Risk Factors for Adoption Disruption/Dissolution

Interesting paper from the University of Minnesota, identifying child risk factors, adoptive family risk factors and placement agency risk factors; I'll give you the executive summary for each cohort and then fill in a little more from the body of the paper for those who aren't interested in digging, but who might still want to know!

Child Factors

Although the research is varied, findings in the literature suggest several risk factors for adoption disruption and dissolution. For child characteristics, older children, children with an enduring attachment to their biological family, and children with special needs (particularly children exhibiting externalizing behaviors) are at greater risk of adoption disruption.

I don't think there's anything terribly surprising here; older children (defined as age 3 and up) and special needs children are more challenging to parent, period. As to children "with an enduring attachment to their biological family," the report is talking about children adopted at a much older age from foster care after having spent years with their biological families. That doesn't really surprise me, either. I've heard a lot about older kids from foster care running away to find their biological families.

Adoptive Families Factors

For family characteristics, higher education of adoptive mothers and adoptive parents who lack previous parenting experience are at greater risk of adoption disruption.

The report identifies both of these factors as relating to unrealistic expectations of adopted children. For highly-educated parents, that might mean little tolerance for academic under-achievement. And for first-time parents, the unrealistic expectations might relate to everything!

Agency Factors

For agency factors, adoption by strangers, multiple workers assigned to the case, and placement instability of the child prior to adoption are all linked to increased risk of adoption disruption and dissolution.

Another agency factor discussed in the body that did not make the summary -- inadequate pre-adoptive and post-adoptive services. Surprise, surprise!

Policy Prescription

The ultimate conclusion is sensible:

The literature on adoption disruptions highlights the need for efforts in the following areas: developing adoption-competent services in mental health, school and community settings to better support adopted children in multiple contexts; flexible subsidies and supports for adoptive families that recognize the changing needs of adopted children over the course of their development; the use of strategies to help adopted youth address issues of grief, loss and a sense of identity, including ethno-racial identity; recruitment and support of kinship and foster families as adoptive resources.

Of course, all of these prescriptions cost money, something in short supply for government services these days. A lot of promises of adoption subsidies are being broken right now. Consider this story from Massachussetts:

State law says many adopted kids are entitled to free tuition and fees at any state college.

However, Chief Correspondent Joe Shortsleeve found out, once accepted, these kids are being told there is no money.

Catherine O’Malley of Marshfield adopted Alexis when she was nine years old.

“I can not believe that you go to court and these are the terms. I did not renege on my part of the agreement…here she is!”

Yes. There she is, Alexis who is now 18-years-old. This past June Alexis graduated from Marshfield High School and was accepted into the arts program at Bridgewater State University.

State law says adopted children like Alexis are entitled to free tuition and fees at state colleges. The promise is right there in black and white and Catherine has all the paper work. But Bridgewater State said, sorry pay up.

Another broken promise.  Is it any wonder that the title of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's post-adoption services report is Keeping The Promise: The Critical Need for Post-Adoption Services to Enable Children and Families to Succeed.

As if raising girls isn't hard enough. . .

As a new mom looking for a meeting-Santa outfit for my 13-month-old, I was SHOCKED at how sexualized little girl dresses were.  I kept thinking, "We want to meet Santa, not her pimp!"  And then there were the size 2T panties bearing the slogan, "Hottie!"  Who buys that for their two-year-old?  And the 4T camisole with the built-in bra?  Really?!

And, no, I'm not shopping at Frederick's of Hollywood -- try Target!

Once we passed toddler sizes, it got worse.  But now the attempts were not simply to make my children sexual objects, it was to make them DUMB sexual objects.  The tshirt, sized youth 8, at Marshalls that said, "Math Makes Me Dizzy!"  And now the tshirt pictured above from JC Penney -- in case you can't read it, or can't believe it actually says that -- it says, "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me."  Great.

At stark. raving.  mad. mommy blog, you'll find her 8 Shirts You Won't See on My Daughters. You gotta see 'em to believe 'em!

And we need to reactivate the Barbie Liberation Organization -- the group that reversed the voice boxes of Barbies and GI Joes, so that GI Joe said "Math class is hard," and Barbie said "Vengeance!"

