By way of the Washington Post article, Calvert Woman Arrested in Deaths of Two Children:

Authorities said they found what appeared to be the bodies of two children in a “drop-in” freezer Saturday in the basement of Renee Bowman’s home on Buckskin Trail in Lusby. Sheriff’s deputies had been searching the house for evidence in connection with the alleged beating of a third child, age 7.

In a news release issued this morning, authorities said Bowman, 43, told investigators that she had adopted three daughters from the District. One of the girls was found a short distance from her home on Friday morning after escaping from a locked bedroom by jumping out the window, the Calvert sheriff’s office said.

Bowman allegedly told investigators that she had beaten that child. She also allegedly said the bodies found in the freezer were the remains of her other two daughters, and had been in the freezer at least since she moved to Lusby from Rockville in February.

The other two girls, who appear to have died in Rockville (Montgomery Co, MD, a DC area suburban county) would have been ages 11 and 9:

Authorities said the two dead children’s remains were encased in a block of ice, and their identities likely will not be confirmed until the ice melts and autopsies can be performed. They said Bowman told them the girls were born in 1999 and 1997, and adopted by her four years ago.

(Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum / September 29, 2008)

As for the seven year old who escaped with her life, she was a prisoner in her own adoptive “home”/hellhole:

The investigation began Friday, after neighbors on Pawnee Lane found the 7-year-old who had jumped from the second-story window of the house on Buckskin Trail, a nearby street in the same subdivision. The girl was badly bruised and apparently beaten, authorities said today. Neighbors alerted the authorities, who transported the girl to Children’s Hospital and opened a child abuse investigation.

Some time later, Bowman came to the sheriff’s office after learning deputies had found her daughter. According to investigators, “she confessed to beating the victim with a ‘hard heeled shoe.’ ”

Authorities said Bowman told them the 7-year-old was rarely, if ever, permitted to leave the house. She was beaten “all over” and remains hospitalized, Evans said at the news conference.

Calvert authorities said there is no evidence that the 7-year-old was enrolled in Calvert County schools. Bowman does not have a criminal record and has not been accused of neglect or abuse in the past, they said.

Detectives obtained a search warrant for the house in an effort to find the shoe and other evidence. While searching the house, they found human remains in the freezer.

A copy of the Calvert County (Maryland) Sheriff’s press release can be found here in PDF format.

Naturally, the Baltimore Sun is also doing major coverage, Children’s remains found in Calvert Co. freezer:

Renee Bowman, 43, has been arrested on allegations that she abused her 7-year-old daughter, who was found walking barefoot on a neighborhood street Friday night.

The neighbor recounted today that the disheveled girl told him: “My mother just beats me. She just beats me to death.”

Authorities said the girl “showed signs of extreme abuse and neglect” and had fled her home Friday by jumping out of a second-floor window after she was locked in her bedroom.

Renee Bowman

The girl sounds like she barely escaped with her life:

Phillip Garrett, who said he found the 7-year-old walking on a gravel road early Friday evening with no socks or shoes, described his shock in seeing the girl. Her pink nightgown was muddied and her pigtails, fastened with pink barrettes, were matted.

Garrett, 21, was smoking a cigarette with his neighbor on his front lawn. He called out to her. “I said, ‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’ ”

According to Garrett, the girl answered, “My mother just beats me. She just beats me to death.”

Garrett, who was walking his cocker spaniel, Cocco, today as reporters from across the region descended on the rural area, described seeing the girl walking along Pawnee Lane, which intersects with Buckskin Trail. She told Garrett and his friend that her mother had “locked her out” of the house.

“She was very brave,” Garrett said. “She definitely looked like she had been through a lot.”

Garrett, who is a fashion designer and lives with his parents, said he embraced the girl, who stood stoically. He carried her into his neighbor’s home and called 911.

The girl told Garrett that she had not eaten in days, and he ordered a pizza. She requested pepperoni and ham, he said.

As they waited for about an hour, he said the girl told him she had stayed outside the whole night and had tried to knock on people’s doors but no one answered. The girl told him she attended school in Indian Head. While she never cried, she repeatedly expressed opposite emotions for her mother and father, Garrett said.

“She kept asking, ‘Is my mother going to be arrested?'” Alternately, she expressed love for her father, Garrett said.

“She was very protective of her father,” Garrett said. “He was the only one that cared. He was the one that took care of her.”

Of her two sisters, Garrett said, “She said her siblings had been beaten to death and one day, they just didn’t come back.”

The above is interesting in that it contradicts the Post article, saying that she did attend school, this will be an important contradiction to follow as whether or not she attended school may have determined much of her level of contact with the world outside the house.

In the wake of the adoptions, it looks as though these kids just fell through the cracks, no one checking to see if the girls were even alive. Had the 7 year old not gotten herself out, I think we can all guess what might well have happened. She, like her adopted sisters was on her own, left to fend for herself against her adoptive “mother”:

The girl is being treated a children’s hospital in Washington, said Moore, who declined to describe her injuries.

“She’s a hero for saving her own life,” he said. “I don’t know what would have happened if she stayed in that environment.”

And as we keep seeing in adoption abuse and murder cases, there are also animals suffering in the home as well:

Moore described the house’s exterior as typical, but he said that inside, it was “just pretty much a mess,” with four cats and a dog who all had severe cases of fleas.

A neighbor was quoted as saying she never saw the Bowman’s girls:

Nancy Sears, 60, who has lived in a home across from the Bowman residence for 18 years, said a woman and man moved into the home in February. She said a previous owner had put a new roof on the home and added vinyl siding a few years ago.

“I never, ever, ever, the whole time, saw any children,” Sears said. “No kids outside.”

Lusby is in Southern Maryland, about 50 miles from Washington DC.

I will be following this closely and will write more as more details emerge.

Maryland is my (ahem) ‘adopted’ home state. It is a study in contradictions, being both the wealthiest state in the nation but also a growing poverty rate, and a growing wage gap between the wealthiest and the poorest that is worse than the national average, a state of haves and have-nots with rich counties and poor counties. Despite the wealth concentrated in some areas of some counties, not everyone benefits, and these inequities spill over into other areas such as social services.

I have many questions about the process of these placements, how did the Bowmans adopt the three daughters and from where (other than the District, i.e. DC), public, familial or private adoptions? Did anyone ever follow up on those placements, checking in on those girls? Were they a sibling group or three separate unrelated adoptions? Etc.

Ultimately, did anyone have any responsibility to ensure these girls were even still alive post placement, or were these girls just left to the Bowmans to do with them what they would? Up to and including allegedly storing two dead adoptees in a freezer for seven months and allegedly nearly beating the third to death after starving her and isolating her from the outside world.

“Maryland, my Maryland” indeed!

On a more personal note, I’m rarely reduced to tears while doing this adoption blogging, I’ve spent the past year wadding through the murky swamps of adoption related abuse, murder, starvation, and unending cruelty, I’ve tackled the ongoing saga of how states have taken up the encouragement of child abandonment, dump laws as policy, and I’ve looked long and hard at the process by which children enter the international adoption trade, be that through child selling or kidnapping, or worse, but through it all, I’m usually more angered than saddened. But this, in my own proverbial back yard has been difficult to write. Not because it’s local, but because seven year olds in the wealthiest state in America have only themselves to depend upon. She was abandoned to an adoption that nearly killed her. An adoption that killed her two sisters.

I’ve spoken repeatedly in my blog about the need to do better by the kids.

How things like allowing parents to opt out of public schools creates a way for children to simply disappear.

At the moment, there’s a shadow of a 7 year old in a hospital not far from here who deserved a hell of a lot better. The existing SYSTEM failed her.

Whatever eventually happens to the Bowmans, we need to look at far more than one “family” and one house and instead work to create systems of prevention. Systems where the kids come first, not their abusers.

This is the fourth piece in my series of posts about the Nebraska legalized abandonment/child dump law. Go to my Nebraska tab to read the other, earlier pieces.

***

Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment law went into effect July 18th, 2008. 73 days ago.

The first two kids dumped in Nebraska under the new law, (over the weekend of Sept 13-14) a tween and a teen, were abandoned just over two weeks ago.

Over the past 16 days, 16 kids have been abandoned. (Yes including the sad case of the father who abandoned 9 at once.)

Nebraska legislators should be ashamed.

Speaking as an adoptee coming from a sealed records state, I have no way of knowing whether I was abandoned or spent time in foster care of not, but what I do know is that kids, particularly minors are going to internalize this and live with the Nebraska’s legislators’ social experimentation for the rest of their lives.

At least one story over the past few weeks pointed out that a counselor working with a dumped kid said the hardest part was for the kid to understand that this wasn’t their fault.

Kids are not inanimate objects. Kids are not things to try a policy out on and if it doesn’t work, leave those directly affected to deal with their (state created) ‘personal problems’. Only to head back to some mythic drawing board to ‘tweek’ these laws and try again, as if do-overs don’t matter. Dump bill 2.0 is not going to fix the problems inherent to any dump bill. It will only to subject the next batch of kids to the next bad batch of legislation. The kids can’t walk away from the consequences. Subjecting them to this unnecessary level of trauma is unconscionable.

Kids are not legislative lab rats.

Kids deserve better than abandonment.

If Nebraska abandonments are primarily going to be used as a state mediated way to plug families into support systems, (which should not be faith-based non-profits), then cut out the abandonment step. Make access to genuine support available long before things escalate to the point of child abandonment.

Do not put kids through this emotional ordeal, (nor ever even possibly,) require parents surrender the parental rights to gain access to help.

No state should be in the business of actively encouraging child abandonment, ever.

And yet today that’s precisely where we stand. All 50 states shamefully abandoning all basis of best practices in child welfare, adoption, and genuine concern for the kids as actual individuals and instead telling parents the answers to their problems lies in abandoning their children.

Yes, in time I will get to other posts, filled with links and details and quotes and all that important stuff, but for this one singular moment, this is a post without citation. This is a post purely about expressing rage.

What Nebraska legislators have done in their mad rush to pass SOMETHING is fuck over 16 kids.

It’s past time to stop. What they have done is fundamentally wrong. How many more kids are going to have to endure these political schemes?

These were parents who needed access to services, but not at the cost of even potentially losing their children. Not at the cost of putting any child through this. The ‘cost’ of linking up with what support may or may not be available must not be a kid wondering why ‘mommy doesn’t love them anymore?’ (Enough so as as to abandon them at a designated dump site.) The assumptions in that are all wrong, but the scars are real.

‘Mommy’ or ‘Daddy’ in reality, if these past two weeks are any indication, often loves the kid fiercely, but in the end, feels they have no other alternative than to utilize the dump law.

Child abandonments are evidence that the ‘system’ is failing these families.

