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Give the thousands of women survivors of war the opportunity and hope to start over right now. Your gift today provides the tools women need to support their families, embrace their rights and actively participate in the rebuilding of their communities.

Women for Women International believes that when women are well, sustain an income, are decision-makers, and have strong social networks and safety-nets, they are in a much stronger position to advocate for their rights. This philosophy and our commitment to local leadership builds change and capacity at the grassroots level.

Around the world, women face some of the greatest obstacles yet also represent tremendous opportunity for lasting social and economic development.

Globally, women face the following challenges:

• They bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty (They represent 70 percent of the world’s poor)
• Their ability to have a decent life is limited (they perform 66 percent of the world’s work and produce 50 percent of the food but they only earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property)
• Investment in women is inadequate (recent data shows that only 3.6% of overseas development assistance was earmarked for gender equality (UNIFEM). And for every dollar of development assistance, two cents goes to girls (Girl Effect).
• During and after conflict, women are particularly vulnerable to violence and exploitation (About 70% of casualties in recent conflicts are women and children (UNIFEM) and the forms of violence they experience include torture, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution and mutilation (UN)

An average Women for Women International participant faces the following challenges:

• She has limited access to electricity and water (99% of participants in Sudan)
• She is not educated (96% of participants in Afghanistan)
• She is not engaged in productive work (90% of participants in Iraq)
• She is not able to pay for medical care (66% of participants in Afghanistan)
• She is not able to change customs and traditions that are not fair to her
• (94% of participants in the DRC)

Why Women for Women International?

As a result of war and conflict, women and girls often lose everything that ever mattered to them, including their sense of self. Their voices are silenced. And even if they were to speak, there is no safe place where they can voice their pain.

Participation in our one-year program launches women on a journey from victim to survivor to active citizen. We identify services to support graduates of the program as they continue to strive for greater social, economic and political participation in their communities.

As each woman engages in a multi-phase process of recovery and rehabilitation, she opens a window of opportunity presented by the end of conflict to help improve the rights, freedoms and status of women in her country. As women who go through our program assume leadership positions in their villages, actively participate in the reconstruction of their communities, build civil society, start businesses, train other women and serve as role models, they become active citizens who can help to establish lasting peace and stability.

Women begin in our Sponsorship Program where direct financial aid from a sponsor helps them deal with the immediate effects of war and conflict such as lack of food, water, medicine and other necessities. Exchanging letters with sponsors provides women with an emotional lifeline and a chance to tell their stories —maybe for the first time. As their situations begin to stabilize, women in our program begin building a foundation for their lives as survivors.

While continuing to receive sponsorship support, women embark on the next leg of the journey and participate in the Renewing Women’s Life Skills (ReneWLS) Program that provides them with rights awareness, leadership education and vocational and technical skills training. Women build upon existing skills and learn new ones in order to regain their strength, stability and stature on the path to becoming active citizens.

CELEBRATE ALL MOTHERS: Send a replica of a hand-made card created by mothers in Rwanda.

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The Tenuous Case Against Torry Hansen

First there is the issue of whether or not Artyem is a Russian or American citizen. Adoptive parents usually obtain American citizenship for the children and cancel their Russian citizenship. Did Hansen?

Now, three weeks after putting the 7-year-old child alone on the plane Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce apparently has learned from District Attorney General Chuck Crawford that they do not have jurisdiction in terms of an abandonment as the child was escorted by Nancy Hansen - Torry's mother - from Tennessee to Washington and then set off alone to Russia. So it seems abandonment charges would be placed on Nancy, not Torry, and would have to come from Washington.

Any other charges against Torry would be abuse claimed by Artyem, but that would require his testimony. Crawford is reportedly looking into the possibility of setting up a video teleconference to speak to the child.

Another avenue not addressed is charging Hansen with his support. If you can't someone criminally, hit them in the pocketbook...and make darn sure she never obtains another child from any agency anywhere....or even a dog from the pound.

