From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Jun 30 2010 - 16:38:20 EDT
<http://allafrica.com/africa/> Africa: U.S. Families Adoption of Children,
for Trade or Charity?
Henry Ugboaja
30 June 2010
_____
analysis
"ADOPTION is becoming the new export industry for our country. Experts I
have spoken with are of the opinion that it might overtake coffee as major
export industry..."
Those were the words of Ellene Moria, who runs a women's programme on a
local radio station in Ethiopia. They were laden with acrimonious emotion
which many historians and social commentators never captured the historic
trade in human beings during slave trade with.
Hence, how can one phantom the idea behind some of the adverts put up by the
various adoption agencies in Ethiopia on their web sites? Without meaning to
say it, this calls back memories of slave trade. Take for instance one of
the adverts I saw on one of the sites read thus:
"Agernesh, a lively girl with a slender build and a ready smile, spent her
first eight years in a small rural village in the south of Ethiopia...There
are sibling groups as well as single children. The majority of the
youngsters are between five and seven years of age. All are basically
healthy; both physically and emotionally...They learn Western table manners
and how to eat with a knife and fork... The children have chores and learn
that in American families they will be expected to help in the kitchen, with
cleaning and laundry."
However the manner which children are adopted in Ethiopia goes beyond trade
in human being or human trafficking. It all depends on how close or far you
hold the mirror to the society. You either check out the socio-economic,
psychological and political implications of this to both the individuals and
government or you simply hang on to the trade issue.
It is very rare to see a mother in African society give up her child for
adoption even in the face of famine. This can't be said for Ethiopia today.
It is still not clear if the mothers of the children given up for adoptions
ever get paid. Considering the way Ethiopian government and its various
adoption agencies handle the deal, and the fact that some child welfare
groups in the country claim that out of a population of about 70 million
people, there are more than five million orphans who have lost their parents
to famine, war and HIV/AIDS.
In consistence with this, a recent UNICEF report state that more than 4.5
million of Ethiopia's children are orphaned due to poverty and illness. This
means that more than one child in 10 is an orphan. Additionally, the
maternal mortality rate for pregnant women is very high -- one in 14 women
will die in childbirth.
More so, there are cases of women who give up their children for adoption
due to their inability to cater for them in the face of parlous economic
hardship in the country. Thus, necessitating the creation of adoption
programmes by the government in conjunction with the various motherless
homes in the country, since government alone cannot cater for the orphans.
In a country that has an annual health budget of 140 million U.S. dollars; a
small amount of money when compared to a staggering 115 million US dollars
estimated for the up-keep of the orphans in a MONTH.
Perhaps, as a palliative measure to cushion the socio-economic effect of
this malaise in the country, government streamlined the process to make
foreign adoption of Ethiopian children to Western families easier. Thereby,
resulting to the sharp increase in the number of foreign adoption recorded
in 2003. The 1400 children taken on adoption by U.S. families doubled the
2002 figure.
With some U.S. families willing to pay upwards of 25,000 US dollars to adopt
an Ethiopian child, the trade in children is certainly more lucrative than
coffee farming. The money realised from this trade hardly gets out of the
coffers of both the government and various adoption agencies/motherless
homes- since most of the kids are said to be orphans. This business
intrigues undoubtedly could be said to have accounted for the tears in
Ellene Moria's voice when she uttered those words quoted above.
There is no doubt that famine and the desire to eke out a living and the
sustenance of government activities in Ethiopia have endangered the lives of
most Ethiopian children. This has also lead to the traumatization of women
and mothers who are more often than not as young as the babies they make.
A recent Oprah Winfrey show which centered on the plight of Ethiopian women
captured the predicaments of young girls or should I rather say children of
age nine to 14 subjected to early pregnancy. The show revealed some of the
health implications of this on the young mothers or better still child
mothers. Many of whom had contracted VVF.
In a country that a hundred dollars could do or buy so much for both an
individual and family, how many poor families wouldn't give up their babies
for adoption in the hope of getting 25,000 U.S. dollars that some of these
babies are being offered up for by adoption agencies to foreigners?
And when this happens, these child mothers are not only ostracized and put
away in shackles sometimes, in rooms but are sometimes thrown into the
forest at the mercy of hyenas. In order to avoid the terrible stench that
oozes out of them. More so, some of these child mothers are said to not only
end up with still births, but also with dislocated hips. As a result of the
often prolonged period of labour which according to the show, sometimes
stretch from nine to 12 days.
With this horrific pictures and stories, I wondered what the Ethiopian
government and its various adoption agencies are doing about it. Could it be
that they are unaware of the large number of cases of teenage pregnancy and
death recorded every day? Why should a government or parent look on while
their children are turned into mothers at the tender age of nine? Does this
account for the colossal figure of over five million orphans in Ethiopia?
Just like the tilling of land with all mechanical means available for a
bumper harvest of coffee for foreign exchange, young girls or better still,
children seem to have been subjected to the ordeal of producing more babies
for agencies who choose to ignore this inhuman activities against Ethiopian
children because of the lucrative nature of foreign adoption of babies by
some U.S. families who patronize the adoption deal.
Is it even plausible to say that the enormous proceeds from adoption could
be responsible for the plight of women and children in Ethiopia? In a
country that a hundred dollars could do or buy so much for both an
individual and family, how many poor families wouldn't give up their babies
for adoption in the hope of getting 25,000 U.S. dollars that some of these
babies are being offered up for by adoption agencies to foreigners? Do these
motherless home/ adoption agencies just in the veneer of love and charity
revive these young girls infested with VVF for further exploitation? There
is just so much going on there with little or no answers coming forth.
However despicable this transaction might be, and in my effort to be
objective as I can be in my anger and tears; check out the other side of the
bargain before criticizing the individuals or government agencies involved
in the deal. How can you describe an issue so nebulous in the minds of the
persons who initiated it in the first place? Though the perpetrators of this
trade are not faceless, yet criticism against them is hard to come by. Could
there be some form of justification for their action, considering the fact
that those children may not have had any good life to look forward to in
Ethiopia compared to what awaits them in U.S.?
Apart from this, how can the government cater for such great number of
children with the little resources at its disposal? How can young mothers
cope with the temptation of giving away their children in the face of the
untold hardship in the land?
What can one say about this intriguing situation of an encounter between
Fari, an Ethiopian lady and a tourist captured on page 20 of April 8- 14,
2006 edition of The 'Weekly Trust Newspaper'? Fari says her husband died two
years ago, leaving her small family to eke out an existence on the street.
She further lamented lugubriously, "My child needs something better in life.
Something I cannot give him." When she noticed the joy and gratitude in her
son's eyes when he received a red plastic toy a tourist gave him. Fari's
lamentation should not totally be seen as a mother's failure. Perhaps, a
mother trapped, hard up in a difficult circumstance which numerous Ethiopian
civil wars and maladministration have caused over time.
Another delicate issue is how to place the action of some American families
who patronize this venture. Especially when some of them claimed to have
done it out of sympathy and charity for the helpless and hopeless children,
whose plights they learnt about through adverts that project the children as
being in dire need of parental care and up keep?
Ugboaja is an admissions counselor in American University of Nigeria - AUN,
Yola.
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