GREAT SOCIAL changes in Ireland since the 1970s have meant that very few Irish children are available for adoption. As a result, Irish couples wishing to adopt have been looking abroad, and since the 1980s children have been adopted in significant numbers from places as far apart as Romania and Latin America.
There is no doubt that millions of children world-wide live in appalling circumstances, in institutions or on the streets. Some, including those living with their families, face the threat of sexual and other forms of slavery. There is no doubt either that children in such circumstances would benefit enormously from adoption into stable and loving families. And throughout the developed world there are hundreds of thousands of people desperately wanting to adopt a child.
However, the imbalance in wealth and power between adoptive parents in the advanced economies and those in what are called “sending” countries for inter-country adoption makes this area a minefield, with enormous potential for corruption and for young, often vulnerable women to be put under pressure from unscrupulous brokers to give their children up for adoption.
The Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption is an attempt to counter such pressures, and to ensure that when inter-country adoptions do take place that consent is freely given, an attempt is made first for the child to be placed locally, and that the adoption is not a commercial transaction. Ireland incorporated the convention into law last year, and the new Adoption Authority is now focusing on adoption from other Hague countries.
Vietnam was one of the countries from which children were adopted into Ireland in the last decade. But in 2008 concerns began to emerge about possible corruption in the adoption process there and in 2009 the United Nations’ International Social Service published a report concluding that the circumstances in which children became available for adoption in Vietnam were “unclear and disturbing”, and appeared to be demand-driven. Vietnam is expected to sign the Hague Convention early next year.
In the past, the Irish authorities have been less than rigorous in ensuring that inter-country adoptions met the highest standards. This failure was addressed in last year’s Adoption Act but it is important that the intentions it expressed are followed through on, and that full transparency and accountability is now demanded from all those dealing with inter-country adoption.