Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

In 2018, the Ethiopian government banned intercountry adoptions due to detected irregularities. This paper draws from the experiences of Spanish adoptive families, providing evidence of these irregularities and other abuses substantiated by adoptive families during their “search for origins” or reconnection with their children’s birth families. We argue that these searches and contacts within the adoptive triad represent informal reparative initiatives among Spanish adoptive families.

Keywords

Ethiopia Spain irregularities reparation open intercountry adoption

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Against Child Trafficking (2009) “Fruits of Ethiopia” intercountry adoption: the rights of the child or the “harvesting” of children? Report. https://www.againstchildtrafficking.org/wp-content/uploads/Second-Interim-Report-FINAL-redacted-for-distribution+annexures.pdf (accessed 27 March 2020).

Baglietto

Cantwell

Dambach

(eds) (2016) Respondiendo a las adopciones ilegales: Un manual para profesionales. Ginebra: Servicio Social Internacional.

Bunkers

Rotabi

Mezmur

(2012) Ethiopia: intercountry adoption risks and considerations for informal care. In: Gibbons

Rotabi

(eds) Intercountry Adoption: Policies, Practices, and Outcomes. Surrey: Ashgate Press, 131–142.

Bunkers

Bradford

Rotabi

(2018) Lost in translation: cultural interpretations of family in East Africa and implications for children’s care. Examples from Ethiopia and Uganda. Brown Journal of World Affairs XXIV(11): 119–131. https://bjwa.brown.edu/24-2/lost-in-translation-cultural-interpretations-of-family-ineast-africa-and-implications-on-childrens-care/ (accessed 15 March 2020).

Cadoret

(2004) Pluri-parentesco y familia de referencia. In: Marre

Bestard

(eds) La Adopción Y El Acogimiento: Presente Y Perspectivas. Barcelona: Estudis d’Antropologia Social i Cultural, 273–282.

Cantwell

(2003) La adopción internacional: un comentario sobre el número de niños «adoptables» y el número de personas que buscan adoptar internacionalmente. Boletín para los jueces de la Conferencia de la Haya de Derecho Internacional Privado V: 40–41. https://www.hcch.net/upload/spring2003_s.pdf (accessed 18 June 2020).

Cheney

(2023) Why The Hague Convention is not enough: addressing enabling environments for criminality in intercountry adoption. In: Nelen

Siegel

(eds) Organized Crime in the 21st Century. Cham: Springer, 191–206.

Cheney

Rotabi

(2017) Addicted to orphans: how the global orphan industrial complex jeopardizes local child protection systems. In: Harker

Hörschelmann

(eds) Conflict, Violence and Peace. Geographies of Children and Young People. Singapore: Springer, 1–19.

Cheney

Ucembe

(2019) The orphan industrial complex: the charitable commodification of children and its consequences for child protection. In: Cheney

Sinervo

(eds) Disadvantaged Childhoods and Humanitarian Intervention. Palgrave Studies on Children and Development. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 37–61.

10.

Clemente-Martínez

(2022) Active waiting and hope in transnational adoptions: Nepali birth families and their children. Asian Studies Review 47(3): 426–443.

11.

De Cózar

(2007) Niños arrancados en Etiopía: la demanda de adopciones desata todo tipo de irregularidades en el país africano. El País. https://elpais.com/diario/2007/12/17/sociedad/1197846002_850215.html (accessed 20 February 2020).

12.

De Lorenzi

Gallego

Fernández

, et al. (2019) El acceso a los orígenes en Argentina, Chile y España. América Latina Hoy 83: 7–23.

13.

Denéchère

Macedo

(2023) Étude historique sur les pratiques illicites dans l’adoption internationale en France. Université d’Angers. https://univ-angers.hal.science/hal-03972497v1 (accessed 2 March 2024).

14.

Duressa

(2002) Guddifachaa”: Adoption Practice in Oromo Society with Particular Reference to the Borana Oromo. PhD Thesis, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

15.

Fronek

Rotabi

Common

(2021) Intercountry adoption swimming against the tide: restitution in Samoa. Childhood 28(4): 525–539.

16.

Gallego

(2014) La mirada autoetnográfica entre infinitas miradas en la construcción del conocimiento aplicado al Trabajo Social en la adopción internacional. Humanismo y Trabajo Social 13–14: 309–333.

17.

Gallego

(2016) “Mi hijo me reclama ver a su familia…”: la búsqueda de orígenes en el contexto hispano-etíope. In Gallego

Espinosa

(ed) Miradas no adultocéntricas sobre la infancia y la adolescencia: Transexualidad, orígenes en la adopción, ciudadanía y justicia juvenil. Granada, España: Comares, pp.67-84.

18.

Gallego

Clemente-Martínez

(2021) Irregularities in transnational adoptions and child appropriations: challenges for reparation practices. Childhood 28(4): 467–476.

19.

Grotevant

Wrobel

Von Korff

, et al. (2007) Many faces of openness in adoption: perspectives of adopted adolescents and their parents. Adoption Quarterly 10(3–4): 79–101.

20.

Hailu

(2017) Children for families: an ethnography of illegal intercountry adoption from Ethiopia. Adoption Quarterly 20(3): 201–221.

21.

HCCH (1997–2022) Estadísticas. Respuestas de los Estados. Spain. https://assets.hcch.net/docs/0bfbcdbe-a629-4a56-ad57-9029dbdb4fb0.pdf (accessed 20 January 2024).

22.

HCCH (1993) Convention on protection of children and co-operation in respect of intercountry adoption. https://assets.hcch.net/docs/77e12f23-d3dc-4851-8f0b-050f71a16947.pdf (accessed 27 June 2020).

