NYHOMESTUDY BLOG

By Miriam Vieni

The process of adopting internationally is being radically changed right now in 2007. The U.S. agencies that place children born in other countries are currently having to revamp their procedures in order to meet new federal requirements. The movement toward these changes has been going on for more than fifteen years. Even so, everyone involved in international adoptions today is finding the changes difficult and expensive. Ironically, as we move into this new era which is represented by government officials and adherents of the changes, as being a move toward honesty and transparency in international adoptions, fewer countries are allowing children to leave to join families in other lands and the requirements for adoptive parents and for agencies are being tightened. The new procedures are related to a treaty on international adoption that has been ratified by the U.S. and that was supposed to usher in a new approach to international adoptions, one that would make it easier and safer for children to move from their birth countries to adoptive families in foreign countries.

Let’s look back fifty or sixty years to a time when international adoptions were virtually unknown. When you heard the word “adoption” back then, it was usually uttered in hushed tones and it referred to domestic adoption. You might hear about a relative who had been unable to have a biological child, and who had adopted an infant. The process seemed to be wrapped in secrecy. Alternatively, you might hear about an unmarried young woman who “got into trouble” and who then disappeared from her home and community for a while, only to reappear, seemingly unchanged, and to go on with her life. Back in the fifties when I was an adolescent and a young adult, neither abortion nor birth control was available to young unmarried women. Becoming pregnant was a terrible fate, something to be avoided at all costs. If one became pregnant, one was terribly ashamed and wanted to hide the fact from everyone. The alternatives were to marry the father of the baby (whether or not you had a loving and enduring relationship with him) or to place the baby for adoption. Raising a baby as a single mother was unthinkable. In those days, if you placed your baby for adoption, you would not know anything about the adoptive parents or the fate of your baby. If your family was wealthy, you might be sent abroad to give birth or you might stay with a relative in a far-away city. If these resources weren’t available, you would place yourself in the hands of an adoption agency. You would live in the agency’s maternity home under the strict supervision of its director, and when you gave birth, you would give your baby to the adoption agency for placement. Everything would be done in secret. You would remain ignorant of the fate of your baby. You would know nothing about the family who adopted your child.

How people thought about adoption and their motives for adoption began to change in the 1950’s, largely because of the Korean War and an Evangelical Christian farmer named Harry Holt. Harry and Bertha Holt attended a presentation by (I believe it was) World Vision, a charitable organization, on war orphans in Korea, and Harry was moved to travel to Korea to see for himself, the plight of the children. At a time when there were no laws and procedures governing international adoption, he arranged for some of the members of his religious and farm community in Eugene, Oregon, to adopt some of the war orphans. Thus, he planted the seeds from which the current International Adoption industry grew and his work was the foundation for Holt Adoption Program. Two important patterns arose from Harry Holt’s efforts.

First, the reasons for folks choosing to adopt began to change and broaden. Instead of the only motivation for adoption being the need of infertile couples to find a baby to adopt who resembled the one they might have produced biologically, some people began to adopt because they wanted to provide a warm, secure family life for a child who had no family. Many folks no longer required that the child whom they adopted resemble them physically, nor was it necessary that the child be an infant. Initially, the people who were involved in international and trans-racial adoptions tended to be quite naive about the implications of race and culture in these adoptions. They knew only that in addition to wishing to expand their families, they wanted to save children from want and privation. They believed that bringing children from third world countries to the U.S. was clearly a good and charitable thing to do. However, in the mid 1960’s, people’s consciousness about race and ethnicity began to change, partly as a result of the “Black Power” movement in the U.S. As African Americans began to value their cultural roots and accept themselves as being equally valuable people to Caucasian citizens, others in our society began to revisit their national and cultural roots. Instead of seeing the U.S. as a “melting pot” in which cultural differences should disappear, people began to accept a new concept in which American culture was seen more as a stew in which ingredients are blended, but maintain their identity. Adoptive parents and professionals in the field began to see the adopted child’s “identity” as being complex. We began to understand how important it is to help internationally and trans-racially adopted children feel a connection with the people and country of their birth.

