IFCPP Research Paper

Julian Landis, Ian Manzi, Connor McNulty, Elizabeth Ripple, Karine Soares, Evangeline Agum

IFCPP Research Project

Dr. Schmidt, Ms. Stone, Dr. Wolwacz, Green Hills Academy

5/03/21

Domestic vs. International Adoption: A Look at Human Rights Violations Within

Introduction

The 30 articles that make up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ratified by the UN General Assembly in December 1948, are valid for all human beings regardless of age, ethnicity, and religion. These articles guide international behavior in the way of protection and enhancement of human life by ensuring freedom, peace, and justice in the world. Although states are strongly encouraged to respect this document and its guidelines, that is not always what happens.

Every child is entitled to love and care regardless of their geographical location, or the change thereof. Violations can trickle outside of a country and region, and bringing awareness to these violations can prevent the spreading of harmful practices. It is crucial to uncover the violations that are taking place, especially with children. The problems that children face need to be brought to light so that they can be fixed. This is true in every situation, including adoption.

Adoption, the act of legally taking another person’s child and raising it as one’s own, is a practice that has been around since the 6th century in Ancient Rome. Formerly used as a way to provide an heir to a family patriarch, gain political power, forge alliances, or supply servitude, adoption changed around the 19th century when people began thinking of the interests of the child. The idea of taking children into consideration only grew, with laws and acts being created to protect them, and in September of 1990, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force.

This convention lays a foundation for the protection of children and their rights. Article 21 of the Convention focuses on adoption and sets standards to ensure that it is carried out for the best interests of the child. It states that Parties who recognize adoption shall “ensure that the best interests of the child...be the paramount consideration” and “ensure that the adoption of a child is authorized only by competent authorities who determine...that the adoption is permissible in view of the child's status concerning parents, relatives, and legal guardians and that, if required, the persons concerned have given their informed consent to the adoption” (“Convention on the Rights of the Child text”). In addition to this convention, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals include aspects that can be applied to adoption, especially Goal 16: “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions” (“Goal 16”). This goal aims to reduce violence, end abuse, and reduce corruption in all their forms, and it strives to build strong institutions which prevent violence and promote peace. The institution of adoption must be considered when looking at this goal, and the care and protection of children should be of utmost importance. If the adoption system is corrupt, then the adoptions carried out will follow this pattern, which is why this goal should be a major consideration when exploring adoption.

Adoption is a major part of society, helping hundreds of thousands of children find loving families to raise them, protect them, and care for them. But there are still cases where adoption and its institutions fall short of protecting children and their rights. It is necessary to take a look at the shortcomings of adoption to forge a path to the future where violations within adoption are rare and unheard of. Within this paper, we will explore human rights violations within domestic and international adoption, policies in place to prevent these violations, violation patterns, and the overall effectiveness and success of domestic and international adoptions in the world today.

What Types of Human Rights Violations are Most Prominent within Domestic and International Adoption?

When it comes to types of human rights violations that occur most in cases of domestic and international adoptions, it is important to emphasize that it is recommended to analyze the entire adoption process, from how the child or adolescent ended up in the adoption system until after the adoption procedure is completed, since it is a long and delicate process involving several factors. Especially in international adoptions, children may have been forcibly removed from their families, transferred from the city, and inserted in an adoption institution, which characterizes kidnapping and child trafficking.

But before addressing these human rights violations, it is necessary to explain what the violation of human rights is. It is any situation that threatens or violates the rights of the child as a result of the action or omission of those responsible before the law, society, or country. Neglect, family conflicts, forms of physical violence, sexual or psychological issues, and living with people who abuse alcohol and other drugs constitute the violation of children’s human rights since childhood is a crucial period of human development and, therefore, they need to live in the most stable and healthy environments possible.

The Types of Human Rights Violations in Domestic and International Adoptions

At first glance, adoption involving the human rights of a child may not have all its relevance and complexity realized because it includes identity issues, family support, and help for children who do not have the care of their parents and do not have access to basic services and protection against exploitation and ill-treatment. In addition, it is important to remember the child’s right to have his or her opinion considered and the principle that the child’s interests should be the primary concern when deciding something about the adoption process.

