{"id":8706,"date":"2011-06-04T19:39:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T10:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=8706"},"modified":"2011-06-04T19:41:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T10:41:13","slug":"weekend-tangent-foreigners-looking-to-adopt-japanese-earthquake-orphans-need-not-apply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=8706","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Tangent: “Foreigners Looking to Adopt Japanese Earthquake Orphans Need Not Apply”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hi Blog. As a Weekend Tangent, let’s take a look at this oldie but a weirdie article from Fox News, about child adoption in Japan Post-3\/11. Even if we can overlook the as usual careless sourcing (shall we scan the nation’s juuminhyou<\/em> for an “Ogaway”, anyone?), it’s hard to take at face value the assertion that, “Osborne said a dwindling population, as well as strong family ties in the country, makes adoption fairly unnecessary, because children who can\u2019t be cared for by their parents are usually taken in by other relatives…”, and that Japan’s “extended family system is going to consider that child their child.” Tell that to the kids in orphanages across Japan (which I have had brief contact with) who generally stay there for their childhood (there is an odd antipathy towards adoption in general in Japan; the common feeling I’ve heard is, “It’s not my kid, so I can’t trust what I would get. What if I adopt somebody who turns out to be a murderer? I’d have to take responsibility!” But anyway, this is nothing more than a throwaway article (under the category of the “Three E’s” that are a staple of Western reporting on Japan — Economics, Exotica, and Erotica) from a generally US\/domestic-agenda-only news source. FYI. Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\nWorld
\nForeigners Looking to Adopt Japanese Earthquake Orphans Need Not Apply
\nBy Diane Macedo
\nPublished March 22, 2011
\nFoxNews.com, courtesy of A.
\nhttp:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/world\/2011\/03\/21\/foreigners-looking-adopt-japanese-earthquake-orphans-need-apply\/#ixzz1HQpoHcfL<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Foreigners looking to adopt a Japanese child orphaned by the recent earthquake may be surprised to know their help, in that respect, is not wanted at the moment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI have been receiving many strange emails, from mostly U.S., and was asked, \u2018I want girl, less than 6 months old, healthy child,\u2019 Tazuru Ogaway, director of the Japanese adoption agency Across Japan, told FoxNews.com. \u201cI honestly tell you such a kind of emails makes Japanese people very uncomfortable, because for us, sound like someone who are looking for \u2018what I want\u2019 from our terrible disaster.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the wake of the massive January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, countries around the world almost immediately began fast-tracking adoptions from the troubled country. The United States alone took in 1,090 Haitian children as part of a Special Humanitarian Parole granted immediately following the disaster, according to the State Department\u2019s 2010 Annual Report in Intercountry Adoptions.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But Martha Osborne, spokeswoman for the adoption advocacy website RainbowKids.com, said Japan and Haiti couldn\u2019t be more different when it comes to adoption.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou see that in developing nations, there\u2019s no outlet for these children and the people left in the wake of the disaster are completely impoverished and unable to care for them, and in that case even extended relatives often say that the best case for the child is to be adopted because there are no resources,\u201d Osborne told FoxNews.com. \u201cBut in Japan that\u2019s just not the case, it\u2019s a fully developed nation that\u2019s capable of caring for its own children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osborne said a dwindling population, as well as strong family ties in the country, makes adoption fairly unnecessary, because children who can\u2019t be cared for by their parents are usually taken in by other relatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe there\u2019s going to be a true orphan situation in Japan in the wake of this disaster. I do not believe that there are going to be children without any ties to relatives\u2026that extended family system is going to consider that child their child,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tom Defilipo, president of Joint Council on International Children Services, said that stress on lineage also makes the Japanese society \u201cvery averse to adoptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few adoptions take place in Japan domestically and only about 30-34 last year internationally\u201d despite having \u201cabout 400 children\u2019s homes in the country and about 25,000 children approximately in those homes,\u201d Defilipo told FoxNews.com. \u201cBloodlines are exceptionally important, so the whole idea of adopting or raising a child that\u2019s not your own or isn\u2019t part of your extended family is relatively unheard of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Ogaway, Osborne, and Defilipo all agree that the children whose parents died in the earthquake will likely be absorbed into extended families. It is, they say, far too early for any of the children to be considered for adoption because Japanese authorities are still searching to find which children\u2019s parents are just missing, which are confirmed dead and which of those children have other family to care for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can’t just place children without [verifying] she or he is a complete orphan,\u201d Ogaway said.
\nThose looking to help Japan are instead directed to donate to organizations that are providing direct emergency relief there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want to help in whatever way we can,\u201d Osborne said. \u201cBut Japan is very capable, unlike many undeveloped nations, of caring for its own.\u201d
\nENDS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faux News: Foreigners looking to adopt a Japanese child orphaned by the recent earthquake may be surprised to know their help, in that respect, is not wanted at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been receiving many strange emails, from mostly U.S., and was asked, \u2018I want girl, less than 6 months old, healthy child,\u2019 Tazuru Ogaway, director of the Japanese adoption agency Across Japan, told FoxNews.com. \u201cI honestly tell you such a kind of emails makes Japanese people very uncomfortable, because for us, sound like someone who are looking for \u2018what I want\u2019 from our terrible disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of the massive January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, countries around the world almost immediately began fast-tracking adoptions from the troubled country. The United States alone took in 1,090 Haitian children as part of a Special Humanitarian Parole granted immediately following the disaster, according to the State Department\u2019s 2010 Annual Report in Intercountry Adoptions.<\/p>\n

But Martha Osborne, spokeswoman for the adoption advocacy website RainbowKids.com, said Japan and Haiti couldn\u2019t be more different when it comes to adoption.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see that in developing nations, there\u2019s no outlet for these children and the people left in the wake of the disaster are completely impoverished and unable to care for them, and in that case even extended relatives often say that the best case for the child is to be adopted because there are no resources,\u201d Osborne told FoxNews.com. \u201cBut in Japan that\u2019s just not the case, it\u2019s a fully developed nation that\u2019s capable of caring for its own children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osborne said a dwindling population, as well as strong family ties in the country, makes adoption fairly unnecessary, because children who can\u2019t be cared for by their parents are usually taken in by other relatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe there\u2019s going to be a true orphan situation in Japan in the wake of this disaster. I do not believe that there are going to be children without any ties to relatives\u2026that extended family system is going to consider that child their child,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,22,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-tangents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}