When a child is dumped it is no ‘save’, it is evidence that the system didn’t work, so much so that someone felt this was all they had left.

Dumps ‘save’ nothing for these children. They break trust. The trust between parents and children and between citizens and the state.

Nebraska can do better. All 50 states can do better.

Child abandonment is evidence of a severely broken system. Passing the hard effects of that down to children, those least able to cope with such is nothing less than a cowardly shirking of duty. It is the ugly admission that some people feel the problems are simply ‘too big’, and rather than tackle them, they leave kids to deal with the consequences, personally, as best they can.

Dump laws are intrinsically bad for kids. They are intrinsically harm based.

It’s time to stop mumbling about the possibility of coming up with ‘new and improved’ ways for the state to encourage child abandonment and instead realize that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ child abandonment law.

Child abandonment is never a ‘success’, it is nothing to be cheered, let alone promoted.

Every Child dump is evidence of things gone horribly wrong, of broken systems, of desperation, of regret, and of the state failing its families and children.

Now that we’ve seen the raw face of legalized child abandonment, and what it does to kids, be they 18 or infants, it’s time to strip these abominations out of our states.

Repeal them now.

Nothing less than full repeal.

Yes, I’m posting twice on the Nebraska disaster mere hours apart. Go read my other two posts, SHAME on Nebraska!- When ‘we told you so,’ barely begins to scratch the surface and Nebraska Dump Law, just how deep does this rabbit hole go? as an important backgrounder to this one.

***

Nebraska has finally realized its in over its head.

They opened the floodgates by passing the most egregious legalized child abandonment law in the country, a law that allowed children up to age 19 to be dumped. The kids can be dumped for any reason, by anyone who has bodily custody of them.

Some of us Bastards wrote at the time what an incredibly bad idea this was, and that it was simply a matter of time before Nebraska found older kids being dumped.

Well, so the past 24 hours have seen ELEVEN kids dumped in Nebraska.

As I wrote in my previous post, Nebraska, like any other state, simply has no facilities nor mechanisms, nor long term solutions to fully deal with what these kids would require. They passed the legislation without building any of the necessary structures to even begin to deal with them.

Now the kids are pouring in and people are left stammering ‘but… but, THAT’S not what we INTENDED!’

All intentions aside, Nebraska now has 11 kids who would not have been abandoned were it not for this ill-conceived legislation.

My policy recommendation, dump the legislators and the legislation, not the kids.

Instead of blogging in detail about all of the events of the past 24 hours, I’m simply going to point readers at these two pieces, UPDATE: 2 More Kids Abandoned; 11 Total In Past 24 Hours (and the video that accompanies it) and this AP piece 9 siblings among 11 kids abandoned under Neb. law, as but two of many possible examples.

Be sure to note this quote from the AP article:

Todd Landry, director of the state division of Children and Family Services, said that in nearly every case, the parents who left their children felt overwhelmed and had decided they didn’t want to be parents anymore. None of the kids dropped off so far have been in danger, he said.

The video in the first piece reiterates, the nine kids, ranging from age 1-17 were not in any immediate danger.

These kids weren’t “saved”, they were dumped.

Abandoned by both their father and the state of Nebraska.

Also be sure to check out this article, Mom Accused After Dropping Off Teen At Police Station. Among the more Orwellian aspects of the dump mentality, we find this lovely little redefinition from the mother in question:

“I hope he knows I love him and I didn’t abandon him. …I hope he knows he can come back home and I want him,”

Clearly even the dumpers have no idea what the legal ramifications of an abandonment under Nebraska’s law (had this actually been one, but she picked a non-authorized site) would mean.

Nebraska has intentionally created a child welfare disaster.

Now legislators want to go back and modify the ‘safe haven law’ /baby Moses law/ “baby”dump law, a little like closing the barn door after the horses have left.

There is no ‘fixing’ these laws. Even should it be modified to apply only to “newborns” (define and prove that one…) or kids in ‘imminent danger’ (again proving that one will be no end of tricky) it will STILL deny infants their identity, circumvent all best practices in child welfare and adoption, and create a class of kids relinquished in a ‘paperfree’ manner.

Just because newborns are too young to voice their demand for their own rights doesn’t mean they should be denied them.

There is only one child-centered course of action for Nebraska to take, full repeal of their child dump law.

Passing this initial travesty was shameful, an abandonment of the state’s duties to its children, and has ALREADY resulted in kids hastily dumped into the already overburdened Nebraska foster care system.

Someone get these kids a lawyer, they’ve got one hell of a case.

(This is the second posting I’ve done about the babydump law in Nebraska. This post builds on the foundation I laid out in my first post, SHAME on Nebraska!- When ‘we told you so,’ barely begins to scratch the surface. I strongly urge readers to read it first before continuing on to this post.)

***

Or, to mix my metaphors, pull a thread, any thread… .

As always, what should take ten minutes to blog, doesn’t. Taking a minute or two to follow up on some of the links out of any given news article tends to lead deeper and deeper.

It’s not bad enough that Nebraska has become the official national dumping ground for children (up to age 19) whose parents or guardians no longer care to care for them, nope, now as we get a rare peek at the system the dumped kids go into the picture becomes clearer still.

Rather than the state, which has made collection of said little dumplings possible, dealing with the aftermath of the events it set in motion, instead, once the kids are dumped they are outsourced entering into private and non-profit structures for likely ‘reformative therapies’ or redistribution. In essence, the state of Nebraska makes the whole mess possible, then hands off the day to day dealing with the kids to a private non-profit entity.

So by way of ‘a thread’ to pull on, let’s start here, Neb. Law Lets Parents Dump Kids Of Any Age (& see video on left side of page.)

Mere days after the first two Nebraska dumps (two boys aged 11 and 15) we now have two more to report, a 13 year old girl left at a hospital over last weekend and a 12 year old boy who was abandoned at a police station. The latter being important as Police stations are NOT designated dump sites under Nebraska law. Thus the Mother who dumped the boy is now facing charges in civil court (I will blog about that separately, later.)

So the Nebraska dump total is four kids in under a month none of which are under the age of 11.

Shame on Nebraska. Time to dump legislators, not kids.

Apparently Nebraska being the adolescent abandonment capital of the United States is just fine by some legislators:

Neb. State Sen. Brad Ashford says he’s “not surprised,” but has no regrets about the law.

Do these legislators not understand that the state encouraging child abandonment is an act of betrayal of its responsibilities towards some of its most legally vulnerable and politically disadvantaged citizens?

Why, pray tell is Nebraska insistent upon making it as easy as possible to rid oneself of one’s child?

Shouldn’t states instead be making it more difficult to abandon children?

Apparently not.

Reading down through the article another important tiny detail caught my eye:

Kids who are dropped off are brought to an organization called Project Harmony for evaluation, Kauffman explains.

So, by way of pulling a bit more on the thread and continuing to watch the proverbial sweater unravel, we find Project Harmony is a nonprofit, designed to work in partnership with the state. Under normal circumstances, it specializes in dealing with kids in circumstances of sexual and physical abuse and neglect.

Abandoned kids are going to be dealing not with issues of incest or sexual molestation, but with a different sense of profound betrayal, that those closest to them, often parents or other relatives in essence getting rid of them permanently, ending all legal claim to parenting or guardianship responsibilities. (Perhaps after the initial shock wears off, they may also turn their anger towards the state for making such not only possible, but easy.) I know of no program anywhere that specializes in the feelings those kids (up to age 19, remember) are going to be dealing with.

Issues of sexual abuse and legalized abandonment are worlds apart. Trying to adapt programs specializing in the former to occasionally deal with an abandoned kid coming through will only serve to increase the kid’s sense of isolation. Further, I can think of few things more isolating than taking a dumped 15 year old and putting him a room full of stuffed Tiggers and Winnie the Poohs, prior to enduring an interviewing process. As the abandoned kids enter the system one by one, they will have no ‘peers’ to decrease their sense of isolation, square pegs in round holes manufactured for someone else.

The bottom line remains, there are no facilities for dumped teens because until Nebraska did something unbearably stupid, legalize teen abandonment, such was not actively ENCOURAGED by any state.

But sliding the dumpees over to Project Harmony serves another purpose as well. The older dumps are being reframed (just as they were being before the legislation passed) as being ‘at risk of child abuse.’ The false notion/marketing took on the theme that dumping the kids of any age was critical as it would ‘prevent abuse.’ Is it any wonder then, that the initial dumpees under the new law are being passed off into a system that focuses on dealing with abused children? Doing so reinforces the false mythology and enables the lie of these kids as ‘saved’ to go forward, despite the fact that clearly what little of the stories of these kids we’ve seen in the media tell a very different story.

These were not kids in ‘danger’ their lives were not ‘saved’ by being dumped. They were kids their parent or guardians were exasperated with, and refused to deal with any longer. There was no hitting, there was abandoning, an abuse no doubt many of these kids would consider far worse than any hitting.

But the mythology overrides, so off into the land of abused kids and Pooh bears they go.

Where there is no genuine harm or genuine risk, mythologies of potential risks to be ‘saved from’ preventatively are created, so that every dumped child can be reclassified a ‘save’.

To get a feel for the overwrought emotionalism ( & overt religiosity) Project Harmony is apparently willing to utilize, wander over to their media page and click on the Collin Raye Video, “The 11th Commandment,” (though a quick word of caution is in order, those having endured incest or domestic violence may find this video distressing. For that matter, sane people may find the video distressing, just not necessarily in the way the producers intended. Ironic, for an organization supposedly built around the notion that having to retell or re-experience such abuse is to be minimized at every opportunity, it is after all, part of their raison d’etre.)

Project Harmony also has a specific outreach/training focus on Raising Child Abuse Awareness in Faith-based Communities, (not the least bit surprising considering the number of kids who are abused in church or other religious contexts.)

For more of an overview of their program and how interwoven into the community structures Project Harmony is also be sure to see “Speaking of Children” Media Coverage (on the same media page) WOWT’s Heartland Focus. (And don’t even get me started on John Walsh.) As Project Harmony is intentionally co-located with, and interwoven with local state structures they receive:

rental income from Omaha Police Department and Child Protective Services.

It is very intentionally designed to blur the lines between state structures and private non-profit entities, envisioning such as a “partnership”.

Looking more closely at Project Harmony, on its purpose page, we find a list of “partner agencies,” one of which is Child Saving Institute.

Ok time to give that thread another yank and watch the sweater unravel further still. So what’s the “Child Saving Institute?” Well to quote one paragraph from their history page:

Child Saving Institute can trace its origins in the Omaha community to 1892 when Rev. A.W. Clark realized there was more need to help neglected, abandoned children then the men and women he intended to reform. Due to the hazards of pioneer life, epidemics, and poverty, many children were left in need of parental care. With the help of his wife, Sarah, Rev. Clark admitted the first child, a small seven-year-old girl, to the Boys and Girls Aid Society, which he soon changed to the Child Saving Institute. In 1911, with the help of a $25,000 pledge from George Joslyn, the entire Omaha community celebrated the agency’s move to a debt-free, state-of-the-art orphanage. For the next 65 years the agency provided services from that facility including a safe haven for abandoned children, adoption, and a home for unwed mothers.

