By Kathryn Joyce
First published in The Nation
Research support for this article was provided
by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
In late March Craig Juntunen told a group of Christian adoption advocates
assembled at a Chandler, Arizona, home about his plans to increase international
adoptions fivefold. Just over a year before, the world had been riveted by the
saga of Laura Silsby, the American missionary arrested while trying to transport
Haitian children across the Dominican border. But the lessons of that scandal
seemed far from Juntunen’s mind as he described his “crusade to create a culture
of adoption” by simplifying adoption’s labyrinthine ethical complexities to
their emotional core. Juntunen, a former pro football quarterback and the
adoptive father of three Haitian children, has emerged as a somewhat rogue
figure in the adoption world since he recently founded an unorthodox nonprofit,
Both Ends Burning. He has commissioned a documentary about desperate orphans in
teeming institutions, Wrongfully Detained, and proposed a “clearinghouse model”
that will raise the number of children adopted into US families to more than
50,000 per year.
Juntunen acknowledges that many adoption experts find his proposals naïve,
particularly in a year that witnessed scandals in Haiti, Nepal and most recently
Ethiopia, where widespread irregularities and trafficking allegations may slow
the once-booming program to a crawl. He met a chilly reception recently at the
Adoption Policy Conference at New York Law School when he spoke alongside State
Department officials. But Juntunen insists that his ideas for increasing
adoption constitute a social movement, akin to the civil rights movement, and
that the force of a growing “adoption culture” will help them prevail.
In this expectation, he may be right. In Arizona, Juntunen was speaking with
Dan Cruver, head of Together for Adoption, a key coalition in a growing
evangelical adoption movement. The event was the first of the organization’s new
“house conferences”: small-scale meet-ups bolstering an active national movement
that promotes Christians’ adopting as a way to address a worldwide “orphan
crisis” they say encompasses hundreds of millions of children. It’s a message
Cruver also emphasizes in his book Reclaiming Adoption—one in a growing list of
titles about “orphan theology,” which teaches that adoption mirrors Christian
salvation, plays an essential role in antiabortion politics and is a means of
fulfilling the Great Commission, the biblical mandate that Christians spread the
gospel.
Yet while Cruver and his colleagues have inspired thousands of Christians to
enter the arduous and expensive process of international adoption, the adoption
industry is on a steep decline after years of ethical problems and tightening
regulations around the world. Since the mid-’90s, eighty-three countries have
ratified the Hague convention regulating international adoption. By 2010 there
were 12,000 such adoptions in the United States (including 1,100 exceptional
“humanitarian parole” cases from post-earthquake Haiti)—almost half those at the
peak in 2004. If evangelicals heed Cruver’s call en masse, it could mean not
just a radical change in who raises the world’s children but a powerful clash
between rapidly falling supply and sharply inflating demand.
* * *
Adoption has long been the province of religious and secular agencies, but in
the past two years evangelical advocacy has skyrocketed. In 2009 Russell Moore,
dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and
author of the 2009 book Adopted for Life, shepherded through a Southern Baptist
Church (SBC) resolution calling on all 16 million members of the denomination to
become involved in adoption or “orphan care.” Last year at least five
evangelical adoption conferences were held, and between 1,000 and 2,000 churches
participated in an “Orphan Sunday” event in November. And in February, the
mammoth evangelical adoption agency Bethany Christian Services announced that
its adoption placements had increased 13 percent since 2009, in large part
because of the mobilization of churches.
“We expect adoptions will continue to rise as new movements within the
Christian community raise awareness and aid for the global orphan crisis,”
Bethany CEO Bill Blacquiere said.
One result has been the creation of “rainbow congregations” across the
country, like the congregation Moore helps pastor in Louisville, Highview
Baptist. An active adoption ministry has brought 140 adopted children into the
congregation in the past five years. These children don’t recognize the flags of
their home countries, Moore proudly noted at a 2010 conference, but they can all
sing “Jesus Loves Me.”
* * *
After the Haiti earthquake, the evangelical adoption movement sprang into
action. Next to longstanding religious relief orphanages, upstart evangelical
missions appeared. Some flung themselves into adversarial activism, decrying
international aid organizations like UNICEF for obstructing the speedy adoption
of Haitian children.
In the United States, evangelicals and sympathetic politicians led the charge
for expanded, expedited international adoption for what they had claimed before
the earthquake was the country’s 400,000 or more orphans—a figure repeated
widely, despite a UNICEF clarification that likely only 50,000 children had lost
both parents. (Identifying which children fit this description is a matter of
painstaking investigation.)
Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat and staunch adoption advocate,
argued ferociously to expand a “humanitarian parole” program that expedites
adoptions in progress: “Either UNICEF is going to change or have a very
difficult time getting support from the US Congress,” she told the Associated
Press.
Others used the emotional language of rescue; a Mormon mission president said
he had “negotiated the release” of sixty-six children bound for Salt Lake City
homes.
But what most people will remember about adoption in Haiti is the saga of
Laura Silsby and nine other Southern Baptists who were jailed after trying to
transport thirty-three “orphans”—most solicited from living families—to an
unbuilt orphanage in the Dominican Republic, to await prospective evangelical
adopters. Throughout the scandal the group members maintained they were simply
“ten Christians who obeyed God’s calling.”
* * *
Silsby’s claims to divine guidance attracted scorn from the media—one outlet
accused her of “baby-snatching for Jesus”—but her language resonates with
now-commonplace Christian adoption rhetoric.
The movement cuts across evangelical distinctions, with the Southern Baptists
taking a doctrinal lead; charismatic prayer warrior Lou Engle, co-founder of
TheCall, praying for “the most outrageous adoption movement to be released
through the church”; and Rick Warren declaring that members of his Saddleback
Church will adopt 500 children in three years.
Individual ministries abound, like Orphan’s Ransom, which helps evangelicals
pay international adoption fees that can range from $20,000 to $63,000. Churches
report a “contagious” “adoption culture” in which even small congregations have
adopted dozens of children in just a few years. Movement leaders say this viral
effect is key to building the movement. “Get as many people in the church to
adopt, and adopt as many kids as you can,” said one speaker at the 2010 Adopting
for Life Conference, noting the particular power of a pastor’s example.
Following that advice, in June the SBC joined with Bethany Christian Services to
begin subsidizing Southern Baptist pastors’ adoption costs.
Observers from adoption lobby groups mention two watershed moments for the
movement: Warren’s entrance into the orphan care field in 2005 and President
Bush’s decision in 2008 to name Jedd Medefind, a former Republican staffer in
the California legislature, as head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives. Medefind is now the affable president of Christian
Alliance for Orphans, a coalition of eighty Christian groups, and Warren’s
church is helping to set up an adoption program in Rwanda.
