The social expectation is that adoptees should always be grateful for their adoption, ignoring the fact that it is a complicated, lifelong, and often traumatic journey.

Americans adopting children from India is not new. In 2021, India sent 245 children, the second largest after Colombia, for adoption, according to data released by the U.S. State Department. However, there is little research done on the lifelong impact of the adoption experience on the adoptees, especially in the adolescent years, and their families. Studies suggest that essential shifts in life roles and relationships occur in the post-high school period. In early adulthood, when the adoptees analyze their roots and belonging, it may trigger insecurities about their identity and self-worth.

In the adoption triad, there is the birth mother/family, child, and adoptive parents. Birth mothers and their families are constantly ignored or spoken of negatively in society. The adoptees, biologically separated from their mothers, are traumatized and yearn for love and a sense of belonging. The adoptive parents are often the voices one hears the most. Adoptees’ voices are not often heard.

It is, however, crucial to listen to their lived experiences. I have collected the life experiences of a few Indian adoptees who came to the U.S. in the 1980s and were mostly raised in small rural towns. I will focus on their self-identity and their identification shaped by myriad life experiences growing up in ‘foreign’ families vastly different from their roots. It is not only race and ethnicity that separates them, it is also their cultural backgrounds — language, religion, food, attire, and customs. Being separated from their birth families at a very young age, these children have tried to cope with racial and cultural differences. They have come a long way in making a space for themselves, shaping their careers, and building their families.

Transracial Adoption: A Few Case Studies

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Committee on the Family: Ban adoption from the Congo and establish expert body

25 January 2023

Zagreb - On Wednesday, the parliamentary Committee on the Family and Youth presented proposals to improve the law on inter-country adoptions, including a ban on adoptions from countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention and for an expert body to monitor adoptions.

The Committee held a thematic session in light of the trial of eight Croatian citizens who went to Africa to adopt four children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were arrested in neighbouring Zambia on charges of attempted child trafficking.

Most children are adopted from Colombia, Ukraine, China, India and South Korea, and according to data from 2020, DR Congo is only in 19th place, said Professor Dubravka Hrabar from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb.

Zagreb - On Wednesday, the parliamentary Committee on the Family and Youth presented proposals to improve the law on inter-country adoptions, including a ban on adoptions from countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention and for an expert body to monitor adoptions.

The Committee held a thematic session in light of the trial of eight Croatian citizens who went to Africa to adopt four children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were arrested in neighbouring Zambia on charges of attempted child trafficking.

Most children are adopted from Colombia, Ukraine, China, India and South Korea, and according to data from 2020, DR Congo is only in 19th place, said Professor Dubravka Hrabar from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb.

The Hague Convention on the protection of children and cooperation in connection with international adoption is a document that lays down standards aimed at preventing child trafficking. However, DR Congo is not a signatory to that document, warned Hrabar.

"We need to react urgently and ban adoptions from 'non-Hague countries'." This requires the coordination of various state bodies. I am concerned that we may be part of a wider chain of child trafficking because I know that there is drug, prostitution and child trafficking," said Hrabar.

Human emotions and relations can heal sickness and truly warm the cockles of the heart. One such relationship has been between a 59-year-old American woman and Indian children whom she has come here to aid. These children suffer from the rare condition of bladder exstrophy, and she felt the need to help them after seeing her own adopted Chinese-origin daughter suffer from the same condition.

A number of pediatric patients and their parents come to meet her from near and far at an international programme at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital being run for the last 15 years.

Child adopted from orphanage

Florida resident Pamela Artigas hails from an affluent family. She said she wanted to do something for the community when she came to know that there was a child with a heart ailment at an orphanage run by XU Zhou Welfare organisation in China, who nobody was willing to adopt. Pamela adopted a little girl, Lily. After some time, she learnt that another 2-year-old was not getting adopted as she was suffering from bladder exstrophy, where her bladder was outside her body. The child was tied to a chair when Pamela saw her for the first time.

Pamela said, “I loved the child at first sight and soon started the procedure to adopt her. It takes 18 months to adopt a child in China. I contacted bladder exstrophy expert Dr Grady Richard in the US even before the process was complete.”

