2000, Vol. 49, No. 4 465

Deterrents to Intercountry Adoption in BritainPeter Hayes*

Some local authority social workers in Britain have used their responsibility to make parental assessments to deter parents fromadopting abroad. Prospective parents of foreign children may respond to these deterrents by making unauthorized adoptions. Centralgovernment officials have condemned both unauthorized adoptions and the obstructive policies towards intercountry adoption found insome local authorities. Prospects for reform depend partly on changing attitudes, and partly on expanding the role of independentintercountry adoption agencies.

*Address correspondence to: Peter Hayes, Ph.D., School of Humanities and SocialSciences, Priestman Building, Green Terrace, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, SR13PZ UNITED KINGDOM

Key Words: adoption, home study, intercountry, law, UK.

(Family Relations, 2000, 49, 465–471)

There are widely differing views on the ethics of inter-country adoption (ICA). The author follows Tizard(1991) and Bartholet (1996) in believing that ICA can be

very successful for the families involved. This view is supportedby evidence that the outcome of an ICA is just as likely to befavorable as a domestic adoption (Altstein & Simon, 1991; Bag-ley, Young, & Scully, 1993; Feigelman & Silverman, 1983: 121-172; Levy-Shiff, Zoran, & Shulman, 1997; Westhues & Cohen,1998). The generally positive outcomes for children adoptedfrom abroad can also be compared against ‘the realistic alter-native . . . [of] a childhood spent in institutional care’ (Depart-ment of Health, 1998, p. 11). A second perspective toward ICA,however, is much more negative. This view emphasizes that ICAis a potentially exploitative and corrupt activity. Furthermore,because ICA almost always involves the adoption of a child ofone ethnic background by parents of another, it is subject to thecriticisms that have been made of transracial adoptions.

These very different perspectives on ICA have caused de-bate in both the UK and the USA. In Britain, however, opponentsof ICA have had a much greater impact on policy than theirAmerican counterparts. The central position in the adoption pro-cess occupied by those opposed to ICA is indicated by the com-paratively small number of such adoptions. The number of for-eign children adopted by British parents can only be guessed atas there are a significant number of unauthorized adoptions, butthe annual figure is probably below 400. By contrast, in the USAannual numbers have risen by several thousand in the last fewyears to reach 15,774 in 1998 (http://www.cradle.org/). Takingpopulation into account, this rate of ICA is about nine timeshigher than in the UK.

The brief explanation for this disparity is that organizationsin civil society that support ICA play a much more extensiverole in the USA than they do in the UK. In many states of theUS prospective adopters can legitimately arrange for privatehome studies and make use of agencies that specialize in ICA.In Britain prospective adopters are first required to contact thesocial services department of their local authority. Many localauthority social workers are opposed to ICA and have used theirposition as gatekeepers to deter prospective parents from adopt-ing abroad. This opposition is decentralized; it varies from onelocal authority adoption agency to another, so that where it mightbe relatively straightforward for some parents to overcome theinitial barriers to an ICA it is almost impossible for others to doso.

The wide variation in policy at a local authority level isindicative of weak central government control. In theory centralgovernment has full power to determine ICA policy, but exer-cizing this power in practice is beset with difficulties. The firstproblem lies in coordinating central government policy whenMPs, ministers and civil servants have competing agendas and

priorities. The second problem lies in enforcing the policies thatare made when local authorities ignore directives, prospectiveparents act independently, and the courts and immigration ser-vice maintain their autonomy. It is not, therefore, easy for centralgovernment to control the actions of either parents trying toadopt or social workers trying to stop them, and for many yearsit has made little attempt to intervene. However, since about1990 central government departments, and in particular the De-partment of Health (DOH), have assumed a more active role inattempting to develop and implement broad policies to regulateICA.

Increased government involvement in ICA was prompted bythe popular response to the terrible conditions in Romanian or-phanages. When the plight of Romanian orphans became known,after the fall of Ceausescu in December 1989, there were spon-taneous efforts by several thousand Western parents, includingones from Britain, to adopt some of these children (Defence forChildren International and International Social Services, 1991,p. 27). This international movement to adopt Romanian orphanshad two results in the UK. The first was that large numbers ofparents came up against the barriers to ICA created by localauthorities, and began to complain to MPs, the press and theDOH. The second was that parents began to pass on informationto each other, with the result that there was an increasing reali-zation that it was possible to adopt by unauthorized methods thatbypassed the initial local authority barriers to ICA.

