International Adoption may not necessarily be helping the disadvantaged in Third World countries as advertised. In some countries, like Guatemala and India, children are simply stolen from their families. The Hague Convention governs the rules for International Adoptions, but like all rules, they aren't always followed. Many adoptive parents believe that their children have been given up, but in some countries, "orphanage" doesn't mean what you think it means. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon on May 10, 2009 - 18 comments

Bulgaria's abandoned children. This heartrending BBC documentary visits a home for abandoned children in Bulgaria; they are left there by parents who can't - or won't - take care of "defective" children. But poor nutrition and uncaring workers have turned it into a hell on earth for the poor kids as they waste away; some are never taken off their toilets, some are left in bed until their limbs atrophy. Many cannot speak. Only one can write. Most just sit and rock for hours because of the lack of stimulus. Very hard to watch.
posted by TochterAusElysium on Mar 16, 2008 - 20 comments

Reading the news, the violence in Kenya can feel distant. For Mission in Action/Nakuru Baby Orphanage, located in the heart of the Rift Valley, the violence is all to near, and extremely troubling. (the last link contains images that may be very disturbing) [more inside]
posted by [expletive deleted] on Jan 30, 2008 - 15 comments

So, apparently some of those Sudanese orphans were neither Sudanese nor orphans. The organization Zoe's Ark may have fucked the fuck up.
posted by Sticherbeast on Nov 1, 2007 - 17 comments

Orphan Trains of Kansas. A collection of histories, personal stories, newspaper accounts, pictures and other references. Beginning in 1854, charitable institutions in New York City began sending orphans on trains to the west to find new families, feeling that the children would fare better out west than on the streets of New York. Orphan trains arrived in Kansas between 1867 and 1930, and some 5000-6000 children were placed in Kansas homes.
posted by amyms on Sep 22, 2007 - 30 comments

Orphan trains. From 1853 to 1929 an ambitious relocation adoption program run by the Children's Aid Society, founded by Charles Loring Brace, sent kids from urban slums and orphanages out to live on Midwestern farms, with mixed results. Some became state governors, others suffered abuse or servitude. Even though we use the name Orphan Train, few of these children were true orphans. Some were half-orphans, having lost one parent to disease or accident. Some had both parents but had run away do to abuse or neglect. By 1910, CAS had "placed out" over 106,000 children and the program ran for another 19 years. Also, similar programs were run by the New York Foundling Home (called Baby Trains), New York Juvenile Asylum, and the Boston Home for Little Wanderers. In all, at least, 200,000 children found themselves moved from the city to small towns and farms across the Nation.
posted by Brian B. on Mar 16, 2007 - 9 comments

Where once geeks' biggest worry was orphaned technology, now it's technology orphans.
posted by GuyZero on Dec 8, 2006 - 10 comments

A foundation has been established to help the Iraqi orphans that survived the January shooting (earlier Mefi thread) by American forces. There's also more recent information about the shooting in this Newsweek article. Check out this BoingBoing post to read an e-mail from the photographer that witnessed the shooting and is now establishing this foundation.
posted by exhilaration on Mar 25, 2005 - 8 comments

New York's HIV Experiment. Need test subjects for your highly experimental, possibly lethal drugs but don't want to deal with consent issues? Don't worry, New York City's Association for Children's Services has got you covered! Just ask GlaxoSmithKline about its continuing antiretroviral drug trials. Not only does the ACS provide it and other pharmaceutical companies with high-quality HIV-positive orphans and foster children, but it administers the drugs to them as well! Kids not willing to take the pills? The ACS will stick peg-tubes in their stomachs. Foster parents refusing to give kids the drugs? The ACS will charge them with abuse and put the kids somewhere else. Wondering about Tuskegee comparisons or how the combination of side-effects like diarrhea and swollen joints with no evidence of benefits fits into a cost-benefit analysis? Why? This is the ACS! They can do whatever they want.
posted by schroedinger on Dec 2, 2004 - 81 comments

Hidden Lives Revealed. 'Hidden Lives Revealed provides an intriguing encounter with children who were in the care of The Children's Society in late Victorian and early 20th Century Britain. ' Via the 24 Hour Museum.
posted by plep on Jul 6, 2004 - 5 comments

"Orphans and babies as young as three months old have been used as guinea pigs in potentially dangerous medical experiments sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, an Observer investigation has revealed.

"British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is embroiled in the scandal. The firm sponsored experiments on the children from Incarnation Children's Centre, a New York care home that specialises in treating HIV sufferers and is run by Catholic charities." [link]
posted by The God Complex on Apr 3, 2004 - 13 comments

The Lost Boys of the Sudan are a group of nearly 17,000 orphans whose parents were murdered and whose homes were destroyed by a government miltary turned against them. They marched on foot, without food or water, under attack from hungry predators & occasional strafing miltary fire for several years until settling in a squalid refugee camp in Kenya; nearly a decade later, the U.S. began a humanitarian policy of importing them, a few at a time, and resettling the lucky few in cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, and even Fargo, N.D. (NYTimes, reg req'd)
posted by jonson on Jan 3, 2003 - 14 comments

The American Academy of Pediatrics announces its support of adoption by same-sex parents. "...a new AAP policy statement, "Coparent or Second-Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents" supports legal and legislative efforts that provide for the possibility of adoption of those children by the second parent or coparent in same-sex relationships."
posted by prozaction on Feb 4, 2002 - 2 comments

What is best for AIDS orphans? For many children around the globe, not only do they face a life without one or more parents because of AIDS/HIV, they also face the stigma of carrying the virus themselves.....
posted by bunnyfire on Dec 1, 2001 - 1 comment