The Christian right proclaimed some ten years ago unilaterally that there is an orphan crisis in the world and the movement rebranded its mission as ‘orphan care’ in an 'orphan crusade' which promotes international adoption to solve that crisis. Recently a splinter of the religious right, an organization with the hot name Both Ends Burning, focused its attention on the situation in Nepal.
The estimate of the number of so-called orphans in Nepal lies between 800,000 and a million. What orphans exactly are is a matter definition and discussion, but most orphans in underdeveloped countries are not lonely and fully lost on the streets; they have mostly one parent or a member of her or his extended family or community, who tries to take care of her or him. Poverty can force parents and other caregivers to putting their kids in orphanages, in the hope that this will be a temporary solution. And orphanages are horrible places to grow up.
Kids live without doubt in an unforgiving environment in Nepal, where child trafficking for forced labor, for work in the sex industry and for adoption are more than common. (http://www.theinternational.org/...). But western money, when it is used privately and not by NGO’s or international organizations, doesn’t help very much in this dark situation. Orphanages in Kathmandu are in many cases moneymakers for the owners who collect donations. There are mock orphanages with mock orphans, which attract western paying volunteers who generate donations in their countries of origin (http://www.theguardian.com/...). Worse even is that like in all poor countries western money coming from prospective adoptive parents through agencies actually create 'orphans' where they were not before. International adoption, if not done with integrety and high ethical standards, in fact adds to child welfare problems in a country instead of helping them solve.
Nepal is not the best place to go to adopt children with the intention to save them from their horrible plight. In most cases one cannot assess that plight realistically and be sure that a child is not trafficked and doesn’t have a parent or a related caregiver. For that reason Nepal decided to close the country for international adoption in 2007 – after a series of disturbing trafficking cases – to deal with these issues, to alas re-open it two years later. Nepal is not a member, or better is financially, technically and administratively not able to be a member of the international Hague adoption treaty, which sets standards for ethical inter-country adoption. Since the situation had hardly changed in two years, the US answered this re-opening together with other countries in 2010 with a suspension of the processing of new adoption cases. In the short period between Nepal’s re-opening and America’s suspension a few hundred Americans applied through American agencies to adopt Nepalese kids and circa 60 applications led to a so-called match. That number is comparable with the medium annual number of American adoptions from Nepal since 2000. These 60 cases were for a longer period of time in limbo, but they were eventually all cleared in 2010 and 2011: the children could leave the country and join their adoptive families. Nepal was however still closed for adopion and stayed closed.
About these cases, and particularly 56 of them, Both Ends Burning, an in Evangelical Christian America immersed club which advocates passionately – and mindlessly – for international adoption, published a report: Paper Chains. The subtitle reads in all its pomp: Report on U.S. Government Actions and the Impact of these Actions on Nepal’s Abandoned Children, 2010-present. The pretty short report with the pretty long title is written by a collective of 8 writers, who are named but are not identified by their professions: they are presumably students. The report reads as beginner’s work: not very well organized, repetitive, unfocused, uneven in detail and substance, and worst of all: for an anti-government piece about real emotional stuff, tremendously boring. One heart wrenching case would have been more effective than 54 pages suppressed angry and nervous rambling. The report tries to convince who? yes, who to re-open Nepal for adoption on the basis of those 56 cases, which were according to Government reports hard to pinpoint as ethical and according the research initiated by the adopters theselves absolutely 'clean' (https://bothendsburning.org/...).
One should take the individual cases - which were for so long 'in the pipeline' - of the 56 families seriously on a persoanl level, and empathize with the adopters' pain to see kids suffer or - as the standard formula is: 'languishing in orphanages'. But one shouldn't take this report seriously. First of all is the moral outrage about these families who didn’t get their kids immediately and had to come up with additional and costly research , ‘resulting in immeasurable harm to homeless children and the American families seeking to adopt them’, ridiculous; ridiculous against the backdrop of almost a million orphans, or as they better be called: vulnerable children. 56 'saved' kids against a million who are not 'saved'; 56 American ‘immeasurable harmed’ American families against millions and millions deadpoor suffering Nepalese mothers and fathers. Yes ridiculous.
In a comment on an op-ed about this report in the Huffington Post, I made a calculation of the costs involved in this American Nepalese adoption enterprise (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...). The total sum spent on the adoptions is at least $ 3,640,000. Is such an amount as ‘child welfare’ investment for 56 kids ethical in one of the poorest countries in the world, where the per capita income is $330 and where those millions could have helped hundreds and hundreds of children and their families?
The report tries to make the US Government responsible for the misery of the American families and their adopted children. It blames consular workers for sloppy work on the 'ethical clearance' of the adoptees, as if it were the task of the Department of State to do that job. Is it reasonable that government workers spend weeks and weeks on work that is benefitting only 56 American families? Work that is related to for sound reasons abandoned policies? Is it justified that American taxpayers pick up the check for the pursuit of happiness of just a few dozen citizens? Surprisingly enough the detailed description of the facts in the report itself tells us another story about the US Government. All official communications one can read in the report try to warn the parents in diplomatic terms for the risks of adoption in Nepal. And all cited undiplomatic comments from Embassy staffers and other officials, show how tired and annoyed they are from this tenacious relentless crowd of adopters, who deliberately seem to avoid the reality of adoption in Nepal. If I were a diplomat who was involved in all this, I would regard the report as a badge of honor. Their actions had – other than the report suggests – a positive impact: no demand, no supply. The tone of the report and the groundless and often silly allegations would make me, however, not more wiling to help these spoiled and entitled Americans.
Who are painfully missing in this anti-government narrative are the adoption agencies, those who facilitate international adoption and who are paid for their work. Why are they not held accountable for the mess in which their clients tragically dabbled? They should be of course, but I suppose it is easier and politically more fitting in right wing Christian circles to fight the government, than your Christian brethren who you just paid $40,000 for a Nepalese kid.
Both Ends Burning's belief that a personal and individual intervention, like adoption, can be a solution for this enormous problem of the vulnerability of milions of children in the world, is not only naive and self-serving. It perpetuates a practice that is in fact counterproductive. The hurt it does in 'donor' countries, in families, in communities, isn't compensated at all by the happiness for the adoptive parents. Whether it brings happiness to the adoptees themselves, is questioned by many if not most of them.
If international adoption is not part of a comprehensive child welfare effort which focusses on family preservation first and on in-family, in-community, in-country adoption second, an effort which regards international adoption as a solution of last resort, it shouldn't exist. The isolated execution of adoption by individual Americans helped by American agencies in an international context is on its way out and will in not too long be regarded as an unethical social intervention.