Lost Sparrow #NAAM

I think of this important documentary LOST SPARROW all the time and wanted to share the links with you again. The earlier review I wrote is on this blog here and I've included it in the new book TWO WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects.

Four Native American children adopted by the Billing family

On November 16, 2010, the documentary “Lost Sparrow” premiered on PBS Independent Lens. Based on a true incident in 1978, two Crow Indian brothers (both adoptees) ran away from home and were found dead on railroad tracks the next day.

Chris Billing’s film takes a closer look at what killed these two boys and what truth shattered his entire family.

The filmmaker is one of four biological children. His parents adopted six, with four of them from the Crow tribe. Billing was 16 when the boys died. The family buries them in New York and moves on with their lives. His parents eventually divorce.

The filmmaker narrates how his little brothers Bobby (13) and Tyler (11) were trying to help their sister Lana (also Crow). Lana told her brothers she was being sexually molested by their adoptive father.

Ethiopian adoptees speak about their experiences #NAAM

Ethiopian News: http://www.diretube.com/articles/read-ethiopian-adoptees-speak-about-their-experiences_2077.html

During National Adoption Awareness Week, SBS speaks to three Ethiopian Australians who were adopted under the recently closed Ethiopia-Australia Intercountry Adoption Program.

When she was just eight, Hamelmal left her home in Ethiopia to come to Australia with her two younger brothers. She and her siblings were to start a new life far from their birth town of Addis Ababa. Their mother could no longer look after them.

“My father had passed away and he was the main provider; so my mother gave us up because she had seven kids and she would have been quite young - about my age now,” says Hamelmal, now 25. “She was from the countryside so she had no education whatsoever; she couldn’t read, write or work to provide for us.” Hamelmal was among the first children to come to Australia in the mid 90s through the Ethiopia-Australia adoption program. Now a primary school teacher in Queensland, she says she’d always assumed adoption would be a part of her own future.

“It worked for our family and is something I’d always thought I would do; since I was little I wanted to adopt children from everywhere,” she says.

But in June this year, the Australian Government announced the closure of its adoption program with Ethiopia, saying it had long been one of the most difficult inter-country programs to manage. The adoption environment in Ethiopia has become increasingly “turbulent and unpredictable,” it says. Program costs are rising, and according to Attorney General Nicola Roxon, there are now more opportunities for children to find alternative care within Ethiopia itself.

The Ethiopia program was Australia’s fourth largest inter-country adoption program, after China, the Philippines and Thailand. It was the only program with an African country and has seen 621 Ethiopian children join Australian families since it began in 1990.

Adoption groups and hopeful families, some who had been waiting 10 years to form a family through the program, say the government has abandoned them, and Ethiopian children too quickly. But it’s not only prospective parents who are upset by the closure.

“I think it’s stupid to be honest. Yes, there may be issues with certain families where adoption didn’t work out, but what family’s perfect? You can have your own biological child but then, how many children with families are in the foster system here? I think it’s really not a fair call for them to make,” says Hamelmal.

Halmelmal has been back to Ethiopia eight times since she left as a child. Her birth mother died not long after she arrived in Australia but she says her ties with her culture and her family in Ethiopia are as strong as ever.

ALEMAYEHU’S STORY

Alemayehu came to Australia as an 11-year-old boy, having lost both his parents in Ethiopia. He remembers his father was taken away as a political prisoner when the Mengistu government was overthrown at the end of the Ethiopian civil war. He became ill in prison and some months after his death, Alemayehu’s mother died from pneumonia. They left behind three young children and their 19-year-old sister, Bizunesh.

“My older sister was unable to look after me, and my brother and sister - so she had no choice but to put us up for adoption which is one of the best things she’s done for us,” Says Alemayehu.

“I’m one hundred per cent sure that she didn’t want to do it, but she was just being a mother to us and saying, ‘I can’t take care of three kids on my own’ and she needed help!”Alemayehu’s younger siblings, Eleni and Sisay, were adopted first by a couple from Sydney. He would join them two years later, adopted into the extended family of that couple’s brother and sister in law. When he turned 18, he sponsored Bizunesh to live in Australia with them.

Today, at 26, Alemayehu is trying to decide on a name for his new business – a hairdressing salon. “I’m thinking ‘Al-fros,” he says.

“I never imagined I’d be grown up and about to have my own business - when I think about it, it’s just like a miracle that’s happened.”

Alemayehu has been back to Ethiopia twice with his Australian family and says there are still many children in need in his birth country.

“The first time I went back it was just very confronting; I had no memory of seeing people struggle and begging on the streets. You still see a lot of poverty and you still see a lot of kids running around by themselves and they don’t really have an older person looking after them; you see a lot of kids begging for food or money,” says Alemayehu.

Like Hamelmal, Alemayehu always thought he would adopt children of his own one day.

“I definitely would because I know how those kids feel having to wait for someone to come and give them a home, to give them a life where they can be happy and grow up and be educated,” he says.

KALKIDAN’S STORY

One of the reasons the Attorney General has given for the closure is that the Australian government cannot be sure that children put up for adoption in Ethiopia are truly orphans. Something 19-year-old Kalkidan Forward says she finds especially hurtful.

“I think the biggest issue for me was that if they were questioning the legitimacy of some of the adoptions - my siblings and I kind-of started questioning the legitimacy of our own adoption.

Maybe there was something wrong with us,” says Kalkidan. “Were those reasons the same 15 years ago? I don’t understand how you can say that now and not question the hundreds of people that have been adopted already.”Kalkidan was adopted by her Australian family when she was three, together with her then two-year-old brother. After finishing high school in Perth last year, she travelled to Ethiopia by herself to spend nine months working in orphanages.

