Getting Vladimir Putin to the ICC

may never happen. Many people would like to see it happen but hold out little hope. If it did then there are many others who would object.

In the middle of all this there are children who have been simply taken away. They are seen as the "cannon fodder" of the future. They will not be given "loving homes and an education". Instead they will be told you, "We saved you. You owe us your life."

It is not quite the same thing as the "adoption" it is claimed to be. I have however been thinking about the issue of adoption. It has been in the news again. There have been two quite different stories recently. One was of a couple who were refused the right to adopt two children they had been fostering over some years. They want to give the children a certain future. There have been no complaints about the way they have treated the children, indeed the contrary is true. Their care has been commendable. It has been loving and kind. There is no impediment to adoption at all - except for the fact the children are "aboriginal" and the parents are not. 

Policy dictates that aboriginal children must be placed with aboriginal families, their own family if at all possible. It doesn't matter what might actually be in the best interests of the children in this case. It is what policy demands. Some years ago I was involved with a family who had fostered an aboriginal child. He was wild, a real trouble maker. He was passed on to this family having been through more than thirty placements. Nobody could handle him. It was hoped this family could. The father was a former officer in the army. He was used to dealing with trouble makers. 

They tried and it looked as if things were finally getting somewhere when someone realised that the family was "not aboriginal" and the child needed to be placed with an aboriginal family because the policy was to place such disturbed aboriginal children with aboriginal families. It was a policy designed to "ensure they grow up within their own culture". Nothing could have been less likely. The child, all of nine years old, was moved on. I wonder now how often he has appeared in front of the courts.

The other story was of a boy who is about to go with his father to Everest base camp. It's quite a trek. They are raising money for a charity which helps "suitcase" children, children passed on from one family to another as foster children. This boy was a suitcase child. He has been one of the fortunate ones. He was adopted - and the adoption worked.

I know not all adoptions work. We often hear about those. We don't hear about the vast majority which do. We hear stories about children "reunited" with their birth mothers - but we don't hear nearly as much about the trauma that causes the child. We hear the happy stories, the feel good stories. We do not hear about the adult child forced to move not just house but job and interstate in order to get away from a birth mother who is "demanding her rights". We do not hear about the adoption which "fails" at the last moment because the birth mother changes her mind even though she is never going to be in a position to care for the child herself. 

Adoptions here happen because parents want to adopt. There are all sorts of obstacles put in the way.  I doubt such care is taken in Putin's Russia, indeed suspect there are many children in old-fashioned orphanages. They will be indoctrinated there and perhaps end up fighting their own families without being aware of it.

If someone can get Putin and his co-accused in front of the ICC they will be doing the world a favour. We need to start thinking about what adoption really means.