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- Hi, I'm Olga and this is my boyfriend, Michael.

We want to have a child and Michael wants us to try

to adopt, but my fears from the past hold me back

from moving on.

[children laughing]

["Happy Birthday To You"]

- I want to have no kids. - Why?

- Because I'm afraid they're going to turn out like me.

- What don't you like about yourself?

- I'm bad.

- I think so, one day.

[guitar music]

- I would love to have some more small kids.

I still can make them but I don't want

to go there right now.

[guitar music]

- I've known since I was a teenager

that I didn't want to have children.

[guitar music]

- I want to have three or four.

- I want to have uno, one.

- I don't have children.

I plan to hopefully eventually one day have children.

- Eventually someday when I'm ready.

[guitar and drum music]

- Listen, what if they say we don't have the right to adopt?

Would this mean that I'm not good enough to be parent?

- Have the right?

Well, of course this is, you know,

mother nature gave us the right to have babies, right?

- No, some of us don't deserve it

because we don't know how to treat them.

Some people use kids as decoration, not for love.

- A woman's right to have or not have children

or choose how many children she has is, I think,

inextricably wrapped up with her right to her own body.

- Everybody should have a right, make a decision

to have kids or not; everybody should.

It's America.

We all have rights, right?

- I think we definitely do have the right to have kids.

- Well, it appears that even Sir Elton John doesn't.

- In 2010 during one of their visits to Ukraine,

Sir Elton John and David Furnish went to a specialized orphanage

for children with HIV

where they met an abandoned boy named Lev,

born to a drug-addicted mother and a convicted rapist

and murderer for a father.

Elton John and David fell in love with Lev

from the moment they saw him.

They were ready to adopt him

and even his older brother Artemis.

All they wanted was to give a good life to the small person

who needed love and a home.

But the Ukrainian government didn't think it was a good idea

despite everything Elton John

and his foundation has done for Ukraine.

- I will do everything I can to help the Ukraine

with the AIDS epidemic. I will give you my solemn--

- They said Elton John does not match certain criteria

and therefore has no right to become a parent.

- But this is absolute madness.

If they are not good enough to be parents,

are we good enough?

Who is good enough then?

[silence]

[airplane landing]

- We decided to go back to Ukraine to find

out how could Elton and David be rejected and what kind

of future lies in wait for Ukrainian children like Lev?

- Alexii Reznikov is an attorney who was assigned

to the adoption case of Sir Elton John and David Furnish.

[foreign language spoken]

- I feel your pain because I was going

through the whole process with you,

but how did it feel being rejected?

- I mean when we came here and I said that afternoon

that I would love to adopt him, I didn't know what a can

of worms I was going to open.

And it led to us abandoning our hopes for adopting him

because the last person who was being thought about was Lev

and his brother, Artemis.

They were like pawns in a political game,

which involved us two and the governments

and the adoption laws in the Ukraine, and the last people

to be thought of were the children and that was so bad.

So now they are out of the orphanage.

We are very happy about that, but we sat down

two Christmases ago, and said, "We have to give up our plans

"to adopt these children because it's going to take at least two and a half years

"to do this and at the end of those two

"and a half years we have no guarantee

"that we will be able to adopt them."

And so that's another two and a half years that they have to stay in the orphanage.

- You know, every child needs nurturing and when the orphanages are full of children

that aren't being picked up and held and being given attention

and love all the time, they don't develop as well.

It's-- we've spoken with psychologists about it.

A child who had been in an orphanage for more

than three years ends up being almost irreparably

psychologically damaged because they've never had this.

They've never been held in a regular basis and made

to feel that, that bond that you feel with your own child.

And we've seen our little son who's just brilliant and so bright and happy

and we're just showing him all the love we possibly can and he's responding to that.

And you think of how well Zachary responds to love and affection and you think

of all those children who don't get that. It breaks your heart.

- It makes you angry. - [Olga] Yeah, I know.

- It makes you angry, really angry that there are

so many beautiful children that--

and people try and adopt them and every step

of the way is a barrier and it's ridiculous.

It's ludicrous and it's inhuman.

- Don't you think it's a little bit unfair if you want

to adopt a child you have to meet an entire set of criteria?

And if you want to have a biological child,

you just have to have sex?

- You're absolutely right.

People who reach a stage like we did in our lives

where we thought we could adopt

and be good parents, the door was shut

in our face straight away.

And we could have given Lev

and Artemis a great home, no question about it.

And I think it's wrong that children are being stuck away

in orphanages and parents who genuinely want to have a child

that can't have children or would like to adopt

in their own family find the door shut in their face

or every step they're scrutinized beyond belief,

as if the were aliens from another planet.

- Some adoption authorities go in it from a position

of what's wrong with you rather than looking at what's right

with a couple and seeing what their strengths are.

They look for problems. They look for faults.

They look for flaws and the minute they find one,

they strike you off the list.

[walking]

- So what happened to Lev and his brother?

From nowhere, their parents showed up full of so called love

for their children they had abandoned

and full of hate for Elton.

But why? Well, someone gave Lev's mother a load of money.

Then a government social worker forced her

to visit the kids in the orphanage.

She was even put on a number of TV shows,

but she simply couldn't handle it all

and she died nine months later from heavy drug abuse.

As for the father, he went back to prison.

So Lev and his brother are now fostered by their grandmother.

And let's not forget the kids were born

to an HIV positive mother,

so they might require an extremely expensive treatment

for the rest of their lives.

After being rejected, Sir Elton John and David Furnish had

to give up their dream to adopt Lev.

So they had a son, Zachary, from a surrogate mother.

[wind and traffic]

[slow music]

So, what does this government have to provide

for its children instead?

An even better future, hardly.

This is Leonid Petrovich Krysov, a government social worker

who tries to help kids

who can't even dream of the opportunities

that was taken away from Lev and his brother.

[foreign language spoken]

[slow music]

[foreign language spoken]

- How do kids end up like this?

The likelihood of a Ukrainian child like Lev ending

up on the streets is relatively high.

My friend [inaudible] has a British degree

in psychology might be the right person to ask.

- If you want to give us just a few seconds and then we can talk, alright?

- Fantastic. - Sometimes children just opt to leave their houses.

They just run away and stay in the streets where it's cold,

where it's dangerous but they still think

that streets are better places for them.

- It's a natural instinct to survive basically,

because when somebody is--

I mean we are talking about the abuse,

but there is different type of abuse.

A child can be abused physically or psychologically.

And the child wants to protect himself,

to save himself, so they leave.

They go away.

They don't think what expects them out there.

They think out of here, not what's out there.

[scary music]

- This is Sergey and Ivetta.

These teenagers live in an abandoned building

without heating, running water and toilets.

And Ivetta just told us she's pregnant.

[foreign language spoken]

[moving around]

- This is Okya-Kolya.

She has been living on the streets

for three years, a victim

of daily abuse and sexual abduction.

Her only escape has been sniffing glue

and using other drugs to survive on the streets

and avoid being raped.

She has a boy's name and a boy's appearance.

[foreign language spoken]

- Usually these are families that had problems

on their own when they were kids.

They were abused when they were kids.

It really doesn't matter whether you slap a child

with a hand

or whether you slap a child with a word.

So what I'm saying, it's a story that repeats itself.

- [Olga] They do what they learn.

- Yes. It's in their reflex.

- Okay.

- In fact, they cannot stop.

It's something like an itch.