“It was kind of a perfect storm,” reflects Tom DiFilipo, president of the
Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS), an influential
secular adoption advocacy group that has sought to partner with the evangelical
movement. “We hit that moment when a movement really starts to ramp up and get
the attention of the public.”
The movement’s influence was on display in September in a closed-door meeting
with UNICEF—frequently cast as “anti-adoption” for raising ethical concerns
about adopting from disaster- or poverty-stricken nations—leveraged by six key
evangelical adoption groups in an effort to find common ground.
As a way for conservative evangelicals to reclaim the social gospel message
from liberal churches, adoption is a perfect storm, too, seemingly defining
antiabortion activism as more truly “prolife”—or “whole life,” as one Bethany
staffer coined it—while providing a new opportunity, as recent orphan theology
texts explain, to spread the gospel. In Reclaiming Adoption, Cruver bluntly
declares, “The ultimate purpose of human adoption by Christians, therefore, is
not to give orphans parents, as important as that is. It is to place them in a
Christian home that they might be positioned to receive the gospel.”
In person, Russell Moore denies that invoking the Great Commission means
adoption is a vehicle for evangelism. But in Adopting for Life, he calls
adoption “evangelistic to the core,” since Christian adoptive parents are
“committing to years of gospel proclamation.” Likewise, although Medefind
dismisses the idea of proselytizing through adoption, the Alliance membership
agreement envisions “every orphan experiencing God’s unfailing love and knowing
Jesus as Savior.”
Followers appear to have taken the message at face value. Last winter, in the
wake of the earthquake, the Rev. Tom Benz announced his plan to “airlift 50 to
150 [Haitian] orphans” to a place called BridgeStone, a 140-acre retreat center
owned by his Alabama church. Benz, a jolly pastor who runs an evangelical summer
program for Ukrainian orphans next to the Black Sea, explained that the Haiti
program would host children for ninety days, during which volunteers would teach
them English, “immerse them in the gospel” and “incubate adoptions” with local
church families.
Benz originally planned the program for Ukrainian orphans, but once he
announced his Haiti plans, he says, he was overwhelmed by volunteer support and
donations. Miles of new plumbing and electrical wire were laid for the center’s
twenty-two cabins, and construction began on three permanent staff “lodges” (one
for Benz’s family), almost all with donated materials and labor. Benz was
optimistic that he could wrangle the system, with the help of a friend with
State Department connections, by representing his plan as a foreign studies
program.
“It’s not like we’re taking the kids permanently,” he said. “We’re taking
them for ninety days, and then they’re going back.” Reminded of the adoption
mission, Benz chuckled. “Well, that’s absolutely part of our agenda, but you
know, that’s not the thing we’re going to emphasize to the Haitian
government!”
Over the spring and summer of 2010, months wore on and passports for the
Haitian children were not forthcoming. The only progress made was on the
BridgeStone estate. After months of delays, a September fundraising missive
asked donors for continued patience as Benz sought to “bring children out of
darkness and suffering into faith and life in Jesus Christ.” Shortly thereafter,
Benz’s Haiti blog came down, and he sent an announcement of the retreat center’s
pending open house for the launch of its adoption program for Ukrainian
children. By March it had resulted in eight adoptions that, Benz promised, would
help the children “grow into mighty men and women of faith.”
* * *
For many adoption reformers, the Silsby affair changed the script for how
adoption is discussed. Karen Moline, a board member of the watchdog group
Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform, says Silsby “put a face to the worst part
of what international adoption can be, which is entitlement,” meaning American
parents’ sense of entitlement to developing nations’ children.
Susie Krabacher, an American and devout Christian, is director of Mercy and
Sharing, a Haitian orphanage founded in 1994 to care for severely disabled,
abandoned children, which does not perform adoptions. She says there is enormous
economic pressure on Haitian parents to relinquish children. Many orphanages in
Haiti provide for children whose parents can’t afford to feed them but who
remain involved and visit often. But Haiti also has a history of unethical
adoption programs. Post-earthquake, Krabacher says, they have become “the
biggest money-making operation in Haiti.” Indeed, many orphanages, mindful of
high international adoption fees, tell struggling parents that they should give
up one of their children. The financial desperation in Haiti is so intense and
the coercion so pervasive, Krabacher says, that the vast majority of Mercy and
Sharing’s 181 employees “would have to look at the option of giving up a child
if they didn’t have a job.”
This gets at the central problem in how most evangelical adoption ministries
define the scope of the worldwide “orphan crisis.” As with the misleading
estimates of Haitian orphans, the global numbers most frequently
mentioned—ranging from 132 million to 210 million—paint an inaccurate picture,
willfully misconstruing UNICEF tallies of developing nations’ vulnerable
children, a category that includes children who have lost only one parent or who
live with extended family.
Susan Bissell, UNICEF’s chief of child protection, says no good estimate
exists of the number of orphans worldwide, but a 2004 UNICEF report calculated
that there were at least 16 million children worldwide who had lost both
parents.
“There are not 145 million kids out there waiting for someone in America to
adopt them,” says Paul Myhill, president of the evangelical orphan ministry
World Orphans, which he calls a “black sheep” in his field for its
prioritization of in-country orphan care over adoption. “It’s unfair to bat
these statistics around without using all the qualifiers.”
But those numbers have their effect. In July, Bethany Christian Services
announced that “three of the largest Christian-based adoption agencies,”
including itself, were “seeing record numbers of adoptions.” Bethany attributes
the increase to the evangelical adoption movement as well as the crisis in
Haiti, which inspired nearly 20,000 inquiries from across the United States,
even though Haiti, post-quake, was quickly closed for new adoptions. Agencies
like Bethany explained that they easily redirected this outpouring of enthusiasm
to more open markets, like Ethiopia.
The problem is that Ethiopia, which last year was poised to become the
world’s top “sending country,” is beset by numerous ethical scandals. In 2009
and 2010, investigations by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and CBS News
found evidence that Christian World Adoption—a US agency whose slogan is “God is
in control of our agency and your adoption”—had recruited and allegedly even
bought children from intact families, some of whom didn’t understand the
permanency of adoption. (CWA claimed that these cases were misunderstandings and
charged that it was being persecuted for its Christian beliefs.) In January the
State Department hosted a conference call to discuss ethical difficulties
surrounding Ethiopia’s adoption program. Just weeks later came the announcement
that the license for Minnesota-based Christian agency Better Future Adoption
Services had been revoked by the Ethiopian government over accusations of child
trafficking. And in March, Ethiopia’s government announced it was cutting the
rate of new adoptions by 90 percent.
Just after the Haiti earthquake, the Christian Alliance for Orphans
advertised that its sixth-annual summit would produce a “long-term response” for
Haiti’s orphans. By late April 2010, when nearly 1,200 Christians gathered for
the summit at a megachurch outside Minneapolis, organizers had to contend with
the shadow Silsby had cast. Even Moore worried that the scandal would “give a
black eye to the orphan-care movement.”
