I Wish People Would Get Their Heads Out Of Their Asses....

You know, now it's two countries that Angelina has adopted from where it turns out children are being trafficked....

Hmmm.

Excerpts from the report:

75% of birth parents who were interviewed by a consular officer stated that in addition to payments for food, medical care and administrative expenses, they received payment from the orphanage in exchange for placing their child in the orphanage. On average this payment was six million Vietnamese Dong, which is the equivalent of 11 months salary at minimum wage in Vietnam. Many of these families cited these payments as the primary reason for placing their child in an orphanage.... Many of these parents also report that orphanage officials told them that the child will visit home frequently, will return home after they reach a certain age (often 11 or 12), or will send remittance payments from the United States. In these cases, the majority of birth parents have said they do not consent to the adoption if any of these conditions are not kept.

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In over 10 cases, Embassy investigations have discovered the identity of the birth mother in cases where a child was purportedly deserted. In all of these cases, the birth mother was known to orphanage or hospital officials, but these institutions fraudulently document the case as a desertion. In some cases, this was to conceal payments to the birth family. In others, children were declared to be deserted with unknown parents after the birth parents failed to pay outstanding hospital bills.

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In addition, statements from adopting parents and ASP employees show that many ASPs ask adopting parents to pay cash donations to orphanage directors and staff. These payments are illegal according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice, but the Ministry acknowledges that they are widespread and that they are a key factor in the irregularities seen in the adoption system in Vietnam. Further, ASPs have reported that cash and in-kind donations have been diverted by orphanage officials and used to finance personal property, private cars, jewelry and, in one case, a commercial real estate development.

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I predict that we'll see similar reports from Guatemala, Kazakhstan, and China soon.

What will you do if it turns out your child's birth family was paid or lied to, just so you could adopt a child?

Comments

[amy]

Unfortunately its already known to be true in both China and Guatemala. Anytime easy money can be made, even at the cost of others, there will be exploitation.

[Erin]

I am so thankful that we have met K's birthmother and know that this is not the case for her, because I would be utterly devastated for everyone involved if this happened to my child. I genuinely don't know how we would deal with it. A friend of mine with two daughters from Kazakhstan recently discovered that this happened with one of her daughters, and she has been reeling ever since.

[Lawmommy]

I don't know. I just don't know.

We purposefully chose *the* agency that has a reputation for being ethical and above board. We purposefully chose that agency's "waiting child" program, because it was important to us that our child really NEED a home...we adopted from Vietnam because that was where the waiting child we were interested in was from (i.e. we didn't choose Vietnam and then wait for a referral - we chose the waiting child program and they sent us files on children all over Asia). Our daughter was 4 when we adopted her, we were told they attempted reunification with her bio-mom and that the reunification failed.

I want to believe we did everything the way we should have, I want to believe our daughter really needed a home, I want to believe our agency did everything right, but, I cannot say that this situation hasn't rocked my world.

[DD]

This is the kind of thing that makes me really not trust adoption at all any more. I think my daughter is going to be an only child. Even with domestic adoptions, you sometimes sometimes have psychological manipulation of first moms by agency personnel; i.e. "counseling" that is slanted toward helping the mom get comfortable with the idea of placing, rather than truly giving her support to consider all of her options.

[Jen]

Yeah, unofficial reports have already surfaced that this is far more common in China than was ever thought. I don't know what detail, if any, will ever be available from that country, or if it will ever be possible to trace birth families on more than an anecdotal level. The thought haunts me, and honestly, I have no idea what I would do. No idea. There are absolutely no easy answers in cases like this.

[Andrea]

I don't know, really. I like to think I know, but I really don't.

That's the only coherent answer I can give, and I'm not even yet close to being an adoptive parent; it's just one of a few options on the not-too-near horizon, and the one I keep returning to the most.

Less coherent answer is this:

I'm so very, very grateful for all the blogs out there that give every different perspective imaginable, because they're giving me the time to wrestle with questions exactly like this one. My rosy, picture-perfect description of a future adoption right now would involve a chance to meet the birthparents of any future children BEFORE I adopted, or, failing that (or possibly in conjunction with that) the opportunity to adopt from, as Lawmommy mentioned, a waiting child program where more details about the children's history are readily available (I am especially drawn to the waiting teenagers in Kazakhstan and Russia right now . . . I don't know if that's something I could actually emotionally handle, even when I am in a position to consider it more seriously, but I know it's something that's been on my heart for a little over a year now).

I guess, though, all of that up there is just my feeble plans, not to deal with this in the event that it were to happen, but rather to fight to prevent something like this (something I probably wouldn't have known about without all the adoption blogsI've been reading) from ever happening to me-- to keep me from looking at my child and being sick to my stomach at the thought of something so horrible happening simply because I wanted something wonderful. Doesn't mean it will work, of course. Just means I hope to do everything in my power to keep myself and any prospective children from ending up in that situation-- because I do believe that, if I found myself in that place, my personal predisposition to crippling guilt would drive me to do everything I could to track down my child's bio parents and make sure they hadn't been duped into giving up somebody they would actually have kept in a heartbeat, if they could.

[Mandy]

I know how this makes me feel as a mother, though I've not adopted. I can only imagine (and I know even then I'm not even scratching the surface) how news like this is affecting those who are looking to adopt or who have adopted.

It's another example of how ignorant statements such as "just adopt" really are, and I'm sick that this stuff is happening. I can only imagine how awful it is to wonder about from an adoptive parent's perspective.

[Haley]

Sugar, you do the best you can with what you have. I can not imagine how much strength, not to mention paperwork and research, goes into adopting a child. (I conclude it is obviously more than trying to balance the federal budget.) You read as much as you can, and talk to as many people as you can, and agonize between decisions and more decisions, and at the end of the day, you just do the best you can do. And when it's all said and done, then you evaluate things and continue to do exactly what all of you are doing now: discuss, and mobilize, and try to make the system better for the families on both sides that will come after you.

[Lut C.]

You can't know everything when you make the decision to adopt. You can strive to do right, but you can't control everything.

It's a bit like striving to live with ecological concerns in mind. You can read up on things and try to make sound decisions, but you can only do your best. Do you buy a bio-fuel car or is it a 'crime against humanity' (fuel crops are displacing food crops some say)? Do you buy an electric car or is that just closing your eyes to how the electricity is made? Etc. etc.

[JEN/Chew]

"The thought haunts me, and honestly, I have no idea what I would do. No idea. There are absolutely no easy answers in cases like this."

Wow. No answers? You seemed to have a lot of "answers" for me when I had issues with the China IA process a year ago and made the mistake of voicing them. But I guess they "way" I voiced them was of issue? That made me "crazy" and then a "bigot"? You were one of the stone throwers, and now when it's "safe" outside, facts can't be ignored, you are all of a sudden filled with empathy and non-judgement?

All of these "earth shattering revelations" are just the tip of the iceberg. Watch. There is much more coming in the pipeline. Years of PAP/AP fueled acquiessence has led us to this point, and we need to all take some responsibility for it. Anyone who voiced concern (esp. about China) or spoke up about fraud were hung out to dry by many, many AP's. There is no denying that.

Conscious or not, we all played a part of the fraud by being consumer, creating a need, and a market for babies in nations where people struggle to survive. The only thing to do now is to try and clean it up before IA stops altogether.

The ones who pay? The kids and first families. We need to stop thinking about ourselves -- and what horrid moral dilemmas we may face (boo hoo) and work for change to protect and promote ethical adoptions.

Sorry to be so pissy, but I'm still (obviously) bruised from my beatings.