More and more children are being adopted from Africa. A Canadian news report asks if Africa is “The Next China?” One adoption agency representative in Ethiopia complained:
“I’ve had people call me and say, ‘Oh, I want a child just like Angelina Jolie.’ It’s very frustrating because we work for the children. I’m trying to place two brothers right now from Liberia. Nobody wants two boys. Everyone wants a girl,” she said. “I feel like sometimes we have families who want to go shopping.”
African adoptions have the potential for disaster with the differing mindsets of African and North American parents. It’s the consumerist “invisible hand” vs. the tradition-bound lending hand. There is no word for adoption in Swahili, for example, and parents who relinquish their children may not realize they are doing so permanently. Full story here.
It is common for Africans to send orphaned or impoverished children to live with richer relatives, says Nairobi-based UNICEF expert Margie de Monchy, who has spent decades working on child protection cases. Unlike in adoptions, the child remains in regular contact with the parents.
Monchy says networks of traffickers are exploiting this confusion between African custom and Western concepts of adoption. With some families willing to pay up to $30,000 for a Kenyan child, “It’s calculated, it’s organized, and anecdotal evidence suggests it’s increasing … throughout the region. It’s getting worse and it’s organized crime,” Monchy said.
Monchy says celebrities such as Madonna might have unwittingly contributed to the problem by raising interest in African adoptions.
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May 15, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Elly Soar
I’ve read the second article before and it’s still completely unclear to me the way the author has mixed in adoption from different African countries together with child trafficking. Trafficking is clearly morally wrong and illegal and therefore also in opposition to “Western concepts of adoption”. I really question the inclusion of “With some families willing to pay up to $30,000 for a Kenyan child” - it seems to me this is implying that it’s Western families who are creating the black market for trafficked children, but in that case, how are they getting the visas to immigrate the children to their home countries?
May 15, 2008 at 6:37 pm
sylvie
The shopping analogy is dead-on. I heard a woman at a book exhibit asking if there were any books on adopting Asian children. She said, “My friend just got a kid from China. Mine are from Colombia.” You could have easily replaced “kid” with “handbag,” or “t-shirt” and it still would have made sense.
May 15, 2008 at 9:47 pm
panracial
Child trafficking often involves telling parents their children will be used for something differently that they were told. Visas are often obtained by unscupulous means once an non-literate parents agrees to what they think is temporary adoption.
The point is this — adoption should be for the children whose parents for whatever reason don’t want to be parents at that time — not for parents who want to keep their kids. If we want to help ppl in poor countries, we should develop systems that enable them to keep their kids or give them the 10,000 or 30,000 dollars or even a lesser amount that goes much further in poor countries instead of exploiting peoples’ poverty by taking advantage of the fact that they’re poor and have to give up kids they’d do anything to keep.
May 15, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Elly Soar
I agree completely on that…I guess I’m just getting hung up on the fact that it’s Kenya they reference - Kenya does a fabulous job insulating its children from international adoption and potential parents (from the US atleast) have to spend at least 3 months to a year basically fostering their (potential) kid on Kenyan soil before anything can go through in the court (the result being just 10 visas were issued for adopted Kenyans to the US in 2006). I know more Kenyans get adopted to Europe but still it seems that trafficking through an otherwise legal adoption shouldn’t be much of a problem for Kenya…
May 15, 2008 at 11:50 pm
panracial
Believe me, it is. Their are ways to get around fostering the kids on their soil (remember, Malawi had the same rule and Madonna bribed — excuse me, donated her way out of that.) Unfortunately, illegal adoption is as possible in Kenya as in any other non-Euro country. It amazes me how people think Kenya has some unreasonable laws. When adopting from US foster care, in many states, you have to foster the child first and you certainly have to do it on US soil — nobody complains about that. It’s like it’s okay for the US to have rules about what it takes to adopt a kid but those Third World children should just be bundled off to anyone who wants them. Besides, the Kenyan kids don’t need potential parents, they have REAL parents who love them — what they need is people who will put their needs first and help them to stay with their families instead of feeding their acquisitional tendencies.
May 16, 2008 at 4:41 am
overseas chinese
I notice that some people are already looking into adopting orphan victims of the Sichuan earthquake in China. But I have news for them. China Life Insurance made a pledge to adopt all the orphan victims of the Sichuan earthquake. Their charity foundation will be responsible for these orphans living expenses until they are 18 years old. No, they won’t be available for international adoption. Thanks for your interest.