It was under these circumstances that the government en-tered into two policy discussions on ICA. The first was the 1990-93 Hague Conference, which led to the 1993 Hague Conventionon Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption (Hague Convention, 1995). More influentialin directing subsequent government policy were the 1992 rec-ommendations of a second discussion forum: an interdepartmen-tal working group made up of officials from the DOH, LawCommission, Lord Chancellor’s Department, Home Office,Welsh and Scottish Office and Office of Population Censusesand Surveys (DOH, 1992c). The working group wanted ICA tobe strictly regulated by public officials, although it was not op-posed to the practice altogether (DOH, 1992b). More generally,the working group intended both to reform the ICA rules andprocedures and to ensure that parents complied with them. Theselatter objectives are best seen as strongly interrelated, for as longas parents are deterred from ICA by local authority adoption

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agencies they will continue to be tempted to make unauthorizedadoptions. The working group, however, tended to concentrateon the question of how to prevent unauthorized adoptions with-out recognizing the problem that in some local authority socialservice departments the official route to ICA was deliberatelybeing made difficult or impossible.

Current efforts to reform ICA are focused on the Adoption(Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999. This legislation was not initi-ated by the Labour Government but was a private member’s billintroduced by the Liberal Democrat MP Mark Oaten. The Actis designed to (a) recognize Britain’s obligations under the HagueConvention (Adoption, 1999, Section 1[1]) (b) ensure that pro-spective parents receive a reasonable level of service from localauthorities by making it a statutory duty for them to provide ahome study (Section 2 [4]) and (c) provide a further deterrenceto unauthorized adoptions by defining parents who adopt outsideUK regulations as guilty of an offense punishable by a fine andup to three months imprisonment (Section 14). The guidelinesto the Act have not yet been drafted, and it is possible that theymay make the official ICA process less onerous. Reforms, how-ever, will not be easy to achieve. A change in the law will notnecessarily lead to a change in attitudes. Some methods of de-terrence, such as inertia, are difficult to control from above. Oth-er deterrent policies, such as unnecessarily intrusive interview-ing, may be defined as good practice by opponents of ICA.

To place the difficulties of reforming ICA in Britain in con-text, it is necessary to examine the uneven policy of deterrenceas it has operated in the 1990s, the attitudes that underlie deter-rent practices, and the methods that some parent have used toavoid them. In particular, it is necessary to (a) describe the prob-lems sometimes faced by parents in local authority home studies,and (b) to explain how unauthorized adopters, who avoid a priorhome study, are able to surmount immigration and legal barriers.It is also necessary (c) to examine ideological opposition to ICAin the social work profession, and (d) to consider the uneasyposition of Department of Health and other central governmentofficials. These civil servants have taken varying positions onICA, ranging from trenchant criticisms of the obstructive tacticsused by some local authority social service departments to awillingness to enter into a pragmatic alliance with these depart-ments. It is argued that the latter tendency is the result of abureaucratic perspective that sees an ICA as causing a problemrather than solving one.

Problems with the Home Study

Would-be intercountry adopters have widely differing ex-periences of the initial assessment procedure. In informal dis-cussions with adoptive parents the author found that some feltthe home study had been both helpful to them and fair in itsassessment of them. In other cases, however, parents experienceddifficulties in their efforts to be approved. These parents de-scribed being subjected to capricious requirements before beingallowed to progress to a home study, or finding that in the courseof the home study their social worker constantly interpreted theirparenting attitudes in a negative way. For at least some prospec-tive parents the home study turns into an interminable prozessthat can last for years. These parents feel that they are faced witha prevailing suspicion that they are guilty of something that dis-bars them from ICA. They struggle against this presumption inan atmosphere of distrust and secrecy; they do not know how tosatisfy their assessors and they enter into a state of helpless de-

pendence upon their home study social worker. The negativeexperiences related to the author are supported by published an-ecdotal evidence (Humphrey & Humphrey, 1993; Thurnham,1993; ‘Adopters Face Many Struggles’, 1998).

