Does International Adoption Exacerbate the Problem it Hopes to Solve?

I think the world economy is making more people drop their kids off. The price of rice for god sakes is up. One of the cheapest foods out there (at least last year) is a rice shortage. People are faced with not being abel to feed their families.

I think things need to change culturally though i know at least in India and China where girls are not wanted for different reasons in each country that is a big contributor to the problem

Mei-Ling

If international adoption is to ever be ended some day in the far-off future, we'd need to focus in changing the cultural and governmental mindset first.

cmc

I'm living in India and from what I see most of the kids are festering in orphanages. It is very sad because there really isn't adoption as a way to give your child "a better life". I can't imagine that anyone would choose this for their child unless they were really really desperate, or they were deceived. If all the kids were getting shipped to america, canada etc, it might be an incentive, but that isn't what happens. If the kids were shipped to america, canada etc, I would be happy for them. I know this isn't ideal either, but many children here have really dreadful lives.

I think parents know what orphanages are like here, but don't have choices about what to do with their children. It is really life or death. There was an article a few weeks ago about how something like 40% of children in India don't get enough to eat.

monkeykitty83

While obviously international adoption does little or nothing to address the root problems in developing countries, I would want to see some hard data and numbers before I jumped on board with this specific claim.

For this to be accepted as truth, it would need to be factually demonstrated that 1.) the incidence of voluntary surrenders to orphanages worldwide have increased dramatically enough to make a statistical change, and 2.) it is directly related to international adoption, and not any other factor, such as the struggling global economy or regional political turmoil. I suspect that getting data on that would be difficult if not impossible, since there's no uniform reporting.

In my own experience in the developing world, orphanages in the regions I've visited still receive high numbers of surrenders or abandonments of children whether or not they have international adoption programs. So while I would not rule out international adoption as a contributing factor, it is not THE factor, but potentially one of many.

I think more prevalent factors include poverty, lack of basic infrastructure and services, lack of maternal education, lack of contraceptive availability, economic decline, political repression, family-unfriendly government policies, disease, war, cultural and social pressures, diminishing returns of agricultural land not farmed using sustainable methods, and environmental degradation.

If international adoption does play a part-- which it may-- it is one of a whole host of factors, and I would go so far as to say probably not the most significant one by a longshot.

Jackie B

Adoption will only help the ones who are getting adopted. The others will stay there until their culture/society removes the stigma and taboo upon adoption (within that country), single mothers, birth control, abortion and the right to education for females.

Randy B

Since in many cases there are little guarentees that they will be adopted internationally I don't think so. Now, if parents want to play the odds that may make things different. Looking at the international adoption figures, at least to Canada, and at the numbers of children in some of these countries it sure seems like pretty long odds.

ETA: I don't know what the US stats are but in 2002 (the last year I could quickly find country wide stats for) there were only 1891 international adoptions to Canada:

771 from China
146 from Russia
126 from India
97 from South Korea
96 from Haiti
84 from Vietnam
53 from the US
43 from Philippines
41 from Columbia
38 from Thailand
37 from Jamaica
and so on.

When you stop to consider the multi cultural make up of Canada (and in many ways, the US) you can surmise that at least a portion of these adoptions would be family related (how else could there have been 53 from the US).

Considering the large numbers of children in India (estimated at 12.5 million in 2006) and the relatively low number of international adoptions that take place (3332 total with 853 of those being international adoptions in 2006) I really can't see how this would be a factor. The chances of any of these children being picked for international adoptions is so slim as to not even register.

Is it the same in other countries? I really can't say for sure since I've never been there or adopted from there. No doubt there are some areas where parents are perhaps holding out the hope of international adoption but I really can't see the odds working in their favour.

Ranchmom1

I don't know if there are statistics on it, but I don't think most parents would abandon a child just in the slim hope she or he might end up in a better place. Most of them are poor and can't take care physically take care of their children, or, in some places, are not legally allowed to have more than one child and abandon any additional children. Too many kids end up living their entire childhoods in orphanages. : (

icehockeymom7

No. In China, only 2% of the children in orphanages will ever be adopted internationally. I would be curious to know where "Save the Children" gets their statistics, because it isn't reality. When people say that IA encourages abandonments in other countries, they are being very naive and have not seen the reality with their own eyes.

HappyMomAnna

I have to say I don't think so. The fact is that far more children are Not adopted therefore I wouldn't see this as a motivation to abandon in itself.

I do believe that is some countries--where it becomes popular to adopt from, the increased interest can lead to situations where this has and does create an environment ripe for corruption and more likely to become encouraging for poor parents to abandon.

I think these issues can go both ways which is exactly why it should be very transparent and complicated to adopt internationally. There are far to many variables for things to go wrong or result in unintended consequences.

blairnative

I dont think so.

The Korean government thought by limiting international adoptions it would solve the problem, and demonstrably did NOT achieve its goal.

Ditto Russia,

Ditto the United States, which is a source of IA, mainly adopting black children to the scandinavian countries.

We have all thought.... hmmm, shut down IA, it will solve the problem.

This has been discussed and executed so many times, and constantly demonstrates it doesnt solve any problems. IA is needed.

Jennifer L

I would really want to see where "Save the Children" gets their numbers and how they are coming up with this.

Considering that the top execs of "Save the Children" make well over $300K a year for a Child sponsership program (over three times what some other children's charities execs make) they stand a lot to lose financially from international adoption. Given they have such a financial stake in this, I'm not trusting any statement they make without independent confirmation of their statistics.

Yup, every cent people donate goes straight to the child sponsered. You betcha.

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