“I was just shocked to see the overwhelming number of children that had no homes; there were just so many kids there that just needed the opportunity that I had been given.”

She says the situation for many children in Ethiopia now is not so different from her own, when her mother approached an orphanage to care for her as a baby.

“My mother was only 16 … and it was just very, very poor conditions in Ethiopia, like no one was surviving and most of her siblings and family members had been dying from HIV Aids. She didn’t have any support so she put us up for adoption,” she says.

“Then when I was in year five, we went back to Ethiopia and we visited my mum and found that she had another son, Abraham, and she asked us to adopt him as well. By the time we did adopt Abraham, she had contracted the virus herself.”

For Kalkidan, the benefits of adoption for her family were many. She says she feels privileged to have had a life she “would never ever have dreamed of in Ethiopia” and she cannot understand the government’s reasons for closing the program now.

Source: SBS

 

From Trace: When is adoption a saving thing? Could the children's mother be adopted too and saved? Please leave a comment....

Adoption Reality: International Adoption #NAAM

Produced by my friend Peter Dodds, a foreign orphan adopted by American parents, this powerful and moving video illuminates the human rights abuses embedded in international adoption.
http://youtu.be/LJlnfkRtBX4

You can follow Peter's work on YouTube as well! I did!  Trace

BBC covers Native American Adoption #NAAM

I was very happy to see the BBC compiled this story and video... It's important that our stories and history reaches a world audience.... Generations are impacted by removals and this story about the Maine Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a huge mark of progress in telling our TRUTH... Trace

Native Americans recall era of forced adoptions

20 November 2012 BBC/England

In the decades after World War II hundreds of Native American children in the US were taken from their communities and given to white families through adoption or foster care.
The idea behind the Indian Adoption Project was to help them assimilate into "white culture" and live what authorities viewed to be a safer and happier life.
Denise Altvater, from the Passamaqoddy tribe in Maine, was removed from her family and adopted when she was seven years old.
"All of us, who have been taken away from our homes as children, still as adults, we don't feel like we have a place where we belong," she says.
In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed to protect children and tribal communities. However, even in 2003 there were more than three times as many Native American children in foster care, per capita, compared to "Euro-American" children, according to the last available study.
Maine's child welfare services and tribes are launching a truth and reconciliation process this week. A group of five commissioners will listen to families and child welfare workers to compile the stories of those affected and help deal with their trauma.
Produced for the BBC by Anna Bressanin; camera by Ilya Shnitser

Watch video here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20404764

 

Adoption Failures: Disruptions Dissolutions #NAAM

What is disruption?

The term disruption is used to describe an adoption process that ends after the child is placed in an adoptive home and before the adoption is legally finalized, resulting in the child’s return to (or entry into) foster care or placement with new adoptive parents.

What is dissolution?

The term dissolution is generally used to describe an adoption in which the legal relationship between the adoptive parents and adoptive child is severed, either voluntarily or involuntarily, after the adoption is legally finalized. This results in the child’s return to (or entry into) foster care or placement with new adoptive parents.

The following are some of the primary factors that have been shown to be associated with higher risk of disruption:

Child Factors

Older age 
Presence of emotional and behavioral issues 
Strong attachment to the birth mother 
Being a victim of preadoptive child sexual abuse 

Adoptive Family Factors

Being a new or matched parent rather than the child’s foster parent
Lack of social support, particularly from relatives
Unrealistic expectations
Adoptive mothers with more education

Agency Factors

Inadequate or insufficient information on the child and his or her history 
Inadequate parental preparation, training, and support
Staff discontinuities (i.e., different workers responsible for preparing the child and family) 
Having more caseworkers involved with the case 
Not having sufficient services provided 

Additionally, a study by Smith et al. (2006) provides indepth, recent data about risk and protective factors for disruptions among children adopted from the Illinois public child welfare system, including:

Child Factors

White children had lower disruption rates than African- American children.

When two or three siblings were placed together, they had a higher risk of disruption; when four or more siblings were placed together, they had a lower risk of disruption.

Children who had experienced sexual or emotional abuse had the highest rates of disruption.

Children with physical disabilities and emotional or behavioral problems had a higher risk for disruption.

Each additional year of age increased the likelihood of disruption by 6 percent.

Children who entered the child welfare system due to lack of supervision or environmental neglect were more likely to experience adoption disruption.

The longer time children spent in out-of-home care, the less likely were their chances for disruption.

If children spent time in a residential or group home while in out-of-home care, they were less likely to experience a later disruption.

Family Factors

Children placed with relatives had a lower risk of disruption.

Agency Factors

Children placed through private agencies were less likely to experience a disruption.

Children who had been placed in residential or group care were at lower risk for disruption.

The chance of disruption decreased for every year of experience held by the case manager for the first adoption.

Adoption themes in the Movies #NAAM

My TOP FAVES:

1- The Lost Child-2000 TVM; Mercedes Ruehl, Jamey Sheridan; Rebecca goes in search of her natural parents. After her adoptive father dies, Rebecca decides to find the family her dad had described to her. In response to her search, she is contacted by a woman on the Navajo reservation who is looking for her twin siblings who were stolen from their mother soon after they were born. The women soon realize that they are sisters and Rebecca is welcomed. But when her husband, Jack, comes to see them, the differences between the two cultures rise to the surface.

2- Breakfast on Pluto - This dark comedy stars Cillian Murphy as a transgender adoptee/orphan searching for love and her long-lost mother in small town Ireland and London in the 1970s.

3- Sudden Fury - A Family Torn Apart is a 1993 television film directed by Craig R. Baxley, based on the novel Sudden Fury: A True Story of Adoption and Murder by Leslie Walker, which itself is based on a true story. One of the adoptees in the family is Native American and he was thought to be the murderer of his adoptive parents but he wasn't.

