The changing face of adoption

The changing face of adoption

By MILLICENT MWOLOLO,mmwololo@nation.co.ke

Posted Tuesday, September 30 2008 at 16:52

IN SUMMARY

More adults are adopting children today than was the case about three years ago.

Adoptive parents must learn to navigate the legal aspects of adoption.

Previously, it was common for couples that tried and failed over many years to have children of their own to go the adoption route, but not any more.

Nowadays, young, healthy and productive couples, and even singles, form a good number of those who are adopting children in Kenya.

These and other adjustments in the adoption landscape can partly be attributed to modern lifestyles. Although societal perceptions may not have changed much, individualistic lifestyles have in some way introduced more leeway.

For instance, Agnes Kiraithe, the senior administrator at the Thomas Barnados and Kenya Christian Homes Adoption Society, says many more adults are adopting children today than was the case about three years ago.

And whereas before it was older and weary childless couples who sought adoption as the last solution, now, there are many young parents, who have already had children of their own, coming forward to adopt others.

In another scenario, many young couples are delaying having their first child naturally and are instead opting to adopt their first-borns. “In the past, we saw only infertile couples, but this has changed,” Agnes says.

Infertility issues

Clifford Mulamula, chairman of the Adoptive Parents Association of Kenya, an umbrella body for all adoptive parents in Kenya, says some people have changed their perceptions about adoption, but the general perception remains that young couples that want to adopt children instead of having their own must have infertility issues.

“And this is the main challenge that adoptive parents in Kenya face today,” he adds.

Despite this challenge, many single women in their 20s are coming forward to adopt. “Before, we had mainly women in their 40s seeking to adopt, but that has changed,” Agnes says.

“This new trend has helped to demystify adoption, although there still is a lot left to work on, especially within the wider society,” says Joseph Were, an adoptive parent of a nine-month-old girl and a member of the association. Joseph explains that the level of general awareness is also improving.

For instance, in many Kenyan communities in the past, it was the practice to bring in another wife if the first one could not bear children.

“Today,” Joseph says, “adoption can be given credit for the stability of many marriages.”

Another past perception was that formal adoption was only for the rich. But now, many modest families have come out seeking to adopt.

“Before, adoption agencies were strict regarding a couple’s income. But now, more emphasis has gone towards securing a loving, stable family for the child, ” Clifford says.

Indeed, it is the emotional and social input from adoptive parents on their children’s lives that moulds them into successful people rather than the amount of money lavished on them.

Joseph emphasises this point by adding that when a parent’s efforts are combined with the adoptive child’s efforts, this is what makes the experience wholesome.

“It is the ending, not the beginning, that matters. An adoptive child might have been rescued from a garbage dump as a baby, but that should not be a barrier to that child enjoying a wonderful life,” he says.

Clifford has a word of caution for adoptive parents. Due to the joy that comes with adoption, many parents forget to complete the legal process that guarantees them an adoption order. Clifford says that the period just after placement – when parents are settling down with their new child – is very risky, especially for the child.

“Remember that the child needs protection, which can only be guaranteed by an adoption order that gives him or her full rights as a child of the adoptive parents. We do not want the child’s relatives to come in and cause disturbance in the child’s new environment. An adoptive child should be legally secured three months after placement.”

But even as adoptive parents must learn to navigate the legal aspects of adoption, many feel that the adoption policy in Kenya is simply too rigid.

Indeed, Clifford says that although the main aim of the policy is to protect children from abuse, its inflexible nature has turned many would-be adoptive parents away. He suggests that the policy should be changed to make it easier for parents to adopt.

“If it could only be made a little bit friendlier, then it would be more helpful to society, as more people would opt to adopt,” he says.

Very bureaucratic

Agnes agrees that many would-be adoptive parents find the system very bureaucratic and simply give up.

“They find it hard to find a lawyer and go to court after being with the child for three months. It should be simplified,” she says, adding that the Government should work closely with the association to come up with homegrown solutions.

This policy has also done more harm than good for male children. More boys than girls are abandoned in children’s homes, says Agnes.

“Boys constitute about 70 per cent of all the abandoned children in children’s homes in Kenya,” she says. “Due to this, baby boys stay in nurseries longer before an interested adoptive parent comes along.”

Agnes says this is because of the rigid adoption laws that bar single women and widows from adopting baby boys. She expresses concern that lately there has been an increasing number of single women seeking to adopt baby boys, and this regulation should be made more flexible.

Informal adoptions

“About 60 per cent of potential adoptive parents are young, single career women, and this law really disfavours them.”

Another area that the association feels needs to be straightened out includes follow-up and formalisation of informal adoption situations.

According to Joseph, there are children out in the villages and streets that need protection.

“In many family set-ups, there are children who have been ‘adopted’ outside of adoption institutions. There should be a way in which these ‘adoptions’ can be formalised. But if they are left the way they are, it becomes very risky for these children because if anything bad should happen to the ‘adoptive’ parents, then there is no protection for them. They are vulnerable and literally live at the mercy of other people.” Joseph says.

As it is now, the law recognises only those adoptions carried out through registered adoption agencies. “If these situations were to be put through proper documentation, then the future of these children would be secured.”

The association also feels that the non-standardisation of lawyers’ charges in adoption cases poses a real challenge for low- to middle-income families. In addition, the number of lawyers who take the issue of adoption seriously is, unfortunately, not very high.

That is why the association has taken it upon itself to identify those among its members who are lawyers and who “have children’s interests at heart” to handle some, if not all, the cases. And with proper guidance, some parents are even able to represent themselves in court.

Although adoption is as old as the Bible itself, stigma surrounding the practice is still heavy within Kenyan society today. This was one of the key factors that saw the coming together of adoptive parents in the country to form an association last year.

Interacting and sharing their different experiences has helped them learn from each other and hold each other’s hand as they have walked through the adoption process.

Clifford says the concerns of adoptive parents are the same all over Kenya.

“The very obvious one is the stigma and the mystery surrounding the whole issue of adoption,” he says.

“Adoption can be a very lonely process if one opts to face it alone. But this is because of the way society has made it a spectacle, which then forces many adoptive parents to do it secretly.”

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