A week ago, Judith and Alan Kilshaw decided not to appeal the English High Court's decision to send the so-called Internet twins back to the US. Sense at last. That night, I mailed some Internet adoption agencies. Within 30 hours, I received the following reply.
"Dear Medb, Naz is available for adoption. She is a healthy child. She is located in Kazakhstan. In order to adopt her you will need to travel for 3 weeks. The adoption fee is $15,000 that is due in 3 payments. If you would like to receive detailed medical information, please call me."
Naz is beautiful. Her baby face smiles out of photo listings you can access so easily it's scary. If I got it all together, my children could have a little sister before summer.
The next mail came from a different agency. "Hello! We would be so happy to be able to place one of our tinyest [sic] angels in your home! We currently have 1 baby boy who just turned 2 months old and is waiting for his forever family. We also have 5 birth mothers who are due very soon, and we have no families prepared for those babies! We are desperately seeking forever families that will take these babies into their arms!"
The deal was I would pay a $3,500 programme fee, $3,000 overseas fee, $505 monthly childcare fee, and an additional fee if the baby had not yet been born. I had to get my papers in order, pay my own flights and expenses, but could use a translator and driver for an extra fee. Medical tests, including HIV, cost an extra $100. No refunds.
"Congratulations on your successful adoption!" their endline told me.
WAS I accepted? I was certainly hooked. Pages of photos scrolling down-screen showed children from all over the world waiting for a parent. In one orphanage, four of the seven little girls on screen wore the same hairband. It was clear the best-looking children were used as advertisements - when you inquired specifically, you discovered they weren't available.
Children, especially healthy infants, are a growing market. No one seems to know how to handle it. But money is a sure thing. Many adoption agencies do a noble service in making contact between those in need of parents, and parents in need of them. Take it as read the agencies need to cover their costs, and that would-be parents, like the children, are a vulnerable group.
Authorities must protect children, but the tougher they get at local level, the more the Kilshaw factor grows. If parenting looks too easy, bad placements multiply. Yet the harder it gets to adopt a baby locally, the more desperate people become.
Policing the system better may look like the solution. Progress might happen by giving genuine adoptive parents the level of support they need. What sometimes happens instead is that locally adoptive parents face a level of obstacle better suited to a potential child abuser. Potential abusers already know money can beat the system.
The Hague Convention legislates some protocol between countries whose citizens engage in adoption - Italian parents who thought they adopted 41 Rwandan children during the Rwandan war are in the middle of tough negotiations between their two governments. Its relative strength can be measured, however, by the trafficking in children that continues to happen for commercial and sexual motives.
MORE mail came. By Tuesday, I heard about Dennis who lived in a former Soviet orphanage for eight years before being adopted by a US family. He was white and HIV-free. Two years on, they didn't want him.
"Dennis is a very healthy, attractive child who enjoys outdoor activities such as baseball, rollerblading and bike riding," the agency said. "He has some symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood. Intellectually, Dennis is thought to be in the average to high-average range. School reports indicate his coping skills and peer relationships are of concern.
"There is a lack of bonding between the parents and Dennis," it continued. "They feel limited in their ability to care for him and his specific issues. He has a strong desire to be part of a family. Although he is not on any medication at this time, it is believed he could greatly benefit from medication and psychotherapy."
I'd suppose mild to moderate personality disorders are perfectly normal in a boy who spent his first eight years incarcerated. Perhaps Dennis didn't get "normal" fast enough; perhaps the required home visits didn't materialise. As for bonding? Never believe it comes automatically with the parenting job.
No laws govern the Internet trade. I can set up as a baby broker by lunchtime, and make whatever fraudulent trading claims I like. I can charge whatever I want and know the clients will keep queuing up.
Wealthy countries are rich in everything except their heart's desire. Poor ones don't have enough to raise all their children themselves. National governments behave as though the Internet were only a toy. The future of adoption is largely foreign. If governments keep pushing prospective parents beyond their limits, the Kilshaw factor has to multiply.
mruane@irish-times.ie