Second, international adoption programs began to grow in ways similar to the beginnings of Holt Adoption Program. By the late 1960’s, international adoption procedures were being developed. In particular, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had developed criteria for determining which children might enter the U.S. for adoption, and processes to facilitate these children joining their new families. Often, an individual would visit a foreign country, find a child who would benefit from adoption, adopt that child, and then begin to facilitate the adoption of other children by additional families. The pioneers who adopted independently from other countries, would then assist others to complete similar adoptions. Eventually, they sought state licensing for adoption agencies that could assist greater numbers of families to complete these adoptions. These pioneers changed the face of international adoption. Back in the late 1960’s, there were three or four large international adoption agencies, arranging adoptions from Korea and Vietnam. By the early 1990’s, there were large numbers of international adoption agencies that varied in size and that had programs in a variety of countries. Adoption of war orphans from Vietnam was a great impetus to the growth of international adoptions. As with Korea, adoptions from Vietnam began as non-agency adoptions. As the numbers of families who wished to adopt Vietnamese children increased, existing agencies began to take control of what were originally independent adoptions. When adoptions from Vietnam ceased in 1975 because the U.S. withdrew militarily from that country, many of the agencies that had been facilitating adoptions from Vietnam, turned to other countries where there were children in need of permanent homes. Additionally, in the early 1970’s, families began adopting babies independently from Colombia. Many of these families were initially interested in adopting Caucasian infants domestically. When they found that domestic adoptions were becoming more difficult, they searched for countries in which they might find Caucasian or part Caucasian infants. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the numbers of families adopting children from Latin America increased radically. Colombia, Chile, and Paraguay were popular countries because people believed that many of the children from those countries were (or appeared to be) Caucasian. But people also chose to adopt from Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, and El Salvador. Little by little, adoption professionals began to educate prospective adoptive parents about the realities of race in Latin America.

Three important changes in international adoption took place at the end of the eighties and in the early nineties. Korea cut down on the numbers of children whom Americans could adopt and they altered procedures so that adoptions from Korea became somewhat less accessible. Adoptions from Russia, Eastern Europe, and China became available. And most important, international meetings about an international adoption treaty began to take place.

Caucasian families who wanted to adopt Caucasian children, were now able to do so internationally as well as domestically. They began flocking to Eastern Europe and Russia. Latin American countries began to streamline procedures and in some instances, to cease placement of children with North Americans completely. Adoptions from China increased in number. China’s initially flexible requirements for adoptive parents began to become more selective. Adoptions from other Asian countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia began to take place. Additionally, more and more people became interested in adoptions from Africa. The small number of large adoption agencies that initially dominated the field of international adoptions, now had competition from a multitude of medium sized and small agencies. Some adoption professionals and governmental officials saw the Hague Treaty on International Adoption as a means for placing limits on what they saw as an out-of-control adoption industry. They believed that accreditation standards would force smaller and less competent agencies to close their doors. Over the years, many meetings were held during which these issues were discussed and an attempt was made to convince agencies and adoptive parents that the treaty would be implemented in such a way that smaller and medium sized agencies would be allowed to continue functioning. Some changes in initially proposed rules and regulations were made to ameliorate some of the harsher effects on agencies of accreditation. However, most of the plans for agency accreditation that were made originally in 1993, remained in place.

Since 2000, China and Russia (the two most popular countries) have consistently made changes in their adoption processes, the effects of which on adoptive parents, have been to increase fees, add more complicated adoption procedures, and tighten up requirements for adoptive parents. Adoptions from Cambodia by U.S. citizens are no longer permitted by our government, and our government has been attempting to discourage adoptions from Guatemala because of alleged irregularities. However, these adoptions are continuing with increasingly stringent procedures and requirements. There has recently been a pause in adoptions from Russia as the Russian government institutes new accrediting procedures for foreign agencies. Within the past few weeks, a few U.S. agencies have been reaccredited in Russia and have begun to process adoptions. At this writing (August 2007), American adoption agencies are going through a complex process of accreditation here in the U.S. to meet the standards of the Hague Treaty implementing legislation. The procedures are fraught with uncertainty as government officials, accrediting entities, and adoption agencies struggle to understand all the new rules and regulations. Undoubtedly, as agencies put new procedures and structures in place, the fees to adoptive families will increase as will the complexity of the adoption process.

As all of us struggle to come to terms with the new face of international adoption, it is important to remember the hundreds of thousands of homeless children throughout the world whose futures depend on the skill and concern of all of us who are part of the international adoption world.

Miriam Vieni, L.C.S.W.
New York Home Study
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