tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/inter-country-adoption-12263/articlesInter-country adoption – The Conversation2015-01-28T19:22:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/367632015-01-28T19:22:08Z2015-01-28T19:22:08ZShopping for children: Australian adoption market puts them at risk<p>On Sunday, January 25, Prime Minister Tony Abbott released a little more detail about his <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-01-25/intercountry-adoption-support-service-help-families">plans for adoption</a> in Australia. Although specifics are still pretty thin on the ground, the announcement makes <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Intercountry_Adoption_Bill/Submissions">the concerns</a> that I and others raised previously very real.</p>
<p>Since coming to power, Abbott has turned to lobbyists for his information on adoption and what should be done. He ignores the advice of skilled practitioners, respected Australian adoption researchers and organisations such as International Social Services (<a href="http://www.iss.org.au/">ISS</a>) and <a href="http://www.unicef.org.au/">UNICEF</a>.</p>
<p>From the beginning, the approach to adoption has been clouded in secrecy and bias towards the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/01/25/deborra-lee-furness-commends-new-agency">wants of lobbyists</a>, ignoring important stakeholders like adoptees for whose benefit adoption should be all about. The best interests of children are paramount, according to the <a href="http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.listing">UN conventions</a> to which Australia is party. </p>
<p>There are several very worrying elements of this latest announcement.</p>
<h2>Advocacy ‘shop’ ignores conflicts of interest</h2>
<p>The first is the language Abbott uses. From the beginning Abbott has used the language of adoption as a service for adopters, not children. More concerning is the use of the word “shop” when he promises to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… make it simpler to adopt children from overseas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Words are important. “Shop” paints a picture of commercial transactions and places the emphasis on children as a commodity, which is distressing and offensive to many in the Australian adoption community, especially to adoptees. “One-stop shop” might be government lingo but its use shows a deep lack of understanding on the part of the government about adoption issues and the impact of these policies.</p>
<p>Second, Abbott has not named the agency that will be running this new “shop” and whose role will be to advocate for the needs of prospective adopters, not children. He <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-01-25/intercountry-adoption-support-service-help-families">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Prospective parents have told me they simply don’t have anyone advocating for them. Now there will be someone to guide them and support them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Speculation is rife about lobbyist-led agencies and the potential for <a href="http://www.law.uq.edu.au/ht-child-trafficking#childinter">profit-driven trafficking</a> in finding children for Australian families under these arrangements. The speculation is fuelled by leaks from lobbyists who have access to privileged information and by the replication of the words of lobbyists in government media releases. Intercountry adoption has already been handed over in principle in New South Wales with the <a href="http://www.kidsguardian.nsw.gov.au/adoption/accredited-agencies">accreditation</a> of an adoption-driven lobby group announced via their online groups.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Attorney-General’s Department <a href="http://www.ag.gov.au/USASPinvitation">invited US adoption agencies</a> to work with Australia.</p>
<p>Third, “trained staff will advocate on [adopting parents’] behalf”. There is no mention of the role of qualified professionals in this new “shop”. Any de-professionalisation of services that should be for children, combined with deregulation and blatant disregard for safeguards, is not in the best interests of children in Australia or overseas and has the potential to cause harm.</p>
<p>Abbott is handing over communications with prospective parents and the new role of advocating on their behalf for quicker adoptions with overseas countries to one agency. This is a <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/australia-simplifies-overseas-child-adoption-653369?site=full">simplification</a> of the adoption process that ignores conflicts of interest and other ethical concerns, establishes prospective parents as customers and risks placing pressure on agencies in sending countries.</p>
<h2>New policy based on myths</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, I was unable to accept the invitation to go to a <a href="http://www.iss.nl/research/conferences_and_seminars/periodic_conferences_debates_and_seminars/international_forum_on_intercountry_adoption_global_surrogacy/">scholarly meeting</a> on intercountry adoption that brought together international researchers in The Hague late last year. The reports from this forum are <a href="http://www.iss.nl/news_events/iss_news/detail/article/69824-wps-596-601-papers-of-the-international-forum-on-intercountry-adoption-and-global-surrogacy/">now available</a>.</p>
<p>These expert reports clearly dispel the adoption myths that there are millions of children available for adoption and who want parents. Abbott insists on perpetuating these myths when he claims:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are millions of children in overseas orphanages who would dearly love to have parents. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://repub.eur.nl/pub/77406">One report</a> paints a real picture of the families who do exist and lose their children to adoption. <a href="http://repub.eur.nl/pub/77404">Another report</a> stresses that under no circumstances should private or independent adoptions such as those favoured by high-profile lobbyists take place, no adoptions should occur after disaster and the demand from Western commentators for more children is a problem.</p>
