Due to human rights and trafficking concerns, the Canadian province of Quebec has suspended international adoptions.
The Montreal Gazette reports that ” ‘Quebec’s decision is part of a global “culture change” in recent years as countries have become aware of serious shortcomings in the way many adoptions are carried out,’ Anne-Marie Piché, a professor in the social work department at Université du Québec à Montréal who studies adoption”
Further, according to the Gazette, “The province said it does not believe the current international system guarantees the rights set out under The Hague Convention, which protects children and their families against the risks of illegal, irregular, premature or ill-prepared adoptions abroad. The moratorium, it added, will be in place while it develops a stronger framework to prevent those practices and also limit adoption failures that result in children entering the child welfare system.”
The Canadian province joins many other entities (both so-called sending and receiving countries) around the globe in suspending, limiting, or ending international adoption, including France, Norway, Flanders, Denmark, Romania, Guatemala, China, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and Russia. South Korea has substantially decreased the number of children it sends out of country for adoption; its Truth and Reconciliation Commission is reviewing fraud and corruption in hundreds of adoptions.
I’d argue that these government decisions are in tandem with increasing calls for the abolition of adoption.
The government decisions seem largely to be rooted in concern over fraud, corruption, bribery, human trafficking, and commodification of children—none of which should be any part of adoption, yet we have evidence for all that, in many countries: hence, the suspensions or closings.
I realize, of course, that governments can have other reasons to suspend or end international adoptions: embarrassment that their children are leaving their country, fear over what happens to internationally adopted children (abuse, neglect, death), political retribution, and so on.
International adoption is under more scrutiny than ever before.
No one wants children to suffer, die, or languish in orphanages. Suspending or ending adoption, along with the demand for abolition, (a thorough overhaul—many would say end–of the current system), are moving to the forefront of policy decisions. This movement is focused on orphan prevention and family preservation, a close examination of the role of money and privilege in adoption, genuine financial and other resources to families in crisis, equitable access to medical care, education, clean water, and more. The goal is lofty. If we really believe children should be in safe and loving families, it’s the only way to move ahead.