- So why did the Ukrainian government refuse Sir Elton John

and his wife to adopt a Ukrainian child?

[foreign language spoken]

- We're living proof that we can be a very stable couple

and have good values and have friends

of all sorts and sizes,

all different religions, all different colors,

all different sexual preferences and have a wonderful life.

- I think provided you know that someone is loving

and compassionate and competent and in a position to provide

for a child 100 percent; that can be two men,

that can be two women,

that can be an older married couple,

that can be a single parent.

Lots of children come from different families

of different shapes and sizes.

I think the important thing is about love

and commitment and dedication.

- The Ukraine needs to really enter the 21st century

and give gay rights to every gay person.

What is this nonsense that's spouted by politicians

and religious leaders about the hatred towards gay people.

It's really disgraceful.

It's disgusting and it's about time it stopped.

- So, what is the Ukrainian government really fighting for?

Don't these politicians have any other

more important problems to focus on?

Well, population of Ukraine has dramatically decreased

losing almost seven million people in the last eight years.

This is five times more than the number of soldiers

the United States has lost in all wars combined since 1775.

At the moment Ukraine has the third highest death rate

in the world and this is hardly surprising considering the fact

that the vast majority lives on less than a few dollars per day.

After rejecting Sir Elton John, the government decided

to block all healthy kids at the age of five

from leaving the country

and would license only disabled kids

for international adoption.

This government just needs more people,

cheap labor force and customers for businesses, so they hand

out welfare which can be up to five times more

than the person's income for an entire year.

Therefore, it's not surprising

to see some families delivering babies just

to qualify for more cash.

The more you deliver, the more you are paid.

On top of this, they are planning a new law.

If you are over 30 and you don't have kids,

you will have to pay more tax.

It looks like they still care only about numbers,

not people.

But is it that different in the most developed countries

like the United Kingdom or the United States?

[silence]

- What's that?

What's that?

- A taxi.

- A taxi.

- This is David, Pam and Mailo,

an American family who decided

to adopt, and they got there, but it wasn't easy.

- The agencies that we went to

spent a lot of time and energy

and it's a very good old agency,

about 100 years old I think.

And so they had us watch a video about orphanages

and we went to an informational session.

When I saw the orphanages it became a non-question,

that I would have to adopt.

- You sing.

- [Voiceover] It's over.

Can you do that?

- It's over.

- So, we went the Vietnam route,

which was a really arduous paperwork, heavy,

it was incredible.

I could tell the story, right?

No?

- Can we take a break? - No.

- For a second? One second.

- We went, we went in the direction.

- One second, hold on. Let's take a break.

There are a lot of stupid rules and regulations that, okay,

do you know what perfection is?

- Sorry, perfection. - Yeah.

- The idea of perfection is a legal term that,

that you not only have to get something notarized

but you have to go to the county clerk's office

where they then perfect,

they prove that the notary

who notarized your document was, in fact, legitimate.

I went all over New York State,

all over New York State getting stamps by county clerks

saying that the notary was okay.

- Oh, he did it.

- Did you get any kind of education as a future parent? - Yeah, absolutely.

- We did a home study and a home study that included...

...classes and I would say talk therapy, because it was--

- A social worker was involved.

- Yeah, it was a social worker that was involved and--

- I learned a lot though.

In these, in these--

In these informational seminars.

It was certainly worth it.

It's been helpful in the parenting process

to have more information than less.

[outdoor sounds]

- I have Elizabeth, Noah,

Hilary and Chase; so we have four kids.

Probably about six years ago, we decided that we wanted

to have a fifth child, but I was not in a situation at the time

and so we thought about adopting from China.

We went through the process.

The process is very expensive.

I think in the initial six months we spent

over 15 thousand dollars and it probably would have been

out 25 thousand dollars over the process of actually going

to China and picking up the child and everything.

And it took us about three years and we came

out empty-handed in the process.

We finally withdrew our application

because of how long it was and how expensive it was.

[church bells ringing]

- Francesca Polini and her husband,

a middle class British family, couldn't adopt

because of their skin color.

Francesca became so enraged in the system that she set

out up a contra movement to adopt a better way.

- So you were told you couldn't adopt in this country?

- That's right.

- Why?

- Because we were white.

- And you wanted to adopt non-white children?

- Well we wanted to adopt. It was that simple.

- After several years fighting the adoption system she broke

down the barriers and finally adopted her two children.

She even wrote a book about it all.

- In particular in the UK,

where there's lots more children going

into care for whatever reasons, neglect, abuse,

abandonment, famine,

whatever, actually a lot more families going forwards

because we try and have kids too late.

The concept of family is a very diverse one.

There's step parenting, IBF, surrogate mothers whatever.

Family is not as traditional as it used to be.

And so you would think therefore that the route

for adoption would be as uncomplicated as possible

to allow these children to find

the families that they deserve.

And instead, the system is becoming everywhere

in the world more and more complicated.

And that's absolutely insane because we are letting

down worldwide literally millions of children.

There's even the UN committee

for the protection of the child,

which stated that institutional care is the worst possible

option for an abandoned or a neglected child.

So even when abandonment and neglect happen and things

like adoption and long-term fostering have

to be considered a priority over institutional care,

and you know I know of people who have been turned

down because literally there were occasional smokers,

because they were ethnically different

but not the right ethnicity mix, because they were overweight,

because they thought that they loved their cats too much.

Absolutely absurd reasons, and because of the system being

so messy, they can social workers under government

and everybody else can hide behind any reason,

because there's no actual fix structured way

of monitoring how it works. And so people are scared.

If they have left the process forever there's been no doubt

such a traumatic experience that it's emotionally

too painful to go through it again.

And I don't mean to discourage you, but for the majority

of parents, prospective parents coming forward and actually

in the majority of cases, in something like 90 percent

of the cases particularly

with international adoption it doesn't happen.

[children playing]

[gloomy music]

- Alex Bemrose also struggled to adopt simply

because she was white.

- Because of the belief amongst and the guidelines

that local authorities have long kept to they believe

that children should be brought up in a home

of the same ethnicity as themselves.

And they actually said the three biggest problems

you're going to have is you're white,

you're middle class

and you're a heterosexual couple.

So we looked at a number of different countries

and ended up going to Guatemala and approaching them with a view

to adopting a child or sibling from there

and eventually we were able to adopt Jose.

We brought him home at 11 months,

and yes very, very lucky.

We were lucky.

- Was it an expensive process?

- It is a very expensive process.

If you adopt overseas then you have to

cover the costs not only

for the UK process, which you still have to go through,

so you still have to go through all the interviews,

which is called the home study.

And we had nine three hour interviews

with the social worker and then after that you go to panel

where there was I think 16, 14 or 16 panel judges sitting

around a table and they look at the report

that the social worker has drawn up

and ask you various other questions; terrifying process.

And then they will finally sort

of confirm whether you are eligible or not,

whether your past is eligible to adopt a child.

[silence]

[dark music]

- So am I to face this system that works

against parents and against kids?

- He would almost certainly have ended

up as a street child in Guatemala.

And when I look at him now and I think

that could have been his future, to me that's just--

oh, I mean I'd lie down in front of a truck.

- What if we find our child and the system rejects us?

We will have to leave her behind forever?

- I know in my heart I could love no biological child

any more than I love my son.

- [Olga] Maybe I've been looking for excuses,

excuses to run away instead of going for it.