According to data collected by Children’s Rights, at least 23 states of the United States do not meet the federal standard to keep children safe from abuse and neglect when they are in foster homes (Children’s Rights). Also, according to Children’s Rights reports, the most common human rights violations suffered by children who are within the adoption system are several cases of abuse, from not receiving food from their foster family to being raped for months by one of the parents and even being medicated and hospitalized because they don’t behave the way their foster parents want them to (Children’s Rights).

Negligence, being one of the most common violations of the child’s human rights, corresponds to acts of omission, the effects of which may be negative, which represent a failure of the adult to perform his or her duties towards children and adolescents, including those of supervision, feeding, and protection. Other violations to be highlighted are the violence suffered by children, whether physical, sexual, or psychological. Physical violence is more based on the power and inequality relationship between the adult and the child in which the deliberate use of the power of authority or physical force occurs in an attempt to educate the child, but which results in the child’s physical suffering.

Sexual violence is also based on the relationship and sense of power that the adult brings to the child while practicing the act or simulation of the sexual act with him or her, using physical force or psychological threats to achieve this. Psychological violence, usually associated with other types of violence such as sexual or physical violence, is characterized by the negative interference of the adult over the child through emotional threats or blackmail aiming to control it through these methods.

International adoption implies the transfer of a child from their home country to another country for adoption. According to “Adoption and Children: a Human Rights perspective", this type of adoption began in the United States after World War II, when children from some European countries and Japan were sent for adoption, followed quickly by Korean children in the early 1950s (Cantwell). The practice gained more adherents and it can be seen that it was used as an ad hoc humanitarian response to the situation of the former Asian and Latin colonies of the European continent.

Human rights issues are at the heart of the current debate on international adoption in particular due to illegal adoptions, which also occur in national processes (“International Adoption: Thoughts on the Human Rights Issues”), but are more common in international adoptions. According to “The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights”, adoption proceedings resulting from crimes such as child abduction and trafficking, fraud in the declaration of adoption, falsification of official documents or restriction, in addition to any illegal activity or practice such as, for example, the absence of appropriate consent by biological parents, inadequate financial gain through intermediaries and related corruption, constitute illegal adoptions and should be prohibited, criminalized and sanctioned as such. Since they do not only harm children’s human rights, but also the norms of international agreements and are characterized as a crime.

According to The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, illegal adoptions violate several rules and principles on the rights of the child, including the best interests of the child, the principle of subsidiarity, and the prohibition of improper financial gain (“Illegal Adoptions). These principles are violated from the moment the goal of the adoption process becomes to find a child for the adoptive parents rather than focus on finding a family that lives in a healthy environment for the child to be raised and respected. In this scenario, adults are willing to pay more to have advantages when choosing the child and the institution that takes care of the child aims only at this profit instead of analyzing whether the family is suitable for the child.

Is there a Large Disparity of Human Rights Violations between Domestic and International Adoptions?

This section will explore research that has been done to show whether the human rights violations are more or less in international or domestic adoptions in recent years and touch a little bit on why. To get the right perspective when trying to compare the number of cases of human rights violations in domestic adoptions as compared to international, it is necessary to consider first how many adoptions occur between the two in general.

According to “Child Adoption: Trends and Policies”, while the number of intercountry adoptions is increasing, domestic adoptions far outnumber international adoptions (“Child Adoption: Trends and Policies”). According to the research they carried out, domestic adoptions represent at least half of the adoptions in 57 of the 96 countries they retrieved data from. They attribute this to the implementation of policies that encourage people to adopt. From these statistics, it is easy to assume that there would likely be more human rights violations domestically as opposed to internationally; however, the answer to that question is not as clear.

On one hand, everyone talks about the adoption and foster care system of the United States being a mess and a huge violation of children’s rights; however, “many people see international adoption as the one of the ultimate forms of exploitation with the rich, powerful and white taking children from poor, powerless members of racial and other minority groups” (Bartholet). It could go both ways and this provides an interesting perspective. However, the points that are brought up in this journal pose an interesting question: whose best interests are in mind when adoption is put on the table? The local and federal governments as well as the UN recognized the increase in human rights violations of these children across all areas and many laws were put in place to consider protecting the safety of children who are being adopted. An example for international adoption is in 2007 when 119 countries ratified the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Pornography (“Child Adoption: Trends and Policies”).

In addition to the consideration of the people’s intentions with adoption, we have to define the types of human rights violations that have occured when it comes to adoption and what would occur with domestic adoption in contrast to international adoptions. Morris Waserstein, Professor of Law and Child Advocacy Program Faculty Director recounts his experience adopting two children from Peru in the journal “International Adoption: Human Rights Position”. He recalls the difficulty of obtaining the work papers and the stress that went into getting the process going for these children. He says that in a way, that was a violation of their rights.

