AFRICAN IDEOLOGIES, HUMAN SECURITY AND PEACE BUILDING: THE CASE OF CHILD ADOPTION IN IGBO COMMUNITIES

Abstract

Childlessness is a major source of insecurity and conflict in most Igbocommunities. The problems it creates for the childless are both social and psychological. Igbo society places a high premium on children. Children make for peace and stability n marriages. They serve as assets and assurance for security in old age; and they are generally seen as a blessing not only to the individual parents but also to the society at large. Childlessness on the other hand leads to problems b othering on peace and security of individuals in society in the form of marriage instability, mutual suspicion and distrust among couples, lack of peace in the home and in matters pertaining to inheritance and distribution of critical resources including land and property rights. This paper argues the need to promote the practice of child adoption as an urgent step for attaining the needed security, succor and peace for the childless in our society. There were various coping strategies and customary arrangements evolved by various Igbo communities in the past to mitigate the human security challenges posed by childlessness. These and other strategies worked perfectly well in pre-capitalist Igbo communities but most of them are no more compatible with the changing demands of the modern society. Similarly, the modern child adoption processes and methods have tried to address the aforementioned problems of childlessness but their expected impact has been vitiated by the failure to make them homegrown. Social institutions, notably the kinship-based institutions provide the necessary social context in which child adoption takes place, and through which human security and peace building are mediated and expressed in these communities. There is therefore the need to bring them into the mainstream of discourse and fashion out ways and means of aligning their operations with the modern system of child adoption.