Often children who cannot stay with their parents need an alternative for a limited time. It might be days, weeks, months or sometimes even a few years. However, after that time they may be able to go back to their own parents. That, of course, is the ideal for any child.
Unfortunately, in some cases it is clear from pretty early on, that the child will never be able to return to the care of her parents or extended family. In these cases, it is possible to organise long-term foster care for the child, something that happens in many places. However, foster care usually does not give the same feeling of permanence and security as the other option: adoption.
The basic principle of adoption is for a family – related or unrelated to the child – to take the child in and make her part of the family. Through legal proceedings the child is given the family name of the adoptive family, and she is given all the rights of a biological child of the family. This is why some people refer to adoptive families as ‘forever families’ for the children. This is a permanent arrangement with the purpose of providing the child with the safety and security of a new family of her own.
There are different types of adoption. Many countries recognise both simple and full adoption. In the case of full adoption, all ties with the biological family are severed and the child becomes a part of only the adoptive family. In the case of simple adoption, the child is still given all the rights of a biological child in the adoptive family, but ties with the biological family are not cut. The child can stay in contact with the family she came from, and in some countries, she may still be eligible to inherit from her biological parents.
In countries ruled by Islamic law, adoption has no legal validity. This is because Islamic law does not allow anyone to sever the connection between a child and her biological parents. It is not allowed to put aside your family name and to take on another. However, Islamic law does allow Kafalah. This is a type of permanent foster care that is very close to simple adoption. The child cannot take on the family name of the family taking her in, but she can live with them as one of their own and is eligible to inherit up to a third of what is left by her new parents when they pass away.
Ideally children are adopted in their own country, this is called domestic adoption. This means they will be able to grow up with the culture, the language and the religion that they have known from birth. It makes it easier for them to build up their identity, without this causing a lot of inner conflict (between where she came from and where she grew up). In many countries around the world more effort is being made to raise awareness about domestic adoption. And in most countries intercountry (or international) adoption is now only allowed if it has become clear that the child has no chance of adoption in her own country. These are wonderful developments.
As a last resort, intercountry adoption is still an option. However, as explained in the blogs ‘How Child Trafficking Is Related to ‘Orphanages” (HERE) and ‘Illegal Adoption’ (HERE) there is unfortunately a lot of potential for unsavoury practices when it comes to intercountry adoption. It becomes much harder to monitor what happens on both ends when the arrangements are made in two separate, distant countries.
So, for the protection of the children, intercountry adoption should only be considered when there are no other options and when there is proof on all sides that the child is actually in need of adoption, that the child’s parents or relatives have given informed consent, that no one is profiting from the adoption and that the adoptive family was carefully selected and trained to make sure they are the best fit for the child (rather than the other way around). If all of that is covered, intercountry adoption has the potential to be of real benefit to everyone involved.
One last thing to bear in mind, however, is similar to what I brought up with foster families: parents who want to adopt (whether domestically or internationally) a child who has lived in an institution for part of her life, need to receive training to help them understand the implications of this. They need to know they should expect developmental delays, attachment disorders and behavioural difficulties. And they need to develop skills to handle these challenges constructively. If that is not done, the risk of adoption break-down increases exponentially. And if adoption breaks down, this is another, extremely traumatic blow to a child who is already very vulnerable to start with.
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