Little Tia smiles, laughs, and will bump fists as a greeting. It is normal behavior for a 2 year old but extraordinary for a newly adopted Chinese orphan with special needs.

Her new mother, Amy Soar, understands how international adoption can enrich a child’s life. As an infant orphaned during the Vietnam War, Amy was one of the thousands of babies airlifted to new homes toward the end of the war. She says her own adoption gave her the desire to adopt a child.

Though the number of international adoptions has decreased over the past five years, Amy and her husband Eric, were confident in their decision in 2010 to apply to adopt through Children’s Hope International.

“I had a great family,” Amy said when recalling growing-up in a small town west of St. Louis. “I have not spent much time looking into my own heritage, though I have thought more about it with the adoption of my daughter.”

As little Tia grows older, and becomes more inquisitive about her adoption, Amy says she feels equipped to comfort and assure Tia because of their shared experience.

But for now, Tia, who came home in December, is simply asking for things that fulfill all her 2 year old needs, like, demanding that her brothers give her another wagon ride.

Tia has a surgically repaired cleft lip and palate so she has some challenges and more surgeries ahead. But her bright eyes and playful personality help her express what her newly obtained English words don’t quite communicate.

The entire adoption process for the Soar family, from application to flying to China, took 18 months. Amy and her husband Eric, had decided to adopt a child with special needs early in their process, because of the nearly six year wait in the standard China adoption program. But adoption of a Chinese orphan with special needs can take as little as a year.

Amy says she purposely chose to adopt a child born with a cleft lip and cleft palate because she works in the dental field. Her professional contacts have become vital to her when she has questions about treatments her daughter may need.

“I have ongoing support from my colleagues and I can go to them to answer questions,” Amy said.

Just like Tia will know who to go to, when she has questions about becoming part of an American family through international adoption.

Now in its 20th year, Children’s Hope International has helped over 7000 children just like Tia celebrate Mother’s Day with their new moms.

HANOI, Vietnam –  The number of international adoptions has plummeted to its lowest point in 15 years, a steep decline attributed largely to crackdowns against baby-selling, a sputtering world economy and efforts by countries to place more children with domestic families.

Globally, the number of orphans being adopted by foreign parents dropped from a high of 45,000 in 2004 to an estimated 25,000 last year, according to annual statistics compiled by Peter Selman, an expert on international adoptions at Britain’s Newcastle University.

Some adoption advocates argue the decrease is also linked to a set of strict international guidelines known as the Hague Adoption Convention. Devised to ensure transparency and child protection following a rash of baby-selling and kidnapping scandals, critics say the guidelines have also been used by leading adopting nations, such as the U.S., as a pretext for freezing adoptions altogether from some countries that are out of compliance.

“It should have been a real step forward, but it’s been used in a way that’s made it a force for shutting down countries,” says Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard Law professor who promotes international adoptions. “That affects thousands of children every year.”

She says places where international adoptions are stopped may ultimately see more children stuck in orphanages or on the street where they could fall prey to sex traffickers. “I question whether it’s ever true where adoption is all about buying and selling and kidnapping,” Bartholet says.

U.S. adoption officials and international agencies such as UNICEF say the Hague rules, which require countries to set up a central adoption authority and a system of checks and balances, are necessary to safeguard orphans and keep profit-driven players from corrupting a system that should be purely about helping unwanted children.

Alison Dilworth, adoptions division chief at the U.S. Office of Children’s Issues and a strong supporter of the Hague guidelines, says they shield adoptive parents from everyone’s worst nightmare: “God forbid, that knock on the door … saying your child that you have raised and loved and is fully integrated into your family was stolen from a birth parent who is desperately trying to look for them.”

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After months of paperwork, interviews, emails and endless anticipation, the magical moment for Lori LeRoy and her husband Nick had finally arrived. Lori and Nick received arguably the most important piece of mail of their lifetimes. It was an adoption referral on their soon-to-be son, Nate, a Vietnamese boy who was given up by his sick and impoverished mother when he was two days old. They received a photo of Nate and an instant love flowered.

For any parent, the first moment you see your child is indescribable. I will never forget the feeling I had when I saw my three adopted children from Haiti for the first time. I was no longer a man who had no interest in being a father. My place in the world was with these kids, and my role was to love and protect them regardless of what happened.

Today, courage and strength have replaced love and desire as the most important characteristics for people who take on the international adoption process. Unfortunately for many prospective parents, including the LeRoys, the expected 18- to 24-month adoption process has turned into a maddening and unnecessary four or five year ordeal. Every day they wait, their son or daughter loses another critical day of physical and social development.

Despite the best intentions of those committed to international adoption, the debilitating process has taken adoption off the table as an option for orphans worldwide. In situations where children already start a step behind, don’t they deserve as many options as possible? We’ve reached a critical point in time where a national conversation must start about doing better for these kids.

