Child welfare expert warns against adopting from Haiti

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: The Jerusalem Post

Adopting children from earthquake-devastated Haiti is a kind humanitarian gesture but not the best way to help them, according to child welfare expert Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, executive director of the National Council for the Child.

International adoptions are not advisable even in ideal circumstances, because of cultural difference, but when a child has suffered such a traumatic experience it is best for them to stay in familiar surroundings, according to Kadman, who will speak about the government’s proposal to adopt Haitian orphans at the Knesset Committee on the Rights of the Child next week.

“I know this comes from a desire to help, but it is just not the right solution,” he told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. “Most experts agree that a person who has suffered a serious trauma should stay in a place they are familiar with.”

Continued Kadman: “It would make much more sense for Israel to send a team of experts to establish a youth village... and to use resources to improve the lives of Haitian children in their own country.”


Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=167340

[Berry Cool]

1. "International adoptions are not advisable even in ideal circumstances, because of

cultural difference"?

I don't get that. Are all the people who have adopted internationally supposed to have left their children behind? Would those children really have been better off not being adopted and staying in their home countries?

I agree that if a traumatized child can be kept where he or she is without immediate peril, it's oftentimes preferable, but when I think of all the people from other countries who have adopted children from countries where they were wasting away in orphanages full of filth and disease, or where they would never have had parents (such as the abandoned baby girls of China), I don't see how this "expert" can say those children should have been kept home rather than suffer the terrible fate of having to adjust to "cultural difference" issues.

[Lyric]

2. I disagree vehemently.

I think whatever comfort the "familiar place" might have had is negated by the fact that the "familiar place" is now rubble (which makes it unfamiliar and scary) and also physically unsafe. I can't believe that someone is actually suggesting that keeping truly orphaned babies and children IN Haiti is a fantastic idea, when Haiti is such a dangerous and unhealthy place for a child to be. Hell it was dangerous and unhealthy BEFORE the earthquake. Now it's practically unlivable for a child without a family.

In America, we understand that the "familiarity" factor is of great value in a child's emotional well-being. However, physical safety ALWAYS comes first. If there is no way to make a child physically safe while maintaining the home environment, then the child is removed. Period. Better to adjust to unfamiliarity than to risk a child's life.

Trying to take children out of Haiti without permission is wrong. Adopting a child in a nefarious way is wrong. But adoptions that go through proper channels, and have the sanction of the authorities? In my opinion, those should be vehemently encouraged. There is no doubt whatsoever that a child is better off physically safe and healthy than otherwise, and if we cannot provide physical safety and health IN Haiti (and we can't--we all know it--because Western people can't be bothered with paying for it) then I find it both repulsive and irresponsible to tell people that bringing children OUT of Haiti to where they WILL be safe and healthy is "wrong". Let people from other nations rescue some of these children who no longer have parents.

I don't buy the cultural argument, either. I suspect it to be racist at its core. We claim that we must "respect other cultures"....by leaving innocent children without families to die there?? How is that "respecting" a culture? A culture of WHAT? Starvation? Disease? It smacks of a hidden ugliness, to me. I sense that the REAL basis for this argument is that there's a faction within Western society that doesn't want the little black babies brought HERE--not because of "cultural" concerns, but because they're black. Pretending that it's about respecting Haitian culture is a clever ploy to put a slick patina of political correctness on the matter. I also find it imperialist and sick that we presume ourselves "cultural guardians" of the world--as if other culturals cannot POSSIBLY thrive on their own without our non-interventionist "protection". I see that as nothing more than treating these people like zoo animals at an exhibit instead of human beings that are equal to us IN EVERY WAY, by nature.

Not only should we encourage people from better-developed nations to adopt Haitian orphans, we should also encourage those same nations to sharply increase the number of permitted Haitian immigrants for a few years. See how many of them are worried about losing their "culture" when given the opportunity to get themselves and their children the hell out of that place. Haitians have died for YEARS trying to get out of Haiti in rickety raft boats. Are you telling me that when we send out the Coast Guard to round them up and deport them back to Haiti, we're doing it to preserve their "culture"? Riiiiight.

:eyes:

[scarletwoman]

3. Thank you. It's abhorrant to me to watch people swoop in to steal Haiti's next generation away.

Do something to build up Haiti so that its children have a chance at a better life in their own homeland. Draining a country of its next generation is a form of genocide, imho.

[patrice]

4. If we really loved them for who/what they are, and not as somekind of accessory to the great

Christian-American conscience, we'd protect and nurture their unique "God-given" identity until they can make their own choices.

Sometimes we assume the needs of our own hearts, no matter how laudable, over-ride other values.

[Dappleganger]

5. Wondering what the Haitien diaspora has to say about this...

IMO they should be stepping up to the plate right now to save their children. I have VERY mixed feelings about adopting Haitien earthquake victims by internationals unless they are Haitien diaspora. There is a very important culture to save here, not just the children. Staying in Haiti may not be in their best interests, either.