Well, we’ve certainly come full circle here, haven’t we?

The orphanage and maternity camp of yesteryear still with us in its modern form.

Child Saving Institute, or CSI, maintains many of those same functions, with a program laden with infant adoption, adoption, interracial adoption, fostering, foster adoption, and “pregnancy counseling” (note the block at the bottom of the page, the “success story” result of their “unbiased counseling” is in adoption plan). CSI is ‘one stop shopping, among the services they provide are adoptive parent recruitment and home studies. They are listed among “abortion alternatives” in various directories.

If substance abuse is one of the ‘reasons’ the dumpers dumped the kid, then perhaps Project Harmony will pass the kid along to Child Saving Institute’s Journeys Substance Abuse Treatment program. Agencies accredited through CSI’s program include other non-profits and faith based programs, Catholic Charities for example.

(To gain some useful historical background about the conditions pregnant womyn in Nebraska endured, go take a look at Adoptee grateful for Nebraska Industrial Home. The article also includes a small mention of how in 1953, Child Saving Institute along with the University Hospital, were viewed as a means to pick up the slack when the state finally voted to close the Nebraska Industrial “Home”. Begun in the 1880’s, the Nebraska Industrial “Home” was the first and only state funded maternity camp in the nation at the time.)

Child Saving Institute, has located in a building that formerly housed Women’s Services P.C. clinic, a womyn’s reproductive health clinic that had offered abortions. (Interestingly, CSI also has a Planned Parenthood as a nearby neighbor.)

Finally, as we stand amidst our pile of yarn, contemplating where our sweater (and adoption best practices) went, we return back to the original article, to find what lies at the heart of the matter, the shadow that while constantly present in these dump bills/baby Moses laws one usually only catches fleeting glimpses of, Bill Pierce’s notion of “non-bureaucratic placement”:

Are there alternatives for parents who are having problems with their teenagers at home?

“There are,” Bloom says, “but it’s very difficult. A parent could institute a relinquishment proceeding. But that could take a lot of weeks or even months, a lot of expensive legal bills.

Apparently REAL adoptions are just considered too much of a hassle for some, too much paperwork, too long, too “expensive” for parents to even contemplate.

The instant gratification of washing ones hands of a kid permanently far more desirable.

As to who precisely benefits by such, other than the parents or guardians, and in what ways remains to be fully examined.

The rabbit hole just continues down.

***

Again, I advocate nothing short of the full repeal of all babydumping/”Safe haven”/baby Moses laws. Kids deserve better than abandonment.

The latest attempt to open adoption records to adopted individuals in Michigan has become just another ‘leave some bastards behind’ bill(s).

It’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Instead of stripping out secrets and lies, the latest work in Michigan has become mired in full access blocking disclosure vetoes (wrapped in a “Contact Preference Form”) and contact vetoes.

Michigan, not dissimilar to Ohio, currently allows some access to a lucky few, while leaving the rest behind.

Rather than moving towards the fairness of a single standard, the latest attempt to clean up the Michigan records mess has become stuck in more of the same, another variation on the perpetuation of the arbitrary system. Yes to you, no to you.

It’s past time states stopped leaving disposable Bastards behind, making our discriminatory lack of access something hidden and locked away behind the guise of such being a ‘personal situation’ when it is the State itself setting up the conditions that enable leaving a subclass of Bastards behind.

Michigan HB4696 and HB 8297 (the two bills that work in tandem) should be pulled.

They continue Michigan’s existing disaster of treating adoptees differently and continue the legacy of lies.

Bastardette has a full post detailing the two bills here, MICHIGAN: STOP HB 4696 AND HB 8297, which includes the full Bastard Nation action alert on the bills and contact information for legislators.

Michigan, like every state, needs a single fair standard that treats adoptees equally. HB 4696 and HB 8297 are not it.

This is the second in what will undoubtedly be a number of posts pertaining to Masha and the situations she has endured, and to the best of my knowledge is currently enduring.

The first post I did, similar to this one, points to others’ writings by means of getting the information out as when I wrote that first post, Masha, I had not found the words to even begin to express my sorrow and my anger. In any case, if you haven’t already read the initial post, or if you need ‘reminding’ of the core basics about the nightmare she’s been through, go there first.

***

By way of a second post about Masha, let me just state the obvious, I still haven’t begun to find the words necessary to write the post that really should occupy this space.

The more I learn about her circumstances and the individuals and infrastructure (State or otherwise) surrounding her, particularly in relation to this domestic adoption travesty, is the more sickened I become. She has been used by so many people, in so many ways.

After:

* being adopted/sold into sexual slavery,

* being starved, photographed, and the photographs being made available all over the web,

* the high profile FBI raid that removed her from Matthew Mancuso,

* testifying before congress as part of the creation of “Masha’s law” which was of course about “net child porn” not about the adoption by the pedophile into a house wherein she did not even have a room of her own (yeah great homestudy there assholes!),

off she went into a domestic, “faith-based” adoption nightmare scenario, by way of a nutso judge who had delusions of herself enacting the role of a sort of instrument in the hand of god. The adoption, naturally then was chalked up to “divine orchestration“, (never mind pesky details such as the conflict of interest ongoing pre-existing friendship betwixt the judge and the would be adopter.)

As for the (domestic) “faith-based” adoption, Judge Allen (a former Democrat turned Republican, over “a difference in principles,”) has certainly gained in notoriety by her association with Masha’s adoption. Her work on the bench is apparently an extension of her ‘kingdom’ work. Reading over this Google cached copy of her bio from her campaign gives one a pretty good feel for her. Be sure to explore some of the associations, such as her sitting of organizational boards of “faith based” junk psuedo-therapies such as Theotherapy Seminars, Inc (the founder of which thinks ” good theology is good psychology.”) Judge Allen connected Masha’s future domestic adopter, “Faith Allen” to “counseling” through Theotherapy.

Which brings us to the adopter herself, “Faith Allen”/”Lynn Ginn”/”Kimberly Murphy” (and potentially going by other names, she’s) is a story unto herself. She, like a number of other christian autobiographical re-creationist nomads of ‘satanic panic’ fame (Eric Pryor as but one screwed up example comes to mind), has her own little bout of ‘personal testimony enhancement’. Despite later recantings of portions of her story, her claim to fame, prior to her getting being awarded Masha, had been running around claiming she was a so called ‘satanic cult survivor’,

Faith claims to have grown up in a satanic cult. She says she drank human blood; was pregnant by one of the leaders of the cult; she killed the baby as a sacrifice; and she had sexual relations with other men in the cult.

Now does this sounds like a nice solid “stable home” for Masha in the wake of enduring five years of sexual abuse at the hands of Mancuso? Perhaps even more importantly does this sound like the kind of ‘help’ Masha needed in the wake of her previous ordeal?

“Faith” (or whatever name she’s going by this week,) viewed Masha as both an opportunity to ‘minister to’ and a ‘ministry opportunity’, parlaying her adoption of Masha into national (junk-voyeur) tv appearances such as the Oprah Winfrey Show and Nancy Grace. Masha has been her ticket.

Back at the end of July, James Marsh began a new blog, simply putting forwards some of the raw documentation relating to Masha, entitled Omens. Marley/Bastardette did a blog post introduction to it here, OMENS: A MASHA ALLEN COMPENDIUM OF ABUSE. Her characterization of Masha and the adoptions she has endured,

I call Masha the Rosetta Stone of corrupt international adoption–and now domestic adoption.

may be the best description of the ongoing catastrophe I’ve seen.

Just go read the raw entries on Omens, the paper trail says more than I ever could. (Which is not to say I personally endorse or agree with every single thing there, but there certainly is more than enough to mine raw data out of, and lots of potential ledes to follow up on lying around in that data.)

The picture that quickly emerges is horrifying. Far from giving her support and any semblance of ‘normacy’ in the wake of her time being brutally used by Mancuso, she has instead been handed off to yet another incredibly fucked up set of circumstances. Nowhere in ‘the system’ have we seen anyone looking out for Masha’s genuine ‘best interests’, just what they could use her for; utilizing her as an object to leap frog over as a means to buttressing their own career and personal interests.

With not one, but now two, adopters like these, she can’t turn 18 fast enough.

Masha, wherever you are, I hope you make it out.

This is the first post in an ongoing growing body of work I have done criticizing Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment laws. You can find the rest of my posts about the (de)evolving situation via my Nebraska tag.

***

It’s long past time for Nebraska to repeal the worst baby dump law in the country.

Fortunately pencils come with two ends, one of which is for erasing mistakes.

As of Saturday, Nebraska has become the ‘legally dump your teen!’ capital of the United States.

This past weekend exactly what many of us who have opposed Nebraska’s “baby safe haven” law had predicted unfortunately came to pass. (This is yet another of those circumstances wherein I just don’t want to be right.)

Less than two months after the law went into effect, kids over the age of ten were dumped. In separate incidents, the first two kids dumped under Nebraska’s new law were two boys, one age 11, the other age 15, both were “(baby) safe havened” at Nebraska hospitals.

Clearly “Baby safe haven”, in Nebraska at least, is terminology gone null and void. While baby imagery abounds from the insipid little ducky on the safe haven Nebraska myspace page to the smiling youngster’s faces on the National Safe Haven Alliance page or their signs,

the latest unsmiling dumpees faces are instead, those of tweens and teens. (But then, it’s kinda hard to get a teen’s head held cutely in the palm of a hand… .)

Last July, Nebraska’s insane dump law went into effect, allowing anyone having physical custody of a “child” (up to age 19, one hell of a redefinition of “child!” and how in the heck does one ‘have custody’ of a 18 year old anyway?) to legally abandon said “child” at specified drop off sites.

Those of us who have opposed dump laws from back in the days of the nation’s first, (in Texas under then Governor Bush, then called a “baby Moses law,”) were quick to point out that Nebraska’s dump scheme would inevitably, sooner or later, result in teens and pre-teens being dumped, likely by ‘overwhemed’, or “economically disadvantaged” adults. Well, sure enough, less than two months in, guess who shows up at the hospitals as Nebraska’s first dumps?

Meet Nebraska’s newest ‘precious little dumplings’, via an article entitled Unruly juveniles given up under ‘safe haven’ law out of Monday’s Omaha World Herald,

The 2-month-old law was used twice Saturday, both times by people leaving misbehaving adolescents with whom they could no longer cope.