In 2011, more than 9,300 children were adopted from overseas by Americans. That’s a steep drop from 2004, when close to 23,000 children were adopted by Americans. That astounding decline over seven years is the result of several factors outside the control of families trying to provide children with a safe, loving home.

A closer look at the nearly four-year process that the LeRoys endured to bring Nate home is instructive. In 2008, the U.S. raised red flags about alleged fraud in Vietnam’s adoption process. Alarmed, and frankly offended, by these largely unsubstantiated claims, Vietnam decided to shut down adoptions to the U.S., stalling cases that were already in motion and extending the adoption process for the LeRoys and others. While the politics played out, Nate waited an extra two years in an institution before arriving at his new home in the U.S.

What is more concerning is that we’ve seen similar situations play out with other countries, including Cambodia and Ethiopia. The U.S. government preaches compliance with the Hague Convention, the international treaty that establishes practice standards for international adoptions, as the magic bullet solution. No one doubts that safeguards and protections in the process are important; however, years pass as countries implement reform measures, leaving children to languish in institutions for that much longer.

We have to wonder if our policies align with acting in the best interests of these children. As a world leader, the U.S. has a vital role to play in ensuring that international standards are being met, but in doing so, we must maintain an open dialogue and take a proactive approach to working with countries to develop the appropriate programs and policies that foster safe, ethical and efficient adoptions. Ultimately, we have to strike a balance of maintaining safeguards, but also ensuring that we’re moving forward expeditiously.

We have recently seen the benefits of the U.S. working in partnership with another country to build child welfare capacities. Guatemala, previously known as one of the worst actors in international adoption due to corruption and fraud, has made great strides during the last two years to develop a system that serves its citizens and provides options for children in need. Guatemalan officials have committed to moving forward 300 adoption cases that have been stalled for years. A culture of adoption is also being cultivated at the grassroots level. There is a long way for Guatemala to go, but we’re seeing what can happen when two countries make a commitment to doing what’s necessary — and right — for orphans.

There will always be many highs and lows in the international adoption process. But the staggering decline in international adoptions from the U.S. indicates that something is not working here. We must realize the promise in international adoption, just like the LeRoys and thousands of families across the country have done. The question becomes: why aren’t we doing more to make international adoption a less problematic option for children in need of a home and families with room in their hearts?

Follow Craig Juntunen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@BEBCampaign

Read the article at The Huffington Post.

This beautiful child is the man’s second; his five-year-old son lives with the mother of his now deceased wife because he is too poor to care for the boy himself. Though the man sleeps inside a small hut, he has no income. He eats the small amount of corn he somehow grows in the small plot of infertile land that rests behind his hut.

Just one month into the baby girl’s tender life, the man’s dire living situation became too obvious to ignore. The man finally had to accept that he was unable to care for his daughter and made the decision to relinquish her. He would rather not have the joy of raising her than live with the pain of watching her die.

Continue reading… ]]> http://bothendsburning.org/happening/love/feed/ 0 http://bothendsburning.org/happening/guatemala-president-proceed-350-adoptions-parents-stuck-limbo-ban/ http://bothendsburning.org/happening/guatemala-president-proceed-350-adoptions-parents-stuck-limbo-ban/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:05:16 +0000 admin http://bothendsburning.org/?p=1843 Continue reading →]]>

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The golden era of international adoptions has come to a close. And that is a shame for the hundreds of millions of children in orphanages around the world.

Bureaucracy, escalating costs and more stringent regulations have caused a number of Canadian adoption agencies to close, and made it much harder for parents to adopt overseas.

Nepal, Guatemala, Cambodia and Liberia are on Canada’s adoption blacklist, and in most provinces, so is Haiti. Popular source countries such as China and Ethiopia have reduced the number of children sent abroad for adoption.

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International adoption is an extremely personal issue for perspective adoptive parents and children, and attacks like this create misconceptions and inflame prejudices that make it more difficult for families on all ends of the international adoption spectrum. The fact is, we have reached a crisis point in international adoptions, with numbers of successful adoptions falling from a peak of 22,884 in 2004 to just 9,320 last year. The people hurt most by these trends are the children themselves.

To attack any family offering a loving home to a child in need is wrong, and we must all come together to help strengthen the international adoption system. We call on Rep. Ron Paul to disavow this advertisement and urge he and the other presidential candidates to work towards positive outcomes for children and families.

Foster Friess, a visionary leader and loyal supporter of the campaign, made a $500,000 matching grant to Both Ends Burning to help more kids have a family. We are asking you to donate any amount you can to help us with the remaining costs to complete the film and to execute the successful placement and promotion of the film. Find out more…