“We’re killing ourselves with these ethical lapses,” says Chuck Johnson,
president of the secular adoption lobby group the National Council for Adoption
(NCFA). “I think Christians are the worst at this sometimes, about the ends
justifying the means. ‘I will do anything to save this one child’s life’; ‘I
will falsify a visa application if I have to.’”
In early 2010, Johnson told me, NCFA held an online ethics seminar that drew
roughly twenty-five representatives from religious and secular adoption
agencies. As part of the webinar, NCFA took a blind poll of participants’
responses to various ethical situations. Either through ignorance or a
willingness to bend the rules, 20–30 percent of agency representatives gave
answers that were tantamount to committing visa fraud or other serious
violations. “You’ll hear people saying, I’m following God’s law, not man’s
laws,” Johnson says.
Brian Luwis, founder of the evangelical agency America World Adoption and a
Christian Alliance board member, says ardent adoptive parents can wreak havoc
for those coming after them. “I call them ‘adoption crazies,’” he says. “They’re
such strong advocates, they’ll do things in desperation to have a child they
think is theirs. Some are really unlawful, falsifying an adoption or something
like that. Many won’t get caught, but once you get caught, what have you done to
the system?” It’s not hard to imagine how movement rhetoric that casts
international adoption as emergency rescue and spiritual battle could inspire a
willingness to use any means necessary.
There are indications that such rule-bending occurs at the top levels of
government. Blogging about the 2010 Adoption Policy Conference in New York for
The Huffington Post, sociologist Philip Cohen reported a troubling statement
made by Whitney Reitz, an official at US Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS)—the Homeland Security agency that oversees the entry of international
adoptees. Reitz, who is credited with crafting last year’s “humanitarian parole”
program for Haitian children, told the crowd, “The idea was to help the kids.
And if we overlooked Hague, I don’t think I’m going to apologize.”
Chris Rhatigan, a USCIS spokesman, explains that the comment was made during
a closed-door session not meant to be open to the media and in the context of a
devastating natural disaster, “where very extraordinary measures were taken.”
“Our main goal at the time was to save those children,” says Rhatigan. “I think
they did everything they possibly could.”
* * *
Despite the Silsby affair, the Haiti earthquake helped accelerate the rise of
the evangelical adoption movement, and increased its influence. At the Christian
Alliance summit, JCICS’s DiFilipo implored the audience to advocate for less
restrictive adoption policies, pointing to the drop in international adoptions
from nearly 23,000 in 2004 to a projected 7,000 by 2012.
These numbers underlie a feeling among adoption advocates that even though
demand is increasing, international adoption is under siege. “The days of a
large sending country are over,” Johnson has said.
The decrease is often attributed to the closure of Guatemala and the slowdown
in China. DiFilipo says the threat is far broader, with eight or nine countries
“functionally suspending” intercountry adoption within the past three
years—something he attributes to “institutional bias” against international
adoption rather than documented ethical lapses.
As the numbers have dropped, the adoption industry has constricted, with the
closure or merger of 25 percent of US agencies since 2000. The shuttering of
Guatemala in 2008—what Luwis called “the gravy train” for many agencies—was a
major factor. JCICS felt the squeeze too. In an internal 2009 document, the
organization described financial shortages that forced it to halve expenses and
staff in recent years.
“In the last few years, a bunch of top placing agencies in the US met
together kind of clandestinely,” recalls Luwis. “To me it was a ‘saving our
rear’ meeting. I take no salary. But for some of the others, this is their
livelihood. They place thousands of kids; this is the way they’ve done it,
they’re not going to change.”
Even as adoption numbers decrease, advocates maintain substantial bipartisan
support. A key ally is Senator Landrieu, a founding member of the Congressional
Coalition on Adoption Institute and sponsor of numerous pieces of pro-adoption
legislation—many in collaboration with hard-right senators.
Landrieu was scheduled to address the Christian Alliance summit but was
waylaid by the BP oil spill. In her place spoke fellow Democratic Senator Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota, another advocate who has made common cause with
right-wing senators like Sam Brownback and James Inhofe. Klobuchar told me how,
as part of the first senatorial delegation to Haiti, she urged President René
Préval to revise the country’s adoption and parental rights policies. In a
September letter to the State Department, she interceded for US families whose
pending adoptions from Nepal were halted after indications that the country’s
newly reopened program was again processing trafficked children.
It’s an illustration of how temporary were the lessons from Haiti, and how
common the underlying problems its scandals exposed. “Congress’s slant is that
international adoption is good, so let’s get those kids out,” says Moline of
Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform. “They don’t understand what the business
aspect of it really means, and they must answer to their constituents’
demands.”
One of the most significant recent initiatives on Capitol Hill is the
Families for Orphans Act, drafted by the Families for Orphans Coalition, whose
executive committee includes DiFilipo, Luwis and Johnson. The bill, which
Landrieu’s office will reintroduce this year, would create a special State
Department office to oversee adoptions and offer—critics say
condition—developmental aid to countries that help obtain permanent parental
care for orphans, including through international adoption. In an op-ed
published in the Washington Examiner in March 2010, co-sponsors Landrieu and
Inhofe dangled the promise that the office could facilitate the placement of
tens of thousands more Haitian children with US families.
Juntunen of Both Ends Burning believes the chokepoint created as newly
mobilized evangelicals enter the tightening adoption market will spark outrage
that will transform the system—cutting red tape, and possibly needed safeguards,
along the way. “We’ve created this culture of adoption, and now more and more
people want to participate and are left frustrated because they’re denied the
opportunity to pursue what they want to pursue,” Juntunen told me. “Well, that’s
where social movements happen. I think that this culture of adoption will be the
force, the catalyst, for change.”
And the pressure won’t be coming just from evangelicals. In June, Together
for Adoption and other evangelical leaders will meet with Juntunen and his
network of secular adoption advocates to discuss ways to reverse the
international adoption freefall.
After a year of headlines concerning improperly adopted children, from Haiti
to Nepal to Ethiopia, evangelical advocates admit that the system is troubled,
but they insist that expanding international adoption is necessary and, if done
right, beautiful. “There’s always going to need to be tremendous vigilance that
compassionate intentions lead to compassionate outcomes,” says the Christian
Alliance’s Medefind. “But if you’re not willing to deal with complexity, it
would be wise to stay away from efforts to address the world’s needs.”
Despite the altruistic motives of many evangelical adopters, the size and
wealth of their movement is likely to tip the balance of a system that already
responds too blithely to the moral and humanitarian concerns raised by poor
countries and all too readily to Western demand.
A link to "The Adoption Underworld" & "The Orphan Manufacturing Chain"
This is a great article that demonstrates how children are labeled "orphans" to be processed (unnecessarily) for intercountry adoption.
click here for the article
UNICEF insta a Guatemala a poner fin al "limbo administrativo" de adopciones
NUEVA YORK, 2 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -
En su visita de la semana pasada al país centroamericano, Lake expresó su "especial preocupación por el grupo de niños que se han convertido en víctimas burocráticas de la moratoria de 2008 para las adopciones entre países".