An 11-year-old boy was dropped off Saturday afternoon at Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha. A few hours later, a 15-year-old boy was left at Bryan LGH Medical Center West in Lincoln.

Both boys are now in the custody of the State Department of Health and Human Services.

Which is to say neither of these dumped kids were ever in any danger of being killed by those who had custody of them, the usual superficial justification for baby Moses laws nationwide. No kids lives were saved by these dumps.

These were nothing more than ‘good-riddance’ dumps, dumps that finally cut to the core, saying far more about those dumping the kids, and the state that enables such, than about any of the pretenses any of these laws are enacted under.

Now, where do you suppose the idea to dump at least one of the two kids came from? Why a ‘helpful’ “counselor” of course!

The aunt said that the boy had behavioral problems and that a counselor had suggested that she take him to the hospital under the safe haven law.

This is what happens when dump laws get woven into the fabric of ‘support’ services. Can’t deal with the 15 year old you have legal custody of? No problem, just get rid of him, Nebraska will be happy to take said kid off your hands.

One really has to question the credentials of any “counselor” whose ‘solution’ to dealing with a teen with ‘behavioral problems’ is to legally abandon the kid, legally relinquishing all custody of said child. Really think about that, the ‘counselor’s’ ‘solution’ was to say ‘get rid of the kid once and for all.’ The Aunt went along with the advice. Just how was the ‘safe haven’ law presented to her? Was it sold similarly to how many parents have lost children to adoption, as merely a ‘temporary break while you sort things out’?

Reporters on the ground should be asking the basic questions about the string of events that led to the kid being dumped. To date, though, I don’t see that anyone has.

One of the more troubling aspects of the dump laws nationally has been how the information is presented to the prospects, be that via ‘counseling’ or as ‘how to dump a kid’ get woven into school curriculums.

Both of these dumped kids are now ‘fine examples’ of what Bill Pierce, the (now deceased) former head of, and founder of the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) and early baby Moses law advocate, once referred to as “non-bureaucratic placement(s)”.

The kids get dumped, but unlike traditional terminations of parental rights and potentially eventual adoptions, in the cases of dumped kids, parental rights are simply cut without any of the usual ‘messy paperwork’ or waiting periods to slow the process.

(Now these boys being less than desirable adoption fodder, what with being termed ‘unruly juveniles’ and all, odds are pretty slim they’d be finding a new adoptive home within the week. Young, cute, and perhaps less verbal dumplings on the other hand, are in high demand, with phone calls coming in wanting to adopt almost from the first mention on many local newscasts.)

As for NCFA itself, it is an industry trade group and lobby founded in 1980, as a direct reaction to the 1979/1980 Carter administration’s Draft Model State Adoption Act (DMSAA) which had called for restoring records access by adoptees to their own adoption records. NCFA was created very specifically by industry interests to derail and defeat the open records provisions of the DMSAA.

Similar to NCFA’s reactionary founding, Pierce and NCFA became early promoters of baby Moses laws in the wake of Oregon’s historic Measure 58 (passed in 1998, tied up in legal challenges until 2000), the statewide referendum that restored records access to adult adoptees, as a strategic means of circumventing the open records victory.

After all, how can one have open records when there are no records to get? Baby Moses laws ensure that children, particularly newborns and infants, are relinquished in a ‘paperfree’ manner, and made available almost immediately for fast track adoptions. Nebraska’s law goes further, allowing for those in possession of “children” up to age 19, to abandon them.

To quote the Bastard Nation position piece on legalized abandonments,

Bastard Nation believes that it is no coincidence that Safe Haven laws have been enacted just as the efforts of Bastard Nation and other adoptee civil rights activists have begun to overturn archaic state laws which seal our records from us. One prominent sealed records lobbyist wrote recently that “disappearing privacy rights” [records access] “has led most States to pass Safe Haven laws so that women and their babies have a life-saving option of anonymously taking a baby to a hospital or other safe place.” Safe Haven laws, we believe, are simply a tool to codify secret relinquishment and adoption.

This is elaborated upon in Bastard Nation’s 2003 piece, RESPONSE TO UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: “SAFE HAVEN” LAWS ARE CAUSING PROBLEMS NOT SOLVING THEM,

While these programs and campaigns can take on a life of their own, their impetus in large part has come from conservative and highly influential adoption lobbyists such as retired National Council for Adoption President and CEO Dr. William Pierce who for over 20 years has opposed identity rights and records access for adult adoptees. It came as no surprise to us, then, when Dr. Pierce, complaining about “disappearing privacy rights in adoption” wrote last year that Safe Haven laws are a direct response to the successful movement to overturn outdated sealed records laws in the US.[1]

(Footnote , 1 William J. Pierce, “European Court of Human Rights may overturn French law that promised women confidentiality in adoption,” Extra! October 9, 2002, (url to the citation off the now dead IAVAAN.org site) Dr. Pierce is also the Director of the Richard C. Stillman Foundation for Adoption which has given modest grants to the pioneering Baby Moses Project in Texas and AMT Children of Hope Foundation Infant Burial Fund, a Safe Haven powerhouse in New York State. 990-PF Form, IRS Return of Private Foundation, 2000, 10; Activity Report, The Richard C. Stillman Foundation for Adoption 1996-1999, 10)

Bill Pierce always viewed his baby Moses laws work as crucial to and within the broader context of his anti-abortion work. In short he viewed adoption as a zero-sum-game way of working against abortion. (Pierce was a Senior Fellow of Discovery Institute, heading their office in Washington, D.C.) He was also the first national vice president of ‘Democrats for Life’ one can still find a few mentions of his position in places such as this for example.

(All of which is to say, abortion access supportive individuals and organizations who have been misled into supporting baby Moses laws under the false application of the label “privacy’ take note, the real push for such, and ultimately beneficiaries of such laws are NOT those who support abortion access.)

The termination of parental rights via dump takes on important dimensions in at least one of these two Nebraska cases, as the 15 year old was dropped by his Aunt. While the boy’s mother may be dead, the father may still have held some parental rights at the time of the dump,

The 15-year-old was dropped at Bryan LGH off by his aunt, who became the child’s legal guardian after the boy’s mother died. Landry said HHS had helped facilitate the guardianship but did not have an active case.

As for the 11 year old, he was apparently an adoptee, who due to Nebraska’s insipid law, ended up in more or less a ‘returns department’ when his adopters no longer wanted him,

The 11-year-old boy was left at Immanuel by his adoptive mother, who said the boy had some behavioral problems. He had moved here from out of state and had been adopted by relatives. Landry said that HHS had helped the original state with the adoption but that the case is no longer active.

So there you have it, don’t like the kid you adopted? No problem, Nebraska now has a ‘warentee period’ of up to 19 years, wherein dissatisfied adopters can simply dump the no longer desirable child.

‘Fortunately’, the policy applies equally to biological children. No longer want the kid you popped out? Nebraska is your dream destination.

But should we really have expected less than the single most extreme “baby Moses law” in the country from Bill Pierce’s home state of Nebraska, final stop for somewhere between six and seven thousand kids on the orphan trains, the 75 year long (eugenic) child redistribution scheme, and a state where Boys Town is a major tourist destination?

Nebraska had held the proud distinction of having been the final hold out state, the last of all fifty to enact these deplorable bills that circumvent all notions of best practice. In part, precisely because Nebraska has had such a long history with and awareness of forms of child welfare experimentation. With a mere nine years between the first bill in Texas through to the final state to fall, Nebraska, the gutting of traditional child relinquishments was complete, nationwide.

What we have to show for that sorry mess is a 15 year old dumped, as but the latest of a wave of nationwide relinquishments, usually done at least in theory if not in practice, “anonymously” thereby creating a whole new set of ‘legally abandoned’ potential and actual adoptees.

The Nebraska bill had been stalled, until the original provision, limiting the age of the potential dumpee downward towards newborns was changed to the current abomination.

State Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he had not anticipated that many older children would be dropped off when he agreed to remove the age limit in the original safe haven proposal.

Other articles such as this from the Daily Nebraskan, Safe haven law raises abandonment concerns shed further light on the thinking, (or lack thereof) at the time,

Arnie Stuthman, a Nebraska state senator from Platte Center, Neb., proposed the bill. He said including older children in the law wasn’t in the original bill, but he “compromised” and added the provision in hopes of preventing child abuse.

Before the bill passed, objections were raised.

The Nebraska Children’s Home Society, ( see for example, this PDF from their web page, and this article, NE Children’s Home Society opposes safe havens) and Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization has tirelessly fought baby Moses laws both in Nebraska (see BASTARD NATION’S SUBMITTED TESTIMONY: OPPOSITION TO NEBRASKA LB 6–SAFE HAVEN 1/19/07) and in state after state.

Perhaps more importantly, go read Marley Greiner’s (The Executive Chair of Bastard Nation) personal blog Bastardette, and her series of posts about precisely this inevitability. Ms Greiner has been tracking Baby dumps (via her personally published “Baby Dump News: A Weekly Chronicle of Baby Abandonment”), and working against the scourge of baby Moses laws/baby dump laws nationwide with Bastard Nation for years now.

Keeping in mind that Nebraska’s baby Moses law took effect July 18th, 08. She saw what was coming and Cassandra-like tried to warn of the new law’s likely effect. Unfortunately her warning fell on the deaf ears of those either convinced that Nebraska’s impending child welfare disaster was either a good thing, or never going to occur.

NEBRASKA”S NEW BABY DUMP LAW: BETTER THAN RITILAN Friday, February 29, 2008

NEBRASKA SAFE HAVEN LAW: TIRED OF YOUR KID Thursday, July 17, 2008

HEGEL SMILES: NEBRASKA’S NO FAULT DUMP Saturday, July 19, 2008

Also be sure to glance through some of the Bastard Nation materials on babydumps, it’s become positively ‘quaint’ to look back on the days when the fear was that with increasing age windows on dumps, oh horror, TODDLERS might be dumped!

See, as but a few examples,

BN’s position on Legalized Baby Abandonment,

BN’s early statement on Legalized Abandoment Laws from back in 2000,

the BN action alert on such also from 2000

BN opposing the raising of dump ages back in 2004 in this piece, entitled Oh No! Toddler Dumps!

Marley and BN warned over and over of how Pierce’s perverse dream of ” non-bureaucratic placements” and demand for ever rising age limitations would sooner or later result in abandoned teens. Within nine years of the nation’s first dump law(1999) that dark future is here, now. We’ve moved from the legal possibility to an actual “legally abandoned” 15 year old.

While tween and teen dumps may elicit unwarranted ‘shock,’ and may even bring Nebraska lawmakers back to revisit the bill (See the Sept 15th AP piece, 2 boys left at Neb. hospitals under ‘haven’ law, in which State Sen. Stuthman and others are quoted as being “open to revisiting the legislation”) the unseen and often unvoiced full horror of the law is that it intentionally encourages legalizes child abandonment AND effectively works to short circuit the fundamental identity rights of adoptees.

