Despite the efforts made in South Africa to develop an adoption model relevant to local conditions, national adoption rates are low. In order to ensure that children eligible for adoption are not unnecessarily uprooted from their ethnic, religious and cultural origins, efforts made to indigenize the adoption model require further attention. Adoption policy and practice has to be culturally sensitive, that is, based on patterns and processes of family formation of the majority population group, namely black African citizens, to be successful.
For hundreds of adoptable African babies in South Africa, their right to be permanently raised in a loving family environment is not being realised because there are an inadequate number of adopters. To help deal with this child welfare challenge, a study was conducted in South Africa to investigate what factors affect the decision-making processes of Africans regarding the legal adoption of non-kin children, because only a small number choose the legal adoption trajectory to parenthood. To acquire this knowledge, the grounded theory research method of Corbin and Strauss was implemented. Data were gathered by personally interviewing five different cohorts of African participants; most being women. It was found that African women usually decide to legally adopt non-kin children because their desire to mother permanently is not realised when engaging in kinship care. The four main reasons they turn to legal adoption of non-kin children are: (1) legal adoption offers security because it is a permanent childcare arrangement; (2) legal adoption provides a sense of “ownership” because the adopter acquires full parental rights and responsibilities for raising the adopted child; (3) once accepting infertility, legal adoption can ease the psycho-emotional pain of infertility; and (4) the desire to nurture an infant can be realised through legal adoption. Recommendations for practice and future research regarding this phenomenon are discussed.
In South Africa, hundreds of black, abandoned children enter the legal child care system on an annual basis and become eligible for adoption. Although these children have a right to be raised in their country of origin, they are often made available for intercountry adoption owing to a lack of prospective domestic adopters. Statistically, middle-class black South Africans present as a significant source of domestic adopters, but the number of black South Africans legally adopting abandoned children is small. A qualitative enquiry, using grounded theory, was conducted to establish what factors dissuade involuntarily childless black South Africans from legally adopting abandoned children. Personal interviews were conducted with 39 purposively selected black participants to gather data. The conclusion drawn is that five main factors dissuade black South Africans from adopting abandoned children: (1) meanings of kinship; (2) racial connotations associated with legal adoption; (3) conflicting Christian beliefs; (4) parenthood, gender and identity; and (5) empowered single women prioritising climbing the socio-economic ladder. Recommendations focus on social marketing strategies, policy and practice innovations and research to promote domestic adoption in the African context.
Annually, hundreds of African infants are abandoned in South Africa and become adoptable because rigorous efforts to trace their parents and family members are unsuccessful. Although domestic adoption is prioritised in terms of legislation, policy and practice, most abandoned children’s right to be permanently raised in a loving family is not being realised. The most promising source of potential adopters is black South Africans, but the number of black adopters is ever declining. To investigate factors affecting black South African’s decision-making regarding the legal adoption of abandoned children, a post-graduate study was undertaken. Thirty-nine black adults participated in the study consisting of adopters, adoption applicants in the screening process, potential adopters that did not enter the screening process, adoption of social workers and citizens. The theory emerging derived from concurrent data gathering and analysis as set out by Corbin and Strauss is: ‘Tensions surrounding adoption policy and practice, and perceptions and experiences of adoption’. This article focuses on a main category of this grounded theory; that African ancestral beliefs and modern Christian beliefs can both reinforce and discourage adoption abandoned children.
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