Nature v. Nurture Debate to Adoptees

From the Independent, Who Made Me What I Am?, by an adult adoptee:

Last week, as I sat in a queue at a petrol station wondering why everyone in front of me seemed to be moving in slow motion, I realised I can no longer deny my husband's claims that I'm impatient. Perhaps it's in my nature, I pondered. My dad twitches at the very sight of a queue.

The "nature versus nurture" debate is never far from your mind when you're adopted. Most children spend their childhoods (and sometimes their adulthoods) being told they have their dad's brains, their mum's sociability and/or a whole host of other traits, but adopted people often stop to wonder where they get their characteristics from and how different they might be if they'd grown up with their birth parents.

My natural parents were teenagers when I was born and in 1970, that generally meant one thing: adoption. My adoptive parents were always open about it and from early on, I felt it explained why I loved my mum, dad and brother but I didn't feel like them

* * *

It's not that I expected families to be clones. But I noticed that even in other homes where personalities were poles apart, there was a way of being that made them identifiable as a family. Ours had this feeling of four random people thrown together – which, I suppose when you have no shared DNA, is exactly what it is.

* * *

No prizes, then, for guessing where I sat in the nature/nurture debate during my twenties. In fact, I began to feel something of an authority on the subject when it came up in social conversation. For most people, I explained, it's an abstract concept, impossible to pick apart. For me, it was both real and tested.

But then things changed. Friends increasingly pointed out that, unlike many of them, I'd always been quite responsible with money. I realised I had exactly the same attitude to working, spending and saving as my parents – far more so than in my birth family. In fact, when I stopped to think about it, a lot of my values were the same as theirs. When I went away for weekends with my mum, I noticed how easily we would chat on most issues – because, I realised, we had a similar outlook on many things. My mum, meanwhile, has always said I'm like my dad, who died two years ago. "I don't think so," was always my stock response, wondering what planet she was on, but I've come to see that I do have many of his principles, traits and aspirations.

The author does a good job exploring the gray areas;  not surprising, nature v. nurture isn't really an either/or thing, including references to experts as well as explorations of her own life.

Love and Legislation: The International Politics of Inter-country Adoption

That's a title of this post from the Carnegie Council, self-dubbed "The Voice for Ethics in International Affairs."  Wow, I was excited to see it -- finally! an organization touting ethics in international affairs was going to tackle international adoption!  I couldn't wait to read it.  And then comes the first paragraph:

Probably not since the first wave of inter-country adoptions took place in the aftermath of the Korean War has there been so much attention focused upon the very personal decision of taking a child from one country, and placing him/her permanently within a family in another. Between 1999 and 2010, 224,615 children—often girls, and most aged two and under—were adopted into the United States,¹ whilst overall, Sweden, Ireland, and Spain lead the field in terms of inter-country adoptions per 100,00 inhabitants in each country (10.18, 9.45 and 7.79 respectively).

Umm.  Are you seeing the same thing I am?  IA as a "very personal decision," not as something systemic taking place on the international stage. And the only personal decision about taking a child is the adoptive parents'. So just how adoptive-parent-centric is this piece going to be? The next sentence helps us there: the very bland, "taking a child from one country, and placing him/her permanenty within a family in another."  Is it just me, or are we ignoring what might cause a child to be taken from one country -- HER country?  Is it just me, or is there no family she loses in HER country?

OK, I won't judge from the first paragraph.  Let's keep reading:

In an increasingly celebrity-obsessed culture, inter-country adoption can appear to demonstrate the very worst of what wealth and fame can bring—the ability to treat children as commodities, "buying" them to create not only the family that you desire, but the one that publicly appears to elevate the adopter to some form of "saintly" status. It may also appear to imply neo-colonialism, with the common assumption that inter-country adoption implies that a child is "saved" from a poor country by bringing it up in a rich one.

Well, that's more like it!  those are some ethical issues worth discussing -- the commodification of children, the wealthy white world adopting brown babies from poor countries.  But then we find out it isn't any of those things!

