FAMILY PRESERVATION ADVOCACY: Fraud and Kidnapping Casts a Cloud on Guatemalan Adoptions

Thursday, November 5, 2009

It's official! This article, with photos, will be appearing in the December issue of Adoption Today which will be available in approximtely three weeks.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

What is Family Preservationjavascript:void(0)

"Every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. UNICEF believes that families needing support to care for their children should receive it." UNICEF

The Uniform Adoption Act calls for the protection of "minor children against unnecessary separation from their birth parents."

“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .”

United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.

Every child born has an inalienable right to remain safely with the mother and/or father who conceived and/or bore him/her, as well as to know any other genetic/DNA contributors.

Every expectant mother has the right to protect, care for and maintain her bond with her child and deserves every possible opportunity, resource, option, and help to do so.

Every mother and father, regardless of age, race, marital status, finances, or physical disadvantage has the right to parent their child above any others. This connection should not be severed without due cause for the protection and safety of the child, and only after all means of addressing the problems of the family unit have been exhausted.

Placing a child in the care of adults to whom the child is not related is a last resort option to be used only when there are no extended family members able and willing to provide care for the child related to them. If and when such care is necessary, the child requiring such care should be immediately appointed a court-appointed guardian ad litem to ensure the best interest of the child is placed at the forefront of identifying appropriate substitute family care.

It is not in best interest of children placed with non-family members to be deprived of their names or their connection with their original family. They should be allowed unlimited visitation and contact with all blood relatives, with necessary supervision to prevent harm when deemed by the court as necessary. Depriving a child access to visitation with any blood relatives should be punishable by law.

Mothers and fathers in crisis need to receive objective family-centered option counseling and all the resources, referrals, and support needed to remain as an intact family and protected from fraud, coercion and exploitation for the purpose of separating them from their child.

Mothers and fathers of a child requiring substitute care should be provided separate legal counsel to be fully aware of their rights and recourse. Such counsel should be paid for by a tax or fee paid into a general fund and not directly from substitute guardian to the child's parent.

Children are not commodities, and no profit should be made by any individuals or agencies involved in necessary custodial placements for children in need.

No policies that promote or encourage the separation or abandonment of parent a child are consistent with a moral culture.

Current adoption practice focuses on filling the demands of paying clients who seek infants, instead of focusing on the best interest of vulnerable children. The privatization of American infant adoption has turned what once was a social institution for providing care of orphans and children who have no parents - into a multi-billion dollar unregulated industry run by untrained, unlicensed, unregulated practitioner/baby brokers and intermediaries whose livelihood is dependent on the redistribution of children with non-related strangers.

Worldwide 80-90% of children in orphanages are NOT orphans, but have family who visit and hope to be reunited, as was was the case with both children adopted by Madonna. "Rescuing" children through international adoption, one by one, does nothing to ameliorate the poverty of their families, their village or their nation. Neither does it help reduce the number of children in American foster care.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html).
They include:
• Article 12. - No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, FAMILY, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
• Article 16(3) - The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
• Article 25(1) - Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

"Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year…"
United Nations, Commission on Human Rights 2003

Words I Live By:

• I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. ~Edward Everett Hale

• All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~ Edmond Burke

• I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. ~ Elie Wiesel, Nobel Price for Peace, 1986

• Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. ~ Aristotle

• The most human thing we have to do in life is to learn to speak our honest convictions and feelings and live with the consequences. ~ Father William DuBay

• Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and...they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called "cantankerous", "crazy", "hysterical", "uppity", or "duped". Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It's a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, fifty is a movement. ~ Carol Travis

• Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for. ~ Chief Justice Earl Warren

• A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ~ George Bernard Shaw

• I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.
~ Booker T. Washington

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Words I Live By:

• The most human thing we have to do in life is to learn to speak our honest convictions and feelings and live with the consequences. ~ Father William DuBay

• Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and...they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called "cantankerous", "crazy", "hysterical", "uppity", or "duped". Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It's a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, fifty is a movement. ~ Carol Travis

• Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for. ~ Chief Justice Earl Warren

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed. ~ Booker T. Wasington

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Fraud and Kidnapping Casts a Cloud on Guatemalan Adoptions

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Test Your Adoption I.Q.

Twice Lost: The Adoption Memorial Wall

Origins-USA

Mirah Riben Interview on Speaking of Adoptuion Radio

Pregnant? Scared? Confused? Thinking of placing your baby?

"Motherhood, Adoption, Surrender and Loss"

Blog Archive

4x4 stickers available: CLICK IMAGE

What is Family Preservationjavascript:void(0)

Words I Live By:

FAQs

Recent Posts

Search This Blog

Followers

Networked Blogs

As a mother who lost a child to adoption, do you favor equal access to original birth certificates?

Adoption Truth

Korean Birthmothers Protest to End Adoption

Motherhood, Adoption, Surrender, & Loss

Birthparents Never Forget

Adoption and Truth Video

BackTracking Posts

Adoption in the News

LINKS

My Blog List

Index of articles by subject

Words I Live By:

If you lost a child to adoption, were you promised or did you expect anonymity from your child?