Tag: Adoption in Tanzania

I am pro-adoption, and have four adopted kids of my own.

I am pro-international adoption, when it’s done the right way.

I have lived 18 years in African countries, including 12 in Tanzania.

I have witnessed first-hand the corruption in international adoption.

Please keep these these things in mind as you read this.

If you are in international adoption circles, you probably have heard about the adoption reforms currently being proposed by the US Department of State. Your agency might have circulated a petition on social media for you to sign, protesting the new regulations. You might have read an article insisting that the new regulations will ruin international adoption.

So today, I hope you’ll read this article, where I give my support for these new regulations.

This is why.

1. The new law would give the State Department the control to accredit agencies for specific countries.

Imagine you are a consular officer working in a United States embassy overseas. You know that international adoption is illegal in your country, or that it is full of corruption. Yet, when an application for a US visa for an adopted child comes across your desk, there is very little you can do besides grant the visa. If some of the documentation looks fraudulent, as long as there is a genuine adoption order included, you really can’t change anything. And if you do try–let’s say you launch an investigation that delays the visa–then the American family will promptly call their local US government representative–who will make your life hell. Yes, this is how it works.

Many people don’t realize that adoption agencies routinely work in countries where they are not licensed by that government or where adoption is blatantly illegal. Or, in some countries, a government will license a few agencies, but then dozens more unlicensed agencies will work “under” each licensed agency.

Up until this point, it has been extremely rare for the US government to shut down adoptions in a particular country, even if corruption is rampant. They just haven’t had that power. This new regulation would give them the authority to regulate which agencies (if any) work in a particular country. This is needed and necessary.

2. The new law would prevent agencies from paying orphanages for the care of children matched for adoption.

Imagine you are the manager of an orphanage in a third-world country where international adoption is booming. Fundraising is difficult and time-consuming. But every time a child in your orphanage is matched for adoption, you receive $300 a month until that child goes home (which can take up to a year). Awesome! What a great source of dependable funding….especially since most people in the country live on less than $2 a day!

This is a massive conflict of interest.

When orphanages get paid for adoption, then why would they do to the more difficult work of reuniting children with their families?

When adoption becomes lucrative (especially in a poor country), then children become a commodity. When children become a commodity, then orphanages go out and “search” for more children to fill their beds.

Sure, I get why adoptive parents are anxious for their referred children to have excellent care during the months they are waiting to bring them home. But what they don’t realize is that many times these “mandatory donations” (now that’s an oxymoron!) are actually counter-productive. Once greed and corruption sets in, that money is much less likely to actually go to their child’s care. Money should never be a motivator for orphanages to participate in adoption. If they can’t get their funding a different way, then they shouldn’t be caring for children at all.

Countries approved by the Hague convention already ban this practice–and for good reason. I wholeheartedly approve our government’s decision to stop it across the board.

3. The new law would require more levels of accountability for agencies over the people that they work with (and pay) overseas. This would also allow the US government to regulate what agencies are paying their overseas “partners.”

What most people don’t understand is that agencies must be accredited in the United States, which requires them to have certain standards for potential adoptive families, to have a certain level of financial transparency, etc. But that accreditation only regulates the American side of adoption. There are no regulations for what those agencies do in other countries. They have absolutely no accountability for what they do–unless the other country regulates them. But when these agencies come into a country with their massive money, the other country is pretty much going to let them do whatever they want. And this is where corruption, abuse, child trafficking–etc–all run rampant.

This is why six US agencies (maybe more) are working to facilitate adoptions in Tanzania–despite the fact that international adoption isillegal here and that there is no way to license an agency in this country.

Honestly, I don’t know if this particular law is the answer to the problems in international adoption. There are other parts to the law–like requiring parents to attend foster care classes in their state–that might not be good solutions. But this I do know: The US government needs to be able to regulate the activity of US agencies overseas–because no one else is. Whether or not this law is the answer to that problem, I’m not sure. But this conversation needs to happen. And the international adoption community needs to listen.

