Intercountry Adoption

The concept of intercountry adoption has it's origin in the aftermath of World Wars, but particular after World War II, when the disruption of families in war-torn countries resulted in large number of abandoned and ophaned children. Children from Germany, Greece and the Baltic States were sent by religious organisations for adoption in other European countries and in the USA.

From 1953 large numbers of orphaned or abandoned children from the Korean war were adopted overseas. In Australia, however, intercountry adoption is a realtively recent practice; prior to 1975 there were few intercountry adoptions. It only became a recognised avenue of adoption following the airlift in 1975 of Vietnamese war orphans. Since then adoption of children from Aisa and Latin America has become well established in Australia.

Intercountry adoption has endured as a response to the needs of children orphaned abandoned or reliquished because of military confilict, poverty and political policy, and stigmas attached to illegitimacy, disablement and mixed race.

Since the 1970''s momentum has overtaken the orginial impetus for intercountry adoption. Econimic, demographic, cultural and political changes in Australia in the past thirty years have resulted in fewer unwanted births and less pressure to reliquish ex-nuptual children for adoption. Additionally, social changes have lead to many people waiting later in life to begin establishing their family, and consequently, infertility is increasing and being discovered at a later age.

The two-fold effect of these factors is a marked decrease in the number of Australian born children for adoption and a significant increase in the number of people wanting to adopt. As a result, increasing numbers of couples and indivduial have turned to intercountry adoption to begin a family or extend their families.

It can be seen, that intercountry adoption is a shifting, evloving phenomenon, responding to both domestic and interenational forces.

Intercountry adoption is a sensitive complex area of adoption. It involves all the issues relating to domestic adoptions as well as a range of other issues. More over, it involves Australian imigration law and policy, the laws and policies of the overseas countries and obligations under international conventions.

Because the children are bing placed internationally and almost always interacially, issues relating to cultural heritage arise. Many of the childrem including babies, are likely to be physically and/or emotionally vulnerable because of early physical and/or emotional deprivation. Some children have "special neds" because they are older and /or have disabilities.

Itercountry adoption has frequently been been associated with intense contravery. At one end of the spectrum , there is a view that it is a form of exploitation of Third Wolrd countries by First Wolrd countries and should be discontinued. It can be argued that intercountry adoption does not provide a solution to the domestic issues leading to adoption and this situation benefits first world countries where there is a high demand for babies. The other end of the spectrun, there is a view that intercountry adoption is a humanitarin act, toward both individual children and the sending countries, and is this a form of oveseas aid; that in first world countries there are high numbers of people wanting to adopt children and it we shound encounraged to develop and expand. There are numerous intermediate positions.


RT hanks to: www.community.wa.gov.au/.../0/DCPGUIAdoptioninformationguide_china_sept2007.pdf