Intercountry adoption: Young adult issues and transition to adulthood

For literally thousands of children in countries throughout the world, intercountry adoption is the only viable possibility for them to have a permanent loving family. Whenever there is a disaster, whether by natural causes or resulting from armed conflict or human atrocities, the predictable consequence is that children are the most vulnerable. Children's immediate and long-term survival is the most fragile. Intercountry adoption is an extremely sensitive and emotional issue for the citizens of the sending countries as well as for those in other, often more affluent, countries who adopt these children. It must be a priority to respect the dignity of the child's birth country as well as the dignity of the child. More than 20,000 children are adopted internationally each year by US families. Five decades of intercountry adoption to the United States translates into more than 200,000 children in this country who are international adoptees. Beyond the adoptees themselves, those affected by adoption expand to include adoptive parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and wide extended family as well as normal close attachments through friends, neighbors, church, and school. This represents a significant community of lives that are touched by the experience of international adoption. Most individuals living the United States are aware of intercountry adoption, even if only from reading an article or seeing news reports. In spite of the scope of intercountry adoption in the United States, outside the immediate adoptive circle, there is minimal understanding of more than superficial issues. For the most part, intercountry adoption is accepted and acknowledged as beneficial for the child and the family. The volume of awkward and sometimes intrusive inquiries that international adoptees and their families are often required to endure provides evidence that a deeper public sensitivity to the unique situations of these families and children has not developed. Another perspective is that these children and families are considered the same as any other and that no special consideration is needed or required.