- We pinch ourselves everyday.

This little boy has made our lives so happy.

He's such a beautiful soul,

and we are in heaven. We literally are in heaven.

- [Olga] I know now that I must overcome my fears

and move forward with adoption.

So we tried to talk with a number of adoption agencies,

but the more they heard about a camera they said no.

- Finally, we were lucky enough to find an adoption agency

that wasn't afraid to talk in front of a camera.

At least, that's what we thought.

- Hi Samantha. Nice to--

- We want to adopt a child. - Okay.

- Are there any certain you know income level that we have to have to adopt a child?

- Absolutely not. I think here at this agency we really, because our fees are

on a sliding fee scale, we really don't want the cost

of adoption to inhibit you

from becoming the family that you want to be.

We have moved forward with families

who make 30,000 dollars a year.

- Normally how long does it take from the moment

when you sit down and actually--

- Um huh. - You know talk about all--

- You can bring home a child

at six months and you can also bring home a child

in about a year and a half or so.

- Six months, sounds fake to me, too good to be true.

So we managed to get an unexpected interview with one

of the specialists from the same agency.

Maybe this time she wouldn't have been instructed to paint

such a pretty picture and the truth is--

- At minimum you'll be waiting a year

and at maximum you could be waiting up to five years.

The way that the decision is made by either the agency

or the country is based on the assessment that families go

through during the home study process.

- You know based on your experience how many applications

would we have to fill?

- Um huh, I couldn't possibly number the number of foreign--

we would say to you right

at this very beginning what country are you interested in,

here's the criteria.

If you fit that criteria you go

through the home study assessment.

You're meeting with your social worker,

you're doing all of your paperwork.

Complete all of the domestic paperwork as well

as the paperwork needed for your immigration approval

for the child.

You're meeting with your social worker, you're coming

to trainings, you're doing groups, your medical history,

your legal history, your mental health history, your finances.

You're writing an autobiography, which is then used later

for your home study document.

It also has supporting documentation

that needs to be provided.

It's going to be an enormous stack of paperwork

and then you're putting together what we call your dossier

through several levels of authentication.

Families have to have a psychological evaluation,

you're completing a medical form, a financial form.

So it needs a notary.

It needs a City Clerk stamp.

It needs a State Department stamp.

There's a lot of complexity to working out the medical issues

and do some research and maybe talk to a pediatrician

about do you have the reflective capacity.

Not every family finds all of this possible.

We really want to make sure that these children are in safe,

loving, supportive and nurturing homes.

And the best way that we know how to do that is

to provide families with the training and the education.

- Then later when we watched back the footage,

we were both confused.

What were all the agencies so scared of?

I mean they seemed to be doing well.

It looks like a very successful business to me,

but then there is the question, "How does it work?"

Where do all the kids come from?

So we should be getting on with that enormous stack

of papers she told us about.

But to even get to that stack of paper it appears we need to go

through several other stacks of paper.

- Basically it looks like we have just to print

out everything, fill it.

So we have to print that one, that one,

that one, this as well.

And each form, when you have to fill it you have to pay the filling fees.

So it's 700 here, it's 600 here and it's couple forms here.

Are you ready to do it now?

- Um uh.

[silence]

- When you don't know a lot

about adoption, you never expect

it would cost you a dime, right?

Because we don't sell people in the 21st century.

- Forty two.

- Eight hundred eighty five. - Sixty six.

- What? Do they do charge more for white kids, seriously?

Prices depend on skin color, sex, age,

country of origin, what's that?

A market driven by demand and supply.

Some birth mothers have given away as many as five,

six of their babies already.

The problem is though,

they actually get paid for these children.

On top of that, they often mention a history

of drug abuse during pregnancy.

Now that really is worrying.

Aren't these mothers damaging the health of these children?

And considering all of that, what should we know in order

to give our future child the best chances in life?

- If you don't know the parents

and you don't really know the history I'm not sure

that you would ever really get the truth, so it is a little bit

of a chance and I think you have to be prepared.

If the child is perfectly fine

and everything is fine then that's wonderful,

but there's a chance that the child may not be fine

and there may be something wrong in some kind of subtle way

and so there's a lot of-- there's a lot of information

that you'd like to have that you don't necessarily have

when you adopt.

- For example, if you look at this chart there's no question

that there is intergenerational transmission of addiction.

We have certainly evidence about alcohol.

We have a lot of evidence of about alcohol

and how it can go through generations.

- The point in a way is that for a long time people thought

that people's troubles started after they were born,

but I guess that there's many things

that can affect your chances in life

that happen before you are even born.

- If you were going to draw an iceberg,

the tip of the iceberg is what we call

fetal alcohol syndrome, the most severe.

However, the rest also has affects

so that these children have central nervous system

disorders, they have the facial features

and they have poor growth not only in the fetus,

they're born small, but they continue to stay small.

- Even if you have-- the only piece of information you have

about somebody is birth weight,

on average you can predict you know that that has an affect

on their future education, on their future earnings,

on their future health, on the birth weight

of their own children.

So there's kind of an intergenerational effect.

- If we look at the fetus, here's the embryo

and you can see here that the red areas

are major congenital anomalies.

That is if an insult occurs at that time

that you could possibly have major congenital abnormalities.

- So there's things like not getting good nutrition

when you're pregnant, being very stressed

when you're pregnant,

being exposed to pollution, things like smoking

and drinking, which could be related to stress

and have bad effects on the fetus.

- The babies can have what we call neonatal

abstinence syndrome.

And what this means is that once you cut

the umbilical cord,

you have now cut the drug supply to the baby.

And now the baby is going to withdraw from that drug,

whatever the drug was, particularly in the opiates.

That's where the most vigorous withdrawal occurs.

And so what happens initially is the baby

will have some tremors,

start to shake just a little bit.

[machine]

And then those tremors can get worse and worse.

[machine]

- I'm an attorney, but the title

that I have most often is Attorney for the Child

and I represent children in trial in a variety of cases.

You know I represented a little girl who had--

the mother was very limited.

You know IQ wise she was probably just

above what we would call you know developmentally disabled

and the dad wasn't much better.

He had a real problem because he kept getting arrested

and getting locked up.

And they had three children together, of course,

because they fought all the time

so naturally they would then have to

have more kids together.

She could parent one of those kids

and she did a pretty good job when she had one at home.

When there was more than one she became overwhelmed.

I had a case when I was in the DA's office

with parents who were both deaf.

They were hard of hearing and they were watching TV

and the kids kept running in front of the television set;

the one little boy, particularly.

And the father had just had it.

He had just had it with this kid.

So he picks him up and he goes in the bathroom and turns

on the hot water and he runs the tub full of hot water

and he dunks the kid into the hot water all the way

up to about here.

And this little boy had burns.

His genitals were burned.

His back was burned.

His legs were burned because he held him in the tub.

And this child was taken from the foster home

where he had been for about a year

and was placed with this couple.

Now, I dealt with this from the criminal justice

side of things.

I didn't-- I wasn't part of the family court case

so I didn't do the home study or anything like that.

But what ended up happening was this child was beat to death

and he-- he was a difficult child when he got here.

And by that I mean most kids are difficult at age two.

- Yeah, but-- - They like to say no.

- They like to do whatever. - Right.

- But these parents instead of being parents became engaged

in this battle of wills with this child

and you know he's not going to win that battle of wills

because he's this big and they're adults.

