ICAV Perspective Paper Illicit Intercountry Adoptions Lived Experience Views on How Authorities and Bodies Could Respond Compiled by Lynelle Long, July 2020 WWW.INTERCOUNTRYADOPTEEVOICES.COM ICAV PERSPECTIVE PAPER 1 Introduction n the past, ICAV Perspective Papers have brought together a range of views on a specific topic from intercountry adoptees all over the world. The goal of these Ipapers have been to raise greater understanding of the complexities we live. This paper attempts to bring together not only the voices and experiences of impacted intercountry adoptees who have lived experience with some form of illicit practice in their adoption, but we also include for the first time, a few adoptive parents and first family representation. For the purpose of this paper, we will use the term illicit adoption practice because it includes illegal adoptions but its meaning can also extend to unethical practices. Sometimes adoption practices are technically legal under the law of the relevant country but are fundamentally unethical under international or other standards such as the CRC, the Optional Protocol (Sale of Children), and the Palermo Protocol. Illicit practices can vary immensely but in general, participants experienced one or more of these 3 categories of instances: one category of illicit practices are instances where the child never should have been removed from (or should have been returned to) their family; a second group deals with subsidiarity in the sense that while it may have been necessary for the child not to be with their family, in-country solutions should have been used; then there are wrongs that go to matching--- such as falsified child study forms — in instances where an adoption could have been appropriate, but the wrongdoing led to creating a placement that was problematic. An objective of this paper is to break down the perception that illicit intercountry adoptions affect just a few. Another objective is to attempt to learn from the past and provide solutions for the future, as well as ensure those from historical intercountry adoptions, are provided for in terms of services and support. A third, is to demonstrate that the remedy needs to deal with the wrong. We are the voices of those most impacted by intercountry adoption practices, past and present from the late 1940s beginning with the Greek and German cohorts, through to the rise en-masse of intercountry adoptions from Asia, South America and the explosion to many other countries like Ethiopia and China at its peak in the early 2000s. We share WWW.INTERCOUNTRYADOPTEEVOICES.COM ICAV PERSPECTIVE PAPER 2 the views of over 601 intercountry adoptees / adoptive organisations representing a minimum2 of 13 adoptive countries and 26 birth countries. Adoptive Countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA. Birth Countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, Nigeria, Paraguay, Philippines, Romania, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, USA, Vietnam The co-ordination of seeking and gathering responses occurred from 8 - 30 June from members of the ICAVs wide network, which largely operates over social media. Participants were invited based on the knowledge that ICAV sits as an Observer at the Hague Working Group to Prevent and Address Illicit and Illegal Adoption Practices, which meets on 8 July, 2020 and that ICAV would do it’s best to represent their input and make it freely available on ICAVs website. Contributors were asked the following two questions: 1. What should authorities and bodies do to respond to specific cases of illicit practices? 2. What should authorities and bodies do to prevent and respond to patterns of illicit practices? A handful of 9 adoptive parents also knew about ICAVs collection of responses and expressed interest — so they have also been included, along with one first father from Guatemala who wanted to share too, and an advocate for Uganda families. It is encouraging to see brave, courageous adoptive and first parents speaking out as it will hopefully embolden other parents to do likewise. I hope that in the future, we will hear more from first families as their voice is still largely unheard and invisible from legislation, policy and practice discussions in intercountry adoption, yet they are often the least empowered due to the many disadvantages that led to our adoptions to begin with. 1 One group chose to keep their submission private and confidential for the HCCH only 2 Some adoptive organisations included the consultation of up to 50 members WWW.INTERCOUNTRYADOPTEEVOICES.COM ICAV PERSPECTIVE PAPER 3 In this paper, I present a Summary of Responses and didn’t order them in any hierarchy or try to analyse or interpret