I have an idea for all the organized religions out there having their arcane fights about who owns what property, what's the best policy on interpreting Scripture, who should the presiding bishop be, etc., -- get your heads together -- all of you -- and try to solve this problem:
India pleads: adopt our orphan girlsBritish couples urged to aid `lost' 11 million
INDIA is to urge couples in Britain and other western countries to adopt thousands of unwanted children languishing in orphanages throughout the subcontinent and save them from a life of poverty and emotional destitution.
There are more than 11m abandoned children in India, where a growing number of newborn babies are being dumped anonymously in cots placed outside orphanages in an initiative to deter infanticide.
About 90% of those abandoned are girls whose poor young mothers cannot afford to keep them. They face a bleak future as beggars, prostitutes or menial labourers if families cannot be found for them.
Last year only 4,000 children escaped that grim fate through adoption. Of those, about 1,000 were placed with families overseas and fewer than 100 came to Britain. Now, in a revolutionary change of policy, the Indian government has decided to increase the number of children available for adoption and to place thousands more with families in Britain, Europe and the United States.
This problem is worldwide.
Muslim countries have staggering amounts of abandoned children, too. Their culture and religion don't permit westerners adopting. I have pictures of kids -- beautiful kids with sharp, intelligent eyes -- taken at an orphanage in rural Afghanistan. Hundreds of children with no place to go.
India is making a start in the right direction.
Last week it announced plans to speed up bureaucratic procedures and make it easier for foreign families to adopt.Under current rules the process usually drags on for more than a year. The new proposals call for a maximum waiting time of just 45 days. Ministers say the process must be accelerated so that loving homes can be found for the babies before they become institutionalised.
As anyone who has looked into international adoption knows, the process is a long, costly mess. Got $25k and two-three years to wait? Part of the problem is caused by excessive caution and inflexible bureaucratic rules. ("You'll need three copies of your income tax statement for the last three years, with an official seal blah blah blah") ("Excuse me, the child I want is eating lead paint for a snack and hasn't been hugged in six months.")
Here's an example of the idiocy one gets from child "welfare" agencies:
David Holmes, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption & Fostering, a charity that helps to find families for hundreds of children every year, said: "It's important to remember that even if India relaxes the rules these couples will still have to go through the same process that couples adopting within England go through."But he added: "Foreign adoption in India might be a little girl's only chance and so we can see why getting a child into an adoptive family quickly is immensely important."
No, dumbie, you set up expedited procedures and maybe use government resources (like military transports) to bring the kids here. Eleven million. The number is staggering.
At the Cradle orphanage in Delhi, five newborn girls are dumped in a "street crib" outside the security gate every week. A bell attached to the crib rings in a doctor's room as soon as a child is left and the babies are rushed into one of two crisis wards where they are assessed, dressed, fed and treated.
All the churches in northern Virginia should get together on this project, instead of endless yapping about the byzantine issues religious groups get wound up in ("but when reading the letters of Paul, can we really say we should blah blah blah?").
To adopt an Indian child, couples must be financially secure and must have been together for more than five years. They must be between 30 and 55, with a combined age of less than 90. Single people are eligible but not same-sex couples.
[sarcasm alert] Yes, we don't want anyone from a non-Ozzie and Harriet family adopting, do we? Somebody of modest means? Oh, no, we musn't let them -- why, let's just let that child in India rot in a dormitory.[end of alert]
If any of you go to a formal church out there, start bugging your preacher, minister, etc. Someone who knows Governor Kaine well should get on the phone to him and bug him about this. He could be the spearhead.
"About 90% of those abandoned are girls whose poor young mothers cannot afford to keep them. They face a bleak future as beggars, prostitutes or menial labourers if families cannot be found for them."
When I read these kinds of stories, I can't stop thinking how we in the U.S. live like the young Siddhartha Gautama, who didn't know what aging, illness, suffering, and death were until he was an adult.
