One
out of every four children in Liberia lives in extreme poverty. This
is the result of Liberia’s civil war, deplorable social, economic and
environmental conditions, which have deprived Liberian children of
protection and fundamental human rights. Throughout the civil crisis, and
again during the post-conflict era, these conditions made the plight of
unparented Liberian children visible to the world, and forced many persons
in advanced countries into action based on humanitarian ground. This author
believes that the solution to this problem is to support the adoption of all
unparented children in Liberia. Adoption provides that solution because it
provides for the nurturing and caring of unparented children. Whether
domestic or inter-country, adoption offers the permanent placement for
orphaned, abandoned, vulnerable and street children in homes with loving
families.
With
the brutalities of the civil war behind us, adoption presents itself
as a viable option for Liberians seeking a bright future for unparented
children. Nurturing and caring for
unparented children is an invaluable exercise of unconditional love
demonstrated by individuals desiring to expand their families and provide a
safe home for a child. Of course, the biggest obstacle to the
fulfillment of children’s rights in Liberia is poverty. Yet,
as we know, Liberia’s government is in no position to provide even
the basic nurturing and care needed for Liberia’s unparented children.
Obviously, therefore, poverty remains fundamentally the root cause of
the conditions that limit our ability to improve the living standards of the
Liberian child.
While
it is true that adoption is among the oldest and most rewarding of human
practices, its expansion into the international arena is in fact the least
understood for many Liberians. As such, it is not without controversy that
individuals who do not fully understand its complexities hold positions that
do more harm than good to the debate on adoption. The result is that the
vexing social conditions of Liberia’s unparented children receiving
rhetorical rather than practical solutions.
Traditionally,
Liberians will assume responsibility for a relative’s child when that
relative dies or is incapacitated. This is the principal form of adoption
known to most Africans. Here, an adopted child is always a relative who is
treated more as a ward than as a natural child. There are other forms of
adoption, including inter-country adoption, which is similar to the latter
except that individuals automatically assume responsibility for a child not
related to them. In this case, the adopted child is viewed and treated as if
he or she were a natural child. In addition, inter-country adoption
allows children to accrue rights and privileges that pertain to an
individual’s natural-born child including the right of inheritance and all
other duties and privileges that pertain to a natural-born child.
Over
the past 20 years, Inter-country adoption became widely known to ordinary
Liberians. For most, it is an essential method of serving the needs of
orphaned, abandoned, unparented and street children. On the one hand,
while it is an effective means for combating malnutrition, disease, poverty
and illiteracy, it is, on the other hand, a remedy for the desperate state
of uncertainty and embarrassment generated by the plight of the Liberian
child. Overcoming this uncertainty and embarrassment requires sustained
international goodwill and intervention. Liberia’s unparented children
could not survive without international intervention. However, beyond
its instrumental utility as a humanitarian intervention, inter-country
adoption provides hope for many unparented Liberian children born into a
difficult reality of poverty, disease and war. It offers countless
opportunities with great possibilities for many unparented Liberian children
who are facing the future with severe test with issues of respect, dignity,
opportunity and protection.
According
to UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, more than 300,000 children in Liberia
are unparented due to the war, death, or abandonment. Many live in
desperately inadequate orphanage conditions, on the streets or in urban
homes as domestics performing housework in exchange for food and basic
protection from the streets. As a matter of personal well-being, this form
of support may be appreciated but it is grossly inadequate. The UNICEF
report shows both real and potential risks for Liberia’s unparented
children.
In
a 2008 UN report, 500,000 children in Liberia are not regularly enrolled in
school; and, of the 300,000 that are enrolled in school, a staggering 40%
are without qualified teachers, proper supervision, not to mention
instructional materials. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented
that over 37% of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, while
7% suffer from acute malnutrition, leaving one in five children underweight
in Liberia. The report further states that more than 25% of children in
Liberia under five die each year from malnutrition, lack of clean drinking
water, and preventable and treatable diseases, including garbage-borne
diseases that result from poor hygiene, while 75% of children die from
waterborne diseases and lack of access to adequate toilets. The
report concludes that the lack of adequate
healthcare, difficulties accessing education, employment and social
marginalization cause many children to live in total destitution.
