Openness in International Adoption

Abstract

The growth in international adoption has been spurred, at least in part, by the desire of adoptive parents to return to closed, confidential adoption where the identity of the birth mother is secret and there is no ongoing contact with her. After a long history of secrecy in domestic adoption in the United States, there is a robust trend toward openness. That is not the case with international adoption, which are typically closed transactions. There is, however, a growing interest in increased openness in international adoption. International adoptive families who were once happy to avoid birth parent involvement are now seeking them out, because of health concerns or because their child is interested in learning about their birth parents. Some adoptive families are concerned about issues of corruption, coercion, and trafficking in the birth country and want contact with birth parents to assuage those concerns. International adoptive families are learning about positive outcomes of domestic open adoptions, and hope to replicate those results in the international context. International adoptees are reaching adulthood and are increasingly interested in searching for birth families, despite the many practical difficulties in doing so. International human rights, and in particular the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, guarantee rights of identity and information that requires increased openness in international adoption. In addition, best interests of the child standards in international law points to a need for the same kinds of open adoption arrangements that have been studied in the West and have been determined to benefit children. Further, openness in international adoption is a practical solution to fraud, corruption and trafficking in international adoption by using the “sunlight as disinfectant” method. Countries involved in international adoption need to do more to take adoptees’ identity rights seriously.