I will send a link to this diary to my wife so that she can send it to other parents that she knows.
I'd just like this topic to stay alive and get it into people's consciousness; I don't expect miracles or changes overnight.
My point is that its amazing to me that the Evangelicals who preach to women that they should have more and more babies and that they should opt for adoption aren't scrambling to adopt these children. I am surprsied that they aren't lobbying the politicians to make it easier to adopt these children. Just shows how serious they really are.
To attack evangelicals for ... well, for what exactly? For not knowing about this issue and anticipating its seriousness? For not trying to get India to relax its adoption rules? For not understanding how tough it is to be a girl child in India? I mean, what exactly have they done WRONG here? What hypocrisy is there in not actively trying to adopt children from a different culture and half a world away? How does it relate to telling people that they should welcome children into their lives? And the odd thing is, all the other responses to this diary have people vowing to relay this information to their churches and religious acquaintances so as to promote a groundswell of help for such children because they are the ones most likely to moved to act. If you want to attack Pat Robertson for all the venal, stupid, destructive stuff he has done, knock yourself out, but don't attack people for not even knowing about or understanding the problem.
The problem, as I see it, is that when a country makes the decision to open up for adoption, as India has, it takes years for programs to get rolling, and then those adoption programs are costly and slow.
I think perhaps the writer's criticism -- or at least my criticism -- is that many religious leaders don't seem to do a lot in this area, and they have the power to start an entire movement to make sure that abandoned children all over the globe find homes in an affordable, timely manner. And that includes having these religious leaders pushing political leaders to come together on the issue.
There are lots of well-intentioned individuals who when trying to adopt run into bureaucratic minefields. They give up or run out of money. It's not just India. It's all over. And our State Dept./Homeland Security rules are a mess and one of the causes of slowness.
No one is asking anyone individually to adopt these kids, but to raise their voices so that eventually there is a smooth process for those that want to adopt.
I would love it if the Robertsons and Falwells would get behind this. As stated below, I am skeptical about the "big names" in religion. I'm fine with the little people. I would love to see the breakaway Episcopal churches and the "stayers" work together -- people with religious differences working towards a common goal. Maybe it would teach everyone that their similarities are much more than their differences.
I held my first child, now a healthy, beautiful, brilliant 10 year old, when she was 17 months old and 14 pounds, scrawny and fearful, with high lead levels in her blood. If not for the bureaucratic ineptitude -- we would have been raising our child from when she was just a few months old. She was lucky -- she has an unusually strong physical constitution.
Only well placed religious and political leaders can solve this disorganization problem. The constituency for change is small and disorganized. Silently, generations of babies just slip away, all over the world.
I see a whole lot of hand waving by certain political and religious groups on issues like embryonic cells, etc., and nothing resembling real action when it comes to helping born children.
Is is possible -- just throwing this out here -- that some of the televangelists really only care about raising funds? That they're all talk and no action when it comes to helping humans who are, by everyone's definition, alive and breathing?
Pat Robertson could do an enormous amount of good on an issue like this. He has political contacts. He can raise money. He has access to publicity. He's personally wealthy. Anybody out there know him?
I join in your skepticism.
I think we are on the same page.
And I don't even want to pave over Arlington anymore.
(As for adopting abroad, it started out as a selfish act -- the domestic process was untenable and some foreign countries still let "old" people adopt.) The paperwork process is miserable, though. And nothing short of revolutionary change in the system will markedly improve it. I just get frustrated. The good people who work in the adoption agencies and foundations -- many with a religious affiliation -- just grind their teeth a lot because of the obstacles our government and foreign government have erected.
For the record, there are many from conservative churches (my church is liberal, for the record)who do adopt needy children. And I honor them for doing so. I don't think generalizations work here. So I'd be careful portraying everyone with one blush.
Foreign adoption is very complicated, and very costly because of all the approvals, agencies, lawyers etc involved. At various times, sometimes depending on the extant relations between countries, adoption may be easier or harder.