It might be suggested that claims made by dissatisfied par-ents are liable to be biased. However, they are supported bynumerous official indications that there are widespread problemswith adoption assessments. These take the form of instructionsfrom central government officials to local authority social servicedepartments, which make it evident that some local authoritiesare opposed to ICA and attempt to deter prospective parents.Until the passage of the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act1999 a local authority has been entitled to refuse to provide aprior ICA home study; some authorities adopted this policy atthe time of the Romanian adoptions (DOH, 1992b). Throughoutthe 1990s the DOH repeatedly ‘asked’ local authority social ser-vice departments to provide a home study report for prospectiveadopters of an unnamed child (Utting, 1990, 1991; Laming,1996; DOH, 1998). However, as this was not a statutory dutybut merely a request, it was not always acceded to (DOH,1992c). Some local authorities have exhibited extreme reluctanceto undertake ICA home studies. As the DOH has noted disap-provingly, local authorities may make misleading assertions toparents, such as the claim that they ‘‘cannot undertake homestudy assessments for overseas adoptions unless expressly askedto do so by the Department of Health’’ (DOH, 1996, item 5).Others have ensured that ‘‘very tight eligibility criteria were ap-plied which tended to deter prospective adopters’’ (Social Ser-vices Inspectorate, 1997, p. 24).

A 1996 circular to social service directors from HerbertLaming, Chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate,identifies numerous problems with the assessments of prospec-tive parents. Referring specifically to ICA he writes that it is‘‘quite wrong . . . for adoption agencies to refuse to process anadoption application on the grounds that the applicants cannotfurnish strong personal links with their country of choice’’ (Lam-ing, 1996, para 16). Needless to add, such a policy excludes mostprospective parents from having any chance of adopting abroad.Referring to the assessment of prospective adopters more gen-erally, Laming complains that (a) it is unacceptable to excludewould-be parents on the basis of arbitrary criteria such as beingrich or well educated; (b) that social workers should not be rudeand that home studies should not be akin to interrogations; (c)that prospective adopters who reasonably decline to participatein part of a preparation program should not be thereby disbarredfrom adopting and (d) that during the assessment process pro-spective adopters should not be subjected to an experience in-volving ‘‘a distinct lack of respect and even humiliation’’ (Lam-ing, 1996, para 8, 27, 29 & 28).

Whether this strongly worded advice has had much effectis questionable. DOH guidelines issued in 1998 suggest thatsome local authorities have not altered their assessment practic-es:

It is not acceptable for an applicant to be denied the oppor-tunity to be assessed by an agency on the grounds that theagency does not agree with the notion of intercountry adop-tion or that the applicant does not share the same ethnic orcultural background as children from the country of theirchoice. Local authority policies . . . must reflect the positiveview of adoption referred to in legislation in Government

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guidance and not support policies and attitudes of their own.(DOH, 1998, p. 11)

Faced with circumstances in which local authorities have ignoredgovernment guidance and pursued their own policies of tryingto prevent ICA, it is not surprising that some of the parents whoare excluded or deterred by the authorized route to adoption haveopted out of the process. These parents forgo a preliminary localauthority home study, although they usually obtain a privatelycommissioned social worker report in its place. Armed with thisreport and whatever other documents they believe will help, theytravel to a foreign state, adopt a child in accordance with thelegal procedures in that state, and then legalize their position inBritain on their return. They do not apply for prior entry clear-ance; immigration officers can be relied upon to give temporaryentry clearance to the child despite the absence of the prelimi-nary British paperwork. The government has estimated that atleast 100 children are adopted by unauthorized methods eachyear (DOH, 1992a).

Surmounting Immigration and Legal Barriers

The success of an unauthorized adoption depends in partupon its nature as a fait accompli and in part upon the sympa-thetic stance toward ICA held by immigration officers and judg-es, both of whom have considerable discretionary powers. Thediscretionary power of the immigration service serves a signif-icant, if covert, public policy function as it enables border offi-cials to discriminate within a legal context that is formally im-partial. Foreign children adopted by British parents have gainedentry comparatively easily under this system, as on arrival in theUK their credentials have not been subjected to the same degreeof scrutiny that is so often experienced by less favoured immi-grants. One couple, who returned to Britain with two unautho-rized children, recounted the following conversation at passportcontrol. ‘‘He asked us why we had not got Home Office per-mission, and Andy said the situation in El Salvador was wors-ening and he wanted to get the children out. The immigrationofficial replied that this was ‘fair enough’ ’’ (Astachnowicz &Astachnowicz, 1993, p. 24–25). It is hard to imagine an adultimmigrant entering the UK on the basis of such an argument.

