British actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters are not examples of political correctness and that’s why they make me smile. Sometimes I would even start laughing as some news report or political statement reminds me of them. This is what happened to me today when I read a press release on international adoptions in Haiti, with the exception that this time I didn’t feel like laughing.
Although I doubt a baby can easily be swapped for an iPod – limited edition or not – several aspiring parents from developed countries still tend to turn to child trafficking when they cannot adopt or have trouble adopting children in their country of origin. They may use other words to describe what they are doing, they may not even be aware of what illegal and immoral procedures made it possible for them to obtain their child, but this is exactly the kind of activity they are engaged in.
According to Marlène Hofstetter, international adoption expert with child charity Terre des Hommes, 70 per cent of children in Haiti’s orphanages have at least one living parent. After the earthquake that hit the country in January, about 1,800 Haitian orphans were taken to the United States, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland following what the organization labeled as “quick” procedures.
“Haitian parents are not always informed that the international adoption breaks any link with the child’s biological family and makes a return to his or her home country extremely unlikely,” Hofstetter said.
Emergencies such as natural catastrophes and conflicts in countries where minors are not protected are a good environment for corrupted organizations and individuals to find children they can easily take away from their families of origin.
Some years ago, while I was freelancing for MISNA, a news agency focusing on the developing world, I came across the case of a French NGO called Arc de Zoé whose staff was accused of trying to smuggle 103 Sudanese kids out of Chad and fly them to France where 50 families were waiting for them.
The nine aid workers said they were trying to “rescue” these children from the conflict which was ravaging their home region of Darfur.
Trafficking children for a good cause or for their own sake: this is pretty much how this argumentation sounded like to me back then. After all, we can easily recall a number of prominent examples of philanthropy involving VIPs whose love for children made them breach laws and even pay for saving kids from the miserable lives they would certainly be condemned to should they be left with their families and in their places of origin.
Back to Cohen’s “Bruno” movie, from which the clip above was taken, some of you may remember why the protagonist wanted to adopt an African baby. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had one, Madonna had one.
I have always thought somebody should make a movie based on Madonna’s unbelievable adoption of her Malawian kid. In mid-2006 she managed to get the 1-year old baby flown to the U.K. only one week after she first met him and after a 24-hour negotiation.
The baby had a father, who did complain after his child was taken away from him in such a rush, but it wasn’t difficult for the pop star to convince him that the adoption would be convenient for both him and his son. No one knows how she managed, but it’s not difficult to imagine, given the fact that the man was living in extreme poverty. This may have cost her more than the price of an iPod, but the price of a child can be higher than that when the adopting mother is Madonna.
Important issue, Tiziana. Great writing, as always!
In my home country Lithuania, for example, the adoption process is extremely difficult. I imagine it’s also the case in other countries, too. I read that international adoptions comprise a huge number of all adoptions there. Foreigners also tend to adopt children with disabilities and older children, who are not at the top of the list for Lithuanians. These children would otherwise be left on their own as soon as they turn 18, with some pity money from the state.
I think the well-being of a child is the first priority. Of course it’s not fair that people like Madonna are more equal than others, in Orwell’s Animal Farm style. Money money money… Break-up with family is a difficult issue. Is it better for a child to live in an orphanage knowing at least one of their parents is somewhere around, or rather being given a completely new life by new parents with the prospect of never coming back? (Of course I’m completely ruling out the vicious activity of child trafficking here.)
Thank you for your comment Giedre.
It’s true, parents sometimes turn to international adoptions just because adopting a child is ridiculously difficult in their countries. I know at least a couple of Italian families who adopted kids from countries in Africa and in Eastern Europe. Most of these children had developed diseases and traumas for being neglected and sometimes abused in the institutes or households where they were kept, so it was great for them to be adopted. In Catholic Italy single parents cannot adopt, letting alone gay couples, and even artificial insemination is difficult to obtain for women due to a very restrictive legislation. So I can see why parents may want to adopt children abroad. I have this memory, though, of an old, unfriendly woman who lived in the flat next to mine when I was a child. At some point she and her husband managed to adopt a boy from South East Asia. I remember my mother saying that was weird, as the woman was already pretty old and there is an age limit for adoptions. She treated the kid as if he was her pet. He was not allowed to play with us and sometimes we could hear his mother shouting terrible things at him. Now, if kids are given away with no control, just because families can pay for them, this is just one of the possible situations they can find themselves in. Of course, sometimes you do need to speed up the process a bit, as many of these children are suffering, but if they have parents and a very rich and philantropic mother such as, say, Madonna, wants to do some good to them, why can’t she just support the children within their families of origin?
Because she wouldn’t gain anything else than some random knowledge of having done something useful. In the end, it’s about making oneself feel good.
Madonna is obviously another category, the one of the rick and the famous, as compared to millions of other would-be parents who have neither piles of money nor screaming fans. I agree she could give some of her millions to support children locally, and maybe she does, but that would be a gesture of another kind. It’s not the same as actually having a child to yourself, influencing their lives in unimaginable ways, both good and bad. Just like that woman, the neighbour of yours, who got the child to serve her needs, well, Madonna did the same. Not equally vicious, of course, but still. What do you think, Tiziana?
I am deeply convinced that’s the case in most adoptions. Parents - even biological ones - are often driven by selfish needs when they decide to have kids. It usually works well for both them and their children, and of course being raised in a wealthy family in the U.S. gives a child better opportunities than growing up in a rural village with no access to education and just enough food to survive. When these kids have families and homes, though, international adoptions should only be considered if they are really necessary. My impression is that many rich couples - not necessarily as rich as Madonna - take advantage of such situations a bit too often.
The father of the child that Madonna adopted did not sell his child for any amount. He felt bad that he could not provide for the child and therefore felt the child would be better off with Madonna. How hard is that to understand? He is miserable without his child but sacrificed for the benefit of him.
Nobody meant to blame the kid’s father here. Of course he would rather let Madonna raise his child than let him starve or not being able to get a proper education. That man had no choice, because he loves his son. But the kid’s new mother could have chosen not to separate him from his father and not to take him away from his country while still providing for his needs. This is the kind of thing a loving mother would do, I guess.