An independent voice for ethical adoption
Ethiopia: U.S. Families Adoption Of Ethiopian Children, For Trade or Charity? (Opinion)
An editorial from the Daily Independent:
“Adoption is becoming the new export industry for our country. Experts I have spoken with are of the opinion that it might overtake coffee as major export industry…”
Those were the words of Ellene Moria, who runs a women’s programme on a local radio station in Ethiopia. They were laden with acrimonious emotion which many historians and social commentators never captured the historic trade in human beings during slave trade with. Hence, how can one phantom the idea behind some of the adverts put up by the various adoption agencies in Ethiopia on their web sites? Without meaning to say it, this calls back memories of slave trade. Take for instance one of the adverts I saw on one of the sites read thus:
“Agernesh, a lively girl with a slender build and a ready smile, spent her first eight years in a small rural village in the south of Ethiopia…There are sibling groups as well as single children. The majority of the youngsters are between five and seven years of age. All are basically healthy; both physically and emotionally…They learn Western table manners and how to eat with a knife and fork… The children have chores and learn that in American families they will be expected to help in the kitchen, with cleaning and laundry.”
However the manner which children are adopted in Ethiopia goes beyond trade in human being or human trafficking. It all depends on how close or far you hold the mirror to the society. You either check out the socio-economic, psychological and political implications of this to both the individuals and government or you simply hang on to the trade issue.
With some U.S. families willing to pay upwards of 25,000 US dollars to adopt an Ethiopian child, the trade in children is certainly more lucrative than coffee farming. The money realised from this trade hardly gets out of the coffers of both the government and various adoption agencies/motherless homes- since most of the kids are said to be orphans. This business intrigues undoubtedly could be said to have accounted for the tears in Ellene Moria’s voice when she uttered those words quoted above.
Access the full article here.
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