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EXTRACTS of Infancia y adopción , number 1, january-june 1997

Maternity leave for adopting parents . Far from a real equivalence

With the approval of the Cortes (Spanish Parliament), on December 27th last, of the Budget's Law (published in the BOE (Official Bulletin of the Spanish State), #315, December 31st., 1996), the legislation in relation to maternity leave due to adoptive motherhood or fatherhood has been modified. Such a modification specifically means the equalizing of the suspension of the working contract for adoptive and biological motherhood; however, it is an equivalence limited to those cases in which the age of the adopted child is less than 9 months. This means that, according to the present Spanish legislation, maternity leave due to adoptive motherhood/fatherhood rises from eight to sixteen weeks (as with the case of biological motherhood) when the child is under nine months of age. For adopted children over nine months and under five years, the legislation has not been modified, maternity leave being, in these cases, of six weeks. In the case of the adoption of a child over five years of age, neither the old legislation, nor the new one, take into account any kind of maternity leave for the parents.
In the discussion period of this law, the F.E.N.D.A. (Federación Española de Entidades en Defensa de la Adopción, Spanish Federation of Organisms for the Defense of the Adoption) made a statement in which it formulated the following issues which, finally, have not been taken into account:
-Full and not partial equalizing of the length of the biological and adoptive maternity leave and regardless of the age of the adopted child.
-Optional distribution between the father and the mother of the maternity leave due to adoptive motherhood.
-The existence of a legal working coverage for the worker. This coverage should mean the possibility to take non-paid leave of absence to be able to travel to the country of origin of the child to be adopted and thus be able to conclude the procedure of adoption without the risk of losing the right to economic remuneration which is provided by the maternity leave, since working leaves (which means that the worker no longer pays the tax contribution) imply the risk of losing this right.
 
 

Infante, preventing child abandonment

In 1988 in Cochabamba (Bolivia), the organisation Infante was set up. This is a private and non-profit institution which works with a clear aim: to provide abandoned children and children who are living in an institution with alternatives to satisfy their affective and social needs. This made way for its work with provisional substitutive families and its campaigns for social awareness of national adoption. A little later, a new and definitive step was taken: the work for the prevention of child abandonment. With this aim in mind, the following groups were created: the Women's Home (Casa de la Mujer), the Day Care Children's Center (Centro Infantil Diurno), the educational and informative programmes for the community, alphabetization, training and work programmes..., new projects, all of which are redefined day by day with the work which Infante develops at present.
However, from 1992 onwards, there has been special emphasis on prevention, especially, of the abandonment of children, a new programme being set up for this purpose: the Women's Home. Such a programme takes in women that have been mistreated as well as pregnant and socially rejected adolescents. It also cares for their children and tries to offer them the necessary support that may allow them to rebuild their lives, improving their professional skills, their own affective stability and the affective bonds with their children. Within the Women's Home, there is also a Children's Center where the children of the residents are stimulated, cared for and educated; it is also open to those children belonging to families of the area that show important deficiencies.
 
 

J. M. Mendiluce, from reflection to action

Torn between war and peace, between abundance and the most absolute misery, José Maria Mendiluce continues to voice his convictions, convictions which are not at all officialist and which courageously denounce the suffering and the injustice which millions of women, millions of men, millions of children suffer daily. He speaks, above all, about cooperation and co-reponsibility. From 1980 onwards, as member of the UNHCR and responsible of various humanitarian actions, he has experienced the most brutal conflicts. He has won many distinctions and prizes of solidarity. At present, he occupies de vice-presidency of the Commission for External Affairs, Security and Defence of the European Parliament.
These were some of his most relevant declarations throughout the interview: "Adoption is not a solution for millions and millions of children that have lost all their rights, who live in a state of war, who live in the streets, who are starving. The solution is justice, the solution is development."
"Part of the conflicts appear due to a lack of knowledge, because of the fear of that which is different."
"We have to democratize the planet. We have to obtain that cooperation and international relations truly promote democracy in all the countries and, in this aspect, we are all responsible."
"The information by means of images is becoming a substitute of the analysis of the causes. The image shocks and provokes compassion but not always favours reflection. And it is necessary to go from emotion to reflection and from reflection to action."
 
