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The global market for adoption
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| Writer : 6d.fi |
Date : 2006-02-27 |
View : 589 |
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http://www.6d.fi/cover_story/page.2006-02-22.4318812511
The global market for adoptionDocument Actions Millions of children around the world are in desperate need of loving parents. Millions of adults are desperate for children to love and care for, in order to make their lives meaningful and complete. Connecting these groups of people seems like a hugely worthwhile enterprise.
The global statistics are persuasive. There are more than 140 million orphaned children in the world and the number for vulnerable children is much larger. Currently only about 40,000 children are adopted every year, adding to an existing population of half a million adopted children worldwide. Supporters of international adoption say that it gives hopeless children a future and solves the problem of childlessness in the West – all this while spreading the benefits of multiculturalism into countries like Finland.
Yet whether we like the terminology or not, international adoption is also an industry where hundreds of millions of dollars change hands every year. It is also about poverty and politics in the context of the unequal process of globalisation, according to Riitta Högbacka, a researcher at the University of Helsinki Sociology Department.
“ With South Korea and South Vietnam, Finland was a major donor of children for adoption in the early 1970s. Childless Swedish and Danish couples used to advertise for Finnish single mothers to adopt their children. The price was about 6000 mk.”
She points to some thought-provoking facts. Most of the children offered for international adoption do not come from the poorest countries. Most adopted children are not orphans and leave mothers, fathers and families behind. “The most vulnerable children are not the group most in demand for international adoption. Demand is focused on quite a small group of under three year olds, where the number of potential parents far exceeds the supply of children,” explains Högbacka. Research shows that the less time children spend in traumatic conditions or institutions, the better they adapt to a new life in the adopting family. So most adoptive parents aim to get the youngest child possible.
“It feels harsh to use concepts like supply and demand when talking about children and obviously it’s wrong to say that international adoption is just a trade in children,” says Högbacka. “But if we look at the direction of this human flow – which countries are sending children, which countries are receiving and who is doing the adopting – then it is very clear. It goes from the South to the North, and from the East to the West. The recipients are always the richer countries in North America, Europe and Australia.”
There is a shortage of babies in the West. Abortion is easily available and childlessness is a growing feature of modern life. People marry and have children later in life. Divorce rates are high but older couples in new relationships still want to raise small children. At the same time there are less children available for domestic adoption. “The trend in the USA is for open adoptions that involve the biological parents in some way. Most adoptive parents don’t want the other set of parents to come knocking on the door one day, which may explain why international adoption has become more popular there,” says Högbacka. In Finland about 14,000 children live with foster parents or in institutions but only 20-30babies are adopted each year.
Market forces
In many countries it is now possible to ‘shop around’ for children on the internet before adopting. American and Russian websites offer photo catalogues of children living in institutions. Potential parents can pick and choose, edit and delete, selections of the most attractive children on offer. “Somehow it may be easier for people to connect with a particular child through a photo and many hard-to-place children have found a home this way, but of course they choose the smallest and the cutest kids first,” says Högbacka.
Since the 1990s, China and Russia have become the biggest donors of children for international adoption. “Eastern European babies are classified as white and that makes them more desirable,” says Högbacka, identifying a clear ethnic hierarchy in Western preferences for adopted children. China’s population control policies resulted in large numbers of abandoned children, often girls. “The preference for baby girls and the stereotype of the petite, smiling and helpful Asian girl has contributed to China’s popularity. Also it was possible for Western adoptive parents to come back from China with a healthy baby girl just 6-12 months after starting the adoption process,” says Högbacka. Media reports about the high death rate in some Chinese children’s institutions have also touched Western sensitivities.
Högbacka’s new research will tell the stories of mothers who have given their children for adoption. “In the West it may be easy to think that the mothers in other countries don’t worry too much about losing a child or two because there is always another pregnancy. It is also a defense mechanism against the thought that your child’s biological parents are still alive somewhere else. Often they are cut out of the picture completely. But giving a child away to unknown people is never an easy option.”
“But if international adoptions suddenly stopped, it would condemn hundreds of thousands of abandon children to a life in an institution without too much hope,” she adds.
Facts
Globally about half a million people have been internationally adopted.
In the 1980s 18,000 children were adopted per year; now the figure is 40,000 per year.
United States is the biggest recipient of adopted children in absolute terms.
Norway, Sweden and Spain adopt the most children per capita.
Sweden has 45,000 children who have been internationally adopted; Finland about 3000.
Measured per capita, the biggest donors of children are Bulgaria, Belarus, Guatemala, Russia, Ukraine, Haiti, South Korea and Kazakstan.
International adoption service providers:
City of Helsinki: www.hel2.fi/Sosv/
palvelut/perhe/adoptio/adop3.htm
Interpedia ry: www.interpedia.fi
Pelastakaa Lapset ry: www.pelastakaalapset.fi
Number of international
adoptions in Finland
2005 308
2000 198
1990 54
1985 11
Total since 1985 2906
(51% girls, 49% boys)
Source: Peter Selman
Text & Photos by Sami Sallin
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