And he ended up in essence being beaten to death.

When he died he had bruises all over his whole body,

I mean all over his whole body.

And he had internal injuries from having been struck

so many times and so hard with various things.

And both of those parents ended up going to prison

not for as long as probably they deserved.

There's a Judge in Monroe County who a number

of years ago did issue an order to a parent she'd had,

I want to say six children who had been taken from her

and had her rights terminated to them.

And she issued an order that this person could not have any more children,

could not have any more children.

[silence]

- Hurt people hurt people.

My mother, I learned, was abused by her mother.

My mother was raised that in society in the 30s and 40s basically it was men,

dog and way below that line was women.

In society at the time we didn't talk about politics, sex,

cancer, health and God forbid if you talked about

what happened to you so many years ago.

So psychologically speaking it's a learned behavior.

After my mom held my arm over a gas stove

for several seconds,

she just burnt the arm, skin and I don't really want to get

into it, but afterwards she threw me down the stairs

where I lived in the basement.

When it began in the very--

you know age three and a half, four,

I believed I was a bad child.

I cried too much or I was always somehow getting in trouble.

I believed I deserved the treatment that I received.

But as things digress, after age eight

and especially before I was rescued,

she wasn't the mom any more.

She was another persona to me, to the point I--

she used to call me David, then the boy, then it.

From age eight to age 12, I mean things got progressively worse,

obviously between my mother and I.

And I just had to develop little systems.

I would hide food in a garbage can

that she would lace with ammonia.

Okay so the first time that didn't work.

So now I take foil and paper towel and wrap it

around the food so that maybe it would splash over

or when I'd get physically beaten I had to learn

to tighten parts of my body.

When you're in the bottom of the basement

again there is nothing,

it's a void, it's less than zero.

And I would hear the kids play and the cards in the spokes

in the bikes running up and down the street and the glee.

When everything is dark, your senses are so amplified.

It's just like someone banging a gong in your heart

and it just resonates and resonates and you just feel

with every breath you take it just drains your life force.

And that's when I basically almost quit, I almost I gave up.

And when my mom would choke me,

several times I remember my eyes were

about to pop out of my socket.

And you can feel yourself feel faint and go limp

and I actually prayed, do it.

Throw me down the stairs, stab me some more

and I remember one time I just glared back at her,

which I was not supposed to have contact.

I just glared right at her.

I hate to say this, I just remember thinking

if you kill me I'm going to heaven and you are

so staying in your own hell.

- [Olga] When you were a child

in an absolutely desperate situation, how did you see

your future?

What did you think about yourself

like 20 years from that point?

- You know--

- [Olga] Did you see any future?

- I thought at the time I was going to live to be 400.

I mean I didn't-- my thought process was different

than other people.

And I thought I'm going to be 400 and living in the basement

and I thought my only hope was--

and this was toward the end before I was rescued.

I thought if I can just live five days

after she dies, then I can walk outside and I can be free.

[piano music]

[silence]

- If you feed a kid, give them a house, get them to school

and make sure that they get their shots,

it doesn't mean you're a good parent in my opinion.

It's harder to adopt a dog in this country

than it is to have a child.

There's no licensing required,

no-one looks into your background.

And to a certain extent I understand that.

I don't necessarily want the United States government

examining every woman and saying, well,

you're fit to have a child

and you're not fit to have a child.

But when we look at the result on the other end of people

who have children you know some

of these people really I wouldn't let them have a

goldfish much less a child if it were up to me,

if it were my decision.

[silence]

- Oh boy, good question.

- That you have certain criteria

and certain requirements, oh I think it should be.

- Definitely not in favor of that, because accidents happen

in the bedroom, we know that.

- I-- I'm really in conflict about it.

- Because people right now they have kids

and they regret why did they do it, not the kid

but they regret the timing.

- Hmm.

- Overpopulation is a huge issue and there are lots

of people having children that they just can't take care of,

but I think that it is really infringing

on our basic human rights and I think instead

of making those laws they should invest that same time and energy

in educating the populace and educating people

about how difficult it is to be a parent.

- One should be at least 18, because high school,

you're going to graduate high school hopefully

so that you can get a job where you can provide for a family.

So, I mean I think that--

offhand I think the only criteria that I have

in my head is that you're at least 18 and that you have a partner

and that you're willing to do it.

- It's a good idea, but I think it could become a bad idea.

- This is actually a very good question.

Which right is more important, the child's right to health

and happiness or your right to parent?

- Well, let us be clear of one thing,

every child from the moment it's conceived

in the mother's womb is life.

- Until a child is born it's not fully a human being.

It still takes the participation of the mother's body

and the experience of giving birth for it

to become a full human being.

- Well human for a child, at five years old.

My mama, you know right your mama is your first teacher.

Your mother is your first teacher.

At five years old we knew right from wrong.

My mama had five kids.

- We were what nine, ten.

- Nine, ten.

- Um huh.

- When they are an adult.

When they're old enough to make their own decisions

and be able to function as an adult.

- Legal and social institutions,

they don't have a lot to say.

[silence]

- The rights of any individual is

in relationship to where you live.

- [Michael] Northwest Alabama.

Amanda Kimbrough was arrested shortly

after her third child died at 19 minutes old.

When Kimbrough was tested positive

for methamphetamine her first two daughters were physically

removed from her custody and she was charged

with chemical endangerment of her child.

Alabama became the national capital of prosecuting parents

on behalf of newborn children.

With this as a precedent, the states of New Jersey,

California, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona,

Texas now also remove kids from abusive birth mothers

who use illegal drugs and methadone during pregnancy.

The question is how far are they prepared to go.

The United Kingdom, 2008,

a couple with seven children were warned

that they could lose custody of their severely obese children

if they failed to manage their weight.

In December 2011 the kids were taken away

and put in foster care.

The parents will never be able to contact them again.

They have already removed 14 of these kids

from different families in the UK alone.

Norway, the government takes children away for eating

with their fingers and sharing a bed with their parents.

It looks like it's already too late.

Apparently we missed the moment when governments decided

that they would control a parent's rights.

Well known for his controversial studies in his book

"The Population Bomb," the godfather of family planning

in the U.S., Professor Paul Ralph Ehrlich, could be the man

with an answer.

- The craziest idea socially and the one that we have

discussed but never supported, was to find some way

to make everybody sterile so that if they wanted

to have a child they would have to take an antidote

so that having a baby would require a positive step.

And people hate that idea, think it's really terrible.

But, of course, if you do that

there'd be no more abortion problems and all of us would

like to see you get rid of abortion.

There'd be no more unwanted children.

If they can't manage their reproductive instinct,

then their children are going to live miserable lives

and civilization is going to eventually collapse.

There's massive evidence

that people can manage their reproductive instincts.

For example, as far back as during imperial Egypt

thousands of years ago women used

crocodile dung suppositories

to control their reproduction.

Now I don't know whether crocodile dung suppositories

were effective.

I suspect they were though; no studies were done.

- Well, why did you decide to have one child?

- Well, one of the reasons was it's the responsible thing to do.

If you care about the environment you can do much more

by limiting your reproduction than you can

by say driving a hybrid car.

In other words, if you want to--

I would like to see a world where we have maybe a billion

or a billion and a half people

and everybody can lead a decent life

and their children can grow--

remember it shouldn't be what number of children you want

to have, it's got to be what kind

of life do you want the kids to have?

What kind of world do you want them to live in?