Behind such appearances, however, is the real story of inter-country adoption—and it is a story that demonstrates a number of things that are of significance not only to each family touched by adoption, but also to the wider discourse of international affairs, and to the ethical dilemmas that surround it. In an era supposedly characterized by a desire for pluralism, multi-culturalism, and hybridity, the many dilemmas of inter-country adoption demonstrate how far we have come, but also how far we still have to go.

OK, I'll accept a discussion of "things that are of significance not only to each family touched by adoption, but also to the wider discourse of international affairs, and to the ethical dilemmas that surround it."  But guess what?  No such discussion ever comes.  What comes next is a discussion of children who will never be adopted -- ok, that sounds good, since ethics in adoption should care about the orphans left behind, right?

Although the number of inter-country adoptions is certainly large, the figures should be seen in proportion. UNICEF estimates suggest that there are around 140 million children who have lost at least one parent, whether as a result of poverty, conflict, or disease. The greatest proportion of these children live in Africa, whilst the largest numbers of orphans are in Asia.

For the vast majority of these children, adoption is not an option, whether because it is unnecessary—they may still be being cared for within their families, whether by their surviving parent or by extended family; because it is unlikely—some children may be seen as "unadoptable" for a variety of reasons, such as age, disability, or HIV status; or because it is impossible, for example in societies where there is no history of adoption or where the societal infrastructure cannot support it. Where it works, however, it seems that inter-country adoption can actually help to change the culture of adoption in the adoptees' native country, so that in the longer term more children are cared for within their own communities. In China, for example, there is now evidence that as the number of inter-country adoptions has increased so has the number of Chinese families willing to consider domestic adoption.

NOTHING about doing anything to help unadoptable orphans, to help partial orphans cared for by family members.  We just have to think international adoption is a good thing because it has spurred some domestic adoption in some countries.  Great.

Then we have a long and nothing new discussion of the Hague Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, about how the objectives of these treaties is to ensure ethics in adoption. We can nut it down to 2 points:  1. the Hague is a good idea; 2. but lots of ethical adoptions happen without the Hague. Well, that really touts the value of the Hague, doesn't it?!

And then the rest of the post is the sadly familiar critiques of UNICEF:

The debate surrounding inter-country adoption is not made any clearer by the somewhat negative tone that some of the most powerful intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (NGO's) that advocate for children assume in their views.

Sigh. So much promise, so much potential for an organization dedicated to international ethics to address the many real ethical issues in adoption.  And they blew it.

Between Power and Weakness: U.S. v. Guatemala

An essay at Huffington Post by Jacob Wheeler, author of Between Light and Shadow: A Guatemalan Girl's Journey Through Adoption, reacting to the court order that American adoptive parent return their adopted child to the mother from whom she was kidnapped:

Judge Hernandez has given the Monahans 60 days to hand over the girl, and threatened to call the international police agency Interpol if they do not. And that's where the linear story ends. The Monahans' intentions are unknown, but if you honestly think that a judge in small and powerless Guatemala can successfully order a family in the mighty United States to relinquish their child, then you haven't studied the grotesquely one-sided history of U.S.-Guatemala relations.

It was we yanquis who executed a coup d'etat in 1954 to remove democratically-elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz; used the beautiful countryside as our own banana republic during the Cold War; armed and trained its right-wing military during the brutal, 36-year civil war to further our own foreign policy goals; and forced the CAFTA free trade deal down the throats of Guatemala City's powers-that-be last decade.

The most recent chapter in the unequal relationship between the United States and Guatemala is about international adoption. Last decade, Guatemala became the largest "sending country" in the world for adopted children. Nearly 20,000 Guatemalan children were adopted by American families between 2004 and 2008, and a full 1 percent of all babies born in 2007 in "the land of eternal spring" were relinquished by their birth mothers and adopted abroad.