Parents like Waserstein all across the world face these same issues and can testify to the horrors of having to go through what can take up to five years to resolve. “No system seemed to exist for terminating parental rights so children could be adopted, yet few of these children ever received a visit from a parent or other relative”, Waeserstein wrote (“International Adoption: Human Rights Position”). The city’s child welfare agency regularly told those who inquired about adoption that there were no children available (“International Adoption: Human Rights Position”). This presents a unique human rights violation to mostly international cases.

The more obvious type of human rights that comes to mind that can occur across all lines is the mistreatment of children whether it is physically or emotionally. Waserstein highlights this further in his journal admitting that these abuses occur and should not be ignored or put on the side burner (“International Adoption: Human Rights Position”). As previously mentioned though, laws and policies have been put in place to curb this issue. More about the specific policies that have been put in place will be highlighted and discussed in the next sections of the paper.

What Policies have been Put in Place to Reduce the Human Rights Violations that may Come with Adoption?

Within the institution of adoption, there are a number of policies in place to ensure that adoptions are carried out in a way that protects both the adoptive parents and the child being adopted. There are steps and procedures that must be followed by adoptive parents before an adoption is finalized, and the process of legally adopting a child is one that can be quite extensive. Not only is the adoption process different for domestic and international adoptions, but these two processes and the policies in them vary depending on where a person lives and where they are adopting from. The section will take a look at some of the common policies of domestic and international adoption.

Domestic Adoption

Domestic adoption often involves fewer steps because the child being adopted is in the same country that the prospective adoptive parents reside in. Nevertheless, the steps to adopt make sure that the adoption is legal and in the best interest of the child. In many domestic adoptions, the process includes applying for adoption, getting consent to adopt from the birth parents, ending the parental rights of the birth parents, completing a home study, filing paperwork about the adoption, and finalizing the adoption. A judge is often involved throughout the process to legally carry out the steps, such as the ending of parental rights and the finalization of the adoption, and the prospective adoptive parents may be required to attend court hearings about the adoption. In some cases, training is also required for the adoptive parents.

In the United States, ending the parental rights happens through the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR), a legal process involving a court hearing and a judicial decree that ends the parental rights of a child’s birth parents, making the child legally free for adoption. This can be voluntary (with agreement from the birth parents) or involuntary (without the birth parents' agreement); however, only in certain circumstances is an involuntary TPR allowed. The grounds for an involuntary TPR are specific to the state, but most commonly include the following: “severe or chronic abuse or neglect, sexual abuse, abuse or neglect of other children in the household, abandonment of the child, long-term mental illness or deficiency of the parent(s), long-term alcohol- or drug-induced incapacity of the parent(s), failure to support or maintain contact with the child, [or] involuntary termination of the rights of the parent to another child” (“Grounds for Involuntary Termination of Parental Rights”). In some states when an involuntary TPR occurs, the birth parent is allowed to appeal within a certain period of time. The TPR helps to make sure the adoption is done legally and in the best interest of the child.

The home study is a part of the process that is implemented in many countries. It helps prepare the prospective adoptive parents for adoption and evaluates whether or not they are capable and suitable for adopting. It is used to evaluate if the home is a stable environment for adoption. A common home study includes training, interviews, home visits, health statements, income and health coverage statements, references, and background checks. Within the training, prospective parents can learn about the needs of children waiting to be adopted, adoption issues, and the requirements of the adoption agency they are working with. During the home study, the prospective parents and other members of the household are interviewed- often multiple times- by a social worker to gather information on the family. The parents are often interviewed on their experiences with children, how they deal with stress, how they approach parenting, their relationships, and sometimes their experiences with crisis, loss, and infertility if applicable. Home visits are done to make sure the home is safe. In the United States, these visits ensure that the home meets State licensing standards like “working smoke alarms, safe storage of firearms, safe water, pools covered/fenced, and adequate space for each child” (“The Adoption Home Study Process”). In many adoptions, the prospective adoptive parents are required to have a recent physical exam and a physician’s statement saying that they are essentially healthy and physically and mentally able to care for a child. Additionally, the finances of prospective parents must be proven to be handled responsibly and adequately. Lots of agencies ask about insurance policies, debts, investments, and savings as well. Background checks, specifically criminal and child abuse record checks, are also done during the home study. In the United States, an autobiographical statement or story is an element that many adoption agencies ask parents to complete as well so that they can get to know more about the parents. Also, prospective adoptive parents will likely be asked to provide people to serve as references and help the social worker get a complete picture of the family. Finally, once the elements listed above have been completed, the social worker will typically write a home study report to reflect his or her findings.

