Transnational Adoption: A Curse or a Blessing? The Psychosocial Impact of Malpractices in Transnational Adoption on Adoptees

Abstract

For decades, transnational adoption has been applied as a valuable measure for children in need of a family home, and for families to fulfill their child wish. The Hague Adoption convention (1993) was established to legally safeguard these processes. However, over the years, denouncements of illegal adoptions and malpractices arose. Notwithstanding, a lack of research giving overview of these malpractices and the consequences thereof remains. This contribution explores the experiences of adoptees in Flanders (Belgium) who experienced malpractices before, during and after their transnational adoption procedure. The research questions addressed are: “What malpractices do adoptees encounter?”, “How do adoptees experience malpractices in their adoption procedure?”, and “What needs do adoptees have?”. A self-assessment questionnaire, holding into account respondents’ own judgment, perception, experiences, and interpretation, was completed by 64 adoptees, and analyzed using both SPSS statistical software and Microsoft Excel. Furthermore, in-depth interviews with a heterogeneous group of 12 adoptees were conducted and thematically analyzed. Our findings contribute to descriptions of occurring malpractices, and finetune existing literature concerning the psychosocial impact of malpractices according to adoptees themselves. Findings illustrate intertwined consequences of more general, trauma related, identity development, and relationship issues. Although occurred malpractices cannot be undone, the adoptees having experienced malpractices highlight their needs and further necessary attention for the prevention of malpractices. Adequate attention and support for transnational adoption and those involved is discussed.

Keywords:

• Transnational adoption
• malpractices
• adoptees

Disclosure statement

The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This contribution is based on research reports supported by the Flemish Government (Belgium) (See Jaspers et al., 2021; Vanspauwen et al., 2021).

Notes

1 Due to a scarcity of literature on malpractices in transnational adoption, literature on domestic adoption (from countries that also conduct transnational adoption) was also included.

2 For ethical reasons, we only included adults over 18 years old.

3 See Jaspers et al. (2021) for more detailed information on the methodology.

4 See Appendix for Table A1 for list of considered questions.

5 See Vanspauwen et al. (2021) for more detailed information on the methodology.

6 Numbers and percentages are based on the total amount of participants who answered that particular question. Note that, out of ethical consideration, participants were not forced to answer all questions. Some questions allowed multiple answers, resulting in that the sum of the numbers does not always coincide with the number of participants (e.g. when answering the question which malpractices they encountered, participants were able to indicate several malpractices).

7 See Appendix for tables with exact numbers.