adoption vs aid

Ending poverty and hunger seems to me to be a separate issue, it sounds to me like agencies are making a big cop out if they are claiming that international adoption distracts them from solving poverty. International adoption moves currency into the countries (at least to individual orphanages and the lawyers). I think historically that when families were too poor to provide for their children they would send them to relatives. At the current time in some countries families have the additional option of sending their children off to strangers in other countries to be adopted. If there were no foreigners with the desire to adopt, I think that would be a tragedy too.

My response to that is that there are many countries who do receive aid from humanitarian organizations and do not permit international adoption, and yet they are still mired in poverty.

Ripples, I agree with you - the focus on adoption does appear to overshadow the need to support change in their home countries to improve their day to day lives. Will those standards match what we 'deem' good - really does not matter what we feel - it is what they feel, their country, their people. I remember dad supporting an orphanage run by a school mate of his. Adoption was not part of the equation. They provided shelter when families could not care for their children either temporary or permanent. The children went to school and also learned newer farming techniques, nutrition and had medical care, some went on to university, some went back to their families, some stayed and worked at the orphanage. I also think our views on orphanages are different than other countries, i.e. that for some they are places of safety during difficult times to ensure their children are protected if that makes any sense. Versus our concept of all being orphans and never going home etc. I doubt any of us would do well living a life of extreme poverty - but is that because we have had 'things' and if we never had 'things' we would not miss them and could happily live without them? I really think we have to look at things from their eyes - not ours - what is necessary to be a happy family. Kind regards,Dickons

As I'm not certain how the distribution of funds from international adoption is done, I'm unable to make assumptions about how much the money does end up benefiting the orphanages (and the kids) or not. I do know that according to the Evan B Donaldson Adoption Institute within the last 30 years approximately 250,000 kids have been adopted into the US from abroad. And given that the cost of international adoption is approximately $7K to $25K, when one does the math, the total gross income generated within the supply chain equates to approximately $1.75Billion to $6.25Billion. [URL="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/research/costsadoption.php"]Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute[/URL] And if 'saving those poor children' is the key goal, not finding kids for childless couples, is international adoption the most appropriate use of those multi-billion dollar funds? I'm not saying yes or no, I'm just suggesting that we examine our assumptions and the solutions we arrive at. I also do know that the issue of international aid and the recipient countries is fraught with many, many problems. I have several friends and relatives who work and do post-grad research in the area. I've also done some research in this area and had read that according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, often women are left out of key decisions regarding aid and development, do want to have better access to contraception and yet comprise the majority of the world's impoverished. My main point is that for those of us who see international adoption as ways to "aid/rescue those poor, starving kids", we need to also look at more structural issues of addressing poverty and sexism in the first place. I do know that many women overseas in poor countries do not have access to clean water, let alone contraception. I'm not saying end intercountry adoption. My main point is as the authors of Origins said, to not let it distract us from many of the underlying causes of relinquishment in the first place - poverty (which is often related to war and corruption) and sexism. I also think Dickons' post makes some very valid points, eg. examples of how funds were used to help improve the lives of the local people, and the need to consider needs from local perspectives, not our own assumptions. As the editors of the book, "Outsiders Within: Writings on Transracial Adoption" [URL="http://outsiderswithin.typepad.com/"]Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption: Reviews[/URL], describe it, transracial adoption is 'the most intimate aspect of globalization'. As such, I think that a reflection on our own assumptions about adoption and aid is even more vital.

