No one knows how many international adoptions break down. 'I don’t belong here,' said Charles Gerth, who was adopted from Uganda by a Florida couple in 2015. 'I belong where I’m supposed to be, and this is not my home.'
found that at least 66,000 children from all types of adoptions ended up in the foster care system between 2008 and 2020. For more than 60% of those adoptees, reported reasons included the child’s disability or behavioral problem, the parents’ abandonment or relinquishment of the child, or the family’s general inability to cope.
At least 130 children adopted internationally have been listed as available for private re-adoption in recent years, according to a USA TODAY review of profiles by Wasatch International Adoptions, a Utah-based agency. Yeshi Vaughan had been in the United States for only about two years when her adoptive parents told her to pack up her clothes so they could take her to a youth shelter. She was 16.
She tried to work through the system. She went to court to correct his official date of birth and then filed paperwork to update his passport. She contacted adoption attorneys. She kept in contact with his biological mother, Buringi, and sent money to help support the family. Two years after Jennifer Gerth adopted Charles, she learned that his biological mother had not consented to the adoption.
Gerth also contacted the FBI after learning that it was investigating Dorah Mirembe, a Ugandan attorney involved in Charles’ adoption. She said no one ever responded.Mirembe and two other women were charged in 2020 in federal court in Ohio and accused of operating a crooked adoption scheme. Prosecutors alleged that the women paid bribes and took children from their home countries in Uganda and Poland without properly determining whether they were orphaned.
The families believed their children were being looked after by missionaries while receiving an education in Kampala. Instead, the kids were offered to U.S. families for adoption. Indiana residents Barry and Tammy Martin have pushed for justice for themselves and other families after their lives were upended when one of the boys they adopted from China raped his younger brothers. After the teen’s actions came to light, the family learned that he had been a victim of sex trafficking while living in China and had abused other boys.
The teen, who admitted in court to battery, was sent to a residential treatment facility for juvenile sex offenders before moving into a group home. David Smolin said neither the adoption agency nor the U.S. or Indian governments would investigate or help them, so they worked with an Indian activist who found the girls’ family and helped them reconnect.
She said agencies should try to understand a country’s culture and customs before facilitating adoptions there. Sometimes, she added, it’s about asking the right questions. In Haiti, Jacobs said workers had requested several new cars when it turned out what they really needed was gas. In October 2021, days after receiving Charles’ updated passport with his new date of birth, Gerth booked two plane tickets to Uganda.
They arrived early in the morning and, after a brief stop in a hotel in Entebbe to rest and freshen up, they boarded wooden boats to take them to the island where Charles’ mother lived. Charles almost vibrated with excitement, chattering about memories with his mom. Photos of Charles in Uganda taken in October 2021, when Jennifer Gerth brought Charles back to his mom, Faridah, and family in Uganda.
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