On hearing that Guatemala had put a moratorium on inter-country adoptions – meaning they would not allow any until further notice – a lady, who is herself a mother of adopted children, asked me in shock how the country could do such a thing: how could they leave all those poor children stuck there when there were families eager to adopt them? Like voluntourism, inter-country (or international) adoption is something that people tend to get involved in with the very best of intentions, but that has an unexpectedly large capacity for causing grief and trauma, and for damaging children.
Much like voluntourism, inter-country adoption started out as something done by a few people with a genuine wish to give a better life to children with no prospects, then turning into something that became popular, leading to the opening up of a market.
Originally inter-country adoption was about laboriously, through word of mouth and people who knew people, finding a family in another country, willing to take in a child who had no other chance of family-life and make her or him part of their family. However, over time it became more common for families to decide they wanted to adopt, either because they could not have biological children, because wanted to add a disadvantage child to their biological children, or because they felt that there are too many people in the world already, as well as children looking for a family to live in, so they would adopt instead of trying to conceive.
Just like with the ‘orphanages’ visited by volunteers, demand for children to adopt, started to outstrip the ‘supply’ of children in need for adoption. As this happened the adoption system became less and less about finding the right family for a child (the only thing that can be said to be in the child’s best interest) and more and more about finding children for families.
Also just like with the ‘orphanages’ for volunteers, in many countries, people started not to wait around anymore for more children to arrive, they went out looking for them. Poor parents were convinced to hand their children over and sign away their parental rights, either because they had no understanding of what this meant, or because they were pressured into it. In some countries, parents would send their children to what they thought to be a cheap or free boarding school, only to find that the children disappeared from there without a trace when they came back.
Because it was starting to become clear to some people that things were getting out of hand, and that children were effectively trafficked for adoption (with or without the knowledge of the adoptive parents) in 1993 the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption Regulation was put together. This was to provide protection against the trafficking of children for adoption. Unfortunately now, 25 years later, there are still many countries that have not signed or ratified this convention. And some of the countries that have, have not really implemented much of it in their own legislation yet.
So, illegal adoption is still present. And this means that in my opinion we can only be grateful to countries such as Guatemala (but there are various others) for putting a moratorium on inter-country adoption to prevent children from being ripped away from their families and sent to live with strangers – however well-meaning they are – for no other reason than profit. Generally speaking, these moratoria last a few years, while the government gets to the bottom of what is going on and adjusts its legislation to prevent it from happening again.
Yes, this does mean that the ‘supply’ of children eligible for adoption is reduced, but that should be a reason for celebration. Children are not there to completely the happiness of a couple who would like to become their parents. They are their own people, with the right to grow up in their own family, in their own community, in their own culture. It is wonderful to see that fewer and fewer children are available for inter-country adoption, because that means that more and more find a home in their own country. Domestic adoption and other family-based solutions are on the rise in most countries.
This means that only children who really have no chance of a family life in their own country – usually these are children with medical needs so complicated that the medical system in their country is not able to provide them -, or children who suffer from issues that come with severe stigmas – such as HIV/AIDS or severe or profound intellectual disability -, still need to find families in other countries to help them out. Though if we could find foreign sponsors to fund the child’s family going abroad to get the medical care needed while staying together, that would be better still.
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