You misunderstand me - DS's institution was not terrible. It was clean and warm and staffed with caring women who did a great job on him with his significant delays.
What is terrible is committing a child to a life in an institution. It's soul destroying. They have nothing of their own - no family, no clothes, no toys - its all communal and they live in dormitories with cots or beds lined up with 12 inch gaps between the beds all round. They have no-one who they are the most important thing in the world to, no-one who fights their corner or reads them bedtime stories or makes sure they do their homework or protects them from bullies and bullying is rife in the older children's homes. DS's separation anxiety was for many years really horrendous because all he'd learnt for the first year of his life was that everyone leaves. Everyone. Carers do 24 hour shifts in pairs every four days and obviously some of them leave to work elsewhere as people do when its their job and the children are moved to new rooms with new carers based on age every 6-12 months. Its no life and he has taken about 6 years to be able to sleep alone, for years I had to hold his hand to get him to sleep and sleep with him so that when he woke (frequently) he could put his hand out and pat around until he found me.
No-one I know fights harder to improve the lives of children in institutions overseas than parents of children adopted from those countries - some I know recently returned back from a trip to build a playground in the institution DS lived in, and we have also jointly funded improvements in care for those of the children who additional needs mean they are unlikely to ever be adopted. This is in a country where there is currently no intercountry adoptions and the situation is desperate - children continuing to be given into the care of the state and few locals adopting. Don't think the traffickers are getting much out of the situation and yet children continue to be relinquished for adoption. I'm sure for those children living their lives in limbo are thrilled that someone a thousand miles away approves of this because its ethically more acceptable.
In the countries that the UK is able to adopt from the most common reasons for children be relinquished are government policy (China obviously), drug and alcohol addiction and stigma of single motherhood although I accept that financial restraints are occasionally also a factor, ime it isn't the most common one by a long way.
It isn't that I disagree with you that ALL adoptions should be ethical and we should do more to ensure children and birth parents in ALL countries are supported to avoid where possible children being taken into care but I strongly disapprove of the attitude that says children should be left languishing in care whilst we grown-ups sort our collective shit out. Not for my child thank you.
A child does a right to a home. A child has a right to their culture, a right to family.
The over-riding right according to the Hague convention is the right to a family life - above all else. In the following order of preference:
1- with birth family
2- with adoptive family in country of birth
3- with adoptive family anywhere
Life in an institution is not considered to be an acceptable alternative - if you would want that for your children in the event of your death then you really haven't spent enough time in an institution, even the best of them.