Urgent Warning for people attempting to or about to internationally Adopt from Uganda

Publication date: 7 February 2012

If you are trying to adopt, or about to adopt from Uganda - TREAD WITH CAUTION.

I will not break any confidences or highlight specific cases... but we have recently engaged with and met with quite a few families who are going through the adoption process and quite frankly – it’s a complete mess. In an official capacity I hear and witness ‘nightmare’ scenarios every single day. I pray and hope that the families who have had a bad experience in Uganda are brave enough to blog about what is really taking place on the ground. Please consider it because the truth has to come out.

The government is working extremely hard to ‘clean’ up the process and put in place robust mechanisms to ensure that the children being internationally adopted ARE actually available for adoption and the processes are transparent and ethical. However, until these measures are in place I would strongly advise that international adopters TRUST NOBODY and BELIEVE NOTHING that you are being told (verbally or on paper). The sweetness of the words and promises you hear will snare you in and are venomous, you must be careful.

We suggest that you demand all of the background information on the child. Has everything been done to find their family or find a domestic solution? When you receive background information on a child, scrutinize it and ask questions and don’t stop asking questions throughout the process. Try and get someone on the ground to verify the information. If a relinquishing order has been obtained please follow it up and investigate the circumstances surrounding that order. Check to see if the child is actually living in an institution and how long they have been there. We see lawyers and baby homes ‘plucking’ children from communities to supply the demographic demand of international adopters and ‘routing’ them through children’s homes. We see the Ugandan families being convinced and even coerced into allowing their children to be adopted for opportunity reasons. It’s disgusting.

There are Adoption agencies, lawyers and children’s homes implicit in unethical practices. I’m not going to name them on here (the list would be too long!) but if you are thinking “oh that doesn’t apply to our lawyer or our baby home or our agency” PLEASE think again.

Yes there are good and ethical people involved in international adoption BUT as a mandatory position I think it’s healthy to assume the worst and hopefully be proved wrong. Naivety and lack of awareness will not help when we have the chance to obtain the knowledge and information required to make informed and ethical decisions.

We know there are children who need to be internationally adopted. We are in the process of helping to find a family for a severely neglected boy who has little or no chance of a domestic solution. However, these are not the children who are generally being adopted out of Uganda.

This post may sound harsh. This post may make you angry. This post may piss you off. This post may even get ignored. But if you are adopting from Uganda, or thinking about it, this'll probably be the most important post you’ll read this year.

Mark.

Posted by Rileys in Uganda at 22:20

Labels: adoption corruption, intercountry adoption, international adoption Uganda, legal guardianship, tracing, tracking down extended family, transracial adoption, Ugandan adoption

6 comments:

Sara said...

I totally agree. We adopted from Uganda last year. We tried to adopt two girls. Our first adoption went well. I believe everyone involved was being careful to do what is in the best interest of the child and family.

Our second adoption, however, fell apart completely due to a lack of transparency from the baby home. The baby home - one of the most highly respected in Uganda - had not made an effort to reuinte the child with her biological fater. The father, however, lived only 10 minutes from the home and was caring for the child's four siblings. The baby home was spending more than $100 a month to care for the girl, but they never offered support (such as school fees or help with medical care) to the father to care for his daughter. The only option they gave him was international adoption. And he said yes. Probably because he felt he had no other options. THIS IS NOT RIGHT. In the end, we found out the orphanage was lying to us and backed out of the adption. We were heart broken. We love this girl. It's even worse that she's still stuck at the orphanage by policies that would rather see a child neatly clothed in a western style institution than with a family in an African village. And I repeat, this was one of the most highly respected orphanages in Uganda. They use the lawyer everyone agrees is "the best". But even he did not question the child's situation or how the orphanage required families to "be on mission" with them, supporting their ministry long term.

I agree completely with what Mark is saying.

3 February 2012 08:33

Kelley said...

Just posted this in the Uganda adoption Facebook group. thanks for writing it.

3 February 2012 08:54

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this great post! Out of curiosity, what are the rules and practices around trying to find a domestic option for the babies before an international one? Is this something that the Ugandan courts are concerned with? The USCIS? Both? Thanks.

5 February 2012 23:52

Rileys in Uganda said...

The rules and regulations are very clear. The law states that institutional care should only be temporary and that every effort should be made to resettle the child back with their birth family and in their communities at first before other options are explored. This rarely happens and usually the child languishes in institutional care while no effort is made to track and trace their families and to discover what crisis happened to warrant the child entering the system in the first place. We have met many Ugandan and even ex pats living in Uganda who are often ignored and their files overlooked by preference for the international applicants, because there is more money in the international adoption process. Sad but true. It is not true that Ugandans don't want to adopt. Malika Babies home is proving that. Malika do not have to look at international adoption because they have enough domestic families to adopt the children in their care. They even have a waiting list of approved families! Ugandans like most other nations generally want to adopt small baby girls. There is no need in ethical adoptions for Americans to adopt this demographic of child to be honest because Ugandans will adopt them. The children who might be able to benefit for international adoption (if a domestic solution can't be found) are special needs children, older children, sibling groups, boys. Thanks for your interest and concern.

6 February 2012 02:07

Marci said...

Thank you. That is it. Thank you.

6 February 2012 13:53

Alana W said...

Adoption is an exciting time for a family, but I agree that is important to take precautions and try to learn the background of your child. My daughter was found on the streets by the police in a small town in Korea, so we know little to nothing about my daughter's history. Due to our lack of information, I have been learning about the Korean culture and I am finding sites like http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-iap to be helpful in how I can share what little information I have with my daughter. I definitely recommend taking a look and hope you find some valuable advice as well.

7 February 2012 11:03

http://www.rileysinuganda.blogspot.com/2012/02/urgent-warning-for-people-attempting-to.html

Countries: Uganda