Dissecting the Hand-Wringing International Adoptions Plummet Globally Article

918,000 Google hits for this pathetic article released as we launched our new website. This is what we are talking about when we say that the media publishes the adoption agency agenda. Now we will dismantle this misleading piece paragraph by paragraph.

International Adoptions Plummet Globally [ABC News 5/10/12 by Margie Mason/Associated Press]

My comments in brackets.

The number of international adoptions has plummeted to its lowest point in 15 years, a steep decline attributed largely to crackdowns against baby-selling, a sputtering world economy and efforts by countries to place more children with domestic families.

[Amazingly the first paragraph starts correctly. The problem is that this article paints this first paragraph as a “bad” situation without giving any statistics on THE NEED for international adoption in these places. The entire premise is that IA cures all and that is just plain wrong.]

Globally, the number of orphans being adopted by foreign parents dropped from a high of 45,000 in 2004 to an estimated 25,000 last year, according to annual statistics compiled by Peter Selman, an expert on international adoptions at Britain’s Newcastle University.

[Without context, it is completely meaningless to rattle off these numbers. The number of UNICEF-defined orphans (those with at least one parent dead) does not equal the number of children in orphanages. Not by a long shot. There are only 2 million children worldwide in orphanages. Those are the potentially adoptable children only after reunification fails and domestic adoption is not an option.]

Some adoption advocates argue the decrease is also linked to a set of strict international guidelines known as the Hague Adoption Convention. [Those so-called experts are morons. 71% of international placements to the US in FY2011 were from NON-Hague countries. All “hot” areas of adoption are NON-Hague or in countries that completely set aside Hague regulations, like the China Special Focus program] Devised to ensure transparency and child protection following a rash of baby-selling and kidnapping scandals [No, it wasn’t. It was designed literally FOR the institution of international adoption, not to protect children], critics say the guidelines have also been used by leading adopting nations, such as the U.S., as a pretext for freezing adoptions altogether from some countries that are out of compliance. [This is pure propaganda from the adoption industry.]

“It should have been a real step forward, but it’s been used in a way that’s made it a force for shutting down countries,” says Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard Law professor who promotes international adoptions. “That affects thousands of children every year.”

She says places where international adoptions are stopped may ultimately see more children stuck in orphanages or on the street [Children offered for international adoption are not living on the street. This is not a cause-effect scenario. Those street children are not being placed internationally even in countries that are open for adoption. ]  where they could fall prey to sex traffickers. “I question whether it’s ever true where adoption is all about buying and selling and kidnapping,” Bartholet says.[Get your head out of your and read the reports from Brandeis’ Schuster Institute. The US embassies and DOS have known about the specifics for YEARS. Even Wikilieaks revealed details in Egyptian adoption fraud. You are the worst tool for the industry.]

U.S. adoption officials and international agencies such as UNICEF say the Hague rules, which require countries to set up a central adoption authority and a system of checks and balances, are necessary to safeguard orphans and keep profit-driven players from corrupting a system that should be purely about helping unwanted children. [False! There are FOR PROFIT agencies that are approved by COA, the Hague-accrediting body.]

Alison Dilworth, adoptions division chief at the U.S. Office of Children’s Issues and a strong supporter of the Hague guidelines, says they shield adoptive parents from everyone’s worst nightmare: “God forbid, that knock on the door … saying your child that you have raised and loved and is fully integrated into your family was stolen from a birth parent who is desperately trying to look for them.”[Actually they don’t shield anyone from anything. The trafficking still occurs in the original countries and there is nothing in Hague guidelines that gives any kind of screen for that. See the latests statistics in China trafficking for adoption here ]

Much has changed from a decade ago, when busloads of would-be foreign parents flocked to orphanages in poor countries such as China, Vietnam and Guatemala to take babies home following a relatively quick, easy process. [You forgot the word “corrupt” before “process.”]

Waits have become increasingly longer and requirements stiffer, with some countries now refusing obese or single adoptive parents and requiring proof of a certain amount of cash in the bank. [But interestingly they opened China for singles in the Special Focus program for the adoption of special needs children who require the MOST resources. The fact is that homestudies are rubberstamped every day in the US for international adoption. There are no real standards for homestudies and no standard for training social workers for international homes studies.]Countries embroiled in scandals have pulled the plug on their programs, or been cut off by the U.S. and other countries, leaving hundreds of children caught in bureaucratic limbo.[The main reason that they are in limbo is because US agencies DEMAND that the kids wait to be placed with US parents. That is EXACTLY what happened in Guatemala. See Senator Landrieu’s despicable comments on holding kids for US parents here, scroll down to what she says on page 4]

Sharon Brooks, 56, of New York, knows the story all too well. She waited three and a half years for the release [dramatic much?] of a little girl in Vietnam after the U.S. froze adoptions there in 2008 amid serious fraud concerns. Finally, in January, Brooks learned the child she had named Akira-Li would instead be adopted by a Vietnamese family.[That should be how international adoption works-last case scenario. Looks like the new system worked for one child.]

