A guide to understanding international adoption in the global village.
No man is an island. No man stands alone.
Each man's joy is joy to me. Each man's grief is my own.
Each man's joy is joy to me. Each man's grief is my own.
Home
Family Stories:
Fleasbiting--An Adoption Corruption Blog
Links
Contact Us
Family Stories:
- An Indian Adoption Story:
- Part I:
Lakshmi's Story
- Part II:
Anjali & Sutara's Story
- Photo:
Reunion
- Part I:
Lakshmi's Story
- Voices of an Indian Birthmother and Her Community
- Legal Articles:
- Article I: Intercountry Adoption as Child Trafficking
- Article II: The Two Faces of Intercountry Adoption
- Article III: Child Laundering: How the Intercountry Adoption System Legitimizes and Incentivizes the Practices of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Stealing Children
- Law Enforcement: What Really Happened in Cambodia
- What to Do About Adoption Corruption: the Summary List
- What to Do About Adoption Corruption: the Detailed List
Fleasbiting--An Adoption Corruption Blog
Links
Contact Us
This list was written as part of a dialogue with other adoptive parents on the adoption support list, International-Adopt-Talk. Adoptive parents wanted to know what they, as individuals and as a group, could do about international adoption corruption.
The "What to Do About Adoption Corruption" list exists in two forms: a summary list and a longer, more detailed list.
The summary list follows. You may click on any one of the list items to go to the detailed summary for that item.
Or you may click here to go to the Detailed "What to Do About Adoption Corruption" List
The Summary List
- Become educated about what's going on in generally in international adoption.
- Research the adoption related laws and regulations of a few sending countries.
- Do ongoing research to understand the cultural/economic/political, etc. context in the few sending countries you've selected.
- Keep tabs on whether your agency and the other adoption agencies practicing in the countries you have chosen, are abiding by the rules.
- Be aware of the role that foreign fees and foreign orphanage donations play in incentivizing the corrupt sourcing of children for adoption.
- Hold non-profits and others accountable for how money is spent in the sending countries.
- Encourage agencies to carefully vet and then hold their own foreign partners responsible for their actions.
- Join online groups like Adoption_Agency_Research and learn and participate.
- Find ways to make a difference in terms of the root causes of the "need" for adoption.
- Educate yourself on the adoption related laws and regulations of your own country.
- Research the adoption practices of other receiving countries as a way of understanding your own country's practices. In what ways do other receiving countries "do it better" or worse?
- Educate yourself on the international documents that are applicable to international adoption.
- During adoption crises, avoid the temptation to work against investigations, enforcement, and reforms.
- Work to mature the way adoption is understood in our society.
- Speak up.
- Speak to prospective adoptive parent formally and informally to help them understand adoption from other perspectives, to help them understand adoption corruption, and to help them find ethical agencies.
- Tell, and encourage others to tell, the "bad" adoption stories. Read the bad adoption stories yourself.
- Pool your resources and use your unique talents.
- Work for legislative and executive remedies.
by Desiree Smolin with thanks to Usha Smerdon and Barbara McArtney
Click here to go to the "What to Do About Adoption Corruption: Detailed List"