International Adoption: Count the Costs

I’m a huge fan of international adoption. Two years ago, my wife Laurel and I had the chance to adopt our son Myles from a Rwandan orphanage. It has changed our world in wonderful ways and I can’t imagine our family without him. We’ve walked with several other friends through the adoption process and celebrate each family that conquers the paperwork and bureaucracy and finally brings their child home.

As much as I advocate for international adoption, there’s something that still deeply bothers the analytical part of me about it – the numbers. There are over 132 million orphans globally but just 11,000 international adoptions according to the U.S. Department of State. It’s clear that international adoption simply isn’t close to meeting the global needs of orphans and vulnerable children. Some of the problems with adoption and traditional models of orphan care include:

  1. Limited resources: I visited a home in Haiti housing and providing education, meals, and a way off the streets for 50 children.  But it annually cost $100,000 to run or $2,000 for one child every year, and at that expense, it would take $264 billion to house the world’s 132 million orphans. (If the US government would use all of its annual funds for foreign aid, the funds would only be able to house fewer than 10 percent of the world’s orphans).
  2. It doesn’t address one of the primary causes of orphan crisis—poverty: In the developing world, many “orphans” have at least one living parent, such as  40 percent of orphans in Zimbabwe, 70 percent in Azerbaijan, 92 percent in Sri Lanka, and 98 percent in Liberia, according to the Better Care Network.

Reason for HOPE: Thankfully, international adoption is part of the solution, but there is so much more that is happening. Local communities are actively engaged in caring for the most vulnerable and not waiting for a western solution. Consider a client of HOPE named Mama Atiya, who was widowed during DR Congo’s civil war.  Due to tradition, Mama Atiya was stripped of her land by her husband’s family, leaving her homeless, with six children to support.

After taking out a $55 loan and receiving business training, she began selling smoked fish, became a successful wholesaler at the local market, and she was able to provide for her six children and send all of her children to school.  But here’s the part of the story I find amazing… in addition to her six children, she has adopted four more children from her community. I’m thankful that there are so many women like Mama Atiya who are even more passionate than I am that each child should have a home.

2 Comments

  1. Dwain Gullion
    September 13, 2011

    Peter, thanks for your work to empower moms and dads to provide for their children with dignity through financial resources and sustainable business models. Indigenous care and adoption, like Mama Atiya provides, is a great example of what happens through a handup and not a handout.

    Reply
  2. Christy Tennant
    September 13, 2011

    Thanks for putting some practical numbers behind this emotional issue. Like you, I love and appreciate foreign adoption… I have a niece and nephew from Ethiopia, and it is clear that God put this family together just as if he had knit them together in my sister-in-law’s womb! But as you said, it does not even scratch the surface of the underlying problem of poverty. I love what you’re doing at HOPE and other responsible micro-financing organizations. I would love to see more people supporting that work – making systematic changes at the source of poverty (unemployment, no way to make a living). Thanks for the post.

    Reply

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