4 ANALYSIS & FEATURE
Are adopted children invisible commodities?
In a globalizing world, it should matter less where children are brought up, and more how
By Chris Williams
Madonna’s efforts to adopt
another child from Malawi fill
the international press, and the
familiar songs about the rights
and wrongs of adoption are sung
again. But what about Koreans
adopted abroad, and adoption
from elsewhere in East Asia?
In her book, “Ten Thousand
Sorrows,” Elizabeth Kim tells
how, in a Korean village in the
1950s, she and her mother were
made to live in a separate hut,
because she was fathered by an
American solider. Because of
this, she saw her mother being
hanged by male relatives, and
was sent to a fundamentalist
Christian orphanage, which
was more like a prison. Then
she was adopted by a Calvinist
pastor in America who would
tape record her screams as he
beat her. She was then married
off to another pastor who
jumped on her stomach when
she was pregnant, put her in
the dog kennel to sleep, and
made her watch while he had
sex with other women. “Honor
killings,” abuse of girls and
women, and forced marriages
are not just horrors of the
Muslim world.
One expert, Tobias Hubinette,
traces international adoption
from Korea back to 1860, when
famine and poverty had caused
children to be sent to Russia
and Manchuria. He estimates
that there were 148,394 over-
seas adoptions between 1953
and 2001. He believes that
“adoption is too often used to get
rid of ‘impure’ and costly chil-
dren whether stigmatized by il-
legitimacy (‘sasaenga’), by dis-
ability (‘changae’a’) or by race
(‘honhyeola’).” Adoptees were
seen by Park In-sun as an as-
pect of Korean economic devel-
opment, as “goodwill ambas-
sadors” or “victims in a pursuit
of greater national economic
prosperity.”
In the 1950s, numerous
Korean children were adopted
through religious organizations
in the United States, Australia,
and Europe. They were not all
war orphans. Some were “GI ba-
bies,” from Korean women and
non-Korean soldiers. The Korea
Herald has often discussed sub-
sequent trends under headlines
such as, “IMF economic pinch
increases number of abandoned
children” in 1999, and “Korea
still main source of adoptions in
America” in 2001. North
Korean orphans, and the
“Kosian” children fathered by
guest workers from elsewhere
in Asia, provide new aspects.
Since 2004, the International
Korean Adoptees Association
has worked to mitigate the re-
sultant problems, but also to op-
timize the benefits.
The U.N. Children’s Rights
commission questioned Korean
officials about the reasons for
international adoption from a
country with the 12th largest
economy in the world, in 2003.
But they might also have asked
why Britain was still exporting
its surplus children to Canada
and Australia in the 1970s.
Emerging economies face
acute disaster risks: U.N.
GENEVA (Reuters) — bility and global security,” U.N.
Natural disasters threaten to
trigger widespread damage and
distress in emerging economies,
many of which are already on
the brink because of the global
recession, a United Nations
body said on Sunday.
There are 1 billion people liv-
ing in hazard-prone slums and
shantytowns in developing
countries, many of which over-
looked safety standards in re-
cent years of red-hot growth, ac-
cording to the International
Strategy for Disaster Reduc-
tion.
Crammed settlements with
poor drainage systems are mak-
ing floods more frequent and se-
vere in many cities, particularly
in Asia, where the ISDR said big
swathes of commercial assets
and infrastructure are also ex-
posed to storms and earth-
quakes.
“Disaster risk is rising in an
alarming way, threatening de-
velopment gains, economic sta-
Chris Williams
● Chris Williams is based at
the Center for International
Education and Research,
University of Birmingham,
United Kingdom, and has
also held posts at the univer-
sities of London, Bristol,
Cambridge, Cairo and the
United Nations.
● He is author of the books
“Invisible Victims: Crime and
Abuse Against People with
Disabilities” (1995), and
“Leadership Accountability in
a Globalizing World” (2006),
Palgrave Macmillan, London.
● He can be reached at
chrisunula@yahoo.com
Many were not orphans, and
many suffered serious sexual
and other abuse in religious or-
phanages, where the main aim
seemed to be to increase the
colonial stock of compliant
white Christian laborers.
