The aftermath of transnational illegal adoptions: Redressing human rights violations in the intercountry adoption system with instruments of transitional justice

A growing movement of illegally adopted individuals request remedies and reparations for the human rights violations that they and their biological families had suffered. This article explores a number of measures that the stakeholders in the receiving countries can use in an effort to repair the human rights violations caused by illegal intercountry adoptions, borrowing ideas from transitional justice. In order to effectively redress the harm inflicted upon victims of illegal adoptions, a policy on remedies should combine instruments of retributive justice, aimed at holding wrongdoers accountable, with measures of restorative justice that focus on the victims’ needs and interests.

Intercountry adoption swimming against the tide: Restitution in Samoa

Intercountry adoption (ICA) is a contested practice represented by competing discourses of humanitarianism, exploitation, poverty and wealth. Multiple factors have contributed to decreasing numbers of adoption globally including documented incidents of fraud which have accumulated over the last two decades. There is little recompense for families subjected to the fraudulent removal of their children, the children, and adoptive parents who are also defrauded. This article reports on the troubled progression of fraudulent ICA, presents a case of fraud and novel restitution in Samoa and concludes that restitution pathways should also facilitate contact and reunification of children with their families.

Irregularities in transnational adoptions and child appropriations: Challenges for reparation practices

Transnational adoption is a global movement of children across borders to new permanent and irreversible legal relationships. It is a circulation that involves social, economic, cultural and political relations marked by geographies of inequalities of power on a global scale. Many of these circulations have been shrouded by illicit practices which mean the violation of child rights. This special issue of the journal Childhood examines individual, social and political narratives on illicit processes surrounding this practice. Drawing from social and political sciences research, the contributors of this collection show the contradiction between ‘silences’ around certain practices in some societies, while in others ‘truth recovery’ has been central to the transition towards democracy. The authors raise concerns about policies and practices that complicate the interests and rights of individual actors.

Implications of irregular transnational adoptions within international standards: A review of intercountry adoption systems and Guatemalan birthmother perspectives

With growing global emergencies, child abduction became a concern in countries of origin and reception of transnationally adopted children. Improved regulations and standards to prevent child trafficking exhibit failures to ensure the best interest of children and the principle of subsidiarity. The article reviews relevant literature documents the Guatemalan birthmothers’ experiences and documented child theft, deception by trafficking networks, fraudulent adoptions, and familial coercion. Human rights and child welfare system implications drawn may be relevant to irregular transnational adoptions elsewhere.

Redressing forced removals of Yenish children in Switzerland in the 20th century: An analysis through transitional justice lens

‘A society that does not tackle the bitterest chapters of its past risks repeating the same mistakes – sooner or later'. These are the words pronounced by the Swiss Minister of Justice to apologise for the harm suffered by victims of coercive social measures. Apology is one of the measures established by Switzerland for dealing with the legacy of forced removals of Yenish children. Through an analysis of the reparation schemes undertaken in Switzerland, the article shows that relying on the theoretical framework provided by transitional justice facilitates making a critical assessment of reparation schemes for past child abuse cases.

‘I prefer not to know’: Spain’s management of transnational adoption demand and signs of corruption

The safeguards and measures to prevent child trafficking mentioned in the 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption have proven insufficient in curbing the so-called irregular adoptions. An analysis of how Spanish central authorities and intermediary agencies managed the flow of adoption dossiers between 2003 and 2013 presents their inability to react swiftly to the imbalance between adoption demand and supply. The 2015 reforms in the Spanish law introduced measures to bring demand in line with real needs. However, imaginaries that portray adopters and children from the Global South as victims of meaningless bureaucracy continue to hold true even today.

Seen and not heard: Students’ uses and experiences of silence in school relationships at a secondary school

Silence is traditionally understood as a power deficit; yet, it creates spaces in which power works unobtrusively. In this article, I report the findings of a qualitative study examining silence in school relationships. Based on nine conceptual discussions and 33 interviews with teachers and students in a secondary school in the UK, I assert that uses of silence in relationships between students and teachers revolve around two conceptions of power: a stronghold of respect and a refuge for dignity.

Making waves: A cross-study analysis of young people’s participation arenas in Scotland’s schools

This article compares democratic participation research in Scottish schools over a 10-year period. The comparison reveals how ‘organic’ aspects of decision-making arise in arenas of school activity. We argue that research heretofore has focussed on pupil councils to the exclusion of more everyday embedded and embodied choices. Primary researchers in the studies revisited data, drawing on their respective theoretical frameworks, to consider how new materialist perspectives offer ways to attend differently to the recursive, relational dynamics of participation.

Breaking nation: Brazilian transnational children’s construction of belonging in bilingual classrooms

This article explores Brazilian children’s belonging-making in Portuguese–English bilingual classrooms in the United States. Drawing on ethnographic data collected over fifteen months, we found that the participating Brazilian children frequently referenced Brazil in their classrooms. Through these references, the children forged their own conceptions of what belonging means and created spaces of belonging in their bilingual classrooms. Connections to Brazil were established through the evocation of memories, allusions to loved ones physically there, and by claiming identities as Portuguese speakers. We argue that the children’s actions and narratives had the effect of disrupting the tenets of traditional nations: common culture, territory, and language.