"Cuando un país toma medidas para corregir las violaciones en el sistema de protección a la infancia, el interés de los niños debe ser primordial y eso significa establecer una 'hoja de ruta' con objetivos claros, algo que desafortunadamente no se ha hecho en Guatemala", ha dicho en un comunicado publicado hoy.
En respuesta, las autoridades guatemaltecas han anunciado la creación de un grupo de trabajo para resolver estos casos. El objetivo es completar la investigación en un plazo máximo de tres meses y finalizar en otros dos.
Por su parte, el presidente guatemalteco, Otto Pérez Molina, se ha comprometido ante la organización internacional a destinar más recursos públicos a la resolución de estos casos.
Al margen de esta cuestión, Lake ha aplaudido "los pasos dados por el Gobierno para mejorar sus sistema de protección a la infancia, creando tribunales especializados y apoyando a las familias para evitar que los niños acaben en instituciones públicas".
En torno a la primera cuestión, los magistrados del Tribunal Supremo Gabriel Gomez y Gustavo Mendizabal han trasladado a Lake que la protección infantil es también una prioridad en la administración de justicia, con la creación de tribunales especializados y el Sistema de Alerta Alba Kenneth para abordar secuestros y desapariciones.
En cuanto a la segunda, el director ejecutivo de UNICEF ha subrayado "la especial importancia" del programa gubernamental Hogar Seguro, que actualmente da cobijo a 5.800 niños de hasta 18 años de edad, lo que lo convierte en una de las mayores instituciones infantiles de América Latina.
A pesar de ello, Lake ha abogado por mantener a los niños en el seno familiar. "No importa lo buena que sea una institución infantil --y ésta es buena, porque los trabajadores han hecho una tarea extraordinaria--, nada puede reemplazar a una familia", ha dicho.
A este respecto, ha indicado que, a pesar de que la acogida familiar y las adopciones nacionales van en aumento en el país centroamericano, deben recibir un impulso mayor por parte de las autoridades guatemaltecas.
Por su parte, UNICEF se ha comprometido a estrechar la coordinación con Guatemala para acelerar el progreso en el sistema de protección a la infancia y en la lucha contra la violencia sobre niños y adolescentes.
Click here for the Article Source
El director ejecutivo del Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (UNICEF), Anthony Lake, ha instado al Gobierno de Guatemala a adoptar medidas urgentes para poner fin al "limbo administrativo" en el que se encuentran alrededor de 100 niños pendientes de adopción por otros países.
"Cuando un país toma medidas para corregir las violaciones en el sistema de protección a la infancia, el interés de los niños debe ser primordial y eso significa establecer una 'hoja de ruta' con objetivos claros, algo que desafortunadamente no se ha hecho en Guatemala", ha dicho en un comunicado publicado hoy.
En respuesta, las autoridades guatemaltecas han anunciado la creación de un grupo de trabajo para resolver estos casos. El objetivo es completar la investigación en un plazo máximo de tres meses y finalizar en otros dos.
Por su parte, el presidente guatemalteco, Otto Pérez Molina, se ha comprometido ante la organización internacional a destinar más recursos públicos a la resolución de estos casos.
Al margen de esta cuestión, Lake ha aplaudido "los pasos dados por el Gobierno para mejorar sus sistema de protección a la infancia, creando tribunales especializados y apoyando a las familias para evitar que los niños acaben en instituciones públicas".
En torno a la primera cuestión, los magistrados del Tribunal Supremo Gabriel Gomez y Gustavo Mendizabal han trasladado a Lake que la protección infantil es también una prioridad en la administración de justicia, con la creación de tribunales especializados y el Sistema de Alerta Alba Kenneth para abordar secuestros y desapariciones.
En cuanto a la segunda, el director ejecutivo de UNICEF ha subrayado "la especial importancia" del programa gubernamental Hogar Seguro, que actualmente da cobijo a 5.800 niños de hasta 18 años de edad, lo que lo convierte en una de las mayores instituciones infantiles de América Latina.
A pesar de ello, Lake ha abogado por mantener a los niños en el seno familiar. "No importa lo buena que sea una institución infantil --y ésta es buena, porque los trabajadores han hecho una tarea extraordinaria--, nada puede reemplazar a una familia", ha dicho.
A este respecto, ha indicado que, a pesar de que la acogida familiar y las adopciones nacionales van en aumento en el país centroamericano, deben recibir un impulso mayor por parte de las autoridades guatemaltecas.
Por su parte, UNICEF se ha comprometido a estrechar la coordinación con Guatemala para acelerar el progreso en el sistema de protección a la infancia y en la lucha contra la violencia sobre niños y adolescentes.
Click here for the Article Source
Press Release by Sandy Musser
A Press Release by Sandy Musser:
Message from her website: Adoption activist: ‘I went to federal prison for reuniting families’
Now, Sandy Musser is back to sound the ALARM and gather forces in support of a federal mandate to restore access to original birth certificates
By ALARM Network
April 1, 2013
Washington, DC – Well-known adoption reform activist and author, Sandy Musser, went to prison for her beliefs. Now, she is leading the fight for a US federal mandate to allow all adult adoptees access to their birth certificates. The vast majority of adopted persons are denied equal rights to access because of archaic state laws.
Leaders and members of state-based adoptee rights groups are gathering to support the ALARM Network petition for national relief of discriminatory state-imposed restrictions. Join the fight. Sign the petition.
Join the fight: About the ALARM Network
The ‘Advocating Legislation for the Adoption Reform Movement (ALARM)’ Network was founded in 1987 as a division of The Musser Foundation to support and promote lobbying efforts of state-based groups involved in adoptee rights and reforms.
ALARM Network FB, a public group on Facebook, is the official gathering place and forum for state and national advocacy. Please join us.
Malawi labels Madonna a 'bully' after recent visit
Malawi has accused US singer Madonna
of "bullying state officials" after she reportedly complained about her
treatment on a visit to the country.
Madonna - who has adopted two Malawian-born children - recently visited 10 primary schools funded by her charity.
The government accused the star of exaggerating her contribution to the country and demanding VIP treatment.
Madonna's manager accused Malawi's government of having a "grudge" against the singer's charity, Raising Malawi.
In a statement to the BBC, Trevor Neilson also accused the government of financial mismanagement of school project funds, and of "harassing organisations that Raising Malawi has donated to".
'Public spat'
Madonna was said to have been angered that she and her entourage were stripped of their VIP status on their way out of the country, the UK's Daily Telegraph reported.
They had to line up with other passengers at the airport and were frisked by security officials, the report said.
The change in status was said to be the result of a public spat about her charitable work in Malawi.