International Adoption

When looking at international adoption, the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption is very important. The Convention, which was concluded on May 29, 1993, sets forth international standards for international adoptions within Convention countries. It “aims to prevent the abduction, sale of, or trafficking in children, and...works to ensure that international adoptions are in the best interests of children” (“Understanding the Hague Convention”). Due to the international Adoption Universal Accreditation Act of 2012, adoption service providers must meet the same accreditation requirements and standards whether working in a Hague adoption or a non-Hague adoption. This accreditation ensures that the agencies that carry out adoptions are ethical and use sound practices that meet the standards of the Hague Convention. The international adoption process is similar to that of the domestic process; however, since the prospective adoptive parents wish to bring the child to a new country, there are some additional steps. For example, the prospective adoptive parents may have to travel to the country they are adopting from, the child being adopted may need a visa to come to the new country, and the process will have to follow the policies of both the country of the adoptive parents and the country of the child.

Much like domestic adoption, the home study is a very important part of the adoption process. However, for Hague adoptions, the individual or entity that provides the home study must be defined as a home study preparer for Hague Convention cases. The preparer must be authorized or licensed to carry out a home study under the law of the country the home study takes place in, or, in the United States, the law of the State. The home study consists of components that seek to gain information about the prospective adoptive parents and determine if they should be able to adopt. It can differ depending on which country a person is adopting from, however, it often includes interviews, home visits, background checks, and reviews of various aspects including health and finances. During the home study, an interview or interviews are conducted with the prospective adoptive parents, one or more home visits are carried out, and information is provided on the applicant’s “background, family and medical history, social environment, reasons for adoption, ability to undertake an international adoption, and the characteristics of the child or children for whom they would be qualified to care” (“Hague Home Study Guidelines”). In some cases, the applicant’s are also referred to a licensed professional such as a physician or a clinical psychologist so that they can give a written report or evaluation on the applicant. Prospective adoptive parents are also assessed on their physical, mental, and emotional health or behavior issues. In this step, the home study preparer will assess any problem areas and state if they recommend any restrictions on the characteristics of the child that will be adopted. If the home study reveals that there was psychiatric care or issues from child abuse, sexual abuse, or family violence in the past, the home study preparer may again refer the applicant to a licensed professional for evaluation. Additionally, the criminal history and abuse or violence history will be checked. The home study preparer will find out if there is any history of “substance abuse, sexual or child abuse, and/or family violence even if it did not result in an arrest or conviction”, and include the dates or time periods when these abuses occurred (“Hague Home Study Guidelines”). Child abuse registries will be checked in any place the person has lived since the person’s 18th birthday. The applicants will also complete a financial assessment including information on income, debt, financial resources, and expenses.

As stated in the beginning of this section, the laws and policies within adoption vary from country to country, state to state, and place to place. There are different requirements depending on where you adopt and the process to do so can vary, but by looking at even a few common parts of the process, it is clear that it is not one that is taken lightly. From beginning to end it is evident that, in most countries, adoption is carried out in a way to protect the child’s rights, give them a safe place to live, and impact their life for the better. However there are still times when the rights of children fail to be protected, and it is crucial to prevent these instances from occurring.

Are there Patterns to Adoption Violations or Mistreatment? Are Certain Ages more Susceptible to Violations?

In all the different types and kinds of adoption, international adoption is the most dangerous. When done correctly, international adoption is very helpful because the adopted child has been saved from a life of loneliness and poverty, but on the other hand, international adoption can help organizations that coerce parents into giving up their children or even facilitated child abuse.

Abuse and even deaths are also unfortunately common in intercountry adoptive families. There are numerous appalling incidents involving the misfortune of adopted children. In 2017, Sherin Mathews, a three-year-old girl from India was adopted by Wesley Mathews, a man living in Texas. Sherin died in October 2018 after choking on milk that she was being forced to drink. The three-year-old was missing for a period of time until she was found in a culvert under a road. In a study carried out by the Christian Science Monitor, out of approximately 60,000 adoptions from Russia to the United States of America over a period of about 20 years, there have been 19 confirmed cases of death due to abuse or neglect. Statistics also indicate that there is a 0.03% death-by-abuse rate amongst Russian children adopted by Americans, indicating that children are more susceptible to adoption violations and mistreatment compared to other age groups.