To
this author, these conditions will cause Liberia to fall further behind in
its development efforts if we do nothing to support the adoption of
children, especially unparented children who suffer these conditions. This
author’s case is that despite Liberia’s traditional kinship,
foster-care, or extended family system of care-giving—a much needed
service to children—little will be lost if we embrace inter-country
adoption as a solution to supplement the traditional system of care-giving.
In the past, orphaned, abandoned children or others who could not be cared
for by their birthparents were taken in by relatives. As conditions worsen
for many of our people, many surrogate parents are reconsidering their
commitment to traditional standards and practice of care-giving, especially
towards orphaned, abandoned and unparented children.
To
make matters worse, the civil war, forced migration, economic dislocation
and other crises created unprecedented numbers of unparented children for
whom such traditional external family-care has become unavailable or
extinct. For example, the civil war,
including the attending economic dislocation of the population has forced
many parents not only to leave home but also to abandon their children,
thus, upsetting the extended family system. The result is the mass migration
we see in the Monrovia Metropolitan Area (MMA), where most people sought
sanctuary and work. When parents fall victim as they often do to the ravages
of war and poverty, their children become vulnerable and are often subject
to abuse and neglect. This leads children either to the streets or poorly
supervised and inadequate orphanages which offer little to no hope for a
bright future. No Liberian child should be denied an opportunity to escape
such tragic conditions.
Given
these conditions, it is safe then for this author to conclude that
inter-country adoption offers a substantially better outcome for unparented
Liberian children than the alternatives which now dominate the landscape. Notwithstanding,
over the past four years, powerful political forces have aligned against
inter-country adoption in Liberia, and have had an impact on the policies
coming out of the Sirleaf administration. The administration has completely
shot down inter-country adoption without an open discussion with service
providers. The administration is promulgating a new regulatory regime,
pending the conclusion of a presidential commission. This need not be this
way as it may have an adverse effect on children, especially those in the
pipeline for inter-country adoption. After all, these are Liberia’s
children who are being adopted, not because we wish to dispose of them, but
because we have a moral responsibility to secure their future.
Yes,
this author agrees that inter-country adoption is a relatively new
phenomenon for many Liberians, including policymakers and parents. However,
for many Liberians, especially poor parents that are trapped in desperately
fixed poverty conditions; the desire for better alternatives for their
children’s advancement is paramount. Yearning for a better future for
one’s child is a natural behavior and instinctive human conduct. It cannot
be used to exploit the horrific social conditions of ordinary Liberians
simply to satisfy a well-intentioned, but ill-fated social or political
agenda. Hence, calling for a moratorium on inter-country adoption without a
national dialogue or adequate justification impedes the progress, indeed,
success of orphaned, unparented, vulnerable Liberian children.
Accordingly,
nonprofit international organizations and institutions who desire to see
Liberian children succeed and improve must make every effort to see to it
that the adoption process works completely. Individuals in these
organizations and institutions have a moral responsibility to support
inter-country adoption in a manner that neither undermines nor limits the
number of children that can legally be adopted by European and American
families. We may disagree on the methods by which these organizations
fund their efforts -- the images of death, destruction, hunger, destitution
and disease they use throughout the media in both Europe and America —
but, we must respect their motives, especially their desire to advance the
cause of Liberia’s children. Surely, these organizations can expand their
efforts to support inter-country adoption as a viable alternative and
supplement to their efforts. This way, we accomplish two objectives relative
to the plight of the Liberian child: (1) provide support for unparented
children who live in Liberia, and (2) support those children already placed
for adoption with families outside Liberia. These two objectives need not be
in competition with one another. Similarly, they need not place advocates
and supporters on opposing sides where compromise is impossible and
unattainable.