I think Ripples is making some excellent points and making them in a good starting place. Let us hope that the new administration will reverse over a decade of policy that not only tied restrictions to family planning to aid but virtually denied family health and planning to foreign aid recipients. Disgraceful, simply disgraceful in a world in which at least one country was exporting, via adoption, to the US one in five of every child born. That just simply should not happen. As so many policies have been shown to benefit short-term revenue-generating enterprises at the expense of long-term values and human benefit, one has to wonder about the motivation behind these policies. If we can get this recession and its distractions behind us, I truly hope that the ideals this administration espoused before election will translate into foreign policies that support the pillars of democracy and human fruition abroad--health, education, suffrage/representation, environment/resource. All that aside, though, Ripples' sources are also correct, I think, in highlighting the great disconnect between our Dickinsonian/Depression Era-based ideas of "orphanages," the Soviet-Era based Eastern European system, and the very different reality in other second-and third-world countries, particularly those in which the adoption system and even the concept of adoption as we know it has not taken over completely. That is, there are many families who "place" a child in an "orphanage" or similar "institution" who have no intent, notion, or even concept of relinquishing...it is more akin to placing a child in boarding school albeit due to lack of financial wherewithal rather than being flush. Think of such places more as homes of charity and safe keeping than homes of abandonment. We do not have a parallel type of institution in the United States so it is hard for many people to conceptualize. The brutal alternative, of course, is the trade in children that also goes on. It is truly a double-edge sword. Clearly those wanting to adopt are building families and wanting to build families. Clearly many feel genuinely called, for one reason or another or just the feeling, to travel out of country to fulfill this need or mission. No question that so many of these children enjoy the benefits of a safer, healthier, richer life on this earth than if they had not come. At the same time, though, clearly the price has included a great number of losses for them, their families, and their homeland. Also clearly the protections that are in place for international adoptions also carry a price in delays to permanency and attachment injuries for the individual children. I don't have "the" answer, although I do think that both homeland needs and adoption improvements aimed at lessening trauma to individual children need to happen at the same time. I think there will always be some level of international adoption, but I also think that as a leading, progressive nation, we can do a lot to eliminate the circumstance-based need for it. The problem, of course, is that there is no $ for $ trade-off between private adoption costs and foreign aid. One does not translate to the other although both are US dollars flowing into international systems. Social science and anthropology are quite clear on the correlation between low birth rates and higher standards of living. What is becoming more evident is that while generally higher standards of living have led to lower birth rates in pre-industrial/industrial societies, the opposite is also true: lower birth rates in pre-industrial societies existing in a post-industrial world also seem to correlate to rising standards of health and quality of life. This is a huge area that needs to be examined and foreign policy re-designed.

Article written by: Roelie Post [FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Biography: Roelie Post (MSc) is employed by the European Commission in Brussels since 1983 and was involved in the reform of Romanian child protection from 1993 until 2005. She is the author of the book -- Romania For Export Only, The Untold Story Of The Romanian Orphansђ.[/FONT] [url=http://www.conducivemag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93:romania-how-can-we-improve-on-adoption-international-law903&catid=38:innovative-thinking&Itemid=61]INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION Child Protection or a Breach of Rights?[/url] Kind regards,Dickons

I'm not sure about the numbers, but I have read that only about 1% of children globally in need of shelter and care are served by adoption. That's made me think about things much differently.

I donate to the Moosehart Child City and School. [url=http://mooseheart.org/]Mooseheart Child City & School[/url] Never been there, never talked to anyone who has stayed there, but I am very curious about it, it looks like a grand idea to me, but I really have no idea. They say in 97 years, privately funded, they have helped 12,000 kids. Compared to the entire country in 30 years helping 250,000 kids. Looks like their capacity is about 360 kids. What if there were one of these type places in every country, state, every big city even? What if all the churches and colleges were involved? What if the public in general was involved financially and as volunteers? Just wondering, and interested in what others might know or think about it. I'm really looking for the best ways in which I and others, that aren't planning to adopt, can help.

Hi, In reading the main thread it struck me that that the primary thread and some others who commented thought that international adoption could be seen in a negative light as international adoption can only help a small fraction of those in need and instead such individuals support overall poverty aid in these countries, despite the fact that such aid in not actually a forth coming reality and likely won't be anytime in the next few decades. The claim that the individual shouldn't be helped because it doesn't save the overall society reminded me a short story from long ago. I looked it up, here it is: The Starfish Story Original Story by: Loren Eisley One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, What are you doing? The youth replied, Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them back, they'll die. Son, the man said, don't you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can't make a difference! After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said I made a difference for that one.