The export and institutional-
ization of surplus children has a
long tradition in Europe. In his
book “Republic” 2,400 years ago,
Greek philosopher Plato recom-
mended that orphans, together
with criminals and their chil-
dren, and widows, were to be
sent to the “colonies.” In 19th
century Italy, around 43 percent
of the children of Florence were
put into orphanages. There is no
East Asian city, however poor,
that is abandoning its children
to that extent.
Korea is not unique. Causal
factors are global and media re-
ports are not always what they
seem.
In 1997, the international
press reported how parents in
Hong Kong, who had disabled
children and were planning to
migrate, were putting their chil-
dren into orphanages on the
mainland. But there was no
mention that some of these “or-
phans” were created because of
the immigration laws of
Western countries. Parents be-
lieved that having a disabled
child would reduce their
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
said, introducing the 200-page
report launched in Bahrain.
The Geneva-based ISDR es-
timated that the share of the
global economy at direct risk
from floods has doubled since
1990, and that 28 percent more
people are now vulnerable to
losing their homes, incomes
and lives than two decades
ago.
“Most flood risk is concentrat-
ed in Asian countries,” it said,
estimating that three quarters
of those at risk of dying in floods
around the world are concen-
trated in Bangladesh, India and
China.
Thailand and Indonesia also
face substantial threats from
floods, the report said.
Bangladesh was listed as facing
the highest mortality risk from
cyclones, along with China,
India, the Philippines,
Myanmar and Madagascar,
while Ethiopia, Indonesia and
chances of getting a visa to a
Western country. Canadian
Immigration Acts had barred
“mentally handicapped” people
and those with epilepsy, and
mentioned “prohibited classes”
who could become a burden on
social welfare or health services.
A decade ago, the American
media carried horror stories
about Chinese orphanages, and
a report from Human Rights
Watch, talked of “cruelty, abuse,
and malign neglect,” that affect-
ed 15 million orphans. A piece in
the Washington Post in 1996,
“China’s orphanages and
death,” made parallels with the
Nazi concentration camps. A re-
port from Macau, “The Caged
Kids,” showed children appar-
ently kept like zoo animals.
Like other western critiques
of the East, the description of or-
phanages veiled double stan-
dards. In 1966, Burton Blatt
had exposed the grossly inhu-
mane conditions within
American institutions in his
book “Christmas in Purgatory.”
His photographs showed naked,
pained children and adults, sit-
ting it their own excrement, or
warehoused in beds with no
space between them. They were
truly reminiscent of a concen-
tration camp. When I did re-
search about the abuse of dis-
abled people in Britain in the
India are most vulnerable to
deadly landslides.
China and India are most at
risk from deaths in earth-
quakes, followed by Indonesia,
El Salvador, Guatemala and the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Sub-Saharan African countries
were cited as having the most
people and crops exposed to
risks from drought.
The poorest communities in
developing countries are at
highest risk from disasters and
are rarely covered by insurance.
The ISDR estimated that 1.7
million people have been killed
in 23 “mega disasters” since
1975, and said that major
storms and weather-related
emergencies are expected to in-
crease as a result of global
warming.
“Many urban areas will also
experience stress through water
and energy shortages, heat and
cold waves and more prevalent
disease vectors,” it said, raising
particular concern about the im-
1990s for the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation, there were many
cases of assault, abduction and
rape by care staff. One patient
had died as a result of being tied
to a toilet by nurses while they
had lunch.
In 1997, Human Rights
Watch also expressed concern
about the children in Hong
Kong’s refugee camps, which
were holding the so-called
Vietnamese “boat people.” (They
were, more accurately, refugees
from U.S. intervention.) It did
not mention that, because of the
conditions in which children
were held in these camps,
Britain could not sign up fully to
the U.N. Convention on the
Rights of the Child.
The Sino-British Fellowship
Trust assisted me to visit China
at this time. My tour was care-
fully managed, but I became
aware how the Western press
photographers had set up their
images of apparent neglect and
abuse in East Asia. One famous
picture, showing an “orphaned
girl” tied in a chair, was actual-
ly of a traditional bamboo baby
seat. But the picture was taken
from an angle that made the
chair look like an implement of
torture. Other pictures showing
“caged children” had been taken
through barred windows that
are common in shops and hous-
Thousands of people pack the road to the devastated town of Beichuan last Tuesday, one year after it was destroyed by an earthquake.
pact of rising oceans on Dhaka,
Mumbai and Shanghai, large
parts of which are only 1 to 5
meters above sea level.
