Statement on Haiti adoptions from Adoptees of Color
January 25, 2010
http://adopteesofcolor.org/
This statement reflects the position of an international community of adoptees
of color who wish to pose a critical intervention in the discourse and actions
affecting the child victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. We are domestic
and international adoptees with many years of research and both personal and
professional experience in adoption studies and activism.
We are a community of scholars, activists, professors, artists, lawyers, social workers and health care workers who speak with the knowledge that North Americans and Europeans are lining up to adopt the “orphaned children” of the Haitian earthquake, and who feel compelled to voice our opinion about what it means to be “saved” or “rescued” through adoption.
We understand that in a time of crisis there is a tendency to want to act
quickly to support those considered the most vulnerable and directly affected,
including children. However, we urge caution in determining how best to help.
We have arrived at a time when the licenses of adoption agencies in various
countries are being reviewed for the widespread practice of misrepresenting the social histories of children. There is evidence of the production of documents stating that a child is “available for adoption” based on a legal
“paper” and not literal orphaning as seen in recent cases of intercountry
adoption of children from Malawi, Guatemala, South Korea and China. We bear
testimony to the ways in which the intercountry adoption industry has profited
from and reinforced neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, aid dependency,
population control policies, unsustainable development, corruption, and child
trafficking.
For more than fifty years “orphaned children” have been shipped from areas
of war, natural disasters, and poverty to supposedly better lives in Europe and
North America. Our adoptions from Vietnam, South Korea, Guatemala and many
other countries are no different from what is happening to the children of
Haiti today.
Like us, these “disaster orphans” will grow into adulthood and begin to grasp the magnitude of the abuse, fraud, negligence, suffering, and deprivation of human rights involved in their displacements.
We uphold that Haitian children have a right to a family and a history that is
their own and that Haitians themselves have a right to determine what happens to their own children. We resist the racist, colonialist mentality that
positions the Western nuclear family as superior to other conceptions of
family, and we seek to challenge those who abuse the phrase “Every child
deserves a family” to rethink how this phrase is used to justify the removal
of children from Haiti for the fulfillment of their own needs and desires.
Western and Northern desire for ownership of Haitian children directly
contributes to the destruction of existing family and community structures in
Haiti. This individualistic desire is supported by the historical and global
anti-African sentiment which negates the validity of black mothers and fathers
and condones the separation of black children from their families, cultures,
and countries of origin.
As adoptees of color many of us have inherited a history of dubious adoptions.
We are dismayed to hear that Haitian adoptions may be “fast-tracked” due to
the massive destruction of buildings in Haiti that hold important records and
documents. We oppose this plan and argue that the loss of records requires
slowing down of the processes of adoption while important information is
gathered and re-documented for these children.
Removing children from Haiti without proper documentation and without proper reunification efforts is a violation of their basic human rights and leaves any family members who may be searching for them with no recourse. We insist on the absolute necessity of taking the time required to conduct a thorough search, and we support an expanded set of methods for creating these records, including recording oral histories.
We urge the international community to remember that the children in question
have suffered the overwhelming trauma of the earthquake and separation from
their loved ones. We have learned first-hand that adoption (domestic or
intercountry) itself as a process forces children to negate their true feelings
of grief, anger, pain or loss, and to assimilate to meet the desires and
expectations of strangers. Immediate removal of traumatized children for
adoption—including children whose adoptions were finalized prior to the
quake— compounds their trauma, and denies their right to mourn and heal with
the support of their community.
We affirm the spirit of Cultural Sovereignty, Sovereignty and
Self-determination embodied as rights for all peoples to determine their own
economic, social and cultural development included in the Convention on the
Rights of the Child; the Charter of the United Nations; the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights. The mobilization of European and North American
courts, legislative bodies, and social work practices to implement forced
removal through intercountry adoption is a direct challenge to cultural
sovereignty. We support the legal and policy application of cultural rights
such as rights to language, rights to ways of being/religion, collective
existence, and a representation of Haiti’s histories and existence using
Haiti’s own terms.
We offer this statement in solidarity with the people of Haiti and with all
those who are seeking ways to intentionally support the long-term
sustainability and self-determination of the Haitian people. As adoptees of
color we bear a unique understanding of the trauma, and the sense of loss and
abandonment that are part of the adoptee experience, and we demand that our voices be heard. All adoptions from Haiti must be stopped and all efforts to
help children be refocused on giving aid to organizations working toward family
reunification and caring for children in their own communities. We urge you to
join us in supporting Haitian children’s rights to life, survival, and
development within their own families and communities.
Accueil 