What
has happened in the past is that officials of government who should support
this noble cause and drive the discussion about how best to serve
Liberia’s unparented children, seems to have taken sides and formulated a
fixed opinion on this sensitive issue thereby making it practically
impossible to facilitate or begin any meaningful dialogue on the plight of
all of the children, including those already placed with families outside of
Liberia. Some of these families have invested time and money in attempting
to complete the process of adopting many of Liberia’s unparented children.
Many have waited a long time to conclude this process because of the
presidential ban and moratorium on inter-country adoption. The Liberian
Government has a moral obligation to ensure that these families are made
whole. The Sirleaf administration has an even greater responsibility to
ensure that these families are treated the way a just society treats its
people.
This
author believes that any comprehensive national strategy attempting to deal
with children in Liberia must incorporate inter-country adoption as an
integral part of its final outcome. For example, many of the models
presented on inter-country adoption in ‘the Children’s Act’ are
offered with a preference for in-country foster care-giving over
inter-country adoption. Many in fact express giving mandatory holding
periods during which children must be kept in-country before they can be
placed internationally, which the author believes is harmful to the Liberian
child, if not the state. For instance, ‘the Children’s Act’ gives no
credence explicitly to the fact that the vast majority of Liberian children
are suffocating from a host of treatable
social conditions and socioeconomic challenges; including, many other
problems caused by environmental degradation.
Furthermore,
the ‘Children’s’ Act fails to recognize the fact that children who
birth parents cannot adequately care for them or provide permanent nurturing
to them for whatever reasons, are not allowed to exercise their fundamental
right of placing their child internationally in a permanent adoptive home.
On the one hand, the act does not ensure that the process is fair and
balance; on the other hand, the implementation of the policy at the initial
stage leaves open the possibility for bureaucratic red-tape and
unconstrained extortion. Let’s face it, inter-country adoption is the best
alternative to provide Liberian children with needed resources for personal
growth and development. The Ministry of Health and the Presidential Task
Force on Adoption needs to make every effort to identify unparented children
and immediately grant them first preference to be adopted. Second, those
children who cannot be reunited with their birthparents or those for whom
the preferable permanent parenting solution of our traditional
kinship/foster-care system is not immediately available, should be allowed
to be adopted in short order.
Ultimately,
the ‘Children’s Act’, does not consider inter-country adoption as a
permanent nurturing placement option for children. It does not lend itself
to the view that adoption is a fundamental right of every Liberian
irrespective of social status. In fact, the Act does not present themes and
concepts that are authentically Liberian. Its underlying intent is rooted
fundamentally in European and American ideals while ignoring traditional
Liberian ideals and values. Thus, the Act fails to give needed attention to
the dire circumstances of the Liberian child’s relationship to family and
a long heritage of giving, compassion, and trust of parents and elders.
Every
Liberian has the fundamental right to relinquish or place their child for
adoption. And, yet, the ‘Act’ fails to identify with the fact that
abject poverty and unbearable socioeconomic conditions are the direct cause
of inter-country adoption. It doesn’t acknowledge that inter-country
adoption is consistent with other positive social responses to the problems
of unparented children, or the fact that it brings new consciousness and
resources to Liberia through the child. This author would suggest as
countless others have done, that inter-country adoption brings fresh
awareness to the plight of poor children and poor communities in Liberia. In
fact, this may boost the government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) by
focusing attention on the plight of children, including their health,
sanitation, clean drinking water, hygiene, nutrition, education, the
environment, and the air they breathe.
In
closing, what we have is not an either - or case. There are Liberian
children who lack parents and who desperately need help outside of the
traditional kinship and foster-care system. The alternatives are limited.
This author’s point, therefore, is to support “Inter-country adoption”
while maintaining that in-country adoption be sustained. There is no greater
responsibility than to grant the needs of families who wish to adopt
unparented children whether inside or outside Liberia. This is an imperative
we must not and cannot ignore as a people.
