Where is the Reproductive Justice in This? An Intersectional Analysis of Ethiopian Transnational Adoption

Dr. Hewan Girma, Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, University of North Carolina, Greensboro 

Zoom Link: https://csun.zoom.us/j/84681623613 

Meeting ID: 846 8162 3613 

Since the early 2000s, African countries have become a significant source of internationally adopted children. Between the 1960s and 2018, an estimated 70,000 children were adopted from Ethiopia alone and raised by mostly white families in the Global North. But this phenomenon, especially from the perspective of originating African countries, has received little academic attention. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with birth families in Ethiopia as well as Ethiopian transnational adoptees in the Global North, Dr. Hewan Girma examines the racial, class, and gender implications of trans-national adoptions both in the countries of origin and the African diaspora. Employing a reproductive justice lens, Dr. Girma argues that trans-national adoptions are a form of forced migration challenging the intrinsically unjust arguments embedded in family preservationist and adoption discourses.