NYHOMESTUDY BLOG

by Miriam Vieni L.C.S.W.

When we adopted our daughter in 1974, the field of international adoptions was on the verge of blossoming into an exciting range of opportunities for homeless children and would-be adoptive parents. Up to that point, there were a very few large agencies (perhaps three or four) involved in facilitating the adoptions of children, mainly from Korea and more recently from Vietnam. The large, more traditional agencies were uncomfortable about international adoptions because less was known about the health and backgrounds of the children, than what was known about the health and backgrounds of children born in the U.S. Some of the agencies and groups that were helping families adopt children from Vietnam during the war, were new and small and they were operated by enthusiastic people who had, themselves, adopted children from Vietnam. When adoptions from Vietnam ceased in April 1975, the people who had been involved in helping children from that country, find families, turned to other countries with populations of homeless children and they instituted programs in those countries. Suddenly, a field that had been limited to a few agencies arranging adoptions from two countries, expanded into large numbers of agencies and parent groups, facilitating the adoptions of children from many countries. Families were able to adopt children from Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, and India. Then, in the late 1980’s, there was a trickle of direct adoptions from China which, expanded and was formalized over the years, until thousands of Chinese babies were being adopted. In the early 1990’s, the field expanded to several countries in Eastern Europe, and Russia, as well as a few African countries. Little by little, the number of direct adoptions decreased while the number of adoptions arranged by agencies, increased. Many of the agencies were small and were operated by adoptive parents. They were flexible and they were committed to the children and families whom they served. The majority of adoptions had good outcomes. A very few had problems. The majority of agencies and facilitators were honest. A minority were not. Larger, more traditional agencies turned to international adoptions because the supply of healthy Caucasian infants in the U.S. had decreased as more single mothers either chose to keep and raise their children or turned to abortion. In order to stay in business, these larger agencies needed to attract adoptive parents and they discovered that in the 1990’s, middle class Caucasian couples were interested in adopting children of a variety of races and cultures from many foreign countries. Middle class African American families also began to turn to international adoptions as it became more and more difficult for them to find healthy African American babies in the U.S.

In 1993, we learned of a plan to impose an international treaty on the field of international adoptions. The ostensible goal of the treaty was to protect the children by regulating the adoptions to minimize black market adoptions and to ensure that adoptions would be carried out in a professional manner so that the welfare of children would be protected. The two people who set out to sell international agencies and adoptive parent groups on the treaty were Peter Fundt from the Department of State Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Private International Law, and Bill Pierce (now deceased), the executive director of the National Council on Adoptions (an organization of private adoption agencies). He was also on the board of the National Council on Accreditation (a private organization which accredited private multi-service social service agencies. Bill Pierce was a vocal opponent of non-agency adoptions. In a letter to the member organizations of NCFA, he stated that he hoped the framework for agencies developed in the Hague regulations, would eventually be expanded to all adoptions.

Some of us, attorneys, adoptive parents, social workers, and agency people, believed that the framework of regulations that was being proposed by the State Department, would be harmful to international adoptions as a whole. We believed that it would cause small agencies to go out of business, cause countries to develop bureaucracies that would interfere with efficient adoption processing, and would add requirements and costs that would eliminate many prospective adoptive parents. We believed that the government’s proposed implementing legislation (greatly influenced by Bill Pierce) would not actually protect children but would, rather, promote the primacy of large agencies. It was difficult to communicate with others about our feelings because people were not using email and internet service at that time and because the State Department recruited people to travel throughout the country and to sell the Hague Treaty to adoptive parents and agencies. They promised that Immigration requirements for children entering the U.S. would be made more flexible and they threatened that countries would refuse to send their children to the U.S. if the U.S. didn’t ratify the treaty. However, we were able to initiate debate on the subject and to put pressure on the powers that be to hold public meetings in Washington D.C. on the treaty. We developed our own proposed implementing legislation for the treaty which, we hoped, would satisfy the wish for more regulation while setting up procedures which would allow small and medium sized agencies to continue to function in the international adoption field. The State Department people, however, were uninterested in our suggestions and our visits to senators and congressmen, during which we tried to explain the potential problems with the State Department plans, were ineffective. The meetings proceeded, and promises were made to keep the fees low and to take the needs of all stake holders into account. Committees were formed to provide feedback to the officials who were developing the implementing legislation for the treaty and the regulations connected to them. Many of the people who were initially very concerned about the impact of the treaty, were reassured by all of this that the treaty would not impact negatively on international adoptions.

The Hague Treaty went into effect in the U.S. on April 1, 2008. Following, is what I have observed. Our State Department has made demands on countries that did not initially sign on to the treaty, that they do so. The U.S. State Department has indicated that adoptions from countries that resisted, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Guatemala, were flawed and unacceptable and these adoptions by U.S. citizens, have by and large ceased. The adoption processes from countries that haven’t signed on and that have continued, have been negatively affected by new procedures imposed by our government. In many cases, home study agencies and placing agencies are insisting on Hague requirements for non Hague adoptions. These requirements make the adoption process more complicated and expensive. Many agencies are applying the regulations across the board because they feel that this will protect them from criticism from COA.

Adoptions by U.S. citizens from countries that have signed on, have decreased in number and are slower to complete. U.S. Immigration procedures for potential adoptive parents adopting from Hague countries are more difficult and complicated than they are for those adopting from non Hague countries. Home studies for people adopting from Hague countries are more complicated and difficult to conduct. Although the legislation allows exempt providers (non accredited agencies and independent social workers) to perform them, in practice, accredited placement agencies are reluctant to use exempt providers.

The National Council on Accreditation (one of two accrediting bodies and the accrediting body responsible for accreditation of most U.S. agencies), is charging large fees to accredit agencies. It has recruited volunteers to make judgments as to whether or not agencies may be accredited. Some of the volunteers have worked in international adoptions previously and some have not. The regulations are new and difficult for everyone to understand. Therefore, the volunteer accreditors have received brief training on how to implement the accreditation requirements from people who do not completely understand them. So, the accreditation standards are being applied differently to different agencies. Many small and medium sized agencies have been refused accreditation, and some of them have gone out of business altogether. Some of our best small agencies have opted out of accreditation completely because they cannot afford the process and they, therefore can no longer provide international adoption services to families and children. The actual regulations have little or no connection with the quality of services provided to families and children, but on paper, they satisfy the accrediting officials.

So, the fears that we had back in 1993 have been justified. Fewer people are able to adopt. Fewer agencies are arranging international adoptions. The agencies that have survived, tend to be the larger, wealthier agencies. Children are arriving from fewer countries, and they wait longer in institutions before they can be adopted. Most of the children seem to be coming from Russia, Korea, and a few African countries. These are not Hague countries. The wait for children and adoptive parents is longer. In the guise of improving the quality of international adoptions, our government has systematically been doing away with them.

All Rights Reserved by Miriam Vieni L.C.S.W.