child advocacy – The Oaxacaborn Blog

We all need something to keep our priorities in order. Something to keep us grounded, for lack of a better word, something to prevent us from wallowing in our #firstworldproblems.

Sometimes, all it takes is to stop focusing on ourselves. I’m preaching to myself here. My daily complaints do NOT constitute suffering.

Not when Naghmeh Abedini has to tell us this about her husband, Saeed [Saeed Abedini is an American citizen from Utah, imprisoned in Iran for his faith.]

Not when these sixty-seven people have nothing left.

Not when I have a family to call my own, and this girl (shown below) has none.

Almost every day, a story about a child lands in my inbox, and every time, I read it. Not because I love sad things. Not because I want to have pity. But because the broken parts of this world will never change if we’re too busy holed up in our comfortable little havens. Because the broken pieces will never be picked up if we’re too busy creating ourselves a safe little bubble.

I want to look up. I want to look outward. I want to make a difference.

Because every child matters.

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RESOURCES a.k.a. a partial list of the blogs and newsletters I read.

* Gladney Center for Adoption’s Waiting Child (Blog)
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* Taiwan Xi En (Website)
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*Bringing Hope to Children (Facebook)
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* Show Hope (Website)
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* And of course, the Ziway + Adami Tulu Project in partnership with Lifesong for Orphans — the organization through we which we sponsor children.

If you’re friends with me on my personal Facebook account, I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been over all this before. But when I saw the positive reaction online to the news this morning — Japan just became the 91st country to ratify the Hague Convention — I’ve decided I need to talk about it here, too.

Because it matters.

I’m not going to talk about whether or not there were good intentions behind the Hague Convention in the beginning. I’m going to talk about now.

We’ve seen it over and over and over again: the Convention adds an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and red tape to the countries which ratify the treaty. It piles on the list of requirements, and in many cases the countries don’t have the infrastructure, the funding or the ability to comply with the new regulations. And in the wake of the Hague Convention — not always, but often — international adoptions grind to a near-halt.

Take a look at the Hague Convention’s complicated legacy in Guatemala.

I don’t have the answers, but I know there’s more to international child advocacy than the Hague Convention. It’s not enough to push a nation to ratify, and then walk away.

If you want to take a more in-depth look at the way the international adoption system is broken, I’d highly recommend watching the STUCK documentary. (At the time of this post, you can stream STUCK for free if you have a Netflix account. If you don’t have a way to access Netflix, email me, and I can send you a different link to stream the film.)