Intercountry Adoption and the Law

In the last decade adopting a child from a foreign country has become an increasingly attractive option for couples wishing to begin a family. The main motivations for adopting a child are due to increased infertility rates among women and the idea that they are doing the world a great favour by rescuing a child from a less-fortunate country such as Cambodia. Since World War II, hundreds of thousands of orphaned or abandoned children have been arranged and put up for adoption. These successes are a direct result from loose governmental regulation. In the following essay it will be proven that the Canadian Government should play a more active role and intervention in regulating international and intercountry adoption. I will be proving the above statement through a series of arguments. These arguments include: the United Nations and other conventions are enforcing stricter guidelines and are intervening in anyway possible for the protection and rights of orphans as well as abandoned children. The Canadian Government is monitoring the finalized adoption processes as they should be doing in order to secure that the adoptions are in fact legal, however illegal children who are being trafficked and sold are still entering Canada as supposably “legal adoptions.” In addition to the above two arguments, I will also be arguing either for or against if the Canadian and International laws regarding intercountry adoption are in favour of the host-countries interests of the child; these interests include ethnic and linguistic connections to the adoptive parents, or in favour of the adoptive parents interests which is the right to have a child and provide loving care.

In support of the first argument, the United Nations and other conventions are enforcing stricter guidelines and are intervening in anyway possible for the protection and rights of orphans and abandoned children, a convention has been created by the United Nations to ensure that abuses such as abduction and child trafficking are eliminated. This convention is called The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in relation to intercountry adoption. The Hague Convention was created as an ”international framework for arranging and formalizing these adoptions and to prevent abuses.” Canada joined the Hague Convention in 1993. The Hague Convention relies on co-operation between participating states to safeguard children in the adoption process. “Before a child can be adopted from one country into another, the convention requires that authorities in both countries agree to proceed with the adoption. In the case of Canadian families wanting to adopt a child from another country, their provincial authorities must agree with authorities in the child’s country of origin.” The participating countries in the Hague Convention are considered pragmatists, which means that they accept the need for regulating intercountry adoption as a way of eliminating child abuse as well as improving the standards of intercountry adoption. Intercountry adoption over the years has been strongly criticized. Some of the incidents which are leading to the criticism are: ”baby-selling and child-trafficking, bribery and corruption, and exploitation of the human capital of poor countries.” The introduction and purpose of the Hague Convention is to ”set out minimum norms and procedures to protect children involved in intercountry adoption as well as the interests of the birth and adoptive parents.” The Hague Convention also focuses on the value of family influence, meaning that birth families to the child should be prioritized before considering intercountry adoption and the transfer to a foreign set of parents. This is due to the harsh reality of conflicts and issues surrounding intercountry adoptions. A conflicting adoption occurs when a child is transferred from his or her host country to a receiving country and is stripped of all he or she has ever known. This includes heritage, religion, language and beliefs of the child’s birth parents. The most profound issue surrounding conflicts in adoption is race. In the 1980’s African-American social workers were criticizing the practice of trans-racial adoption because it was “failing to value and maintain cultural identity for African-American children and for failing to prepare them to deal with the judgmental and racist society of Canada.” During the last decade, mixed race adoptions have become more common, and this can be directly related to the help of the Hague Convention. Some of the main goals surrounding the Hague Convention are: all intercountry adoptions should correspond to the child’s best interests and the child’s fundamental freedoms and rights should not be violated. This directly relates to the issues of child sale and trafficking.

Which leads to the next argument: The Canadian Government is monitoring the finalized adoption processes as they should