In the essay, he recounts an episode from his book, when a child adopted at 7 from Guatemala returns at 14 to meet her birth family.  He says he was reminded of the episode by the story of Anyeli/Karen Abigail, ordered by the Guatemalan court to be returned to her biological family:

Of course the girl will return to the United States with Judy on Thursday... The match today here in this jungle in Central America was not going to be fair. In fact, it was fixed to begin with. Two poor Guatemalan boys with no money, no resources, and no valuable passports never really stood a chance against a middle-class white woman from the United States when it came to fighting over the 14-year-old girl they all love and need so badly. At the end of this week Guatemala's most valuable natural resources, its children, will still be leaving the country on airplanes for El Norte, and this particular case will be no different. At the end of the month, Guatemala's role will still be one of subservience to the United States of America.

To the extent that he is prognosticating the fate of Anyeli/Karen Abigail, all I have to say is that I'm afraid he's probably right.

It's Planned Parenthood's Fault

What isn't these days, right?  But I'm referencing a blog post at Family Research Council blaming Planned Parenthood for the "decrease in the number of birth moms."  The American Independent does a good job of debunking these frequently-trotted out myths:

A Monday blog entry posted by Family Research Council Action references a media account of how adoption is changing due to technology, but FRCA omits the portion about technology and instead attempts to make the leap that a lack of birth mothers is due to abortion services, and specifically due the presence of Planned Parenthood.

The FRC report, authored by Nick Frase, links to a news report in the Merrillville, Ind.-based Post-Tribune that discusses how the Internet has changed adoptions, but pulls only five paragraphs from an interview with the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Gary in which the charity expressed its hope that a legislative effort to defund Planned Parenthood would have brought more birth mothers.

… However, shortly after the state Legislature adjourned, Planned Parenthood of Indiana successfully sought a preliminary injunction barring much of the law from being enforced. The state is appealing.
“We have not seen an increase [in birth mothers] with that yet,” Kavanaugh said. “Hopefully in the near future we will.” …

The FRC blog includes a section in which the Catholic Charities are described as “one of the largest child placing agencies in northwest Indiana,” but cuts the sentence directly below that states “usually, the not-for-profit has placed 10 babies by now, and averages between 10 and 15 placements a year … This year, they’ve had one as of mid-July.”
And, later in the same news report linked by FRCA, Tina Sanchez-Wright, founder and director of Adoptions and Family Support Network, is interviewed and provides a completely different perspective for what is happening with adoptions in Indiana and throughout the nation.

… “What I’m seeing compared to adoption 10 years ago is I don’t know if there’s been a decrease in birth moms so much as they are finding their own families. They aren’t going through agencies anymore,” Sanchez-Wright said. … Before the Internet, Sanchez-Wright believes more birth moms relied on agencies because they didn’t know where to turn. Now some of her families are receiving calls from moms out of state.
“Adoption is more out in the open. People talk about it and know more about it. They know someone who did it or is adopted,” Sanchez-Wright said. “So people, and with the Internet, they are very savvy about getting the help they need or finding a family. We’re seeing more of that.” …

Frase, writing on behalf of FRC Action, paints a horrible picture of a multitude of families “anxiously” waiting to adopt children. The families, he says, are not only “thwarted by Planned Parenthood,” but to “make matters worse, they’re using their tax dollars to do it.”
In a press release distributed by the Indiana Department of Child Services on Aug. 9, the state agency notes that there are no shortages of children waiting on adoptive parents.

… The [photography] exhibit, called the Heart Gallery, is an initiative of the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS). Its mission is to raise awareness about the approximately 250 Hoosier children currently in foster care still in need of a forever home.
… On any given day, over 400,000 children in America live in foster care due to abuse and neglect. Every year, approximately 30,000 young people leave the foster care system without lifelong families-most at age 18. On their own, these young adults must navigate a weakened economy offering fewer jobs and less support for vital services such as housing. They need and deserve caring adults who love and support them . . .

I've posted before about the false link between abortion and adoption. And the myth goes on. . . .

Genes Trump Lifestyle in Coronary Disease

Well, here's a good argument for knowing your biological family:

It has long been known that hereditary factors play a role in coronary heart disease. However, it has been unclear whether the increased risk is transferred through the genes or through an unhealthy lifestyle in the family. A new study from the Center for Primary Health Care Research in Sweden, published in the American Heart Journal, shows that genes appear to be most important.