May 16, 2008 at 4:54 am
resistance
Yeah, didn’t that happen with the tsunami too?
When I heard about all the orphans in China because of the quake, I was imagining all these prospective adoptive parents salivating.
May 16, 2008 at 5:25 am
panracial
I know. It’s so sick. There’s a market for Iraqi orphans too - because you know there’s nothing their parents would have wanted more than for them to be adopted into the nation that’s annihilating them.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of older foster kids who actually need homes. I guess its their fault for not being trendy enough to adopt.
May 16, 2008 at 4:55 pm
CJsDaddy
It sounds like my view might be unpopular here, but I’m seeing what appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding as to why most Americans adopt overseas. Please don’t peg me as being defensive as my views on international adoption have shifted greatly as I’ve gone through the process myself and I’m learning a lot about the issues surrounding cross ethnic families from sites like this.
I’m sure there are some disturbed people who want an African child because their favorite celebrity has one, but most of the folks I know roll their eyes at Angelina and Madonna just like you. Also, while I’ve seen some of the same parents liken their adoption efforts to shopping, most see it as a family building process. Anyone who uses language like “my friend just got a kid from China” is just clueless in my view.
As far as salivating when a natural disaster or war occurs, I think you’re seeing misguided compassion. I realize there’s irony and sarcasm in these comments, but I can tell you that the numbers for adoption internationally are more fed by which countries are most “open”. This historically has changed. Most African and all Middle Eastern countries are closed to adoption completely. The problem with exploitation comes in when service providers within that country and the US take advantage of that openness to generate “clients” and “orphans.” Trust my I’ve heard plenty of parents talk about how they’d love to be able to adopt “War Orphans” of Iraq and Afghanistan.
As seen in many other countries, mothers are often coerced and exploited in order to fulfill the desire of Americans to build that family. American couples are often oblivious, but that does not absolve them from responsibility like they so often argue. International adoption can be done ethically, when the need truly exists, and verified as such.
May 16, 2008 at 7:27 pm
panracial
CJ’s Daddy, you raise a valid point that ppl adopt internationally for a variety of reasons. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that the aim of altruistic people MUST be to help those parents in poor countries who want to keep their kids to do so. It also doesn’t change the fact that the same people willing to pay ten thousand dollars to take a child from a family could easily give that ten thousand dollars to the family so that they could keep their own child. People often think that there’s a need for people in rich countries to take the children of poor countries when that need is falsely generated — for example, in China, there are enough Chinese people willing to take ALL Chinese babies who need homes — daughters included. There is no need for international Chinese adoption accept for the fact that its good business. I highly recommend the book Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (Paperback.)
by Jane Jeong Trenka.
May 17, 2008 at 12:48 am
Kathy
Panracial,
Outsiders Within was edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, she wrote The Language of Blood. Outsiders Withind is a compilation of many different
writers, including Jae Ran Kim, author of Harlow’s Monkey. I point this out because there is so much confusion about adoption politics.
Adoption is not something that can be dissected and discussed, unless the issue of paradox is raised. Yes, money could alleviate problems, but people don’t mortgage their homes to finance poverty. In an ideal world, they might, but the reality is, they don’t. Children in China would not be adopted by everyone who lives in China, you know that’s unrealistic, but, still, maybe a child might live in an orphanage and have the slim chance that a parent might return.
Parents can’t play the game of justifying their adoption anymore than an oppressed person can play the game of oppression olympics.
I personally feel that I am accountable to my children, not politics or mass media. I am against transracial adoption myself, because I do think that the children, who could be raised in an decent environment, are not.
May 17, 2008 at 1:01 am
panracial
I realize people can’t mortgage their homes to finance poverty — which is why I call for structural changes, but the fact is that people should be altruistic when it comes to children, and to have $10,000 that you could give to parents to keep the child they desperately want to take but instead use that money to take that child off across the ocean is grossly immoral. I guess the argument is — well, since I refinanced my house I’m justified to take somebody else’s child — when study after study has shown that what’s in the best interest of the child is to be raised within their own family and among kin. In other words, since you’ve refinanced your house, you’re justified in putting your own interests above that of the child (not you, Kathy, but the hypothetical you.) The Chinese thing isn’t unrealistic — I’m speaking about the actual Chinese demand for children — a demand that is being denied for the benefit of the marketplace. The same things is happening in India and in African countries. As long as parents will pay extravagantly for a child they’re enticing countries not to develop altenratives that benefit poor people keeping their kids. I’m not holding anyone accountable to politics or media, but to morality. Furthermore, there are currently viable options to adoption. There are missions that raise children within their communities surrounded by kin and neighbors in poor country and all the children’s needs are met. When families are in a better position they take the children back.
