Contested Commodities

Helen Yang SOC 315 Prof. Roi Livne November 12th, 2018 Contested Commodities: Paid Adoption in China The 1990s saw a dramatic rise in international adoptions sourced from China as “unwanted” children were taken in by well-meaning American families. However, a closer look reveals that the profitability of these adoptions, and from a broader perspective, the social context created by public policies, resulted in the commodification of adoptions - namely, receiving payment in exchange for relinquishing a child for adoption. How exactly did adoption become commodified, and why is it contested? The transformation of adoption into a commodity can be attributed to Chinese social policies, the actions of biological parents, intercountry adoptions, and the resulting black market transactions. First, how did there come to be a supply of “unwanted” children? Studies tend to agree that the most common motivating factor is China’s one-child policy. Established in 1979 and partially relaxed in 2013, the policy imposed crippling fines on families who have an unapproved second child. Although the policy did result in significantly increased investment in human capital, and to a degree, an increase in women’s quality of life, Western media generally regards it as a gross violation of human rights (Rosenzweig and Zhang 2009). Punishments for a second child could include fines greater than a family’s annual income, houses repossessed, and loss of jobs. Not only the birth family was punished - local families that agreed to secretly adopt these children and even the general community could also be punished, and the “illegal child”

taken by the government and placed in a state orphanage. Even if these children were successfully kept hidden, they would not possess an official government registration record that allowed them to attend schools, get a job, get married, buy a train ticket, and receive healthcare (Joyce 2016). To make matters worse, the policy also led to gruesome forced abortions and sterilization. In light of these incentives, families were highly motivated to give up “over-quota” children, resulting in a dramatic increase in the supply of “unwanted” children - many of whom ended up in orphanages, on the black market, or both. Another important factor is the traditional cultural preference for sons, an issue which was further exacerbated by the one-child policy. Under the policy, couples in most rural would be allowed a second child if their first was a girl (RFA 2015). More than 90 percent of the 60,000 children adopted by Americans since 1991 have been girls, and although sex selective-abortions are illegal, an estimated 70 percent of abortions are of females (Clehane 2015; Russel 2007). In addition, the direct black market sale of children provides a quantitative measure for how much exactly sons are preferred over daughters. Daughters sell for an average of 10,000 yuan ($1,400), and sons for 45,000 yuan ($6,500). A review of court documents found that in 40 percent of the cases, the sellers are the child’s own biological parents, participants in paid adoption (Horwitz 2015). Thus the story goes that China’s abandoned children found salvation in the form of intercountry adoption to the west. As Western birth rates dropped, the demand for international adoption rose, and starting in 1992 Westerners were allowed to adopt thousands of Chinese orphans, reaching its peak in 2004 and dramatically dropping since, due to much stricter Chinese restrictions. However, since its start in 1955, this practice of international adoption has been

transformed from a charitable endeavor to a private, profitable industry, and an excess of demand for orphans resulted in immoral supply methods. Investigations have revealed that adoption agencies are paid between $15,000 and $35,000 by prospective American parents, excluding travel and visa costs (Graff 2009). In 2005, investigations into the Hunan baby-selling scandal found that orphanages received mandatory contributions of $3,000 per baby in exchange for providing children for foreign families, many of which were American (Goodman 2006). An ABC News investigation found that while this funding could be used for much needed orphanage improvements, it was often siphoned off for personal profit (Loyd 2008). The profit to be gained via international adoption has motivated an increase in child trafficking to supply orphanages with “unwanted” children; The Chinese government has not provided figures, but the US State Department estimated that 20,000 children are abducted annually. Children are kidnapped or even sold by their biological parents. As the exchange of children for money is universally prohibited, the reveal of this scandal prompted international criticism and closer scrutiny of the international adoption process. However, the issue is much more complex than the popular narrative of a patriarchal, barbaric Chinese society and their unknowingly complicit Western “saviors”. While supposedly an altruistic act, international adoption ignores the social context in which it occurs, such as severe poverty, disenfranchisement of the right to have children, disenfranchisement of illegal children, gender discrimination, and the favoring of international adoption due to profitability as opposed to arguably less disruptive domestic adoptions (Hollingsworth 2003; Johnson 2002). Now that the context of this particular commodification process and its actors has been established, we can analyze exactly why paid adoption is a contested commodity. At what point

on the continuum of commodification did it become contested? Why do we accept the indirect commodification of children through adoption fees? These questions can be addressed with the application of two key concepts: the concealing nature of commodities and Zelizer’s “hostile worlds”. The commodification of paid adoption conceals social harm from unwitting consumers. To begin with, international adoption practices have been framed as an altruistic act since their conception in 1955 (Graff 2009). We understand and accept that altruistic non-profit organizations still require money to run and we are willing to compensate people for their time and effort. We accept this payment as necessary to provide an incentive for workers, and while perhaps in an ideal world, altruistic actions would require no monetary compensation, the current alternative is to not have enough workers at all. Costs associated with adoption, such as orphanage living arrangements and worker wages, are difficult to quantify. Ascertaining exactly how much of these funds are taken for profit, if an adopted child was originally acquired from child trafficking, or if international adoptions are moral in a broad social context are difficult to address. A much easier alternative is to believe that children from these government-run orphanages are simply unwanted and in need of a loving family. Adoption agencies successfully present this altruistically-framed narrative as the face of the final product, which prospective parents have little need to question. Even when criticism of these international adoptions do arise, media tends to blame Chinese gender norms, child trafficking individuals, and parents who sold their own kids, failing to address the broader systemic factors that encourage and enable such behavior (Joyce 2016).