4- The Italian - see this stunning movie for the brilliant ending. (Subtitles)

5- Bambi - Animated film about a young deer, Bambi, growing up in the wild after his mother is shot by hunters.

6- Stolen Babies-1993 TVM; Lea Thompson, Mary Tyler Moore; Social worker exposes the Tennessee Children’s Home Scandal. Mary Tyler Moore plays the evil babyseller Georgia Tann.

7- Liebestraum: 1991 adoption-theme thriller with dark twists (see my review on Dec. 30, 2010.   http://splitfeathers.blogspot.com/2010/12/liebestraum-1991-adoption-theme.html)

Not the Best:

1 - Sioux City aka Ultimate Revenge-1994; Lou Diamond Phillips plays the role of a doctor who gets suspended on his birthday. At his adopted parent’s home, he has a party and one of the gifts is an American Indian necklace with a note from his birth mother who he has not heard from since he was given up for adoption when he was very young. In the note she wishes to see him. So he leaves to visit her only to arrive a few days after her death. He visits the local sheriff because he is curious of the circumstances of his mother's death. He then heads to the reservation in search of any relatives. He runs into his grandfather who is kind of a witch doctor. On the way back to town he is attacked by some of the sheriff's men who try to kill him. They leave him for dead, but he is rescued. He does a vision quest to try to identify why he was attacked. He discovers the reason he was given up for adoption: his father was the local sheriff. He didn't love the birthmother and ordered her to give him up for adoption...

2 - Flirting with Disaster-1995; Ben Stiller, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin; Farce about an adoptee searching for his birthmother. I was disappointed.

3 - Mommie Dearest-1981; Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid; about the adopted family life of Joan Crawford; several of her adopted children were stolen by the Tennessee Children’s Home and Georgia Tann. I hurt to watch this film.

4- Juno:  Juno is a smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy by her classmate Bleeker. With the help of her friend Leah, Juno finds her unborn child a "perfect" set of parents: an affluent suburban couple, Mark and Vanessa, longing to adopt. Luckily, Juno has the total support of her parents as she faces some tough decisions. Even as popular as this movie was, it disturbed many adoptees including me.

5 - Orphan: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1148204/Disgusting!

6 - The Blind Side: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0878804/Propaganda at it’s finest.

What you need: Court Order Petition #NAAM

Hi! I wrote about this in my memoir One Small Sacrifice but I am going to post it again.

Since it's National Adoption Awareness Month and we need our information, adoptees can petition the state court for your adoption file! You get a court order to request a copy of your adoption file! A judge has to agree to release it to you!

You have to pay for it ($75-100+) but what is in the adoption file are documents about your birth, your social worker, where you were placed in foster care, who they were, and even doctor appointments you had prior to your adoption.

What is in my adoption file:

1 - State of Wisconsin Order for Hearing and Investigation, where my adoptive parents petition in writing to adopt me: Laura Jean Thrall and the court ordered Catholic Welfare Agency of Superior, Wisconsin and the State of Wisconsin to investigate, as required by law.

2 – The letter to my parent’s lawyer from the Wisconsin State Supervisor of Adoptions, Division for Child and Youth who wrote, “According to our incomplete record, it appears this child was committed permanently to the Catholic Child Welfare Bureau and that agency placed this child in this home. If that is true, no action is necessary on the State Dept. of Public Welfare. We are sure that if our assumption is incorrect, the agency will so notify us and appropriate action of the state dept. can be taken upon receipt of the investigator’s report.” Dated June 9, 1958.
ALSO in my file, the state of Wisconsin sent a letter to the Judge in Superior, Wisc. acknowledging the date of my adoption hearing: June 24, 1958. The investigator was the Catholic Welfare Agency who had complete control of me.

3- Report: Movements of Child while Under Care: Catholic Infant Home, Foster Care in Superior (with their name and address) and Foster-Adoptive Home (DeMeyer).

4-Certificate of Baptism: First Baptism: 9-18-56 (requested by my mother Helen) and a New Baptismal Certificate was issued on 2-21-1964. Wow – Catholics get this done quick and recorded. Up on the top of the form is Legal Status: Illegitimate and Mother’s Name: Helen Thrall. My Birthplace: St. Paul, MN. In my adoption file is the signed “Certificate of Baptism, Cathedral of St. Paul,” listing my adoptive parents and my new name! It is signed by Rev. Barr and dated March 10, 1959 when in fact I had been baptized in Sept. 1956. This falsified baptismal certificate and my amended birth certificate are two fake documents made to hide my adoptee status – in case my parents decide not to tell me I am adopted.

5- Hospital Discharge Report: The Physical Record of Mother. She was admitted to the Catholic Infant Home on May 23, 1956. Her home address is in Chicago, IL. She delivered on 9-9-56. She stayed in the hospital 5 days until 9-14-56. Children living: One. (This is the proof Helen had already had a child who was also given up for adoption before me!) Delivery: Normal, spontaneous (Helen had an lml episiotomy with no complications). On 5-25-56, Helen’s blood work: Her RH factor was positive. Helen was allergic to penicillin. No Sauk Vaccine given. (I am also allergic to penicillin.) ALSO: The Child (me) Physical Report: full-term, 10 lbs., 3 oz., 21 ½ in., Head Circumference 14” and Chest Circumference 14 ½ in. I was discharged from the hospital on 9-26-1956 as a normal female infant. Social Worker: Miss Underhill.

6- Catholic Infant Home Report – Their Address, Nurse: Sister Enid, Physical Exam at Birth and Physical Exam on Discharge from Hospital to Infant Home, 2 doctors signed. Feeding: Similac every 4 hours. (Obviously no breast milk for me!)