Policy Issues

The main cause of this abuse in the international adoption system are policy issues. International adoptions often occur through private agencies who are non accredited and operate without much restriction on their activity. This lack of accreditation creates a wider pathway for unethical behavior, making international adoption very lucrative and huge as it is filled with wealthy potential adoptive families. The desperation for many families to find and adopt a child eventually leads to non-orphaned children who were either stolen or coerced through misinformation to leave their families.

What is the Role of Family Separation at Borders for the Adoption of Immigrant Children?

While the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child denotes “the persons concerned have given their informed consent to the adoption,” parents are often separated from their children especially during the adoption process. Border separation and deportation has played a critical role in the adoption process in many countries and plays a incredibly negative role in the immigration process for children. As a result of both the public adoption process and religious groups, family separation is utilized to gather children and relocate them to foster homes while their parents are deported or detained by law enforcement. Migrant and refugee families stand as a shining example of the failures of the adoption process and how blatantly United Nations procedures can be ignored.

Since July 2017, “more than 5400” children have been separated from their parents as a result of border separation policies and ICE in the United States (Associated Press 2019). While many of these children were detained and eventually deported, found their way back to their families, or were abandoned without any system of support, many other children were taken into the adoption process. In the summer of 2019 alone, “more than 300 parents were deported to Central America without their children” (Filipovic 2019). Their children are immediately placed into risk of being adopted by wealthier families. US officials have stated that “it may take up to two years to identify all families who were affected” (Drenka 2019). Those are the families that are lucky enough to see investigations and attempts to reconnect them together. Many families, however, are subject to the tragedy of never having the opportunity to see their children again.

The children who are separated from their families are not always able to find their parents again. For many children, their path is paved with foster care and the adoption process. Programs, such as the Bethany Christian Services and other religious private organizations, work outside of public programs to manage foster care programs specifically targeting those separated at the border. State judges continue to enable these programs by transferring custody of children to private programs and to foster families, an act that federal agencies cannot track. While parents that are deported as a result of immigration raids are supposed to have the ability to take their children with them, many organizations as well as individual federal individuals operate to remove children from their families to put them into foster care and new homes, those that are results of deep psychological trauma and mistreatment from the federal government (Associated Press 2018). For families that will never see their children again, the mistreatment, failure of the federal government to uphold international law and allow illegal adoptions, adoption, and foster care are destructive forces.

While families are separated, many will never see their children again. For those lucky enough to have a chance to, they see costly legal battles and have to fight for a chance to have their children in their custody again. Many parents are tricked into signing away their children to the government’s custody. Some parents do not see that opportunity as state judges or federal agents mark them as too much of a risk to the health of their children. As a result, the removal of these children from their parent’s custody is entirely legal by federal and state laws. As a result, million dollar court cases and long legal battles to fight for the custody of their children can often result in complete failures where families see that their separation is permanent.

The United Nations has placed clear ruling on when a child is able to be removed from their parent’s custody. Family separation, border patrols, and immigration raids as a result of national laws removes children from their families and puts them through a lifetime of trauma and adoption. While judges and federal agents fail their role to preserve families and follow federal guidelines, attempts to reconnect families are often in vain as a result of state statutes and failed attempts to find parents. As wealthy families parade around children they foster, immigrant and refugee children see the result of their lives being stricken with trauma and the loss of loved ones. Even as court cases serve as an idyllic hope for parents who lose their families, often nothing comes as a result due to the cost, where millions of dollars can be spent to retrieve only one child into custody. While adoption can be a force of good, border policies constantly destroy families and the federal government separates families at the behest of private corporations and state laws.

Are Failed Adoptions More Likely to Happen in Domestic or International Adoptions?

Sadly, in some cases of international and domestic adoption, there can be problems leading to the dissolution of the adoption process. In this section of the paper, there will be an examination of problems families may face in a domestic and international adoption setting, and why these problems lead to a failed adoption. Mathematically, it is important to address that when looking at failed adoption rates within a singular country, compared to the world, there will always be a higher rate of failed adoptions internationally due to the size alone.