The researchers, led by Professor Kristina Sundquist, studied people who had been adopted and compared them with both their biological and their adoptive parents. The Swedish multi-generation register and the in-patient care register were used to follow 80,214 adopted men and women. They were all born in 1932 or later and developed coronary heart disease between 1973 and 2008. Using the registers, the researchers also studied the adoptive parents and biological parents over the same period.
The risk of coronary heart disease in adopted individuals who had at least one biological parent with coronary heart disease was 40-60% higher than that of a control group. There was no increased risk in individuals whose adoptive parents suffered from coronary heart disease, not even if both adoptive parents had the disease.

"The results of our studies suggest that the risk of coronary heart disease is not transferred via an unhealthy lifestyle in the family, but rather via the genes," says Kristina Sundquist, a professor at the Center for Primary Health Care Research in Malmö, Sweden.

All those "I don't know" answers that adoptees have to put on family medical history forms can be dangerous -- a strong argument for opening adoption records.

Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen!

OK, I bet this is something we can all chime in on -- what were your never-gonna-happen parenting moments that rapidly fell by the wayside?
I can give you two examples, my first and my latest.  First, I never understood why parents would let their little ones wear an unsnapped onesie.  I mean, how hard could it be to just finish up the diaper job and snap the sucker?!  Well, that one brought me to my knees before ever leaving China with Zoe.  After wrestling a diaper onto her wiggly butt, I was too worn out to care that she was wandering around with that ridiculous-looking hang-down of an unsnapped onesie!  She had the diaper on so she wouldn't pee on the floor, and beyond that, who cared?!

My latest example:  graphic novels.  Yes, glorified comic books.  Oh, how I've reacted with scorn to parents buying their kids graphic novels instead of REAL books!  Now, Zoe has a complete obsession with graphic novels -- Amelia Rules, Ellie McDoodle, Smile, Amulet. . . . I can't buy 'em fast enough to keep her in reading material! (In fact, I could use some suggestions of graphic nevels appropriate for the pre-teen set).

I'm sure there are tons of other pride-goeth-before-the-fall parenting moments I'm not remembering, too.  How about you?  What was your first and latest parenting absolute that collapsed on you?

Transracial Adoption Research -- Nothing New

Everyone and their brother has been forwarding, tweeting and facebook-posting this recent article, Trans-Racial Adoption:  Research Shows Postitive Outcomes Despite Challenges.  Good news, right?!  Well, good.  But not exactly news.  The first research study they mention, from Feigelman & Silverman, was published in 1993, almost 20 years ago.  And to figure that out, you have to do some digging. 

The next study mention is one by Dong Soo Kim.  I don't know what study is referred to -- I''m assuming it's not his 1976 thesis, because that REALLY wouldn't be news!

The rest of the article is personal experiences related by an adoptive parent and by the executive director of an adoption placement agency working in foster-to-adopt.  Yes, he happens to be a transracial adoptee, but he doesn't say very much about his own personal experience of transracial adoption, except to say that he does think the adoption community should focus on finding same-race placements (not exactly a ringing endorsement of trans-racial placement!).

So while I was initially happy to see this article, it really isn't all that.  Nothing new here at all.

Made in China = POS

OK, I've gone on record before as disliking the "Made in China" reference to China adoptees:

[I] have long had a strong dislike for the "Made in China, Loved in America" slogan, beloved of many adoptive parents (click here to read a whole slew of them defending the shirt). In a previous post about the book titled, Made in China, I described the slogan thus: "very high yuck factor in terms of objectification/ commodification, with the added assumption that no one loved these girls in China."

Now I have another reason to dislike the slogan as applied.  Zoe was recounting the experience of her friend, M., also adopted from China.  At school, M.'s friends told her that "Made in China" means "Piece of Junk (the kid version of "Piece of "Sh*t," I suppose).  Zoe definitely took it personally -- she was brainstorming what she would say if someone said it to her, and all of her responses started with, "Well, I was made in China. . . ."

So with "Made in China" being equated with shoddy workmanship, we have another reason to avoid that phrase in reference to children adopted from China.  And it's a pretty widespread sentiment, isn't it?  There's even a Facebook page dedicated to it. . . .