Orphanages in Mumbai are being phased outIt happens once in a while that orphanages in DIA's cooperation countries close. This unfortunately applies to the Indian orphanage Bal Vikas.We have contact with several adoptees and adopters who are naturally worried about what will happen to adoption papers, for example, or who would like to see the orphanage again.Our adoption coordinator, Tina, is in close dialogue with the contact person in India, who is the long-time leader of Bal Vikas, Jaisita.There is not yet a concrete date for closing and the plan is that the adoption papers will be stored with an authority in Mumbai.Jaisita is currently working on getting more concrete information and as soon as we hear from her, we will announce more here, on Facebook and on the website.You can read more about the orphanage's phasing out on our website.

Børnehjem i Mumbai udfases

The Central Government has notified the appointment of Advocate, Dr. Neela Kedar Gokhale, as an additional judge of the Bombay High Court for a period of two years from the date when she assumes charge.

Gokhale is an alumni of Indian Law Societies’ Law College, Pune, having completed her LL.B in the year 1992. She went on to complete her LL.M. from the University of Pune and thereafter a Doctorate in Law from the Bundelkhand University, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. Her topic for Research was ‘Towards a common Law of Adoption’, having worked for many years in the field of domestic and International Adoption and having rendered pro bono services to institutions housing destitute women and children such as Kusumbai Motichand Mahila Seva Gram, Pune among others.

She has practiced Law at the District Level in Pune District Courts, including Family Courts and other Tribunals for about 7 years and thereafter continued her practice in the Supreme Court of India, New Delhi, since the year 2007. She has also advised Promoters, Builders and Developers in completing housing schemes, right from purchase of land, executing Development agreements, Flat booking agreements, examining the title, registration of societies among other things pertaining to drafting and conveyancing.

As far as litigation is concerned, she has been actively involved in appearing in matters of civil, criminal and constitutional nature before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, High Courts of Delhi and Bombay. She has also filed Public Interest Litigations in her own name as well as on behalf of persons interested in doing so, which include seeking an efficacious mechanism for voting rights for armed forces personal, challenging various gender-biased provisions, proceedings seeking codification of immunities and privileges for Parliamentarians etc, to name a few. Having specialized in service matters, she has represented many armed forces personnel of the Army, Navy and Air force before various constitutional courts and the Armed Forces Tribunal. She also conducts matters in respect of Family and Domestic Law.

She has also been on multiple panels over the years, including but not limited to Union of India, H.E. Chancellor, Uttar Pradesh, Indraprasth Gas Ltd., Patna University etc. Furthermore, she presently represents the Union of India before the Hon’ble Supreme Court, being on the Panel- A of the Lawyers chosen to represent the Union of India.

Japan’s government has ordered the Unification Church to comply with national child adoption rules amid allegations of unauthorized adoption among its believers' families.

Katsunobu Kato, Health, Labor, and Welfare minister, told reporters during a Jan. 23 press conference that an investigation is underway over the church’s shady adoption deals, the Mainichi reported.

“In connection with the adoption mediation business, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will provide the information collected… to the investigative authorities regarding the facts related to past adoptions,” Kato said.

The minister stated that a guidance document will be sent on the same day to the Unification Church.

Earlier on Dec. 9, 2022, a similar administrative notice was sent to the Unification Church highlighting the general interpretation of the adoption mediation law.

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Generational obsessive preference for sons in rural India is rooted in the prevalent patriarchal system that has ultimately indoctrinated into a gender biased situation, thereby, disregarding the value and capacity of daughters. Thus, when we talk about the upsurge in girl child adoption, it still remains a concerning issue in rural India.

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Child adoption can generally be defined as a personal, social and legal act whereby an adult accepts a child as their own with a sense of responsibility, care and love. The adoptive parent/parents honour and restore the fundamental rights and obligations of the adopted child. Child adoption involves three participants; the adoptive child, the birth family and the adoptive family. It is due to the integrated involvement of this triad that child adoption acquires the nature of ‘social service’.

Touching on child adoption, specifically adoption of the girl child, data uploaded on the website of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) reveals that prospective adoptive parent/parents prefer girls over boys in their adoption plan. The CARA data states that in 2019-20 of the 3,351 in-country adoptions there were 1,938 girls and 1,413 boys. In 2020-21 of the 3,142 domestic adoptions 1,856 were girls and 1,286 were boys. Thereby, accentuating a steady escalation in the number of girl child adoptees.

The formal practice of child adoption is governed by a myriad of ethical principles like justice, non-maleficence and benevolence. Talking of justice and unfairness in the context of child adoption in the Indian milieu, it is apparent that there is a lack of equal inclusivity on the basis of the child’s gender identity.