"1:48 voices from within the korean diaspora" #2 feat: Kim Park Nelson"1:48 - voices from within the korean diaspora"
Guest: Kim Park Nelson
Reporting by: Kim Thompson
Interview conducted by: Steve Hatherly for TBS radio in Seoul
Rabu, 30 Desember 2009
Voices from within the Korean Diaspora - 1:48
"1:48 voices from within the korean diaspora" #2 feat: Kim Park NelsonGuest: Kim Park Nelson
Reporting by: Kim Thompson
Interview conducted by: Steve Hatherly for TBS radio in Seoul
Happy New Year Wishes
On behalf of the board and members of United Adoptees International, I want to wish you all the best wishes for 2010.
Warm greetings from a cold Netherlands,
Hilbrand W.S. Westra
Rabu, 25 November 2009
Europe wants more adoptions
Declining supply of children for want-to-be parents leads to a new European policyOn the 30th of November and the 1st of December, the European Commission organizes the Conference: Challenges in Adoption Procedures in Europe: ‘Ensuring the Best Interests of the Child’. This is a preparation for a new European Adoption Policy, which will have major implications for children in child protection, including foster children or children in children’s homes. These children could, with the new measure, easily qualify first for European and then international adoptions.
The foundation United Adoptees International (UAI) hopes that Vice President Joan Hansink can be present to stand up for the rights of children and parents. The UAI believes that children have the right to be raised by their parents and if not possible the right to social protection or alternative forms of care provided by the governments. Adoption is not the solution to a failing care system. The European Union guarantees its citizens the right for social protection. Does this not count for these children and their parents?
In practice, the new policy would mean that children in foster in no time would be available for adoption. For example, a Dutch child in foster care would after 18 months become adoptable for a couple from the Netherlands. If there would be no possibility, then the child could be adopted by a couple from Naples. As a last solution, the child can be adopted worldwide. Another consequence will be that under the new European Adoption Convention and the new policy no longer only children under 8 years can be adopted, but also up to 18 years. Parents get like this little chance to get their children back and to keep them, and it relieves governments of their obligation to provide alternative care for children who cannot be raised by their parents (Article 20c of the UN CRC). With the declining supply of children for want-to-be parents these adoptions are a solution. But this is not in the interest of children.
The European Union has asked Romania in 2000 no longer to export children, but apparently gets back to that decision. Also, the Council of Europe, with the European Adoption Convention, is working towards paving the way for adoptions by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals. The strong adoption lobby is working through the European Commission and searches to legalise new adoption opportunities. There is little to no publicity about the conference and invitations were carefully picked, especially to prevent nasty dissonant voices. The UAI and its partners intercepted at the last moment the announcement for the upcoming European Commission and Council of Europe Conference in Strasbourg via its Finnish contacts. Participation by the UAI was initially not accepted and remains until today still uncertain.
Interestingly, the Dutch government accepted the European Convention and the new adoption policy apparently uncritically, without realizing that it will have consequences for the Dutch policy regarding (inter-country) adoption and its existing care system for children. It is remarkable that the Convention on the Dutch website is shown as a hammer piece, while the majority of the Members of Parliament, except the Christian Democrats, does not seem to be aware of the European Adoption Convention. The Convention as now formulated, will according to the UAI lead to an infringement of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UAI has in recent years pointed out the consequences of the upcoming Convention and policy to several MPs charged children’s rights.
The UAI is not convinced of the good intentions of the current compilers and the democratic process of all this and hopes to have the opportunity to be present in Strasbourg to demand attention to children and parents who as a vulnerable group do not have a voice in the debate.
For more information see : www.adoptionprocedure.net
And for the Adoption Lobby see: http://www.youtube.com/view_
Kamis, 19 November 2009
Prosecution of IIlegal Adoption in the Netherlands
Justice investigates illegal adoptions
By Anneke Stoffelen, November 19 2009
Illegal adoption is a growing problem, claims director Marie-Louise van Kleef of the Council for Childprotection. "That is because the supply of adopted children from abroad decreases. Then parents find alternatives. And the Internet gives you easily access to find a child. "The past two years ten cases of which children where taken illegally from abroad for adoption appeared.
Baby Donna
The case surrounding baby Donna, who in 2005 was bought by Dutch parents in
Addition to those Belgian children, it goes also for babies from
Limitation period two years
The Council for Childprotection stated, that they do that to prevent the repetition like in the case of Baby Donna: The ‘foster parents’ got Donna by court ruling, nevertheless the way they got her, because the girl stayed so long in the family (Family Life EVRM article 8) . It would not be in the interest of Donna's to move her away from this couple.
The period the
Ministry of Justice said earlier, to tackle illegal adoption much harder. Now the maximum fine is 6.700,- euro. Child trafficking is punished more heavily, but that only counts due regard child exploitation.
UAI Comment: International Private and Criminal Law, do not see and respect the child - located for adoption - as a human being with a physical and mental integrity who should have the ability to stay in their own family and environment, and be protected for such an assault on personal life and history. Abduction and Trafficking of the child for the purpose of adoption, even-though, the adoption procedures, regulations and international human rights are severed, the international law does not protect any child in this circumstance, unless there has been paper-fraud or an act against State Laws. Taking babies/children away in an illegal manner is not punishable due regard that the final result; Adoption, is seen as an act in the best interest of the child. Legally, no questions asked what the consequences for the family of origin and the Adoptee will be in the future. With this statement the UAI wants to present again, that the best interest of children and Adoptees is not served by present adoption laws and treaties but those of adopters and their organisations and legal systems.
