International Adoption

Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers September 22, 2015

The Intercountry Adoption Debate

By Mirah Riben What is the debate concerning international child adoption? That depends on who you ask. Forty-four experts representing a variety of disciplines including law, medicine and health, social work, anthropology, religion, sociology and history have their say inThe Intercountry Adoption Debate, edited by Robert L. Ballard, Naomi H. Goodno, Robert F. Cochran and Jay A. Millbrandt.     The formidable 737-page, hard cover volume contains twenty-seven essays in…

An Ethiopian Adoption Search Registry

Adoption News, Searches April 7, 2014

Hope for Ethiopian Families; An Ethiopian Adoption Search Registry

Ethiopian Adoption Connection is a searchable database, the objective of which is to match Ethiopian adoptees living around the world with their families in Ethiopia. I’m really very proud of it. It’s clean and simple which was key. We had to anticipate language and cultural issues, plus privacy verses searchability. Check it out at http://ethiopianadoptionconnection.org/.

declining numbers of international adoptions in the USA

Adoption News, The Adoption Industry March 14, 2014

Adoption Advocates International Shuts Down!

One chart counts children and the other chart counts millions of dollars in profits and revenue for ONE adoption agency. They really shouldn’t correlate, should they? If adoption was ethical and not a business and not based on supply and demand than these two charts should not relate to each other at all, right? Especially a fine accredited long standing nonprofit adoption agency like Adoption Advocates International that has “saved” children for 30 years.

“Approved for Adoption” (aka Couleur de peau: miel), is an autobiographical animated documentary

Adoption Events, Community, Rants and Raves October 17, 2013

Adoption Movie Review: “Approved for Adoption”

It’s not a easy story. It’s not a happy story, but it is not a horrible story either. It is a real story and most of all; it is Jung’s story and it is his truth. While drawn though a child’s eye, he does not cast a child’s feelings on it and gloss over or seem to exaggerates, but rather the same truthful light of recollection is shown on all. He shows the faults and failings of his whole family and himself. It is not a pity party; it is not a movie of blame. The good as well as the bad is reveled. It is a glimpse inside the emotions of moving through.

Reuters investigates adoption abuses and illegally re homing

Adoption News, Cultural Views on Adoption September 17, 2013

When Reuters Focuses on Adoption Re-Homing Abuses

How many more children need to be sold into slavery? How many more birthmothers must kill themselves over the grief of losing their children? How many more adoptees must kill themselves? How many more adoptive families must fear for their lives? How many more adoptees must dig their own graves, or be killed or go missing os become wards of the state? How many more adoptees must die form not knowing their medical history? How many more fathers must be screwed out of their paternal rights? When are we going to be able to say more than “this is the exception”?

When does it become ENOUGH?

The Russian Adoption ban

Adoption News, The Adoption Industry December 31, 2012

A Blow to International Adoption; Russian Children and Babies Banned from United States Adoptions

The simple truth is, if the adoption industry had done their job of informing adoptive families of the real risks of adopting an institutionalized, FAS Russian orphan, then the sensational news stories about returned children would never have angered the Russian government. If they had done their job and screened potential adoptive families better, then we might not have read about so many Russian adoptees abused or murdered by their “loving” adoptive parents. If they provided low cost post adoption services to meet the needs to the community they helped create, then underground “adoptee swapping networks” and places like the Ranch for Kids, would not be needed.

Adoption Research & Statistics, Cultural Views on Adoption October 9, 2012

International Asian Adoption: In the Best Interest of the Child?

Kathleen Ja Sook Bergquist, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Illinois State University, School of Social Work. M.S.W., Norfolk State University; Ph.D. in Counselor Education, The College of William and Mary Domestic and international adoption legislation and practice has purported to take into account the “best interest of the child.” More specifically, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and subsequently the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children…

Adoption Research & Statistics October 8, 2012

ADOPTION AND AGENCY: American Adoptions of Marshallese Children

Julianne M. Walsh: Department of Anthropology  University of Hawai`i at Manoa 1999 Abstract: From 1996-1999 over 500 children were adopted from the Marshall Islands by Americans, placing the RMI well within the top twenty source nation for international adoptions. Without government regulation of this sudden and  rapidly growing phenomenon, the potential for misunderstanding and exploitation grew alarming to national leaders who supported a moratorium on foreign adoptions late in 1999….

Children adopted from Haiti

Adoption News, Adoption Truth, The Adoption Industry February 5, 2012

Lessons in International Adoption

Media Attention of Haiti Adoption Sheds Light on Raw Adoption Truths It seemed like the minute I heard about the earthquake in Haiti, the story was linked to adoption. My poor husband, such a news junkie, started clicking away from the channels when an adoption related story came on. I had to tell him that I would not start screaming at the TV, rather, I knew and expected that when…

Adoption News November 8, 2008

About International Adoption in Australia

These Angels Aren’t Telling the Whole Story By Ian Robinson INTER-COUNTRY ADOPTION 18 Nov 2008 Deborra-Lee Furness wants us to import a lot more children from other countries for the Australian adoption market — but it’s an ignorant and selfish approach to the problem of child poverty, writes Ian Robinson In a recent Weekend Australian Magazine, Deborra-Lee Furness breathlessly told her interviewer that there were “103 million orphaned children in the world”. “How can…

Cultural Views on Adoption, Relinquishment December 11, 2006

Somewhere in China

I wrote this for Marsha. I like Marsha. She’s a mod over at SoA, an interfamily adoptee heself (sent her ribbons for her and her mom), has a daughter from China and is waiting for her older son from there too. She gets it and I find myself agreeing with things she says. She is into educating other China AP’s about China moms being real and having feelings like us…