Inter country Adoptions on the decline

By Brian Douglas. (Director RCHF.)

In the last few years inter country adoptions of children has shown a distinct decline with a sharp decline in 2008. This is because more and more Countries have realized that they need to reform their childcare, so that all of their respective children benefit from children's rights.

This can only be achieved if there are full and serious reforms within a Countries social system as the Romania case proved and only if best practices are observed at all times to ensure the rights of the child are put first above all other interests.

Only last week and Irish reporter explained how the drop in inter-country adoptions had hit Ireland and this is the same story repeated we see now in many Countries including the countries that had in the past high ICA rates like the USA, France, Spain and Israel.
Developing countries more and more are realizing that reforms in their childcare systems that really benefit the child above everything else can only be achieved if Inter-country adoptions are stopped. This kind of adoption has been proved not to be in the child's best interest time and time again as in the last few years more and more cases of children being left unprotected have come to light. It is also clear that the Hague convention does not protect the child's best interests, but is used as a excuse by the huge well financed inter-country adoption agencies, even though the many inter-country adoption agencies that make huge sums of revenue from ICA would not have one believe this.

The only serious way to go forward with reforms is to place a ban on Inter-country adoptions and promote national adoption in which the child does not loose its sense of origin, culture and language, as all of these important factors are lost in inter-country adoption.
Many critics will say that national adoption takes to long, but lets be honest as here what they are really saying is that inter-country adoption is to quick as has been proved to be the case in many inter country adoptions over many years. Of course national adoptions do take some time to process as there is a child's best interest to be placed first and in order to do this many investigations to protect the child's best interest must be undertaken and I might add these protect the adoptive parents too.
If a would be adoptive parent was putting the child's best interest first they would not mind the time it takes to process their case properly observing the best practices and of course most in national adoption are prepared to adhere to this as they want the best for their would be adoptive child too. Here foster care comes into play at its best as a child over a period of time can be assessed and the, would be adoptive parent too, on regular visits. Many countries are now seeing that these kinds of reforms are the right and only way forward, plus these reforms also include child allowance and other social benefits, so that national adoption is for any family wishing to give a child the love and future in its own country that a family brings is available.

It is also clear that in 2009 there will be less inter-country adoptions on the part of foreign parents as the financial crisis bits in and it is therefore a time to look at your own countries needs and if you really want to adopt a child, then look to national adoption within your own country and give a child which you can understand and more importantly which can understand you a real chance.

http://all-children-have-rights.blogspot.com/

--Brian Douglas.