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Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions
What Does It Mean for International Adoptions? By Sue Marquette Poremba
Sometime in 2007, the United States expects to ratify the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions. Once it does, Americans will see changes in international adoption procedures, but only with the countries that have also ratified the Hague Convention.
The convention was held in 1993 as part of a session on international law. The United States signed the convention's treaty in 1994, but it had to be presented to the Senate to be approved for ratification. In 2003, the U.S. State Department released the regulations for the Intercountry Adoption Act, and adoption agencies were able to begin the accreditation process.
Nearly 30 countries have ratified the Hague Convention and are official Hague adoption countries. These countries include some of the most popular destinations for Americans to adopt children, including China, Columbia, Belarus and Romania. Popular adoption countries that are not part of the Hague Convention include Russia, South Korea and the Ukraine. Guatamala, another popular location for adoptions by Americans, is a question mark at this time. It is a Hague Convention country, but at this time, their laws and regulations aren't up to the convention's standards.
"An international agreement, such as Hague Convention, is a good and necessary thing for children and parents," says Mary Eschelbach Hansen, assistant professor of economics at American University. "An international agreement could produce the infrastructure and transparency in adoption that is necessary to protect the rights of children not to be trafficked and the interests of adoptive parents in having secure parental rights."
One major change, an improvement according to Chalker, is the ability for parents to compare adoption fees. "Right now, you don't know what kind of fees are involved," she says. With the Hague Convention, accredited agencies will be required to reveal all costs incurred in the adoption up front. This will give prospective parents the opportunity to be better informed about the total cost of the adoption and the chance to compare different agencies and different countries.