7- Medical Exam (Infant to Two Years, Wisconsin Child Center) – Laura Jean Thrall in Foster Care, General physical: Ok with Mild eczema on face. March 12, 1957.

8- Medical Exam – July 15, 1957 – now named Tracy DeMeyer, General Development: Normal and lists all the various immunizations and vaccines I had. (My adoptive mother told me I was covered in rashes and bald on the back of my head when they got me.)

9- State of Juvenile Court, Vilas Country, Wisconsin, Parental Consent to Termination of Parental Rights, dated December 5, 1956. Miss Alverna Underhill (social worker) is the witness. "Father’s consent is not necessary In case of illegitimate child." Signed by my mother Helen Thrall.

10- Leo Block, Director of Catholic Welfare Agency appears before Judge Robert Curran on May 28, 1958, in the matter of Adoption of Laura Jean Thrall and Mr. Block consents to my adoption on this legal form. Block’s reason for consent: for the best interest of the child.

11 – Form letter: Request to the State of Minnesota Dept. of Public Welfare on April 9, 1958, states that Catholic Welfare Agency needs a copy of my birth record to be used as proof of birth to protect the interest of this child at the time of placement of adoption. Required fee enclosed $1.00. Signed Jean Johnson, Supervisor Protection Unit. Certified Photostat April 16, 1958 sent to Social Worker Miss Underhill.

12- Copy of Investigation, submitted by Catholic Welfare Agency, done March 17, 1957 through May 28, 1958 to the County Court in Wisconsin. Describes The Child (me) and Mother of Child (Helen). INFORMATION NECESSARY FOR CHANGING BIRTH CERTIFICATE in bold type. This is the story I wanted – all the details and dates.  My first months, Helen’s life, and my adoptive parents life and their desire to adopt me, was revealed on four typed pages.

This is what to expect: PAGES of legal documents, reports, letters, stories, arrangements, explanations, descriptions, maybe even a Baptismal Certificate, places and dates.

The BUREAUCRACY they created for each adoptee, all the paperwork, judges, lawyers, social workers, no wonder they don't want to change their system - it's jobs and generates billions of dollars each year!

Every adoptee needs to read their file.

The way I see it: Adoption was not discussed #NAAM

mom's card to me

My adoptive mom Edie was close to me (like a best friend) and she passed last December. I miss her. Her importance in my life seems even greater now that's she gone.
I miss everything about her - daily phone calls, birthday cards, everything she did to make every holiday and birthday special.
She was the only mother I knew. She  knew me as the child she raised, not the adoption activist I've become. Adoption was not something we could discuss.
When you've known someone over 50 years, you can't help but miss their place in your life. I miss getting snowed in at home with her in northern Wisconsin. I miss her eccentricities. I miss shopping with her. I miss everything.
Despite many years of turmoil, we grew past them. We were close but many things (like adoption issues) we didn't talk about but I accepted that.
Her cards and letters always said I LOVE YOU.
If I had the chance right now, I would ask Edie how she would have felt being abandoned by her own mother. How would that change her perception of being adopted? Wouldn't she be hurt, devastated and confused?

The way I see it:
Adoption itself is not the enemy for an orphan/adopted child. We need parents!
Forcing adoptees to accept these circumstances without a real explanation and truth is our enemy.
Forcing women to give up their babies or taking babies from Native people is/was the enemy.
Child trafficking babies is still the enemy.
Adoption secrecy and closed records for adoptees is the enemy.
Not having my own medical history was wrong. That was my enemy.
A fake (amended) birth certificate is wrong.
Low self-esteem that comes from being adopted was my life-long enemy.
Not getting help or counselling is/was the enemy for me and many adoptees.
Religions and their followers said an unmarried or poor woman could not keep her own child - pressuring my own first mother to give me up for adoption. Their ideas are the enemy.
Adoptees being told (even forced) to accept being adopted was "a good thing," told it saved you, that is wrong.
Lack of reality in this adoption scenario is the enemy.

The way I see it:
We have no choice as adoptees.
We adapt to our circumstances. I was adopted after months in foster care. I needed parents. We love them since these strangers are the only parents and family we have.  Adoptees did not and do not create adoptions!
Adopted children may not have words for our sadness or confusion but we'll show it in many ways. We know something feels strange, or we are not like them, or look like them, yet we're helpless to fix any of it. We'll try to fit in.
Our growing hearts do hurt as children but we can't show it or we'd seem ungrateful.  Those adoptees who showed confusion, discomfort and "acted up" did end up in trouble, ran away, got on drugs, landed in prison, or committed suicide.
I felt so much pain over my adoption, I buried it deep but I would not let that primal wound take over my life.
I do not want anyone to question if I loved my adoptive mom Edie. I did.
I felt terrible when she wasn't happy. I put her needs above my own. I admit I wasn't easy to live with and my moods were very hard on her when I was a teen. I know that. Being adopted was hard to accept. I blamed her when it wasn't really her fault. I am not going to sugar-coat this but my teen years were not easy on her or on me. I was rebellious and stubborn. She felt I didn't like her and told me so.
I chose to heal and opened my adoption at age 22 in 1978.  Even when I opened my adoption, my love for Edie didn't change.
Loving her didn't stop my need for truth to know who I am and what happened to my first parents or know why I was adopted.
Did I discuss opening my adoption with her? No. I tried and she looked betrayed.
I can see how much she gave and how much she loved.
We always ended out phone calls with "I love you." I used to end with, "I love you more." 
Mom would just laugh.
 

What kind of adoptee are you? #NAAM

It's National Adoption Awareness Month. Yes, there is more than one kind of adoptee. Knowing your circumstances could really help you. Every adoptee needs history to understand their predicament.