There are tremendous political influences at work, unfortunately. For example, there are movements in England and elsewhere which are very critical of US adoptions from foreign countries. And these groups try to make it more difficult for Americans to adopt from abroad. Every time there is a furor over someone like Angelina Jolie adopting a child, there are also would-be adoptive parents who take note. They must wonder whether they would have a chance if a celebrity gets so much grief. It would help if there were more societal support and less judgment. You'd be surprised how judgmental some families and friends can be when they raise the issue of blood vs. adoptive children. Many families come through with amazing support, but many do not. And you'd probably be surprised about the reactions of strangers, who can be pretty unaccepting--as if it is their place to accept or not.
The process can take years, especially in some countries. And I believe India is one of those taking longer than others. One of the biggest impediments to placing children in homes is just this time-frame. So many parents want to bring a newborn, or very young infant home.
I think that preference is very human. Admittedly, it doesn't address the needs of older children. But it is human. The question is how do we break down barriers? And red tape? But you want to have sufficient red tape so that children (and birth parents, when relevant--if they are alive) are protected from exploitation.
Reactions run all over the map. I was slightly apprehensive about the reaction of some in my family, but the common reaction when I walked in a room was everyone ignoring me and making googly eyes/love contact with our children.
I am sensitive to the exploitation issue, but I do think the screening process can be streamlined. (I still remember a social worker checking to see if our cabinets had safety locks -- this was before we had any children at all.)
And I don't care what types of group ally on an issue like this. Group A doesn't want to help process kids going to single parents or a gay couple? Fine. Group B will gladly do it.
Countries that open up their doors for adoption are admitting that they need help, which is difficult for many countries and cultures to do.
As for adoption into different cultures, in the end why should I care whether they're adopted into a poor family or a rich one, an atheistic family or an ultra religious one, a Christian one or a Hindu one. The alternative of death or growing up without a family....phew.
I'm sorry that Angelina is getting some bad press on adoption. I've read some in-depth stories about her, though, that suggests she works very hard on her UN duties and considers humanitarian work to be her calling. She spends a lot of time traveling to refugee camps in the hellholes of the world, on her own dime, and contributing money. In fact, I was impressed by the Wikipedia section on her humanitarian work. http://en.wikipedia.... The media has made her a target because of her looks. (Apparently, she got hooked on humanitarian work while filming in Cambodia, the same country my cousin got hooked on it.)
I am also thinking that if global warming, as some predict, causes drought conditions, the well-to-do countries of this world will face an extraordinary moral decision: "Do we halp relocate millions of people to save them from destruction?"
Too often we have just let these catastrophes happen. I believe our country, and the industrial nations as a group, will be able to get together to save the dispossessed of the planet.
Some issues are so big that we cannot handle them emotionally. I think the adoption issue and the people displacement issue are two that are sp difficult to grasp. So we take refuge in tiny issues, safe issues. I pray we all have the courage to examine these huge moral issues.
I also agree with PM (at least I think the point he was making) that this makes current doctrinal disputes in the organized protestant churches even more ludicrous, particularly the churches who recently left the Episcopal church over the consecration of a gay bishop. With all the suffering in this sorry world, the idea that whole groups of people would be so obsessed with this one issue (the gay bishop) that they would spend time, effort and tons of money (litigation is coming or has come)about is is sad, very sad.
It's "high class evangelism" in my view to be so focused on something that I don't think Christ ever mentioned, when we all know we are called to feed the hungry and protect the downtrodden. I feel the same way about people who get up in arms when the wording of the prayer book or the church hymnal are changed. (Yes, I'm Episcopalian and there are these groups, believe it or not). With all the suffering in this world, who cares?
Anyone who's ever been in a warehouse full of abandoned children will find it a life altering experience. While I hate religious slogans, I'll use one.....If given a choice whether to save starving, abandoned children who are rocking themselves to sleep at night because there aren't enough people to hold them, or alternatively to spend one's time protecting the Church from gays in high places.....WWJD?
