Adoption Tracing Issues in Thailand

This section is intended to cover issues in adoption tracing which are not covered elsewhere.

In most western countries, adoptees have a right to know the identity of their biological parents, and governments have procedures for assisting adoptees, as well as guidelines. Some governments require an orientation or counseling, others make counseling optional. However, there are still issues and barriers.

• In many countries, the government will not assist significantly until the adopted child reaches a certain age, e.g., 10 years old in Thailand, and higher in some other countries. By that time, the trail has gone cold in many cases.

• When government officials go out to find a biological parent who abandoned their child, or if there are any possible legal issues with a biological parent, then the biological parent, their family, and even their community may be less than fully cooperative, or completely stonewall. Actually, this has been a possible explanation in many cases where we found out a lot more information which the government did not, as reflected in their "Background of the Child to be Adopted", both inaccurate information as well as far more information, finding biological parents, and gaining positive engagement.

• The bureaucratic process with its many steps can be like "Chinese whispers". Have further questions? They can go thru a long chain of command, passed around within a stack of paperwork.

• Getting an independent investigation may reveal more of the truth because sometimes adoption organizations may streamline the process and not say some things which raise questions and potential red tape, i.e., not tell the whole story. After that, further reports could be cleansed, to stay on the safe side for their organization. This is generally not a complaint, because children can languish in orphanages for years over red tape based on technicalities, so that it may be judged to be in the child's best interests to streamline things, goodness knows those organizations do a lot of good, and we don't want to negatively affect orphans and adoptive parents over technicalities, but some adoptees and adoptive parents have gotten significantly better results from an independent third party, though it's often best to keep this secret.

• Sometimes an organization or a particular person can just be lazy, and blend into the bureaucracy.

• We offer a very personalized service, with quick and direct responses, first hand accounts, and without a lot of bureaucratic rules and paperwork. We are also specialists in adoption tracing. We are not Bangkok headquarters referring cases to local district police or government officials in the subdistrict of some remote province who normally don't deal with adoption tracing and may have a lot of other stuff on their daily schedule and list of tasks. We are focused on you and the biological family, with no intermediaries.

As adoption tracing is a very important issue to a child's life, it should be given the appropriate focus.

In some places, biological parents were told that their identity would remain confidential, and there is debate as to whether the biological parents should be completely absolved of any responsibility for the life they created. This is not the case in Thailand. Indeed, the identity of the biological parents is normally passed on to the adoptive parents as part of the adoption process, together with a "Background of the Child to be Adopted" document in many cases. It includes the birth certificate and may also include such things as a copy of the biological parent(s) ID card(s), house registration, and/or other items.

However, one thing that is almost universally accepted, especially in transnational adoption cases, is that an intermediary be used at first, particularly one which is native to the country of origin of the child.

In other words, in most cases, it is not advisable for an adopted person to just come to Thailand looking for their biological parent, whereby they go to a community, knock on a door and say "Hi, I am the biological child of _____ and I am looking for my mother, ______."

Reasons for using an intermediary include:

• The intermediary can find out whether the biological parent(s) wish to be contacted, considering all the factors discussed in another section of this website titled Biological Parents' Needs.

• The biological parent(s) can prepare themselves for the encounter, as well as prepare their families which may take a lot more time, and we can help prepare them.

• The intermediary can prepare the adopted person for what they will encounter, based on our visit and analysis, without bias.

• The intermediary can make arrangements for the best way to get in contact, if both parties wish to proceed.

• The intermediary knows the local language, culture, customs, procedures, and regional variations thereof.

A common question is why we are able to find out information which the government was not able to find out. There are many reasons for this, in different cases. For example, as noted above, one of those reasons is that we approach the biological parents and their community NOT as government officials, but instead as the associates of a foreign family -- adoptive parents and the adopted child. (We do NOT say we are "private investigators".) There are other reasons, too, but we do not wish to criticize the Thai government, who we think does a wonderful job in making relinquished and abandoned children available to loving adoptive families. We have seen too many children languish in orphanages because of some technicality which is irrelevant, so why should the government wait and look forever for biological parents who are not looking for their children at that time? The childrens lives must go on, and the children naturally need loving parents every day.

The caretakers at the Babies Homes in Thailand are some of the loveliest people. However, it's important to keep in mind that they are not the officials who handled the cases in the field, nor who process most of the paperwork and issues. The caretakers are chosen for a different set of personality traits and skills. All of these government workers are given a considerable workload of responsibilities.

Thai officials are generally supportive of adoption tracing as long as the adoptee or their guardian understand the issues involved, though government officers are generally bound by their office policies and procedures, and anything official typically involves quite a number of people in different positions and locations, and a considerable amount of paperwork pushed around within stacks, whereby worries and barriers and directives can crop up.

Some people have questioned the incentives of government workers to do more work than the minimum, in processing requests on paper. Indeed, many government workers avoid risks and additional work. It may not be your case officer, it may be somebody who they must pass a responsibility onto in another location.

With us, the buck stops here -- you deal with me, and my field staff are based in our office -- directly, not a bureaucracy. We go out and do these cases ourselves, face to face with the biological families and the local officials. Face to face is not the same as faceless paperwork.

Considering all these potential issues, it is no surprise that we are often able to find out, and report, information which the government bureaucracy did not, which does not reflect the intentions of any one particular officer, but simply is the nature of government bureaucracies. As some of us have worked for governments, we understand the issues very well, but this may not be clear to many people who have never worked for the government, and who may have a Hollywood reference view of government things.

Adoption tracing is a challenge which requires a special combination of skills, a strong focus without distractions, a considerable allocation of time, perseverance (without excuses), problem solving skills, and often a flexibility in maintaining direct contact with sources and key people over time.

We focus on a relatively small number of cases per year, unlike the adoption government bureaucracy.

We have a systematic method of quickly retrieving records from our adoption tracing cases to take immediate and personalized action.

We also speak native English, as the Director, Mark Prado, is an American citizen who has been living in Thailand since 1994. Mark can speak and read Thai to some extent (it was his fourth language to learn, but has become his second language in fluency).

When a foreign adoptive family visits a Thai biological family, you need a good verbal interpreter.

For documents and written correspondence, our company has its own translation division at www.ThaiEnglish.com which is one of the oldest (as you can tell from the prime domain name) Thai translation services on the internet. This division has been operating since the same time we started adoption tracing, back in 2002. However, it is a separate division of our company from adoption tracing / private investigations, albeit just walking into an adjacent room. Actually, we do most translations using one of our adoption tracing staff, but we have our translations proofread by our professional translation division. We have a lot of experience translating communications between biological and adoptive families, including:

• letters -- emails from the adoptive family, registered Thai postal mail to the biological parents, with our Bangkok office as hub
• phone calls -- sometimes just to hear each others voices via Skype, with interpreter; sometimes to relay quick response items
• visits -- many adopted children and their adoptive families have visited their Thai biological families with one of our interpreters

You are welcome to switch to a translator or interpreter of your choice. We just offer the option of using our translation division.

When it comes to minimizing things "lost in translation", as well as preventing a lot of common hassles with the language barrier, we suggest that you use our Thailand one stop shop services.

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