Irregularities in transnational adoptions and child appropriations: Challenges for reparation practices

Transnational adoption is a global movement of children across borders to new permanent and irreversible legal relationships. It is a circulation that involves social, economic, cultural and political relations marked by geographies of inequalities of power on a global scale. Many of these circulations have been shrouded by illicit practices which mean the violation of child rights. This special issue of the journal Childhood examines individual, social and political narratives on illicit processes surrounding this practice. Drawing from social and political sciences research, the contributors of this collection show the contradiction between ‘silences’ around certain practices in some societies, while in others ‘truth recovery’ has been central to the transition towards democracy. The authors raise concerns about policies and practices that complicate the interests and rights of individual actors.