May 17, 2008 at 1:41 am
Kathy
Panracial,
I appreciate the hypothetical you, it really does make a difference.
I was in China last summer, and I will not agree that the demand for children is offset by rich nations ability to pay for them, because that is
simply not true. It is much more complicated than that, which is why I find
the paradox of adoption much more likely to make sense.
You are totally correct that money will infuence the adoption market, and I have no problems with viewing adoption as business, supply and demand do affect this business. And, I do think that the mostly white parents who do adopt are completely unaware and in strong denial of racism and the effects of racism in adoption. Again, I, a white parent, am not in favor of transracial adoption, as too many children suffer from their color-blind racist parents.
May 17, 2008 at 1:48 am
jvansteppes
What irks me most about the wealthy fantasy of adopting a baby from a poor family or an ‘undeveloped’ country is that its an act that confuses solidarity with charity. Even if I adopt a baby whose parents really don’t intend to care for it there are so many ethical risks. I can still go home and congratulate myself for having ‘rescued’ the child from his/her/hir circumstances without examining my own delusions about being a good samaritan, who like Angelina and Madonna, wants to take up what may be the white man’s burden of this generation. Where are Jolie’s reflections on the economic impact of structural adjustment on the countries where she seeks these children out? How can an American have a high profile adoption of a child from VIETNAM without discussing how the war might have left a legacy that the child is part of?
May 17, 2008 at 2:02 am
panracial
Kathy, I realize you have first hand experience in China, but even though I can’t find the source to cite it — perhaps Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son, it is a FACT that there are enough parents within China willing to adopt all the babies. In fact, Chinese peasants often illicitly adopt baby girls and are severely fined — in other words, the government punishes Chinese people who raise their own culture’s kids while shipping babies off to other countries. A baby raised by a Chinese peasant family doesn’t add to the GNP. That same baby exported to the US is. In fact, there’s now business in kidnapping baby girls for adoption.
May 17, 2008 at 4:10 am
panracial
Oh, yeah. And there’s the obvious solution — abolish the human rights abusive one family one child law (and all its amended incarnations) and let people keep their own dang children. But then, China isn’t going to let people keep babies as long as theres a market for them in the West.
May 17, 2008 at 3:11 pm
CJsDaddy
A couple more thoughts here I think Kathy is pointing out the huge paradox of adoption, and a lot of folks really still don’t get what motivates the vast majority of today’s adoptive parents. To use an over-used phrase, I think what’s being discussed here are the lowest common denominator. Since we’re bringing up personal experience, I can tell you that I know dozens of adoptive parents, several as close friends, and exactly zero of them have any concept in their minds of rescuing a child. This misconception really is the most common and the most wrong. That said, I could also point you to some blogs and message boards where quite a few adoptive parents express entitlement and even hero delusions. It’s actually our friends and family who place the “angel” status on us. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that my daughter is lucky to have me, or what a great thing it is we’re doing FOR her. It makes me cringe. I don’t fully understand how that misconception grew to be so strong, but that’s a topic for another post. The funny thing is that it’s accepted by both supporters and opponents of adoption or a particular type of adoption.
As for being against trans-racial or cross ethnic adoption, that’s something that creates a paradox as well. It really dependse on the order in which you place priorities. I realize that government policies and demand for children do get in the way, but those are realities that we must consider when ordering the needs of the child. Living with parents should be first, then more extended family, then within the same community and ethnic group, then within the same country. However, if those things are not possible, or simply do not happen in short order due to politics or bureaucracy, then the need for a permanent home should trump everything else.
There’s a whole school of thought that would accuse white parents of being racist if they will only accept a white child into their family. Kathy’s point rings true though in that most white adoptive parents express more racism than they realize, even when adopting a child of color.
I think I’m getting too wordy, so I’ll just leave it at that.
May 17, 2008 at 5:27 pm
overseas chinese
Lots of Chinese want to adopt, boys and girls. It is such a myth in the west that Chinese people don’t want girls. If you can read Chinese, you can go to Chinese blogs and read it. But since most of you can’t, you just have to take my word for it :-) It is not like the darn Chinese government think that westerners particularly make better parents, but they sure like the money coming from international adoption. They also justify sending all the kids out by saying that these kids are going to have a “better” life overseas. It is win-win for everyone. I don’t want to argue whether the demand for children is offset by rich nations ability to pay for them. But you’ve got to be naive to believe that there is no impact.
