Search

In 2018, the Ethiopian government banned intercountry adoptions due to detected irregularities. This paper draws from the experiences of Spanish adoptive families, providing evidence of these irregularities and other abuses substantiated by adoptive families during their "search for origins" or reconnection with their children's birth families. We argue that these searches and contacts within the adoptive triad represent informal reparative initiatives among Spanish adoptive families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]