The interdepartmental working group, strongly opposed tounauthorized ICA, was frustrated by this permissive attitude. Itreprimanded the immigration service for its indulgence towardunauthorized parents and suggested hopefully that a couple ofrefusals to admit small children might provide a salutary ex-ample pour encourager les autres: ‘‘if an example were madein only one or two cases, the present disregard of the require-ments might cease’’ (DOH, 1992b, p. 123–124). Similar hopeshave been raised by the provisions against unauthorized adop-tions in the 1999 Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act that arecoming into force this year. However, even without the new Actthere are legal grounds for breaking up unauthorized foreignadoptions because they violate immigration law. The difficultyhas been that where the immigration service and Home Officehave attempted strictly to enforce immigration rules to preventunauthorized adoptions and to define adoptees as illegal immi-grants, the courts may overturn their decisions.

Court DecisionsBritish immigration laws are justified by the principle of

raison d’etat. British child welfare laws are defined by the prin-

ciple of the best interests of the child (van Loon, 1990). Whenthe two principles come into conflict, in cases where the parentsof a child adopted abroad have not conformed to immigrationlaws, the courts have often ruled that the welfare of the childcomes first and prevented deportation by granting adoptions thatpromote child welfare (Re H, 1983; Re H, 1996). Similarly,where intercountry adopters who have not followed the prelim-inary British regulations later seek to legitimize their position inBritain, the courts have ruled in their favor, judging that thepublic policy interest in deterring the evasion of the rules isoutweighed by child welfare considerations when the child hasalready become part of a family. Couples who have avoided therules regarding prior assessments by commissioning privatehome studies are not penalized when they subsequently appearin court to formalize an ICA (DOH, 1992b). In some cases pay-ments for private home studies have been viewed as illegal, al-though judges have gone on to exercize their power of dispen-sation to authorize such payments retroactively (Re A, 1988; ReAn Adoption Application, 1992; Re W M, 1997). In other casesprivate home study payments are seen as lawful (Re AW, 1993).

In making an adoption order for the foreign child of a moth-er who had evaded the rules, Justice Johnson commented thatalthough there are between 75 and 100 cases annually in whichthe courts are asked to legitimize unauthorized adoptions, therehas been ‘‘only one reported case in which adoption was refusedafter breach of the procedures and that was a case in which therewas the alternative of a claim by the natural family’’ (Re C,1998, p. 10. This exceptional case may refer to Re K, 1997).The strong position of parents who present the courts with a faitaccompli is indicated by the undesirable circumstances of someof those who have succeeded in having their intercountry adop-tions legitimized. In one case the parents were unusually old,their marriage was in trouble, and the husband was an alcoholic(Re AW, 1993). In a second case, the father had been imprisonedshortly after he and his wife had adopted a child (Re An Adop-tion Application, 1992).

There are two circumstances in which the courts are liableto take a less sympathetic view of an ICA. The first is whereolder children are involved. Thus, in a case concerning a sev-enteen year old, the judge explained that the significance ac-corded to child welfare progressively diminishes as a child getsolder, while the supposed public interest in deporting them fromthe state weighs more heavily (Re W, 1986). The second circum-stance in which adoptions are apt to be viewed with less sym-pathy by the courts is where would-be parents and children arepart of an extended family whose ethnic origins lie in the NewCommonwealth. When these circumstances run together thecourts sometimes reject ICA applications on the grounds thatthey violate immigration policy (In re K, 1994; R v ImmigrationAppeal Tribunal, 1989; Re F, 1989). However, these adverse de-cisions leave intact the prospects of White intercountry adoptersof small children once they get to court.

Ideological OppositionThe opposition to ICA by many local authority social work-

ers is a logical extension of their opposition to transracial adop-tion. Opposition to transracial adoption, whether domestic or in-ternational, is based on two arguments. The first is the widelyheld professional view that preventing transracial adoption pro-tects the welfare of the child by recognizing the importance ofethnicity in the formation of a psychologically viable sense of

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identity. This argument asserts that transracial adoption has beenshown to harm children by causing psychological problems(Neal, 1996). However, there is no good evidence for this, andmuch evidence that refutes it (Bartholet, 1991; Dale, 1987;Hayes, 1993, 1995; Lal, 1997; Macey, 1995).

The frequency with which social workers hold what theybelieve are professional objections to transracial adoption helpsexplain why prospective intercountry adopters are unlikely tofind them particularly helpful in completing the home study. Tounderstand the full extent of social worker disquiet toward ICA,however, it is necessary to consider how some of them are in-fluenced by a second argument with a radical political basis. Thisargument helps to explain the tenacity of some of the ‘profes-sional’ objections to ICA amongst social workers who mightotherwise be termed moderates or liberals. By stating their op-position to ICA in professional rather than political terms, liberalsocial workers attempt to reconcile their personal attitudes to-ward the efficacy of ICA with their belief in reasoning on thebasis of evidence.