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<p>Finally, despite assurances that changes to Australian immigration laws would relate to only a limited number of countries, the list <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/abbotts-plan-to-overhaul-adoption-laws/story-fni0cx12-1227195694112?nk=a0155642e39d72df592d84e12a0c505d">has expanded</a> to the United States, Poland, Vietnam, Latvia, Kenya, Bulgaria and <a href="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/adoption-revamp-offing-oz-report">Cambodia</a>. Australia has effectively handed over responsibility to ensure ethical adoptions to these countries. Once again there has been little real consultation or engagement within Australia except with pro-adoption lobbyists. </p>
<p>I hope Australia will not join the ranks of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/evidence-of-trafficking-of-indian-children-for-illegal-adoption-emerges-20140124-31e84.html">those countries</a> whose adoption stories are overwhelmingly negative. It is children, their families and their adoptive parents who ultimately experience the fallout when human rights and international conventions are ignored, <a href="http://www.humantrafficking.org/uploads/publications/child_laundering_270407.pdf">documented concerns</a> are ignored and policies are rushed to please those with the loudest voices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Fronek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Sunday, January 25, Prime Minister Tony Abbott released a little more detail about his plans for adoption in Australia. Although specifics are still pretty thin on the ground, the announcement makes…Patricia Fronek, Senior Lecturer, School of Human Services and Social Work, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343792014-11-20T14:28:20Z2014-11-20T14:28:20ZWhen adopted children forget their birth language, it may not be lost without a trace<p>How robust are languages learned in childhood but disused later in life? A <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/11/12/1409411111">new study</a> by researchers at McGill University and the University of Montreal has found that the forgotten birth language of adoptees can apparently leave its traces in the brain, many years after the adoption has taken place. </p>
<p>International adoption is rapidly on the increase in Western countries. Children who were born and raised initially in one linguistic environment are transplanted to a family and community that uses a new language. Typically, the transition to this new language is made astonishingly quickly, with the first language <a href="http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/6/4/441.abstract">usually being forgotten</a> within months – and sometimes despite the adoptive parents’ best efforts to provide opportunities to help the child retain the birth language. Surprisingly, this pattern can be seen not only in infants but also among <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=57781&fileId=S1366728900000237">children as old as nine years at the time of adoption</a>. </p>
<h2>What adults remember</h2>
<p>As adults, adoptees are often unable to even recognise the very basic vocabulary of the language to which they were exposed in childhood. In <a href="https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/sibil.33.11pal/details">one study of young adults in France</a> who were born in Korea and adopted aged three to nine, upon hearing sentences in several different languages, they were unable to determine which of the utterances were in Korean, as opposed to Japanese, Polish and other languages. <a href="http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/2/155.full">Brain scans of the same Korean adoptees</a> revealed that their neural activity while listening to their birth language did not differ from that of French speakers who had never been exposed to Korean (as would have been expected if the early exposure had left a neurological “imprint”).</p>
<p>The idea that the birth language – the language you once used and understood, the language your biological parents spoke, the language that you may associate with your heritage – has vanished entirely from your brain is an intriguing thought, and a troubling one for many adoptees. </p>
<p>Can we not at least assume that the birth language will be easier for an adoptee to re-learn than it is for others to acquire it from scratch? This is what is known as the <a href="http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/8/3/373.full.pdf">“Savings Paradigm”</a> – the assumption that even information that is apparently forgotten is still there somewhere, and only needs re-activating. </p>
<p>The findings by researchers are, thus far, not encouraging: while studies have shown adoptees may have a <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=5484696&fileId=S1366728908004008">minor advantage</a> at learning how to discriminate and produce some of the speech sounds of their birth language (and in some cases <a href="http://www.pallier.org/papers/PallierVentureyra_adoptees_phonetics_2003.pdf">none at all</a>), early language exposure does apparently not lead to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2390909/">better performance on grammar or vocabulary</a>. </p>
<h2>Sounds stick out</h2>