The full consequences of which cannot be given first person political voice until the first generation of legally dumped kids reaches the age of majority. The consequences to these kids are dire, if often rendered invisible for the time being.

There is no ‘going back to the drawing board ‘that can ‘fix’ a baby Moses bill, they are to their core harmful to those least able to speak on their own behalf.

There is only one adoptee or kid/eventual adult centered possibility of what to do with legalized abandonment laws, dump them.

Anything less than full repeal only perpetuates the ongoing disaster.

***

Here are a few other raw sources on the Nebraska Teen and Tween dumps over the weekend,
AP Two boys abandoned under Nebraska’s ‘safe haven’ law 9/15/08

The 11-year-old is still at the hospital and the 15-year-old is in an emergency shelter until the courts figure out who will have custody.

Woman Dropped Off 15 Year Old Boy At Safe Haven KLKN

They say the child had no sign of physical abuse so no charges will be filed.

But there are many who feel the law is problematic and say this case only solidifies their concerns.

The executive director of the Nebraska Children’s Home Society, Karen Authier, issued a statement saying:

“This child is old enough to know what’s happening to them, it’s a big concern and we believe there are better solutions.”

Health and human services also released a statement today saying, in this case, this is not what the law is intended to do, it’s for children that are in immediate danger.

11- and 15-Year-Olds Left at Separate Hospitals Under New Safe Haven Law

This piece contains two video segments (See left column)

Lincoln police tell Action 3 News the 15-year-old’s mother is deceased and the father’s whereabouts unknown.

Ah, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than shopping for a “waiting child” and watching things go ka-boom?

Could I make this one up?

In the latest twist on ‘adoption fairs’, Massachusetts has figured out how to start off adoptions with bang!

The announcement for the event starts of pretty par for the course; yet another afternoon wherein wanna-be-adopters come out to look over the ‘merchandise’, the kids get spiffed up and put on their best ‘won’t you pretty please take me home?’ looks, and the adoption marketers push the paperwork, all against a backdrop of facepainting and a moonbounce. (What IS it with adoption marketers and facepainting?!?!?)

‘A Home run for a Child’ adoption event

Mayor Thomas Menino invites the public to “A Home run for a Child” from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6, at Boston Police Station, District E-5, 1708 Centre St., West Roxbury.

The adoption matching and recruitment event offers and opportunity to learn about the adoption process. Adoption social workers are available for assistance, and the event also features interaction with waiting children. There will be an opportunity to attend an informational session about the adoption process.

But then the announcement takes a turn off into the twilight zone,

There will be play and entertainment featuring a Whiffle ball game, a tour of the police station, bomb squad demonstrations, music, face painting, a moonwalk, food and more.

“Bomb Squad Demonstrations?”

Gee, nothing makes me think “adoption” like blowing something up!

What were these folks thinking?

Unless of course, they wanted to give the young Bastards a sneak preview of the inside of a police station, you know, to better prepare them for their potential futures… .

Or ‘scare the young potential perps straight’… .

Gotta love the new marketing though, I can just see it now, ‘Come for the explosives. Stay for the adoptions.’

As for whose ‘bright idea’ this one was, credit where credit is due,

The event is presented by Menino; Boston Police Department, District E-5, Commissioner Ed Davis, Capt. James Hasson and Sgt. Kenneth Jameson; Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, Boston Region; Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange; and Children’s Service of Roxbury.

As always, when it comes to inane adoption marketing schemes, I come down to the usual questions, would any resultant adoptions be an ‘explosive mix’, or merely a dud?

This is another of those posts I guess I put off, in part because I have such difficulty finding the words, but also in part because it’s all so damn heartbreaking.

As always, Bastardette has done important work in laying out the basics of her death and the circumstances surrounding it across two posts she did earlier,

“SOMEBODY NEEDS TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS.” ANOTHER DEAD BABY

and

JESSICA SCOVIIL UPDATE: GRANDMOTHER CALLS FOR BROKEN SYSTEM TO BE FIXED

I’ll let readers explore those rather than reiterate the work that Bastardette has already done.

The “system” failed Jessica completely.

The fact that she was almost returned to her parents two weeks before her miserable death is salt in the wound.

I also want to be sure readers follow across to Lainie Petersen’s blog entry, Taking Away Parenthood: Jessica Scovil and the Media’s Use of the B Word, about how Jessica’s parents are now being (wrongly) referred to as “birthparents” (see the media piece below) and how the underlying ASSUMPTION is that once a kid enters foster care their parents have lost parentage to them. This is not only factually incorrect, but it says a very great deal about those utilizing such terminology. Over and over again we see people presuming “guilty until proven innocent” in relation to those who lose their children to the foster system.

Keep such, incorrect linguistic assumptions in mind when reading articles such as this, Birth parents want foster mother charged

Jackson County sheriff’s detectives are waiting to decide whether to charge Osborne, who lives on Georgia Highway 334 near Nicholson, until they receive the results of toxicology tests, said Chief Deputy David Cochran.

An autopsy performed at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab in Decatur confirmed that Jessica died from heat stroke.

“The next step, I guess, for the parents, is to talk to the district attorney and to ask him to move forward with charges on this case,” said Crandall Heard, attorney for Jessica’s birth parents, Robert Scovil and Evelyn Carter. “That’s all they can do as they work to get through this.”

Allow me to add my own voice to those of Jessica’s parents, Wendy Osborne should absolutely be charged. It’s the only way a thorough investigation will take place.

An obituary for Jessica can be found here, Jessica Scovil.

Perhaps I’ll write more as the words begin to come.

September first, the bilateral inter-country agreement between Vietnam and the U.S. governing adoptions is set to expire. Barring the unforeseen, American adoptions from Vietnam will once again be suspended.

While this has garnered a great deal of attention from those wishing to adopt from Vietnam, it has gotten surprisingly scant mention from adoptee bloggers. I find this deafening silence stunning in light of the ongoing rising number of arrests and other evidence of corruption and falsified documentation finally coming to light.

While there are genuine differences between domestic adoptions particularly those that took place during what some refer to as the (domestic) “baby scoop era” (Roughly end of WWII through 1972, just prior to Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, and other societal demographic shifts that changed adoption patterns) and more recent international adoptions (what some inter-country adoptees themselves have termed “transracial abductions”) we are all lumped together lingustically under the term “adoptee.”

Understanding and writing about these international adoptions, particularly as this “gold rush” period of intercountry adoptions is now beginning to constrict (for a variety of reasons, stricter regulation, corruption coming to light, economic changes, the Hague inter-country treaty, some countries closing their doors, and adoption industry consolidation) documenting these changes is vital to a strategic assessing the American political landscape ‘adoption’ currently inhabits.

I’ve been blogging the Vietnam adoption mess for some time now, and following it for longer still. While my writings are fairly limited, barely scratching the surface, sadly they represent one of the very few Bastard blogger perspectives on such. Today’s post, unfortunately will continue that trend, barely scratching the surface, compared to how much COULD be said at this important juncture.

What follows then, is another long post (yes, long even for me, be forewarned.) It’s one I’ve been trying to get out for more than a month now. Parts of it were originally written over a month ago, but I’ve added some of the more up to date details throughout. I had originally envisioned this as one of a multi-part series spread across a number of posts, but the timing being what it is, I feel it’s more important to finally get this up tonight rather than to have it in more of a finalized form. Consider it more a stream of consciousness series of related points, rather than a fully fleshed out piece with all the ‘connective tissue’ intact. This is more a mere ‘stringing the beads’ sort of post.

***

By way of A starting point let’s look at the current agreement, now mere hours prior to the expiration deadline.

Via this U.S. State Department statement, Vietnam Suspends Acceptance of New Adoption Dossiers, (from July 18th, ’08) we find the deadlines for finishing out adoptions under the existing inter-country agreement which expires September 1, 2008:

Prospective adoptive parents and adoption service providers should be aware that the Vietnamese Department of International Adoptions (DIA) suspended the acceptance of new adoption dossiers on July 1, 2008. The DIA will continue to process cases received prior to July 1, 2008. The bilateral adoption agreement, required by Vietnamese law to authorize adoptions between the United States and Vietnam, expires on September 1, 2008. Prospective adoptive parents who have been matched with a child (received a formal referral) by September 1 will be allowed to process their adoption to conclusion. Dossiers that have not received a referral by September 1 will be closed and returned to the adoption service provider.

We also find language expressing U.S. commitment to negotiating a new agreement:

The United States is strongly committed to processing legitimate intercountry adoptions from Vietnam. We have indicated to the Vietnamese our interest in negotiating a new agreement. An important goal for the United States is that any new agreement must establish enforceable safeguards and a transparent process which ensures that the children and families involved in the adoption process are protected from exploitation. The Government of Vietnam shares this concern. Both countries acknowledge that more needs to be done to address deficiencies in the current system. It is not possible, at this time, to predict when a new bilateral adoption agreement may be negotiated and signed.

This demand, that a new agreement be negotiated even as the investigation is ongoing is deeply troubling. We are still in a process of trying to determine the scope of the corruption and document falsification, including medical documentation, on up through kidnappings and outright baby-selling. In June alone five children were returned to their Vietnamese families after Embassy investigations. The statement makes the reason clear, “the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam revealed that the birth parents had not consented to their adoption.”

Let’s be clear on that point, Vietnamese children were being placed for adoption without parental consent.

As this process is ongoing, and new revelations are still forthcoming, it seems premature at best to demand adoptions be continued in the current climate. A climate we have yet to even fully understand the scope of.

U.S. field investigations continue to reveal incidents of serious adoption irregularities, including forged or altered documentation, cash payment to birth mothers (for other than reasonable payments for necessary activities such as administrative, court, legal, translation, and/or medical services related to the adoption), coercion or deceit to induce the birth parent(s) to release children to an orphanage, and children being offered for intercountry adoption without the knowledge or consent of their birth parents. During the month of June 2008, five children were reunited with their families after investigations by the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam revealed that the birth parents had not consented to their adoption. In July, Vietnamese media reported that police in the northern province of Nam Dinh arrested three people, including two communal health officials, for alleged child buying and creating fraudulent documentation purporting that these children had been deserted. These children had also been illegally offered for intercountry adoption; the investigation is ongoing. Vietnamese officials have informed the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi that similar investigations are occurring in other provinces.

In the period leading up to the Sept. 1 deadline, the U.S. Embassy had warned prospective adopters not to travel to Vietnam prior to receiving written pre-approval notification from the Embassy, and encourages prospective adoptive couples to contact the Embassy if anyone encourages them to travel without official notification:

The Embassy strongly advises prospective adoptive parents not to travel to Vietnam until they have received notification from the Embassy that their case is ready for final processing and travel is appropriate. Parents should contact the Embassy immediately if anyone, including their adoption service provider, encourages them to travel to Vietnam prior to receiving this notification.

