In 2011, a young Ugandan woman I’ll call Evelyn learned she was HIV-positive when she was six months pregnant. Her husband’s family blamed her for the diagnosis, and declared they would find him a new wife. Newly alone and vulnerable, Evelyn was at a loss when she learned her newborn son “Joshua” was positive as well. So Evelyn listened closely when a nurse at the hospital said she knew a place where Joshua could receive treatment: a nearby “baby’s home,” or orphanage, that also offered free medical care.
For months after his birth, the nurse urged Evelyn to take Joshua to the home. When Joshua was around a year old, Evelyn finally relented, but called back the next day, saying she missed him. The staff at the home told her it was too late — that Joshua was going to be taken out of the country by a foreign white couple.
Evelyn (who asked not to use her name for safety reasons) was told minimal information about the white family being proposed — just that they were Americans who already had daughters and wanted a son. She was told variously that she’d be allowed to see Joshua every two years, or perhaps every five years, or maybe that she’d be flown to the United States to visit him. The word adoption, she told me, wasn’t used.