• Are you an orphan baby? Were your first parents deceased? Think of Orphan Trains where children were taken off the city streets and shipped to farmlands in the midwest.

• Are you an abandoned or relinquished baby? Did your birth mother abandon you or give you up to authorities? Seven million (+) adoptees are now living in the USA, and most adoptees will fall into this category.

• Are you a rescue baby? Were you adopted from a Third World Country like Guatemala or Haiti (such as Operation Airlift) -  the result of oppressive poverty affecting babies and children, or were you sold by unscrupulous baby-selling operations?

• Are you an adoptee from Korea or China or Russia or _____, where your governments decided you should be sent to the US and adopted? There are statistics for some (not all) intercountry adoptions. (see below)

• Are you a Native American adoptee? Were you taken from your reservation and parents as part of a program that systematically adopted out Indian Children to non-Indian parents - a program designed to kill the Indian in you (using cultural genocide via assmilation)? Over the past 100 years, it's hard to know the number of children who were subjected to this form of adoption.

• Are you a kinship adoptee? Were you adopted by a member of your own biological family?

The number of orphan visas issued for intercountry adoptions is tracked by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Demographic Statistics Branch, Statistics Division. For more information on intercountry adoptions, visit the U.S. State Department's Web site, at http://travel.state.gov.

 

 

How Many Children Were Adopted in 2007 and 2008?
Series Title:	Numbers and Trends
Author(s):	Child Welfare Information Gateway
Availability:	View Download (PDF - 629KB) Order (Free) - Add to Cart
Year Published:	2011 - 32 pages
Provides national statistical estimates for the total number of children adopted in the United States in fiscal years 2007 and 2008. The report includes highlights of the data; findings on the numbers of public agency, intercountry, and other adoptions; and data aggregations in exhibits, tables, and appendices. Data were collected by State courts, State bureaus of vital records, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs. http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/statistics/adoption.cfm

What other kinds of adoptees are there? Please share a comment on this blog... Trace

Adoption Reality: Third World Baby Business #NAAM

Baby Business-1995 Documentary Movie

Increasingly, middle-class families in the developed world who are unable to have children seek to adopt in the Third World where middlemen are making money out of misery and turning international adoption into a trafficking operation in babies.
In El Salvador, women tell how soldiers snatched their babies from their arms during the civil war, babies who were later adopted abroad. I
n Central America, stolen children are kept in illegal nurseries and women are paid to act as mothers, giving them up for adoption.
Also shown is the situation of the man in Mississippi, the natural father of a baby who was given up for adoption without his consent.
Nevertheless, elimination of the middlemen allows humanitarian programs such as the one in Haiti, under which two British Columbian families adopt babies from unfortunate families seeking a secure future for their children.
I was unable to find a website for the movie...Trace

Majority of US children exposed to abuse and neglect

by The Department Of Justice

Since the launch of the Defending Childhood Initiative in 2010 the Justice Department has been working with leading researchers to take an in-depth look at the problem of children exposed to violence. What we have learned has been a wake-up call, and warning bell, for all of us. We found that the majority of our kids – more than 60 percent – have been exposed to crime, abuse, and violence — many in their own homes. Ten percent of children in the United States have suffered some form of abuse or neglect; one in sixteen has been victimized sexually. And both direct and indirect exposure to violence is having a profound negative impact on the mental and emotional development of young people across the country.
The task force has now completed its fact-finding phase and is compiling a report to be issued late this fall, 2012.

I really believe we have a crisis. It's not just the poor or a certain population - it's mental illness in parents who abuse, neglect, beat or kill their children or adopted children. The adoption industry must pay better attention to who is adopting or who needs protection .... One in 16 has been sexually molested - I am one of those statistics... Trace

Adoptee Voices: What Goes Around #NAAM

What Goes Around….
By ONCE WAS VON   

 

This entry was posted on November 2, 2012

Here in the good life, the struggle for wellness and good health go on; a day-to-day effort against the forces of adoption, or so it seems at times, when having to confront the damage, realising that everything relates, goes back to that one source….the stress, distress and shame of my mother when I was in utero, after my birth and in the trauma of my placement with strangers, in which I was initially starved by the inexperienced and inexpert.

"Those non-adoptees who like to tell us adoptees to get over it, to stop blaming adoption for all our ills and the things that go wrong in our lives or are difficult to encounter, accept and recover from, would do well to seriously consider the evidence, the research and the findings relating to the early formation of the fetus, birth trauma and the real effects of adoption on development and the emotional and physical health of adopted individuals. It is beginning to come to light that many, many adoptees suffer from gastrointestinal problems and inflammatory conditions. There is nothing like the social media for bringing these things to light, when notes can be compared, stories shared and support given. It has been one of the greatest myth busters around for adoptees and something to truly be grateful for!"
 

Read more here: http://eagoodlife.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/what-goes-around/


My good friend and adoptee blogger Von is in Australia. Keep good thoughts for her... Trace

Adoption Reality: Nepal #NAAM

ADOPTION REALITY: It seems more and more countries are experiencing difficulties with child trafficking that I ever expected but of course this is not reported in American television. Adoption (international now) by Americans is still ongoing since America's supply of its babies dried up apparently!

Orphaned or Stolen? The U.S. State Department investigates adoption from Nepal, 2006-2008

Children abducted from their families for international adoption, so that middlemen could profit from Westerners' cash. Families that left their babies temporarily with a child welfare center during times of illness or financial distress--only to discover on returning that, to their horror, their children had been sent away forever to Spain, Italy, or the U.S.A. "demand and supply" effect: when international adoptions were suspended, reported "abandonments" drop. Fees that suddenly increase without rhyme or reason--unless orphanages needed more cash for bribes or just out of greed.

