International Adoption:
Opening Pandora's Box
by Peter F Dodds, aphpub@nwrain.com

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

There is no groater sorrow on Earth
than the loss of one's native land.
--Euripides, Medea, v. 650-651

I was born to a German mother and a German father on German soil,
one of thousands of German children adopted by Americans from the
1950s through the 1970s. I have chronicled my life's experiences in
Outer Search\Inner Journey: An Orphan and Adoptee's Quest, the first
book on international adoption written by a foreign-born adoptee.

One of the purposes I had in writing Outer Search\Inner Journey was to
provide insight to all participating in the international adoption process-
social workers, mental health professionals, parents, policy makers,
lawyers-by shedding light on the harm caused by uprooting children
from their native cultures and heritages.

International adoption isn't the answer to improving the overall plight of chil-
dren in developing countries. Even the strongest supporters admit the move-
ment of adoptees across international borders represents only a tiny fraction
of the neglected, abused and abandoned children in these countries. And
supporters of international adoption are quiet about the children who are not
adopted and left behind.

• If parents choosing foreign adoption have as their primary motive a desire
  to save children, they need not look abroad. A concern associated with
  the delivery of domestic child welfare services is that children available for
  adoption in the U.S. are being bypassed in favor of foreign children.
  International adoption increases the pool of domestic children needing a
  permanent family.
  
  Unfortunately, international adoptions are seen by most Americans as a
  solution for families needing children, rather than children needing families.
  The purpose has shifted from the humanitarian one of providing families
  for abandoned children and is increasingly becoming a way for the childless
  to satisfy their desire to have children. The well-being of children has taken
  second place to the desires of those seeking to adopt.
  
  A disturbing picture
  
  Most of what is written in the U.S. about this subject comes from the
  perspective of American adults who are connected to the international
  adoption industry.
  
  So it is difficult to find literature that objectively discusses the consequences
  of removing children from their native lands. But fragments of information
  have surfaced, and when pieced together a disturbing picture emerges:

• ABC PRIME TIME LIVE reported in April 1998 an adoption agency in
  Baton Rouge, Louisiana brings young, poor pregnant Russian women to the
  United States on bogus visas. The women stay long enough to have their
  babies and then return to Russia with $1,000. Adoptive families in America
  pay around $40,000 for an adopted baby through this method.

• A March 24,1998 New York Times article titled, "Specialists Report Rise
  in Adoptions That Fail: See Link to Pursuit of Overseas Children",
  discussed the disproportionate number of disrupted (failed) adoptions by
  American families who have adopted children from abroad.

• In July 1997, Renee Polreis of Greeley, Colorado, was convicted
  of beating her 2-year old son to death, a boy she adopted out of a Russian
  orphanage. She said she feared for her life and called him a "demon."

• In June 1997, Richard and Karen Thorne of Phoenix, Arizona, were
  arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport on arnval from Moscow.
  Passengers and crew reported seeing the Thornes abuse the two 4-year-old
  Russian girls they had just adopted, striking them in the chest, face, and
  head with such force that the girls screamed and cowered throughout
  the flight.

• An AP article dated August l,1988 discussed the plight of thousands of
  British children living in orphanages and sent to live in Canada, Australia
  and New Zealand during WWII and decades afterward. "They (British
  Government) should just admit they were wrong, that it was not right to
  remove us from our homes and heritage," said Shiela Pearce, a
  spokeswoman for an organization of adult British orphans shipped to
  Australia.

• Mi Ok Song, adopted in 1966 out of a Korean orphanage by American
  parents writes, "My opinion is considered controversial because I believe
  that international adoption is a covert but cruel act of child abuse when the
  adopted child who becomes an adult is legally, politically and socially
  prevented from searching for her/his own birth mother or family-when
  records are sealed, changed, or destroyed, thus denying the birth right
  to know who and where she/he came from. This is a violation of basic
  human rights."

Concerns of countries surrendering their children to foreigners

Damien Ngabonziza, Programmes Officer at the International Social
Services located in Geneva, Switzerland, summarizes the major
concerns:

• African countries generally view intercountry adoption as a form of
  neocolonialism and do not, for the most part, sanction the adoption
  overseas of native children.
• Sending countries without strong child protection laws and welfare
  policies are among the most vulnerable to the black market sales
  and trafficking of children. There is a widespread view in Latin America,
  for example, that international adoption takes the most desirable adoptees in
  terms of age, health and racial heritage, and leaves hard to place children in
  their countries of origin.
• The adoption of a comparatively small number of children in a large
  population of desperately needy youngsters is too often seen as a
  panacea, and it ignores the well-being of the majority.
• Intercountry adoption does nothing to solve the problem of high birth rates
  nor poverty, two of the root causes of international adoption. There is little
  evidence that intercountry adoption significantly enhances development
  of child welfare services in developing nations.
• Intercountry adoption is fraught with difficulties arising from differing
  cultural values and relationships regarding access to one's roots, contacts
  with birth families and ties to the country of origin.

In June 1998, Russian lawmakers unanimously approved a bill that
would tighten control over foreigners adopting their children. The bill's
initiator, Alevtina Aparian, said the restrictions are needed to better
protect Russian children.