Some social workers see themselves as engaging in a col-lective struggle to counter privileged groups, to help the poorand ethnic minorities, and to ‘‘expose and challenge the exploi-tation of the ‘Third World’ ’’ (Williams, 1989, p. 207–208). Theyargue that a world-wide struggle between oppressive and op-pressed groups is unremitting and ubiquitous; it occurs every-where, including the area of adoption. Thus the early politicalcritics of transracial adoption drew upon global theories of im-perialism and neo-colonialism to suggest that the adoption ofminority children by whites replicated the worst excesses of co-lonialism (for discussion see Feigelman & Silverman, 1983).ICA, which is typified by middle class parents from a wealthyWestern country adopting impoverished children from a poorcountry, fits easily into this intellectual schema.

From this perspective the entire state apparatus, includingthe social work profession, is involved in oppression and, inparticular, is implicated in racist policies: ‘‘racism is endemic inthe values, attitudes and structures of British society includingthose of social services and social work education’’ (CentralCouncil for Education and Training in Social Work, 1991, p. 46).One way in which this social work racism has been allegedlyexpressed is by the ‘‘pathologizing’’ of minority families. Eth-nicity-professionals have sometimes argued that social workerstend to intervene in normal minority families to prevent what,from a Eurocentric perspective, may be perceived to be childabuse (House of Commons, 1984, cxx-cxxi). Some social work-ers take this type of argument one step further by arguing thatthis ‘‘pathologizing’’ of minority families is not merely a mis-take, but is rather a deliberate political act carried out by agentsof an oppressive White state intent on disempowering minoritygroups. They conclude that social workers must renounce theirrole as agents of the state and change sides in the struggle. Theirobjective, therefore, should be the ‘‘empowerment’’ of membersof ethnic minorities against White racism (Ahmad, 1992; Dom-inelli, 1988; Singh, 1992).

To empower minority groups against oppression means thatWhites need to lose their power to oppress. This has potentialimplications for the way in which social workers deal with allclients whose White ethnicity denotes their status as an oppres-sor. Typical White social work clients, however, tend to be poorand in receipt of state benefits, which hardly conforms to theimage of a powerful oppressive group. Indeed, from the broader

perspective of a social worker engaged in ‘‘anti-oppressive prac-tice’’ on behalf of all disadvantaged sections of society, suchWhite clients are also oppressed. Intercountry adopters, however,are very different from the typical social work client. They havefinancial resources (not least to pay for the home study whichcan cost up to four thousand pounds), and if they are to abideby official immigration requirements they need to show that anadopted child can be raised without recourse to public fundsincluding unemployment, housing, disability, and tax benefits(Home Office, 1997).

The position of social workers as gatekeepers to the foreignchildren sought by a largely middle class and White clientele hasopened new possibilities in the campaign to empower minorities.Financially secure White couples who would not normally haveany dealings with social workers suddenly become dependentupon them. In a reversal of roles, some of these couples can bedisempowered and pathologized. In other words, they are ig-nored and then hindered by misleading information and dissuad-ed and disheartened through ‘counselling’. As noted above, thosewho persist in demanding a home study can be refused outright,or subjected to a process that even by official guidelines can beexpected to last several months (Utting, 1991). During this timeevery aspect of their lives and their attitudes are probed in thehope of uncovering something that will allow them to be de-clared unsuitable to adopt.

ICA From A Bureaucratic Perspective

It is now possible to turn to the bureaucratic perspective thathelps to explain why central government has tolerated the de-terrent policies of some local authority social workers for solong. This perspective can be gleaned from the papers publishedby the interdepartmental working group in 1992, as these providethe fullest available evidence of the way in which at least somecentral government officials understand ICA. In particular, it ispossible to see (a) how officials may make unwarranted as-sumptions about the professionalism and expertise of those in-volved in adoption; and (b) how they neglect a crucial elementof any assessment of ICA policy, the comparison between thelives of foreign children who are adopted, with the lives of sim-ilar children who are not.