The idea that I should have nine children

because I want nine children, that's a very selfish thing

to do in the world today.

You're taking resources away both from your first kids

and also from everybody else's kids as well.

- Do you really believe that government one day will come up

with a law that will actually restrict people's rights

to have children?

- Well, government did come up with a law in China

where it restricted rights of people to have children.

Ann and I have hoped that we could always avoid that,

that actually we could change by cultural change,

by gradual change, by incentives and so on.

But you, you know you never can tell what nutty things

government will do.

[airplane]

[driving music]

- [Olga] The one child policy of China officially restricts

urban dwelling couples to having one child only by law.

The policy has prevented 400 million births in China

between 1979 and 2011.

But, according to Bureau Research Center, 76 percent

of the Chinese population actually support the policy.

So the Chinese government decided to allow development

of new breakthrough birth control technology

such as Novicol.

That would empower the women by giving them choice

and it would help to eliminate unexpected pregnancies

and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV.

To understand the one child policy effect, I decided

to ask some ordinary people and to talk with an old friend

of mine, philanthropist, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador

and one of the most famous TV hosts

in China, James Chau.

Was it a good thing for China

or was it a bad thing for China

or you just can't say right now?

- I don't think we really know the full story

and we can only look back maybe in 100 years and look

at the full impact it's had and be able to judge based

on what we really do to fully know.

But, you have to understand whether you like it or not

without getting to the rights and wrongs,

and really not getting to the rights and wrongs of this

because that's a different argument.

China was a very poor country.

It could hardly have the capacity to feed its own

and its population was growing faster and faster and faster.

And it needed a way to put a stop to that

or to slow it down.

Is this the right way?

I don't know, but it succeeded and it achieved.

Economic reforms pulled out hundreds of millions of people

out of poverty, and slowing down the population growth

ensured that people in some ways had a better life,

so it's hard to say.

[foreign language spoken]

It's funny because you have four grandparents, two parents,

one child; all that focus, all that ambition, all that hope,

all that desire, all that love is channeling

from four grandparents to two parents.

- So there's one kid-- - It's all focusing--

- Gets lot of attention a lot of--

- Attention or sometimes pressure or sometimes love

or sometimes all that put together.

It's, it's incredible.

You see the way it's moved.

[martial arts]

I think people want choice.

- I think that's what's beautiful about the world. - Yeah.

- And I think in terms of having children, I think not necessarily

people want to say, I want to have more

than one child, but maybe they want to say, I want

to have the possibility of having more than one child.

[foreign language spoken]

- So you truly really believe

that no one should control the reproductive rights of people?

- I think we have to be careful because once we start saying

that you don't have the right to do this,

it opens the door to say

that they don't have the right to do a lot

of other things as well.

[fast music]

[silence]

[typing on keyboard]

[shuffling papers]

[silence]

- That's enough.

Plan B.

- If you decided to adopt one of those children--

- [Michael] Dawa owns a community school in Nepal.

He suggested we consider adopting a child from there.

- Teachers are living there.

They eat there, they live there and they study there.

So it's a totally boarding school, yeah.

Okay, so here's a postcard from my school.

So you can take a look and these are the children

from the school.

I want you to go there in person

and if you like to adopt then

that will be the first option and--

- How long would it take in the whole process here?

- It could take couple of months.

- A couple of months?

- A couple of months.

[rhythmic music]

[outdoor sounds]

- [Olga] After a nine hour drive and another nine hours

trekking through the Himalayas, we finally

[bells ringing]

[foreign language spoken]

- I'm Olga.

[children singing]

- They stay here.

They sleep here.

They eat here and they--

- Everything.

- What classes do they have?

- We have English one and English two--

- We spoke to the principal who told us a bit about life

in the community school and encouraged us to have a look

around and attend some classes.

I've been to many orphanages in my life

but this little hideaway for kids broke my heart.

There are no toys, no heating system.

They don't even have a proper roof.

- A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

- [group singing] A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

- H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O.

- [group singing] H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O.

- P-Q-R-S-T-U-V.

- [group singing] P-Q-R-S-T-U-V.

- W-X-Y-Z.

- [group singing] W-X-Y-Z.

[children singing]

[children playing]

- [Michael] These kids came to live at the school

because their parents have either abandoned them

or been unable to care for them.

This young girl burned her leg in a fire.

She couldn't work any more, so her parents threw her

out into the street like a piece of trash.

She had to cross the Himalayas to get here.

This journey cost her her foot.

- And you are here by yourself.

- Yes. - When did you see your mother last time?

- I don't know about my mother.

- You never met her? - No.

- And your father, when did you see him last time?

- I don't know.

[children talking]

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

- Hi, I'm Mike.

- Despite such living conditions, they remain positive

and full of hope.

I wish I could give them a better life.

But will this ever be possible?

What is your name?

- If for example somebody would like to adopt one

of your kids, would you allow to do that?

[foreign language spoken]

- You would love to do that.

- You would allow that?

- Yes, he would allow that.

- Yes, she would allow.

- She would allow.

- How can this be?

Could you give away your child just like that

to somebody you never met before?

I have never seen such detachment

between parents and their children.

[children singing]

[bell ringing]

[helicopter]

- [Olga] When it was time to go, a few of the kids

ran over give us some letters they had written.

When we were reading them on our way back

across the mountains, I felt bad about leaving them.

I felt guilty.

We couldn't help but think about their hopes and dreams

and their chances in life.

If we really intend to bring one of these children

into our family we should learn more about their country,

their culture, where have they come from.

So we decided to explore Nepal in more depth.

[outdoor sounds]

[foreign language spoken]

Nepal has extremely rich natural resources,

but it's still one of the poorest

and most underdeveloped countries in the world.

Half the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

There are few places on the planet where you'll see

so many children either roaming and begging on the streets

or slaving in the fields.

Every second child under five years old is malnourished

and over a third are underweight.

There are more than a million orphans

and abandoned children in Nepal.

81 percent of women give birth

in the home, and according to UNICEF,

one in 20 children will die before the age of five.

Those who will survive will serve to provide

for their parents and newborn siblings.

Is this her only baby?

- [foreign language spoken]

- She have four children.

- [foreign language spoken]

- Two sons, two daughters.

- And who is taking care of three children while she's here?

[foreign language spoken]

[silence]

[outdoor sounds]

- [Olga] What is the average size of a family here?

- Four, five, six.

- [Olga] Four, five, six children.

- Do children go to school? - No.

- [Olga] No, they don't go to school.

- They are poor so how will they go to school?

- [Olga] School is, you need to pay money for school, right?

- Yeah, you need to pay money, yeah.

- [Olga] Okay, so they just don't go to school at all.

- It's something like if they go to school

who will make those stones?

- [Olga] What is her biggest dream about the children?

[foreign language spoken]

Can she read and write?

[foreign language spoken]

- She said [speech drowned out by children's laughter].

One other point is that they don't have time.

Second thing is like they're poor.

Third thing they need to fill their belly.

- [Olga] Yeah. - Fourth thing is all the family business,

kind of family business they need

to help their father and mother.

- [Olga] Many children escape their duties at home

and walk for days

to the capital city of Kathmandu.

Here they are exploited and forced to beg.

Their dreams crumble

and they turn to religion for salvation.

In Hindu temples coins are placed on the eyes

of the dead before they are burned.

Then the remains are dumped in the river.

