Dear Friends of the Convention on the Rights of the Child - by Laetitia van Haren - Executive Director

Dear Friends of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,

Food for thought is a new feature in our newsletter in which we’ll raise important philosophical, moral or legal questions about specific issues that we may think carry a high risk of child right violations. I want us to think about them together. If we feel strongly that there is something wrong about them, is that just a feeling, is that feeling personal, or are there good common grounds to feel alarmed by them AND to think that DCI as a movement, or DCI in a particular country or region, should express itself clearly about it, reminding the rules of law as applicable to that situation, as we understand them from remedy the evil based on research and analysis of the situation in the light of the Convention.

Today I would like to raise the question of international child adoption in the twenty first century. Some of you may know that DCI was a forerunner in raising awareness about the hostile aspects of international child adoption or inter-country adoption (ICA) that had started to become apparent already in the late seventies and early eighties.

Thus, for example, the very first issue (1.1) of DCI’s International Children’s Rights Monitor, in 1983, devoted its main story to reviewing the nature and incidence of inter-country adoption, problems documented over the preceding years.

Subsequent editions gave regular updates on the subject. DCI sections in Latin America were particularly concerned about the situation: those in Chile (1985) and Bolivia (1987) produced preliminary studies on the phenomenon, and DCI-Argentina carried out a landmark investigation into illegal inter-country adoption practices in that country, which has since virtually outlawed international adoption.

For its part, DCI-IS was very active in the drafting of CRC Art 21 and published a selected compilation of documents on “the protection of children’s rights and inter-country adoptions” in June 1989. It made several statements on the subject to UN human rights organs. DCI IS also went on to become one of the major NGO players in the drafting of the 1993 Hague Convention, which began in 1990.

It instigated and undertook (with International Social Service) the very first assessment and capacity-building missions on inter-country adoption in Romania (as of February 1991) once it had become clear that significant breaches of children’s rights were taking place there. It was also a lead member of a similar mission to Albania in 1992. Both of these missions led to important changes in the way inter-country adoption was handled in those countries.

For a number of historical and practical reasons, as of the mid-90s DCI decided to be more selective and focused in its programme strategy and the issue of inter-country adoption has since been removed from our international programme.

But two events shook me up and made me wonder if DCI should not start thinking about it aloud again, that is, audible for civil society and decision makers.

Recently, a woman came to see us at the International Secretariat. She came to ask what DCI was doing nowadays about child trafficking and child buying for international adoption, for that was continuing unabated in Latin America, she said. She explained that she is herself a child internationally adopted when she was a one year old baby, from a Latin American country. She said that from her earliest days she has struggled with her identity. Though she had a good relationship with her adoptive parents, she had found out much later that her mother had tried to recover her, and that her mother had been misled into believing she was going to get a good education as an intern somewhere, but remain her daughter and eventually accessible - rather similar to the Arche de Zoe scandal in Chad. She is convinced that this situation has not improved and that child traffi cking for international child adoption is continuing on the American continent.

My other experience that caused me to think more about inter-country adoption in the context of DCI’s role was a news item reporting that a celebrity had gone to a village in Africa to negotiate the adoption of a child who still had a father and an extended family. The negotiations as reported in the press seem to come close to bargaining - in other words, they made one think of buying rather than an administrative adoption process in the best interest of the child, for whom no other ways of ensuring adequate and loving care in his or her own family or community could be found. But here again appearances may deceive us, both for the motives of the adoptive parents and the transaction we observe through the eyes of the press.

So, has the practice of inter-country adoption really changed – or changed sufficiently – since the early nineties for DCI to feel that its concern and intervention in support of the rights of the child are no longer needed? Or are there enough indications and evidence that inter-country adoption still suffers from significant problems from a children’s rights standpoint, and that DCI might contribute to finding responses? Though we would not be able to take it up on the same scale as juvenile justice, we said in the Brussels declaration that we would systematically denounce situations of grave violations of children’s rights.

Does inter-country adoption still, or again, qualify as such? And bearing in mind that sister-organisations such as International Social Service and Terre des Hommes, as well as UNICEF, are now heavily involved in the issue, what adequate to detect it quickly and stop it?

We are looking forward to hearing your experiences, views and ideas on this subject.

With kind regards,

Laetitia van Haren

Executive Director