Drive to speed up adoptions means children 'may be removed from parents too quickly'

Britain’s most senior family judge has issued a pointed warning that Michael Gove’s drive to speed up adoptions should not be allowed to break up families unnecessarily.

A drive to speed up adoptions means children 'may be removed from parents too quickly' Photo: ALAMY

By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor11:58AM BST 17 Sep 2013

Sir James Munby, the President of the High Court Family Division, said judges are becoming increasingly alarmed at the number of social services departments attempting to have children adopted apparently without even considering less “drastic” measures.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Program

Quick Facts:

Formerly known as the Belgian Congo or Zaire, the Democratic Repulic of Congo (DRC) is located near the Equator. Seventy plus million people inhabit this large county in which Western Europe could fit. It shares borders with Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda , South Sudan, Central African Republic, and the Repbulic of Congo. Rich in resources and with the Congo River running through it, DRC has the potential to become a thriving country able to provide for its citizens. That is not its present reality for millions and civil unrest on the borders, lack of infrastructure and social services, diseases, maternal childbirth deaths, and poverty result in many children becoming orphans.

This is a new program for Journeys of the Heart (JOH). JOH has identified an orphanage in Kinshasa, the capital city, which is well managed, well staffed, and which has taken in several dozen children whose parents are unknown. The orphanage was organized and is managed by an ethical and competent director who was educated and obtained a law degree in Western Europe and who has returned to DRC to help orphans.

The children in this orphanage typically range in age from 0 to 5 years old. The staffing includes a pre-school teacher, a nurse who visits every morning to check on the children’s health, an on-call doctor, and others who assess the children’s development. Occasionally there will be siblings available and on a case by case basis, JOH may consider placing unrelated children at the same time with a family.

International adoptions in decline as number of orphans grows

By Kevin Voigt and Sophie Brown, CNN

updated 2:29 AM EDT, Mon September 16, 2013

The chart above shows the total annual decline of overseas adoptions globally; the graphic to the right details the changes in sending and receiving countries. Sources: The Hague Adoption Convention and Peter Selman, Newcastle University.

After rising for decades, overseas adoptions have dropped by nearly half since 2004

International adoption: Saving orphans or child trafficking?

By Kevin Voigt, CNN

Mon September 16, 2013

Advocates say the current international adoption system is holding orphans hostage in red tape

Critics say the hunger for adopting children from developing nations feeds nefarious practices

Rising overseas adoptions -- for black American children

By Sophie Brown, for CNN

updated 1:08 AM EDT, Mon September 16, 2013

Elisa van Meurs with her adoptive parents Bart and Heleene van Meurs on vacation in Switzerland.

Elisa van Meurs with her adoptive parents Bart and Heleene van Meurs on vacation in Switzerland.

International adoption: I was stolen from my family

By Tarikuwa Lemma, Special to CNN

updated 1:09 AM EDT, Mon September 16, 2013

Tarikuwa Lemma was taken from her family in Ethiopia on a promised

Tarikuwa Lemma was taken from her family in Ethiopia on a promised "study trip" to the United States.

The dark history of adoption

New book tells the story of the 1950s and 1960s illegal adoptions from abroad and, not least, the one-man army, Tytte Botfeldt, who on his own raised African children to Danish couples and helped to establish the adoption organizations we know today

Potential adopters must have "good mental health, a healthy harmonious personality, a good marriage, a nuanced environment," wrote county social director and later chairman of the Youth Commission Lars Lundgaard in 1982 on the adoption of foreign children and continued:

“It is not just super people who fulfill these conditions. But there must be surplus and harmony. It is also there in the ordinary Danish family. "

About 15 years ago, the market for illegal adoptions was tried to be brought under control by issuing permits to the persons and organizations that had for years provided Afrotish children to Danish couples in direct contravention of the legislation.

Potential adopters must have "good mental health, a healthy harmonious personality, a good marriage, a nuanced environment", wrote county social director and later chairman of the youth commission Lars Lundgaard in 1982 about the adoption of foreign children and continued:

“It’s not just superhumans who meet these conditions. But there must be profit and harmony. It is also there in the ordinary Danish family. "

Approximately 15 years before, the market for illegal adoptions had been brought under control by issuing permits to the persons and organizations that for years had provided Afro-German children to Danish couples in direct violation of the law.

What had not changed, however, from the illegal 'child import' of the 1950s to the regulated adoption industry of the 1980s, was the belief in "profit and harmony" in the "ordinary Danish family". A view that has now for 60 years legitimized adoptions from abroad to Denmark. Whether it's 'illegitimate' children of white German women and African American soldiers, children of single mothers in Korea or of AIDS-stricken Ethiopian parents, the argument for picking up these children, transporting them across borders and installing them in new homes in Denmark been that they would get better here. Because there is profit and harmony in the ordinary Danish family.

Child imports

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Adoption-vs-Human-Trafficking

There is preference given to inter-country adoptions over domestic adoptions

Do you know that adoption has now become an illegal market for selling babies? In fact, it’s not just babies; young children have also become victims of this mess. It has become a successful business, with adoption agencies reaping huge benefits out of it. But there are solutions to this; take for example, the pilot project which has been introduced in the Kamala Hospital of Pune, wherein both the mother and the child’s movement will be tracked through electronic surveillance.

But is this solution enough? In order to be able to analyse that we first need to be aware of what adoption is, and how it is carried out in India and abroad.

What is Adoption?