Abroad adopters are not prepared well enough

MAKED IMPRESSIONS: Many were moved to tears by Fredrik Solvang's strong story in the program «Lindmo» earlier this autumn. - The new report confirms what many of us have lived with since we were brought here in the 1970s and 80s, namely that we who are adopted abroad experience discrimination to the same extent as people with an immigrant background, the columnists write.

DANIEL Abimael SKJERVE Wensell

DIANA PATRICIA fynbos,

CHRISTINA VIOLETA THRANE Storsve, Adoption changing - Resource adopted and their families

HAWA Muus, Foundation on August 10

LINDA TINUKE Strandmyr, Anti-Racist Center

LISA ESOHEL KNUDSEN, Minotenk

In the wake of the murder of Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen on 10 August in Bærum, a number of foreign adoptees appeared in various media and told about their experiences with racism and discrimination. In December of the same year , the then Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H) admitted that "we may have underestimated discrimination against foreign adopters", and the same month foreign adopters were included for the first time in the government's action plan against racism and discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity and religion.

Point 7 of the action plan states that "Research on skin color and other external characteristics as a basis for discrimination and racism" shall be carried out. On Monday 15 November, the Directorate for Children, Youth and Families (Bufdir) launched the report from a survey conducted by the Urban and Regional Research Institute (NIBR) , " Foreign adoptees' experiences of racism and discrimination in Norway" .

The report confirms what many of us have lived with since we were brought here in the 1970s and 80s, namely that we experience discrimination to the same extent as people with an immigrant background. In addition, more than one in four have experienced discrimination in close relationships, such as immediate family, from other relatives and friends. About 40 percent answer that they had no one to talk to growing up about these experiences.

Furthermore, the report shows that 7 out of 10 foreign adoptees are adults aged 20-49, and the qualitative data show that foreign adoptees are in an affiliation vacuum, where they can neither feel safe in their connection to Norway, nor have an alternative connection that can give them the anchorage they need.

Racism against foreign adopters reveals society's myths that racism is due to a lack of integration. The murder of Johanne Zhangjia Ihle-Hansen was first and foremost a brutal result of hateful and violent extremism based on racist thinking. The memories from the terror of August 10 show us how short the road is from prejudice to calculated murder. The insight into what happened prior to the murder shows the necessity that society at an early stage takes the individual's experiences seriously.

Abroad adopters are not well enough prepared for what they will face from racism and discrimination. This may indicate that the parents are not well enough prepared, have not been followed up with guidance and training, and may not have the ability or willingness to familiarize themselves with the topic.

When the report says that adoptees experience racism and discrimination early in primary and secondary school, this indicates that parents should be prepared and equipped to meet this. Unfortunately, we see that this is lacking: Parents are not well enough prepared and guided in how to assist their children in the face of racism and discrimination.

The group we are compared to is Norwegian-born with immigrant parents. This is a group that, unlike foreign adoptees, has a different prerequisite for being prepared for what can await them in the face of society at large. When Norwegian-born with immigrant parents are exposed to racism and discrimination, they often have a community or a home where they can talk about and manage experiences because the experiences can be recognizable in others in the household.

These two groups thus have different starting points when processing negative experiences, where the group of foreign adoptees is less equipped to face such experiences at the individual level. It should never be the case that one has to process the demanding experience of racism and discrimination alone. This is not at home, at school, at work or in society in general.

Experiences with differential treatment in childhood and adolescence can be assumed to particularly characterize the individual's identity formation and thus a sense of belonging and exclusion in society in the long term.

When we look at what the report says that 7 out of 10 foreign adoptees are adults aged 20-49, we can only imagine the consequences the lack of work in the field has had for this group.

As we now know a lot about the long-term effects that racism and discrimination can have on those who are exposed to it and what the report shows about society's lack of eye on the extent of the problem, we can no longer ignore the large group of adult adoptees who live today. serious consequences due to a system that has failed. Consequences that we see have ripple effects for the next generation, our children.

Being in a vacuum can mean that we who adopted early take too much responsibility for the environment around us. Takes responsibility for not destroying the climate in a discussion. Takes responsibility so that the parents do not worry too much about the racism you experience. Takes responsibility for not offending people from us by setting clear boundaries. This invisible work requires that we are on guard and emotionally activated for large parts of our everyday lives. We must constantly analyze, assess and adapt, which in turn can take away focus from work, studies and good relationship building, among other things. In the worst case, we see that it leads to more serious psychological consequences for the individual.

We will argue that it is a structural challenge when child welfare children from other countries, who in the Norwegian context have a minority background, are placed in majority Norwegian families without any form of follow-up or aftercare. A safe home for a child with a minority background is not about the child being held accountable by initiating conversations about racism and discrimination, it is a parental responsibility to both give the child the competence and create space for such conversations, and constantly ensure that if the child experiences racism, he should get the help he is entitled to.

When, according to the report, this has not occurred in 60 per cent of the respondents' homes, it is a structural problem that the foreign adoptees fall victim to. Who is responsible for the lack of protection of foreign adopters' encounters with racism? And who ensures that the parents' competence is sufficient? In the proposed measures in the report, guidance and training are promoted as a measure, we believe these findings show a precarious need to legislate children's right to such mandatory follow-up.

In the wake of the murder of Johanne Zhangjia and the Black Lives Matter discussions, foreign adoptees are no longer an invisible minority outside the racism debate, and therefore we must be actively included in the design of measures to combat racism and discrimination in Norway.

Racism against foreign adoptees is not a private problem, but a societal problem for which the public sector should be held accountable and ordered to do something about it. Adoption in change in collaboration with other anti-racist organizations is ready to develop and facilitate offers that have been in demand for decades, both from the adoptees themselves and their families. By the end of the year, Bufdir will study and propose how adoptees and their families should be followed up after adoption and state the costs for this.

We encourage Bufdir to give concrete support to our work, when these recommendations are to be conveyed to the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs.

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