What's Your "Favorite" Adoption Myth?

Want to share it? Here's an opportunity.

"The Biggest Myths About Adoption" contains a good deal of good information and bit of myth about adoptees. It has also left a lot out. The article lists the following myths:

#1 – Most Birth Mothers are Teenagers
#2 – There are No Healthy Babies to Adopt in the U.S.
#3 – The Adoption Process Takes Many Years
#4 – The Birth Mother Can Show Up and Ask for the Baby Back (not "THE Birth Mother" as if we are some mythical archetype and not individuals human beings)
#5 – Closed Adoptions are Better (or Vice Versa)
#6 — Adopted Children are Emotionally Unstable or Have Behavior Issues
#7 – All Adoptions are Expensive

The worst answer to these myths? Number six gets my vote:

Research shows that adopted children are as well adjusted as their non-adopted peers. Some studies even indicate that adopted children are better adjusted due to the fact that adoptive parents tend to be mature and financially stable. As with all children, some are very talented or brilliant and some are less capable and have more factors pre-disposing them to potential difficulties. Most adopted people fall within the normal range.

Add your comments here.

Yet Another Abortion/Adoption Debate

And another opportunity to reply...

Jay Livingston - a man? - from the Montclair Sociology department wants women to "gift" their children to those less fortunate. Read this sanctimonious hogwash here.

My reply:

As a researcher (for more than 30 years) of adoption and those whose lives have been touched by it, I agree and disagree with you.

You are totally correct that finances, marital, social, educational status all effect who is deemed "deserving" to be a mother (despite marital status or sexual orientation) and who is reviled for the same human desire.

Like white privilege, educated feminists need to be aware of and fight against women's inhumanity to women and the exploitation of lower earning, younger, less educated women for their own profit - in this case the want of a child.

A child is NOT a "gift" though they are all too often treated by the adoption industry as a commodity. With the exception of paid surrogates, women do not become pregnant with the INTENT to give their child to another. That would be a gift (albeit for the payment involved in surrogacy which often renders it exploitive of women of lesser means).

Gifts are given freely, willingly, not under duress or because of lack of the option or support needed not to give something precious and wanted away....or something that you might you think you want to give away and have not second to change your mind once you actually SEE what it is your are losing.

"There’s no shame in sharing with people who have not been similarly gifted."

"Sharing"? A child is not shared when it is adopted. Even in the most open adoption, the original/natural mother - and father - relinquish ALL of their parental rights. Legally, they and their child are strangers to one another and they have no enforceable right to visitation. This is hardly sharing.

Mothers who lose children to adoption have been documented to experience LIFELONG irreversible grief, guilt and shame. It's a limbo loss with no closure and no ritual. Mothers experience PTSD, depression and a multitude of psychological and physical effects that ripple out to their extended families of birth and their formed and attempted relationships.

The adoptee experiences lifelong feelings of rejection and abandonment as well as in the the vast majority of states no access to his own birth certificate...ever!

Adoption should always be a last resort and should not be pitted against abortion while leaving out the third option: helping mothers receive the resources they need (as did Bristol Palin) to remain an intact family. It's no fun for Bristol NOW, but life is too long to have regrets FOREVER and ever!

Women need to stop putting in orders for others' babies which creates a demand which in turn necessitates a supply - often leading to children in Guatemala, China, India and elsewhere being kidnapped an stolen for black market child trafficking.

Infertility needs to be treated with education as to its many preventable causes - starting in H.S. health classes. Infertility is sad, but no woman OWES another her child any more than anyone owes their eyes or organs - while living - to one in need of such.

We need to stop and reverse this trend lest we wind up fulfilling Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. We are very close now with baby farms and wombs for rent world wide.

Share Photos of Your Mother and a Message

In honor of Mother's Day, CARE is working to shed light on the tragedy affecting approximately 500,000 women die from complications during pregnancy and childbirth every year. The majority of these deaths are preventable.

