This convention establishes some general principals that should govern international adoptions. First and foremost is the principal that the best interests of the child should always be foremost in the minds of people administering programs for child welfare and adoptions in general. Additionally, a child should grow up in a familial environment in safe and familiar surroundings wherever possible. This means that inter-country adoptions should only be considered where it is not reasonable to expect that the child can be suitably and safely raised by family members, or within the culture and society to which the child was born.
Another general principle set forth in this Convention is that national adoption laws should be designed to protect children from the abduction, sale, and trafficking in children. It was recognized by the drafters of this Convention that often intercountry adoptions have been thinly veiled sales of children into slavery or the sex trade. Countries that adopt this Convention pledge to establish internal programs to combat such trade.
Before intercountry adoptions can take place a country has to set up an internal program to provide support to children within the country. The program must be able to identify children in need, assist families where possible in dealing with the problems that put their children in need of assistance, and remove children from their families where it is in the best interest of the children. In essence each signatory to the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children pledges to set up a child welfare program within their country similar to what we see in the United States.
It is only after these internal child welfare systems fail to find a home for the children within their country, that the agencies should look at allowing intercountry adoptions. In intra-country adoptions it is usually the responsibility of a single agency to look at the qualifications of potential parents and at the needs of a child to match up suitable parents and children. In the international arena this will seldom be possible. The Convention provides for the appropriate agency in the parents’ home country to provide the resources for conducting the background check. After the parents’ home country determines that they would make suitable adoptive parents, their application is forwarded to the appropriate agency in the child’s home country to determine which child would be most appropriately assisted by those prospective parents.
The agency in the child’s country of origin then sends the proposed match-up of child and parents back to the agency in the parents’ home country. That agency then ensures that the prospective parents agree to the proposed adoption and that the proposed adoption meets the requirements set forth in the prospective parents’ home country. Only then can the adoption move forward.
The details and procedures are complicated and they do vary to some extent from country to country. The whole point of The Hague Convention is not necessarily to make it easy for people to adopt children from other countries; the purpose is to protect children around the world, to find homes for children that will provide them the best chance to grow and flourish in a safe, loving environment. Until there are some actual international adoption laws, The Hague Convention is what we have to work with.