That's what the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu was seeing between 2006 and 2008 when it checked into how children had become available for U.S. citizens to adopt, as documented in official internal cables received by the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

During 2006, the first year of the U.S. investigation, 394 children were adopted internationally from Nepal; 66 of them by Americans. In March 2007, because of allegations of rampant corruption in orphanages and adoption agencies, the Nepali government halted international adoptions. Even after Nepal allowed international adoptions to resume in early 2009, the U.S. government found that fraud and corruption persisted, causing such concern that the U.S. State Department suspended all adoptions from Nepal in August of 2010.
During the period between 2006 and 2009, 950 children from Nepal had been adopted internationally, 168 from the U.S.
Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/schuster-institute-for-investigative-journalism/orphaned-or-stolen-the-us_b_825451.html

Adoption Reality: China Adoption Scandal #NAAM2012

Adoption scandal exposed by muckraking Chinese journalists

Bo Gu / NBC News

Yang Libing (with his son) holds up a photo of his missing daughter, Yang Ling.

By Adrienne Mong

GAOPING, HUNAN PROVINCE – Until this year, Yang Libing, whose daughter was taken from him by family planning authorities, would receive visits from one or two Chinese journalists every year.
"They would come to interview me about my daughter," he recalled emphatically. "But nothing ever came of those reports. Still no one did anything."
In 2005, family planning officials in Longhui County, Hunan Province, took away Yang's daughter, Yang Ling, when she was eleven months old. They accused him of not registering her birth, thereby breaking the strict, nationwide one-child policy – even though she was his first and only offspring.

The authorities sent his daughter off to an orphanage. From there, Yang believes she was adopted by an American family, with the family planning officials receiving a few hundred dollars in return.

Yang has not seen her since.

Read more: http://behindthewall.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/05/17/6659485-adoption-scandal-exposed-by-muckraking-chinese-journalists?lite

I have a male relative who adopted three little girls from China. They never investigated before their adoptions but spent thousands of dollars for each child. Knowing what happened to these girls and their families should be a top priority... Trace 

Adoption Reality: China #NAAM

Adoption scandal exposed by muckraking Chinese journalists

Bo Gu / NBC News

Yang Libing (with his son) holds up a photo of his missing daughter, Yang Ling.

By Adrienne Mong

GAOPING, HUNAN PROVINCE – Until this year, Yang Libing, whose daughter was taken from him by family planning authorities, would receive visits from one or two Chinese journalists every year.
"They would come to interview me about my daughter," he recalled emphatically. "But nothing ever came of those reports. Still no one did anything."
In 2005, family planning officials in Longhui County, Hunan Province, took away Yang's daughter, Yang Ling, when she was eleven months old. They accused him of not registering her birth, thereby breaking the strict, nationwide one-child policy – even though she was his first and only offspring.

The authorities sent his daughter off to an orphanage. From there, Yang believes she was adopted by an American family, with the family planning officials receiving a few hundred dollars in return.

Yang has not seen her since.
Read more: http://behindthewall.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/05/17/6659485-adoption-scandal-exposed-by-muckraking-chinese-journalists?lite

I have a male relative who adopted three little girls from China. They never investigated before their adoptions but spent thousands of dollars for each child. Knowing what happened to these girls and their families should be a top priority... Trace 

Adoption Reality: Kazakhstan #NAAM

DOS Adoption Alert: Kazakhstan Suspends Intercountry Adoptions

Kazakhstan

August 21, 2012 http://pear-now.blogspot.com/search/label/Bans%2FSuspensions%2F%20Moratoriums

Alert: Kazakhstan Suspends Intercountry Adoptions

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan informed the U.S. Embassy in Astana on August 9 that Kazakhstan is suspending intercountry adoptions to the United States, effective immediately. Ambassador Susan Jacobs, Special Advisor for Children’s Issues, met with government officials in Kazakhstan on August 16 to address the Ministry’s concerns. The Ministry clarified that the suspension involves a pause in adoption referrals, but does not affect Kazakhstan’s ongoing process to authorize U.S. adoption service providers. The Department of State is continuing discussions with Kazakhstan as a Hague Adoption Convention partner, and will provide updated information on adoption.state.gov as it becomes available.

http://adoption.state.gov/country_information/country_specific_alerts_notices.php?alert_notice_type=alerts&alert_notice_file=kazakhstan_5

Adoption Reality: Largest Adoption Scams in US History: Samoa

Samoan Adoption Scandal

December 13th, 2009

You might have heard (or perhaps you saw it air on CBS) about the Samoan adoption scandal–a scandal believed to be one of the largest of its kind in U.S. history:

CBS News will present, “The Lost Children,” a “48 Hours” special, on Dec. 12, 2009 – the culmination of a two-year investigation by “48 Hours” into one of the largest foreign adoption scams in U.S. history.

Anchored by “48 Hours” correspondent Maureen Maher, who herself was adopted, “The Lost Children” profiles three families – Patti Sawyer, Mike and Kari Nyberg, and Elizabeth and Gary Muenzler – who adopted children from the South Pacific island of Samoa through the Utah-based Focus On Children adoption agency, only to face a heartbreaking decision years later.

Click here for video: http://youtu.be/Jmk7RvAPYQY

Adoption Reality: Guatemala #NAAM

Adoption Scandal: The Lost Children Of Guatemala

In recent years, authorities in Guatemala have tried to crack down on illegal child adoptions by foreigners. Corruption, however, is preventing the impoverished Central American country from eradicating the blight of child trafficking.

