Adoptions internationales 1990-2012Â : l'enfant, ses origines et la perception de son vécu d'adopté

If abandon means etymologically “leaving at the mercy of” (in reference to the babies left in towers, at the mercy of wild animals), it is especially today to break the links of filiation for the child stability, and get him a feeling of continuity to be and of internal security. These links allow him to be situated in a history in a genealogical network. That represents for him a transgenerational anchoring between past and the future, as well as a feeling of membership in a family body. The filiation refers to the act of reproduction, to the legal framework and to the psychic act which builds itself in time and allows to be considered “son or girl of”. What about these links of filiation when the child was adopted, when his history began, far from his host country, with abandonment, often in a high-risk context? What links does he keep with his past and his country of origin? The question is: what does it mean to have been adopted? The NGO Médecins du Monde (MdM) conducted 3 successive and similar surveys on the future of the adopted children. They concerned 3 periods very different from the international adoption: 1990-2000 dominated by children native of Romania and Brazil, 2001-2005 dominated by children native of China and 2006-2012 marked by the progressive drying up of the international adoption and its evolution towards children's adoption at specific needs. If more than half children, from 8 and half years, ask themselves questions on their origins, it does not invade their psychic life. It is more for a travel in the country and its culture than the desire of finding their parents. The consequences of this travel are rather positive. These results incited us to prepare better the parents, sometimes surprised, even worried, by questionings of the child on his past. The evolution of the adoption towards children is more and more distant from the initial project of the parents. We propose to prevent difficulties with the child and the parents, with a specific preparation and support of the families and of the children, a professionalization of the NGO, and a work in partnership with the “COCA”, before the adoption and after this one.