Adoptions raise cultural concern
Worry is Marshallese moms don’t know rights given up
The fast-growing number of Marshallese women in Northwest Arkansas giving up their children for adoption has prompted the area’s legal, medical and advocacy communities to call for more oversight.
They worry that some of the women are signing documents in a language they don’t understand and may not know that they have no rights to their children once the youngsters have been adopted. In the Marshallese culture, adoptions are open, and birth mothers often share in the child-rearing.
Community leaders question whether the women know all of their rights, such as the right to withdraw their consent to an adoption.
Some also fear that Marshallese women, many of whom have low incomes, are being coerced into giving up their children with promises of money to cover their pregnancy expenses. This has led some to push for tightening regulations on reimbursements for the expectant mothers’ expenses.
Washington County Circuit Judge Doug Martin said his concern over the Mar-
“You don’t want to encourage people having a child to sell it. It has raised a lot of concerns, and it looks horrible” — Sen. Jon Woods
shallese adoptions was the focus of a meeting about six months ago with state legislators on state laws and adoption finances.
Martin said his concern began after he saw a spike in the number of Marshallese children given up for adoption between the time he was appointed as circuit judge in 2009 and 2010, and a second appointment in 2013.
“I didn’t have a single Marshallese adoption” in 200910, Martin said. “I spent two years working in Little Rock, and when I returned in 2013, all of a sudden about 90 percent of those adoptions were Marshallese.”
Washington County has led the state in adoptions since 2013, according to data from the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts. There have been 312 adoptions in Washington County this year. Benton County follows with 263 adoptions, and Pulaski County has 237. Race and ethnicity of adoptions are not tracked by the office.
Benton County Circuit Judge Doug Schrantz said he also has noticed more adoptions involving Marshallese people. He said the only time he sees Marshallese individuals in his court is for adoption proceedings.
Marsha Woodruff with Woodruff Law Firm in Fayetteville has handled more than 200 adoptions since 1978. She said she has noticed a shift in recent years from Hispanic babies to Marshallese babies.
“I did adoptions for 25 years before I saw my first Marshallese birth mom,” Woodruff said.
Now, 75 percent of Woodruff’s cases involve Marshallese babies.
Julianne Walsh, the University of Hawaii at Manoa assistant specialist for the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, has been monitoring Marshallese adoptions since the 1990s — starting in the Marshall Islands and later Hawaii, and in recent years in Arkansas.
Walsh said financial incentives could have a role in the increase in adoptions. Marshallese often have low incomes, she said. “The rich don’t relinquish” their babies, she said.
Between 2007 and 2011, 41 percent of 4,960 native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders in Arkansas lived in poverty, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Marshallese population is categorized as Pacific Islander in census records.
By comparison, just over 18 percent of the estimated 2.9 million people living in Arkansas lived in poverty in 2011.
A mother who can’t afford to raise a child could have few options other than adoption, Walsh said.
“Are they doing it for their families’ sake? For income? Family is first in this culture, which makes it such a tragic sacrifice to give up a child. It is a sacrifice they aren’t going to do if they don’t have to,” she said.
TRACKING EXPENSES
Arkansas law prohibits a parent or guardian from receiving compensation for relinquishing rights to a child.
It does allow for the mother to be reimbursed for the costs associated with the adoption. Those costs can include prenatal care, delivery, postnatal care, housing, food, clothing, general maintenance and medical expenses.
Herb Brail, president of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, said adoption officials walk a fine line between covering expenses and paying parents for babies. It is a best practice to pay each individual living expense as it arises and avoid a pre-determined amount paid in advance, he said.
“The worry and concern obviously is people can’t sell their children,” Brail said. “You have to identify proper expenses during a pregnancy. You allow living expenses because it is not supposed to cost the mother to give her child up for adoption. It also is not supposed to be a moneymaker.”
Kaye McLeod, a Little Rock adoption attorney, said Arkansas requires a judge to approve expenses before the adoption is finalized, but itemized expenses are not required.
After the meeting with Martin earlier this year, Sen. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, drafted a bill that would require all adoption expenses submitted for approval to be in an itemized format.
“It is all about the money at the end of the day,” Woods said. “There are concerns with people brokering deals with families for a dollar amount for a child.
“You don’t want to encourage people having a child to sell it,” he said. “It has raised a lot of concerns, and it looks horrible.”
Legislation has to protect children but also not restrict the rights of people wanting to adopt, he said.
“It is complex,” he said. “You have some families that believe it is their calling to adopt these children.”
He said more discussion is needed before the bill can move forward.
Sen. Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville, said people have also approached him about concerns over Marshallese adoptions.
“I do think there are people brokering deals that need some type of statute that requires them to do some reporting to shut down their operation,” Lindsey said.
At least 10 states, as of 2013, required itemized adoption expense reports, according to a report released by the Child Welfare Information Gateway, a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“The whole point is to keep people from being coerced into giving up their children,” said Brail. “It is just morally and humanly offensive. You don’t sell people, and you don’t coerce people into giving up their rights as parents just because people are dangling a lot of money in front of the parents.”