Returning a Child to Get Him the Help He Needs

From the Seattle Times:

Deb and Doug Carlsons' adopted sons have trashed bedrooms, stolen credit cards and threatened to kill them. One drew a disturbing picture of beheading the southwest Florida couple and throwing a party.
When the Carlsons adopted the now teenage boys from foster care in 2007, they were handed a slim file with few details except the two suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. No one told the empty nesters the boys had severe mental health issues and had bounced among foster homes. Now teenagers, the boys are living in separate therapeutic group homes.

Therapists say one son needs to be in a supervised residential facility, which the state government no longer will pay for unless the Carlsons restore custody to the state.

"We love him and he's part of our family. To have to make such a difficult decision to get him the care he needs is ludicrous. It sends a horrible message to him," said 55-year-old Deb Carlson. "You really feel like once you sign on the dotted line you're on your own. You're totally abandoned by the state."

So who's to blame -- plenty to go around, huh? The adoptive parents? The agencies who fail to train them? The state, who fails to offer post-adoption services?

TIME: Baby-Selling Scam Focuses Attention on Surrogacy

TIME publishes more on the San Diego baby-selling ring:

Court documents lay out a plan that Erickson and Chambers came up with six years ago, before including Neiman in 2008: the women would arrange for surrogates to fly to Ukraine to be impregnated with donor embryos. When the surrogates were about 12 weeks along, the babies would be offered to prospective parents. Once a couple was found, Erickson would file a document in a California court, fraudulently claiming that the surrogacy agreement was in place from the start.

The scam was discovered when one of the surrogates, who was nearly six months pregnant, got nervous that she hadn't yet been officially paired with adoptive parents. She called an attorney, who called the FBI.

* * *

Prospective parents approached by the defendants were told that the surrogates' previously arranged agreements had fallen apart. They learned that they could enter into a new agreement with the surrogate for between $100,000 to $150,000, which is on the upper end of typical surrogacy costs. It sounded like a tempting proposition, offering couples “a surrogate well into her pregnancy, after the greatest risk of miscarriage had passed,” according to the L.A. Times. “It would even be possible to choose the sex of a child. In addition, the babies were white — a condition set by many U.S. couples that makes it difficult for them to adopt.”

This quote from law professor and blogger Julie Shapiro explains why this story is so abhorrent:

“Creating babies on purpose for specific people is seen as less risky because you know where that child is going if it all plays out well,” says Julie Shapiro, a law professor at Seattle University who blogs regularly about how the law defines the concept of family. “The idea that we create children and then essentially shop them around is morally quite different and unacceptable, and I think that's why the order matters so much.”

Malta: Unborn Baby Trafficking

I posted about the Philippines side of the equation here, and now here is the Malta side of it:

The police, Department for Social Welfare Standards and Aġenzija Appoġġ are looking into the case of unborn child trafficking reported in the international media in the past days, the Education, Employment and Family Ministry said yesterday.

Their reaction came after this newspaper yesterday reported that an expectant Filipino mother was reportedly sponsored to come to Malta with the intent of having her baby adopted. This is considered to be a form of human trafficking and is understood to have been reported by Maltese authorities.

* * *

The ministry said that when the Department for Social Welfare Standards and Aġenzija Appoġġ were informed about the case, they immediately reported it to the ministry and the police for investigation.

Police action was taken against the woman for giving false information in an official document that enabled her to enter Malta.

When this case came to light, the DSWS immediately alerted its counterpart in the Philippines about the case.

The DSWS, as the local central authority, is responsible to regulate inter-country adoptions. Malta has signed and ratified the convention on the protection of children and cooperation in respect of inter-country adoptions.

The Ministry noted that the convention makes it clear that for a child to be adopted in a foreign country, the sending country, in this case the Philippines, has to approve the adoption. Discussions on this particular adoption are still in progress.

Father "never going to give up" seeking custody of adopted-out daughter

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the Today Show, the case of the Virginia father whose child was adopted in Utah without his consent. Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute also interviewed.

Trafficking in Unborn Babies

No, I'm not talking about the San Diego baby-selling ring, though it would be an apt title for that egregious episode.  This is out of the Philippines, from the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

Pregnant Filipino women have been recruited to travel overseas legally as tourists then sell their newborns to waiting adoptive parents, the Department of Social Welfare and Development said on Wednesday.

