An Introduction to International Adoption
History: International adoption is not a modern invention. The biblical Book of Exodus described the first ādocumentedā case when, fearing for her babyās life after the Pharaohās decree to drown all newborn Hebrew boys, a Jewish mother placed her son in a wicker basket and let the waters of the Nile River carry it downstream. Luckily, the Pharaohās daughter, while resting on the shore, discovered the makeshift raft stuck amid reeds and bulrushes. The boy was so beautiful that she took him to the palace, adopted him, and named him Moses.
Fast-forward a few thousand years and miles. On a relatively small scale, international adoption has been in existence in North America and Western Europe throughout history with noticeable surges after World War II and the wars in Korea and Vietnam (Johnston, 2017). The famous pre-World War II Kindertransport of more than 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Nazi Germany to England, the adoption of Holocaust survivors in Israel and Western Europe, and Vietnamese āboat peopleā parentless children adoptions in the US in the early 1970s were all modern episodes of international adoption on a somewhat smaller scale.
And then something occurred that had never happened in human history in such a short period of time and on a such vast scale: the last 30 years (1987ā2017) witnessed a sharp spike in adoption numbers, resulting in almost a million and a half children adopted by industrialized countries of North America, Australia, and Western Europe (Jones & Placek, 2017).
Thus, according to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, US Department of State statistics,1 395,324 internationally adopted children entered the US from 1987 to 2017, with the numbers peaking in 2004ā2006 and gradually declining, particularly after 2013. Indeed, never before in human history were so many children from so many countries and for such a short period of time adopted by a single country. The dynamic of international adoption within the last 25 years is seen in Table 1.1:
Table 1.1 US International Adoptions by Regions/Countries 1990 Through 2016
Geography
According to the report of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs āChild Adoption: Trends and Policiesā (2009, p. XV), the main countries receiving foreign children were (in descending order): the US, Spain, France, Italy, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Australia and New Zealand (together), Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Until 2008, the US maintained its leading position, adopting more children than all other receiving countries combined (Selman, 2012). Since 2009, Europe has accepted more than 50% of all internationally adopted children. According to statistics from the US Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs,2 over half of the children adopted internationally in the US arrived from China and countries in Eastern Europe (mostly from countries of the former Soviet Union). In Southeast Asia, South Korea and Vietnam are the leading donors. In Latin America, Guatemala and Columbia contributed the majority of all adoptees. Africa concluded the list with the bulk of adoptees coming mostly from Ethiopia.
Gender
Consistently in each year since 1987, the adoption of females has prevailed: girls have made up about 62% of all international adoptees (Selman, 2012).
Age of Adoption
This is an important statistical indicator for the understanding of research data in general and the content of this book in particular. Initially, from late 1980 to the first decade of the 21st century, the vast majority (almost 80%) of internationally adopted children were infants and toddlers between the ages 3 months to 3 years. Slowly but steadily, the percentage of older (ages 5 to 12 and above) adoptees grew: if in 1999 the fraction of those international adoptees who were older than 5 was 13%, in 2011, the proportion had risen to 28% and keeps growing (US Department of State, n.d.).
What is worth noticing is that most of the research on international adoption published between 1990 and 2013 was done on children adopted before their second to fourth birthdays, with very little research on the so-called older adoptees, adopted after the age of 5. In practically all longitudinal studies, the subjects were initially infants and toddlers who spent the first 6 to 36 months in an institution. Exceptionally rare investigators have dealt with adopted preadolescents and adolescents despite that each year since 2010, āolder adoptees,ā ages 5 to 17, have constituted almost a quarter of all internationally adopted children, and this is definitely a growing tendency.
International Adoption as a Controversial Subject
Similar to every high-profile human undertaking, especially one that involves large monetary transactions, international adoption is not immune to controversy and has its passionate proponents and ardent adversaries.
Controversy Among General Public
There are many reasons for the upsurge of international adoption in the affluent Western societies, such as an inability to have a biological child (50%), desire to expand the family (68%), and willingness to give a child a permanent home (81%) (Ela, 2011). According to the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents3, adoptive parents were pursuing an international adoption because they thought adoption from the US would be too difficult (65%), wanted an infant (63%), and wanted a closed adoption (no contact between birth and adoptive families) (51%). For a more detailed discussion, please see Adoption Nation by A. Pertman (2011). I can add to Pertmanās analysis one observation of my own: the expansion of the Internet and international adoption coincide in time, and I firmly believe that the Internet has fueled international adoption tremendously.
As an idea, international adoption is a most dignified one. It favors both sides: the parents who have emotional desire (love) and material resources to share and a child who needs the first as well as the second. In general, international adoption provides an existential benefit for both children and parents. Adopted children of all ages are better off than their peers who remain in orphanages. A lot of adopted children, initially significantly delayed, were able to catch up to their age group in physical health, cognitive functioning, academic performance, and adaptive behavior (Van IJzendoorn & Juffer, 2006; Van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Juffer, 2007; Vandivere, Malm, & Radel, 2009). Overall, the majority of parents who adopted internationally were satisfied with their decision and their relationship with adopted children (Clark, Thigpen, & Moeller-Yates, 2006; Ji, Brooks, Barth, & Kim, 2010; Whitten & Weaver, 2010).