these responses to maintain their independence. I tried to present the overall thematic responses in a sequence according to the process of adoption, beginning with legislation internationally, then the process in-country impacting biological parents, then moving towards the processes in adoption with adoptive parents, then finally to adoptees, grown up as adults. I did not want to espouse a magic solution from everyone’s input, but leave it fairly open to your interpretation. My goal was to ensure everyone’s views are valid and to acknowledge that the stage of where people are at, and what they want, can vary. This will always be the case, although as adoptee generations age, we will see larger and larger cohorts of impacted peoples wanting a response. There was not one person who said they didn’t want a response and are satisfied with the way things are currently, so I think it’s fair to conclude all who are impacted WANT some kind of response and when reading through the submission, there is a collective feel (and some spell it out) that silence and inaction contributes to and compounds their sense of trauma. I also do not attempt to speak for everyone but merely performed a role of gathering responses and presenting them in a fair, unbiased way. My own submission is included under my name so as to ensure my personal reflections are also captured separately. A HUGE thank you to all the adoptees, adoptee organisations, adoptive parents, adoptive parent organisations and first family representatives who participated! This paper has been created because of your honest sharing, effort to put your thoughts together, and trust in ICAV to represent them fairly. I hope this paper encourages policy and legislation makers and professionals around the world, to realise the benefits of learning from those with lived experience and listening to find ways forward, out of what is often traumatic and difficult situations. Lynele Long Founder & Executive Director InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV) July 2020 WWW.INTERCOUNTRYADOPTEEVOICES.COM ICAV PERSPECTIVE PAPER 4 Index Introduction 2 Index 5 Summary of Responses: Q1 8 Summary Of Responses: Q2 13 Adoptee / Adoptee Group Submissions 19 Colin Cadier: La Voix des Adoptés (VDA) 20 Dott.ssa Margarita Soledad Assettati 25 J Aucayse 28 Gabbie Beckley 30 Faith Beacham 31 Nicolas Beaufour 32 Robyn Bedell 34 Kara Bos 36 Sander Breeman: Geadopteerd uit Sri Lanka 37 John Campitelli: Italiadoption 38 Kim Soo-bok Cimaschi: Koreani Adottivi Italiani Organizzati 39 Susan Cox 41 Anna Davison 43 Aaron Dechter 45 Courtney Dobson 47 Sun Hee Engelstoft 48 Coline Fanon: Racines Perdues 49 Moses Farrow: Gide Foundation 54 Esteban Orlando Fleurant: RAIS 56 Julia Forson 57 Ming Foxweldon 58 Marie Gardom: ICAV UK 59 Eric Gustafsson 61 WWW.INTERCOUNTRYADOPTEEVOICES.COM ICAV PERSPECTIVE PAPER 5 Dr Ryan S Gustafsson 62 James Hanks 64 Maria Heckinger 65 Christine Heimann: AdopteeBridge 67 Maria Hernandez 69 Maya Hewitt: CACH-ALL 71 Eva Hoffman 73 Katelin Huber 74 Dr Tobias Hubinette 75 Linzi Clare Ibrahim: Sri Lankan Adoptees 76 An Jacobs: Adoptie Schakel 77 Anand Kaper: DNA India Adoptees 78 Emily Kes: Adoptees for Justice 79 Melanie Kleintz: Adoptierte aus aller Welt 80 Kristopher Larsen: Adoptees for Justice 83 My Huong Le: Vietnam Family Search 89 Jessica Sun Lee 91 Fanny Lefebvre 92 Kimura Lemoine 92 Lynelle Long: ICAV 93 Author Mae 98 Leti Mendes: ICAV USA 99 Philippe-Pradeep Mignon: Empreintes Vivantes 101 Michael Mullen: Also-Known-As 102 Alessia Robin Petrolito: Adopt Cloud 103 Alejandro Quezada: Chilean Adoptees Worldwide 104 Jini Roby 105 Paula C Sabbia 107 Michael Salvia 109 WWW.INTERCOUNTRYADOPTEEVOICES.COM ICAV PERSPECTIVE PAPER 6 Patrick van der Steen: Sri Lanka Family Project 110 Olivia Ramya Tanner 110 Tia Terefe 111 Flavia N Testa: Iranian Adoptees Worldwide 112 Michael Thielmann 113 Jane Jeong Trenka: TRACK 114 Utendlandsadoptertes Politiske Utvalg (UAPU) 116 Dr Indigo Willing: Adopted Vietnamese International 117 Biological Parent Submissions 123 Gladys Bulyaba: Kugatta Uganda 124 Gustavo Amilcar Tobar Fajardo: Guatemala 126 Adoptive Parent Submissions 128 Jessica Davis: Kugatta Uganda 129 Andrea Kelley: Ethiopian Adoption Connection 131 Tracey Chambers: Ethiopian Adoption Connection 133 Kerri Vandiver 133 Cindy Burt 134 Danielle West 135 Anita Pring: Thailand 136 Julia Rollings: India 139 Desiree Smolin: India 142 Appendix A 145 Appendix B 150 Appendix C 155 Appendix D 156 Appendix E 160 WWW.INTERCOUNTRYADOPTEEVOICES.COM ICAV PERSPECTIVE PAPER 7 Summary of Responses: Q1 he next few pages is a collated list of the input everybody gave on both questions. The number beneath each point, identifies the number