Social Welfare Undersecretary Alicia Bala disclosed the newest form of child trafficking at the 11th Global Consultation on Child Welfare Services in Makati City.

Bala said that two cases had so far been reported—one in Austria two years ago and another in Malta last year.

Speaking about the latest case in Malta, Bala said: “The mother who’s pregnant [was] sponsored to go to that place with the intent of having the child adopted.”

“This is a form of trafficking… Our attention was called by Malta authorities,” she told reporters.

The mother has returned to the country but her child is now undergoing procedure for adoptive parents to keep the baby in custody.

“This is just one instance but, who knows, there may be other cases that are not brought to our attention. It is a prearranged plan of giving birth there, then they give the baby up. They don’t keep the baby because there is already that intention to have the baby adopted abroad,” Bala said.

As the mothers are able to exit the country legally, such cases are hard to detect unless reported by the receiving country, Bala said.

“You can’t stop anyone from traveling. There’s no reason for immigration agents to be suspicious about why a pregnant woman is going overseas. Maybe there’s a facilitator here,” Bala said.

Not the first time I've heard of prospective birth mothers as portable incubators -- see here and here. It's easier to smuggle pregnant women than helpless infants, and it's easier to do a domestic adoption by moving the potential birth mother in-country than to do an international adoption.

The Exotification Factor in Transracial Adoption

From an adult adoptee at the Huffington Post:

In an August 15, 2011, story for The Atlanta Post, "Unraveling the Black Adoption Myths in America," reporter H. Fields Grenee writes: "Adoption. At first glance it's just another word in the dictionary. But its power is vested in the weight of the word -- conjuring images of abandonment, cherished blessings, adamant secrecy and self discovery."

To whom, I wonder, is "adoption" just another word? And when exactly does the weight of the word come into play with its power of "conjuring up images of abandonment, cherished blessings, adamant secrecy and self discovery"? As an adoptee, I can tell you that the emotions described therein are neither conjured nor imagined -- they are real and they are heavy.

While there are certainly many feel-good stories about successful, long-awaited adoptions, as well as happy birth reunion stories, such as the recent story in which Facebook reunited a birth mother with the child she gave up 63 years ago, there tends to be little focus on the plain and often uneasy facts of adoption, particularly when race is involved.

To wit: Nobody talks about the exotification factor of interracial adoption -- particularly among white fathers and their brown-skinned or non-white daughters.

* * *

I was 19 years old when the news broke that Woody Allen had left Mia Farrow for her adopted Korean daughter Soon-Yi Previn in 1992. I didn't think too much of it, except "eeewwwww," like everyone else. My birth mother had a sharply different take. "Sound familiar?" she said with a sort of casual cruelty to me one afternoon. "Like how?" I asked. "You and (your [white adoptive] father) are not all that different in your dynamic."

The shock of her insinuation, the shame I felt in the complicity she implied, the heinously unfair assessment of my father -- I was devastated. In one moment, the safety and ease I felt as my father's daughter changed forever.

Revisiting the memory, which feels less now like a memory and more like an old emotional injury that aches when it rains, puts into sharp relief the unasked questions surrounding the rampant adoption of the international Other, which is a popular trend among celebrities right now. Will people question Brad Pitt's relationship with Zahara when she gets older and turns into the gorgeous, statuesque young black woman she is sure to become? Is Woody Allen alone in his lust for a girl-child whom he didn't biologically father? Did he feel less like Previn's father because she is Korean? Think about it.

Thoughts?

Adoption or Abduction?

The print edition of Arise Magazine asked, "Should non-Africans be allowed to adopt African children? This controversial question kicks off ARISE Magazine’s new thought-provoking new feature, The Big Question, in issue 13." On-line, they publish more of the answer given by "British/Ethiopian/Eritrean poet, writer and performer Lemn Sissay. Having experienced what it’s like to be an African child adopted by non-African parents, he had a lot to say on the matter."  It's a fascinating read;  here's a snippet:

Having an African baby is often a sign to non-African adopters of their philanthropic, political, familial or religious credentials. The African child is a badge of honour displaying their commitment to philanthropy, politics or religion. They feel that by extricating a child from Africa and showing them the light of their way signifies their own righteousness.

