Advocates Organizations Went Into Court to Oppose Her First to Comment Specifically on Madonna’S Recent Adoption

doption dvocate No. 013 a publication of the National Council For Adoption June 2009 A Six Views on Intercountry Adoption Recently, the New York Times invited six international adoption. Some 67 children’s rights renowned academics and child welfare advocates organizations went into court to oppose her first to comment specifically on Madonna’s recent adoption. Unicef calls regularly for restrictions attempt to adopt a second child from Malawi and, limiting international adoption to at best last- more generally, on intercountry adoption. Their resort status. Romania was forced by similar comments were published on May 10, 2009 on pressures to outlaw such adoption as a condition the “Room for Debate” page of the New York of joining the European Union. Times’ online opinion section. NCFA is pleased To fix this problem we need to focus to reprint all six contributors’ comments below as policymakers on the real human rights issues for well as their recommendations for further reading children. The judge who granted Madonna’s first in the interest of stimulating debate on the topic of adoption got it right in ruling that Malawi’s intercountry adoption. Inclusion in this reprint in residence requirement must be read in light of the no way constitutes an endorsement of an author’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that view. NCFA’s own stance on intercountry required allowing the child David to grow up in adoption can be found in its recent publication, A the nurturing home that only international Case for Ethical Intercountry Adoption. adoption would provide. Many millions of children worldwide are Elizabeth Bartholet living and dying in orphanages or on the streets, with no possibility of finding homes in their own Author of “Family Bonds” and “Nobody’s country. Unicef argues for the creation of foster Children” and professor of law and the faculty care and social welfare programs, but these things director of the Child Advocacy Program at will not happen overnight, and foster care Harvard Law School. generally doesn’t work nearly as well for children as adoption. Focus on the Child’s Human Rights International adoption provides good homes for the children lucky enough to be placed, The news media often distorts some and brings significant new resources into aspects of international adoption, but can at the countries to improve orphanage conditions and same time bring needed attention to important help build welfare programs for the future. realities. Celebrities like Madonna and Angelina Jolie have The biggest problem in international provided many millions of dollars for such efforts. adoption is that many who call themselves While few individual adopters have their advocates for children’s human rights press for resources, many develop comparable interest as a legal restrictions that limit the ability to provide result of their own adoptions in contributing what homes to children in need. Thus Save the they can to help those children left behind. Children calls for denying Madonna’s second adoption based on interpreting a residence Recommended further reading: International requirement so as to prevent virtually all Adoption: Thoughts on the Human Rights Issues ———————————————-National Council For Adoption——————————–————–— 225 N. Washington Street ● Alexandria, VA 22314 ● (703) 299-6633 ● www.adoptioncouncil.org doption dvocate A A E.J. Graff Part of the problem is the different cultural understandings of “orphanages.” Westerners — quite Associate director and senior researcher at rightly — want to save children from being consigned Brandeis University’s Schuster Institute for to institutions, so damaging to child development. But Investigative Journalism. in poor countries, these institutions may well be temporary child-caring centers, places to leave a child The Seamier Side of International Adoption while the family brings in the harvest or struggles through a spell of poverty, illness or some other In trying to adopt Mercy James, Madonna’s emergency. Occasionally some entrepreneurial local intention might be humanitarian: she may hope to realizes how much Western adoption agencies are save a child from institutional misery and willing to pay for healthy babies and turns these loneliness. It might be selfish: she wants a child to homes into profit centers, bringing in tens of love. It might be a self-justifying mixture of both. thousands of cash “donations.” The anonymous But in trying to adopt a child who already has a Mercy Jameses of the world are shipped abroad, family, Madonna is inadvertently exposing the leaving behind bereft families. seamier underside of international adoption: the fact In places like Malawi, what stressed families that, too often, the amounts of money that Western and communities need more than adoption are basics adoption agencies spend in poor countries is like clean water, vaccinations, school funding and helping to defraud, coerce or kidnap children away other social services that would help keep many from families that wanted to raise them to families together. Some children do need homes. But