Continue reading the main story
End Quote Malawi government statementAmong the many things that Madonna needs to learn as a matter of urgency is the decency of telling the truth”
11 April 2013 Last updated at
04:37 ET
A harshly-worded statement issued by the office of President Joyce Banda on Wednesday accused Madonna of wanting Malawi "to be forever chained to the obligation of gratitude".
"Granted, Madonna is a famed international musician. But that does not impose an injunction of obligation on any government under whose territory Madonna finds herself, including Malawi, to give her state treatment. Such treatment, even if she deserved it, is discretionary not obligatory,'' said the statement.
It accused her of being "a musician who desperately thinks she must generate recognition by bullying state officials instead of playing decent music on the stage".
It added: "Among the many things that Madonna needs to learn as a matter of urgency is the decency of telling the truth.
"For her to tell the whole world that she is building schools in Malawi when she has actually only contributed to the construction of classrooms is not compatible with manners of someone who thinks she deserves to be revered with state grandeur."
Madonna's manager Trevor Neilson said buildOn, the non-profit group that partnered with Raising Malawi to construct the schools, was "mystified" by the claims about school buildings.
"They went through every step of every process required to build a school in Malawi, and the schools were built in the model of schools all across the country," Mr Neilson told the BBC.
Mr Neilson said: "Madonna is the largest individual philanthropist in Malawi. We will continue to fund programmes that support children in Malawi."
Baby adoption case draws scrutiny in China
Liang Guihong is a goodhearted 56-year-old woman who finds homes for abandoned
infants. Or she's a leader of a gang that sold abducted babies, some of whom
were adopted abroad.
A court in southern China sentenced Liang last month to 15 years in prison after she was convicted, along with an orphanage director and eight others, of selling scores of babies 78 of them last year alone.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-03/07/content_527737.htm
A court in southern China sentenced Liang last month to 15 years in prison after she was convicted, along with an orphanage director and eight others, of selling scores of babies 78 of them last year alone.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-03/07/content_527737.htm
10-year-old Vietnamese-American girl finds her Vietnamese mother
VietNamNet Bridge – Convincing her American adoptive parents to return to Vietnam with her to find her birth mother, during the search process, Jolie Nhung Thi Hoang LaBarge always wore Vietnamese ao dai and occasionally babbled a few sentences in Vietnamese.
In late March, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien, Chairman of the Association for Da Nang’s Victims of Agent Orange, former director of the Da Nang Center for Orphans was moved to tears when she knew that Jolie Nhung Thi Hoang LaBarge had returned to Vietnam.
"I was choked because so far, of dozens of orphans in the centers who were adopted by foreigners, this is the first child returning to Vietnam with the longing to find her birthplace," said Hien.
According to Hien, Jolie Thi Hoang LaBarge’s birth name was Hoang Thi Nhung. On the night of July 31, 2002, an officer of the Da Nang Center for Orphans found a 3-day-old girl abandoned in front of the center’s gate. The center named the baby and got the day the baby was found as her birthday.
Four months later, during a visit to Da Nang, Mr. Sherman LaBarge and his wife Carrie Welch adopted Nhung.
Carrie Welch said they used to cook Vietnamese cuisines for Nhung and collected Vietnamese folk songs on the Internet for her. The adoptive parents also bought Vietnamese ao dai for Nhung and encouraged Nhung to sing Vietnamese folk songs. During the Vietnamese traditional Tet, the small house of Carrie Welch welcomed many Vietnamese guests. They listened to Vietnamese folk songs, performed by Nhung, and tasted Vietnamese cuisines like banh chung and vegetable pickles. Nhung began being curious about her origin. She always asked her mum: "I was born out of this belly?" She burst into tears after her adoptive mother shook her head.
Nhung had her brother Minh Labarge, a Vietnamese boy, who was adopted by Sherman LaBarge and his wife in 2007. Sometimes, after playing with her brother, Nhung told her mother to take her back to Vietnam to seek her birth mother. In late March, she cried when her foster parents said: "Let’s go to Vietnam!"
Carrie Welch said that Nhung studied very well. Though she can sing Vietnamese folk songs well, Nhung can only say a few words in Vietnamese.
After going to Ben Tre province to find Minh’s parents but failing, the whole family went to Da Nang find Nhung’s mother. They also visited the ancient capital of Hue and Hoi An ancient town to learn about the culture of their birth place.
Carrie Welch said, if they find Nhung’s birth mother, the two families will keep contact to together see Nhung growing up. Nhung said: "I want the U.S. and Vietnam as home!"
Before leaving Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City, Carrie Welch said they will return to Vietnam in five years to continue finding the biological parents to their adopted children. "We hope the Vietnamese media will help us find the parents of our kids, through these photos.”
Sherman LaBarge and Carrie Welch would like to receive information from Nhung’s family in Vietnam through Mrs. Nguyen Thi Hien, Chair of the Association for Da Nang’s Agent Orange Victims and the local Department of Justice.
For article:http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/society/70549/10-year-old-vietnamese-american-girl-finds-her-vietnamese-mother.html
In late March, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien, Chairman of the Association for Da Nang’s Victims of Agent Orange, former director of the Da Nang Center for Orphans was moved to tears when she knew that Jolie Nhung Thi Hoang LaBarge had returned to Vietnam.
"I was choked because so far, of dozens of orphans in the centers who were adopted by foreigners, this is the first child returning to Vietnam with the longing to find her birthplace," said Hien.
According to Hien, Jolie Thi Hoang LaBarge’s birth name was Hoang Thi Nhung. On the night of July 31, 2002, an officer of the Da Nang Center for Orphans found a 3-day-old girl abandoned in front of the center’s gate. The center named the baby and got the day the baby was found as her birthday.
Four months later, during a visit to Da Nang, Mr. Sherman LaBarge and his wife Carrie Welch adopted Nhung.
Carrie Welch said they used to cook Vietnamese cuisines for Nhung and collected Vietnamese folk songs on the Internet for her. The adoptive parents also bought Vietnamese ao dai for Nhung and encouraged Nhung to sing Vietnamese folk songs. During the Vietnamese traditional Tet, the small house of Carrie Welch welcomed many Vietnamese guests. They listened to Vietnamese folk songs, performed by Nhung, and tasted Vietnamese cuisines like banh chung and vegetable pickles. Nhung began being curious about her origin. She always asked her mum: "I was born out of this belly?" She burst into tears after her adoptive mother shook her head.
Nhung had her brother Minh Labarge, a Vietnamese boy, who was adopted by Sherman LaBarge and his wife in 2007. Sometimes, after playing with her brother, Nhung told her mother to take her back to Vietnam to seek her birth mother. In late March, she cried when her foster parents said: "Let’s go to Vietnam!"
Carrie Welch said that Nhung studied very well. Though she can sing Vietnamese folk songs well, Nhung can only say a few words in Vietnamese.
