Madonna has done it. So have Nicole Kidman and Meg Ryan. Angelina Jolie is famous for it.
It’s not acting I’m talking about. It’s overseas adoption. And the big question is: why is it so easy for them, and so hard for ordinary folk in Australia? The answer is that celebrities who adopt from overseas aren’t applying within the Australian system.
Australia currently has the second lowest rate of overseas adoptions amongst developed countries. In fact, the number of adoptions in Australia has fallen drastically from a peak of almost 10,000 in 1971-72, to just 576 in 2004-05. While this drop has a lot to do with fewer Australian mothers putting their children up for adoption, it also speaks of an adoption system gone awry.
In the United States, adopting a child from overseas normally takes about nine months. Here, it can take more than six years. ABC journalist Tim Gavel knows only how arduous the process can be. In 2004, Gavel and his wife adopted two children from Ethiopia, but it took two years before they could finally bring them home. ‘In Australia, you wait until a child is allocated to you,’ he told the Canberra Times. ‘You don’t pick or choose. It’s absolutely different to the whole Madonna thing,’ he says.
In late 2005, a report by a House of Representatives’ standing committee, Overseas Adoption in Australia, found there was general attitude against intercountry adoption in government departments, ‘which [ranged] from indifference or lack of support to outright hostility’. The reported stated that in NSW a department representative had told prospective parents they should consider fostering Australian children instead. And in Western Australia, parents were told they’d be better off donating money to developing countries.
‘It seems to many prospective parents as if the government agencies responsible are screening out families, rather than screening them in,’ says psychologist Trudy Rosenwald, who specialises in adoption issues and is herself a mother of two children adopted from overseas.
The problem is compounded by the lack of a national adoption system. ‘Each state and territory in Australia has its own procedure to follow when approving applicants,’ says Ricky Brisson, Chief Executive Officer of Australian Families for Children. In fact, the policies vary so much there is different legislation concerning the minium and maximum age prospective parents; whether singles, de facto or homosexual couples can apply; and, would you believe it, whether or not you have to be an Australian citizen!
A further difficulty for adoptive parents is that they aren’t provided with the same amount of government financial support as birth parents. For example, many adoptive parents miss out on welfare payments like the maternity payment and the baby bonus, usually because their children are too old when they finally arrive in Australia.
And adoptive parents could do certainly with the extra cash. Peter Gogarty, a father of two children adopted from overseas, says overseas adoption already costs parents an average of more than $40,000. ‘Our financial needs are far greater than someone breastfeeding a baby in a cot, yet we get no financial support.’ He and his wife had to redraw on the equity of their home to foot their $75,000 bill. ‘We have really weathered the storm of adoption,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph.
While there’s no doubt the Australian adoption system has plenty of room for improvement, it should be noted that some of the red tape is there for good reasons. Unfortunately some parents in developing nations feel pressured to give their child a ‘better life’ in the western world. Shockingly, a number of parents are also hood-winked into adoption, or paid to give up their children.
In order to put a stop to such practices, The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption was established ‘to protect children and their families against the risks of illegal, irregular, premature or ill-prepared adoptions abroad’. Australia signed the treaty in 1998, agreeing to play the role of gatekeeper with even greater consideration for the adopted child.
While there’s no doubting the Convention’s importance, its presence has made intercountry adoption more difficult; Australia can only deal with the limited number of nations that have also signed up. Yet as Australian actress Deborra-lee Furness argues, there’s an easy solution to this problem. Many poor countries don't have the infrastructure to meet adoption standards and pursue membership of the Convention, so the Australian government should put their resources into helping these nations join. This will not only make adoption a safer practice world-wide, but also shorten Australian waiting-lists.
‘It breaks my heart to think there are thousands of abandoned children overseas waiting for loving families to take them but the government is making it so hard,’ says Furness, who has two adopted children with husband Hugh Jackman. She has been a vocal advocate for change ever since. And recently her lobbying paid off when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the formation of federal peak body, which will oversee the states so that they operate under the same rules.
This is a good start. But we need to get the ball rolling faster. As Furness warns, ‘every month we sit around discussing this, another child gets left behind in the paper trail, and hopeful parents give up.’
How do I know this?
AIHW, 2006, Adoptions Australia 2005-06,
www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/10382
The Australian Government, Attorney General’s Department, 'The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption', 11 February 2008
http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Intercountry
Adoption_TheHagueconventiononintercountryAdoption
ASIAC, 2008, 'Intercountry Adoption',
www.asiac.org.au
Canberra Times, 2006, ‘Adoption not like Madonna and child’, October 21,
Connolly, E. 2007a, ‘Victory: Deborra-lee's adoption campaign pays off - A present for all the children’, Sunday Telegraph, December 23, p3
Connolly, E. 2007b, ‘Tears before adoption’, Sunday Telegraph, August 19, p85
Field, M. 2008, ‘Why can’t we?’, Marie Clare, March, pp58 – 62
Furness, D. 2008, ‘Australia’s poor adoption record’, ABC Online – Unleashed, January 14,
www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2135022.htm
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services, 2005, Overseas Adoption in Australia, November, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra
International Social Service Australian Branch, n.d., Intercountry Adoption,
www.iss.org.au/serviceadoptions.html
Kelly, J. 2007, ‘Long wait to adopt’, Herald Sun, December 17,
www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22933922-2862,00.html
Marcus, C. 2008, ‘Overseas adoption move welcomed’, The Sunday Age, March 30,
www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/03/29/1206207501249.html
Moscaritolo, M. 2005, ‘Why is adoption made so hard’, The Advertiser, November 3, p19
Weaver, C. 2007, ‘The Jolie effect on adoption’, Sunday Telegraph, April 1, p20