ProfessionalismThe civil servants of the working group held a professional

ethos that supported the functions of the UK state. They did not,therefore, share the view that the state apparatus and White pow-er structure was oppressive. However, rather than confrontingand challenging this perspective, the working group implicitlyassumed that local authority social workers shared their ownethos of disinterested public service. The working group, there-fore, was unwilling to understand the ideological foundation ofthese negative attitudes toward ICA as anything other than neu-tral professionalism. It went so far as to admit that some socialworkers held ‘‘strong views’’ on the adoption of children withintheir own ethnic group, but made no attempt to address the ideo-logical foundation supporting these views. Instead it exhibitedsolidarity with the social work profession against the complaintsof frustrated would-be parents. Thus, it was explained that thesecomplaints were generated because the ‘‘high professional stan-dards’’ and ‘‘child-centered’’ approach of social workers wasvexing to the impatient demands of potential adopters (DOH,1992b, p. 17, 19).

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There is a risk that any adoption may breakdown and, asthe working group pointed out, not only is this a tragedy for thefamily concerned, but it will also cost the state money (DOH1992b). On the basis of this observation the working group con-tended that there was a legitimate public interest in forcing ex-tensive prior-vetting regulations on intercountry adoptersthrough the home study process. The prior selection of parentsfor an ICA by social workers implicitly assumes that they havean expert capability in separating those who will succeed in theiradoptions from those who will fail. However, any such ability iswholly unproven. For example, the preliminary report of oneUK study suggests that the rate of breakdown in Romanian adop-tions is lower than in domestic ones (Rutter, 1998: 467-8). Do-mestic adoptions in the UK are invariably fully regulated, some-thing which cannot be said of the Romanian adoptions of theearly 1990s.

It is doubtful that adoption outcomes can ever be predictedin advance with any degree of assurance. There is more than oneway to raise a child and there is no predetermined parental pro-file correlated with successful or failed adoptions. Most adoptiverelationships succeed. The adoption of older children carries ahigher risk, likewise of children who have been abused, but otherfactors that are associated with adoption breakdown, includingparental characteristics, are unknown (Tizard, 1994; Thoburn &Charles, 1992). For the great majority of parents, therefore, thereis no reason to suppose that those who have gone through thehome study vetting process are any more likely to successfullyraise their adopted children than those who have not.

This argument is qualified by two observations. First, ahome study of some sort is almost always required in donorstates, and is an established part of the adoption process underthe Hague Convention (Article 15). Second, certain adults areplainly unsuited to be parents, and the more objective elementsof the home study may help to weed them out. Such unsuitableparents include, most obviously, child abusers, as well as thosewhose imminent mortality, ill-health, or destructive behavior pat-terns, such as alcoholism, make it reasonable to predict that theywill be unable to provide children with appropriate or long-termcare. The professional input of physicians and the police mayhelp to identify these unsuitable applicants. However, assessmentof prospective adopters by social workers extends far beyond theattempt to identify and reject those whom common sense wouldsuggest will make poor parents.

Common sense can be understood as an empathic ability, acapacity to reason from the perspective of others, which allmembers of the human community enjoy (Kant, 1952, para. 40).This common sense enables people to recognize the essentialparental qualities needed for the nurture and care of children. Bycontrast, the claim that the professional expertise of social work-ers is needed in parental assessments is based upon their pur-ported ability to go beyond common sense in identifying whichprospective adopters should be turned down. Thus, the workinggroup suggested that social workers could recognize and weedout unsuitable prospective intercountry adopters from amongstparents who were perfectly able to raise their natural children:

People who might well be excellent parents of their ownchildren may be unsuited to the particular challenge of adop-tion. . . . a strong desire to be an adoptive parent and a firmconviction of sufficiency are not sufficient. (DOH, 1992b,p. 84)

The supposition that excellent parents with a strong desireto adopt a foreign child are disbarred from adopting abroad bysocial workers for sound professional reasons is unjustified. It isimpossible to predict the failure of an adoption undertaken bysuch parents. The unknown potential and problems of the childand the new family and societal relationships that they will enterinto lie hidden in the future, they cannot be mapped out in ad-vance by an omniscient social worker. Neither is it possible fora prior assessment to measure the love that parents and childwill develop for each other.

