‘Saving orphans’ has become an industry that irrevocably harms children and undermines the development of child welfare systems. We must replace the drive to rescue with the desire to protect. On a recent flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi, I was wedged into a seat next to a chatty young man. He told me he worked at a group home for …
LONDON – When Emily and Matt Knudsen began the lengthy process of adopting a child from Africa, they believed they would be saving an orphan in distress. “Our biggest desire was to meet a need, to adopt a child who truly had no other options,” said Emily, at the family’s home near San Francisco, Calif. Motivated by their Christian faith, …
By Katy Migiro and Tom Esslemont KAMPALA/LONDON, May 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The first time Jaja, a Ugandan woman, saw her one-year-old granddaughter, she was in the arms of an American man who she was told had “bought” the child. The toddler was sitting with the man and his wife, eating biscuits and drinking juice, as they sought legal …
Kampala (AFP) – Uganda MPs have raised fresh concerns that hundreds of children have left the country through “dubious circumstances” as a result of foreigners working with local lawyers to exploit a loophole in the law, allowing them to be adopted. Last September, an official report said a boom in Uganda’s “international adoption industry” had led to some children who …
