Chapter1. Introduction

Three years ago in Germany in Lenz’s family appeared an adopted son- 1 year- old Askar from Almaty. In order to meet with him they prepared for two years. After collecting all the relevant information about health, financial situation, the absence of previous convictions, passing tests, interviews, training sessions, receiving approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education of Kazakhstan, Mrs. Lenz finally arrived to Almaty, where she has met with Askar for the first time. “Prior to this we have only seen pictures and medical reports, ” says Manuela Lenz. “But then, when we saw him, it became absolutely clear that we would do as much as was necessary just to get this child.” Now Lenz’s family does not remember the difficult period of training and suspense. Askar grows; his adaption to the new country was a success. Lenz’s family is going to visit Kazakhstan once more. “It is important for him to know about Kazakhstan, ” says Manuela Lenz, “he knows that we adopted him, and he says he is Kazakh. When somebody asks which country are you from, he says from Kazakhstan” (Korneeva, 2010). It is not the only example of a successful adoption by foreigners.

The current situation of orphans is quite complicated. There are some possible solutions of being adopted for careless children. Orphans can be adopted by domestic adoption, or be faced illegal or international adoption. The one interesting fact is that local parents are not fans of adopting children. The level of domestic adoption is much lower than any other kind of taking children from orphanages. Because of this, orphans are faced to illegal or international adoption. An illegal adoption is typically recognized in two forms: illegal actions from an adoption agency and black market adoption. In addition, an illegal adoption may be the result of mistakes made by adoptions agencies, courts and poorly advised prospective parents. Illegal adoption occurs through two ways: carelessness or intentional action. The former, while still able to render adoption illegal and result in the removal of a child from his or her adoptive home, is more forgivable than the latter. In most cases illegal adoption involves black market adoption, human trafficking and different levels of fraud. Black market adoptions involve purchasing a child and spending copious amounts of money to bypass certain formalities in the adoption process. There is an example of illegal adoption in Australia. Julia Rollings published personal experience on getting a child by illegal way. Julia’s daughter and son were adopted by Mr. Rollings. Julia’s husband bought children, who were sold by their first father, because of hard financial situation (Kitze, 2008).

The level of international adoption is increasing each year. There are many articles, audio- and video materials, examples and evidences of different instances of adoption. Many problems start here: why parents abandoned their children, what orphans should do, how to adapt to future life, and at last, and one of the most important, should they be adopted by foreigners. There are some questions that are difficult to answer: why foreigners adopt children from the other countries, are there any advantages for government from this procedure and if there is another better solution for orphans.

Adoption is a legal process that creates a parent relationship between individuals who are not each other’s biological parent and child and provides a permanent home for a child who cannot be cared for by biological parents (Hollinger, 1991). Inter country adoption is the process by which family adopts a child from a different country than own through permanent legal means; or bring that child to your home country to live with you permanently. The first process of inter country adoption was started during the Second World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Now it involves the transfer of more than 30. 000 children each year from over 50 countries. With few exceptions, children move from poor countries to wealthy, more developed ones. In the main receiving countries- the United States, Canada and the domain number of adoptive countries are from Western Europe- the number of such adoptions has doubled from the 1990s to the 2000s (Masson, 2001). Sometimes transferring children contributes to inborn diseases. Generally, children are placed for international adoption due to abandonment, poverty, illness or death of parents, or severe family dysfunction, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, child abuse, and/or child neglect (Strickert, 2004). All of these reasons bring the possibility of health issues. Certain health risks are inherent when adopting foreign children. Usually, children, who are from third world countries, often comes with minor- and sometimes major- health issues (Strickert, 2004). Children being referred for international adaption may have experienced poor prenatal and/or postnatal care, early neglect, and a lack of health care services (including immunizations) (Strickert, 2004). The cross country adoption appeared in Kazakhstan during the Second World War, however it became wide-spread after getting its independency status.