I can hear the protest: What if this means less children get adopted?

I hear that, and I feel it. What it means is that we need different solutions. We need to understand that international adoption is a solution for a very small percentage of the world’s vulnerable children. Maybe we need less adoption agencies and more “family reunification” agencies. Maybe we need less orphanages and more community development programs. Maybe instead of pushing foreign governments to allow Americans to adopt more of their children, we need to instead push them to promote domestic adoption.

Now that would be something worthwhile to fight for.

One Year with Johnny (and Fighting for Righteous Adoption)

By Amy Medina

On August 17, 2016

In Adoption

Just a few weeks ago, Johnny and I were outside at night. “Look, Mommy, the moon! I see the stars too!” he pointed out with his little-boy lisp. A pause. “I saw the moon and the stars at my Baby Home,” he added thoughtfully. “I had a balloon with a light.”

I wrapped up his words in my heart, because it’s one of the only times he’s verbalized a real memory of his life from before he joined us. I pictured him there, dancing in the dark with a glow balloon in the garden at the Baby Home. He remembers. It’s his own memory, not planted there by photographs or my own prodding.

Today is one year since my boy came home.

I think back to that day, which seems like just yesterday and yet a lifetime ago. I remember how utterly overwhelmed he was that night we put him on a plane and took him away from everything he knew and loved. I watch him now, my fearless boy roaring around on a scooter, covering himself with scratches and scrapes which barely slow him down from keeping up with his siblings.

He was three, almost four, when he came home, and now he’s almost five. He has been nothing but joy to us. If there are scars on his heart from the circumstances of his early life, we don’t see them. He is so resilient. He is happy and earnest and flexible. Josiah regularly tells me, “Mommy, I love having a brother!”

Johnny is the picture perfect example of the beauty of adoption. He had no one, and now he has everything. When we took him home, he was months away from being transferred to a long-term institution. I’m so pleased that he decided on his own that he wants to stay with us, but I shudder to think about the little-boy tears he would have shed if he was now growing up in a place where the Baby Home would have always represented his best years. It was a happy place, but never meant to be a permanent place. The children were always meant to go on to something better–a family. But for some of them, that will never happen. I think of many I know by name–Boniface, Baraka, and of course, George.

It’s ironic that the year we we have integrated Johnny into our family and experienced the best things that adoption offers is the same year that I have become such an advocate for adoption reform.

On one hand, I have been devastated by the reality of international adoption in many countries. As I started this journey to understand why illegal international adoptions are happening in Tanzania, more and more horror stories kept filling my inbox. One woman wrote to me after reading my series. Her family had been pursuing a sibling set from a non-African country, and my posts opened her eyes to what could be going on behind the scenes. They began asking difficult questions and hired their own investigator, and were shocked to find out that the birth mother actually did desire to raise her own children, if given the chance.

Another family contacted me after reading my series, and this one was pursuing a Tanzanian adoption (as non-residents). I shared with them everything I had discovered about the illegal international adoptions happening in Tanzania, and as a result, they changed their mind and cancelled their application. Many others do not.

I am writing this post as I am attending Swahili language school in the very city where the illegal Tanzanian adoptions are taking place. Since this is one of my only chances to be here, I was able to meet with the managers of two orphanages and talk with them face-to-face about the illegal activity and what we can do to stop it. It was enlightening and helpful but oh so disturbing. My quest is not over.

And yet, on the other hand, this year I have watched an orphan become a son. We completed our adoption legally, and I know with confidence that Johnny had no other options but us–unless you count a life-long institution as an option. And until things change in Tanzania, until the culture changes its attitude toward adoption; until the Tanzanian church takes on a greater responsibility to help widows and prevent orphans, then there will be plenty more children in Tanzania like Johnny. Who have no one.

How do I walk this tightrope? How do I dearly love adoption and yet hate the way it is abused? How do I simultaneously fight for the child and yet fight for his mother as well? Through this journey, I have come into contact with many in other countries who are working hard to do both. It has been inspiring and invigorating and I’m not yet sure what my part will be in all of it. But I do know that there will always be tension between those questions. There is no straightforward answer; it’s not always black and white.