By Vincent Taillefumier, LE TEMPS/Worldcrunch

Maria Leticia Ispaché spent just one night with her son, Christopher, after giving birth in Guatemala City’s Roosevelt Hospital. Throughout the night she listened to his small hesitating cries. The next morning, one by one, the women next to her in the maternity ward room were allowed to leave with their newborns. “I was alone with my baby when a nurse arrived,” she says. The stranger asked if the baby had already been vaccinated. She took the child and never came back. Leticia Ispaché alerted the hospital, the police and television channels. One year later, she says sadly: “We don’t even have pictures to look for him.”

Corruption and complicity

In 2007, Guatemalan authorities for the first time stiffened the country’s adoption laws. Corruption, however, remains rampant, meaning children are still being shuttled out of the country under questionable circumstances. The trade is said to bring in $200 million a year.

Other efforts to further regulate adoption of Guatemalan children have been led by concerned interest groups. Sobrevivientes led a hunger strike in 2008 that pushed the government to suspend foreign adoptions altogether. And with the help of a UN judiciary body called the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), authorities are working to dismantle the networks that are thought to falsify at least six out of 10 adoption records. The networks are thought to include an army of scriveners, judges, doctors and directors of orphanages who falsify identities, DNA tests and photos.

Read more here: http://www.worldcrunch.com/adoption-scandal-lost-children-guatemala/world-affairs/adoption-scandal-the-lost-children-of-guatemala/c1s3512/

Adoption Reality: Samoa #NAAM

Samoan Adoption Scandal

December 13th, 2009

You might have heard (or perhaps you saw it air on CBS) about the Samoan adoption scandal–a scandal believed to be one of the largest of its kind in U.S. history:

CBS News will present, “The Lost Children,” a “48 Hours” special, on Dec. 12, 2009 – the culmination of a two-year investigation by “48 Hours” into one of the largest foreign adoption scams in U.S. history.
Anchored by “48 Hours” correspondent Maureen Maher, who herself was adopted, “The Lost Children” profiles three families – Patti Sawyer, Mike and Kari Nyberg, and Elizabeth and Gary Muenzler – who adopted children from the South Pacific island of Samoa through the Utah-based Focus On Children adoption agency, only to face a heartbreaking decision years later.
Click here for video: http://youtu.be/Jmk7RvAPYQY

Adoption Reality: Stolen as Babies Spain #NAAM

300,000 babies stolen from their parents - and sold for adoption: Haunting BBC documentary exposes 50-year scandal of baby trafficking by the Catholic church in Spain

There are men and women across Spain whose lives have been turned upside-down by discovering the people they thought were their parents actually bought them for cash. There are also many mothers who have maintained for years that their babies did not die – and were labelled “hysterical” – but are now discovering that their child has probably been alive and brought up by somebody else all this time.’

Reunited: Randy Ryder with Manoli Pagador, who believes she may be his real mother

Experts believe the cases may account for up to 15% of the total adoptions that took place in Spain between 1960 and 1989.
It began as a system for taking children away from families deemed politically dangerous to the regime of General Franco, which began in 1939. The system continued after the dictator’s death in 1975 as the Catholic church continued to retain a powerful influence on public life, particularly in social services.
It was not until 1987 that the Spanish government, instead of hospitals, began to regulate adoptions.
The scandal came to light after two men, Antonio Barroso and Juan Luis Moreno, discovered they had been stolen as babies.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049647/BBC-documentary-exposes-50-year-scandal-baby-trafficking-Catholic-church-Spain.html#ixzz2AzVVp7ZO

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It's becoming more obvious that many countries took part in baby selling but call it adoption... Trace

Adoption Reality: Adoption Scandals 2010 #NAAM

What is surprising to me is you really have to search hard to find adoption reality. This month is National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM) and I am going to share more research I found when writing my memoir ONE SMALL SACRIFICE. There is a longer list of international adoption scandals on Wikipedia.   

Go here to read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_adoption_scandals



2010 International Adoption Scandals

• United States and Russia - Russia temporally suspended all child adoptions by U.S. families after a 7-year-old Artyom Savelyev (Justin Hansen) adopted by a Tennessee nurse Torry Hansen was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was "mentally unstable".^[9] After this incident Russian Children's Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said: "We must, as much as possible, keep our children in our country".^[10] The Chairwoman of the Russian parliamentary committee on family and children Yelena Mizulina meanwhile pointed out that 30,000 children were sent back to institutions by their Russian adoptive, foster or guardianship families in the last three years.^[11]

• United States and Russia - Russian officials called for a suspension of adoptions to U.S. parents after a Pennsylvania couple were charged for beating to death their adoptive child from Russia.^[12] According to official Russian statistics, a total of 19 adopted Russian children have died worldwide as a result of beatings or negligence since 1991, while 2,000 children are killed every year in Russia itself due to domestic child abuse.^[13]

• New Life Children’s Refuge case. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, ten Baptist missionaries are arrested and charged with kidnapping. The group had gathered 33 children in devastated areas and intended to move them to a temporary orphanage in the Dominican Republic. The missionaries did not have proper authorization to take the children out of Haiti. It later became clear that most of the children were not orphaned.

Reality: Child Slavery #NAAM

"There are an estimated 27 to 30 million enslaved in the World today - as many as 50% are believed to be Children, the most ever in recorded history and 50% of these victims are children under the age of 18. The exploitation industry profits over $20 billion yearly. These methods of trafficking include: hard labor, drugs and/or the illegal trafficking of weapons, sweat shops, children used in war, and/or the most previlant type, prostitution. The selling and purchasing of human beings is illegal in every part of the world however it occurs anywhere and everywhere. These survivors are NEVER paid; they are beaten, raped, starved, and overall brutalized. Those that fight these crimes against humanity are known as Abolitionists. Together we can end this horror & stop the traffic. God bless you..." from their Tumblr blog· http://27millionslaves.tumblr.com/

 

On Facebook: "Help be a voice for the 50 million girls who have “gone missing” in India over the past three generations due to female feticide, infanticide, and dowry murders. Please sign the petition demanding that the Indian government end this silent gendercide."