International adoptions have an immense capacity to do good for a child, however, there can be some problems. If a child grows up during a conflict, whether it be war, or in a negative home environment, it can lead to a serious lack of emotional development. In a research article published by Reuters, they found an example of a young girl from Russia, and that, “the agency warned that she had a “developmental and speech delay” (Respaut 2014). Two years later, an American doctor diagnosed the girl with fetal alcohol syndrome and severe attachment disorders (Respaut 2014). This scenario illustrates how past trauma will always affect a child and cannot simply be remedied with a transfer into a seemingly “better” situation. Later in the article, the story is continued and elaborates upon negative behavior. It states, “the girl has attacked her mother and classmates and tried to cut out her tongue with scissors. In the last three years, she has been hospitalized nine times for psychiatric care” (Respaut 2014). For many families with aspirations of bringing home a child from a bad situation into a “better one”, they can become overwhelmed in dealing with the child's undiagnosed health problems. This story is only one of many stories of international adoptions leaving out critical health information, and ultimately leading to an unhealthy/failed adoption. It is estimated that 24% of children had their developmental problems identified when they reached home, according to a survey within the same article by Reuters (Respaut 2014). As a result of these continually failed adoptions, there was a 88% drop in international adoptions in the United States, and this came as a result from a rise in restrictions from China, Russia, Guatemala, South Korea, and Ethiopia since 2004 (Budiman, Lopez 2017).

In the case of domestic adoptions, there is very little information out there that can accurately depict the failure or disruption rates. This is likely due to many families failing to come forward and say that they are unfit to care for a child. In a 2010 study from the University of Minnesota it states that anywhere from 6% to 11% of adoptions can fail in the United States and that this rate can go up to 16% for children under 3 years of age (Mapes 2012). What is the reason for this rise in adoption dissolutions? The same culprit for international adoptions. Many children at a very young age do not directly exhibit signs of a behavioral disorder as they are still developing, and new parents may be able to create a more loving environment for the child. However, as they grow, the damage caused by emotional distress becomes more permanent, leading to a more prominent showing of these acquired behavioral problems. In an article published by Pew Research, they cite that around 53, 500 American born children were adopted in the United States in 2015, and this number has since gone down to 43,265 in 2018 (Budiman, Lopez 2017). The decline shows a growth in probable mental disorders as a result of past trauma, ultimately leading less parents to partake in adopting children.

The contrasting data points show that a failure in adoption is more likely to occur in an international adoption, as past trauma is not always disclosed with the paperwork of a child, leading parents to assume that their child is completely fine. With time comes the development of problematic behaviors, as expressed by the story of the girl with fetal alcohol syndrome (Respaut 2014). Finally, although there was a decline in domestic adoptions within the United States as indicated in the article by Pew Research, the drop in numbers does not compare to a 77% total drop since 2004 for the United States in regards to conducting international adoptions (Budiman, Lopez 2017).

Conclusion

In conclusion, while there are differences between domestic and international adoption, violations still happen in each. When this occurs, a child is harmed and his or her life can be changed drastically for the worse. Abuse- whether physical, sexual, psychological, or emotional- neglect, violence, and illegal actions are common violations of children’s rights within adoption. Additionally, as seen within international adoption, long waiting times and lack of urgency to find children homes can hinder their rights to find a loving family to take them in. In the case of children separated from their families at borders, the effort to reconcile is often not a valiant one, and many children are left to be adopted even though they have loving parents who want them back. There are many policies in place to make sure children go to suitable homes with families who will care for them, but when adoptions are not carried out in compliance with these standards, or when dishonesty and corruption creep in, what is left is a child who is violated and often traumatized.

In light of this, it is necessary to find the holes in the institution of adoption to create a stronger system that protects the rights of children. Within all adoptions, the best interests of the child should continue to be of primary consideration. More policies should be put in place- or current policies should be revised- to protect the places where the rights of children are most at risk, and children should be under protection both before and well after any adoptions take place.

With all this being said, it is important to not let the problems discredit the incredible good that adoption accomplishes. While looking at adoptions weaknesses it is crucial to remember the numerous cases where adoption is successful. Through adoption, many children who would otherwise have no family are taken in and cared for by families who love and cherish them. At its core, adoption is an institution filled with intentions of hope, love, and care for children. Every child deserves to be loved and cared for, and through adoption, this is possible.

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