Professor School of Social Work, Salem State University Salem, Massachusetts, United States
Overview: This E-Poster will educate attendees on the legacy of adoption-related exploitation in intercountry adoptions from Ethiopia including the abduction and sale of children, falsification of documentation, bribing of officials, inaccurate testimonies, and false promises to birth families. The results of a qualitative study of adopted parents will be presented.Proposal text: This E-Poster will educate attendees on the legacy of exploitation in intercountry adoptions from Ethiopia. In 2018, the Ethiopian Parliament closed its intercountry adoption program. Momentum to end the program followed reports of adoption-related exploitation including the abduction and sale of children, falsification of documentation, bribing of officials, inaccurate testimonies, and false promises to birth families. The Ethiopian Parliament also cited concerns over the identity and psychological problems of adoptees as contributing factors to the ban. This E-Poster explores how adoptive parents that learned of exploitation post-adoption, responded emotionally and pragmatically. Qualitative analysis of interview data from adoptive parents will provide powerful insight into how adoptive parents communicate about and integrate the knowledge of exploitation into the adoption narratives of their children in the service of healthy identity development.
