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Abstract
International adoption relocates minors, and only minors, from one country to another. The centrality of age to adoptive migration may prevent us from seeing the significance of generation: the prospective parent's age is also examined and evaluated for its relationship to the child's age and what this relationship will mean for the creation of a family. Because international adoption results in children crossing borders to enter new kinship formations, the assumptions under which it operates require closer geographical analysis. Generation, or the age range that separates dependents and their caretakers, is a significant but unstated motivator of international adoption policies and practices. This article argues that a normative and biologized sense of intergenerational difference is embedded in international adoption. The presence of generational ideology in national laws and international norms regarding international adoption demonstrate a broader sense in which policies situate more privileged families as acceptable and others as inadequate. I draw material for this analysis from both legal documents and documents which aim to provide interpretation of those laws, with reference to international adoptions from Peru.
Geografías de generación: las restricciones de edad en la adopción internacional
A través de la adopción internacional se traslada a menores de edad, y sólo a menores de edad, de un país a otro. La centralidad de la edad para la migración adoptiva puede impedir ver la importancia de la generación: la edad del posible padre también es examinada y evaluada por su relación con la edad del niño y lo que esta relación va a significar para la creación de una familia. Ya que la adopción internacional implica que los niños cruzan fronteras para entrar en nuevas formaciones de parentesco, los supuestos bajo los que opera requieren un análisis geográfico más detallado. La generación, o el rango de edad que separa a los dependientes de sus cuidadores, es un motivador importante pero no declarado de las políticas y prácticas de adopción internacional. En este artículo se argumenta que un sentido normativo y biológico de diferencia inter-generacional forma parte de la adopción internacional. La presencia de la ideología generacional en las leyes nacionales y las normas internacionales en materia de adopción internacional demuestran un sentido más amplio en el que las políticas caracterizan a las familias más privilegiadas como adecuadas y a otras como inadecuadas. Para este análisis se consulta información de ambos documentos legales y documentos que tengan por objetivo la interpretación de esas leyes, con referencia a las adopciones internacionales de Perú.
Géographies de génération: restrictions d'âge dans le cas d'adoption internationale
L'adoption internationale déplace des mineurs, et des mineurs seulement, d'un pays à un autre. Le rôle central de l'âge dans la migration adoptive risque de nous empêcher de voir l'importance de la génération: l'âge du parent potentiel est aussi examiné et évalué en fonction de son rapport avec l'âge de l'enfant et de ce que ce rapport signifiera pour la création d'une famille. Comme l'adoption internationale a pour conséquence le déplacement de l'enfant à travers les frontières vers la formation de nouvelles parentés, les hypothèses qui sous-tendent cela demandent une analyse géographique plus poussée. La génération, ou l'écart d'âge qui sépare les dépendants de leurs gardiens, est un motivateur puissant mais tacite des politiques et pratiques d'adoption internationale. Cet article avance que la perception normative et biologisée de différence intergénérationnelle fait partie intégrante de l'adoption internationale. La présence d'idéologie générationnelle dans les lois nationales et les normes internationales en ce qui concerne l'adoption internationale montre une perception plus large selon laquelle les politiques considèrent les familles privilégiées comme acceptables et les autres comme inadaptées. Je tire la documentation pour cette analyse de documents légaux et de documents qui visent à fournir une interprétation de ces lois, avec des références aux adoptions internationales du Pérou.
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Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This global inequity produces a form of closed adoption because geographical and legal limits placed upon birth family members prevent many adoptees from forming relations with their kin of origin, something that in many nations of origin would be expected of fostered children (Kim, Citation2007, p. 498). However, see De Graeve, Citation2015, this issue.
2. Recent research on adoption identifies the discourse that it is an innovative way of forming families because it can transcend or complicate ethnic, class, and national boundaries; enable fathers' equal participation and make same-sex parents possible; and imply that biology is not required to make a family (see e.g. Howell, Citation2006; Jacobson, Citation2008, p. 166).