Undeterred by such a landscape of widespread fraud, corruption, coercion and and manipulation (see U.S. alleges baby-selling rackets in Vietnam, Embassy report says lax policing lets adoption fraud flourish AP, April. 24th, ’08 as but one of many examples), The Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS, a membership trade organization with numerous adoption agencies as members) launched a major campaign attempting to keep adoptions from Vietnam flowing freely.

JCICS claims “child advocacy groups, parent support groups, and medical clinics”, among their members though they are primarily adoption industry centered, (their membership directory makes quite a study.) Thus, they created their campaign, “A Child’s Right Campaign for Vietnam” (utilizing the pretext of speaking on behalf of ‘the children’) under the “End Corruption, Not a Child’s Right to a Family“ meme.

This JCICS “child’s right” (to a family) language, being utilized in the context of promotion of international adoption as a routine practice, is actually an inversion of, perhaps even a perversion of, the U.N.’s documents defining the Rights of Children, which ultimately are principles at the core of the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.

Note the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The ‘rights’ being spelled out for children entail more far more than A family, instead the ‘right’ refers to growing up within their family of origin barring “exceptional circumstances.”

See principle 6, in particular, which states in part:

He shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his parents, … a child of tender years shall not, save in exceptional circumstances, be separated from his mother.

For further elaboration on what a “child’s rights” might entail see the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. (The US has signed the convention but has yet to complete the ratification process.)

The Convention makes it quite clear, one’s name, one’s parents (of origin), and country of origin are the preference whenever possible. Identity preservation is seen as a key “right” and when displaced, the UN sees it as a “right” for the individual to be able to rely upon the State to do what is possible to restore access to the displaced identity information. Removal of a child from original context should be an “exceptional circumstance” see above), one only taking place within a context of “competent authorities” and with “judicial review.”

Articles 7 and 8 have particular relevance to children in relation to international adoption:

Article 7

1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.

Article 8

1. States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference.2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity.

These sections run headlong into common American adoption practices, from the renaming of children, to the cases wherein children are not informed they are adopted, much less international adoptees, to the at times ‘caught between two nations, aspects of adoptees facing being deported later in life due to a lack of being appropriatedly registered in their adoptive country, on through to the fundamental identity erasure common in American adoptions, particularly sealed records based adoptions.

Article 9 would also clearly pertain.

Article 9

1. States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child’s place of residence.2. In any proceedings pursuant to paragraph 1 of the present article, all interested parties shall be given an opportunity to participate in the proceedings and make their views known.3. States Parties shall respect the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child’s best interests. 4. Where such separation results from any action initiated by a State Party, such as the detention, imprisonment, exile, deportation or death (including death arising from any cause while the person is in the custody of the State) of one or both parents or of the child, that State Party shall, upon request, provide the parents, the child or, if appropriate, another member of the family with the essential information concerning the whereabouts of the absent member(s) of the family unless the provision of the information would be detrimental to the well-being of the child. States Parties shall further ensure that the submission of such a request shall of itself entail no adverse consequences for the person(s) concerned.

(Among others.)

I think it’s very clear, in situations where children in ‘sending countries’ are being offered for adoption without parental consent or the extended family’s involvement, all within a climate of widespread corruption and culture of corrupt officials, we really have to begin methodically questioning the legitimacy of “legal” determinations being made and the ‘competence’ of the authorities involved.

While the Convention on the Rights of the Child is nonbinding on the US, it does serve as an appropriate amplification on how the international community is beginning to define what a “child’s rights” might be.

More importantly, though, those elaborations upon and definitions of what a “child’s rights” are, laid out in the UN Convention on the Rights of Child, then go on to become one of the bedrock principles underlying the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption (to which the U.S. IS a signatory and is now beginning to utilize as the yardstick going forward for how it will conduct intercountry adoptions in the future, going so far as to demand counties such as Vietnam conform to the Hague guidelines.)

So, now that we’ve laid out the definitions of what ‘rights of the child’ are, let me then detail how those “rights” pertain to the Hague Convention and intercountry adoption.

Note these paragraphs from the full text of the Hague Convention:

Recalling that each State should take, as a matter of priority, appropriate measures to enable the child to remain in the care of his or her family of origin,

Recognizing that intercountry adoption may offer the advantage of a permanent family to a child for whom a suitable family cannot be found in his or her State of origin,

Convinced of the necessity to take measures to ensure that intercountry adoptions are made in the best interests of the child and with respect for his or her fundamental rights, and to prevent the abduction, the sale of, or traffic in children,

Desiring to establish common provisions to this effect, taking into account the principles set forth in international instruments, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, of 20 November 1989, and the United Nations Declaration on Social and Legal Principles relating to the Protection and Welfare of Children, with Special Reference to Foster Placement and Adoption Nationally and Internationally (General Assembly Resolution 41/85, of 3 December 1986),…

While the U.S. has signed onto the Hague treaty, Vietnam has not (as of yet.) The U.S. in its goals for going forward with Vietnam has stated unequivocally “Our goal for Vietnam and for all countires is an intercountry adoption process solidly based on the standards set by the Hague Adoption Convention” and “We have strongly urged the GVN to accede to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, to promptly draft Hague compliant adoption legislation and implementing regulations, and to develop a child welfare infrastructure that will bring Vietnam into conformity with Hague Standards.”

So let’s recap, the U.S. HAS NOT ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is where the internationally recognized rights of children are defined. But the U.S. HAS ratified and has begun implementing the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption which utilizes the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a set of principles that underlie it. (How that works, or doesn’t apparently remains to be seen. Quick, someone find me an international law lawyer, because I’m certainly not up to the task of untangling that one!)

Now that the U.S. is moving into the Hague based model, it wants other countries it wishes to conduct international adoptions with to also ratify the Hague and move towards the Hague model as well.

Vietnam appears poised to embrace the guidelines and in the aftermath of the expiration of the intercountry agreement and appears likely to restructure into a centralized Hague model.

I’ve already written a post about how implementing Hague standards and restructuring Vietnamese law towards American style adoptions would fundamentally change the legal structure of Vietnamese adoptions. To name but a few of the ways, under current Vietnamese law, a child must be abandoned orphaned to be adopted. Yet the American definition of “orphan” is a very particular legal construct (see below.) Under current Vietnamese law the cut off age for adoption is 16, but under the Hague Convention that would be extended to 18. Perhaps most importantly, current under Vietnamese law those adopted retain certain rights, not the least of which being some inheritance rights. Yet moving to Hague compliance would permanently sever all legal ties between those adopted and their Vietnamese families of origin.

All of which, from an adoptee perspective is pretty damn important. If Vietnam were to move to the American style adoptions, adoptees themselves stand to lose some of the rights they currently enjoy under Vietnamese law, particularly those pertaining to legal ties to their families of origin. It’s important to keep in mind that such family ties would often be permanently severed when the adoptees themselves are too young to speak or act on their own behalf.

(Again where are other Bastard bloggers on this? More importantly, where are Vietnamese-American Bastard Bloggers? Are other adoptees unaware, or uninterested?)

So in light of all the convoluted backdrop to all this, let’s come back to the JCICS campaign.

The campaign advocates preservation of the U.S./Vietnam adoption relationship. This is hardly surprising considering some JCICS member agencies earn income from American adoptions from Vietnam. They are using the “child’s right” meme, speaking ‘on behalf of the children’ to maintain their own income streams.

Out of JCICS’s ongoing campaign, pressure was put on legislators to keep the American foot in the closing door of adoptions from Vietnam. The Congressional Coalition on Adoption (see the membership roster here) has readily jumped into the fray, doing key media appearances, such as this July 1 Newshour with Jim Lehrer piece with Kathleen Strottman of the Congressional Coalition interviewed along with Susan Soon-Keum Cox from Holt International (who is also JCICS’s Vice-Chairperson of their Board of Directors.)

While utilizing UNICEF’s estimate of the number of “orphaned” children in the world (43 million), Strottman looks past the details of UNICEF’s position on International Adoption, which begins, naturally with the assumptions contained within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guides UNICEF’s work, clearly states that every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible.

It elaborates that intercountry adoption should be considered when a permanent family setting in their country of origin cannot be found. UNICEF also lays out guidelines for when international adoption should NOT be utilized.

The case of children separated from their parents and communities during war or natural disasters merits special mention. It cannot be assumed that such children have neither living parents nor relatives. Even if both their parents are dead, the chances of finding living relatives, and a community or home to return to after the conflict subsides, continues to exist. Thus, such children should not be considered for inter-country adoption, and family tracing should be the priority. This position is shared by UNICEF, UNHCR, the International Confederation of the Red Cross, and international NGOs such as the Save the Children Alliance.

I strongly urge readers to carefully read the entire position statement and carefully consider what it means to say that all possibilities for a child to find permanence in a family in their country of origin have been exhausted.

Some agencies urged their prospective adoptive clients to write Congress and demand Vietnam remain open (here’s one for example, note the “A Child’s Right” box at the top of the front page). Naturally the net has also been abuzz, websites (here for example, see the left column, under what to do, contact Congress), blogs (see here), and various web based forums (here’s one example) have also promoted the ‘write your congressperson’ campaigns.

Then there are those from an earlier period, who adopted children in Vietnam but had visa difficulties getting the kids back to the states. (This is part of where the ‘don’t travel until you have written confirmation’ advisory came from) They too have been lobbying their representatives, in this case with the kids completely stuck in the middle no man’s land. The earlier mess has in some cases been conflated into the current set of circumstances which are now quite different.

Both the major industry trade groups the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) and the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) have of course, also been lobbying on behalf of their industry and its clients (i.e. prospective adopters) that Vietnam remain a viable childsource.

Ethica has also done their own variation on the ‘write your congressperson’ campaign urging their supporters to push the dual message summed up by one sentence in their sample letter included in the May 1, 2008 post.

“I want Vietnamese adoptions to continue, but I also want them to be ethical and legal.”

While that may ‘sound good’ to many on the face of it, one really has to ask what words like “legal” begin to mean in the Vietnamese system wherein officials are often part of the very corruption one is striving to eradicate.

In light of the unfathomable (and often unenforceable) complexities of both “legal” and “ethical” it appears that the primary message Representatives took away from the letters was that which matched the rest of the ongoing campaign:

” …want Vietnamese adoptions to continue…”

Certainly any capital hill aide sorting into the dual piles of want Vietnam to remain open and (who knows if there even are such letters) want Vietnam to close, would add the Ethica letters to the former pile. Which is to say nuance is often wasted upon those rigidly adhering to a system of binaries.