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In many ‘adoptions’ the child is saving the parents because it is they who desperately need a child and not just because of infertility. They need it to fulfil who they are – as do most parents who conceive naturally. If they are not colonising the country then in this way they colonise a person. A child who has been taken from their country will in the future ask, ‘Why am I here?’ or else live in fear of asking that question. The answer, ‘We saved you from the dark bad continent and its dark, bad, needy, poor people and tyrannical governments’, will not do.

Good Morning America on Baby-Selling Ring

Good Morning America addresses the recent baby-selling scandal.

China: Adoption measures to be tightened

According to China Daily:

The government is toughening rules to tackle the scourge of child trafficking, including making orphanages the only institutions that can offer abandoned children for adoption, an official said.

"Illegal adoption", whereby adults can adopt without official registration, will also be targeted.

Enhancing the role of orphanages in the adoption process will better protect the rights of children and curb trafficking, Ji Gang, director of the domestic adoption department of the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA), told China Daily.

The draft of the rules, due to be introduced by the end of the year, will force adults to go through official channels and reduce the demand for abducted children, he added.

The Registration Measures for the Adoption of Children by Chinese Citizens has been in place since 1999. It stipulates that a citizen can adopt a child from sources other than an orphanage if the applicant does not have any offspring and meets certain requirements in terms of age, health and financial status.

As a result, children have been adopted through various routes, such as hospitals and friends.

This was a system that allowed certain people to profit from adoptions.

According to the revised rules, to be worked out jointly by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and CCCWA, all abandoned infants and young children should be sent to orphanages for adoption, Ji said.

The rules are clearly directed at domestic adoption, not international adoption.  But it will also test China's commitment to domestic adoption over international adoption, I think.  With these rules in effect, I would think more children will end up in orphanages, rather than siphoned off into domestic adoption, both legal and illegal.  With more children in the orphanages, will the orphanages prefer the hard currency that international adoption brings?

Unraveling Black Adoption Myths

From the Atlanta Post:

Adoption. At first glance it’s just another word in the dictionary. But its power is vested in the weight of the word – conjuring images of abandonment, cherished blessings, adamant secrecy and self discovery.

For African Americans adoption has yet another layer of imagery. Families being torn apart by drug use, poverty, homelessness and even death. At any given moment there are 500,000 children in foster care across the United States with 26% being African American according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010 statistics.

This statistic gives pause to Gloria King, executive director of the Oakland, Calf, based Black Adoption and Placement Resource Center. Founded in 1983 BAPRC was among the first “specialty” agencies to distill the myths surrounding adoption eligibility criteria that kept countless prospective parents from applying.

“We have been very successful in promoting African American children being adopted and bringing the message to the community about families of color being needed to adopt,” says King of BAPRC that serves 11 counties in Califoria. “Targeted recruitment has always been a part of our mission, but let me make it clear – we do not discriminate. We have always served bi-racial families, same gender loving families, couples and singles as part of our outreach efforts.”

King explained that the origin of modern adoption was not conceived with minorities in mind. It was designed for children who had been orphaned due to war; during theThe Civil War children would be placed up on boxes so they could be looked over by potential parents, hence the term “put up” for adoption.

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Although the number of minorities adopting is low, federal government figures show that half of all minority adoptions are by single, black women between the ages of 30 and 50. Furthermore, these women are more likely to adopt older children and sibling groups.

In fact at BAPRC the number of singles applying to adopt is split equally among males and females. King contends that anyone who really understands the selfless job of parenting and is willing to provide a “forever space for a child” that meets their needs should strongly consider adoption because you don’t have to be Ozzie and Harriet.

“We like to show families that are single or older in our advertisements. Showing people in these rolls, especially in the African American community help people start to consider adoption,” she said, “and when they do, they say, oh yes, I can do that – and they step up.”

I've posted before about barriers to African-Americans adopting, so I was pleased to read about the efforts of this agency.