CARE, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty and keep their families intact

CARE presents the 2010 WALL OF MOTHERS, an interactive photo gallery. Pay tribute to your mother and to millions of mothers worldwide by posting a photo and message of your mother or another woman in your life who inspires you.

In addition to supporting the work of CARE, this is a great way to celebrate Mothers Day and to help educate the public about adoption loss and separation.

After you post your photo to CARE's Wall of Mothers, you can send an e-card of your photo along with a personalized message to your mom or other inspiring women in your life. By doing so, you'll help us spread the word about CARE's lifesaving work around the world. It only takes a minute to honor your mother and help empower another!

On the Fault Line: Transracial Adoption Within a Racist Society

From Madonna, to multitudes of white Christian families in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, white adoption of black babies and children is systemically fucked up. Not every single white adoptive parent in a transracial adoption (TRA) approaches the process of adoption with ignorant and/or messianic ideas (although many of them do), but adoption in the public sector is woefully under-resourced and adoption in the private sector is, of course, corrupted by profit—and both the dearth and the infusion of money provide opportunities for exploitation.

In fact, all white adoptive parents benefit from a systemically racist system that facilitates the separation of black parents (especially mothers) from their children, makes it easy to ignore the importance of black community for a black child in white supremacist culture, and prioritizes the desires of white adoptive parents over the needs of black children, even despite the protests against TRA mounted by adult adoptees of color.

As with everything else, fame, power, and wealth have typically inglorious roles to play in this process, too.

So writes Shaker Quixotess at Shakesville commenting on the recently reported adoption by Sandra Bullock of Louis Bardo.

Sandra Bullock's joy is obvious on the cover of People. She has what she has wanted for some time: a baby!

The revelation of this adoption in the midst of news that she and Jesse James are divorcing is reflects an issue seen in two films. In Juno the adoption proceeds despite the adopters divorce and likewise in Mother and Child. In one case the teen natural mother knows about it, in the other case not so (don't want to be a spoiler and say any more).

Unlike Juno, both Mother and Child and Bullock's real life adoption also involve issues of race. It has been noted that had Sandra and Jesse not split, this Black child would have been adopted and raised - which is still Sandra's wish - by a Hitler-loving Nazi supporter. Either way, he will be raised by Caucasian parents of affluence.

Living on the Fault Line

Dealing head-on with issues of racism in America, transracial adoption in racist America, and white privilege is the documentary by Jeff Farber, Living on the fault Line: Where Race and Family Meet that follows nine transracial adoptive in Vermont.

The 77-minute film has been described not as a film about adoption, but rather a "look at race in America" that views these issues from the perspective of parents living in Vermont - 95+% white - who make a choice or accept interracial adoption.

"In adopting transracially" Farber wants us to know, "parents not only adopt a child, they also adopt a vivid new awareness of race and culture." or, as Jeff told me when we met: "People who adopt inter-racially need be able to accept that they are not white families with children of color, but interracial families."

Adoption reformists need a warning label however. You will have to grit your teeth through the beginning of the film which opens with a very upbeat version of the "cheerful "John McCutcheon "Happy Adoption Day" song singing praise: "Here's to you and Cheers to you. Let's shout it: Hip, hip, hip hooray... oh happy adoption day."

The music, like the rest, is presented without judgement. Thus, one can only wonder if lyrics, such as: "We had a voice and we had a choice" is lost on the filmmaker, or there to point out the irony of those words for the children and their original families who live forever, often painfully, precisely because of the lack of either a voice or a choice. My guess is that coming at the subject from race and not adoption, Farber has no clue that it might offend some who are touched by adoption, lest it would not be played in its entirety.

The adoptive parents featured in the film, for the most part, enter into their adoptions fairly naive to the fact and their kids have to live out - often painfully - the choices they made, unaware of the consequences. They speak of the advantages of being raise din the green beauty of Vermont - an idyllic farm life as some Midwestern adoptions have offered, if we ignore the pain of school tormenters.