Abandoned by their parents, starving children struggle

to survive by searching for these coins

in this polluted water.

So the community school, which at first glance seemed

like a kid's prison, now appears to be more of a paradise

where they at least have access to food and basic education.

I remembered how a friend of mine once said

that we all have different dreams, yet most of them

will never come true, like flying to the moon.

Having a child was his unreachable dream.

He spent 10 years in prison and was HIV positive.

But then a miracle happened and he adopted a child.

Now when he looks at other parents

with other kids he thinks they don't realize how lucky

they are.

And when I look around, I also wonder how can

so many people take their children for granted like this.

[driving music]

- That's where I live right in that

apartment right there, 1C.

It was-- it was full of people

out here just hanging out you know.

There's always activity outside.

There's always something can jump off like violence,

someone's going to you know get into a fight.

At times you even had people throwing stuff off the roof,

you know, cans or Molotov cocktails.

I remember just having friends from school that didn't know

where I lived and they would drop me off here.

And they would say, "Oh my gosh, you live there?"

And I was like why?

It's nothing wrong, you know, everyone knows me.

But the thing was there wasn't a lot

of positive male role models around.

You know, there was guys they was talking about

how they're going to make money selling weed

or they trying to commit a burglary

or robberies you know.

It wasn't too much about like, "How do I get into college?"

- [Michael] Chris did go to college and went

on to join the police force.

He has even become Police Officer of the Year,

but arresting didn't feel right.

He wanted to prevent people from committing crimes

so he became a youth officer.

- And this one here I'm most proud of because never

in a 100 years would I believe that I would get an award

when I was a youngster to get an award

with working with the youth.

I'm very happy to-- I'm very honored and humbled to get

that award, because I believe that's

where, you know, I was created to work with kids.

My dream growing up was, you know, is

what I saw, what I

want to have a kid out here.

I want to have an apartment.

The government-- I don't really have to work.

The government is going to pay for my apartment.

If I want food, they have food stamps.

So it-- I wasn't really around you know--

it was what I, I was a product of the environment.

It was what I saw and that's basically

what I wanted for my life.

I would say 90 percent of the ones that got in trouble,

they had no father figure around.

A lot of my friends here-- unfortunately some

of them have been arrested.

Almost all of those guys never, never made it out here

or they passed away,

or they got caught up in drugs.

They took some drugs and it took a physical effect on them.

The awards look great,

but behind those awards was a lot of, a lot of anger.

Like I said, everything was dealt with with violence.

So I felt like, what in order for me to clean

up the streets, I have to arrest everybody.

- I've been to prison before.

You know, I've been to prison

and I made wrong choices too,

but I wouldn't, I wanted--

you know I explained that to him to let him know.

And the choices that I made I had to

suffer the consequences.

And I guess as him growing up I was never away from him.

And I guess when I went to prison

for two years probably put an impact on him.

- [Olga] So you're from a family of how many kids?

- A family of seven.

- Seven.

- Four brothers and two sisters and I'm

like the middle child, yeah.

- Did they finish school?

- No see, that's what I'm saying.

When we was-- we all chose the wrong path.

And then when I had Kiyon I'm looking at him.

I want him to break the cycle to not repeat,

to be successful with his self because he look

at his uncles and cousins.

None of them finished school.

None of them have a high school diploma.

They don't have good jobs.

- [Olga] How many of you get in problems with the police?

How many of you get in prison?

- Out of my sisters and brothers?

- Yeah.

- All of us.

Excuse me, all of us, yeah. [laughs]

You know it's not funny but all of us you know.

Because like I said, we made bad decisions.

You know I don't have no regrets.

You know 'cause I'm trying to do the best I can you know.

I am a good mother.

- You are, yeah.

- I try to do the best I can.

- [Olga] If there is one thing that you can fix

in your life, what would it be?

- To be employed.

If I can just be employed and show my son

and daughter that it's better.

- But how can you get it?

How can you get it, I mean why didn't you get it?

- Because like I told you I was a single mother.

You know running around with the wrong crowd too.

I, excuse me.

- It's okay.

When people cry, it's a good sign.

It means that we are still human.

- Just ran around with the wrong crowd

and made the wrong decisions.

- The thing that I learned most from reporting

on three low income families

over seven years, was the importance

of having responsible men in their lives.

Pretty much without exception part of what's--

this isn't just me talking, but part of what impressed me

so much was that they could articulate it, both the women

and their children talked of wishing--

the women wished they had a father in their own lives

when they were kids and they wished they had a responsible

partner in their lives now.

And the kids talked about missing their father.

One of the fathers of the family I was following was

in prison for life.

- Studies show that crime is linked to children born outside

of marriage, that you have much higher crime rates

from children born where the father is absent,

there's nobody to discipline them.

So really the more entrepreneurial ones are then

the ones who might do very well if they're raised

in a middle class culture,

devote their entrepreneurial instincts to crime,

because you know that is the business they can see

in their neighborhood.

They don't expect to work

because they get the subsistence paid for by the government.

So you see how this begins

to affect all the cultural attitudes that you see,

all the cultural practices that you see.

- There's a big educational divide,

so people with four year college degrees are marrying

and staying married as much or more

than they were 20 years ago.

People without four year college degrees

are having increasingly

having children outside of marriage.

A big gap has grown up between the educational haves

and the educational have-nots.

[driving]

- I got evicted, lost my housing so I had nowhere else to go

so I wound up here and it's where I've been.

- [Michael] Do you have kids?

- I have five boys. - [Michael] Five boys.

- Yeah, and sometimes I need to go see them but I don't have

like transportation to get there to go see them

and it's hard you know.

- [Michael] Your early pregnancy, did

- Yeah.

- [Michael] How?

- Because it stopped me from going to school.

A lot of, a lot of women the first child especially

if you school or you got a career going on,

that sets you back,

because you got to put the baby first.

You know you go to take care of that child.

You know some things, you have a child some things that you used

to do you can't do it no more.

You got to put it aside you know,

to take care of that child.

[silence]

- Well, when you live an entire culture of poverty

where nobody really is working consistently,

nobody is really getting married,

the children are all born outside of marriage,

everybody thinks that's a normal thing to do.

And so you're creating culturally reinforcing attitudes

that reinforce the incentives.

- The share of children being born

to single mothers is now higher than it's ever been.

So in that sense the [inaudible] was a huge disappointment.

- And what is percentage if you know?

- Nationwide-- - Yeah.

- About 42 percent of children are born to single mothers now.

- It's income-based so you need a low income.

If you have more children then you qualify for more benefits

and so as a result you get low income and more children,

because that's what you're paying for.

- Angel Adams says her children are a gift from God,

but now she needs help caring for them.

Adams has 15 children, 12 who are now living with her

in this small motel room.

- Somebody needs to pay for all my children and mine

and Gary all our suffering, all our pain, somebody needs

to be held accountable and they need to pay.

- We know from substantial research in the United States

that even a year in poverty can have long-term consequences

for a child's development.

- [Michael] In just one year? - Yes.

- It's going to create a whole cycle of poverty and violence

because if you have let's say 8, 10 kids

and you can't afford

to give them the proper shoes, the proper clothes,

the equipment that they need

for school or sports,

if the kid doesn't have good values, they're going to get

that money from robbing somebody,

from selling drugs or stealing it.

And now that kid is going to get introduced

to the criminal justice system and it's going to be a cycle.

Well, Brandon, he wants to change.

