More and more children from Africa are being adopted abroad. But organizations warn of a lack of regulations and control mechanisms - and the loss of cultural identity. A report on World Children's Day.

"I'm embarrassed that my mother is white." Ten-year-old Lerato Dieterich spits out the sentence angrily and turns away. She doesn't want to talk about the fact that she is adopted. Lerato's adoptive mother, South African Merle Dieterich, explains: It hurts her daughter too much that her biological mother gave her away after she was born. The feeling of not being wanted accompanies most adopted children, says Dieterich, who took in two children. The different skin color creates additional boundaries.

Adoptions outside the cultural circle should be the very last resort in an effort to give children a good life, demands the child protection organization "African Child Policy Forum" (ACPF). Unfortunately, only a few African countries have laws that offer adopted children sufficient protection against human trafficking and loss of cultural identity, according to a study by the pan-African institution based in Ethiopia, which researches and compares children's rights in Africa.

The number of African children adopted abroad has tripled in the last decade. One reason for this is that other countries of origin such as Russia and China have introduced stricter rules for foreign adoptions. Celebrities have also discovered Africa for adoption: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt took in a girl from Ethiopia, and after some wrangling, Madonna has two children from Malawi.

German adoptive parents rank eighth
Between 2004 and 2010, a total of more than 33,000 African children were placed with foreign parents, 21,000 of them from Ethiopia. South Africa is the second most common country of origin. Most adoptive parents came from the USA and Italy. German adoptive parents rank eighth on the ACPF list.

Around two million children live in homes in Kenya. Because infertility is taboo there, it is difficult to find adoptive parents for them in the country. Now the government has also stopped the few placements abroad.

"It's a very confusing situation because there has been no official announcement so far. We've only seen reports in the two major daily newspapers here. And they contradict each other."

Susan Otuoma runs the Little Angels Network, the largest of four Kenyan agencies that place children for international adoption. What she finds even more confusing, however, is the government's justification: fighting child trafficking. Kenya has a big problem with this, but in most cases it occurs domestically. Children are abducted and forced into work or prostitution.

"There has been a lot of propaganda about the sale of children. That adopted children have been stolen or their families deceived into consenting. All I can say is that we do our job pretty thoroughly."

Adoptions abroad are strictly regulated

ASHA KRISHNAKUMAR

A Frontline investigation lays bare a multi-billion-dollar, countrywide racket in inter-country adoption of children, run by private adoption agencies that exploit the loopholes in the rules.

THE arrest in Chennai on May 3, 2005, of five kidnappers, who have sold over 350 children to an adoption agency in the city over many years; the inquiry ordered by the Delhi government into the process of inter-country adoptions in 10 agencies in the Capital; and the recent moves in Andhra Pradesh to book

A recent case in Tamil Nadu shows that the existing system has allowed child trafficking to take place for years under the guise of a perfectly legal adoption process.

ASHA KRISHNAKUMAR

ON May 3, 2005, the Central Crime Branch of the Chennai police arrested five people for kidnapping and selling about 350 children to an adoption agency in the city. Several lost children seem to have been given in adoption to families abroad over the last decade. Ironically, the police have found all the paperwork by the adoption agency to be clear. This highlights the need to look into the existing adoption system that allows for child trafficking under the guise of a perfectly legal adoption process.

Frontline investigation and documents available with it reveal that this is not an isolated case. Bending rules, circumventing norms, and following illegal and unethical ways to "source" children and sell them to foreigners under the guise of adoption is not uncommon among some agencies in Tamil Nadu.

IFI

Marina Sturdza, Romanian Princess and Humanitarian, Dies at 73

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In 1992, a group from the St. Vitus parish set out on a long journey to Transylvania for the first time in order to bring "first aid" to the children of the second largest Romanian orphanage after the fall of communism in Romania. The "Hemmingen Romania Working Group" was founded with its headquarters in Wilkenburg. Members also included people from Harkenblecker, Arnumer and Hemminger.

After contacting communities in Fiatfalva, which belongs to the town of Cristuru Secuiesc (= Szekler Cross), a partnership was even established there. After numerous aid shipments to surrounding villages, the main project developed: five family houses were gradually built , each for ten to twelve children, who were thus rescued from the orphanage and were then able to grow up in a secure family atmosphere. When the Gerts family left the community, the community group that had grown in this way became the association "A House for Tomorrow" so that the project could be secured in the long term.

The family homes are still in operation, but fortunately, with European help, the overall situation of Romania's "lost children" has improved significantly: there are no more homes. Family homes and placement in foster families ultimately led to their closure. A young social science emerged that gradually took on modern forms. This fulfilled an essential task of the group. The association therefore decided to dissolve in 2023.

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International adoption: when the quest for origins collides with omerta

INVESTIGATION (3/3). Born in Romania, India and Haiti, adoptees question the methods of the association Rayon de soleil de l'enfant étranger.

Those who ordered or contributed to the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to be "deprogrammed", adopted and still contribute to the repopulation will have to answer for this war crime for decades and decades beyond the end of the war.

We call on France to work to help investigate this case and to see judges identified to punish those responsible.

Everything must be done now to allow these children to return as soon as possible to their loved ones or to their country.

Russia is violating the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that binds almost all States in the world. It must be accountable to the international community. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has the right to call it out more firmly than ever.

We, the signatories, will remain mobilized to ensure that justice is done for what international law calls genocide.

The law changed in 2016 to allow gay couples to adopt – but it was hardly an opening of the floodgates

When Victoria changed the law to allow same-sex couples to adopt, the government heralded it as a pathway that would allow more opportunities for children to be matched with the best possible family.

Instead, fewer than five adoptions by same-sex couples have taken place in the state since 2017.

The convener of support group Gay Dads Australia, Rodney Chiang-Cruise, is blunt about his thoughts on the issue. “Honestly, my advice to same-sex couples seeking to adopt in Victoria has been don’t bother,” he tells Guardian Australia.