Last week a delegation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was expected to visit the US to discuss the problems of exit visa’s of Congolese children adopted by American parents. The issuance of those documents to get - depending on how one counts - 56 or 456 kids out of the country was stopped last year because of concerns not only about child trafficking and corruption in the DRC itself but also about the so called re-homing scandals in the US, a practice where adoptive parents abandon their adopted kids like pets and try to find new homes for them over the internet. The delegation cancelled its trip last minute citing not very convincing reasons. The real reason might have been an undiplomatic action by adoption advocate Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) who rallied 169 of the possible 535 signatures of members of congress for a petition, which didn’t reflect seriously on any of the Congolese concerns, didn’t offer any assistance and was just short of demanding the President of the DRCongo to issue the visa. This lack of empathy for those at the other side of the adoption equation – foreign authorities, local social workers, first parents and in the end also the children and adult adoptees - characterizes the American attitude to international adoption since its modern inception.
International adoption as a formal large scale operation started as a Christian enterprise in the fifties of last century when the evangelical couple Bertha and Henry Holt from rural Oregon, following God’s word, adopted eight kids from war ravaged Korea. The couple eventually founded an agency which became responsible for the adoption of tens of thousands Korean kids in the US. Their amateurish and often hurtful practices, based on the missionary tenets of Christian charity and not on serious child welfare considerations, were criticized by professionals, initially to little avail. Holt professionalized over the course of time, but the idea of adoption as a good deed of saving orphans and a basic expression of Christian belief became the core of the general perception of adoption in the US into our days.
Holt was the start of a countrywide international adoption industry, which branched out from Korea to other troubled countries in the world, an industry peopled with agency personnel, adoption specialists, social workers, psychologists, and supported by academia and its research. Domestic and foster care adoption became the less sexy stepsisters in that world; so unsexy that the US is even exporting black babies to Europe (sic).
The idea that international adoption actually helps children, families and communities in other countries, is in our day and age contested by many welfare professionals. The focus of the international community is on family care and preservation, extended family preservation that is. If children for one or another reason can’t be supported by one of their parents, social workers look into possibilities in that extended family or in the local community.
Adoption by foreigners is seen as the option of last resort. UNESCO takes that position, as do the ‘donor’ countries. A conference bringing together representatives of African countries in Addis Ababa in 2012 called ‘for a reversal of the current trend of resorting to intercountry adoption as an easy and convenient option for alternative care in Africa, and for giving absolute priority to enabling all children in Africa to remain with their families and their communities.’ To take care of your own seems for a country the right thing to do. And should the international community not follow that lead?
The other reason why international adoption is not the right child welfare option lies in the corruption and the child trafficking cases in the DRC and in many other poor ‘donor’ countries. It just unclear whether a child is really available for adoption and whether relinquishment was forced or coerced. Academic and journalistic research on adoption corruption and child trafficking has been done by amongst others David Smolin, DeLeith Duke Gossett, Kathryn Joyce and E.J. Graf. More and more we learn also from American workers on the ground in the ‘donor’ countries. Megan Parker from Abide Family Center in Uganda wrote about her experiences in her passionate blog Pearl to be Found: ‘We’re the ones who have sat across from a mother who says, “I would have kept my baby if someone, anyone, had offered to help me keep her. I was just too poor”. We’ve seen children stolen and birth families coerced and money exchange hands and false documents written up. We’ve seen it with our own eyes.’
And Holly Mulford from Reeds of Hope in the Democratic Republic of Congo writes: ‘If you have followed media reports coming out of DRC over the past four years regarding adoption […] you will have read reports of child trafficking, orphanage raids, and illegal border crossings. If you have followed individual stories of adoption in DRC […] you will have learned of falsification of documents, DGM bribing, siblings spilt apart, lost referrals […], abuse of children in orphanages, false abandonment reports, coercion of birth parents to relinquish children, and high foster care fees […].’
Both Megan Parker and Holly Mulford plead for family preservation instead of adoption and there are all over the world organizations which practice that with success: Childs i Foundation and Ekisa Ministries in Uganda, Bring Love In from Ethiopia, Children in Families in Cambodia and Heartline Ministries in Haiti.
Family and community care and preservation is thus regarded by policy makers, and by those on the ground, as the way to go. The Evangelical Christians in the US are however opposing this model and see adoption as the solution for what they call the ‘Orphan Crisis’ and organized the so-called ‘Orphan Crusade’. In their religious fervor they define orphans in a Western way and portray them as sad and poor and sick babies and kids, left alone by their parents, stuck in orphanages. The reality is however very different: family and community structures are defined in other ways outside the US than core families and orphanages are not just places of horror, but often used as ‘boarding schools’ for kids whose poor parents are not able to take care of them, often temporally. This is not to deny the fact that there are pernicious situations for kids where international adoption is an individual solution.
Behind the orphan crusade hides an orphan theology, which presents itself most of the time very thoughtful, like in the case of Rev. Warren’s evangelical Saddleback Church. It focuses initially on welfare and care, but ends ultimately with adoption; ‘Adoption is God’s idea,’ is the last line in a Saddleback power point presentation. (A sharp analysis and critique of the rather labyrinthic orphan theology and the adoption practice was made by David Smolin, an evangelical Christian himself.)
Amongst the simple believers this theology translates in quotes like these: ‘God knew all along my daughter would be orphaned, knew all along He would send us to China for her, and so yes, I believe fully without a doubt that while she was birthed to another woman, God in His ULTIMATE authority chose her to be MY daughter. Things in this temporary life do not make sense sometimes, but God's plan was for her to hear the gospel in our home.’ And: ‘God is Sovereign and I can't agree with someday telling my daughter that her place in our family is "Plan B" [Adoption that is] for her. She'll have enough issues due to the situation she was born into that we will have to explain someday - but "plan B" will not be part of that story.’
The Adoption Crusade seems to have found a powerful partner in the adoption industry, which has for other than religious reasons opted for adoption instead of welfare. The adoption numbers are going down because of stricter international regulations. And more ‘supply’ is needed to keep the business going. Together they were able to create a political ‘save the orphan movement’ with the help of two senators, Landrieu and Roy Blunt (R-MO). Last September legislation – CHIFF: Children in Families First - was introduced to loosen up money from the budget of the Department of State and to circumvent the stricter international regulations and make international adoption faster and easier. Again veiled under the pretense of international family care, it is aimed at international adoption.
There has not been made a lot of progress since the fifties of last century, the time of the Holts. International adoption is still regarded as a good Christian deed and as a way to solve problems of poverty in other countries. Adoption is still a tool in the hands of evangelical Christians, not to help kids in need in the first place, but to satisfy their own missionary needs. It is disturbing that they were able to lure serious politicians, who could and should know better, in their bigoted world. Let us ‘pray’ these politicians open their ears and change their minds.