<p>Children learn the phonology of their birth language at a very early age: within months the infant’s perceptual system becomes attuned to those speech sounds that can make a meaningful difference as opposed to those that do not. For example, in English the difference between “l” and “r” is phonemic, meaning that the words “road” and “load” mean different things, and English infants will quickly come to discriminate these sounds. </p>
<p>In some other languages, there is no such distinction between “l” and “r”, and children growing up exposed to such a language have lower sensitivity to this contrast. Languages such as Chinese furthermore use the intonation contour of the syllable for meaning-making, so that the word “ma” can have different meanings, dependent on whether it is carries an intonation contour that is high-level (“mother”), high-rising (“hemp”) low-dipping (“horse”) or high-falling (“scold”).</p>
<p>This is the contrast tested in the recent Canadian study. Chinese adoptees in Montreal who were adopted around ten years ago, before they were two years old and who now only speak French, were compared with both monolingual Francophone Canadian children and with French-Chinese bilingual children. Unlike in the study of the Korean adoptees in France, these children did not listen to actual (meaningful) speech, but to nonsense syllables that were pronounced with different intonation contours as well as to humming with the same intonation pattern. </p>
<h2>Only an ear for intonation?</h2>
<p>Under these conditions, while no actual linguistic processing was going on, brain scans revealed that the adopted children seemed to recruit the same brain regions to process the intonational patterns as did the Chinese-French bilinguals, areas that are typically associated with the processing of tonal languages. Meanwhile, the monolingual French children showed an entirely different pattern of neurological activation. </p>
<p>This suggests that the early adoptees retain the knowledge that intonation patterns can be used to distinguish lexical meanings. For the monolingual French children, this type of information is more typically associated with utterance-level information, such as distinguishing the statement “John is here” from the rising-intonation question “John is here?”, and they consequently recruit different brain areas for processing it. </p>
<p>Does the fact that the early exposure to Chinese has left such a demonstrable trace in the brain mean that these children will find it easier to re-learn this phonological contrast, with which learners with no childhood exposure to Chinese typically struggle? </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.isca-speech.org/archive/tal_2014/tl14_063.html">study conducted</a> at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen in the Netherlands suggests that it might not be as straightforward as that. While Chinese adoptees in the Netherlands are better than monolingual Dutch children at producing these tones, they have no advantage at perceiving, and thus discriminating, them – not even after they were trained on the task. Notably, the speakers in this study were severed from their birth language for only about half as long as the people in the Canadian study.</p>
<p>Taken together, these studies suggest that a birth language may indeed leave a persistent trace in the brain, but that the advantage for speakers who were exposed to a language at an early age is probably limited to relatively narrow phonological features and does not include the wider areas of lexicon or grammar.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monika Schmid receives funding from NWO (Netherlands), the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) and ESRC.</span></em></p>How robust are languages learned in childhood but disused later in life? A new study by researchers at McGill University and the University of Montreal has found that the forgotten birth language of adoptees…Monika Schmid, Professor of Linguistics, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/310642014-09-08T01:01:48Z2014-09-08T01:01:48ZAustralia puts children at risk by ‘freeing up’ the adoption market<p>The Australian government seems intent on lessening protections for children adopted overseas despite national and international evidence showing greater protection is needed.</p>
<p>Two important reports on inter-country adoption were released late last month: <a href="http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/unicef%20best%20interest%20document_web_re-supply.pdf">a report by UNICEF</a> and one by the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Intercountry_Adoption_Bill/Report">Legislation Committee of the Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs</a>. And they couldn’t be more different.</p>
<h2>The Hague Convention and why it matters</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=text.display&tid=45">Hague Convention</a> on inter-country adoption has been regulating inter-country adoption for decades. It protects children, their families and adoptive families.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Intercountry_Adoption_Bill/Report/c01">Australian Citizenship Amendment (Intercountry Adoption) Bill</a>, supported by the Senate committee, treats countries not party to the convention in the same way as countries that are. It assumes bilateral <em>arrangements</em> (between signatories to the convention, including Australia, and a non-Hague country) are as good as bilateral <em>agreements</em> (between Hague countries) when it comes to protecting children. In practice, there is a vast difference. </p>
<p>Non-Hague countries are not party to the convention because minimum standards that ensure the interests of children in inter-country adoption cannot be met. </p>
<p>Although <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Intercountry_Adoption_Bill/Report/e01">expert evidence</a> to the Senate committee inquiry was unanimous – that the proposed legislation posed unnecessary risks to children – the committee recommended passing the Bill. Only the Greens issued a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Intercountry_Adoption_Bill/Report/d01">dissenting report</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Arrangements’ are not ‘agreements’</h2>
