In America, popular narratives about adoption tend to focus on happy endings. Poor mothers who were predestined to give their children away for a “better life”; unwanted kids turned into chosen ones; made-for-television reunions years later. Since childhood, these story lines about the industry of infant adoptions had gradually seeped into my subconscious from movies, books, and the news.

Then, following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the tropes proliferated. Photos of smiling white couples holding signs that read we will adopt your baby went viral this summer, quickly inspiring online mockery. Many U.S. adoption agencies prepared for a potential increase in adoption in states that have made abortion illegal, despite limited evidence that a need for these services will increase.

As I found while researching a book on identical twins raised in radically different circumstances, the reality of adoption is far more complicated than some might think—and, as many adoptees and scholars have argued, deserving of a more clear-eyed appraisal across American culture. I began reporting Somewhere Sisters in 2016. The identical twins Isabella and Hà were born in Vietnam in 1998, and their mother struggled to care for them. Isabella (born Loan) was adopted by a wealthy, white American family that gave her a new name and raised her in the suburbs of Chicago. Hà was adopted by a biological aunt and her partner, and grew up in a rural village in Vietnam with sporadic electricity and frequent monsoons.

Over several years, I interviewed the sisters, their first family, and their adoptive families. I also followed the twins’ anticipated yet fraught reunion at age 13 and the time that followed. Meanwhile, I delved into the archives of adoption history and scholarship. And I interviewed other adoptees from around the world. This all made clear to me that when reunions with birth families do happen, they aren’t always happy; they can be painful, confusing, or traumatic.

I also saw how scores of adoptees who are parents, lawyers, educators, or activists have been challenging the rosy image of adoption that stubbornly persists in our culture. One of them is Victoria DiMartile, a biracial Black and white adoptee raised by a white family, who is working toward her Ph.D. in anthropology at Indiana University at Bloomington. She studies the social and economic effects of the adoption business and is the founder of Wreckage and Wonder, which provides adoption education. Children are not offered up for adoption in a vacuum, she told me. Many of them “are available because of certain, very strategic political policies.”

In search of a better future, six-day-old girl given away by biological parents in Jalgaon to a couple, who forge papers and sell her to a transgender duo — one of whom is lodged in jail currently; two women agents found to be involved in the sale; police catch up with the culprits, arrest them & decide to take responsibility for child’s education; activist says such children are often forced into begging & state should look into matter

If one were to pause and weigh, illegal adoption of children would emerge as an equal menace in society as human trafficking — with both being related somewhere. When the crime branch of the city police rescued a toddler it was a veritable opening of the Pandora’s Box pointing unflinchingly towards both the evils.

The girl child was caught in a rigmarole of illegal adoption for one-and-a-half years after she was given away by her biological parents when she was just six days old. The child travelled to different cities and had three different pairs of parents, including one who is lodged in jail with murder charges at present. She is in safe hands now and the police have decided to educate her by collecting funds themselves.

The enormity of such cases can be gauged from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data which states that 6,533 human trafficking victims were rescued in India last year and 2,877 of them were children. Similarly, 4,709 victims were rescued in 2020 and 2,222 of them were children. The data suggests that such cases, especially of children, have increased by over 27 per cent last year as compared to 2020.

It may be noted that the six-day-old child was given up for adoption in January 2021 to a couple since the parents could not take care of her because of financial constraints. They already had four children. The parents, based in Jalgaon, hoped their child would have a better future if she lived with someone with financial stability. However, it was a case of illegal adoption. Taking advantage of this, the adoptive parents sold the toddler to a transgender couple in Pune by fraudulently making the adoption papers. They claimed it was their child and earned Rs 1.7 lakh through the change of hands.

LAW No. 47 of July 7, 1993

regarding the judicial declaration of child abandonment

ISSUER

parliament

Published in OFFICIAL GAZETTE NO. 153 of July 8, 1993

Moreover, without a legal framework there were numerous impediments to the creation of innovative projects for preventing child abandonment within the ‘old’ childcare institutions, as illustrated by Georgette Mulheir. She came to Romania through a program of ‘technical assistance’ run by the Romanian Orphanage Trust in 1993, and helped to set up a pilot mother-and-baby unit in a childcare institution for babies in Bucharest. She recalled in an interview that the project, although necessary for preventing the institutionalization of babies, was created ‘against all odds’. The difficulties came from several directions and particularly from not having a legal framework for childcare services:

Legally it was very limited what we were trying to do. There were no laws to run prevention services; (…) there was no legislative framework for this apart from something very old in a law, which allowed a mother to stay with her child in an institution. So we were able to set up this separate section inside the institution without there being a change in law (interview with Georgette Mulheir).

Thus transnational organizations

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A Camillus mother who is accused of abusing her 11-year-old child was a foster mom who adopted two children, CNY Central has learned.

44-year-old Susan Orendorf was arrested Tuesday morning and is accused of abusing her 11-year-old boy, possibly for years.

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Office said Orendorf handcuffed her adopted son to his bed, denied him food, forcibly touched him, and even strangled him.

Orendorf first fostered, then adopted the 11-year-old, as well as a 6-year-old girl, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

During the fostering process, a foster agency is involved in checking on the children.

Given the lengthy, uncertain process and decline in adoption, care facilities often have to transition their wards to life without adoption.

Extreme poverty, single parenthood and abuse are some top factors that push parents to give up their children.

At a children’s care facility in Cubao, north of Manila, 18-year-old Mel and her four younger siblings wait to be adopted.

Mel, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, is already too old to be adopted. Her only option to join a family is to be adopted along with any, or all, of her four siblings.

It has been five years since Mel and her siblings joined the Gentle Hands children’s home, which also houses many children who have experienced trauma.

When Mia Andersson was eight months old, she was adopted to Sweden. What the adoptive parents did not know was that Mia's biological mother had not agreed to any adoption. Mia was stolen from her biological mother and sold to Sweden.

She is one of three women in Kronoberg who were included in Dagens Nyheter's award-winning review of the illegal adoptions. The review has now become a book.

The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Central government on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking removal of administrative delays in providing vulnerable juveniles access to adoption, foster/kinship care and sponsorship facilities as per the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015 (JJ Act) [Srisabarirajan vs Union of India and ors].

A Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli issued the notice on the PIL filed by Mumbai-based advocate Srisabarirajan K and tagged it with a similar plea already pending before the top court.

The petitioner flagged the declining adoption rates in the country, specially those for specially-abled kids, as well as the virtual non-existence of foster care and sponsorship despite being provided for in the JJ Act.

Sponsorship under the Act entails financial assistance to families, children’s homes, and special homes to meet medical, nutritional, educational and other needs.

The plea highlighted the declining budgetary assistance to 'Child Protection Services and Child Welfare Services' and stressed on the need to build awareness towards adoption of kids older than six years of age.

ICDS and SCPCR members inform about the incident to the police

An unauthorised child adoption was reported under MVP police station limits here on Monday. Members of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and member of State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) Gondu Sitharam informed about the incident to MVP Police Station House Officer Prasad who is looking into the matter. According to Mr. Sitharam, on September 15, a couple had given birth to a girl child in a private hospital in the city. The couple had allegedly given away the child to another couple for a sum of ?2 lakh. He also alleged the involvement of a ASHA worker in the unauthorised adoption. MVP Police said that they are looking into the issue. Mr. Sitharam said that people can reach out to SCPCR if they come across any such unauthorised adoptions in their area.