States and Babes:

States and Babes:
A Personal and Political Perspective
on International Adoption

By Albert S. Wei, weialber@dial.pipex.com

(This feature first appeared in the Spring/Summer 1998 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

Late-night. Work-station green flickering with CNN images of
the human crisis in Indonesia on one window, reeling commodity prices
on another.

A bell signaled incoming mail and a new window popped open-an attach-
ment from my parents with a note: "'The information you requested .. "

I double-clicked and a digitized image of an old mimeograph materialized.
Scanned documents. This was a dossier-the means by which state
authorities conduct their business the world over. "Report of the Agency
to the Department of Social Welfare," petition number, department number,
case number, matter of, filed, case history. I was looking at a hidden
report on myself and the first bureaucratic validation of my existence.

Some scrolling brought me to the following: "The minor's mother, age
25, was of the Oriental race, of Korean descent, and of Christian faith." Not
American. Resident of a foreign country. And aside from the fact of
my bastardy, everything I had previously been told was a lie.

My goal here is to cast some illumination on the landscape of international
adoption, what it means to me, and perhaps what it may say about
society's ethics and values. International adoption may be defined as
a practice for facilitating adoption of minors by adopters whose nationality
differs from that of the birth parents. According to Bill Clinton's Press
Secretary, "It is estimated that U.S. citizens annually adopt as many chil-
dren from abroad as all other countries combined." More than 13,620 children
were adopted intemationally by U.S. citizens in Fiscal Year 1997. (White
House Press Release, July 1 l,1998).

As an adoptee and student of international relations, I was interested in
intemational adoption, even though I had no reason then to think such a
thing might apply to me. I found there were humane laws of the type
I expected my country would affirm in the conduct of its global respon-
sibilities. Article 9 of the United Nations Declaration on Social and
Legal Principles Relating to the Protection and Welfare of Children
states that "T'he need of a foster or an adopted child to know about his or her
background should be recognized by persons responsible for the child's care
unless this is contrary to the child's best interests." Article 24 states that
"Due regard shall be given to the child's cultural and religious back-
ground and interests." Article 8 of the Universal Convention on the
Rights of the Child states "States Parties undertake to respect the right
of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name
and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference: '
Nice words. There is mention of other, equally enlightened, protections as
well: (i) international adoptions should occur only in the best interests of the
child and where no viable domestic altemative exists, (ii) no material gain
may accrue to those involved, (iii) countries agree to prevent and reverse
illegal adoptions, and (iv) countries should enter into treaties which
regulate such adoptions.

Seven years later, staring at those scanned mimeographs, such nice
words suddenly deconstructed. I was bom in the U.S. as the issue of some-
one who had been brought into the country for the express purpose of
having a baby and then returning to her country of origin--one variety
of international adoption. In my case, all markers to the past had been erased:
nationality, race, cultural heritage, religion-all those entitlements I had
been taught were the right of every person had been deemed irrelevant.
My own parents had been told in as many words that they were free to
consider their new child to be from any ancestry their fancy saw fit.

It can be difficult to get a real picture of what international adoption is like
in the field. I work in development: institution-building in poor countries,
enabling progress out of poverty. This process assumes long-term
solutions-societies must learn to solve their own problems. People
suffering will continue to do so, hopefully with declining incidence,
and gradual progress is carefully monitored and documented. To the
contrary, international adoption is about a quick fix: poverty presents
opportunities for would-be parents to instantly "rescue" children, often
under the nose of development initiatives, or upon their failure or
repudiation.

This process is little monitored or documented. What glimpses I have
had of international adoption in the course of my professional travels have
been limited, but suggest an ambivalent global context: swaddled orphan babies
shepherded by nuns onto a bus to Mumbai's Santa Cruz airport; a pack-
age-tour of hopeful adopters on their way to a Russian orphanage; a BBC
short-wave story about how difficult it is for Russian women to adopt
because babies are prioritized for the foreign market; an article about Baby
Frita, stolen from her family in war-torn Bosnia and wrongfully adopted
in the U.K. (Times of London, Feb. 19,1997); or an editorial in an Indian
newspaper weighing superior "material prospects" for Indians adopted abroad
against the psycho-social risks allegedly faced by adoptees cut off from their
homeland (T'imes of India, Oct. 20, 1996).

On the demand-side the landscape is less ambiguous-international adop-
tion is now about big bucks, the center of an industry of baby catalogues,
tours, books and other paraphernalia (e.g., www.rainbowkids.com). This
new face of American adoption may be seen in the practices of organiza-
tions like the Texas-based Gladney Agency: wholesale corporate glitz,
a brand-name Gladney Baby custom-sourced and outfitted for your tastes.
Not one to be frustrated with the post-1973 decline in white domestic babies
available for adoption, Gladney went global. This was presumably part of
its strategy to respond as "adoption becomes more competitive on both
the domestic and international fronts " as it states in its 1997 annual report,
which cites the conclusions of a Bill Pierce-led board retreat in 1996. It
now imports many of its babies from abroad, through what it terms
"collaborative partnerships" in China, Guatemala, Vietnam and the Russian
Federation.

Last year, Gladney's snazzy web site included a section complete with
catalogue-style photographs and descriptions, an example of which
follows:

"Nadezhda is a lovely girl with dark hair and eyes of gypsy descent.
She is healthy with no known illnesses. She is a friendly child who is kind
and likes people. She is very artistic and likes to sing, dance, and draw. "

This list disappeared from the web shortly after a spate of incredulous
posts on the internet, to be replaced by more generic pictures of smiling
adoptive parents. (See www.gladney.org/international)

To its credit, Gladney eschews quoting price-points online. Some
of its less blue-chip competitors do not seem to have such scruples. A
Ventura, Califomia-based agency, for instance, offers a web-site
referring to adopters as "clients" and contains detailed information on
the price of its babies, complete with the disclaimer "All costs are approxi-
mate and subject to change" and "No guarantees can be made about the
medical condition of a child." Prices for infants from China are indicated
as an example: (www.adopting.org/asichina.html): "Home Study Agency-
$2,940, Overseas Fees $9,260, Travel-$2,500 per person, Total
$14,660." The only thing lacking seems to be the ability to reserve
your baby right on the Internet.

A report prepared by a United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights,
entitled "Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children," focused on
such commercial adoptibn practices as well as other forms of child
exploitation (General Assembly, 49th Session, Item 101,1994). The report
concluded that the global situation with respect to commercial adoption
was "disconcerting" and singled out for criticism approximately ten
countries. For instance, it described how Russian babies are adopted
abroad for $10,000 to $50,000 per infant, even though Russian law
then prohibited such transactions.

Practices in the U.S. were referred to as "disquieting" with the report citing
the failure to set up required monitoring procedures, a pattern of agencies
engaged in commercial adoptions, and cases where illegal international
adoptions by Americans had been upheld. As of today, the U.S. has not
ratified a single international treaty for regulation of international adoption.
In an article on, oddly enough, welfare reform, the inlluential Heritage
Foundation summarized some of the reasons for opposition and called for
the rejection of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as anti-adoption.
(Heritage Foundation Backgrounder 1045, 27 July,1995).

The article complained: "This charter could preclude adoptions for millions
of children over time and deny U.S. couples the option of adopting foreign
children." As an alternative, conservatives have embraced the loosely
worded and arguably unenforceable Hague Convention in Respect of
Inter-Country Adoptions, which was submitted to Congress for ratification
on June 11, I998. In his letter to Congress, the President noted that
the Hague Convention recognizes adoptions should be in the "best inter-
ests" of the child AND the adopting parents, a apparently emphasizing its
compromising nature and contradicting other treaties.

To begin and end this article in Indonesia, I find myself in front of
my computer again, looking at much the same screens some months after
that night when my world changed. Another bell and another message-
a newspaper article from a fellow activist in New Zealand. American
baby broker Erica I,angenbach was deported in May after serving a brief
prison term there for her role in a conspiracy to smuggle purchased infants
from Indonesia to the U.S. through a complex pipeline with stops in
Singapore and New Zealand (New Zealand Press Association, May 28,
1998). She had been arrested in July, 1997, along with her client, a wealthy
but childless telecommunications executive from Austin, Texas.

This was a story from yet another part of the global landscape of
international adoption wanting for light but unable to withstand it,
poised between the nice words of toothless laws, the exploited hopes
of would-be American parents and the horror of what is happening in
the field. Perhaps some illumination on stories such as this one will provoke
enough global and domestic outrage to re-shape this landscape for the better.
Nice words may gain moral authority in America yet. Maybe.

Albert S. Wei is an adoptee from California and a member of BN's Education &
Training Committee. Al is a Director at a major American investment bank, where
he advises developing country companies and governments on telecommunications
and other infrastructure projects. He resides in Singapore.

(This feature first appeared in the Spring/Summer 1998 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)