One thing I do know for sure: The answers need to come from within Tanzania. It should not be the foreigners who waltz in with solutions; it should be the Tanzanians. I have absolute confidence they can do it. If you live here, tell me what you think. And consider the part you might be able to play in the solution.

Should We Celebrate Orphan Sunday?

By Amy Medina

On November 7, 2015

In Other

Tomorrow is Orphan Sunday, the day when thousands of churches across America focus on the plight of orphans worldwide.

I always have been a big fan.

Now, I’m just uncertain.

Discovering the illegal inter-country adoptions happening in Tanzania shook me to my core. Oh, I had always read the articles from the doubters and the nay-sayers and all those negative people who either had a beef against Christians or taking kids out of their culture or whatever. Phooey on them. Adoption was beautiful, and that’s final.

Then I saw the full effects of the damage that American adoption agencies are capable of doing in an African country.

And I have found myself with this tension I can’t resolve. First, I see my own experience and my own children, and I am absolutely confident we did the right thing. We did our adoptions legally and without a hint of corruption, and there were no other options available to my children other than a life sentence in an orphanage. My children made me a mom and have blessed my life beyond description, and I want that for other children and for other families.

But now my eyes are open to the abuses, especially in countries with poor infrastructure and bottom-level poverty. Where is the line between adoption and child-trafficking? How can something so beautiful turn into something so ugly? How can we best love the child, but also love her family and his country?

I am on a quest for these answers. In the next couple of months, I plan to read the following books:

The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce

In Pursuit of Orphan Excellence by Philip Darke and Keith McFarland

Orphan Justice: How to Care for Orphans Beyond Adopting by Johnny Carr and Laura Captari

In the meantime, Yes, we should celebrate Orphan Sunday. Let’s not turn our backs on those most vulnerable because some people make it ugly. But by all means, let’s work to get it right.

I will be thinking hard and writing about what I learn. Anything else I should read as I continue this journey? I welcome your thoughts and questions.

photo credit: Hannah Towlson

Read this if you care about international adoption

By Amy Medina

On July 8, 2015

In Other

Three weeks ago, I found out that illegal inter-country adoptions are taking place in Tanzania. You might have read the rantthat I wrote that night. It’s usually not a good idea to publish blog posts when there is steam coming out your ears and the pulse is visible in your neck. But after yelling into the phone to a friend, she encouraged me to go ahead and write anyway.

Now that I have calmed down, I still have no regrets about what I wrote. But I do have more to say. This message needs to get out into the adoption community. If you have a friend who is considering inter-country adoption, or if you are part of an adoption group or on-line community, will you please share this with them? I want this to spread. This is really, really important.

Call me naive, but I guess I figured that inter-country adoption abuses were happening only by seedy, scummy, dark alley agencies. I figured that people who got hooked in by them were either really ignorant or had bad motives.

But instead, as I started to network with others who had these concerns, and they sent me links to agencies who are doing these adoptions, and families who are paying for them, instead I saw well-designed websites for agencies with experience. I saw beautiful Christian families with fundraising pages saying, “Help bring our Tanzanian baby home!”

So then I went back to the Tanzanian law, and I read it again, and again, and I tried to find the loophole that the agencies claim to have found. But instead, it just became clearer to me. To adopt in Tanzania, you must live here for three years and you must foster (in country) for three months. There are no exceptions. At best, these families and agencies are encouraging Tanzanians to break their own laws, and at worst, they are essentially participating in child-trafficking.

Then I figured, Maybe these agencies just don’t know any better? Maybe someone has lied to them? Maybe they just need to hear the truth?

So I wrote to them. Each of them, personally. I wrote to the families too. I spelled out the law. I begged them to reconsider for the sake of Tanzania and adoptions here. I was respectful and professional.

Yet now, over three weeks later, I have heard nothing. From anyone. No response. Crickets.

And I think, How can they do this? How can they deliberately break another country’s laws?

There’s a word for this; it’s called ethnocentrism. It’s defined as the belief in the inherent superiority of one’s own ethnic group or culture.

That’s got to be what is driving this. These agencies must be thinking: We know what’s best for Tanzania’s children. We don’t care about their country; we don’t care about their government. Tanzania can’t take care of their orphans, so we’re going to step in and do it for them, whether they like it or not.

It’s the ugliest kind of American arrogance. And it makes me sick.

Unfortunately, it’s also made me cynical about inter-country adoption in general. I think about other African countries whose adoption programs have bit the dust: Rwanda, Liberia, now Congo and Uganda and almost Ethiopia. It’s easy to blame the corrupt officials in those countries who ruined these programs, but it makes me wonder how much the agencies are to blame as well.

Listen–I don’t want to heap guilt on the adoptive parents here. If you adopted from one of those countries, you were trusting your agency–and it’s very possible that everything was above board. Plus, I definitely trust God’s sovereignty in all these situations; the kids that came home were meant to come home. At the same time, I don’t want future adoptive parents to unknowingly contribute to corruption. We must stop this.

Now that I have this knowledge, I feel that I must take action. Since the agencies have ignored me, I am going to higher levels of authorities. I am contacting embassies and the accrediting organizations for these agencies. And I will also start by calling them out by name, right here.

These are the agencies I know of who are facilitating illegal Tanzanian adoptions. Please avoid these agencies at all costs, for adoption from any country.

Little Miracles (Texas)

Joshua Tree (Florida)

Life Adoptions Services (California)

International Orphan Aid and Adoption Assistance (EAC)
(Ohio)

A Love Beyond Borders (Colorado)

Faith International Adoptions (Washington)

If you are a parent considering inter-country adoption, please don’t be scared off by this! There are still millions of children out there who need a family, and it is very possible to do this ethically. This is my advice:

1. Start your research with this blog: Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform. I recently learned about PEAR, and wish I had known about it sooner. For example, PEAR was sounding the warning bells about adoptions in Congo years before everything there started falling apart. That information could have spared many parents from incredible heartache. This blog is an invaluable resource for adoptive parents.

2. Research your agency well. Look for the details. Ask questions about their philosophy. Make sure they are Hague certified (though that fact alone doesn’t guarantee anything, since all of the above agencies are Hague certified). Don’t just go with the agency that seems cheapest or fastest.

3. Research adoption in the country you are interested in on your own–don’t just depend on the information your agency gives you. Be very wary of countries who have “just opened up” or which are war-torn or suffering from a natural disaster. As much as those kids need homes, the country will rarely have the infrastructure in place to maintain ethical adoptions. For the sake of all the children in that country, don’t be tempted by an adoption that bends the rules.

4. I believe that a child’s need for a family trumps culture, so I would rather see a child in an American family than stuck in an orphanage in their own country. However, I do not believe that a child’s need for a family trumps truth and justice. Children should not be adopted by breaking another country’s laws. Adoption is no longer honorable when it fuels corruption.

This is an emotional subject. We are talking about children here–orphaned, vulnerable, often with special needs. Each child has a face and a name and a story. Adoption culture often emphasizes making a difference in the life of Just One. We can’t fix the problem for all of them, so let’s just focus on One. I get that mindset. It’s significant.

But we can’t see only the parts without stepping back and looking at the whole. What if, by focusing solely on the One, we make life a whole lot harder for Many? There must be a balance between making a difference in the life of that one child, and yet thinking about the bigger picture as well–the child’s country and government and larger story.

Let’s not allow brokenness to breed more brokenness. Let’s be a part of the solution, not make the problem worse.

Tag: Adoption in Tanzania

The Conflict of International Adoption Reform: Why Are Agencies Trying to Stop It?

One Year with Johnny (and Fighting for Righteous Adoption)

Should We Celebrate Orphan Sunday?

Read this if you care about international adoption