You know, you can talk to kids, but they will listen to you

and they don't want to really do he work.

He wants to do the work and I see that he has this desire

to get out, and why not help him?

He's part of the community.

- If you're not getting love from your household,

obviously you're going to get up and go outside and try

to find it from your friends, you know.

And if your friends is bad influence and they're

into doing stuff like that, you're going to jump

on the wagon and want to do bad stuff too, you know.

- Yeah.

- My dream is to be alive by 25.

- Who's your role model?

Who is the person you look up at?

- Honestly, I don't have one at all, at all.

I couldn't even say my father.

My father was never there for me.

So I can't-- I don't have one, I don't.

And my big brother has been in jail

for all his teenage life.

So, myself bitch.

You got to look in the mirror

and I see my role model in my own reflection.

- Do you want to have your own family?

- Yeah, of course. I should be having a baby pretty soon, on the way.

- You're going to have a baby pretty soon?

- Yeah.

- Cool. How old are you?

- Sixteen.

- Congrats.

- It's going to be hard,

but I'm not going to quit on my child.

That's my child like--

- How do you see yourself when you make it to 25?

And I'm pretty sure you will.

- I'm going to have like five jobs.

- Five jobs?

- Yeah.

- I'm going to have a nice little,

a nice little studio crib.

You know I like to rap sometimes too.

So, y'all have never seen me rapping.

Honestly, I don't like rapping in front of people,

like I will have like three cars, wild girls you know.

I'll have like five stripper poles in my house.

You know calls some strippers over [inaudible].

And you know I'll just live the lavish lifestyle.

I don't, I'm tired of being at the bottom.

I mean--

- [Olga] So this is your dream when you are making to 25?

- Yeah, I want to make lots of money, you could say that.

- [Olga] Now what I didn't see

when you are 25 is your nine-year-old baby, yeah.

- Oh yeah.

- Where is your--

- Oh yeah, I forgot.

- Sorry about it, oh.

So was it a planned baby or it just happened?

- It just happened.

It's life.

[electronic music]

[machines]

[electronic music]

- Hi. - Oh, finally, finally we met, very good.

- How are you? - Good. Come on in.

- Thank you very much. - Advocates for Youth was established in 1980 and the work

that we do is to champion policies and programs

that help young people make informed

and responsible decisions about sex.

- When we are talking about a teenage pregnancy,

how big is the problem? What are the numbers?

Is it a problem at all for the United States?

- Well, the United States has a pretty large problem

in teenage pregnancy.

If you look at the numbers, we have 10,000 young people

everyday that get a sexually transmitted disease,

2500 get pregnant and another 25 get HIV.

So, this is a big number.

The rates of teenage pregnancy and birth have gone down,

but it's still the highest of any industrialized country.

The teen pregnancy rate is about five times

that of Germany or France.

The teen birth rate is about eight times

that of the Netherlands.

The teen gonorrhea rate is about 400 times

that of the Netherlands.

We sell everything from, you know,

hamburgers to cars with sex.

And I think the most important thing is

that young people need

to learn to think critically for themselves

and really challenge some of what they're seeing

so that they can address issues

as they see them on the media

and think through why is,

why is it that we don't have condom ads?

What is the society telling us

and how is it affecting the way I behave?

On the one hand, we see sex

and everything is so sexualized,

and then on the other hand you're telling me just say no.

It becomes a very difficult sort of thing to navigate.

So often a young person

who finds themselves pregnant might hide that pregnancy

for a very long time before she's willing to share it

with a parent or another person.

We know that about 40 percent of young people

who find themselves pregnant do choose abortion

and the rest by and large keep the child.

There's very, a very, very small percentage

that give their babies up for adoption.

- [Michael] This is Brianna.

Having got pregnant at 17 years old,

she became one of the few

who was able to put her child up for adoption.

- Just make sure. - I know this one was my favorite one.

I was pretty sure that I didn't want to have an abortion,

that I wanted to place him for adoption.

But my mom was not so sure as I was, so she wanted me

to come back to New York and go to a doctor

and you know hear about it

and try and keep an open mind

and consider having an abortion.

So I did go to the doctor and that's kind of

when it was final for me,

because I was almost three months when I found out.

So just you know, I went to the doctor

and he told me what the procedure is to have an abortion

and I saw the sonogram and I saw his little heart beating

and you know that was it. So that kind of--

I grew up without a lot of stability in my life,

sort of moving around forever, so I wanted him

to be with people who just were very solid.

When I found his parents through Spence,

Sarah and Carlos are their names, I just loved

that they were so open to him being whoever he is.

- [Olga] Did you feel like at certain stages of your pregnancy

that you wanted to change your mind and keep the child?

- I mean there definitely were moments when I was like oh,

it would be so great you know and sort of

my guilty pleasure was like when I was out in public

and like talking to people.

I wouldn't tell them that he was going to be adopted.

Like I got to sort of savor that and be like yeah,

I'm so excited he's going to be born.

But it was just so clear from the very beginning

that it just wasn't an option.

And I just, whenever that happened I just had to sort

of be able to recognize in myself that that was

like the selfish part of me being like, no, I want to keep him,

and that it really just wasn't what was best for him.

His Irish eyes, like mine and his eyelashes.

The joy so overwhelms how painful it was.

And as far as how painful I thought it was going to be,

I think I prepared myself as best as someone can be prepared

for that kind of thing.

And I love his adoptive parents so much

that I just was really at peace with the decision.

So, it was painful but also happy

because my pain was for me, not for him.

I knew that he was in such good hands

and what can you want

besides a healthy, happy baby.

I was no longer with his father,

so definitely that is part of it.

I wanted him to have a dad and I think

that raising a child, the number one thing

really is just having a support,

because no one person you know--

they say it takes a village and it's sort

of cliché, but it's true.

I really just was alone.

I don't know, he just looks so delicate

and gentle in this picture.

He's so like white and puffy and soft.

I feel like there is a certain attitude that people take

and everyone wants to be positive and everything

and say like oh, you know--

and definitely single mothers are, I'm very impressed

with them now like having gone through, but--

[silence]

I just don't think that love really solves everything.

I feel like people think, "Oh, if you love your child

"then everything will work out and be okay."

But that's not true, because if there were

then there wouldn't be starving children all over the world,

or, you know, love just doesn't feed children

or buy diapers or any of that.

So just being in a place in your life

that you can provide stability

and I couldn't even provide it for myself.

[outdoor sounds]

[traffic]

- [Olga] When I think of Brianna,

I wonder if I would be able to make such a sacrifice.

[rhythmic music]

We drove to Georgia to see our friends, Jill and Lee.

They have three kids, two boys [inaudible]

and a girl Kiya.

To us, they are the ultimate parents to learn from.

- What happened? That's funny.

Turn the lights back on.

I think parenting is probably one of the hardest jobs.

You want to have a child. It's a full-time job.

Everything that we do, we do it for our children.

Maybe just a little bit harder.

Shake, shake.

- You know we're both teachers, so we're dealing with a lot

of experience dealing with kids,

teaching and coaching,

kids from a young age all the way up.

We've had a lot of experience with kids

and I think we had good role models around us.

- And before we had kids we did talk about what kind

of child we wanted to raise

and how are we going to go about it?

How do we want to discipline?

Do we want to spank?

Do we want to use time-out?

And these are things that we wanted to agree on

before we did have a family,

because that's very important.

