Questions ... Answers
How much?
There are a few questions we get asked a lot. The first is relatively simple. It goes something like this, "Hey, is it expensive to adopt overseas?"
Not surprisingly the answer is yes, but in a more general sense the answer is, "Yes it's expensive to adopt." All things being equal it costs about as much to deliver a baby in the hospital as it does to adopt one domestically except insurance will help you with medical costs, but not with adoptive costs. International adoption is more expensive because you have to pay for travel and for naturalization of your child here in the States.
The good news is there is about a $12,000 tax break for each adoption and while that won't pay for it all, it certainly helps. This is after you've adopted though, not during the process, so you need the money up front to handle the expenses that will come.
Why Africa?
By far the biggest question we get is, "Why not adopt an American child?" We do feel that is a fair question and to us there is a very easy answer, orphan children don't have nations, they are simply children. But there are more tangible reasons for our choice as well.
Yes, America has orphans, of course. In 2008 the Children’s Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families of the United States Department of Health and Human Service reported that the number of children awaiting adoption in America was about 123,000. More recent data shows about 408,000 children in foster care in America but in general about 51% of those children are there temporarily and will be reunited with their families (
source), another 11% were emancipated, leaving 155,000 as a rough estimate. That certainly is a lot of children. Keep in mind that is America's orphans, most domestic adoptions are of newborn babies from the time of birth and these are not "orphans." That does beg the question, how many does Africa have?
In 2001, UNICEF produced a report entitled
Africa's Orphaned Generations. This report estimates about about 34 million orphans were in sub-Sahara Africa (that is is all but 7 African countries - mostly those along the Mediterranean Sea). In 2010 this number has risen to 43 million according to
the World Bank. That means that t
he total number of orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa is greater than the total number of children in Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Canada and Sweden. Of these children, 30% lost parents to the AIDS epidemic. An estimated 12% of all children in Sub-Saharan Africa are orphans. Of those children, 5.7 million were orphaned in 2010 alone.
43,000,000
If you started counting now, and said two numbers every second it would take you over 248 days to reach that number. If you carefully read that report you'll see that UNICEF counts a child that has lost either parent as an orphan along with those that have lost both. This may seem strange but they do this because it is nearly impossible to raise a child on a single income in Africa and a lot of these children live alone during the day, or are in the streets while their parent is away. However, if you insist on the requiring both parents to be gone then it is estimated to be only 15% of this number, leaving 6,450,000 million.
6,450,000
To count that out at two numbers per second it would take
only 38 days. So lets just concentrate on the 6.4 million orphans.
Africa takes care of it's children to the best of their ability. Orphaned children stay in the family as much as possible being raised by aunts, uncles, grandparents, or their family connections and even friends where possible. It is very difficult to count the number of orphans that are in orphanages because many orphanages are ad hoc anyway, being just someone's home that is taking in children. But, various surveys in various countries have shown there to be at least 2,614,000 children in orphanages in sub-Saharan Africa (see the citations at the bottom).
Many people envision orphanages to be like old hospitals with white walls of peeling paint, but that's not even close.
What does it mean to be an orphan in Africa? It often means living in very poor conditions often on dirt floors, sleeping on straw mats on the floor. It means eating the same foods (wheat, rice, corn, beans) once a day since those are the foods donated. It means living without electricity as a lot of Africa does, taking a shower only when it rains, or a bath consisting of one squeeze of a sponge while standing in a bucket. Everything is done together at the same time with the group: eat, sleep, use the bathroom. With so many orphans and so little money, the caregiver to child ratio is often 1 caregiver for 15 to 60 (yes, sixty) children. As a baby, it might mean drinking from a bottle propped against the side of the crib you are sharing with four others, and having days go by where no one holds you. This is hard cold reality brought on, not by lack of caring, but by poverty. With confidence it can be said that if you live in America and have not seen third world poverty first hand, you have no idea what it's like.
We say, "I'm starving! I need to get something to eat."
This is not hungry, this is starving:
This is home:
This is the playground:
This is the restroom:
This is alone:
This is just wanting to be held with love:
Orphaned children in America will get an education. Only 17% of African orphans manage to even attend primary school because they or their community have no money. At the age of 16 they are released into a world with few jobs, while they possess no skills, no education, and are in poor health. If they are girls they will most likely marry to survive, if they can even do that, and it will be all they ever have regardless of whether it's good or bad. Many will have no family, no home, and no place to go but it is still time for them to leave. One thing they will rarely do is eat.
Any child without parents is very sad, our hearts go out to them all, but there is a very good chance that kids in the American foster system will have a decent life where their basic needs are met by working for a living when they reach adulthood. They most likely feel love from their foster parents. African children in orphanages have such a slim chance of ever achieving even a somewhat normal life, and instead will spend their days living off what they can find, sleeping where they can, and never having an idea of what it means to be healthy. There are exceptions but there are so very few. There is simply no where for them to go.
Africa is working very hard to change this as most countries are switching to a foster system and shutting down orphanages. But with so many children orphaned it is very hard, and the world still seems to want to fund orphanages but not fosters. In short, Americans and Europeans are not helping, we should fund the families and try to keep the children with their families in the first place instead of orphanages. Or better yet fund programs to solve the root problems such as AIDS programs, birth control, and education so that Africa can learn to help itself (as they so very much want to).
We feel that we are the lucky ones. We have been fortunate to have the opportunity to bring two beautiful children into our family. They will get an education. They will eat every single day until they feel full, several times. And above all they will have a mom and a dad, an older sister and brother, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even cousins. They will have a family and friends who love them and want them to have opportunities, too.
If you and I don't adopt them, who will?
That is why Africa.
Sources:
