Kerry and Niels' blog

Since 1995, the month of November has been designated as Adoption Awareness Month. We at Pound Pup Legacy try to contribute to this commemoration, by raising awareness for abuse in adoptive homes, disrupted adoptions, violated parental rights, child trafficking for adoption, and other horrors in adoption.

The start of Adoption Awareness Month also means the announcement of the recipient of the Demons of Adoption Award. Started in 2007, as a critique on the Congressional Angels in Adoption Awards

, the Demons of Adoption Awards have become an annual tradition, continued now for seven years in a row.

Dear Mrs Strottman,

We write to you to offer a sincere apology. Two weeks ago, we wrote a critique of the Children In Families First Act of 2013, for our website Pound Pup Legacy. In that critique, we erroneously claimed that the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) supports the CHIFF act.

This can of course not be the case, as you state in the FAQ section of your website, as well as in the press kit for the year 2013:

CCAI does not lobby on behalf of any individual piece of legislation or government program. CCAI does not take official positions on issues related to adoption and foster care, but rather seeks to provide policymakers with the resources they need to make informed decisions.

In our defense, our critique never made the claim your organization lobbies for an individual piece of legislation. CCAI is registered as a 501(c)3, and as such no substantial part of your activities would be directed towards an attempt to influence legislation. Moreover, we learned, based on the 990s filed with the IRS, you don't spend any money on lobbying activities at all.

Late last week, Senator Mary Landrieu launched the latest initiative of the adoption lobby in congress, with the introduction of The Children In Families First Act of 2013.

The bill is intended to counteract the decline in inter-country since 2004, a trend that has many prospective adopters worried and cuts heavily into the revenues of  adoption service providers.

The inter-country adoption lobby has been in full blown panic over this decline for several years now.

Already in 2009, a legislative attempt was made to curb the downward trend by means of the Families for Orphans Act. This effort failed miserably, but now the adoption lobby has regrouped with new blood and fresh money.

A comprehensive history of inter-country adoption has thus far not been written. Some adoption websites give a brief summary of the history of inter-country adoption, and there are several books trying to do the same, but a thorough study into the origins of inter-country adoption is still awaiting scholarly initiative.

In the book Intercountry Adoption: A Multinational Perspective, by Howard Alfstein and Rita James, the following is said about the history of inter-country adoption:

ICA began primarily as a North American philanthropic response to the devastation of Europe in World War II that resulted in thousands of orphaned children. When the European continent was rebuilt and its economy stabilized, the problem of orphaned children was basically solved. But a revitalized economy, coupled with a reduction in Europe's male population {again a result of World War II), led to an increased rate of childlessness. Western societies then turned to Third-World countries with high birth rates for a solution to the dearth of healthy infants in the West.

This narrative is very similar to most other attempts to summarize the origins of inter-country adoption, dating back the origins of inter-country adoption to the aftermath of World War II.

Earlier this year a study was published, analyzing the European Union's reversal in approach towards inter-country adoption from Romania since 2007.

The study sheds some interesting light on the motivations behind this radical shift and serves as a warning when it comes to the politicization of child protection.

Initially we wanted to write a review about this fascinating, albeit very dense study.

However, while researching the topic of the Romanian adoptions early 1990s, we felt compelled to write about a subject only touched upon in this study: the political influence of adoptive parents.

This week, Adoptionland has been in turmoil over the publication of a series of articles by Reuters and NBC-news.

The articles portray the drain of the adoption system, the practice of informal re-homing of adoptees who are no longer wanted by their forever family.

Just like it is with every abuse case and every trafficking case found in Adoptionland, the mouth pieces of the adoption industry are quick and ready to down play the situation. The good name of adoption MUST be preserved, at all cost, even if doing so leads to

It's that time of year again., Labor Day behind us, kids back to school, the sun no longer at its apex, time for the nominations of the Demons of Adoption Awards.

We are all too aware, our regular readers, like us, have nail-bitingly anticipated this moment all summer long. For us hard-core adoption critics, this is the highlight of the year, the defining moment of the annum.

It will be tough this time around. Over the last years we have dredged the cesspool named Adoptionland and condemned the practices of such agencies like: Bethany Christian Services and LDS Family Services, such trade associations of adoption service providers like the National Council for Adoption and the Joint Council on International Children's Services, and even showed our utmost contempt for the United States Congress. No feather weights by any means.

An important decision needs to be reached, dear Pound Pup Legacy readers. Who is the most deserving villain in Adoptionland, for 2013?  While we can think of some really deserving candidates, we want our readers to nominate and decide who eventually has the dubious honor of actually receiving PPL's 2013 Demons of Adoption Award.

Yesterday, we added yet another case of abuse in adoptive families, where the adopted children were subjected to disciplinarian cruelty. The case in question involves three children adopted from foster care by John and Carolyn Jackson, a devout Christian home schooling couple, at the time living at Picatinny Arsenal Installation, New Jersey.

After having added nearly 600 cases of abuse in child placement, some desensitization has kicked in. When we first started our archives every case was new and different, but with case 598 things have become eerily familiar.

Does the case involve infants or toddlers? Check! Was the child adopted less than 6 months ago? Check! Did the child suffer head trauma? Check! Did the parents claim the child fell down the stairs? Check! Did the coroner conclude the head trauma could not be self-inflicted? Check!

Does the case involve a girl between the age of 9 and 16? Check! Did the adoptive father sexually abuse the girl? Check! Did the adoptive mother turn a blind eye, call the girl a liar when being told about the abuse, or did the adoptive mother blame the girl and call her a slut? Check!

The latest fatality of an adoptee from Russia was all over the news the past few days. The Russian media are heavily focused on this case, while the American press mostly reprinted the same Associated Press article in all major news papers and news sites.

The case of Max Shatto (Maxim Kuzmin) raises many questions, the most prominent of which: why has the US Department of State not reacted to this case before Russian authorities did?

For months Adoptionland has been in a frenzy about Russia's decision to ban adoptions to the United States. Prior to that decision, promises were made by the US Department of State to improve monitoring of Russian adoptions. The case of Max Shatto shows once more, the US Department of State to date is not capable of properly monitoring adoptions from Russia, and any promise to do so can not be kept or guaranteed.

Max Shatto's abuse case is not the first case Russian authorities have discovered before the US Department of State was able to report it to Russian authorities. In fact, most of these abuse cases, in the last couple of years, have been reported by Russian authorities, first.

All too often, when it comes to abuse/deaths in adoptive homes, the US Department of State seems to be mostly reactive. When eventually informed by local or state authorities, The State Department may follow up, but no formal initiative is actively taken to provide post-placement monitoring, reflecting  the well-being of foreign born adoptees. This lack of initiative makes any adoption agreement between two countries moot and worrisome, particularly if child safety, post placement, is to be a priority.

Inter-country adoption treaties are always between countries and therefore require oversight at the national level. It appears the US is not willing to implement this central over-sight, as indicated by oppositional parties vehemently against treaties like the UNCRC  -- a treaty that would made the well-being of children a federal issue. In essence, the US Department of State is not willing to make waves against those who insist government oversight must be kept out of the homes of parents. Appeasing these critics puts all adopted children (foreign and domestic) at risk. 

Reality shows just how impotent the US Department of State is when it comes to executing the tasks required by an adoption treaty. Sure, the State Department will monitor foreign immigration numbers, and it will boast its compliance to Hague requirements, but it will not admit its powers in oversight are limited, leading to a whole new set of failures seen in Adoptionland.

All one has to do is look how uninvolved the US Department of State is in regards to fulfilling Hague requirements.  The US Department of State, as a Central Authority, is obligated to investigate and accredit adoption agencies.  However, this task and procedure has been out-sourced to the Council on Accreditation, an organization that barely has the resources to perform its most basic tasks. In short, the US Department of State is far less involved in inter-country adoption than the Central Authorities of other receiving countries.

Of course the US Department of State could be more involved in monitoring the well-being of adoptees, but doing so requires the ruffling of feathers.

In order for the US Department of State to respond more quickly to abuse of inter-country adoptees, it would need to get the right signals from Child Protective Services. This may be too much to ask. Child Protective Services, though federally mandated, is entirely run at the state level. Mandating states to report the US Department of State about abuse of foreign born adoptees may easily be seen as federal over-reach.

As long as the US Department of State cannot properly control and over-see the adoption process required for foreign born children, it is silly to think that any inter-country adoption treaty can be fully respected by the US.

Last week the US Department of State released its annual report on inter-country adoption for fiscal year 2012.

For the 8th consecutive year, the number of inter-country adoptions showed a decline, albeit a smaller one than the year before.

The decline of inter-country adoptions in 2012 is all the more remarkable since China, the largest exporter of adoptable children, (which corners almost one third of the market), showed a slight increase of the number of children sent to the United States.

Based on the provided figures for the last 8 years,  it is clear that inter-country adoption has collapsed in almost all traditional sending countries. Former adoption power-houses like Russia and South Korea now send far less than 1000 children each year, and countries like Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Vietnam have been closed down altogether. Even traditional adoption countries like India, Haiti, Ukraine and the Philippines show a sharp reduction of the number of adoptions in 2012.