On July 7, 149 Members of Congress signed a letter to Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, urging her to negotiate a new MOU/MOA (Memorandum of Understanding, Memorandum of Agreement) with Vietnam, and asking an interim agreement with “safeguards” be fashioned as part of moving the entire Vietnam process towards Hague compliance.

While the letter certainly acknowledges “Reported incidents of fraud and corruption within Vietnam’s adoption system” it also calls for Secretary Rice to “address these concerns so that we can continue…” stating flatly

…we ask that you work to resolve these issues and to secure and updated Memorandum of Understanding with Vietnam that ensures the integrity of international adoptions between our two countries.

Clearly, the message Ethica and such were promoting got lip service, but little by way of concrete proposals.

“Continuing” in the current climate strikes me as an extremely faulty course of action, certainly as we have yet to even fully understand how deep the corruption goes.

To say nothing of how dealing with the concerns is far “easier said than done.”

Further, even the few “safeguards” recently added to try to handle the objections (widespread institutionalized corruption, child selling, routine document falsification, etc) are clearly not working out so well. Even basic concepts such as who qualifies as an “orphan” quickly devolve into a quagmire.

Much has been made of the May 29th U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’s (USCIS) announcement of its Vietnam DNA testing program, as a means by which fraud could potentially ‘be curtailed’. The program was instituted in part to “streamline”cases where a (biologically related) parent had been identified. It was also instituted in part due to:

…concerns regarding the adoption process in Vietnam, and to ensure that all children identified for potential adoption meet the Immigration and Nationality Act’s definition of “orphan” prior to a United States citizen adopting or obtaining legal custody of the child. In several cases, children have been returned to birth parents who did not intend for their child to be adopted internationally.

The statement also elaborates on how the term “orphan” can become a point of contention:

USCIS strongly encourages prospective adoptive parents who intend to continue with a planned adoption in Vietnam to file the form I-600 by mail, with USCIS in Ho Chi Minh City, and not travel to Vietnam until USCIS has provided a notification that the child qualifies as an orphan. This is important because in some cases irregularities that have affected the eligibility of the child for classification as an orphan have become apparent only after the adoption had taken place and while the parents and child were waiting in Vietnam for a visa.

All of which comes back to how terminology such as “orphan” in international adoptionland does not necessarily refer to ‘a child whose parents are dead’ or ‘a child bereft of parents.’ “Orphan” in relation to international adoption law has a very specific meaning.

Children adopted internationally after being designated “orphans” often have one or both parents still alive (and yes, in some cases even still seeking them, as often parents are lured into signing paperwork and leaving their children at ‘orphanages’ with promises of it ‘just being for a short duration’, perhaps until the parent has more money to care for the child.)

While the idea of a child whose parents are now dead tends to be the non-technical/non-legal definition in lay or common use, “orphan” as relates to international adoption has a very specific technical meaning embedded in international law in relation to the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and a set of criteria laid out in its definition of an “orphan.”(WAY too huge to lay out here, instead use this search tool of the document, searching on the term “orphan.” “Sec. 1101. Definitions” contains the technical definition of “orphan” for purposes of international adoption.)

“Orphan” is not the only linguistic stumbling block, Look here for a definition of how “Abandonment” is defined in relation to the USCIS Guidebook for international adoption and how that begins to pose a new set of issues in relation to Vietnamese adoptions. (The entire guidebook is well worth glancing through.)

The Adopted Children Immigrant Visa Unit, USCIS Implements Required DNA Testing for Vietnamese Adoptions, Questions and Answers page from May 13, 2008 explains why things have come to the point in U.S. Vietnam adoptions that the Embassy moved to DNA testing.

Last April, Vietnam’s top adoption official, Vu Doc Long had dismissed DNA testing as “unacceptable” (See Vietnamese babies ‘stolen for adoption in the west’. I pointed readers at several resources last April after the U.S. Embassy report was first released)

Far from the ‘few bad apples’ arguments heard so often, the Embassy point blank states “recent investigations have demonstrated that Vietnamese civil documents are unreliable.” This is a blanket statement, not speaking to merely ‘some’ or ‘a few’ documents:

Q. What are the problems in Vietnam that prompted USCIS to implement this policy?
A. The U.S. Government has growing concerns about irregularities in the methods used to identify children for adoption in Vietnam. Additionally, recent investigations have demonstrated that Vietnamese civil documents are unreliable. Moreover, Vietnamese officials, in some provinces, have interfered with the ability of the U.S. Government to conduct independent field inquiries into the status of children identified in Form I-600 petitions.

The same page goes on to explain that making the “orphan” determination can be difficult to verify:

Q. If the United States sees problems in the Vietnamese adoption process, why has it continued processing adoption cases?
A. The situation in Vietnam can sometimes make it difficult to verify that a child qualifies as an “orphan” as defined in the U.S. immigration laws. If a child’s status as an orphan can be verified, however, it is appropriate for the case to go forward. USCIS has sought to improve the ability to verify the child’s status. For example, in 2007 USCIS initiated the “Vietnam Initiative” program for prospective adoptive parents adopting in Vietnam. Under the Vietnam Initiative program, prospective adoptive parents file Form I-600 directly with USCIS in Ho Chi Minh City before traveling to Vietnam. This enables USCIS or U.S. Department of State officers to determine whether a child identified in the petition qualifies as an orphan before the child is transferred to the care of the adopting parents. In addition, USCIS and the Department of State have also engaged in a series of formal discussions to address concerns regarding the integrity of Vietnamese intercountry adoptions. Finally, this new policy for DNA testing of Vietnamese birth parents will also improve the ability of USCIS to verify that a child is an orphan.

Unfortunately in Guatemala, which is often pointed to as a model for the Vietnamese program, the DNA testing program (two separate tests in Guatemala) has been far from a solution. Instead, the Guatemalan solicitor general’s office there has unearthed at least 80 cases of adoption irregularities, some of which involve falsified DNA tests. As a result the Guatemalan chief prosecutor’s office has launched a criminal investigation into the two laboratories under contract to take DNA samples. (See this CNN piece from October 2007 by way of citation.)

Back in Vietnam, by July, (not long after the DNA testing was begun) the heads of two health centers were arrested (see 300 infants illegally put up for adoption).

The heads of two communal healthcare centres were arrested last month under suspicion of forging State adoption documents and of making up bogus histories for the infants, said Nam Dinh Investigative Police Department.

When the HEADS of healthcare centers are being arrested for forging documents, one really has to wonder what the real value of one’s health test related paperwork is.

The adoption related problems in Vietnam far from aberrations, are systemic. As recently as June, the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam was issuing fact sheets such as this, Adopted Children Immigrant Visa Unit, Vietnam Adoptions – Fact Sheet which speaks to systemwide problems of exploitable weaknesses:

The Government of Vietnam has been unable to comply with the 2005 Agreement as planned, and cases have frequently been tainted by corruption due to weaknesses in the Vietnamese adoption system.

and

Among the problems with the current system is that the Government of Vietnam has not established and published a fee structure for adoptions. Instead, individual orphanages and adoption service providers make private arrangements concerning the “voluntary donations” and other assistance the agencies will provide to orphanages where they arrange adoptions. These arrangements are kept private and there is no official accounting for how funds are spent. Because it is relatively easy to obtain fraudulent civil documents (birth and death certificates, for example) in Vietnam, U.S. officials must verify the information in the orphan’s file, in many cases, before a visa can be issued. U.S. authorities have been prevented from conducting these verification trips in a few provinces, although these trips have been completed without incident in most of the country.

Most troubling, U.S. officials have discovered repeated instances of fraud and corruption in connection with some adoption cases in Vietnam. We believe systemic reform, and more effective safeguards, are needed to prevent the abuses. (See report at: this webpage)

Despite the newly instituted “orphan first” processing which began in November 2007, U.S. Embassy officials continue to find evidence of “serious irregularities:”

Unfortunately, our field investigations continue to reveal some incidents of serious adoption irregularities, including forged or altered documentation, women paid or coerced to release their children, and children offered for adoption without the knowledge or consent of their birth parents. We are aware of four children who have been returned to their birth parents once these circumstances were discovered.

State Department guidelines on adoption in Vietnam make it perfectly clear, “Document fraud is widespread in Vietnam.” See the section entitled “A Few Words on Vietnamese Civil Documentation:”

Document fraud is widespread in Vietnam. Fraud is not limited to fake documents produced by other than the authorized civil authority. A document may be legal, in the sense that the appropriate Vietnamese government office has issued it and it is in the correct format, but still be fraudulent because it contains false information. Vietnamese regulations regarding civil documentation are frequently not followed. For instance, births are supposed to be registered within 30 days and in a prescribed format, but late registrations and non-standard, unofficial “birth certificates” created by orphanages are common. Death certificates, such as for a child’s biological parent(s), may prove even more difficult to verify, since there is no standard format and the cause of death listed on Vietnamese death certificates is often very vague. Moreover, the format of all official documents, with the exception of birth certificates, varies widely from province to province. All of these factors can greatly complicate the ability of Vietnamese and U.S. officials involved in the intercountry adoption process to identify the child and confirm his/her parentage to a sufficient level of comfort to protect against child-buying or other inappropriate, illegal or prohibited practices.

(This is exactly what to keep in mind when Ethica demands adoptions from Vietnam be “legal,” the paperwork may line up, have the required seals, and even be signed by the appropriate officials, yet still contain inaccuracies or deliberate falsifications. This is not something any kind of ‘quick fix’ is going to correct.)

None of the above “legal” frauds are the least bit surprising to those of us who have exploring the broader implications of and climate Vietnamese adoption appears to sit in. The very building blocks of the system itself appear to rely on corruption in day to day functioning, see this (June 25h, ’07) Not in My House: Corruption in Vietnam, “Lying has become an everyday habit” as officials ignore fraud at home. (That I found linked off this article , which has both some good and some bad to it, at Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity which is primarily a website community for those who already have or were considering adopting from Vietnam. It too, has both some good, some bad to it.)

In late July The Congressional Coalition invited the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affiars, USCIS to conduct a briefing for Representatives and their staff on intercountry adoption, focusing on issues related to Guatemala and Vietnam.

On Friday, July 26, 2008, Joint Council participated in a briefing of over 60 Congressional offices on issues related to international children’s services with particular attention to intercountry adoption in Vietnam and Guatemala.

Naturally, would be adopters picking up on the urging of JCICS utilized the opportunity to lobby in favour of participation (A variety of wanna-be-adopter bloggers picked the lobbying around the briefing up.) The timing of course, was in anticipation of the impending Vietnam deadline.

Here in this blog post, (most of which reiterates text originally found on the JCICS page) we find a description of the briefing and those participating.