The ISDR stressed it is not
just geography that makes im-
poverished pockets of the world
most vulnerable to disasters,
saying that weak governance
has made both people and
economies in poorer countries
es across Asia. The pictures did
not show that the doors were
open.
I also saw a state-of-the-art
disability hospital in Beijing,
funded and supported by Japan,
which was better equipped than
anything I had seen outside
China. It even included a spe-
cially adapted swimming pool.
Elsewhere, staff at a small
workshop for young people with
psychiatric problems grumbled
that the patients were paid
nearly as much as the staff, but
felt that this demonstrated
China’s belief that all people
had equal value.
Current websites perpetuate
negative stories, and publicize
agencies that arrange for the
adoption of East Asian babies.
Adoptable babies are in short
supply in Eestern countries.
East Asian infants are seen as
in need of rescue, and attrac-
tive. Yet despite this, children
with disabilities are rarely ac-
cepted. Viviana Zelizer explains
how we commoditize children in
her insightful book, “Pricing the
Priceless Child: The Changing
Social Value of Children.” The
moral and emotional rewards of
adopting a child are high, as
can be the financial rewards for
the agencies and travel compa-
nies that make the arrange-
ments.
more exposed to devastation.
For example, the report said
while Japan and the Philippines
have virtually the same expo-
sure to tropical cyclones, they
kill 17 times more people in the
Philippines. Cyclones of the
same strength also typically
damage 20 times more of
Madagascar’s gross domestic
product than Japan’s.
MONDAY MAY 18, 2009
Even if imperfect, orphanages
and adoption may be better
than the other options for un-
wanted children. In 2007, the
U.S. State Trafficking in
Persons Report talked of
10,000-20,000 people, mainly
women and children, who have
been “‘trafficked primarily from
Anhui, Henan, Hunan,
Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou
Provinces to prosperous
provinces along PRC’s east coast
for sexual exploitation.” It also
mentions forced marriages, and
international trafficking for
prostitution. But it does not
mention that many clients are
European and American,
tourists.
The agency, Americans adopt-
ing orphans presents a more
balanced view — “There have
been some negative reports in
the popular media about bad
conditions in Chinese orphan-
ages. These reports have been
greatly exaggerated. While life
in an orphanage in a developing
country can be quite harsh, and
while some orphanages do a bet-
ter job than others, overall or-
phanages in China are ade-
quate places staffed by caring
people. ... We believe that care
for children without families is
better in China than in any oth-
er developing country.”
The same is probably true
It accused local officials
worldwide of turning a blind eye
to poorly built homes, schools
and other buildings, and said
governments in Africa, Asia and
Latin America routinely ignore
slums in low-lying and land-
slide-prone areas.
“Some low and middle-income
countries which have experi-
enced recent and rapid econom-
now across most of East Asia.
It is likely that many of the
children who stayed in East
Asian orphanages had excel-
lent care, and are now enjoying
the thriving economy. And
some did not. Many adopted
abroad will have had a wonder-
ful life. But some may have suf-
fered abuse and neglect similar
to that which East Asia was ac-
cused of.
Fate can make a vulnerable
child into a valuable global
commodity, slave, emotional
prize, or pawn in the rhetoric of
international politics. The
German philosopher, Kant,
made the distinction between
value in terms of the “price” of
what can be “replaced by some-
thing else as its equivalent”,
and what is “above all price”
and “has no equivalent”, which
has “dignity.” Dignity is not a
commodity.
In a globalizing world, it
should matter less where chil-
dren are brought up, and more,
how. In the words of an Ella
Fitzgerald song, which predates
Madonna, “It ain’t what you do,
but the way that you do it.” To
have dignity and be happy, chil-
dren do not need to be valuable,
just ordinary. And people who
adopt, or professionals who pro-
vide care, don’t need to be a
Madonna to do it.
AFP-Yonhap News
ic growth are more at risk from
disaster because governance
and construction standards
have lagged and corruption is
still rife,” it said.
“Even in high income coun-
tries, problems persist as can be
seen from last month’s earth-
quake in Italy which destroyed
a number of buildings con-
structed in modern times.”