 

The City of Difference
When diversity is, simply, essential

Until now in Barcelona and, in the near future, in Madrid, Marseille and Israel, the exhibition "The City of Difference", organised by the Baruch Spinoza Foundation, has strongly intended to demonstrate, through texts, pictures, audiovisuals, games, testimonies..., that it is precisely the difference, the collaboration among the different people, which makes it possible to go forward, to progress, to survive. All things considered, a beautiful and a didactic discourse in defence of a "unique race, the human race".
At the beginning, a huge Babel Tower invites the visitor to reflect on the need for diversity. Inside, twelve television monitors constantly bombard the public with images of an anodyne man in a city full with people boringly anodyne and homogeneous. After this bombarding of homogeneity, an invitation: "I see the city of difference, a city that speaks about you". And the fact is that the main message of this exhibition is the verification that the different people are not "the others", that "we are all" different, that "the difference is within you". That the difference is precisely our enormous wealth, our possibility to meet, to communicate, to progress.
 
 
 

The adaptation to school
Conference of Jordi Torné, psychoanalyst.

To satisfactorily solve the fundamental conflict of starting school for a child, an attitude of communication and support for the child, of listening and respecting his/her own individuality, is basic. This would be the fundamental thesis of the conference given by Jordi Torné in Barcelona, September last, organized by ADDIA. Together with this subject, other subjects were also treated, such as the convenience or not of insisting on the cultural origins of those adopted children proceeding from other countries, the "true" experience of abandonment, etc.
One of the central subjects of the debate which took place after the conference, was the repercussions that starting school can have for a small child who has been previously abandoned and who has then lived in an institution. In this respect, Jordi Torné pointed out that the first adaptation that a child of these characteristics has to undergo is the adaptation to his new parents. And this need to adapt, not only of the children to the parents, but also of the parents to the child, extends to all such cases, including biological motherhood and fatherhood. And it is an adaptation necessarily previous to any other one.
The phantasm and the fear of being abandoned, present in all children and which is heightened again at the moment when they start attending school, it is more than a threat in the case of adopted children: "This child has really experienced abandonment; for them it is an historical fact, it belongs to their biography, it is not a phantasy such as that of the other children. It really happened". This is the reason why in these cases it is more important than ever, according to Jordi Torné, that we explain to the child that later we will pick him up, providing him with a temporal reference so that he/she may understand who will pick him/her up, what shall we do later on... "This will help him/her to elaborate on that experience which was so painful and see that it will not happen again".
 
 

The ECAI on the way -Nine Autonomous Communities already have Collaborating Organisms of International Adoption (ECAI)-

They do not want to be private adoption agencies; this is the reason why a new name was invented for them. They also do not want to run the risk of finally becoming private agencies. For this reason, the various decrees that regulate their accreditation establish the absence, in any ECAI, of profitable aims; they also establish the control of the Administration in relation to their composition, functioning, taxes to be applied and financial situation. It is nothing more than another link in this administrative will to facilitate international adoption, controlling and watching over the transparency of all the process. Nevertheless, a link in which there are also underlying contradictions, doubts and questions.
Although the ECAI were born late in our country, they did it with a clear and very important advantage in respect to the various organisms and associations for international adoption which had existed for many years in other countries: there is now a clear legislative reference in relation to international adoption (The Hague Agreement) and these new collaborating organisms of international adoption are set up with full auditing on the part of the competent governmental authority and exert their activity under its inspection.
Supported by this "service" that the very same Administration recognize they are developing, some ECAI are starting to openly complain about the fact that the collaborating organisms do not perceive any kind of financial subvention on the part of Public Administration. "We all are undergoing all the difficulties of the private companies", points out Marisol Batalla, juridic advisor of ADDIA-ECAI. "The ECAI will not be able to function correctly if they have to constantly depend on whether there are enough parents coming or not... The control of the Administration is necessary and indispensable, but also its support; otherwise, they are forcing us to function with the criteria of a private agency, making international adoption a privilege for a few, those that can financially afford it".