One mother now has the humility of hindsight to be able to say that transracial adoption is third choice for any child in need of care. The first choice she recognizes is that the family he is born into is able to receive the resources they need to remain intact. The second is that if it is not possible for any of his extended family to raise him, that he is adopted and raised by a Black family. And the third option is his being adopted by a white family.

There is also the mother's poignant recognition that Black families are able to say to their children: WE will be faced with challenges of racism. This is not the same as an adoptive mother saying to her child that HE will be faced with these challenges. In addition to simple issues like learning how to groom African-American hair, therein lies the line in the sand between being raised by people we look like...people who reflect back to us a sense of self-pride and identity. This, is perhaps the crux of what it is all about.

In Goangdong, China, a baby macaque was adopted by a pigeon.

If reversed, how would a monkey teach the bird to fly? Certainly not in the way mother birds teach their young.








Inter-species adoption may seem a crude comparison, but it points to the limitations of love and ignoring differences. Doing so, goes just so far and is great for life-saving infants that would otherwise not survive.

But we all know that when humans take in large wild animals, at some point they need to be returned to their natural habitat in order to continue to survive past childhood and adolescence.

Living on the Fault Line goes just so far - adolescence. It is at that point that one needs to see Adopted: The Film for the hindsight of an adult interracial adoptee, an aspect not covered by Farber.

Except for the opening and closing music, it is presented in a series of rather dry interviews with parents, young adults and professionals. In chronological sequence, as one might organize chapters of a book. it starts with decisions around adoption, joy of adopting 'the baby" and then realizations of the child as they go through kindergarten, grade school and into high school. Two views beyond H.S. are presented. It is then followed with professionals commenting on racism and adoption rather than intertwining the topics as is done in films such as Adopted which though not fictionalized at all, plays more like a docudrama.

Fault Line does not dramatize. Fault Line, is, however, a vital and important educational tool for both tolerance, white privilege, and acceptance as well as adoption. It is a good companion piece for Adopted: the film, or on its own. The music and lack of any expression anger by the adoptees, will likely make it more palatable to those adopting to see it and hear its message, and that's important.

See trailer and order information here.

Why Giving a Child Up for Adoption Would Be Wrong for Me

You might want to comment to: Why Giving a Child Up for Adoption Would Be Wrong for Me at WomensRights.change.org

My response:

You are not alone! No one wants to suffer lifelong grief, doubt, and guilt of losing a child to adoption, and no one should have to. NO woman chooses to give birth and give away a baby, except paid surrogates.

And your discussion, like all discussions of abortion and adoption eliminate the third choice: being able to raise your child. Further…

All discussions about abortion and adoption forget that the two "choices" only exist in competition to one another for a very short, time-limited period of time, and many mothers are not even aware they are pregnant - or not able to think about it or deal with it - until that window has ceased be open any longer.

Discussion of abortion and adoption set up a cruel perception that every adopted person was at more risk of being aborted than any other human being, which is unfair and it is simply not true. It creates and perpetuates deep seeded feelings of indebtedness and gratitude for adoptees, which is a heavy and unwarranted burden to carry. It likewise places women who chose or are persuaded or pressured or coerced into placing their child for adoption into some kind of saints who chose life over abortion for their child when in fact most simply are not supported in doing what they would chose: keep and love and care for their child once it is no longer an unborn fetus but a fully sustainable human being.

It is thus regrettable that people continue these comparative discussions as they are very hurtful to those of us who lost children to adoption often under duress or perhaps totally involuntarily, and it is painful for all who have been adopted, and because they omit discussions of preserving families in crisis by helping them find the resources they need to remain intact.

Your discussion has also missed the point that crisis pregnancy centers push adoption as an adoption out of religious conviction and because there is money to be made in placing children for adoption to meet a demand by those willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars per child which is what places so much pressure on young and poor women.

In order to eliminate this “reverse Robinhoodism” women need to stop putting in orders for other women’s children.

Mirah Riben, author, The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry