When There's No Place Like Home.(Society)(United Nations Children's Fund's policy on intercountry adoption)

Byline: Pat Wingert

Children's advocates can't agree on how much to emphasize intercountry adoption as a solution.

Some advocates blame the decline in intercountry adoptions over the past three years on a single surprising source: UNICEF. The United Nations Children's Fund may be known worldwide for helping underprivileged children obtain better health care and education, but when it comes to finding homes for orphans, they argue, the organization places misguided emphasis on maintaining cultural and geographic ties rather than on the child's overall well-being. That's true even when there is little chance of domestic adoption and virtually no public programs to provide care for abandoned children or struggling families. "National boundaries should not prevent abandoned children from having families," says Thomas Atwood, president of America's National Council for Adoption. "UNICEF's exclusive focus on domestic programs amounts to an obstacle to international adoption and prevents untold numbers of children from improving their lives through international adoption."

There is no argument over the need for adoptive homes--UNICEF estimates that there are 143 million orphans in the world--or the unprecedented interest among Westerners eager to adopt. And children's advocates of all stripes agree that when possible, children should be raised by their own families and in their own cultures. But there seems to be a discrepancy over what qualifies as "when possible." Rather than promote research that demonstrates the beneficial effects for all types of adoption, critics say UNICEF plays up rare cases of abuse and corruption and actively discourages developing countries from making more abandoned children available. "UNICEF and some foreign critics have encouraged countries to look at international adoption as a form of colonialism," says Dana Johnson, director of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota and an expert on global adoption trends. Critics compare such policies to those promoted in the 1970s by black American social workers, who argued that only African-American families could ethically adopt black babies. As a result, many minority children spent most of their childhoods in state care.

UNICEF argues that intercountry adoption is not the only--and certainly not always the best--option for the world's orphans. Alexandra Yuster, a senior adviser in the child-protection section, claims the organization advocates the inclusion of international adoption in the mix of potential solutions for countries seeking homes for orphaned children. But it is much more focused on helping birth families get adequate support from their governments so they can take care of their own kids. "That's our priority because that will help a much larger number of kids--as

will promoting domestic adoption," she says. "It's not that we're against intercountry adoption; it's just not a main focus for us."

In part, that's because UNICEF fears financial profit is the driving force behind many intercountry transactions. Because few healthy infants are available for adoption in Western countries, she says, the amount of money prospective parents are willing to pay to complete adoptions of healthy babies has increased. And corruption inevitably follows the money. UNICEF is especially concerned about poor countries like ...