 

I was thinking of many Third World Countries who supply and sell babies for adoption to Americans. (I am posting about adoption scandals all month on this blog.)

I was thinking of Haiti who still practices a form of child slavery and indenture.

I was thinking of religions who spawn hate, intolerance and murder.

I was thinking of Malala, a child, who was shot in the head.

I was thinking of Indian Country and centuries of oppression and poverty.

I was thinking of babies around the world who will suffer, who may become slaves.

What are we going to do about this?

Is adoption the solution?

Is America and democracy the better way to raise children?

Is this the big reason why so many Americans decide to adopt intercountry in this century?

Is "adoption" and "Americans adopting from Third World Countries" the answer again and again?

If we are to fight for the safety of babies across the world, what other options are there?

Thinking that I am a human rights activist, what are the solutions for child slavery and human trafficking?

 

Please leave a comment.... Thank you, Trace

Adoption Reality: Ireland 2012 #NAAM

Fresh scandal erupts over Irish children sold to America for adoption (Sept. 2012)

New investigative report reveals how Irish nuns profited from child adoption scheme

"...Irish nuns who sent and essentially sold orphans to America during the fifties and sixties benefited by up to $50 million in today’s money, a new investigative report and book has claimed.

The report published in The Sunday Business Post also stated that many of the parents chosen had been turned down by other adoption agents, and some children were sent directly to pedophiles.

The shocking new investigation was carried out by Mike Milotte, who has published his finding in a new book entitled Banished Babies.

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/New-scandal-erupts-over-Irish-children-sold-to-America-for-adoption-168588836.html#ixzz2AzJiGqub

The Magdalene Sisters (2002): Adoption themes in the Movies #NAAM

One movie I highly recommend you see is the masterpiece  The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

         , Mary Murray , Britta Smith , Frances Healy , Eithne McGuinness , Phyllis McMahon , Rebecca Walsh , Eamonn Owens , Chris Simpson , Sean Colgan , Daniel Costello , Julie Austin , Sean McDonagh , Phyllis MacMahon

MrMarakai wrote this review: Writer/Director Peter Mullan follows up his surreal and blackly humourous Scottish family drama "Orphans" with this hard-hitting account of the agonising and torturous true-story of the abuse of young women from Ireland in the name of religion.
In 1960's, young women where incar... read morecerated in a Irish convent, run by the Catholic church, for committing such 'misdeeds' as flirting with boys, becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and being raped. They are physically and psychologically abused by the head nun and her sadistic staff, who are convinced they are doing the Lord's work.
Having based his screenplay on actual Magdalene inmates' experiences, Mullan achieves an authenticity of what life was like for the young women that had to endure the injustices, humiliation and brutality of these asylums. At times it's very difficult to stomach, such is the sheer power and uncompromising telling of this harrowing story and it's full of overwhelmingly excellent performances. 

Geraldine McEwan as Sister Bridget, the head nun, gives one of the most absolute personifications of evil ever commited to the screen and Eileen Walsh is heart-breakingly compelling as the naive, downtrodden and religiously devoted Crispina.  Her performance was worthy of so much more recognition than she recieved. Speaking of which, the entire cast and crew deserved more awards attention on it's release. Had this been directed by someone with a higher profile than Mullan and his crew, this film would have been hailed as a masterpiece. As it is, it's had to rely on word-of-mouth to find an audience but this doesn't lessen the effect or superb work by everyone involved here.

Mullan's direction is flawless, the cinematography by Nigel Willoughby is stark, and almost de-saturated, adding to the overall feeling of desperation and loneliness of the women and as mentioned, the performances are perfectly pitched from a largely unknown cast. It may be hard for some to accept this behaviour went on but it's even harder to accept that these asylums lasted until 1996, when the last one was finally shut down.
A harrowing and emotionally charged drama that while based on fact, is highly subversive. If the Vatican condemns a film on it's release (which it did with this) then there's no doubt that you're in for a hard-hitting film.
Painful, provocative and important!

For a long list of movies with an adoption theme: www.adoptionhealing.com/AdoptionMovies.html

For a long time, movies send messages. Movies reach a wide audience. Movies like this one teach history and could help potential adoptive parents to understand what may have happened to the child they adopt and the mother who was forced to relinquish... Trace

Adoption Plotlines on TV #NAAM2012

ABC shows feature adoption plotlines

 

Cameron: ''Yes, I've gained a few extra pounds while we were expecting the baby. Which has been very difficult, but apparently your body does a nesting, very maternal, primal thing where it retains nutrients -- some sort of molecular physiology thing. But that's science, you can't fight it. So, ....''

Mitchell: ''I'm not saying anything.''

Cameron: ''You're saying everything!''

TV's newest gay couple, featured in the ABC insult-heavy comedy ''Modern Family.'' Cameron, the heavier of the pair, invites Mitchell's judgemental family over to announce their adoption of a baby girl from Viet Nam in the pilot episode. (Modern Family via HULU)

---

"A baby isn't like a Marc Jacobs suit. You can't return it if it doesn't fit.''

Scotty arguing with his husband Kevin on the ABC drama ''Brothers and Sisters'' about their interest in adopting a baby.

2011 shows with Adoption Plotlines: In Plain Sight, Glee, Parenthood, Once Upon a Time, NCIS, Grey's Anatomy, and Rizzoli and Isles.

We are going to look at movies and TV and all the ways the adoption industry portrays adoption this month (#NAAM 2012). 

If you have watched a TV show or movie with an adoption plotline, please add a comment on this blog... Trace