adulthood. Madonna is showing exactly what shouldn’t be done: Westerners have been sold the idea that airlifting one or two pretty children into the “millions” of healthy infants and toddlers in comparative wealth of the West, leaving behind bereft underdeveloped and war-torn countries are waiting families who want — but can’t afford — to bring that to be rescued from poverty, abandonment and child home. abuse. It’s not so. In fact, the neediest children (especially outside China) are sick, disabled, Recommended further reading: The Lie We Love traumatized or older than 5 — not the cute, healthy babies like Mercy James who, quite understanda- Marguerite A. Wright bly, Westerners generally hope to adopt. There are simply not enough healthy, adoptable infants to Author of “I’m Chocolate, You’re Vanilla: Raising meet Western demand — and there’s too much Healthy Black and Biracial Children in a Race- Western money being spent in search of those Conscious World,” and senior clinical and research healthy babies. psychologist for the Center for the Vulnerable Child The system works much like other forms of at Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland. scarcely regulated globalization. For each child adopted by a Western family, adoption agencies Trans-racial Adoptions pay fees that are grossly oversized compared to local per capita incomes. Some of those children As a psychologist working with foster and desperately need homes. But not always. In adopted children and their families, I find puzzling countries like Albania, Cambodia, Ethiopia, some of the negative public reactions to Madonna’s Guatemala, India, Indonesia, the Marshall Islands, efforts to adopt Mercy. Madonna seems to be trying Nepal, Romania, Samoa and Vietnam, unwittingly to improve this child’s life. — and too often — good-hearted Westerners who Whatever her motives, she is raising the wanted to save an orphan have created one instead. profile of international adoption and drawing attention 2 ——————–—————————————- ——————–—————————————- doption dvocate A A to the plight of destitute children around the system and place them with loving families. world. Research shows that children do best when What’s more, using race as the primary criterion raised in a supportive, caring family. Mercy has a in adoption placement is not always in the best much better chance of thriving in a family interest of the child, especially when there are not environment with personal attention, educational enough color-matching caregivers who meet the opportunities and medical care than in an other standards for adoption. I’m hopeful that orphanage. with the Obama presidency, more people will That said, it’s also important to consider realize that race is only one factor in our the issue of race in international adoptions. Of multifaceted identity. course, one should meet the standards for an Madonna seems willing to do much for appropriate caregiver (as Madonna has done, this child. Her critics should pause from given that the Malawi government allowed her to composing online screeds about her motives and adopt her son, David). Additionally, parents give her the benefit of the doubt. Instead, they should make a concerted effort to learn more should ask themselves: “What am I doing to about the culture of the child they are adopting. relieve the suffering of countless destitute To establish a sense of continuity for a children. child who has experienced considerable upheaval, it is advisable to maintain contact, when possible, David Smolin with people who were significant in the child’s life in the birth country. Throughout the child’s Professor of law at Cumberland Law School, formative years, parents would also do well to Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. nourish the child’s link to the birth culture through educational activities, language programs, Poor Children for Rich People cultural events, travel. The adoption process should include counseling about these matters. Celebrity adoptions highlight in extreme Parents in trans-racial adoptions must anticipate form the problems of the international adoption tricky situations with family, friends, school system: “orphans” often turn out to have personnel and others in their social circle who immediate and extended families, laws are might be uncomfortable with the child’s race. And circumvented, money corrupts, facts are elusive, they need to prepare strategies for confronting powerful adoptive parents and their agents negative messages and stereotypes. overwhelm vulnerable birth families and the In placement decisions for domestic desire of comparatively wealthy Western people adoptions in the United States, race and ethnicity for children drives adoptions. are still prominent. Obsession with the race of the Consider Madonna’s adoptions. In both prospective caregiver is understandable, given the instances the so-called orphans have immediate painful history of blacks’ oppression in this and extended families who would have raised the country. In 1996, Congress passed a law that children at home if they had just a few hundred made it easier for parents to adopt a child of dollars more per year.

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