3. Age matters in a host of ways beyond the narrow generational focus I take here. For one, it has material consequences for youth themselves. In Peru, there was a clear sense that older children were less ‘adoptable’. Also, the older the children got, the less NGO support was available.
4. I thank Akira Deguchi for this observation.
5. The lower limit on the child's age in these figures – zero – implies to prospective parents that children could possibly be under one year of age, something not likely in current international adoption practices in Peru.
6. In the United Nations study, Peru is listed only as having a minimum age difference of 18 years (no minimum or maximum age is given).
7. Ministerio de la Mujer y Poblaciones Vulnerables (Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations) website, http://www.mimp.gob.pe/, question 5 of ‘Preguntas Frecuentes’ (FAQ) in the Adoption section.
8. Adoption law in many western countries today is influenced by the 1804 French Civil Code, itself informed by Roman law (United Nations, Citation2009, p. 11).
9. Notably, far more countries have a minimum age to adopt, than a maximum; far more countries have a minimum age difference than a maximum. Yet, the empirical reality is not represented in these guidelines – actual prospective parents are highly unlikely to have a problem complying with an age minimum. The vast majority of internationally adoptive parents are between 30 and 45 (United Nations, Citation2009, p. xvii). This implies that the age guidelines may function to criticize adolescent parents rather than limit adoption practice.
10. This text has recently been replaced on the official website with ‘The minimum age of applicants is 25 and the maximum is 52’. http://travel.state.gov/content/adoptionsabroad/en/country-information/learn-about-a-country/peru.html, accessed 9 September 2014.
11. Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad (Ministry of Health, Social Services, and Equality), Peru adoption guidelines, March 2009, http://www.msssi.gob.es/en/ssi/familiasInfancia/docs/AI_Peru.pdf, accessed 23 July 2013.
12. A related issue that I do not discuss here because of space constraints is the existence of another child in the adoptive household. There is a preference for the adopted child to be younger than children already in the household, following ‘birth order’ (Nota Informativa No. 001-2013-MIMP/DGA, pp. 2–3).
13. Children whose birth family members were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders or mental disabilities, or consumed drugs or alcohol, or who themselves have language delays, are not included on that list.
14. Indeed, as Skivenes shows for Norway, the issues typically considered as primary are: ‘stability [i.e., permanence] in care for the child … the biological principle that it is in the child's best interests to grow up with his/her biological parents … [and] that the child's opinion should be heard and given weight when determining his/her best interests’ (Citation2010, p. 341).
15. No. 010-2005-MIMDES, Article 11.g. (The previous regulations, No. 001-99-PROMUDEH, Article 12.g., also used this language.)
16. The criteria for establishing suitability were the age of the adopters, having taken parenting classes, length of time on waiting list, willingness to adopt children from ‘priority list’, expectations about the child's age, sex, and other characteristics, subsidiarity (i.e. domestic adoption takes precedence over international), and psychological/personality ‘compatibility’. Artículos 5 and 20 (No. 010-2005-MIMDES), Elaboración de Propuestas de Designación de Adoptantes. http://www.mimp.gob.pe/archivos_sites/daff/compendio/iv_normatividad_adopciones/Directiva_008-2002-MIMDES.pdf, accessed 23 July 2013.
17. Ministerio de la Mujer y Poblaciones Vulnerables (Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations) website, http://www.mimp.gob.pe/, question 6 of ‘Preguntas Frecuentes’ (FAQ) in the Adoption section.
18. It is also worth noting that the age differences between a parent and a child – when coupled with other kinds of differences, like race and gender – can be read in other ways. For example, the transnationally adopted daughter of an older Spanish woman reported ‘Many times they think I am my mother's caretaker. They see an elder woman with a black girl and … are certain I am an immigrant that takes care of her’ (San Román, Citation2013, p. 236).