Two recent criminal cases in Benton County put a spotlight on the money involved in Marshallese adoptions.
Molita Elcar, 32, was convicted of defrauding a prospective adoptive parent. She admitted in September that she took money from two sets of adoptive parents while she was pregnant. She received about $9,000 for living expenses from the law firm of Vaughn-Michael Cordes, and more than $15,000 from the Woodruff Law Firm. Elcar had signed initial adoption papers with both law firms.
A second Marshallese woman, Rehab Jokna, pleaded guilty last month to the same charge. She admitted taking $13,667 from Cordes, who was representing adoptive parents, and more than $10,000 from the Woodruff firm, according to court documents.
Elcar and Jokna, 40, were each placed on 10 years of state-supervised probation and ordered to repay all of the money they received. They and their attorneys refused to comment for this article.
During the Elcar investigation, Justin Aine, who was born in the Marshall Islands and works as an interpreter for Cordes, was interviewed by detectives. He said birth mothers giving up children for adoption through Cordes receive $1,200$1,500 a month for expenses, and it is a set monthly amount. He said the mothers could call and ask for more money for other expenses.
Aine also said he receives $1,500 for every woman who signs initial adoption paperwork. He said another $1,500 is paid to him when the adoption is finalized, according to court documents.
Neither Aine nor representatives with Cordes’ law firm returned multiple phone calls seeking comment for this article.
Martin, the Washington County circuit judge, said some of the monetary practices involving adoptions concern him, including allowing the people in charge of explaining the adoptions to profit when an adoption goes through.
“In certain cases the person who was signing off as the translator was also making money on those very same adoptions in different capacities,” he said. “I felt that was a conflict.”
CULTURAL CONFLICTS
In addition to the financial matters, concerns have arisen over the cultural difference in what adoption means to Marshallese.
Adoption is ingrained in their culture, Walsh said.
“They take care of each other. They spread responsibility,” she said. “The adoption is open, and everyone knows who the biological parents are — they share families.”
Adoptions in the United States do not work the same way, she said. U.S. adoptions are often closed, and the adoptive parents do not maintain a relationship with the birth mother. This difference can be confusing for Marshallese families, she said.
Numerous attempts to talk with Marshallese representatives in the area about adoptions were unsuccessful. But Walsh said adoptive parents and local officials have discussed the issues with her, raising the possibility that women don’t understand the process.
Schrantz, the Benton County circuit judge, said some adoptive parents make agreements with the birth mothers to keep the adoptions open, but such agreements are not enforceable in the state.
“There’s no such thing as an open adoption in Arkansas,” he said.
And often the Marshallese mothers don’t speak English.
Walsh said “even when people do speak English, it doesn’t mean they comprehend that they won’t have rights to the child.”
Marshall Prettyman, director of litigation for Arkansas Legal Aid, said none of the Marshallese women he worked with understood the finality of their U.S. adoptions.
Laura Kellams, Northwest Arkansas director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said her office also has heard concerns about Marshallese adoptions.
“I have talked to medical personnel who have grave concerns that there have been some unethical adoptive practices,” Kellams said. “We are concerned women don’t have the information about the difference between adoption in the Marshall Islands and here. We feel strongly that there needs to be proper translation.”
Woodruff took exception to the notion that people arranging adoptions are somehow preying on anyone. Women, sometimes with their husbands, are making the choice to put their children up for adoption rather than having abortions, she said.
Woodruff said that at her office, an interpreter goes over the adoption paperwork with the women. Part of that process is informing the mothers that open adoptions are not enforceable under Arkansas law.
The mothers are not forced into anything, she said. “It would be a waste of time, money and emotion for me to start an adoption knowing that she may change her mind.”
Benton County Circuit Judge John Scott said he handled his first few Marshallese adoptions only through paperwork. The parties involved did not appear in his courtroom. He said judges now hold consent hearings to make sure birth mothers understand their rights.
Washington County Circuit Judge John Threet said a court interpreter is now in his courtroom when Marshallese women agree to adoptions.
“We go through questions with them to make sure they understand the law and that it is permanent,” Threet said.
There have been a few cases where women decided not to go through with their adoptions or asked for a lawyer after the conversation, he said.
“It is hard to tell if my questions are confusing, or if they didn’t understand previously,” Threet said.
Martin said the court interpreter was added in adoption cases in recent years because of concerns over cultural misunderstandings. But, he said, the adoptions have not slowed. Still, concerns linger. Prettyman said some women have been told that they have to pay back the money they received for expenses if they change their minds about the adoptions. He said about six Marshallese women have approached him with that concern in the past two years.
“They get people to sign this agreement, then there is advanced money that is quote for ‘expenses,’ and then [the birth mothers] get threatened if they are talking about backing out,” he said.
But Brail said most states don’t allow agencies to recoup costs from the birth mother if she changes her mind.
“You don’t want her to feel coerced into giving up her baby,” Brail said. “It makes consent less than voluntary.”