23.

HCCH (2008) The implementation and operation of the 1993 Hague intercountry adoption convention: guide to good practice. Guide Number 1 https://assets.hcch.net/docs/bb168262-1696-4e7f-acf3-fbbd85504af6.pdf (accessed 4 March 2024).

24.

HCCH (2021) Working Group on preventing and addressing illicit practices in intercountry adoption. https://www.hcch.net/es/publications-and-studies/details4/?pid=6309&dtid=62 (accessed 20 January 2022).

25.

Högbacka

(2016) Global Families, Inequality and Transnational Adoption: The De-kinning of First Mothers. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

26.

Högbacka

(2017) Intercountry adoption and the social production of abandonment. International Social Work 62(1): 271–282.

27.

ISS/IRC Centro Internacional de Referencia para los Derechos del Niño Privado de Familia del Servicio Social Internacional (2006) «Adopción simple» versus «adopción plena»: una elección nacional con repercusiones internacionales. Boletín mensual 1(January): 1–2. https://iss-ssi.org/index.php/en/2-uncategorised/235-boletines-mensuales (accessed 3 January 2020).

28.

Kastro

Dullea

(2020) Community-based prevention of child trafficking in Southern Ethiopia. International Social Work 63(2): 133–146.

29.

Loibl

(2021) The aftermath of transnational illegal adoptions: redressing human rights violations in the intercountry adoption system with instruments of transitional justice. Childhood 28(4): 477–491.

30.

Loibl

Mackenzie

(2023) Organisation of crime in the transnational adoption market. In: Nelen

Siegel

(eds) Organized Crime in the 21st Century. Cham: Springer, 25–41.

31.

Marre

Briggs

(2009) International Adoption: Global Inequalities and the Circulation of Children. New York: New York University Press.

32.

Marre

Clemente-Martínez

(2022) Suprimir la identidad para “reparar” el (mal) origen. In: De Lorenzi

(ed) Derecho a conocer los orígenes de niños, niñas y adolescentes. Buenos Aires: Editorial Rubinzal Culzoni, 99–118.

33.

McCold

Wachtel

(2003) In pursuit of paradigm: a theory of restorative justice. In: XIII World Congress of Criminology, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 10–15 August 2003, pp. 1–3. https://www.iirp.edu/images/pdf/paradigm.pdf (accessed 28 February 2024).

34.

Medina Rodríguez

Gallego Molinero

Clemente-Martínez

(2024) Búsqueda de orígenes en procesos adoptivos: Dificultades, tensiones y desafíos. In: Caldevilla Domínguez

(ed) Legalidad derecho y política. Marcos jurídicos parra un nuevo contrato social. Berlin: Peter Lang.

35.

Mezmur

(2010) “The sins of the ‘saviours’”: Child Trafficking in the Context of Intercountry Adoption in Africa, Paper presented at the Special Commission of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, The Hague Netherlands, 3. https://assets.hcch.net/docs/a901d48c-3eba-4a9a-8026-fe42681e8126.pdf (accessed 15 March 2020).

36.

Mezmur

(2015) From Angelina (to Madonna) to Zoe’s ark: what are the A–Z lessons for intercountry adoptions in Africa? In: Ballard

Goodno

Cochran

, et al. (eds) The Intercountry Adoption Debate: Dialogues across Disciplines. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 651–675.

37.

Patrizi

(2021) Redressing forced removals of Yenish children in Switzerland in the 20th century: an analysis through transitional justice lens. Childhood 28(4): 540–554.

38.

PNUD (2021/22) Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano 2021/22: Tiempos inciertos, vidas inestables. Configurar nuestro futuro en un mundo en transformación. https://report.hdr.undp.org/es/(accessed 27 February 2024).

39.

Quiroz

(2011) Restorative justice and the impact of thr Hague Convention on US transnational adoption. Comtemporary Justicie Review 14(4): 407–424.

40.

Rotabi

(2010) From Guatemala to Ethiopia: shifts in intercountry adoption leaves Ethiopia vulnerable for child sales and other unethical practices. Social Work and Society News Magazine 8 June: 1–7.

41.

Rotabi

Bromfield

(2017) From Intercountry Adoption to Global Surrogacy: A Human Rights History and New Fertility Frontiers. Abingdon: Routledge.

42.

Rotabi

Bunkers

(2008) Intercountry adoption reform based on the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption: an update on Guatemala in 2008. Social Work and Society News Magazine.November: 1–7.

43.

San Román

Rotabi

(2017) Rescue, red tape, child abduction, illicit adoptions, and discourse: intercountry adoption attitudes in Spain. International Social Work 62: 198–211.

44.

Selman

(2009) The movement of children for international adoption: developments and trends in receiving states and states of origin, 1998–2004. In: Marre

Briggs

(eds) International Adoption Global Inequalities and the Circulation of Children. New York: New York University Press, 32–51.

45.

Steenrod

(2021) The legacy of exploitation in intercountry adoptions from Ethiopia: “we were under the impression that her birth parents had died”. Adoption Quarterly 25(2): 81–108.

46.

Torpey

(2015) The political field of reparations. World Environment and Island Studies 5(2): 73–79.

47.

UN (2005) Principios y directrices básicos sobre el derecho a un recurso y reparación para las víctimas de violaciones manifiestas del derecho internacional de los derechos humanos y violaciones graves del derecho internacional humanitario. March.

48.

Wenar

(2006) Reparations for the future. Journal of Social Philosophy 27(3): 396–405.

Irregular adoptions in the Ethiopian-Spanish context: Strategies to redress the adoption triad

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References