I agree that children at risk do, indeed, benefit from safe, permanent placement. However we must listen to those who have been adopted to ensure that the placement we provide does not further traumatise them. Permanent guardianship, where children are placed and not moved from one home to another, is preferable to adoption from the child's point of view. Unlike adoption, this is an honest way to care for children in need and does not involve the creation of false identities, relationships and documents as well as the unnecessary legal severance of biological and emotional ties.

The child must take first priority!
And returning that child to an abusive arrangement or criminal neglect is clearly not in the child's best interests, EVER!
I spent most of my formative years in institutional care or with relatives that didn't want me!

Who knows how far I could have gone or what I could have achieved if I'd been conferred the longed for privilege of being adopted by a family that really wanted me, and provided the one thing every child needs to properly develop!
Love and a stable family home which makes you feel more than welcome!

Culture and tradition are all well and good, but only if that culture doesn't include the accepted repeat/gang rape and abuse of children and routine domestic violence as normal/cultural behavior or ENTERTAINMENT; compounded by ENDLESS HUMBUG, coupled to an INCULCATED VICTIM MENTALITY!

If we but put the primary interests of the child genuinely first, fewer will get punched or kicked to death, burnt or badly beaten to the point of irreparable brain damage; at the hands of dope fiends, drug pushers, alcoholics and the criminally insane!

Enough with the excuse making or humbug already, signed by one who knows!
Rhrosty.

I was adopted from a German orphanage by an American couple and collaborated with other "foreign" adoptees to create this video about international adoption to include discussion of Australia’s shameful treatment of Aboriginal adopted children. Australia appears to repeat its dark past with international adoption. Shame on your Prime Minister and government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJlnfkRtBX4

Great work, Peter. Thank you for putting the truth out there.

Children are unaware about many hazards and thus need excessive concern. If you are adopting a child, it is important to treat a child like your own one. Children are all same, innocent and adopting someone is to take their responsibility.
http://www.hugabub.com/

Unfortunately, in the past those who adopted were often told to raise an adopted child just like they would raise their own child. This attitude denies the specific issues associated with being adopted. In fact, anyone who adopts a child should be educated in the issues of loss and grief for a child who is not raised within his or her family of origin. Growing up in a family with which you have no genetic connection is very different from growing up among those to whom you are related by blood. Yes, of course it is good for children to grow up in a loving environment, but anyone who chooses to raise someone else's child owes it to that child to gain an understanding of the long term outcomes of such a situation so that they can help the child to prepare for the future and the challenges they may face.