In addition to Joint Council President Tom DiFilipo, Lynn Song, Executive Director of Joint Council Member Organization Ethica Inc., Susan Cox, Vice-President of Holt International and Vice-Chairperson of Joint Council’s Board of Directors, along with Tom Atwood and Chuck Johnson, respectively President and Vice-President of the National Council For Adoption participated in the briefing.

According to the July 30th posting on the JCICS Vietnam page a second briefing was scheduled thereafter for August 1.

The Congressional Coalition on Adoption has invited the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to conduct a briefing of Congressional staff on issues related to intercountry adoption in Vietnam, Guatemala along with issues related to intercountry adoption in general. The briefing is scheduled for this Friday, August 1, 2008 in the U.S. Capitol Building, LBJ Room at 10:00 a.m.

Also near this time frame JCICS got a copy of the response from the State Department to the letter sent by the the representatives, the reply is addressed to Senator Landrieu. JCICS has posted a PDF copy of the letter to their website. (I strongly urge readers to follow the link.)

By mid August, NCFA, Ethica, and JCICS were working together on a “Vietnam Survey” for all families in process of adopting from Vietnam. They hoped to receive the responses back by August 22nd.

On August 19 the (American) State Department issued a statement, Update on Tu Du Hospital in Vietnam which chronicles what it determines to be

“a pattern of false information in documentation pertaining to the birth mothers of children born at Tu Du Hospital”

Were this not bad enough, precisely what I was writing about earlier in the month has come to light, the slippery definitions of words such as “desertion” and the ways in which children are determined (or not) to have been “deserted” are being used to reclassify children for resale.

U.S. officials have also recently been informed that it is Tu Du Hospital’s policy to document all children as desertion cases regardless of the actual circumstances leading to their being made available for intercountry adoption.

This “policy” naturally short circuits genuine determinations as to the disposition of the children and whether or not they would genuinely qualify as “abandoned.”

In light of these discoveries, the Department of State and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recommend that U.S. adoption service providers refer children born at Tu Du Hospital only when the child is a special need child or when all parties can ensure that the information pertaining to the birth parent can be verified, where a birth parent can be identified and/or when a birth parent can be interviewed to confirm that the child qualifies as an orphan in accordance with U.S. law.

Despite the “policy” the adoption cases already filed continued forward with higher scrutiny.

State and USCIS will continue to process cases already filed for children born at Tu Du Hospital; however, prospective adoptive parents should be aware that the circumstances discussed above have resulted in significant delays in the verification process of their cases. State and USCIS understand the severe impact of these delays, and commit to working expeditiously on these complex cases. To the extent possible, State and USCIS will process cases on a first in, first out basis.

As the deadline now nears, perhaps more details on the final outcome of those cases will become available.

On the 25th an important interview with the Vietnamese Head of the Ministry of Justice’s International Adoption Agency, Vu Duc Long was published. The “big news” is of course that adoptions will be centralized. This would come steps closer to aligning the Vietnamese system with Hague requirements, but also comes with potential downsides as well. I wrote briefly to those ‘downsides’ back on August 1:

Centralization hardly strikes me as a solution to the systemic problems Vietnamese adoption faces. It would however move both the power, and some of the potential profits away from the local provincial governments, and some of the indies and middlemen and directly into the Minister of Justice and the centralized government system itself.

Unfortunately, the interview with Vu Duc Long also makes the Vietnamese position on Vietnamese children adopted after criminal acts were committed clear as well.

There will be no change for the children who were adopted. The violators in Vietnam will be penalised, the adopted children will not be brought back to Vietnam.

Dr. Long explained how deeply ingrained the paperwork fabrication is, explaining that the false paperwork trail can begin when a child first enters the system.

Provincial Departments of Justice are in charge of checking and approving adoption files, so what is their responsibility if violations are detected?

It depends on the seriousness of violations. But it is very difficult to verify adoption documents if they are sophisticated counterfeits, because criminals begin forging documents when children enter orphanages.

Even in cases where the children were adopted after having been kidnapped, it’s clear their (biological) families are now supposed to ‘sue the kidnappers’, a senario that seems unlikely at best in most cases.

So who will be sued by families who lose their children?

If their children are kidnapped, they have to sue the kidnappers or those who lend a hand to the kidnappers. We have the Law on Human Trafficking Prevention. In the case in Nam Dinh, it is very difficult to prove kidnapping.

The bottom line remains money. So long as poverty is widespread, combined with the low wages of Vietnamese government workers, everyday corruption as both a means of personal survival and wealth accumulation continues unabated. International adoption, like it or not is a major business, and where there’s money to be had ways of ‘working around the system’ will be found.

So long as (so often American) adopters are willing to pay large fees to gain children, so long as adoption agencies are willing to do what it takes to supply those ‘needs’, and make a living (or a killing) for themselves in the process, children will continue to be provided by those who often stand to gain, whether with the child’s parents consent or not.

I wrote about the circumstances leading up to the 2005 agreement and the consequences of reopening back in 2006 previously:

Adoption from Vietnam has of course had a long and troubled history, this latest step is only one of many in an ongoing saga.

US adoptions from Vietnam had previously been stopped between 2003 and 2006 due to evidence of unethical conduct. Adoptions resumed in 2006 under a under a 2005 bilateral document (the “Memorandum of Agreement” click link for PDF) seeking to ensure adoption was practiced ethically. The Agreement is set to expire Sept 1, 2008. Clearly, conditions did not improve, leading to the latest measures towards curtailing US adoptions from Vietnam.

Sadly, once adoptions reopened, far from a tentative approach with the history of abuses in mind, instead a ‘gold rush’ mentality, wherein getting what kids could be gotten while the doors were still open kicked in. Damn the abuses, full steam ahead. Thus creating the largest boom in Vietnam to US adoptions to date as potential adoptive couples try to get in under the wire.

Now as the evidence piles up showing that kids were obtained through all manner of underhanded and illegal means, PAPs (prospective adoptive parents) are anguishing that “their child” is going to be one of the many children behind the closed doors, and thus are screaming politically and clutching desperately the photographs their agencies provided them, as happens in each and every country wherein Americans strip mine pregnant womyn for their children only to have to doors closed on their efforts.

The JCICS “A child’s right campaign” recommendations are woefully inadequate in the face of the systemic problems and inadequate “band-aid” patches that have been slapped on the existing system. While there are people genuinely working to ensure abuses are limited, they are up against a climate in which abuses are endemic.

Many of the problems Vietnam faces tonight on the eve of the shutdown are distinctly similar to the events that led to the last shut down. If the latest ‘open window’ was supposed to be in a climate of ‘changes made’ after corruption brought adoptions to a screeching pause, the evidence of systemic change is clearly lacking. Instead we have yet another time period to evaluate with still further corruption brought to light and yes, on the other end of such a very human, if often voiceless toll of Vietnamese families who have lost their children to lies, systemic corruption, kidnapping, child selling and child traffickers.

Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity has a blog entry up tonight entitled “The end of an era.” While it spells out much of the “conundrum” American adopters and would-be-adopters from Vietnam are now facing, and I certainly can empathize, much as I hate to say it, such constituencies have the uncomfortable luxury of being able to view this ‘window of availability era ‘ as resulting in a “conundrum”.

For families that have lost their children, or for the adoptees themselves, who will in time grow into their own voices, this so called “era” may be something many of them are far less ‘conflicted’ about. No one wants to be a stolen child. No one wants to have a child taken. There is no good, no silver lining, no ends justifies the means in that. To some this ‘era’ can only be greeted with a ‘good riddance, and NEVER AGAIN!’

As a Bastard myself, I find my deepest empathy lies with those so often the most powerless and voiceless in the adoption zero-sum-game of ‘who gets the child?’ I do not side with industry, nor those who bring at minimum a level of wealth to the process. I’m not a consumer nor marketer of adoption. I’m product.

As a womyn who has spent her life working for womyn’s reproductive autonomy, I also feel a deep empathy with those in what you might call “production”.

I’m not a Washington industry lobbyist. Nor do I necessarily represent anyone other than myself. I’m just a Bastard, an adoptee, trapped behind my own state governement’s wall of secrecy and lies (i.e. sealed adoption records) But for what it’s worth, I’ll conclude by simply saying this isn’t the first time around (to speak of Vietnam alone, setting aside for this moment the numerous historical and even contemporary precedents elsewhere in international adoption.)

There were promises of changes to prevent corruption LAST TIME around, and now we’re here AGAIN, with ends justifies the means mentality, those who may have bought stolen kids just being happy to get theirs out under the wire, and those from whom those kids may well have been stolen, left voiceless, powerless, and given nonsensical non-answers like ‘sue the kidnappers’. That would be a positively classic YOYO- “you’re own your own”, psuedo-answer. It flatly denies the government as having any significant role in dealing with the mess other than leaving it to the courts long after the fact, provided of course, those wronged could even track down said perpetrators. The consequences and whatever supposed remedies might exist are pushed down to the purely personal, to the fringes, to the irrelevant, as there is no money to be made in returning stolen children.

Governments owe their citizens more than that.

Infants and children deserve better than that.

Womyn and families deserve better than that.

Congressional signatories to the letter would do well to rethink their position, yes folks, for the sake of the children. Lest yet another generation of Vietnamese children be stolen, trafficked, and sold.

Infants don’t remain infants forever. When some of these kids reach 18, they’re going to be demanding answers and systemic changes too. After all, when it comes to adoption, we’re the experts.

***

In closing here are a few articles for further exploration.

Tougher adoption regulations needed 8-23-08

(Note- “DIA’s Vice Head Le Thi Hoang Yen said: “We are very worried with the recent fake adoption documents. We had been confident about the legitimacy of documents appraised by police. But in recent cases in Nam Dinh Province, there were fakes which police appraised.””)

Orphanages in fake document investigation 8-19-08

Gov’t cracks down on human trafficking 8-18-08

(Note particularly- “Although Vietnam since 2003 has set out penalties for trafficking of women and children, no penal code criminalising male or infant trafficking exists.”)

300 infants illegally put up for adoption 7-15-08

Charity centres investigated for falsifying birth records 7-14-08

Vietnam police arrest two over baby trafficking to China 5-11-08

Baby traffickers arrested on China-Vietnam border 5-7-08

Vietnam’s adoption system ‘corrupted,’ US embassy says 4-26-08

Vietnam gang ‘smuggled 30 babies’ 4-9-08

Police arrest alleged infant traffickers 2-20-08

Police in Vietnam arrest three for smuggling babies 2-18-08

Chinese police detain two suspects over trafficking Vietnamese babies 11-29-07

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( For readers who have made it all the way to the bottom, thanks. Please pardon the typos, and the somewhat disjointed construction. Getting this up this evening was obviously pressing, I’ll get to just a few very basic fixes come morning.)