Still, as with any human creation, adoption has its pitfalls. The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism4 cites numerous cases of fraud and corruption in the practice of international adoption (Graff, 2009, 2010a, 2010b). The gap between supply and demand creates opportunities for abusing an endeavor, however noble it is at its core. The frequent cases of corruption forced some countries to curtail their supply of children. The United Nations organization was not going to tolerate widespread mistreatment of children, and an international agreement known as the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (known as the āHague Adoption Conventionā) was created to establish safeguards and ensure that intercountry adoptions take place in the best interests of children.5
But even when no laws are broken, some opponents view the loss of language, culture, and identity as a major drawback of international adoptions. Quoting Pauline Turner-Strong, an American anthropologist who researched intercultural adoption (2001, p. 468), āadoption across political and cultural borders may simultaneously be an act of violence and an act of love, an excruciating rupture and a generous incorporation, an appropriation of valued resources and a constitution of personal ties.ā
Controversy Among Research Community
I have been following the research studies on international adoption in the US, Canada, Australia, and Western Europe since the beginning of the 1990s and cannot free myself from conflicting and confusing impressions. In a way, the situation resembles the old Indian tale about seven blind people describing an elephant after touching different parts of the animal. Too many publications had been using nonrepresentative adoption samples, questionable methodology and means of investigations (mostly questionnaires of adoptive parents and behavior scales standardized on middle-class Western population), and reported outcomes that hardly can be generalized for the other groups of international adoptees. With many thousands of children adopted from the third world within the last 30 years, the study of this extremely heterogenous cohort produces findings that are at times inconsistent at best and contradictory at worst. For example, there is a group of publications that described a generally positive outcome of international adoption for mental health and achievements of international adoptees (Ijzendoorn & Juffer, 2005a, 2006; Wright & Flynn, 2006; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, & Juffer, 2008; Van den Dries, Juffer, Van IJzendoorn, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2009; Compton, 2016). Still, no less authoritative publications suggested that substantial numbers of internationally adopted children, as they grew up in new motherlands, became maladjusted, with higher than average rates of educational and mental health problems (Hjern, Lindblad, & Vinnerljung, 2002; van Ijzendoorn & Juffer, 2005b; Ford, Vostanis, Meltzer, & Goodman, 2007; Beckett, Castle, Rutter, & Sonuga-Barke, 2010; Juffer et al., 2012). This is not surprising given the marked variations in orphanages, measurement instruments, duration of exposure to the institutional life, ages at adoption and ages of assessment among other relevant parameters.
Our initial knowledge of contemporary international adoptees originated from two relatively small samples of Romanian children adopted in Canada and in Great Britain between 1887 and 1991. Pioneering works of two groups of research under the leadership of E. Ames (Canada) and M. Rutter (England) provided substantial initial data, including valuable longitudinal reports. However, this cohort of Romanian orphans, mostly infants and toddlers, arrived from the most inhumane environment, being extremely deprived, neglected, and likely neurologically damaged. To consider them as a representative group of all international adoptees would be erroneous. Furthermore, we know relatively little about the post-adoption outcomes for children being adopted after the age of 5 years, and this category includes every fourth child adopted internationally.
Internationally adopted post-institutionalized children, as a group, have a specific set of characteristics that distinguishes them from domestic adoptees, from the offspring of recently immigrated families, and from children in need of special education. Our attempts to apply insights and experiences with domestically adopted children or with the youngsters from recently immigrated families may not be helpful in relation to internationally adopted orphans. Parents, educators, and professionals alike have been facing a new frontier, navigating uncharted waters, so to speak. Our knowledge about international adoptees as a group is still fragmentary, but one assumption seems to be correct: their adjustment to life in a family versus life in an institution, to a new physical and technological environment, to a new cultural and social milieu, and to a new school setting is determined by many developmental and individual differences, with internalized trauma being the most prominent.
Changing Landscape of International Adoption
One glance at Table 1.1 (Johnston, 2017) shows a fourfold reduction in the number of entry visas for international adoptees issued by the US in 2016 in comparison with 2004 (22,989 entry visas versus 5,372, respectively). The number of intercountry adoptions to the top-14 receiving countries worldwide for the same time period fell at an even faster rate, as evident from the Annual Report on Intercountry Adoptions6.
Along with the reduction in numbers, we see the changes in the racial component. The proportion of adopted children being raised by parents of a different race or ethnic group rose by 50% between 1999 and 2016 (Zill, 2017a). While international adoptions are not necessarily or intentionally interracial, they often turn out that way when white American and European couples adopt children from China, Guatemala, or Ethiopia.
Countries that have served as major sources of adoptable infants are undergoing changes in their adoption policies. Russia banned foreign adoptions to parents from the US and some other countries in 2013. International agreements aimed at reducing corruption and exploitation of impoverished families are having unintended consequences, such as cutting off adoptions from some countries, expanding paperwork, delays, bureaucratic hurdles that prospective parents must overcome, and raising the age of adopted children (Selman, 2009; Compton, 2016).
As of now, we see two distinct trends in the field of international adoption that will likely be noticeable in the future. First, fewer countries will be on the ādonatingā side and, due to changing policies in these countries, special needs and older children may constitute the largest percentage of children available for international adoption. Second, due to improved pre-adoption care (e.g., better conditions in orphanages w...
