Adopt villages, not pet children
By Bashir Goth
Just as the Europeans justified the scramble for Africa in the19th century and the slave trade before it that it was the white man’s burden to civilise the “Half-devil and half-child,” the celebrities of today justify their child poaching for being in the name of philanthropy and altruism, saving poor children from the heart of darkness and bringing them to the world of light. Anyone who thinks my argument to be unfair or hostile, may convince me how could a person go to an orphanage in a foreign poor country, ask the children to be paraded for them, pick up “a lucky” one, pay cash and get away with their prey.
Adoption by itself is a genuine human need and a noble action that gives a child to a childless person and a good home, comfort and a future to an orphan or poverty stricken child. Needy children however are everywhere; they are in America as they are in Africa and Asia. But why do the celebrities not adopt American children instead of going overseas to adopt African or Asian children. The answer is that there are no children for sale in America. Anyone who wants to adopt goes through years of gruelling procedure to qualify for child adoption. Over there, children are human beings and cannot be bought as toys, playmates or pets for celebrities’ children. But in Africa people are still sold in exchange for beads, tobacco and petty cash. And as a Malawian journalist said: “We are showing to the world that our poverty has extended to the brain.” Read more on Khaleej Times
I found this purely by accident by Googling "Somali adoption". I was made curious about Somali girls by an article I read today about a woman named Waris who experienced genital mutilation by your culture at the age of five. It made me wonder if there were people, European, American, or otherwise, who would take young Somali babies away from people who would do this to them for the sake of their precious "culture".
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I read your blog, and can't say I agree, but respect your opinion. I feel that yes, there are American children to adopt, but I feel like the poorest American child is in better shape than the poorest child in the third world, and maybe this is what inspires the wealthy American and British celebrities to want to take the African children. Thank God someone is interested in Africa's children! Zahara Jolie-Pitt has brothers from Cambodia and Vietnam as well as an American-born younger sister. I doubt that she was selected in order to be anybody's "toy" or "pet".
Rich people come and adopt from these countries, because poor and moderate-income people can't afford to save these children. I believe the wealthy, who are more often than not white people, are doing these children an ultimate favor. Unfortunately, the moderate income Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Ethiopians seem to have a hard time taking care of their own, and they have an especially hard time taking care of the female of their kind properly, in my opinion. So if someone can come and give these children a chance at a good life and education, more power to them, I say.
I appreciate what you wrote about your father's refusal to allow your adoption, although it wasn't clear to me what his reasons were. It made me wonder though, would your father's opinion, or yours in retrospect from the aspect of the life that was turned down, be any different if the one who wanted to adopt you had been a wealthy African-American or Afro-British woman? Would you think THEY were wanting toy children then?
Thank you for the food for thought.