Selasa, 17 November 2009
No longer peripheral
No longer peripheral November 17, 2009
In response to the article on Nov. 11, “A generation fights to reform adoption laws”, I write from the perspective of a Korean adoptee returning to my country of birth in the hopes of being reunited with my birth family.Adoption agencies are seen as the bridge between adoptive families and adoptees and the birth family. They work to provide a prospective adoptee with the best possible adoptive family and prepare the child for an imminent adoption. In regards to the post-adoption process, many agencies assist adoptees, but it is an area severely lacking a consistent and cohesive framework due to the current adoption laws.
As a Korean adoptee, in retrospect I am grateful for the organization of my adoption, one of the better established and renowned adoption agencies in South Korea. But having started the post-adoption process almost five months ago, I lack confidence in the agency’s ability to fulfill my wish to be reunited with my birth family. I am still waiting for an outcome.
As an adopted child, I was stripped of my Korean citizenship and my Korean heritage, having no rights. In effect I have been “raped” of my heritage by organizations, who should have protected me, with the government being essentially complicit. With a strong longing to recoup my Korean heritage, I am seen as a foreigner, someone who cannot speak the language and who cannot understand the culture.
I have no regrets about being raised in another country, as I believe blood has been arbitrary in terms of my upbringing. But I am ashamed and bewildered, returning to my country of birth and experiencing the feeling that I am not wanted and don’t belong, feelings I am not alien to.
Despite my stoicism in locating my birth family, I can’t help surrendering to the bleak statistic of 2.7 percent of adoptees being reunited with their birth families. I sense that this is due to a combination of false records and misinterpreted information, a strong air of face saving on the part of adoption agencies and the negative atmosphere and stigma associated with abandoned and adopted Korean children. I appreciate the work and activism of adoptee rights and community groups as they essentially give the majority of adoptees a voice, where the vested interests of government groups and adoption agencies are silent, in terms of adoptee rights.
During my post-adoption experience, I have been exposed to a lack of professionalism, with completed post-adoption documents being misplaced by the adoption agency, forcing me to resend my documents. Furthermore the communication with the adoption agency has been deficient as my barrage of e-mails regarding updates about my search has been met with a deafening silence.
I pray that reforms to the adoption laws in Korea improve adoptees’ access to information and records relating to their adoption. I continue to wait with bated breath about any news about my birth family. As long as the adoptee is seen as a peripheral part of the adoption process, then we will continue to wait in darkness.
Margaret Hurrell, margushurr@hotmail.com
Pity third world orphans, but they're not a commodity
The push for inter-country adoption by people like Deborra-Lee Furness, pictured, is misguided.
DIANNE DEMPSEY November 15, 2009
Photo: Danielle Smith
Maggie Millar has a problem with Deborra-Lee Furness' work. Supported by her movie star husband, Hugh Jackman, Furness has cranked up a campaign to open up overseas adoption for Australian couples. Part of this campaign has been creating National Adoption Awareness Week, which will be running this coming week.
Maggie Millar is an artist and an actor, too, though she never reached the heights of fame of Furness and Jackman. You might remember seeing her in Bellbird or Prisoner, or you might remember her in Neighbours as the Reverend Rosie Hoyland. Millar has also been a stalwart of Australian theatre and has been praised by critics as warm, lusty and downright brilliant.
One reason, perhaps, for the brilliance of her acting was that she had plenty of practice, even as a little girl. You see, Millar was adopted and she never quite got the knack of being part of her adoptive family. ''All of my relatives were like aliens to me; as I no doubt was to them,'' she says. After a troubled childhood, Millar found out at 17 that she was adopted.
It wasn't until many years later, when she read a book by Nancy Verrier, that she finally understood her anguish. Verrier is a US psychotherapist specialising in adoption issues. She is also an adoptive parent. Her first book, The Primal Wound, has been welcomed by adoptees worldwide as their bible.
According to Verrier, the infant and mother are still connected outside the womb - physiologically, psychologically and spiritually. The infant, she says, knows the mother's smell, voice, heartbeat, energy and skin. On adoption, the separation results in a terrible feeling of abandonment that is indelibly printed upon the unconscious mind of the child. The grief of separation is so profound that it causes a searing wound, a primal wound.
It is because of the fear of being abandoned again that adopted children often display two types of behaviour. They will either be provocative, rebellious and angry, or they will become withdrawn, compliant and forever on guard. Sometimes they will display a combination of both behaviours.
Millar says the pain of separation and the subsequent loss of identity is accentuated for inter-country adoptees. ''The statistics around these adoptees are only now coming to light and they are disturbing,'' she says. ''They have much higher rates of suicide and depression than children who are adopted within their own countries. Many of these adoptees go back to their country of origin but even there they do not feel at home, they are dispossessed, their identity stolen.''
Deborra-lee Furness pushes for more adoptions
Deborra-lee Furness pushes for more adoptions
Posted
Deborra-Lee Furness and husband Hugh Jackman have two adopted children. (Reuters)
Australian actor, director and producer Deborra-lee Furness has helped launch the second National Adoption Awareness Week (NAAW) in Sydney.
Furness, from Orphan Angels, and Dr Jane Aronson, the founder and chief executive of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, both spoke at the launch.
"We want to use the week to address our politicians and lobby for policy changes that will have a huge impact on the lives of so many people who are touched by adoption," Furness said.
"By opening up the discussion, we can remind our governments of their promise when they signed the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
"We are one of the most developed nations in the world and we have one of the lowest inter-country child adoption rates. It begs the question why we're not making a greater contribution to ... inter-country adoption."
Last year there were only 270 inter-country adoptions in Australia, the lowest in the world.