A Lack of ComparisonOne of the justifications for prior vetting suggested by the

working group was that prospective parents may not have seri-ously considered the implications of what they were doing(DOH, 1992b). In this respect, the working group placed con-siderable emphasis upon the potential health and developmentalproblems that children might face in their adoptive families. Itfailed, however, to discuss the difficulties that these childrenmight face if they were not adopted. The working group, there-fore, never attempted to make a reasoned comparison betweenthe life chances of children who were adopted and those whowere not. It is true that such a comparison would not have thescientific rigour of two cohort groups of children. But regardlessof the difficulties in establishing its reliability, a comparisonneeds to be made in order to assess whether an ICA can reason-ably be expected to provide a relative improvement to the lifeof a child.

The working group’s failure to adopt such a comparativeperspective is seen in its dismissal of the argument that–withcommon sense exceptions–any parent is better than none. It con-tended that this argument was ‘‘misconceived’’ because the morethat the child had suffered, ‘‘the greater the task facing the adopt-ers’’ (DOH, 1992b, p. 82). From the perspective of the child’swelfare this observation does not refute the argument that anyparent is better than none. The task of adoptive parents mayindeed be great, but it hardly follows that they are less wellequipped to undertake it than the institutions in which severelydeprived children live.

The working group followed this assertion with one that wasequally questionable. Citing a court judgement, it suggested thatgiven the large numbers of aspirant western parents, restrictiveregulations which resulted in British prospective parents beingdeclared ‘‘unsuitable’’ to adopt an overseas child would not pre-vent that child from finding a family; it was reasonable to sup-pose that they would simply be adopted by someone else (DOH,1992b). How this conclusion could be reached is unclear. Theworking group had earlier reported that approximately 18,000foreign children had been adopted each year by parents fromvarious western states during the 1980s. Bartholet (1996) makesa strong case that the number of children in need of adoption,but with very little chance of being adopted within their ownstate, numbers in the millions.

The enormous scale of the problem of foreign unwantedchildren did not, therefore, loom large in the deliberations of theworking group. Although they laid claim to be seeking to protectthe welfare of the child they were unable to look beyond theirconcerns with process, planning and control within the UK.From this perspective, ICA was evaluated entirely in terms ofits conformity to the rules. An unauthorized adoption did notsolve a problem for a needy child, it merely created a potential

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problem in Britain where none had been before. Thus, by theend of the working group’s deliberations, the welfare of the childwas being described as an impediment to its plans to punishunauthorized parents by taking their children away from them,for ‘‘once the child’s welfare becomes the sole criterion for re-moval the effect of the sanction is lost’’ (DOH, 1992b, p. 128).

The reasoning of the working group suggests that four un-derlying viewpoints inform the bureaucratic perspective towardsICA.

(1) Professional solidarity. The group unreservedly assertedits belief in the dedicated professionalism of public employeesinvolved in regulating ICA and discounted the complaints ofprospective parents.

(2) Legal positivism. The morality of ICA was judged interms of whether or not parents had followed British regulationsfrom the outset. The regulations themselves were never criticallyexamined. The possibility that unreasonable demands made ofprospective parents in prior assessments may have encouragedsome parents to evade the rules, and so helped to create theproblem of unauthorized adoptions, was dismissed (DOH,1992b, 23–4).

(3) A national problem focus. The group examined the prob-lems caused and solved by ICA within Britain rather than con-sidering problems in an international context. As a result virtu-ally no attention was paid to the difficulties facing children inneed of adoption in foreign states. The key underlying questionfor the working group was not ‘how can we ensure that ICAhelps as many children as possible’, but rather ‘how can weprevent unauthorized adoptions from taking place’?

(4) Faith in planning and control. The group placed faithin the control and planning of ICA by professionals. Conversely,spontaneity or independence on the part of potential parents wasassociated with irresponsibility. The group made little attempt tocritically examine the extent to which prior planning for a for-eign child could be said to be a necessary function of externalcontrol, as opposed to being inappropriate or futile given theundeveloped and unknown character, problems and potential ofeach individual child, as well as changing family circumstances.

When these four viewpoints are combined, it is easy to goon to adopt a deterrent attitude toward ICA that accords with thenegative attitudes toward the practice amongst social workers.The blanket claim that regulatory officials act with a high degreeof professionalism provides a cover for some to misuse theirpower over prospective parents. Continued assessments that di-sempower and pathologize parents in the home study are justifiedby the supposed need for careful planning and control. Legalpositivism places the onus of blame for avoiding the regulationsentirely on parents, and a national problem focus leads to com-placency toward measures used by local authorities to deter pro-spective adopters.

