My current research for a Practitioner Skills module is in regards to the aims and objectives of UNICEF as an international charity/fund. It's rather fascinating actually, that an organisation with such simple and clear aims seems to confuse the general public.
I don't mean that in a harsh way. It's just that, after email correspondence with an couple of adoption agencies in Guatemala, it was clear to me that not everyone is happy with unicef's policies and work.
I realised this after the agency denounced them as 'Evil'.
It wasn't just this though, but also through other media articles, that people might have this general idea of unicef as doing more harm than good.
However, this isn't true. Since the 1980s nearly every year the amount of children being adopted from Guatemala has risen, from 3264 in 2004 to 4,123 in 2008. This was just for the United states.
The statistics obviously differ, Peter Selman ( A U.K Professor) bases his statistics on 20 receiving states, whereas the above statistics were taken from the U.S Government's website.
Another document lists a change in Guatemala from 1,609(2001) adoptions to 3,748(2005) with a change of 132.9% overall (child welfare league of america).
I digress, this has an impact, why? you might ask, does this matter.
Read this quote, from an Innocenti Digest,
" Hence, one report
describes a criminal ring that kidnapped
Guatemalan children, obtained forged birth
certificates and passports, transported the chil-
dren to El Salvador and Honduras, and from
here arranged for their adoption in third coun-
ries.
55
These children and others like them
will never know anything about their origins,
not even where they were born."
As this rate was rising, so was the illegal trade of adoptable children to sell on to foreign couples. Obviously, UNICEF can't stand and let this happen. No one wants the value of Human life to be degraded this much, but in an industry worth 150m (then), how can an organisation interfere without interfering and still avoid being biased or patronising?
UNICEF is against intercountry adoptions anyway (this makes sense, if one reads the following two links, http://www.unicef.org/media/media_41118.html et http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/Guidance_note_Intercountry_adoption.pdf)
The Hague conventions ( ratified in Guatemala in 2003) have entirely frozen adoptions to and from the country. I read somewhere that it is possible to obtain a limited pass for approved agencies (I'll dig out this link to verify it), however, nearly all adoptions are frozen.
"The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention) entered into force with respect to the United States on April 1, 2008. Effective April 1, 2008, newly initiated intercountry adoptions between the United States and other Convention countries must comply with the Convention’s standards."
But many people would ignore the delicate nature of this situation and overlook the latter part of above. But how else could it have been done? It's obvious that although not everyone is happy with this choice it was the only way forward.
As mentioned before, it's always so simple to reduce these situations to simple facts, statistics and monetary values. It's far more complex than this, especially when a discussion's crux is human life and children.
I may have missed out some really important points, however, the bare structure is in place, and I will post my finished essay later on this year (which will be more refined and articulate)
More coming soon.
Some useful links and articles (many were used in this article)
http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest4e.pdf
http://adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart.html
http://www.lawreform.ie/publications/Adopt%20Report%20online.pdf
http://rogue.ncl.ac.uk/log_deposit_click.php?deposit_id=6190
http://www.icasn.org/resources/research/Intercountry%20Adoption%20in%20Europe%201998%20to%202006%20-%20patterns,%20trends,%20and%20issues.pdf
http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10105 (you can ignore much of this, the references are good though)
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_adopted/index.cfm
Believe it or not, there are more. Message me for a more exhaustive list.