Australia does not have a census on adoptions, which makes it hard to see how diverse the group is, NAAW organisers say.
Ms Furness also touched on issue of foster care.
"There are 30,000 kids in foster care now. Let's do it better," she said.
"I think there needs to be someone that's bold enough to step up and facilitate a permanent family for these children that are kept within the foster care system. Forty-five percent of homeless youth come from foster care."
Other Articles: Deborah-Lee Furness slams Australian Government's racist 'anti-adoption culture'
Rabu, 11 November 2009
Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity
NEW YORK TIMES
November 9, 2009
J. Michael Short for The New York Times
Kim Eun Mi Young in her San Antonio home with family photographs and mementos.
As a child, Kim Eun Mi Young hated being different.
When her father brought home toys, a record and a picture book on South Korea, the country from which she was adopted in 1961, she ignored them.
Growing up in Georgia, Kansas and Hawaii, in a military family, she would date only white teenagers, even when Asian boys were around.
“At no time did I consider myself anything other than white,” said Ms. Young, 48, who lives in San Antonio. “I had no sense of any identity as a Korean woman. Dating an Asian man would have forced me to accept who I was.”
It was not until she was in her 30s that she began to explore her Korean heritage. One night, after going out to celebrate with her husband at the time, she says she broke down and began crying uncontrollably.
“I remember sitting there thinking, where is my mother? Why did she leave me? Why couldn’t she struggle to keep me?” she said. “That was the beginning of my journey to find out who I am.”
> research beyond culture camp EBD Adoption Institute <
> response in media About That Piece on Transracial Adoptions in the New York Times...
The babies airlifted out of Saigon
Viktoria Cowley doesn't know how old she is, but she thinks about 36. Orphaned at a young age during the Vietnam War, she doesn't even know her parents' names.
 Vikki spots herself in the Mail's 1975 report on the airlift |
Her earliest documented experience dates from April 1975, when she appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail, aged about two. She was one of 99 babies and children airlifted out of Saigon in the newspaper's mercy mission as the Vietcong advanced at the end of the war.
The headline declares the orphans safe saved from an uncertain future and a potentially terrible fate.
Now, three decades after her arrival in Britain, Viktoria, known as Vikki, of Eastbourne, has recently embarked on a mission of her own - to reunite her fellow travellers. She has made contact with 15 so far.
The first she found after many weeks searching online for information about the airlift. "I eventually found my first gem - someone who had a very similar name to mine and was in the same orphanage as myself in Saigon. I soon connected with her online and made my first Vietnamese adoptee friend."
And now she wants to find the remaining 83.
"I'd love to be able to get in contact with them, share their story, just find how much they know about themselves, about the airlift."
ADOPTEES IN KOREA FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
November 11, 2009
 | |
Now, they’re involved in a full-fledged battle to reform adoption laws and procedures, and they’re getting help from some heavyweights.
Adoptee rights and community groups as well as unwed mothers, the public interest law firm Gong-Gam and Democratic Party Representative Choi Young-hee have joined forces with the adoptees in an effort to convince lawmakers to revise the Special Law Relating to the Promotion and Procedure of Adoption.
The National Assembly has now taken up the issue and is exploring changes through a series of hearings.
The latest hearing took place yesterday.
 | |
It would also rank as one of the few cases in the world where adoptees returned to their original country and changed adoption practices through legislation.
False records
When they started this quest, the adoptees, hailing from three different countries, said their adoption records contained contradictory information.
In one case, an adoptee only identified by her initials, SIA, said her adoptive parents in Denmark were informed by an adoption agency in 1977 that it did not have the records of her birth parents. But when SIA came to Korea in 1998 and asked for information about them, the agency did in fact have information about her birth mother. SIA also found that the adoption was done without her mother’s consent.
> read the whole article <
Rabu, 04 November 2009
TRACK NEEDS SUPPORT FOR NEW BILL IN KOREA
Because this bill is the culmination of all our work
Because the government is finally taking us seriously
Because you want to be part of the positive change
Come to the public hearing on our adoption bill,
written by us and for us, and organized by us
at the South Korean parliament
Tuesday Nov. 10, 2009, 10 AM – 12:30 PM
National Assembly Conference Room #128.
Line 9 National Assembly Station exit 6 (국회의사당역).
(See attached flyer for printable map and great artistry.)
Please bring your RESIDENCY CARD or PASSPORT in order to enter.
Professional English simultaneous interpretation and translation of documents will be provided.
For the first time a bill will be presented that reflects the needs and incorporates the experiences of the adoption community (adoptees, family, and unwed mothers), a bill created not by the government nor by adoption and social welfare agencies, but instead created by those in the adoption community itself: TRACK, ASK, KoRoot, unwed mothers who are raising their own children, and our allies the Gonggam Lawyers.
The adoption community needs your sick days.
As the driving force behind this bill, the adoptees have to come out to show our bill’s sponsor that we support this work as much as she does. It will be this bill against the government’s bill when it comes time to vote. So please be present for this historically important moment for our community.
Look, we don’t take missing a day of school or a day off of work lightly, but we also need you that morning. The reason you get sick days and why language institutes, like Yonsei, allow up to 10 absences is FOR DAYS LIKE THESE, whose importance outweighs your duty to go to class or work. This is about using those sick days so you can be part of a strategic intervention that will shape the RIGHTS of YOUR community. Your language skills or career won’t be ruined by missing one day of class or work; your friend can always lend you her notes…and you can just blame it on the swine flu.
TRACK 진실과 화해를 위한 해외입양인 모임
우리은행 1002-738-888382
http://www.adoptionjustice.com
Jumat, 30 Oktober 2009
Real Support for Unwed Moms
 Volunteers take care of babies born to unwed mothers at a welfare center in Yeoksam-dong, southern Seoul, on Jan. 8. Many of unwed mothers have to send their babies to adoption agencies because of a lack of support and difficulty with child care. / Korea Times File |
By Jennifer Kwon DobbsIn today's adoption world, South Korea is no longer the largest sending country. Yet, why does it remain the world's oldest sending country in modern adoption history?
To address this undesirable legacy, the South Korean government has attempted to promote domestic adoption with mixed results.
Though domestic adoption statistically surpassed overseas adoption in 2007, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs has reported problems with disrupted domestic placements where adoptive parents have returned children to the system.
More significantly, domestic adoption is not a valid solution primarily because it ignores an unwed mother's human right to give birth to and to raise her child.
Surf the web in Korea for unwed mothers' assistance. The top links connect you to adoption agency sponsored sites that promise help. Yet what is the quality of this help when there's a conflict of interest?
Seventeen of South Korea's 25 unwed mothers' maternity homes are adoption agency owned and operated. As reported by Choe Sang-hun for the New York Times, ``Nearly 90 percent of the 1,250 South Korean children adopted abroad last year, most of them by American couples, were born to unmarried women."
Current adoption agency practices encourage mothers to surrender their children.
News Trace 60 Minutes (Chujeok 60), a weekly news show of the state-run KBS TV, reports that adoption agencies cover expecting mothers' medical expenses and typically bring paperwork for a mother to sign relinquishing her child while still in the hospital bed.
A hospital discharge usually occurs 72 hours after delivery. A social worker will arrive at the maternity ward during this window to take the child.
Consequently, many children are unregistered to their mothers and lack identifying paperwork, therefore preventing future attempts for family search and reunion.
In response to instances where mothers have changed their minds and wanted to keep their children, agencies have charged mothers for the cost of their hospital stays. However, agencies receive government subsidies that offset these and other operating costs.
It is also a common agency practice to bill mothers for foster care provided between a child's birth and placement in an adoptive home. Many mothers, however, cannot pay and end up surrendering their children. The children of unwed mothers are not orphans, nor are they unwanted.
In my interviews with expecting mothers at Doori Home, a maternity home operated by the Salvation Army in Seoul, I learned that each mother who intended to surrender her child did not fully know her options nor have realistic expectations even though Doori Home, which has one of the highest rates of child-rearing motherhood, had provided counseling.
Each mother had named her child. Mothers who chose overseas adoption expected that their children would learn English, become globally and economically mobile, and find and return to them.
This assumption motivated mothers to prefer overseas adoption. However, reunion is the exceptional, not the usual outcome. From 1995-2005, the ministry reported that only 2.7 percent of 78,000 overseas adoptees who initiated a birth search successfully reunited with their families... > read complete article <
Senin, 26 Oktober 2009
Asian-born surgeon becomes German health minister
Philipp Rösler, who was born 36 years ago in Vietnam and adopted as a nine-month-old baby by a German couple, becomes health minister in the government of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel.Berlin -- A surgeon of Vietnamese birth was appointed to the German government Saturday, the first person of non-European origin to serve as a minister in Berlin.
Philipp Rösler, who was born 36 years ago in Vietnam and adopted as a nine-month-old baby by a German couple, becomes health minister in the government of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A rising star in the liberal Free Democrat party (FDP), Rösler was until now the German state of Lower Saxony's minister for the economy and deputy premier.
A heart and chest surgeon by training, Roesler, will have his work cut out as he seeks to get the German health system back on a sound financial footing.
He was the FDP's point man over the past three weeks in negotiating a government programme for health reform with Merkel's Christian-Democrats.
The reform is expected to lead to higher health insurance premiums as the government struggles to keep the system viable.
Adopted from a Vietnamese orphanage, he was brought up only by his adoptive father, a career military officer, as the couple split up when Roesler was aged four.
After studying medicine, Roesler, who spent much of his youth in and around barracks, became a medical officer in the German army.
He joined the FDP in 1992 and was elected to the Lower Saxony regional parliament in 2003. He was only this year appointed regional minister for the economy.
Roesler is married to a doctor and the father of one-year-old twin girls called Grietje and Gesche.
Asked recently by Stern magazine if he had been bullied in his youth because of his origin, Roesler suggested tongue-in-cheek that he had never had any trouble "because people always think that all Asians are karate experts."
Here follows a list of the main players in Merkel's cabinet:
CHANCELLOR: Angela Merkel (CDU), 55, became in 2005 Germany's first chancellor from the former communist East Germany, its first female leader and its youngest. A physicist by training and the daughter of a pastor, she rose to power first as a protégé of former chancellor Helmut Kohl. Forbes magazine's most powerful woman in the world four years running.
FOREIGN MINISTER: Guido Westerwelle, 47, takes the foreign ministry as is traditional for leaders of the FDP in coalitions with the CDU/CSU. A lawyer by training, he has little experience in foreign affairs but says he will stand by "basic tenets" of German postwar policy. He will be Europe's first openly gay foreign minister, having publicly "come out" at Merkel's 50th birthday bash.
FINANCE MINISTER: Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), 67, moves from interior minister to finance minister, charged with balancing the books amid sharply rising debts. Wheelchair-bound since a 1990 attack on his life, the veteran conservative was a close ally of former chancellor Helmut Kohl.
DEFENCE MINISTER: Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, 37, from the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's CDU. The baron with the slicked-back hair raised eyebrows when he was named economy minister in February, but he has shot past Merkel to become Germany's most popular politician. His main task will be overseeing Germany's unpopular mission in Afghanistan.
ECONOMY MINISTER: Rainer Brüderle (FDP), 64, deputy chairman of the pro-business Free Democrats since 1998. The wine buff, silver-haired veteran was touted as a possible economy minister under Kohl in the late 1990s but missed out before the FDP was consigned to 11 years in opposition in 1998.
INTERIOR MINISTER: Thomas de Maizière (CDU), 54, Merkel's trusted lieutenant since 2005 as her chief of staff, has been rewarded for his loyalty with the post of interior minister. His main tasks will be tackling the threat of Islamic extremism and fostering better integration of ethnic minorities.
FAMILY MINISTER: Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), 51, a popular mother of seven, will continue as family minister. In the previous government she introduced a raft of measures aimed at lifting Germany's traditionally low birth rate including increased benefits for stay-at-home parents and more kindergartens.
LABOUR MINISTER: Franz Josef Jung (CDU), 50, switches from defence to labour at a time of growing unemployment brought on by the economic crisis.
HEALTH MINISTER: Philipp Rösler (FDP), 36, a surgeon of Vietnamese birth, is the youngest member in the cabinet. He was adopted as a nine-month-old baby by a German couple and brought up in Germany. A rising star in the FDP he is currently minister for the economy and deputy premier in the state of Lower Saxony around Hanover.
How Much Does Finding My Family Cost?
By Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Ph.D.The upstairs file rooms at Eastern Social Welfare Society, the agency that facilitated my overseas adoption to the United States, contain the records of adoptees stored in rolling bookcases to maximize space. Cranking one bookcase open reveals rows and rows of manila folders numbered in order of processing.
A folder is a life. A life is a folder.
What is inside each folder is a mystery to many adoptees who request copies of their files but are denied or who receive partial contents or blacked out documents. Some adoptees are told that their files have been lost to fires, while others are shown their files but are not allowed to copy, photograph, or touch them.
Because the files are the adoption agencies' private property, they lack governmental oversight determining how much information the agencies are required to share or are restricted from sharing.
The result is a cottage industry of post-adoption services facilitating family meetings. Yet what price does finding family cost?
Adoptees begin searching from where they're located, and that means outside of Korea. Overseas adoption agency fees range anywhere from 29,400 won just for copying an adoption file (Holt Adoption Services) to 88,190 won per hour to talk on the phone with family (Dillon Adoption Agency).
These fees add up. For example, Dillon Adoption Agency, which brokered my adoption, charges 94,090 won just for responding to an adoptee's intitial request to search. A visit to Dillon's website reveals that a completed search costs 735,100 won should it prove successful.
This figure does not include 29,400/page for translating Korean documents into English, or 17,600 won/page for English to Korean. Furthermore, this amount does not include the cost of airfare, lodging, food, and translation should an adoptee attempt to find out more information in Korea or actually meet family in person.
I have yet to find my family, but I have looked for them every summer since 2007. I estimate that I have spent at least 6,470,000 won, and this is a conservative amount, which lacks food costs, transportation in Korea, overseas medical insurance, and incidental expenses.
The Ministry reports that 75,646 adoptees (almost half of the entire government documented overseas adoptee population) sought counseling for birth family search between 1995-2005. Only 2.7 percent successfully reunited with family.
I am one of the 97.3 percent still waiting.
How much did losing my family cost?
When my adoptive mother gave me my English-language documents in 1996, I found stuffed inside an envelope a receipt for my adoption fee. In 1976, losing my family cost 529,000 won.
In 1976, 6,597 babies were sent overseas to 14 receiving nations in Europe and North America. In terms of cost (529,000 won), that's 3,490,000,000 won or 13,270,114,000 won(adjusted for inflation) in 2009.
My loss and the loss of other overseas adoptees is whose gain? No study as of yet has been conducted to answer this question, but it's an urgent one that will clarify intercountry adoption as a global industry.
Adoption is oftentimes characterized as a loving decision. Though this might be the intention, adoption is still a business.
As an infant, I was an exported product for which my adoptive parents paid 529,000. In the context of post-adoption services, I am the customer who returned again and again and spent at least 6,470,000 won for nothing.
What could at least 6,470,000 won help my family and I gain together? This money could pay for a semester at university to help me speak Korean so that my family and I can laugh together. It could purchase a year's worth of food for us.
According to another global company, McDonald's, the customer is always right, but I am not a customer. I'm somebody's daughter, sister, and niece. I don't care about the money. After all, what price can one place on love?
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs is assistant professor at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, U.S. and the author of Paper Pavilion (White Pine Press 2007).
> Earlier Korean Version was published in the Pressian <
Adoptions plagued by racial bias
Sunday, October 25, 2009
AUSTIN - Over the years a good number of childless American couples have traveled to China, Guatemala, Romania and other faraway countries to adopt a child.
But children in Texas' Panhandle and Southern Plains as young as a few weeks old and as old as 20 may wait three years to find families - longer than the state average of two years
Data from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services shows that in 2008 there were 6,375 children waiting to be adopted in the state. Of those, 174 lived in Lubbock County, 64 in Randall County and 26 in Potter County.
Johana Scot doesn't like those numbers.
"The problem is that we take too many kids away from their homes," said Scot, executive director of the Parent Guidance Center, an Austin-based advocacy group.
Scot and other critics of Texas Child Protective Services believe the agency is too quick to remove children from their parents or other relatives if social workers suspect abuse or neglect.
More children would stay with families if social workers were to spend more time on child abuse prevention, Scot said.
Instead, "the Family and Protective Services are very adversarial in their approach," she charged. "They say 'we're going to take your kids away and terminate your parental rights.' They take the kid and ask questions later."
Social workers remove disproportionate numbers of non-white youngsters from families suspected of abuse or neglect, according to state records. The children wait longer to find new homes than white children, according to records.
Black and Hispanic children account for more than two-thirds of all Texas youngsters waiting for adoption, according to Family and Protective Services figures.
Half of the 174 children waiting for adoption in Lubbock County last year were Hispanic, even though the county's Hispanic population is 30 percent. > read complete article <
Selasa, 20 Oktober 2009
Romanian Orphans, ready for export to the EU
Source: Jurnalul National of 20 October 2009 – translated article
European Commission and Romanian Office for Adoptions quietly force to reopen international adoptions
- REPORTING FROM BRUSSELS - Romanian Office for Adoptions prepares since almost 3 months to modify law 273 of 2004, the law that stopped the trafficking of children from Romania to other countries, under the guise of international adoptions.
ORA officials have not acted on their own, but with the support of interest groups in the U.S., Italy, France and other countries.
By Mircea Opris
20/10/2009
These groups were used by a Directorate of the European Commission, which will hold a conference for the reopening of international adoptions from Romania, on 31 November and 1 December in Strasbourg.
The European Commission requires changing of the law, imposed by itself as a condition of our entry in the EU. Jurnalul National was able to look into the corridors of these international operations, with the help of a source inside the European Commission, whose identity we will protect for understandable reasons.
ROMANIANS WAITED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF THE GOVERNMENT
The Romanian Office for Adoptions paved the way for amendments to the law prohibiting international adoptions since the summer, when they organised two conferences, both held in Timisoara. The first took place in early September and referred to the rights of the adopted child. Here were assembled all the directors of the child protection directorates in the country for a central database for the adoption process, data about the number of adoptable children and of adoptions in process. A second conference was also held in Timisoara, away from the eyes of the EU mission in Bucharest.
In the period 27-30 September 2009, UNICEF Romania and the National Authority for Child Protection (ANPDC) organised the National Conference which opens the series of events dedicated to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Attending were representatives ANPDC, DGASPC sites, UN agencies in Romania and other government institutions and NGOs.
Here, Romanian and international institutions, together with NGOs involved in adoptions have finalized, in order to promote later, by legislation the Integrated National Action Plan on Preventing and Combating Violence against children. Coordinators were Ileana Savu, Secretary of State at the ANPDC, and Edmond McLoughney, UNICEF Representative in Romania.
With only one day before the predictable failure of the Boc 2 Government, ORA proposes, through a Memorandum sent to the Government, to reopen international adoptions. The document prepared by ORA shows that during the four years of implementation of Law 273/2004, concerning the legal status of adoption, it was found that there are some categories of children who are "hard to adopt" because the regulatory framework in force does not identify appropriate solutions with a permanent character. The initiators of the document state that such a measure should be taken, having regard to provide equal opportunities for all children separated from their natural families, who can not be reintegrated and can not be adopted in Romania.
The role of "soldier of sacrifice" was for Secretary of State of the Romanian Office for Adoptions, Bogdan Panait, who said the reopening of international adoption will be done only in cooperation with accredited authorities of the respective States, in order to avoid corruption. He fails to convince why this memorandum was submitted to the government at a time when Romania has no government.
"I submitted the memorandum Monday morning before the vote of the motion (the fall of the government - sic). I do not know what will happen to it. I am in a hurry, it's one thing we wanted to submit for political debate and decision, and I think that this Government could discuss this Memorandum, "said Bogdan Panait. Clearly, ORA took advantage of political turmoil in Bucharest to demand a change of the law, to negotiate it with the next government to be appointed.
Approval of this Memorandum means practically the amendment of Law 273 on the rules of adoption. Some of negotiations with representatives of U.S. and EU countries, interested in adoptions from Romania could be possible to adopt the memorandum and adoption law. "When I came here, I had a discussion with the Prime Minister (Emil Boc - Sic). Of course, there were many complaints from families and international fury, but the discussion was to value and change the law.
Sure, he was not clear if it was about international adoption. I have taken up this mission. The modification was made. The law is ready for 99 percent, in the coming weeks it will be subjected to public debate and will be posted on the website. But from the context in which we made the changes to the law, I have concluded - and because of international protocols - that we can go ahead with the idea and start procedures for international adoption.
Sure, this is not a decision which I can make. And that’s why I made this Memorandum, a memorandum which is very neutral. It is up to the Government to decide to what extent it is the political moment, we have statistics, I mentioned the commitment of Romania in the field and the decision will be entirely to the government," said Bogdan Panait a few days ago. Interestingly, in early September, in an exclusive interview to Jurnalul National, the same Secretary of State said that "As long as I am the director of ORA, if the government will ask me to find a solution to the international adoptions, for the moment at least, such thing is excluded".
Once more it will create the image that again we will trade, traffic and other dealings with children. In three or four years perhaps, but it is the responsibility the Romanian State must bear." Powered by internal and external pressure or not, Bogdan Panait had no patience for three or four years and urged the reopening of international adoptions as soon as possible.
SLAP FROM THE GOVERNMENT
Subtle movement to amend the Law 273, which became a mandatory condition of Romania’s accession to the EU, was dismantled by the Government that gave its last breath. On October 16, the Romanian Executive announced officially that it does not support the memorandum initiated by the Romanian Office for Adoptions, which proposes reopening the international adoptions. The Memorandum represents the point of view of the institution and is not endorsed by the Emil Boc Cabinet Emil, still in office. The Government had no discussion about this Memorandum and therefore has not taken any decision on this document.
