With a family less than even a remote possibility for millions of African children, those who advocate for international adoption have a responsibility to stay abreast, as much as possible in a world where the mass of information is daunting, to say the least, of the reality of life in Africa.

Unlike some who insist that life is always better lived where begun, people who embrace the idea of a global village and families without borders see international adoption as one way some of the world's children can find love, life and happiness. Making this point... more

Anyone thinking that the United Nations is an upright, honest and honorable organization that can be trusted across the board probably should have been paying a bit more attention when the oil-for-food scandal broke a couple of years back.

If the corruption involved in that mess didn't get people taking a second look toward that big building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, perhaps this confession of years of fabrication and dispensing of false information on the global... more

Much like female genital mutilation being considered little more than a cultural quirk and female infanticide getting little more than a wink and a nudge in many countries, fiddling the books on the numbers of orphans is considered a tolerable dodge in many of the nations of the world.

Making strong differentiations between "adoptable" children and those "not available for adoption" is also something authorities are allowed, and you have to wonder how and why some kids fall one way and others, the other. Do they have anything to... more

Here's a statistic for you today ...

An orphan is created in the world by an AIDS death every 14 seconds; that's more than 4 per minute, 240 per hour, 5,760 per day, and these figures only count AIDS orphans. There are hundreds of thousands orphaned every year by malaria and other diseases, starvation, war, and any number of other causes of death.

This stat comes from an article calling Christians to adoption as part of some call to duty, not an idea I'm particularly comfortable with, but one that nonetheless illustrates the monstrous gap between the number of children in the world for whom parents are even... more

It's Adoption Week in the UK, and with that information is pouring out around the country aimed at dispelling myths that may keep people from considering joining the ranks of adoptive parents.

The BBC is saying that adoption rights are 'misunderstood', and given the news that has come out of that country over the past months, that seems a bit of an understatement. The present circumstance sees the British Association for Adoption and... more

I began a comment on Lisa's Guatemalan Blog for today that ended up growing out of that box and begging for its own, so I'm giving in and making a comment a post in its own right.

Lisa's post was a response to an article in Mother Jones by a woman who adopted from Guatemala and now wonders out loud and publicly, "Did I steal my daughter?".

Reaction... more

In the mood to read about something offensive? If so, I can recommend the blog I just posted over on the Adoption News which might have you spitting nails at UNICEF ... again.

If giant organizations with huge PR budgets and teflon coating don't set off a full round of tintinnabulation for you today, perhaps you will be more comfortable with a bit of pique for the one lone person who wrote ... more

Thursday of last week, the 18th of October, saw the first European Union Anti-Trafficking Day. There seems to have been very little prep for this 'event' ... the press release coming out only three days before ... and it looks like much of the to do was centered around a Kevin Kline movie called "Trade" and "an experts meeting will be held in Brussels".

Whatever... more

The list of impractical impossible solutions offered by those opposed to international adoption to the world's children is short ... support for families in developing countries that would make relinquishment unnecessary, world peace, a global end to hunger and disease ... usually includes not only a confusing contradiction about money -- it's too expensive, but must remain exclusive -- but also the idea that children that are surrendered should be adopted by families in their country of birth.

Local adoption rates offer proof that the option is severely limited,... more

I've been reading the comments on Mary's Ethiopia blog about "true orphans", and although I have posted one there myself, I, like Erin, feel something blog-length would be appropriate.

Before addressing the issue face-on, I'd like to recount a story, a true story, of an event that took place in Mexico some years back ...

A group of women put together an adventure travel... more