After going to Ben Tre province to find Minh’s parents but failing, the whole family went to Da Nang find Nhung’s mother. They also visited the ancient capital of Hue and Hoi An ancient town to learn about the culture of their birth place.
Carrie Welch said, if they find Nhung’s birth mother, the two families will keep contact to together see Nhung growing up. Nhung said: "I want the U.S. and Vietnam as home!"
Before leaving Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City, Carrie Welch said they will return to Vietnam in five years to continue finding the biological parents to their adopted children. "We hope the Vietnamese media will help us find the parents of our kids, through these photos.”
Sherman LaBarge and Carrie Welch would like to receive information from Nhung’s family in Vietnam through Mrs. Nguyen Thi Hien, Chair of the Association for Da Nang’s Agent Orange Victims and the local Department of Justice.
For article:http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/society/70549/10-year-old-vietnamese-american-girl-finds-her-vietnamese-mother.html
Suicide Attempts More Common Among Adopted Teens
By Suzanne Rostler
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adolescents who live with adoptive parents
may be more likely than their peers to attempt suicide, researchers report.
However, being part of a close-knit family appears to lower the risk of
suicide for all teens. And the majority of adopted teens are not suicidal,
according to findings published in the online edition of the August issue of
Pediatrics.
``The main message of this study is that communication, seeking common
ground, warmth, love and the sense of satisfaction the adolescent has with
the (family) relationship, even when angry or rebelling, is critically
important,'' Dr. Gail Slap, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.
The study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of
Medicine in Ohio of more than 6,500 students in grades 7 through 12 found
that 7.6% of adopted adolescents had attempted suicide in the past year,
compared with about 3% of their peers. Adopted adolescents were also
more likely to have received psychological or emotional counseling--about
17% of adopted youth compared with 8% of non-adopted youth.
Adolescents who had tried to commit suicide were more likely to be
depressed, smoke cigarettes, engage in delinquent behavior, have a low
self-image and be female, the investigators found. There were no significant
differences between those who had attempted suicide and those who had
not in terms of age, race, parents' education and family income.
Mothers of teens who had tried to commit suicide were more likely to
describe their children as ``bad-tempered'' than were mothers of
adolescents who did not attempt suicide, the report indicates.
The study included students who were living with their adoptive or biological
mothers and had never been separated from the mother for more than 6
months. All mothers were in their first marriage, increasing the likelihood
that children lived in two-parent families and had not experienced divorce.
Overall, just over 3% of the students in the study were living with adoptive
mothers, the authors note.
Slap said that the study did not investigate why adoption may be a risk
factor for suicide.
SOURCE: Pediatrics 2001;108:e30.
http://www.adoptionhealing.com/Suicide.htmAdoption Suicide
Group seeks rights for illegally adopted
A GROUP CAMPAIGNING for the rights of those ‘informally’ or ‘illegally’ adopted have held a demonstration calling for their right to be recognised in new adoption legislation due for review at the end of this year.
About 20 supporters of campaign group Adopted Illegally congregated outside the Central Bank in Dublin on Saturday asking the Government to release records to help those illegally adopted to gain access to essential medical and historical information.
Theresa Tinggal and fellow campaigner Maria Dumbell travelled to Dublin from the UK earlier this week to hand a letter to Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Frances Fitzgerald asking her to make available records relating to informal adoptions in the 1950s.
“We want legislation changed in Ireland so we can gain access to case files, medical workers’ files that do exist,” said Ms Tinggal. She learned eight years ago that she had been adopted illegally when she was two days old.
“In view of the Adoption Information and Tracing Bill coming out at the end of the year, and the children’s referendum, we thought it was an appropriate time to come over,” she said.
The group met the HSE this week to put their case. “We were told by the HSE we can’t change anything unless legislation changes and that’s why we’re lobbying,” said Ms Tinggal.
For remaining article:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1008/1224325015545.html
About 20 supporters of campaign group Adopted Illegally congregated outside the Central Bank in Dublin on Saturday asking the Government to release records to help those illegally adopted to gain access to essential medical and historical information.
Theresa Tinggal and fellow campaigner Maria Dumbell travelled to Dublin from the UK earlier this week to hand a letter to Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Frances Fitzgerald asking her to make available records relating to informal adoptions in the 1950s.
“We want legislation changed in Ireland so we can gain access to case files, medical workers’ files that do exist,” said Ms Tinggal. She learned eight years ago that she had been adopted illegally when she was two days old.
“In view of the Adoption Information and Tracing Bill coming out at the end of the year, and the children’s referendum, we thought it was an appropriate time to come over,” she said.
The group met the HSE this week to put their case. “We were told by the HSE we can’t change anything unless legislation changes and that’s why we’re lobbying,” said Ms Tinggal.
For remaining article:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1008/1224325015545.html
Dark side of inter-racial adoption surfaces with arrivals of grown-up adoptees
Washington State Senator Paull Shin, French digital economy minister Fleur Pellerin and French Senator Jean-Vincent Place. They all have something in common.
All three are Korean adoptees who have become successes in their adopted countries.
Behind the success stories of those people, however, are others who suffer emotional distress after being adopted by foreign parents.
Adoptees' rights activists say many of the children sent for inter-racial adoption suffer racial and other social discrimination, constantly longing for their biological parents and homeland.
In the United States, a country where adoptees must undergo a separate procedure to obtain citizenship, more than a few adoptees never become naturalized, partly due to indifference from their adoptive parents.
According to South Korea's health and welfare ministry and an activist group devoted to Korean adoptees' human rights, there are 23,000 Korean adoptees in the U.S. whose citizenship status the groups do not know.
The figure represents about 20 percent of some 110,000 adoptees sent to America over the past 60 years since the 1950-53 Korean War.
A majority of those 23,000, in fact, appear to have obtained U.S. nationality but the true figure remains unknown due to local adoption agencies' poor management of post-adoption information.
"Most of the unconfirmed cases may be caused by the agencies' failure to inform the government of information on adoptees' acquisition of U.S. nationality," said Rev. Kim Do-hyun of the activist group KoRoot. "But several thousand of them are still believed to be living without any nationality."
In recent years, a sizable number of adoptees have been deported to Korea after being convicted of criminal charges while living overseas without becoming citizens of the country in which they live.
For remaining article:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/10/117_121939.html
Profit-driven adoptions turn children into a commodity
A dramatic rise in foreign adoptions from Africa is ringing alarm bells among child advocates who worry that the soaring numbers are fuelled by financial incentives and a lack of basic safeguards.
The number of African children adopted by foreign families has nearly tripled in the past eight years. Nearly 6,350 children from Africa were adopted by foreigners in 2010, compared to less than 2,240 in 2003, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The rapid growth has been accompanied by a proliferation of adoption agencies and orphanages, even though the vast majority of “orphans” actually have at least one living parent.
