The Orphan Not Adopted
18th February 2012
The pattern of behavior from the US Department of State (DOS) is to shut down adoption programs from countries that do not participate in the Hague Convention for Inter-Country Adoption. Superficially, the DOS appears to believe that rate of unethical adoptions out of countries that do not participate in the Hague Convention is too high, and therefore moves to shut down all adoptions out of those countries.
Apparently the fact that most orphans in the world reside in non-Hague countries is lost on the DOS.
Under US law, the DOS is required to accept and review adoptions originating from all countries. Further, they have yet to provide evidence that the rate of unethical adoptions out of non-Hague countries is higher than 1%, much less “too” high. Instead, they throw around headline grabbing terms like “child trafficking” and “fraud”, which gives them the political cover to advance their agenda.
Nowhere in this debate do we hear from the State Department is a discussion of what happens to the children who are left behind, who are not adopted because the DOS has blocked all adoptions from that country.