Exploiting poverty to acquire a child is wrong
Yes, of course, there are many hundreds of international adoptive parents who did so with the best interests of the child at heart, ensuring the adoption was pre-approved, legal and ethical.
But there are others who just want a child at any cost.
Yet media coverage has consistently ignored that other side of the coin.
Since international adoption really began in earnest in 1991, when Irish people were touched by the plight of those in Romanian 'orphanages', and later by the pictures from The Dying Rooms, we have been presented only with a positive view adoptive parents rescuing the 'orphans.' However, Romania has now banned foreign adoptions due to the level of corruption and documentaries such as Spotlight (BBC Northern Ireland, 2004) have proven that many women were being tricked out of their children so that they could be sold into foreign adoption.
A major source country for Irish adoptions was Guatemala. Such is the level of child trafficking there that the Irish Adoption Board will no longer recognise an adoption from there without DNA tests to verify that the placing mother really is the mother of the child being placed.
A start, but it does nothing to prevent coerced adoptions.
And I have been witness myself to an illegal meeting where an unlicensed American adoption agency flew into Dublin, at the invitation of some Irish adopters and prospective adopters, and passed around price lists for Russian children. Only one couple there bothered to ask later how they could adopt legally and ethically. In adoption, the child's interests must be paramount and he or she must be protected. Sometimes that means recognising that if the only reason they have been made available is due to poverty, then exploiting that poverty so that an Irish couple can acquire a child from abroad is wrong.
Thankfully, Ireland is due to ratify the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children later this year. That will mean genuine Irish adoptive parents will, in future, be protected from having to deal with 'baby broker' agencies and adoptions can be carried out legally, ethically, and without profit being made.
Anton Sweeney
Chairperson
AdoptionIreland: The Adopted People's Association
14 Exchequer Street
Dublin 2
www.adoptionireland.com
