- Conference
- 2004 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 15 October 2003
- Decision
- Carried
Recognising that international adoption is a particularly sensitive women issue:
1)Birth mothers do not necessarily want to give up their children but for some social, cultural or economic reasons, they might find themselves pushed to do so.
2)Infertility and adoptive mothers: acknowledging that infertility could be a man and/or a woman issue. In either case, adoption suppresses the natural hormonal bond between the adoptive mother and child that usually exists during pregnancy and after. In some cases, in can affect the self-esteem of the adoptive other. Counselling might be needed to help the adoptive mother to mourn the ‘unborn biological child’ and assert her right to ‘motherhood’ from the wider community.
3)Gender bias: for cultural and/or social reasons, female children are more likely to be given for adoption. In addition, adoption remains part of the lifetime experience of the individual. Once the adoptee becomes an adult, adoption could haunt particular issues linked with womanhood. For example, adult adoptee might have intimate question on motherhood when having her own children.
International and trans-ethnic adoption has started because there was a need to find homes for children. At the beginning most of the children were genuine orphans and/or their birth family was unable to financially take care of them. Nowadays, many adoptive families are still told those two main reasons as explanation for relinquishment. In the reality, each adoption has to be taken on its own merit. There are many other reasons social and/or cultural such as why birth families have to give up their children. However, for marketing reasons, some intermediary agencies purposely hide the truth on the background of the child. In some cases, international adoption has become a fructuous industry. In extreme cases, intermediaries do not hesitate to process illegal adoption by putting pressure on birth families, swapping children’s identity and even sometimes recourse to abduction.
The profile needs to be raised on this issue, here are some of the ways it can be done:
a)inform the general public on the amplitude of past and current trends of illegal adoption through comparative international analysis;
b)identify effects of illegal adoption on individuals. Adoptive child might have a different identity than the one officially given;
c)Prospective and adoptive parents should be prepared on the emotional risk that adoptee might want to trace and be able to find his/her birth family. Due to illegal adoption, this could happen even if the adoption agency had guaranteed that the child was an orphan;
d)in case of trans-ethnic adoption, special care should enable the adoptee and the adoptive family to access information on cultural roots. This could help the adoptee to solve self-esteem issues.
The goal is to progress through the following phases:
i)increase communication on the reality of international and trans-ethnic adoption by running theme seminars with stakeholders;
ii)write fact sheets from this interaction;
iii)create a data-base with resources and links to countries of origin. Information could contain: cultural/tourist information; details of local adoption agencies/social services; details of post-adoption services/counselling; translation services; list of language courses (in the United Kingdom and/or country of origin); link to support groups for adoptees and adoptive families (regional, national and international); link in the UK with local communities of country of origin; information on motherland tours and sponsorship to visit/study/work in the country of origin. This data-base could be published on UNISON internet;
iv)to inform the general public, publish article for example in Focus with reference to fact sheets, data-base, other links and events.
Conference calls upon the National Women’s Committee to:
A)invite a speaker (who specialises in this area of work) to talk to their committee;
B)follow up by producing a fact sheet on the outcome of the information given, which can be distributed to regional women’s groups and published in Focus or similar UNISON publications;
C)pass information on to the International Committee who together can work towards raising awareness of international and trans-ethnic adoption;
D)report back to Conference next year.