May 17, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Kathy
Panracial,
Kay Johnsons book does point to the dynamics of how being able to pay the fine is a very strong factor in a Chinese families ability to keep their baby. I feel that Chinese women suffer terrible human rights violations from the one-child policies, and I believe the men also suffer, as they also have no control over the population policies that affect their families.
I think the competition and resulting market in China is for very young babies. Just as in the United States, many people want infants. The
CWI my family visited had many older children, boys and girls up to age
12 years old. They are well taken care of and the school age children attend a local school. The orphanage my oldest daughter lived in is now
a closed orphanage, we were not allowed past the courtyard.
We visited the new one, which is huge. Some of the
children live in simulated foster families on site. Frankly, I think orphanages have now become an industry in China, much the same as
foster care in the US.
I also think that the recent earthquake will take a deep toll on the parents who lost children in schools. As far as I know, the orphanages in the area of Chengdu did not suffer major damage or loss of life to the children living there. It’s possible that the earthquake might motivate more Chinese nationals to consider adopting or fostering the older children, but the economics of the system may prevent that, we will see.
May 17, 2008 at 5:43 pm
overseas chinese
Just like adopted families in the west, prospective Chinese families would like to adopt all ages. Not everyone wants infants.
China Life Insurance made a pledge to adopt all the orphan victims of the Sichuan earthquake. Their charity foundation will be responsible for these orphans living expenses until they are 18 years old. No, they won’t be available for international adoption.
May 17, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Kathy
Overseas China,
I remember my first trip to China, I left early without a travel group and did some touring ahead of time. I was initially attracted to adopting from China because I mistakenly thought that girls were not wanted. Yes, you are so right, I was shocked to see how loved the baby girls were by their mothers and fathers that I encountered in the streets and parks. It seems so naive of me now to have thought that way.
May 17, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Kathy
Overseas China,
Seems our posts are overlapping.
I don’t think those children would have been available for international adoption, even without China Life insurance. The entire program in China has been radically modified in the last ten or so years, and I believe that international adoption from China to the west will eventually cease completely.
May 17, 2008 at 7:04 pm
panracial
Kathy, a great book I recommend on China is House of Exile by by Nora Waln. It’s a nonfiction book by a woman who traveled to China in 1933 and lives with a family — and among the many things she learns, the Chinese women she stays with teaches her about the agency they possess in their traditional culture.
May 17, 2008 at 7:09 pm
panracial
Oh, also The Big AIIIEEEEE! edited by Frank Chin is a good read that addresses how stereotypes of Chinese gender relations spread — particularly through ridiculous literature like The Woman Warrior and Amy Tan’s stuff.
May 17, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Kathy
Panracial,
Thanks so much for the book recommendations.
May 18, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Elly Soar
Off topic by now, but just came across an article about problems with adoption in Kenya - apparently become alot more commercialized since I was last following things, before 2006! http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=4855430&page=1
May 18, 2008 at 7:50 pm
panracial
And do you know what the really terrible thing about African adoption is? Even when it has been concretely determined that the African parents never legally agreed or understood that they were giving up their kids permanently, courts allow the First World parents to keep the kids. African parents have literally lost every bit of the little money they originally had on legal fees trying to get back their stolen kids. And you KNOW that if some white American parents thought they were sending their kids temporarily off to Africa to be educated and the African parents said, “Nope, these are our kids,” they would have to give the kids back. I can’t believe people keep kids known to have been stolen and still believe its in the kid’s best interest or that they are morally fit to be parents.
May 19, 2008 at 12:45 am
CJsDaddy
Panracial - there’s a few cases (three current at least) going on right now where Guatemalan mothers were found to have had their children stolen and placed with American parents for adoption. From what I understand these children actually went through the process with certain documents forged allowing them to get through all of the controls.
There was actually an ABC.com story recently that mentioned this, but did not go into enough detail to mention any resolution to the kidnappings.
As of late last week, the children were going to be returned to their mother’s in Guatemala. I don’t know, however, if that was a voluntary decision or court dictated.
I’ve also seen on one particular message board parents acting in disgusted that government officials would try coerce women into taking their children back. Very cringe-worthy.
Also, thanks for the book recs.