Devenir de 230 adolescents adoptés à l’international par l’ONG Médecins du Monde à travers 2 enquêtes (2012 et 2015)

Abstract

Post-adoption follow-up of adopted children actually became an important challenge after the time when international adoptions reached the number of 45,000 children/year in 2005 worldwide; it has dropped sharply since then and concerns now more children with special needs: health problems, late adoptions, siblings with older children. Now many of these children are reaching the critical phase of adolescence with their multitraumatic past impacting their future. Taking into account the many requests for support families during this period of high vulnerability, the NGO Médecins du Monde has conducted a retrospective study on a population of adopted adolescents. These results complement those already published of three successive and similar surveys on the future of adopted children over 22 years. The database compiled in the last surveys in 2012 and 2015 made it possible to target a homogenous population of 230 adolescents now aged 13 to 21 from a population of 1122 children adopted by their 944 families. Their profiles and difficulties are compared to young adoptees and the general population. The specificities of these adoptions mainly concerned countries from Latin America and Eastern Europe with risk factors marked by parental destitution, violence and child abuse in more than 1 out of 2 cases. One adolescent out of 4 lived in an institution for more than 5 years. The parent - adolescent link remained in the majority of cases affectionate or accomplice despite severe behavioral disorders, which were perennial in some cases or appeared later on, dominated by violence, aggressiveness, lying. However, from 10 to 15% had distant or very difficult relations with a risk of break down between parent and adolescent link. The specificities of the 13 extreme cases concerned by breakdown are presented.