Prime Minister still in office, Emil Boc, believes that current legislation in the field of international adoptions is in accordance with international law and European standards. The same view was exposed by former PSD Foreign Minister, Cristian Diaconescu.
ADOPTION MAFIA WORKS THROUGH THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
The European Commission and the Council of Europe have prepared the international conference "Challenges of the procedures for adoption in Europe", which originally was to be held on 26 and 27 November in Strasbourg. Beyond discussions of principle, the ultimate aim of the conference is to develop a joint recommendation that Romania should follow the Bulgarian model, which is to reopen international adoptions. Those of the European Commission and NGOs who oppose this idea immediately came into conflict with the organizers.
The website announcing the conference and where one could register was suspended and amended several times, and those interested to participate could not register. Subsequently, only NGOs approved by the organizers were informed by e-mail, and not at the official site of the conference, that the dates had changed and the conference would be held between November 30 and December 1. The worst thing is that the team of the European Commission in charge of organising the conference is not legally allowed to do so.
Specifically, the Directorate General for Justice, Freedom and Security of the European Commission, the unit E2 - Civil Justice, headed by the Finnish Salla Saastamoinen organises the conference. The coordinator of the organisational team is the Italian Patrizia De Luca, working in that directorate. According to the organigram of the European Commission, the Rights of the Child are part of the D1 of Directorate D of the European Commission, led by the Romanian Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea. Sources in the EC Directorate D told National Journal that this structure has no involvement in organising the conference in Strasbourg, although it is the only unit that has competence in children's rights in the European Commission.
The same source says that Directorate E2 violates the official regulations of the EU, more precisely the European Union anti-corruption policy, which states that a Directorate can not organise actions on issues that do not fall within their powers, conform the Communication on Anti-Corruption Policy, number 317 of 2003, addressed to the European Council and the European Parliament.
HOW TO SUBSTITUTE THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
The organisational team E2 of the Directorate of Justice has hired a private firm that bought an Internet domain,www.adoptionprocedure.
Jurnalul National managed exclusively to unveil the secrecy around this so important conference, even at the European Commission in Brussels, from a source working in the Directorate of Justice caught offside, ie unit E2. This source claims that postponing the conference has nothing to do with the submission of the Government memorandum of ORA in Bucharest, but that the new government which will be installed until the conference, November 30, could give a favourable opinion of the proposed change of Romanian Office for Adoptions.
To the conference no nongovernmental organization from Romania or from another country that is hostile to reopen international adoptions was invited, the ultimate goal of the meeting in Strasbourg.
"We invited to the conference those organizations that have a closer connection (they coincide with those that oversaw international adoptions in Romania until 2004 and continued lobbying for the reopening them – Sic.) and we can not invite everyone who registered or the press because the conference hall has only 150 seats. The website does not work all the time, because it is under construction, because the conference agenda and guest list is not yet complete.
From Romania only three guests will participate from State institutions. One of them, Bogdan Panait, director of ORA. I do not remember the name of the other two. We pay to participate, just travel and accommodation, for participants approved by us, with whom we worked, a total of 10 NGOs. Among them the Nordic Adoption, an umbrella association of 15 adoption agencies, very important in northern Europe and other organizations from France, and SERA, SERA whose leadership has moved to Geneva, International Social Service, and Amici dei Bambini in Italy.
So, from Romania will come only three guests from the State and Edmond McLoughney, UNICEF representative in Romania, who will speak on behalf of Romania, told us the source of the European Commission. Interestingly, the last topic of the conference will be "Towards a European policy on adoption ", where the case and experiences of Romania and Bulgaria will be analysed, and Frenchman Jean-Marie Cavada, Member of the European Parliament and a close associate of French pro-adoption lobby in Romania, will talk about a common adoption policy, because other countries have opened adoptions, only Romania has not done this, though is part of the European Union.
We will have a Hungarian adoptive parent who lives in Britain, who will speak about the problems he had when he adopted a child in Hungary. This conference is a sequel, a follow-up to the conference in 2006, when it was tried also to make Romania to understand how necessary it is to reopen international adoptions, as well as other EU countries. We will not solve the problem immediately, but the conference has to convince Romania that international adoption can be resumed, like in other EU countries, such as for example Bulgaria, which has responded positively to this request for international adoptions.
The fact that Romania has a law against international adoption is the fault of former European rapporteur for Romania, Baroness Emma Nicholson, who said that international adoption means trafficking in children. She used his influence to halt all adoptions and make the entry of Romania into the EU to stop adoptions. Now we try to convince Romania to re-open adoptions, like other countries in Europe,” our source in Brussels told us.
Senin, 19 Oktober 2009
Illegal Adoption from Philipines raises questions in House of Representatives
United Adoptees International has been active to address the on going acceptance of the Dutch government of so-called 'illegal' adoptions which seems the most of the time, cases of pure child-trafficking for adoption.
After many cases last few years also this year cases appeared into the open.The most recent case is a couple from Leeuwarden (Friesland) which trafficked a child from the Philippines to adopt. The wife, self from Philippine descent, and a policeman, where travelling in the Philippines and where told by an woman, that she wanted them to have the baby, which she said, she was the mother.
Arrived in the Netherlands, the policeman actually tried to embezzle the birth-certificate of the child as was it his own.
Even-though this case was a clear example of child-trafficking for adoption and embezzlement of status of the child, done by an government official, the public prosecutor lost his case in court and both suspects where free to go.