So as new parents you're expecting

to have a healthy child and you really don't expect

to have a child with cerebral palsy,

with Down Syndrome, autism now is so prevalent.

You don't think that I'm going to have an autistic child.

Close, good.

Good girl, you need to swallow.

We found out pretty early that she had had brain damage

so we knew that there were going to be some issues.

So we were so excited, you know, to have our first girl

and we really didn't know what was going to lie ahead.

As Kiya got older you start

to realize, okay, now she's nine months,

a year, and she's not sitting up.

She's not crawling, and then the challenges, reality starts

to set in, the daily challenges start to set in.

A year and a half to build up her calf muscles.

She has no, like atrophy in there so she has no muscles.

- How long did it take you to accept the fact

that you have a different baby or it just--?

- I don't know, I still haven't.

I think there's days where I just go-- I think it's a dream

and it'll wake up

and everything will be like normal so to speak.

And then I remember that no, this is my normal

for however long it's going to be.

So there's days where I think I wish it was different

but then I think of all the happiness she's brought

to our life and how she's made us realize what love,

true love is all about and sacrifice and determination

and caring about others.

And I've seen the way other people have reacted

to her to help her.

It makes you feel good inside.

- She's a lot of work, you know, driving back

and forth to therapies.

She still sleeps with us at night.

A lot of times she'll wake up very scared

and she doesn't understand where she is

or she'll wake up and she has to go to the bathroom.

So we'll take her to the bathroom and she needs that,

the comfort of having us.

[playing xylophone]

The love that we feel for her, and like Lee said,

the love that she spreads around is so deep.

You can see the love in her eyes even though she's not talking

right now, when she looks at you she just looks right

into your eyes and you feel the love.

Having children no matter what their disability,

no matter what their level of function,

it's the greatest joy a parent can have

when they look back at you and they smile.

You realize that it's a part of you and for people

who are adopting, we have friends that have adopted,

they feel that same love because they've wanted

to have their own child so bad

and they realize that they couldn't.

And when they get that child

in their arms, they know that's their child.

I would say out of any thing I want my children

to love everyone regardless of race,

regardless of disability,

regardless of homosexuality or hetero--

I want them to love everyone and that's something

that you have to teach them.

You have to teach them.

You know they say you can teach hate

and you can teach love

and it starts right now.

And I think you guys have that love.

I see that love and you'll be awesome parents,

- very, very good parents. - We hope so.

- As long as you still have that kid in you and you have

that mother instinct, you'll be great. I mean--

- [Voiceover] You could be waiting.

- [Voiceover] Every step of the way is a barrier, a barrier.

- I don't know exactly why Nepal particularly closed down

but I can tell you that a variety

of reasons shut adoption including kind of practices

that are not ethical.

There's too much bribery, too much,

you know, too many kind of

untransparent exchanges of money.

Sometimes the bureaucracy takes over

and then you have children

who are lost in the bureaucracy

and so they end up staying

in their orphanages longer than they should

and sometimes so long

that they're then not really adoptable.

Programs have opened and closed.

Sometimes programs close because people,

the country gets a reputation

of not having a strong enough domestic program.

And then there are countries in the world that are not open

to international adoption and there would be nothing

that we could do because it wouldn't be about us.

I believe there are also countries in the world

where our government and their government aren't

having the best relations and I'm sure

that plays a factor in it as well, yeah.

[silence]

- [Michael] Surprisingly for us, the agency appeared to be

in the same boat and, therefore, our ally.

So they gave us another clue.

International adoption has been changed forever

since the Hague Convention was implemented in 1995.

The initial idea was to protect children's rights

and to eliminate child trafficking.

So they came up with a series of specific demands

from legislation for different countries.

Four countries failed to adjust to these requirements

and were banned from the international adoption arena

as they simply didn't have enough administrative resources.

UNICEF have their own vision of the convention.

They insist the children must be raised inside their country

of origin, so they can enjoy their cultural heritage.

The process of international adoption has become

impossibly complicated, expensive and entangled.

Even those few children who do find a family end up

spending years trapped in institutions.

As long the priority is in saving culture over the freedom

of individuals, millions of children will be locked up

and we will find ourselves in a world

where international adoption has been prohibited

and shut down forever.

[papers being slapped]

[guitar music]

- [Olga] Is there any hope?

Have we come to the end of the road?

No, we haven't.

This is only the beginning of our journey.

And we have been left with more questions than answers.

But we are not going to give up,

because we know that there is

at least one adoption agency that works for children,

not for governments or adults.

- Our mission is not about finding children for families,

but of finding families for children.

- [Olga] And because we can learn

from the best parents what it truly means

to put your child first.

My child will enter this world because we as a couple will

be ready to provide our child with a healthy and happy life.

After our interview, Kim decided to go back to school

to find a job and become the role model her children need.

- I know for sure this time I'll pass it

and I just have faith, that's it.

- [Olga] Kim hasn't given up, so neither should we.

- A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

- [group singing] A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

- [Olga] What if to graduate from school, we all had

to pass an exam on parenthood.

- I learned a lot though in these, in these--

- I did too.

- In these informational seminars.

It was certainly worth it.

- [Olga] An exam that all adoptive parents have

to go through anyway.

- So I am thrilled to see everybody here today.

I know that we all have some self--

- [Olga] Maybe then everyone could learn

what it really means to be ready for kids.

- Also it helps the child understand why

they're different.

- And that it's okay. If you talk about--

- [Olga] Before taking on the responsibility

of creating a new life.

- But it's a big step.

You have to think about the financial implications,

whether you're young, too young or too immature.

You have to think about the child, not yourself.

What is going to happen

to this child once we bring him into the world?

- [Olga] And if we would all do this,

no child would be thrown onto the streets.

- Different stories, why do people have kids?

- [Olga] And no parent's anger would cause so much hurt.

All kids would have role models

and we could break the cycle.

- With those things it's the social emotional piece that's a

real challenge now.

- [Olga] Education has to be the first step to change it all.

- Family is more than blood.

- [Olga] And I know where I must start.

- You have created a family.

- [Olga] I'm must start with myself.

- These people are non-related by blood and biology.

- [Olga] Even after everything we've been

through we still have much to discover.

And if you are ready to have two kids

in a world with millions of orphans,

why not adopt one?

- Letting down worldwide millions of children.

- [Olga] Until the fear of our differences

has finally been overcome,

there will always be children who can't find a loving home.

- They're damaged because they've never had this.

They've never been held on a regular basis and made to feel

- that bond that you feel. - I don't know about you--

- [Olga] But until we start having kids only

when we are ready, there will always be victims.

These victims are the dreams of millions of children.

- I want to be doctor.

- [Olga] Dreams that will never come true.

- Teacher.

- Pilot.

- I want to be a teacher.

- I want to be artist.

- I want to be dancer.

- Doctor.

- Singer.

♪ I believe in love.

♪ It's all we got. ♪

- Doctor.

- Nurse.

- I want to do--

♪ War makes money, cancer sleeps

♪ Curled up in my father and that means something to me

♪ Churches and dictators, politics and papers

♪ Everything crumbles sooner or later

♪ But love, I believe in love

♪ I believe in love, it's all we got

♪ Love has no boundaries

♪ No borders to cross

♪ Love is simple, hate breeds

♪ Those who think difference is the child of disease

♪ Father and son make love and guns

♪ Families together kill someone

♪ Without love ♪

[piano music]