Is International Adoption Slowly Dying? Thoughts from the JCICS Conference
Last week, I was able to attend and speak at a conference in Baltimore, sponsored by the Joint Council for International Children’s Services (JCICS). JCICS is a membership-based advocacy organization for orphaned children around the world. During this conference, I was able to hear presentations by agency representatives, international adoption doctors, government advocates on international adoption, and a young man who had been orphaned. As I met these people, I was struck by how kind they are and how much they genuinely care about children.
Getting to meet so many of the adoption agency staff with whom we have worked was so inspiring. Each was so passionate about placing the waiting children on China’s shared list. Currently, there are more than 1600 children with medical needs who now wait for a family. Most people don’t understand that adoptions from China aren’t slowing for children with a special need. There are so many children waiting every day who would love a family of their own.
I spoke about the challenges of medical care for orphans in China, sharing with agencies and adoptive parents the struggles we have helping children with medical needs and what potential issues that adoptive families might face. Because of pollution, birth defects are rising in China, and as a result, many children end up in orphanages. There are many issues that arise with the care of children with medical needs. Our goal is to be able to help Chinese orphanages care for these children in the best way possible and then advocate for their adoption. Every one of those children on the shared list is a beautiful child just waiting to be loved.
One of the more sobering things about attending the conference, however, was hearing how many adoption agencies have had to shut their doors due to a decrease in international adoption. Membership in JCICS has dropped by over 60 members this year and over the past three years, international adoption has dropped by half the number of children. Tom DiFilipo, President & Chief Executive Officer of JCICS, cautioned that within five years, international adoptions could drop below 5,000 children a year and there may be only be five international adoption agencies left. Some very large organizations are actually completely against international adoption.
What are you feeling about the decrease in international adoption? Are you planning to do anything to help preserve international adoption? Are you planning to do anything to help any of the true orphans who need families around the world? Because of the slow down in international adoption, do you think more people might consider domestic adoption? Please join the conversation and let us know your thoughts!
Karen Maunu is the Associate Executive Director for Love Without Boundaries. She lives in Minnesota and has five children, two of whom are from China.
9 Comments to “Is International Adoption Slowly Dying? Thoughts from the JCICS Conference”
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Theoretically, I think that international adoption ideally SHOULD end. It’s better for orphans to be adopted by people in their own culture, international adoption I think was supposed to be a sort of last resort.
But we all know that international adoption is necessary right now for many countries. I think it’s necessary for special needs for China, and generally not for healthy infants (because Chinese people are willing to adopt healthy boys or girls).
In the future I’d like to see Chinese people do more domestic adoptions so that international adoption is eventually unnecessary for them. But we have a long way to go before that can happen… Meantime I’m glad there are so many people in America and other countries giving families to orphans from China and other countries, and that there are groups like LWB providing them with the care they need.
So far it’s been my experience that the wait from China has been a large motivating factor to consider adopting elsewhere. I’ve noticed that the numbers have dropped, but I wonder if there’s a way to consider the number of people still waiting.
I find the hostile environment from some camps on the internet these days toward international adoption jarring.
Yes, it would be far better for these children to remain within their countries. But if a child had a choice between living in dire poverty – working on the streets – or having a loving home, wouldn’t the child be better off in a living home?
Many children living and working on the streets typically do not survive past the age of eighteen. Read about it here:
http://www.chosen-generation.org/how-do-street-children-end.html
Far better for them to be raised in safe environment than to lose their “culture”.
All that being said, however, I don’t think such negative bias is the reason why parents are not adopting internationally as much as before.
Instead, I believe the problem is the high cost of adopting from overseas. Between the international fees, the home study, agency fees and travel expenses, the cost is far too high for most American families, especially in this recession.
But adopting internationally can be done with sufficient planning, budgeting and fundraising efforts, such as garage sales, puzzle fundraisers and other efforts.
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I don’t mean to be hostile. My two youngest siblings are adopted from China and I’d love to adopt from overseas during my lifetime. I encourage you to read this blog though – http://research-china.blogspot.com/ – especially the recent post “Promises Promises” and the various newspaper articles he links to. There’s also a documentary called China’s Stolen Children that’s really eye-opening. It bothers me that international adoption is in some cases the *reason* that kids are orphaned, as opposed to international adoption being the *solution* for kids who are orphaned.
I think that any attitude that encourages the breaking up of families is very dangerous – even if we assume kids would be “better off” raised in America because we have more money. That’s the beauty of LWB’s Unity Fund…it goes deeper into the heart of the problem and tries to prevent abandonment in the first place.
I can’t really judge if the death of international adoption would be a good thing without knowing what happens to the children as an alternative.
This is good news for the long term future of adoptees who will not suffer the trauma of removal from families, culture, country and religion.Hopefully there will be more support for mothers, better contaception and abortion available.
Yes, I think international adoption is dying, but not because there is less of a need for international adoption. I think it’s because of the big international organisations who are opposed to international adoption and will do anything to abolish it. The organisations claiming to care for the children, but will do anything to make the adoption of those children impossible. While it sounds so good on paper to cry about children being removed from their culture, what does growing up in their culture help if they’re prostitutes on the streets or get caught up in trafficing rings? People who adopt from overseas usually go to a great deal of trouble to preserve their children’s culture and I dare say those adopted children will get greater exposure to their ethnic culture than those having to prostitute themselves to survive. I know there are adoptees who oppose international adoption because of their own feelings and experiences, but who are they to decide that everyone feels the same and there should not be international adoption? Have they ever given thought to what their lives would have been if they were not adopted? You would not have grown up with your biological parents, no matter how much you would like to believe that it was the alternative to adoption. You would have most probably grown up in a culture where there is not much love or opportunity for those who grow up as orphans. Recognise that international adoption is a GREAT option for TRUE orphans, children who would have grown up in orphanages with no other alternatives, not children who are bought and sold to fill demand. Recognise that millions of children are going without things you have every day – love, care, family – just so some can take the moral high ground. And abortion is not the answer to children living in orphanges. Those children has AS MUCH right to live and be loved as those who see slaughtering them before birth as a solution to their circumstances.
My husband and I are saving money to adopt internationally. We have been involved in the juvenile “justice” system domestically and my husband will not again consider adopting domestically. However, international adoption is SO expensive there is no telling if it will be around by the time we save the money to adopt.
I am a HUGE supporter of international adoption, as well as domestic adoption. As long as there are children without parents, living in orphanages, and on the streets I believe we are obligated to do something about this horrific crisis.