Closing New Loopholes: Protecting Children in Uganda’s International Adoption Practices

Childhood ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 090756822110272
Author(s):  
Kristen E Cheney

Despite closing a legal guardianship loophole that enabled foreign prospective adoptive parents to bypass restrictive Ugandan adoption laws in 2016, corruption in intercountry adoption persisted, with the courts legitimating new end-runs around the requirements. But US sanctions issued in 2020 bring new hope for reform. By highlighting what children’s advocates are doing to fight back, I suggest strategies for effective child and family safeguarding practices against adoption corruption as well as efforts to seek justice for affected children and families.

Obiter ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Glynis van der Walt

In South Africa, the Director General of the DSD appoints the Central Authority. Applications for intercountry adoption are made to the Central Authority. The aim is to protect the best interests of children involved in the process of intercountry adoption. This task is of paramount importance. The Central Authority is also tasked with maintaining relationships and promoting cooperation among the competent authorities within the State to protect children and to achieve the objectives of the Convention. In addition, where an adoption takes place after the child has been transferred to the receiving State and the Central Authority of the receiving State is of the view that the continued placement of the child with the prospective adoptive parents is not in the best interests of the child, the Central Authority is required to take the necessary measures to protect such child. These measures include withdrawing the child from the prospective adoptive parents and arranging temporary care and a new placement for the child in consultation with the Central Authority of the State of origin. The Central Authority therefore acts as a “gatekeeper”, with all adoptions in-and-out of the country channelled through its checks. It fulfils an important function to eliminate practices which may violate the best interests of the child.


2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Gibbs

This article considers adoption from the perspective of parents, especially the strategies that they employ to enhance attachments and build positive parent-child relationships. The article draws particularly on recent New Zealand research regarding intercountry adoptive parenting, as well as overseas literature on good adoptive parenting practice generally in domestic and intercountry adoption. It also considers the research on methods of supporting parents who adopt and whether there are gaps in legislation, policy or practice in New Zealand that could be closed by borrowing from good examples in the literature, and, or current practice examples. The author is an adoptive parent of Russian-born children and is actively involved in adoptive parent support networks.


Genealogy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Jessaca Leinaweaver

This article examines place and privacy as two key resources for producing kinship through an analysis of exceptional legal practices in Spain that overdetermine international adoptees’ Spanishness. Per Spanish law, minors internationally adopted by a Spanish parent are “Spanish by origin” (españoles de origen). Over and above this, however, Spain’s Civil Registry Law was modified in 2005 to allow internationally adoptive parents to officially change their child’s place of birth in the formal record. I draw on legal material about this change, as well as online posts by adoptive parents discussing it, to make two claims. First, I identify the significance of place as a key resource for the production of kinship—belonging to a Spanish family and nation. Second, I note the persistence of an ideology of secrecy or privacy surrounding the family that is linked to a history of illicit child circulations during the Franco era. I further show that documents are a key nexus mediating the place–kinship and privacy–kinship relations, requiring further attention to both legal documentation and the proliferation of public personal narratives, such as blog posts, as evidence of family dynamics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-272
Author(s):  
Cathi Choi

Abstract:The debate over the practice of proxy adoption sheds light on changing notions of proper intercountry adoption practices and standards of family planning as they developed in the mid-twentieth century. The practice of proxy adoption was born out of a loophole in U.S. immigration legislation, initially used by Americans to adopt European orphans after World War II. After the Korean War, the practice was again utilized to bring Korean children in even greater numbers to the United States. Through proxy adoption, adoptive parents bypassed the standard checkpoints of the adoption process as established by U.S. social welfare agencies. Although initially hailed as a humane practice, proxy adoption was ultimately banned in 1961 after a successful antiproxy adoption campaign waged by a coalition of social welfare workers, Catholic leaders, and U.S. senators. The role of Catholic agencies in this debate is essential, yet remains largely unexplored. This article sheds light on this significant and underresearched history of the Catholic institutions involved in the proxy adoption debate.The Catholic agencies, namely the National Catholic Welfare Conference and the Catholic Committee for Refugees, stood apart from both the government social welfare establishment and other humanitarian actors. Their actions must instead be understood through the context of their own institutional history of domestic social welfare programs and overseas humanitarian work, dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article analyzes their relationship with the U.S. social welfare establishment, as well as joint advocacy efforts to reform intercountry adoption practices.


Childhood ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 090756822110636
Author(s):  
Patricia Fronek ◽  
Karen S Rotabi-Casares ◽  
Robert Common

Intercountry adoption (ICA) is a contested practice represented by competing discourses of humanitarianism, exploitation, poverty and wealth. Multiple factors have contributed to decreasing numbers of adoption globally including documented incidents of fraud which have accumulated over the last two decades. There is little recompense for families subjected to the fraudulent removal of their children, the children, and adoptive parents who are also defrauded. This article reports on the troubled progression of fraudulent ICA, presents a case of fraud and novel restitution in Samoa and concludes that restitution pathways should also facilitate contact and reunification of children with their families.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Nino Mindiashvili

International Adoption is a subsidiary measure for the protection of children – it only becomes an option if reintegrating a child into his/her extended family or adoption in the child’s country of origin is not possible. What are the rules that must be followed in intercountry adoption cases?What are each participant’s rights and duties? Who is allowed to adopt a child? What is the procedure? What are the opportunities and the risks if you become involved in providing a child with a proper home for the first time? This article aims to answer these questions and many others. It is intended as a source of ideas for professionals or authority involved in adoption.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 254-275
Author(s):  
Marcos Vinicius Torres Pereira ◽  
Lara Oliveira Gonçalves

This article talks about the application of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption of 1993 in Brazil. Due to socio-economical circumstances, there are many orphans and abandoned children in Brazil that need care, love and attention. Providing these children a new family would give them a chance to build-up a new life in respect to their best interest. This work analyzes Brazilian domestic rules on international adoption, as well as the application of the Convention in Brazil. It criticizes how the Convention is applied in Brazil and the country´s role on the international net of international adoption. 


Author(s):  
Kseniya Olegovna Trinchenko

This article analyzes the substantive law and conflict of laws law of such countries as Austria, Venezuela, Germany, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Spain, Canada (Quebec), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, as well as bilateral agreements on legal aid, case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which demonstrates the presence general principles of law, as well as the principle of protecting the weaker party to the legal relationship, the principle of observance of best interests of a child established by the universal multilateral international agreements: Convention on Human Rights of 1950, Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989, Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. The author examines the relevant issues of the conflict of laws regarding the manifestation of the conflict of jurisdictions, plurality of connecting factors in regulation of a set of private law relations associated with international adoption. The result of the conducted research consists in formulation of a special statute of adoption (lex adoptio), analysis of its legal nature and scope. In the context of examination of the procedure for establishing international adoption, the author identifies the problem of dépeçage (different issues within a single case are governed by the laws of different jurisdictions). A classification is provided to the combinations of plurality of connecting factors established by the legislation of foreign countries, as well as multilateral international agreement – the Inter-American Convention on Conflict of Laws Concerning the Adoption of Minors of 1984).


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 254-275
Author(s):  
Marcos Vinicius Torres Pereira ◽  
Lara Oliveira Gonçalves

This article talks about the application of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption of 1993 in Brazil. Due to socio-economical circumstances, there are many orphans and abandoned children in Brazil that need care, love and attention. Providing these children a new family would give them a chance to build-up a new life in respect to their best interest. This work analyzes Brazilian domestic rules on international adoption, as well as the application of the Convention in Brazil. It criticizes how the Convention is applied in Brazil and the country´s role on the international net of international adoption. 


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