The judge declared in court, that it was in the best interest of the child to be adopted. But the real issue is, that according international criminal law, (accomplishment) abduction and theft or child-trafficking in order to obtain a child for adoption as prospective adoption parent is still not punishable.
One of the reasons why prospective adoption parents still try several routes to adopt children and act as receiver fully innocent.
Nevertheless, the UAI addressed this issue again and the SP party was willing to look into this issue and asked questions to the ministry of Justice regarding this Philippine-Dutch case. The UAI is not very hopeful that the questions will lead to an end of 'illegal' adoption while the House of Representatives in the Netherlands did not care about these issues before and where not willing to close the gap in the law to prevent practices like this. Which can only lead to one conclusion, that States and Nations are not cooperating to protect children and mothers in need. Because it is in the best interest of children that adoption will be continued....?
Canada queries China on child abduction claims
The Canadian government has expressed formal concerns to China about claims that Chinese babies are being kidnapped and sold to orphanages for adoption in Canada and other western countries, Canwest News Service has learned.
Canadian Embassy staff in Beijing have asked the chief of the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) — the state agency that oversees China's international adoption program — to investigate.
"Chinese authorities are looking into this question," says Janet Nearing, the director of adoption services for the government of Nova Scotia, who says federal officials in Ottawa informed her that embassy staff have held meetings on the subject with Chinese officials.
"(CCAA's) director general has assured the embassy staff that the agency is looking into this matter," says Nearing. "He added that no children adopted by Canadians were (illegally obtained). I don't know what his source of information would be, but that's the information we were given."
Newspapers in China reported in July that dozens of baby girls in the southern Chinese province of Guizhou had been abducted from their families and sold for $3,000 U.S. per child to local orphanages, which in turn adopted the babies out — for similar fees — to couples from North America and Europe.
Last month, the Los Angeles Times also published an investigative article quoting parents in the provinces of Guizhou and Hunan, who said their babies had been stolen, sold and adopted overseas.
"It raises serious concerns, no doubt about it," says Nearing.
Although China levies fines against citizens that have multiple children, it is illegal to seize a child without the parents' consent, or to buy and sell babies.
Reports of corruption in China's international adoption program first surfaced in 2005, but China said it was an isolated incident. New allegations this year prompted one Canadian parent — a mother in Nova Scotia who adopted a Chinese baby in 2006 — to go public this fall with fears that her daughter may not have been a legitimate orphan.
Although Cathy Wagner's child came from the province of Chongqing — where claims of abduction and baby-trafficking have not arisen — Wagner says she was required to pay a $3,000 adoption fee, supplied to her daughter's orphanage in crisp, new U.S. bills.
Nearing, who oversees all adoptions in Nova Scotia including those from overseas, calls this year's allegations "very troubling," and says they prompted her to ask Ottawa to look into the matter.
Although adoption is a provincial responsibility, Nearing says provinces have no means of investigating alleged corruption in other countries, or of dealing with foreign governments.
Those matters are handled by the Inter-Country Adoption Services, a branch of the federal Department of Human Resources and Skills Development.
Officials from the department did not respond to requests for details about what embassy staff asked of the Chinese, but Nearing says officials in Ottawa acted quickly this fall to seek information from China.
In the past, China has not responded kindly to questions about alleged corruption within its state-run adoption system.
When the Dutch government raised similar concerns in 2008, China warned the Dutch that ongoing questions would result in trade retaliation against Holland, according to government documents obtained by the Dutch adoption agency, World Children.
Canada's own queries of the Chinese government come at an awkward time for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is seeking an invitation from China for an official visit to Beijing, possibly during a scheduled trip to Asia next month.
Nearing says Ottawa and other governments are virtually powerless to verify what Chinese authorities might tell them, calling the foreign-adoption program a matter of "trust" between countries.
She also says she has no way of telling parents who have adopted from China whether their child was abducted, trafficked, or legally obtained.
Despite such problems, Nearing says Canada should wait for more information before imposing a possible moratorium on adoptions from China.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Faith moves families to adopt children from overseas
The 2-year-old girl was living in an Ethiopian orphanage, facing poverty, malnutrition and disease. Her birth parents were dead and she was alone.
That was six months ago.
Today, she is smiling and playing at LifePoint Church in Smyrna, and pointing at the preacher.
"That's my daddy,'' said Alyza Kate Hood.
Then she and her 3-year-old sister, Jadyn, from China, ran off to play under the watchful eyes of their parents, the Rev. Pat Hood and his wife, Amy.
The Hoods, like a growing number of Middle Tennessee families, say their faith motivated them to rescue the orphans. They have adopted children from overseas, not because of infertility, but because they believe God wanted them to do it.
The interest in faith-based adoption comes when the number of international adoptions is declining. In 2004, there were 22,911 overseas adoptions in the United States, with 448 in Tennessee, according to the Department of Homeland 
Most of the change is because countries like China and Russia are allowing fewer children to be adopted. Currently, the wait for a child from China is about five years. That's prompted couples to turn to countries like Ethiopia.
"Not everyone is called to adopt," Pat Hood said. "But everyone is called to care for orphans."
Caring for orphans
The idea of rescuing orphans through adoption comes from several factors. First is the sheer numbers. By some accounts, there are 143 million orphans in the world.
Second, there's the Bible. The Old Testament and New Testament teach believers to care for orphans.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this," reads the book of James, "to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
Then, there's the mission trip factor. The Hoods cite their experience overseas when talking about their decision to adopt.
Amy Hood says she first began thinking about adoption in 2002. At the time, her husband was not interested. "I told Amy I wasn't even going to pray about it," he said.> read the article <