Many orphanages in Africa are set up to generate profits for the owners, since they can receive up to $30,000 per adopted child, the report’s author says. “They were created for financial gain,” said David Mugawe, executive director of the African Child Policy Forum, which released the report Tuesday. “A lot is happening under the table.”
For remaining article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/profit-driven-adoptions-turn-children-into-a-commodity/article4217172/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Referrer%3A+Social+Network+%2F+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links
The number of African children adopted by foreign families has nearly tripled in the past eight years. Nearly 6,350 children from Africa were adopted by foreigners in 2010, compared to less than 2,240 in 2003, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The rapid growth has been accompanied by a proliferation of adoption agencies and orphanages, even though the vast majority of “orphans” actually have at least one living parent.
Many orphanages in Africa are set up to generate profits for the owners, since they can receive up to $30,000 per adopted child, the report’s author says. “They were created for financial gain,” said David Mugawe, executive director of the African Child Policy Forum, which released the report Tuesday. “A lot is happening under the table.”
For remaining article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/profit-driven-adoptions-turn-children-into-a-commodity/article4217172/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Referrer%3A+Social+Network+%2F+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links
Korean-Australian woman finds she was falsely adopted
An Australian woman has found she was the subject of a falsified adoption in South Korea, where her biological mother was told her baby was stillborn.
As Australians find it harder to adopt babies from overseas, one woman has discovered she was falsely adopted from South Korea, where her biological mother was told her baby was stillborn.
Emily Will* was pronounced dead at birth. Born in a small maternity home in the South Korean countryside, the midwife allegedly told her biological parents the baby was “stillborn”.
“I don’t know how this could have happened to me,” she says. “Why would someone (the midwife) do that? Why would someone make a choice for someone else?”
“Her decision changed my life.”
For 23 years, Ms Will believed she was put up for adoption after her biological parents decided to part ways. Her adoption papers said her parents were in a de facto relationship, a status considered shameful in traditional Korean society, with two daughters.
It was not until she became a mother herself, Ms Will became curious about her biological roots.
“After my daughter was born, something changed. Something changed in me,” she says.
“I didn’t know my medical history. I didn’t know what I could have passed on to my kid. I didn’t know if there were any genetic heart diseases. Nothing.”
EMOTIONAL REUNION
After three years of searching and waiting, Ms Will thought she was prepared to meet her biological parents.
“It’s well known that you may possibly or most probably have a false story given to you so you brace yourself,” says Ms Will, 24, a mother of two in Sydney. “But when you finally get the real story, the story you thought you had prepared yourself for… it definitely throws you.”
“Adoption should not be treated as a retail industry. It’s not an exporting importing thing. We’re human beings. We’re not products. We’re not for sale. You can’t put a price on a human life,” Ms Will says.
* Names have been changed for privacy reasons
Source of article http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1693349/Korean-Australian-woman-finds-she-was-falsely-adop
As Australians find it harder to adopt babies from overseas, one woman has discovered she was falsely adopted from South Korea, where her biological mother was told her baby was stillborn.
Emily Will* was pronounced dead at birth. Born in a small maternity home in the South Korean countryside, the midwife allegedly told her biological parents the baby was “stillborn”.
“I don’t know how this could have happened to me,” she says. “Why would someone (the midwife) do that? Why would someone make a choice for someone else?”
“Her decision changed my life.”
For 23 years, Ms Will believed she was put up for adoption after her biological parents decided to part ways. Her adoption papers said her parents were in a de facto relationship, a status considered shameful in traditional Korean society, with two daughters.
It was not until she became a mother herself, Ms Will became curious about her biological roots.
“After my daughter was born, something changed. Something changed in me,” she says.
“I didn’t know my medical history. I didn’t know what I could have passed on to my kid. I didn’t know if there were any genetic heart diseases. Nothing.”
EMOTIONAL REUNION
After three years of searching and waiting, Ms Will thought she was prepared to meet her biological parents.
“It’s well known that you may possibly or most probably have a false story given to you so you brace yourself,” says Ms Will, 24, a mother of two in Sydney. “But when you finally get the real story, the story you thought you had prepared yourself for… it definitely throws you.”
“Adoption should not be treated as a retail industry. It’s not an exporting importing thing. We’re human beings. We’re not products. We’re not for sale. You can’t put a price on a human life,” Ms Will says.
* Names have been changed for privacy reasons
Source of article http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1693349/Korean-Australian-woman-finds-she-was-falsely-adop
Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness
For the more about adoption in the U.S. visit:
http://babyscoopera.com/
DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families
By Nev Moore
Massachusetts News
Child "protection" is one of the biggest businesses in the country. We spend $12 billion a year on it.
The money goes to tens of thousands of a) state employees, b) collateral professionals, such as lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators and guardians, judges, and c) DSS contracted vendors such as counselors, therapists, more "evaluators", junk psychologists, residential facilities, foster parents, adoptive parents, MSPCC, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, YMCA, etc. This newspaper is not big enough to list all of the people in this state who have a job, draw a paycheck, or make their profits off the kids in DSS custody.
In this article I explain the financial infrastructure that provides the motivation for DSS to take people’s children – and not give them back. In 1974 Walter Mondale promoted the Child Abuse and Prevention Act which began feeding massive amounts of federal funding to states to set up programs to combat child abuse and neglect. From that came Child "Protective" Services, as we know it today.
After the bill passed, Mondale himself expressed concerns that it could be misused. He worried that it could lead states to create a "business" in dealing with children. Then in 1997 President Clinton passed the "Adoption and Safe Families Act." The public relations campaign promoted it as a way to help abused and neglected children who languished in foster care for years, often being shuffled among dozens of foster homes, never having a real home and family. In a press release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services dated November 24, 1999, it refers to "President Clinton’s initiative to double by 2002 the number of children in foster care who are adopted or otherwise permanently placed."
It all sounded so heartwarming. We, the American public, are so easily led. We love to buy stereotypes; we just eat them up, no questions asked. But, my mother, bless her heart, taught me from the time I was young to "consider the source." In the stereotype that we’ve been sold about kids in foster care, we picture a forlorn, hollow-eyed child, thin and pale, looking up at us beseechingly through a dirt streaked face. Unconsciously, we pull up old pictures from Life magazine of children in Appalachia in the 1930s. We think of orphans and children abandoned by parents who look like Manson family members. We play a nostalgic movie in our heads of the little fellow shyly walking across an emerald green, manicured lawn to meet Ward and June Cleaver, his new adoptive parents, who lead him into their lovely suburban home. We imagine the little tyke’s eyes growing as big as saucers as the Cleavers show him his very own room, full of toys and sports gear. And we just feel so gosh darn good about ourselves.
