its harder for those complexities to be visible and therefore, harder for adoptees to receive much needed validation of their experiences.
For any same race adoptee, strangers don’t have the confronting skin and physical appearances to make them think about and ask questions – welcomed or not.
Here is Prema’s story so she can tell you for herself, that intercountry adoption is fraught with just as many complexities when adopted into an adoptive family of the same race.
Adoption is a kaleidoscope of experiences – we must honour and validate all of these stories and experiences to gain a deeper understanding of the impacts to those it affects.
Today we had an online panel with 6 intercountry adoptees representing the sending countries of Hong Kong, Vietnam, Korea, Bangladesh, & Sri Lanka. It was awesome to hear the variety of experiences and thoughts.
To view the panel click on the link below, keep in mind the first 5mins we experienced network issues but from then onwards, the video is clear and understandable. Well done to our fellow inter-country adoptees for being brave and speaking out!
Huge thank you to Pascal Huynh who has created, directed and facilitated these panels.
Click here for a transcript of my section on Why Post Adoption Support is Important and here for all the Online Adoption Panel Series relevant to intercountry Adoption.