Want to see pictures of what my older daughter looked like at 18 months?
And God willing, we're going overseas to rescue another one in a month.
It's not hard to do both.
The answer is, do both. Have Minns call up Schori and say -- let's get together on this. Agree to disagree on gays and women, get together on the agreeable issue. They're not mutually exclusive.
Aprilac: And remember, the breakaways are against ordination of women, too. So I'd take on all three campaigns. (In fact, the African bishops would not even take communion with Schori when she went to Africa -- how's that for being "Christian")
Oh, Happy Easter.
(And remember that the apostles used to argue amongst one another too.)
You are amazing....
All the best,
Hope you'll choose to do the latter.
And I know why, with a good heart, you asked your "choice" question. Doctrinal disputes in the end are unimportant. Does anyone seriously think whatever created us cares about whether, e.g., we take wine with the bread, or drink grape juice (to cite a really trivial but not atypical example)?
Here's a recap of a funny newspaper story I read a few days ago. For years some evangelizing men have been pouncing on Mormons before Easter Sunday in Mesa AZ. They are "in your face" preachers, warning the Mormons to convert or face hell fire, etc. Well, an elderly Mormon woman in a wheelchair runs down one of the screamers. Midway in the article I see there is a peaceful group of evangelizers who just hand out leaflets to the Mormons. But the screamer group is upset at the peaceful group . . . drum roll . . . because the screamer group thinks only the old King James Version of the Bible is the "true" Bible.
Aprilac, thank you for your interest.
And I agree the 2 Episcopal groups should split. At this point, the mainstream Anglicans in this country have more in common with the ELCA Lutherans, with whom they're in full communion status, and the mainstream Methodists, with whom they are in "partial" communion (and the dialogue seems to be advancing in both).
Actually, the history of the conservative churches in this country is to split and split and fragment further. I've read a nice article about that from a top evangelical. That's one reason you see all these unaffiliated churches dotting the landscape.
After we sign up, we can send the links to the the opportunistic wealthy "religious leader" of our choice, evangelical or not, ;-)
There are many international adoption resources out there and tons of agencies if you google India and Adoption. The trick is finding a reputable agency that will provide you with accurate information, won't overcharge you, and who will get you a child. The agency we used for our Russian adoption ten years ago was Eastern European Adoption Consultants at www.eaci.com. They were no better and no worse than most agencies doing business in Russia....I wouldn't give them a glowing endorsement but I have referred people to them as particularly their staff in Russia was extremely competent. They might also do adoptions from India as well despite their name.
PM, I was surprised to find out today that while I'd felt connected to you with all your Episcopal Church split off posts, we also have the international adoption thing in common. Our son will be ten this summer and he is one of the greatest joys of our lives. People tell me he looks like me because he is blonde but neither my husband nor I are beautiful enough to have biologically produced this strong, strapping, loving and funny white haired boy.
It is a small world. We had no idea my first cousin was adopting from Cambodia almost simultaneously, or that my brother's sister-in-law was adopting from China. With my niece marrying a Filipino (and having her own 4 children) we have a whole Pacific wing of the family now.
At the very least, the India opening being signaled will result in some happy families and happy children.
We need to call our local agency on another matter and find out what they know.
The web address is: http://www.adoptioni...
This is a list of US agencies licensed with India:
And I noted that Catholic Charities of Arlington is a listed agency:
CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF ARLINGTON INC
FAMILY AND CHILDREN SERVICES
5294 LYNGATE COURT,
BURKE
VIRGINIA-22015, USA
(703) 425-0100
(703) 425-2886
pmudd@ccda.com
I have a feeling that this news is so "new" that affected agencies may not know it yet. I need to make a couple of private contacts to see whether the State Dept. knows what is happening, assuming I can penetrate that impenetrable barrier.
(Another plug for national health care as true "pro-life.")