“That was my one shot,” says Brooks, who now believes she is too old to qualify for most international adoptions. “Everything in my life has been at a standstill.” [Yep, it is all about HER, not the child.]

Vietnam joined the Hague convention on Feb. 1, and U.S. officials say they are hopeful adoptions will resume within the next year.

Shutdowns in other countries such as Guatemala, Nepal and Kyrgyzstan have coincided with changes in big sending countries like Russia and China, which have placed more emphasis on domestic adoption and tightened restrictions for foreigners.

China, for instance, stopped allowing single woman to adopt children — up to one-third of U.S. adoptive parents fell into this category in the late 1990s, Selman says. [You forgot to mention that they opened that up for Special Focus program. I know you don’t want to discuss that because that smears your image of the poor little PAP that you are trying to get the general public to believe.] Advances in fertility technology and the increasing number of couples turning to surrogacy have all contributed to the global drop.

The U.S., which historically has received about half of the world’s annual international adoptions, saw a decline of more than 60 percent from 2004 to just over 9,000 last year.

Dilworth, the U.S. adoptions official, says the economic downturn is at least partly to blame, with foreign adoptions typically costing between $20,000 to $40,000. [And whose fault is that? It is the adoption agency who charges that much money and the US government who is complicit in giving 13K adoption tax credits when our own economy is tanking.]

But the U.S. freezes on adoptions from some countries also are curtailing the supply.[Well at least you have the business part of this pegged correctly. Why would that be exactly..to “curtail the supply”. I thought the children would be stacking up as they weren’t being adopted? Could it be that there NEVER were that many children in Guatemala that needed international adoptive homes to begin with. DUH! Read the US Embassy cables. That should be required reading for any journalist before deciding to opine on Guatemala.]

Guatemala used to provide up to 4,000 children a year for international adoption at its peak in 2006. But the U.S. will not accept further adoptions from the country until it has fully revamped its system to root out corruption, Dilworth says.

“They have incredible problems with fraud,” she says.[Understatement!]

June 12, 2006 file photo [I want to point out that they are using  photos of children from 6 years ago for this supposedly up-to-date discussion on international adoption]

In one recent high-profile case, a Guatemalan court ruled that an American family must return their 7-year-old adopted daughter to her birth mother after it was discovered that the girl was allegedly snatched from in front of her house five years ago. The child remains in the U.S. [Yes, she has a  name: Anyeli Liseth Hernandez Rodriguez. Her despicable adoptive parents are Timothy and Jennifer Monahan of Liberty, Missouri.]

Other countries that have seen large drops in the adoption of foreign babies include Spain and France, which fell 48 percent and 14 percent, respectively, from 2004 to 2010. Canada remained the same and Italy actually saw a 21 percent increase during that period, [These are interesting statistics that SHOULD HAVE been delved into more.] according to Selman, who analyzed data from 23 countries that are primary receivers of adopted orphans.

Last year’s 25,000 adoptions globally were the lowest amount since 1996, Selman said.

The global numbers could decline further as South Korea, one of the top providers of orphans for foreign adoption, works to phase out its long-running program. [“Providers of orphans.” Good that the business aspect is being discussed again.]

Since the 1950s, it has sent more than 170,000 children abroad, with the majority ending up in the United States. Despite having one of the world’s fast-growing economies, and growing domestic concern about falling birth rates that are already among the world’s lowest, it continues to rank as a top sending county. Experts blame this on a strong cultural stigma against both unwed Korean women who give birth and couples who adopt. [Oh what a spin!How about those coercive maternity homes set up by the adoption industry. You know the ones where mom and baby check in, but just the mom checks out.]

But pressure has been mounting for years for the government to abandon the program. In recent years, lawmakers have created new incentives to help promote domestic adoption, while quotas have allowed fewer children to leave.

If the decline in global adoptions is to be reversed, says Selman, the source is likely to be Africa, where Ethiopia has emerged in recent years as a top source of orphans available for foreign adoption. It’s unclear whether other African countries will follow. [The source already is in Africa-Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana. Snap out of it and look at the trends. Why should the world try to achieve a “top source” for adoption. You never seek to answer that one, do you?]

“If it’s going to go up, it’ll be from Africa,” he says. “It could be that they set their pace against adoption, and that could have a profound effect.”

[This article has nothing to do with helping families or children but is all about trying to CONTINUE the business of adoption. “Set the Pace?” This is not the Indianapolis 500 race. The world does not live and die by the establishment of IA in a country. Stop playing the IA card and ask WHY foreign agencies set up adoption shops INSTEAD of providing medical care, food, clothing, education and decent shelter for the children in need. Why should foreign adoption agencies be running ANY kind of child welfare program in a foreign country? This is a major conflict of interest.]

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