For the first time, international adaption appeared in Kazakhstan in the middle of the 1990s. Most children are adopted by the United States, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Japan, and, oddly enough, Mongolia. The unexpected fact is that by the level of adoption Kazakhstan is situated on the same level with Africa, Latin America, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. From 1999 to 2001 with the participation of internmational agencies 1791 Kazakh children have been removed from the country. These figures are confirmed by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Justice- the key governemnt agencies involved in the process of international adaption. Most cases, 85% of adoption of Kazakh children, were accounted for by U.S. citizens (Beketova, 2002). According to Balgabay Hamitzhanov, general Prosecutor of Republic of Kazakhstan, up to April 1, 2006 5394 citizens were adopted by U. S citizens. Currently, Kazakhstan has 93000 orphans and children who are left without parental care. The level of abandoned children is increasing by 1000 every year (Kravchenko, 2006). The reason of mass adoption by foreigners is the lack of orphans in Western Europe, the USA and Canada, and the next one is expensive registration of guardianship.For adopting a child, families should deal with agencies, where they can get information about orphans and process of adoption. There are 2 types of agencies that deal with international adoption. The first type includes organizations, which are legally operating in their home- country, and are registered in Kazakhstan. The examples of such agencies are “Amrex I Frank Foundation” and “World Partners Adoption Inc”. These organizations interact with the Embassy of Kazakhstan in the United States and openly collaborate with the state agencies in Kazakhstan, as well as with NGOs. The activities of these international agencies cover almost all regions of Kazakhstan. The second type is agencies that act on an illegal basis, both at home and abroad. In fact, they are engaged in a hidden child trafficking. For instance, in the UK there is the firm which deals with child kidnapping, illegal adoption from poor countries, and selling them to Asian countries. There was an information that Kazakhstani children also were adopted and sold by this agency. Representatives of the organization reported that there were only 2 children. However, this information is in doubt (Beketova, 2002). Because of such experience, Kazakhstan amended the laws “On marriage and family”. In these items the heads of Ministry of Education and Ministry of Justice made the procedure of adoption more complicated and official. Even though, in comparison with foreign countries, Kazakhstan has one of the easiest way of registration of adoption and the cheapest.

The question of the research paper is “Is there any alternatives for orphans than orphanges? ”. Year by year the level of adopted children from Kazakhstan is increasing by 15%, or 1000 children (Kravchenko, 2006). It is rather big number for not large country such as Kazakhstan. The heads of government are obsessed with this problem, because today Kazakhstan is faced with the problem of demographic recession. Kazakhstan is not the only country with such a problem. Today, demographic crisis is becoming common in most developing countries, such as Russia.In order to solve this issue, the president of Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has pursued a strategy to increase the population. He has introduced different allowances, cash bonuses and other financial aid to families in order to prevent the reducing rate of population (Shurson, 2008).

The purpose of the research paper is to find out if there are any other possible solutions for orphans other than international adoption, can the government offer them better conditions in their home countries and also to understand the reason of foreigners’ interests in children who are of another nationality. To find out this, the structured qualitative interview with the Yestemessov family who has an experience in inter country adoption was conducted. Moreover, qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with Sauyarbayeva Ulzhalgas, Alimbekov Murat, nurse and an obstercrician- gynecologist, who work in adoption sphere. Also an interview was taken from couples who faced adoption. The interviews consisted of such questions as what is the main reason of choosing Kazakhstan, how government choose parents for orphans, what should be done to prevent the increasing number of orphans, what is the main causes of mass adoption from Kazakhstan. It is planned to take interview during October 1-10.

For getting more information andin order to know society’s attitude toward such kind of adoption, questionnaires are going to be conducted among 25 students of KIMEP. The interview among students will take place during the period of October 12-14. More detailed information, which is related to international adoption, will be got from newspapers, journal and online programs.

The report consists of five parts. The literature review shows evidences of the widespread nature of international adoption. The description of results is based on results of questionnaire among students and face-to-face communications with people who work in this sphere and have an experience in domestic or international adoption. The following part is analyses, which tells about problems during writing the research paper, interviews, and discusses the limitations of the research.