Is adoption in the US and Canada violating an international treaty?

What I find interesting is how children's rights and basic human rights are often separated, especially since children are human and grow up to be adults. It is somehow acceptable by adults with power to deem children without power less than human, I guess.

We international adoptees are made available by virtue of being labeled an orphan, yet what does "orphan" mean? The first crime against our human rights was the "legal" expanded definition of "orphan." All of us whose parents were not deceased were made available to the system through this method of eradicating our history. Is this label not permanently erasing a person's identity, a person with living family? Does this not open the door to unscrupulous practices?

My circumstances are standard operating procedure: First, my name was falsified. The first "legal" crime. Then, I was given a fabricated birth certificate. The second "legal" crime. Then, I was officially labeled an "orphan" even though my parents were not dead. The third "legal" crime. Then, this official "orphan" status meant I could be made a ward of the state. Then, a representative of an orphanage was awarded guardianship. (someone who was guardian to hundreds) At which point, the guardian adoption agency made me available for adoption to foreign countries.

When a child's biological parents are in a foreign country with a foreign language and foreign customs, how much easier is it for adoptive parents to be sold a bill of goods / to be lied to? Why is having your identity changed unacceptable for adults yet acceptable for those that can not represent or defend themselves? We feel violated when, as adults, we are victims of identity theft, but we feel nothing for adoptees who have been stripped of their identity.

The Hague Convention is just that - a convention, an agreement to work towards more ethical practices - analogous to the better business bureau. A UN treaty is merely legislation that is enforceable only to the extent those willing to sign are politically motivated to do so.

Protecting the rights of the child falls upon us as individuals, who enjoy our civil rights and value our individual liberties, to pressure the sovereign states in which we live, and influence the market which creates the conditions in which falsifying identities or erasing identities of human beings is condoned - by default, by looking past or ignoring unethical practices, and by not rigorously investigating the origins of an "orphaned" child.

How can we be certain a child is truly "available" and an "orphan?"

It is up to the potential adoptive parent. Without confirming the death or wishes of the living parent through direct communication, how can we know without a shadow of a doubt that children were not made available through nefarious means? History proves adoption agencies and orphanages are NOT rigorous or doing their homework. Are we really content to read a brief child's history and accept without question a transcribed or translated account? How can we trust there is no conflict of interest in what an adoption agency chooses to record or leave out? How can we call ourselves responsible parents and not be concerned about ALL of the people adoption affects? How can we value the child but not value the humanity that brought them into being? The unknown yet living parents who, due to our lack of due diligence, might be grieving the disappearance of a child they bore and loved? How do we reconcile all we enjoy from having this child in our lives if the child was obtained ignoring ethics? And who can we blame but ourselves when the child grows up and finds out all is not and was not as it was portrayed to be?

Personal investigation, fact checking, and refusal to patronize agencies and orphanages who can not prove due diligence are what will make a difference. Market forces are what will promote or put an end to unethical practices, all the way down the supply chain. That's the bottom line. (sorry to put it in such harsh terms, as I recognize many potential adoptive parents have their hearts in the right place) But in the long run, respecting your child's basic civil rights and working to create an ethical system by holding the very highest personal standards of ethics will insure that your child always holds you in the highest regard.

Two years of my life erased. This is still happening. Please let's all work together to preserve your the children's most basic human right. Just because these practices are "legal" doesn't make them right. We can do better.

Please answer a couple of questions on international adoption if possible. This would be of tremendous help. This is for a highschool survey summative. Thank you. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/internationaladopti...

Technically, no. If you look at the wording of the treaty, you'll note the words "unlawful" and "illegally." The US and Canada aren't violating their own national laws, and there is no international law that supersedes national sovereignty. Even voluntarily signed treaties and conventions don't generally supersede in practice, even if they should on paper.

The UN is not a world government. They can do little more than make recommendations, and have no way to enforce their decisions. I respect the work the UN does and the organization's goals, but they are without much real power all the same. Their power to intervene in internal national matters is all but nil unless other countries are threatened by the political turmoil.

While the process of altering birth certificates (not actually adoption itself) is probably a violation of the spirit of the UN declaration, the UN has zero power to enforce it, and even if they did, they likely wouldn't try against the US, who is their largest dues contributor by far. Without the money the US kicks in, the UN would basically cease to function at all, so the UN cannot afford to alienate them like they could a smaller member state.

International treaties aren't really top priority, no. They probably should be given higher priority than they are, but in actual international law as it is practiced, treaties-- particularly UN declarations as opposed to those made by a country with another country directly-- are actually given far lower priority than state sovereignty.

I have always felt my son's rights were violated . And my grandson when the court didn't order the name change. My son didn't want to change the name that he goes by the first name just the middle and last name. But the judge don't see fit to give him his true last name. So for now my grandson lives a lie they call him by their last name when the child can't be adopted. If we go by what's on his birth record its infant boy myers. Sad isn't it. I need to find where you saw this. They take kids all over I know the first case against the same adoption agency i saw was a Indian child out of Canada and they did nothing to give the child back.

Since most of your points hinge on the prohibition against "unlawful interference" one must first prove that the adoptions are unlawful. Since they were done through legally mandated authorities, confirmed by legally mandated courts either in the home countries of the child(ren) or in the home country of the adoptive parents then one must somehow prove that the adoptions were still unlawful (vice unethical, immoral, not needed, "I just don't like it"....)

No it is not a violation.

It is just saying that the adoption has to be done legally. The parents agree with the adoption and that no else has a legal right to the child prior to the adoption.

Chinese girls are adopted fairly frequently due the limits the county has on the number of children a family can have.

Yes. Shakes head sadly.

no is a crime