The -over-under sideways-down world of adoption never ceases to amaze.
Today, our favorite CHIFF mouthpiece Kay Jay posted a letter from US Senate Adoption gadfly and CHIFF sponsor Mary Landrieu decrying the (adoption) “crisis” in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Landrieu writes that her office is :
coordinating a broad-based diplomatic effort to help the American families and children who are stuck in the latest international adoption mess in the Democratic Republic Congo.
She demands that Congress take the lead–by enacting CHIFF– from the State Department which she claims is “doing nothing” for US “families” whose children are “stuck” in Congo due the country’s shut down of international adoption and its refusal to issue exit visas to “adopted children.”. To hear Landrieu talk, you’d think that these “parents” were a bunch of careless vacationers who forgot they’d left their kids at the Hotel Sultani while they went sightseeing and can’t get them back now. It’s tough, I know, having to go by upstart Congolese law, but these kids are still citizens of Congo, living in Congo, and subject to Congo law.
What Landrieu forgot to mention in her letter is that this “crisis” was (1) created by sleazy adoption agency practices that forced the Congolese government to shut down all stages of cross border adoption at least while it investigates corruption and regroups and (2) the “crisis” is mainly a crisis for folks of privilege who have spent a lot of money on exotica and have been burned. Hubris.
I certainly don’t believe that all of these adopters and paps are bad people, but they should be looking at the real problem, profit-driven bottom feeders, not the CHIFF-constructed myth of State Department malfeasance and inactivity. One can only guess what the US intercountry adoption scene would look like if the international adoption industry and orphan-obsessed evangelicals were calling the shots (such as CHIFF and Landrieu want) not State.
This afternoon, nationally renowned child welfare advocate Maureen Flatley, who opposes CHIFF, posted the following response to Landrieu’s letter on FB::
Senator Mary Landrieu has a shockingly short memory. She castigates the State Dept in this letter – John Kerry’s State Department – betraying an appalling lack of loyalty to a statesman and US Senator who has supported her since before she was elected to the Senate. In fact, John Kerry is uniquely qualified to ensure the responsible promotion of international adoption during his tenure. Instead, shortly after this appointment Sen. Landrieu launched a full frontal attack on his leadership w/ her gratuitous criticism of the ONLY agency that has provided meaningful regulation of this important social practice in our lifetimes.
There is at least one family in the group she is fighting for that should not be able to adopt under any circumstances having had their parental rights terminated for abuse of another adopted child who they attempted to abandon into foster care in Massachusetts. This is a classic example of the short sighted, flawed leadership that enhances the abuses in adoption rather than protecting kids. Very troubling.
Mo Flatley and the rest of us would take Landrieu Inc more seriously if they showed any concern for American children stuck in the foster care system, instead of throwing them under the train to push social and religious ideology and fill the pockets of humanitarian imperialists and private industry.
But where’s the profit in that?
If CHIFF has tried to shut you up, tell us your story!
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