What caused this criticism? At what point on the continuum of commodification did adoption become contested? Why is giving up a child for adoption acceptable, but not when the mother receives monetary compensation? We accept ​indirect​ commodification of adoption through fees because it serves as a necessary tool to fund market costs, such as labor, and thus does not inherently interfere with the parent-child relationship. Adoption becomes a contested commodity when market relations corrupt this intimate parent-child relationship and altruism is overshadowed by monetary motives. This is the view of “hostile worlds”, where any contact between the spheres of intimate social relations and monetary transfers inevitably leads to moral contamination and degradation (Zelizer 2000). Baby-giving is accepted as an altruistic act, done by parents with the hope that their child will have a better life. This interaction is motivated by the social ideal of a parent wanting the best for their children, and thus preserves the parent-child relationship. However, like in the case of blood donations, the introduction of monetary transfers erases said altruism and provides an incentive to unethically produce a supply of children. When an explicit sum of money is introduced, the formerly altruistic act becomes a market transaction. This baby-selling violates a basic tenet of parent-child relationships. The child, and to an extent, the mother’s reproductive capabilities, are objectified. As demonstrated by the stark price difference between male and female children on the Chinese black market, the commodification of a child also results in the commodification of a child’s characteristics. Sex, ethnicity, health, and all become quantifiable in market terms (Ratin, 1996). The potential for harm to the child, a non-consenting third party in a transaction between parents and a buyer, and the threat to the child’s personhood are but a few examples of moral degradation caused by the commodification of adoption.

The social consequences of the commodification of intercountry adoption can be summarized as an increase in child trafficking, corruption of parent-child relationships and harm to personhood. The Chinese government has reacted to criticism of social harm caused by these adoption practices, and have since restricted international adoptions, launched a new plan to combat trafficking, and ended the one-child policy (Graff 2009). However, this may not be enough to resolve existing tensions. For example, the issue of women who sell their children due to economic necessity is not morally clear cut. These women are involved in a “double bind”, in which both commodification and noncommodification may be harmful under our current social conditions. There is no ideal solution. Prohibiting the sale of a child may not necessarily cause less injury to the unwanted child and mother than the sale itself. As Radin proposes, perhaps the issue lies in not the market transaction itself, but the desperation that motivated this exchange (Radin 1996). We would then have to look at the broader social context, in hopes of changing the conditions that define the situation, such as China’s wealth disparity and family planning restrictions. The blame also falls on wealthy, powerful, and clueless American consumers. If nothing else, this story of American altruism and child trafficking illuminates problematic and often unseen effects of commodification, and why we should care.

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Hollingsworth, L. D. 2003. “International Adoption among Families in the United States: Considerations of Social Justice.” ​Social Work 4​ 8(2):209–17. Horwitz, Josh. 2015. “Child Trafficking in China Often Starts with Parents Selling Their Own Kids.” ​Quartz.​ Retrieved November 04, 2018 (https://qz.com/525900/child-trafficking-in-china-often-starts-with-parents-selling-their-o wn-kids/). Johnson, Kay. 2002. “Politics of International and Domestic Adoption in China.” ​Law & Society Review​36(2):379–96. Retrieved (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1512181).

Joyce, Kathryn. 2016. “The Truth About China's Missing Daughters.” ​The New Republic​. Retrieved November 08, 2018 (https://newrepublic.com/article/133845/truth-chinas-missing-daughters). Loyd, Beth. 2008. “China's Lost Children.” ​ABC News.​ Retrieved November 08, 2018 (https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=4774224&page=1). Radin, Margaret Jane. 1996. ​Contested Commodities.​ Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rosenzweig, Mark R. and Junsen Zhang. 2009. “Do Population Control Policies Induce More Human Capital Investment? Twins, Birth Weight and Chinas ‘One-Child’ Policy.” ​The Review of Economic Studies ​76(3):1149–74. Retrieved (www.jstor.org/stable/40247636). Russell, Beth Nonte. 2007. “The Mystery of the Chinese Baby Shortage.” ​The New York Times.​ Retrieved November 04, 2018 (https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/opinion/23russell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). Zelizer, Viviana A. 2000. “The Purchase of Intimacy.” ​Law & Social Inquiry ​25(3):817–48.