Prospects for Reform

The practice of deterring ICA in Britain will be difficult tochange. As has been seen, serious concerns about ICA are widelyheld amongst professionals who have a great deal of power whenit comes to dealing with prospective parents. Furthermore, thedecision making power of many of the actors involved in ICA,including not only adoption professionals but also the courts,immigration service and unauthorized adopters, is difficult to

control by central government. Finally, the bureaucratic perspec-tive towards ICA means that government efforts at reform maytend to focus on unauthorized adoptions. Reform is not impos-sible, however, and it may be helpful to conclude this analysisby considering some of the ways in which the current systemmight be improved.

There are three possibilities for reforming ICA policy inBritain. The first depends on a change of attitude amongst powerholders within the local authorities. The second depends on es-tablishing routes to adoption that enable prospective parents le-gitimately to bypass professionals opposed to ICA. The thirddepends upon ICA policy being changed as part of a more gen-eral reform of adoption services in Britain.

Where local authority social service departments take a pos-itive view of ICA, then their power within the current regulatoryprocess need not be translated into a policy of deterrence. In thisrespect it must be emphasised that not all local authorities areagainst ICA, some have reviewed their procedures and offer ahome study to prospective parents in good faith. The system maythen work reasonably well where all those involved in assessingprospective parents, including the home study social worker,adoption panel and senior decision maker on the application, donot intend to deter parents from making foreign adoptions.Where this is the case, the current system has the scope to allowfor limited professional guidance that accommodates the priori-ties of a bureaucratic perspective without making unreasonabledemands on parents. It is reasonable to expect prospective adopt-ers to follow the authorized route to adoption where it is notbeing used as a deterrence. Encouraging prospective parents toplan and consider different aspects of adoption in a home studycan compliment their enthusiasm to adopt–as long as it is notused as an excuse to disempower them. Even a national problemfocus can reasonably be incorporated into pre-adoption proce-dures to the extent of ensuring that prospective parents considerthe possibility of adopting domestically.

The responsibilities imposed by the Adoption (IntercountryAspects) Act 1999 may encourage more local authorities to re-form their policies. However, the Act is a two edged sword thatis directed both against recalcitrant local authorities and againstunauthorized adopters. Whether the Act will be directed impar-tially against both parties, or whether it will fall most heavilyupon one side or the other, remains to be seen. It is hoped thatgovernment will recognize that unauthorized adoptions are large-ly a consequence of deterrent policies and will concentrate itsefforts at ensuring change at the local authority level. It is fearedthat the strength of opposition to ICA amongst some profession-als and the bureaucratic focus on ensuring that ICAs proceed byan authorized route may result in the Act being used primarilyas an additional deterrence to unauthorized parents.

The second route to reform is for parents to be able to un-dertake an ICA without using their local authority. A limitednumber of officially recognized independent adoption agenciesin Britain already offer home studies to couples who wish toadopt from abroad on referral from local authorities. One diffi-culty with this route to reform is that adoption professionals inthe established independent agencies in Britain tend to sharemany of the same concerns about ICA that are found amongstlocal authority social workers. The development of a plurality ofICA services might, however, be furthered if other independentagencies are able to establish themselves. It is possible that someof the parent support and ICA advocacy groups in the UK could

2000, Vol. 49, No. 4 471

form the nucleus of such agencies. It can also be noted that someUS-based ICA agencies have explored the idea of establishingbranches in the UK.

The third route to reform is through the more general re-organization of adoption procedures. Some of the deterrents toICA reflect, in an accentuated form, problems that are also facedby parents who seek to adopt domestically. Partly as a responseto these more general problems, there have been several recentministerial initiatives to improve adoption services, including theannouncement in February 2000 that the Prime Minister, TonyBlair, will chair a cabinet committee on adoption reform (Shake-speare, 2000).

If more general reform is to be effective it must strike adelicate balance. On the one hand any reform emerging fromcentral government must take full advantage of its power to en-force changes in adoption procedures in the various branches ofthe state. On the other hand, reform must include a clear rec-ognition of the proper limits of state power in assessing pro-spective parents. The power by professionals to assess whoadopts should not extend beyond their very limited power ofability to predict the outcome of an adoption. The recognitionof this principle might provide the basis for reform of parentalassessments in both domestic and intercountry adoptions.

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Peter Hayes is a senior lecturer in politics at the University ofSunderland. He has previously written on transracial adoptionand is now researching adoption policy in Japan.

Received 8-06-99Revised & Resubmitted 3-06-00Accepted 5-22-00