What does the research say?

The current state of research based on follow-up studies is fragmented.
The studies have been criticized for the short time frame they encompass;
the Eurocentric constructs employed; inadequate sampling methods;
questionably low response rates; unwarranted extrapolation from one
situation to another; substantial disagreement on the criteriological
problem of whether a qualified "success" is actually a success.

What is the impact of international adoption on the adoptee?

All children adopted internationally face physical and emotional upheaval.
First there is the trauma of departure accompanied by separation and loss.
Language plays a critical role in the beginning period of adjustment.
Initially, most children have little proficiency in English and the
majority of the adoptive parents do not have language capabilities to
converse with their children.

The children have left behind everything familiar, and encounter every-
thing new and different but their expression of grief is not understood
by anyone! It is only natural for them to resort to physical expression of their
grief and anger- like self-hurting behaviors, aggressive and hostile behaviors,
and crying.

Later in life, the greatest obstacle for transition to emotional well being for
the international adoptee will be the process of identity formation. For
internationally adopted children, this task of forming, clarifying, and
reclarifying their identity is an on-going process that must also include
ethnicity. These cross-racially, cross-culturally adopted children become
aware at very early ages that they are different from their adoptive parents.

Dr. Juliet Harper is Senior Lecturer on Psychology at Macquarie University in
Australia and a child psychotherapist. She has done work with adoption dis-
ruption, where the adoption is terminated, with families who have adopted
internationally.

Dr. Harper looked at the disruption from the child's point of view.
Although most children had quickly developed English, their vocabulary
was very concrete and problems in comprehension tended to be masked
by their apparent verbal fluency. She found the children had been inade-
quately prepared for adoption, having little idea of what was expected of
them, and they were not able to respond adequately to parenting
offered by the adoptive parents.

Other reasons for the disruption from the children's point of view were that
they did not like the family or felt rejected by the family, did not want
to come to Australia and always felt different.

International Adoption and Corruption

The practice of brokering foreign children has become an increasingly
competitive and lucrative enterprise with international adoption agencies
charging between $5,000 to $30,000 and more per transaction. It has grown
to become a multi-million dollar business. Organizations and people
involved with international adoption have enormous sums at stake and
big money can open the door to trafficking children.

A major concern is the increasing commercialization and lack of
adequate safeguards, resulting in criminal abuses, abduction and sale
of children.

Given the preferential demand for healthy infants in the U.S. adoption
market, an important policy issue is the extent to which the practice of
international adoption results in pregnancies for profit, coercion of birth
parents, and the corruption of child welfare services.

International policies in effect regarding international adoption

In 1992, with growing concern about international adoptions, a meeting of
child welfare experts was held in Manila, Philippines on "Protecting
Children's Rights in Inter-country Adoptions and Preventing the
Trafficking and Sale of Children."

The Manila conference recommended that if a child cannot be raised
by her or his parents, then care within the extended family-with support if
necessary-should be the next goal. If this is not possible, efforts should
be made to secure domestic adoption. Only when all such alternatives have
been exhausted should international adoption be considered.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly on Sept. 2, 1990. It is regarded by most
child rights experts as the standard by which adoption procedures should
be judged.

International concern to safeguard the rights of children offered for
international adoption is reflected in renewed efforts to provide suitable
alternatives within the child's home country and to be considered only
when all possible means of giving children suitable care in their own
social and national setting have been exhausted.

What can Americans do for neglected foreign children without adopting them?

Those who desire to help children in economically deprived or war-torn
countries have alternatives to international adoption. The United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) is an organization that serves to provide
resources so that countries can gain the means to care for their own
children.

In 1993, stemming from events unfolding in Bosnia and Rwanda,
UNICEF published a comprehensive guide for providing services to
children in conflicts. The guide makes a number of recommendations
for protecting children including placement decisions for the care of
children should assure long-term, nurturing relationships; children
should be cared for within their own families, communities and cultures,
and their language, culture and ethnic ties preserved.

Another organization is World Vision, an international partnership of
Christians that has grown to be the largest privately funded Christian
relief and development organization in the world, helping children and
families in more than 100 countries. World Vision is not an adoption
agency and does not facilitate adoptions. It works to help children
become productive citizens in their own countries through child sponsor-
ship programs.

Peter F. Dodds was adopted out of a German orphanage at age three by
U.S. citizens. He is author of Outer Search/Inner Journey: An Orphan and
Adoptee's Quest, the only book written by a foreign-born adoptee on the subject
of intercountry adoption. Peter speaks and lectures internationally on issues
related to intercountry adoption and was keynote speaker at the 1998 New Zealand
National Conference on Adoption. As an author, he has been interviewed on TV,
radio, and the Internet. He earned a B.A., an M.P.A. and a degree from the
International Olympic Academy located in Greece. He has served as a member
of the Washington State legislative staff, director of an international program
for the U.S. Olympic Committee, and an Army officer. Peter welcomes
correspondence through his e-mail address: aphpub@nwrain.com.

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

Copyright 1998 Peter F. Dodds
All Rights Reserved