<p>The committee <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Intercountry_Adoption_Bill/Report/a04">recommended that</a> the: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>best interests of the child be the paramount consideration in intercountry adoption processes, be explicitly articulated in Australia’s bilateral arrangements and, where relevant, in the related legislation and regulations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this very Bill guarantees less protection for children in Australian legislation. </p>
<p>The UNICEF report provides clear evidence that bilateral arrangements are not the same as agreements. They offer fewer protections, especially when it comes to money and standards, and show a “fragile respect” for the interests of children. </p>
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<span class="caption">Whose needs are being prioritised with this proposed legislation?</span>
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<p>The author of the UNICEF report, Nigel Cantwell, explains how bilateral arrangements fail on a number of fronts. Under bilateral arrangements, the interests of children are <em>not</em> the common purpose. Instead, both countries focus on streamlining adoption and legitimising a process outside the convention. This provides no incentive to lift standards to comply with the convention.</p>
<p>Both the UNICEF and Australian research shows that receiving countries like Australia do place pressure on sending countries and compromise standards to satisfy the demand for a steady flow of children. </p>
<p>The UNICEF report goes further. It explicitly states that no country has ever asked another to adopt its children and that simplistic, paternalistic approaches are dangerous. </p>
<p>Arrangements with non-Hague countries and processes that aim for quicker, easier and less regulated adoption place market demands and compromised standards before children.</p>
<p>Arrangements are designed “to fit”. They excuse shortfalls such as the role of money (and trade relations) and fail to meet the rights of children as set down by the <a href="http://www.unicef.org/crc/">Convention on the Rights of the Child</a> and the <a href="http://www.hcch.net/upload/outline33e.pdf">subsidiarity principle</a> of the Hague Convention on inter-country adoption.</p>
<h2>Adoption’s impacts are for life</h2>
<p>There is agreement, however, on the committee’s final recommendation. Governments are urged: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to ensure that adequate resourcing and priority is provided for follow-up monitoring and support to ensure that it fully addresses Australia’s obligations to adoptees throughout the adoption cycle. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The authors emphasise that the adoption cycle is life-long and not limited to the immediate post-adoption period. </p>
<p>There is no sign that Australian governments are listening to inter-country adoptees who have been calling for better access to extended, funded support and a stronger voice in policies that affect them. </p>
<p>An independent study on post-adoption support is underway. This is expected to provide some direction on the types of support needed in Australia.</p>
<p>The problem is the Bill assumes rights are properly addressed in bilateral arrangements. The amendments should be considered as one part of a suite of proposed changes. Abbott’s close <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-disbanded-expert-adopt-advisory-group-weeks-before-pledging-action-on-the-issue-20131220-2zp3u.html">relationship with lobbyists</a>, widely reported in the media, raises unanswered questions about the adoption system he is putting in place.</p>
<p>According to Cantwell, policies in receiving and sending countries must take into account that poverty does not justify adoption and that a child has a right to his or her existing family. A “right to a family” and “a right to be adopted” do not exist in international law. </p>
<p>A child’s family includes the adoptive family only <em>after</em> an adoption, which shines a light on the disproportionate influence adoption lobbyists have on the practice in sending and receiving countries of children. </p>
<p>The UNICEF report calls for more stringent, systematic processes and counsels against establishing programs with non-Hague countries. The Hague Conference emphasises ethics and the professional capabilities of inter-country adoption services. </p>
<p>Conflicts of interest abound in both industry and government. One newly accredited organisation – yet to transition from lobbyists to professional service – has openly opposed research on post-adoption support and censored information about the post-adoption research.</p>
<p>How the interests of children can remain paramount in the changing Australian context is yet to be adequately explained or assured.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Fronek does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denise Cuthbert, one of three chief Investigators, was awarded an Australian Research Council funded project, A history of adoption in Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> </span></em></p>The Australian government seems intent on lessening protections for children adopted overseas despite national and international evidence showing greater protection is needed. Two important reports on…Patricia Fronek, Senior Lecturer, School of Human Services and Social Work, Griffith UniversityDenise Cuthbert, Dean, School of Graduate Research, RMIT UniversityMary Keyes, Professor of Private International Law, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.