Now it’s time to wake up to the reality of the adoption business. Very few children who are being used to supply the adoption market are hollow-eyed tykes from Appalachia. Very few are crack babies from the projects. [Oh… you thought those were the children they were saving? Think again]. When you are marketing a product you have to provide a desirable product that sells. In the adoption business that would be nice kids with reasonably good genetics who clean up good. An interesting point is that the Cape Cod & Islands office leads the state in terms of processing kids into the system and having them adopted out. More than the inner city areas, the projects, Mission Hill, Brockton, Lynn, etc. Interesting… With the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, President Clinton tried to make himself look like a humanitarian who is responsible for saving the abused and neglected children. The drive of this initiative is to offer cash "bonuses" to states for every child they have adopted out of foster care, with the goal of doubling their adoptions by 2002, and sustaining that for each subsequent year. They actually call them "adoption incentive bonuses," to promote the adoption of children.
Where to Find the Children A whole new industry was put into motion. A sweet marketing scheme that even Bill Gates could envy. Now, if you have a basket of apples, and people start giving you $100 per apple, what are you going to do? Make sure that you have an unlimited supply of apples, right? The United States Department of Health & Human Services administers Child Protective Services. To accompany the ASF Act, the President requested, by executive memorandum, an initiative entitled Adoption 2002, to be implemented and managed by Health & Human Services. The initiative not only gives the cash adoption bonuses to the states, it also provides cash adoption subsidies to adoptive parents until the children turn eighteen. Everybody makes money....
For remaining article, go to: http://www.massnews.com/past_issues/2000/5_May/mayds4.htm
Indian Adoption Scandal
This video demonstrates what goes on behind agency profiteering and trafficking for adoption not only in India but around the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym3HVJWyJ1s&fb_source=message
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym3HVJWyJ1s&fb_source=message
Why it Costs More to Adopt a White Baby
By Dean Schabner
When a couple seeking to adopt a white baby is charged $35,000 and a couple seeking a black baby is charged $4,000, the image that comes to the Rev. Ken Hutcherson's mind is of a practice that was outlawed in America nearly 150 years ago — the buying and selling of human beings.
The practice, which is widespread among private adoption facilitators, of charging prospective parents different fees depending on the race or ethnicity of the child they adopt is one that Hutcherson is fighting to change from his Redmond, Wash., church. The Antioch Bible Church has established its own adoption agency, and is lobbying state legislators to change Washington's laws.
"I've got championship Rottweilers. I sell them by supply and demand," Hutcherson said. "I raise thoroughbred racehorses. I sell them by supply and demand. I'm not going to let people sell children by supply and demand. What's the difference between that and slavery?"
The campaign to change the law is directed at Washington state legislators, but Hutcherson said he would prefer to see the federal government step in and create one set of regulations governing adoption, rather than leaving the issue to the states to decide.
Current Washington law bans payments to a birth mother for placing a child for adoption, but does not address payments for arranging an adoption or the fees that may be charged.
"I think it's an issue that Americans have not looked at closely enough, because if they had, things wouldn't be the way they are," he said.
He hopes to get attention around Washington with a billboard campaign as soon as he can raise the $70,000 to $80,000 he needs. The billboards will feature a white baby, a latino baby and a black baby and next to each, the fees some adoption facilitators might charge for them: $35,000, $10,000 and $4,000.
He said that besides putting a price on children, the practice discriminates against white babies and people who seek to adopt them — an issue he said has been overlooked because white people, particularly those who can afford the high adoption fees charged, are not used to considering themselves victims of discrimination.
"I know about discrimination," said Hutcherson, who is black. "I don't care who it's against, it's wrong. Tell me that if it was black babies that cost $50,000 and white babies that cost $4,000, people would be screaming their heads off."
Disparity in Fees
Some adoption professionals said the reason for the difference in cost for adopting white babies as opposed to babies of other races or ethnicities is that there are fewer white infants available and there is more demand for them.
"Often the justification may be that children of some ethnic groups are more difficult to place," said Gregory Franklin, an attorney who said that 90 percent of his business is providing legal representation for people involved in the adoption process.
"Obviously, any time that somebody brings up the word discrimination, everybody's going to take notice and draw attention to the issue, whether or not there's an issue there," said Sean Lance, the director of American Adoptions, which has a fee structure that results in prospective parents paying more to adopt white babies than to adopt black babies. "It's not set up as discriminatory. The difference is in the cost of the process — living expenses, medical expenses. Our agency fee for all adoptions are identical."
For remaining article:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91834&page=1#.UGUF4UXA-M1
March 12
The practice, which is widespread among private adoption facilitators, of charging prospective parents different fees depending on the race or ethnicity of the child they adopt is one that Hutcherson is fighting to change from his Redmond, Wash., church. The Antioch Bible Church has established its own adoption agency, and is lobbying state legislators to change Washington's laws.
"I've got championship Rottweilers. I sell them by supply and demand," Hutcherson said. "I raise thoroughbred racehorses. I sell them by supply and demand. I'm not going to let people sell children by supply and demand. What's the difference between that and slavery?"
The campaign to change the law is directed at Washington state legislators, but Hutcherson said he would prefer to see the federal government step in and create one set of regulations governing adoption, rather than leaving the issue to the states to decide.
Current Washington law bans payments to a birth mother for placing a child for adoption, but does not address payments for arranging an adoption or the fees that may be charged.
"I think it's an issue that Americans have not looked at closely enough, because if they had, things wouldn't be the way they are," he said.
He hopes to get attention around Washington with a billboard campaign as soon as he can raise the $70,000 to $80,000 he needs. The billboards will feature a white baby, a latino baby and a black baby and next to each, the fees some adoption facilitators might charge for them: $35,000, $10,000 and $4,000.
He said that besides putting a price on children, the practice discriminates against white babies and people who seek to adopt them — an issue he said has been overlooked because white people, particularly those who can afford the high adoption fees charged, are not used to considering themselves victims of discrimination.
"I know about discrimination," said Hutcherson, who is black. "I don't care who it's against, it's wrong. Tell me that if it was black babies that cost $50,000 and white babies that cost $4,000, people would be screaming their heads off."
Disparity in Fees
Some adoption professionals said the reason for the difference in cost for adopting white babies as opposed to babies of other races or ethnicities is that there are fewer white infants available and there is more demand for them.
"Often the justification may be that children of some ethnic groups are more difficult to place," said Gregory Franklin, an attorney who said that 90 percent of his business is providing legal representation for people involved in the adoption process.
"Obviously, any time that somebody brings up the word discrimination, everybody's going to take notice and draw attention to the issue, whether or not there's an issue there," said Sean Lance, the director of American Adoptions, which has a fee structure that results in prospective parents paying more to adopt white babies than to adopt black babies. "It's not set up as discriminatory. The difference is in the cost of the process — living expenses, medical expenses. Our agency fee for all adoptions are identical."
For remaining article:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91834&page=1#.UGUF4UXA-M1
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