Car Donation Talk

The arrival of the exotic child seems to happen with ease, as if one had miraculously given birth.  From Angelina to Madonna, babies appear with no explanation, probably delivered by an enchanting stork in front of the door of one of their residences.  One can, at last, tell our children that babies are born in cabbages or brought by the magical bird, without having to lie!

This exhibit leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of all of those who, each year, fight to gain the right to become parents.  They have been dreaming about their future child for ages, they have desired him/her with great ardour and they would be willing to move heaven and earth to accelerate the process which, luck be with them, will allow them to love a little abandoned human being.

In France, each year, thousands of files pile up on adoption agencies’ desks and remain unresolved.  Expecting parents are attached to their phone or to their letterbox with the hope of seeing some light at the end of the bureaucratic tunnel. Some are being rebuffed bluntly, sometimes even insulted.  Only 4/5,000 couples succeed annually.  It is not surprising to read anger in their eyes when they see the stars’ babies in the papers!

In Great Britain, international adoption is even less democratised.  About 350 couples only are successful each year, and this after 2 to 3 years of administrative hell, inquisition and intense frustrations.  British spouses wishing to adopt a foreign child are being penalised and made to feel guilty by the “system” which does not like the idea of welcoming an ethnically different child.  And despite months of intrusion in the very private life of the contestants, no one even thinks of checking on the good treatment of the infant whilst settled in his/her new family!

The adoption principle is fabulous in itself when, however, it respects strict ethical criteria.  How many times have we heard of all the scandals linked to overseas adoptions?   I am thinking about the children “bought” from their parents in Hanoi or elsewhere or those kidnapped from their birth mothers and relocated in orphanages by dishonest lawyers, especially in Latin America, and all those that have appeared from God knows where!  The Hague Convention, which was launched in 1998, is, fortunately, aiming to protect adopted children and to insure a legal adoption process, even if some countries have still failed to ratify it.  There are still many improvements to be made to fine-tune a still fractured process.

The most distressing is to know that, throughout the world, millions of infants are rotting in often sordid orphanages, some little stomachs are crying of hunger, and that, like my adorable four year old daughter would say, some hearts are shouting very hard to find a Mummy!  Meanwhile, government officials are neglecting completed files by desperate parents, social workers are wondering how much the prospective parents’ car is worth and how their intimate life is and councillors dare to point their fingers to those who decide to go beyond the local frontiers to locate a child! 

This step achieved, the challengers still have to face the bureaucrats in their child’s country of origin, and scrupulously count the forced “donation” in dollars that will enable them to fully become legal parents.  This is without mentioning the donation from the heart offered to the orphanage and that will somehow get lost in the pocket of a crooked director.

How can we not be cynical, when reading the glossy pages of the magazines which hang around waiting rooms and that boast the last fancies of the superstars, pretending “it is all for a good cause?”  Some of them don’t even go and fetch their last acquisition!   It is infuriating…