Peer-reviewed article
Intercountry adoption swimming against the tide: Restitution in Samoa
Patricia Fronek, Karen Smith Rotabi, Robert Haddon Common ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This peer-reviewed article examines intercountry adoption fraud and its impacts on children, families, and adoptive parents. It presents a case study from Samoa involving fraudulent adoption practices and explores restitution mechanisms. The author argues that restitution pathways should enable contact and reunification between children and their biological families.
Key points
- Intercountry adoption is characterized by competing discourses of humanitarianism, exploitation, poverty and wealth
- Documented incidents of fraud in intercountry adoption have accumulated over the last two decades, contributing to declining adoption numbers globally
- Families subjected to fraudulent removal of children, the children themselves, and adoptive parents receive little recompense
- Novel restitution mechanisms were explored in a Samoa case of intercountry adoption fraud
- Restitution pathways should facilitate contact and reunification of children with their biological families
Limitations
This article presents a case study from Samoa but does not provide quantitative data on the scale of fraud or comparative analysis across multiple countries. The document does not evaluate the effectiveness of restitution mechanisms or provide outcome data on reunification attempts.
Abstract
Intercountry adoption (ICA) is a contested practice represented by competing discourses of humanitarianism, exploitation, poverty and wealth. Multiple factors have contributed to decreasing numbers of adoption globally including documented incidents of fraud which have accumulated over the last two decades. There is little recompense for families subjected to the fraudulent removal of their children, the children, and adoptive parents who are also defrauded. This article reports on the troubled progression of fraudulent ICA, presents a case of fraud and novel restitution in Samoa and concludes that restitution pathways should also facilitate contact and reunification of children with their families.