scholarly journals Legal regulation of international adoption in Lithuania and Portugal

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (17) ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Perkumienė Dalia ◽  
Olegas Beriozovas ◽  
Maria João Escudeiro

Research problem and degree of the research. Protecting the rights of the child is one of the most important issues today, both nationally and internationally. The situation is particularly complicated when it comes to international adoption. The adoption institute transcends all cultures and has long since existed, having played different functions over time. This institute has come to reflect social changes relating to how society faces a child’s needs, the way of exercising parental responsibilities and the needs of birth parents and adoptive parents. This is a subject increasingly relevant within the phenomenon of globalization and the urgency given to children and their rights in contemporary society. This is a subject for today and for the future. The adoptive child, due to his or her subjective characteristics, is unable to exercise his or her rights properly. This obligation must be exercised by the child’s parents or the State and its authorities. Although the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania guarantees that every child has the right to grow up in a family, many children do not have a family and are forced to grow up in foster care. In this situation, an adoption institute emerges, which, at least from dallies, gives the child a chance to live in a family. In Portugal, the strong connection between the principle of the child´s best interest, major principle of family law, deeply influences the entire legal institute and, specially, the matter of international adoption. The placing of children in a foreign family is a subsidiary option, in great deal due to the difficulties that they will find from the moment they exit their country of origin. Difficulties such as differences in culture, language, religion, habits, among others that may result in children´s cultural uprooting and affect their cultural identity, beyond the cut with their biological family, implied in any adoption. Subject of the article:  protection of the rights of the child and problems in cross-border adoption.  Aim of the work: to analyse whether the rights of the child in the case of international adoption are violated.  Research methods: teleological, historical, comparative analysis of legislation, generalization, analysis, and synthesis of scientific literature, descriptive, comparative, analytical methods. The right of the child to grow up in a family is enshrined in the basic international instruments. It is in the family that the life and socialization of each child begins. It creates an atmosphere for the child to grow, develop and explore the world. The child should grow as much as possible to feel the love, care, and responsibility of his parents. Adoption is a significant process in many states. The main international instrument governing adoption is the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoption. States, in accordance with both their national and international legislation on adoption, seek to enable the child to grow up in a new family, while ensuring that such adoption best protects the rights and interests of the child. In Portugal, the child’s best interest is a fundamental concept in this matter, for a true concept of individual rights is one in which the child is considered a subject of rights, and not object of them. This principle is the guiding principle for the exercise of private responsibilities in relation to children, as well as public ones, and should be considered both in state and judicial decisions and actions. The child’s best interest is an indeterminate legal concept, varying with the customs of each society, taking into evolutionary and dynamic nature, and depending on case-by-case evaluation. This continues to be a divisive issue in Portugal and Law No. 2/2016, of 29 February eliminates discrimination against persons of the same sex who live in a de facto union or are married, in access to adoption, civil sponsorship and other family legal relationships, making all the legal changes. Key words: child, adoption, child’s right to grow up in a family, international 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. 


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. 


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. 


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):  
Christian Whalen

AbstractArticle 22 guarantees the substantive application of all Convention rights to the particular situation of asylum seeking and refugee children, and also guarantees them protection and assistance in advancing their immigration and residency status claims and in overcoming the hurdles posed by international migration channels, including guarantees of due process. The rights of refugee and asylum-seeking children can be analyzed in relation to four essential attributes. First of all, Article 22 insists upon appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance. Refugee children are not granted a special status under the Convention, but they are not given any lesser status. They are to be treated as children first and foremost and not as migrants per se, in the sense that national immigration policy cannot trump child rights. The basic rights to education, health, and child welfare of these children needs to be protected to the same extent, and as much as possible, as children who are nationals of the host country. The second attribute preserves the rights of refugee children not only under the Convention but under all other international human right treaties and humanitarian instruments binding on the relevant States Party. These may include, for many governments, the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention for the Protection of Minors, 1961, among others. A third attribute of Article 22 insists upon the duty to protect and assist refugee children. This entails a clear duty to provide children with appropriate due process rights throughout their asylum and refugee claims procedures, including the child’s right to be heard and participate in all the processes determining the child’s residence or immigration status, border admission, deportation, repatriation, detention, alternative measures, or placement, including best interest determination processes. The fourth and final attribute of Article 22 asserts that two basic principles should guide each activity with the refugee child: the best interests of the child and the principle of family unity.


Author(s):  
Elena Arce Jiménez

Resumen: Las dificultades para ser escuchado del menor extranjero en cualquier procedimiento que le afecte ponen de relieve las deficiencias generales existentes en nuestro ordenamiento jurídico para hacer efectivos los derechos de los que son titulares las personas menores de edad, sean extranjeras o no. Se analiza en primer lugar el artículo 12 de la Convención de los Derechos del niño, las condiciones imprescindibles para para hacer efectivo el derecho a ser escuchado y la conexión que existe entre ese derecho y la consideración primordial de su interés superior. A continuación se hace un repaso de la regulación española de los procedimientos de repatriación de menores extranjeros no acompañados a la luz del interés superior del menor y su derecho a ser escuchado. Abstract: The current challenges that migrant children face to have their right to be heard fulfilled and respected, put in evidence the general deficiencies of our legal system ensuring  the effective enjoyment of children rights, irrespective if the children in question are migrant or not. At the outset, article12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its content is analysed, including the essential requirements for an effective implementation and enjoyment of the right to be heard and its linkages with the best interest of the child as the primary consideration. An analysis of the Spanish regulations under the return procedures for unaccompanied foreignchildren is also provided in light of the respect of the best interests of the child and their right to be heard.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 67-82
Author(s):  
Seyed Masoud Noori ◽  
Maryamossadat Torabi

In this article, children’s rights will be studied in the Iranian legal system with remarks on its references in the Shia Jurisprudence. One of the main issues regarding children, is their guardianship, custody or tutorship. The Iranian legal system, same as the Shia Jurisprudence, has always kept the best Interest of the child as an essential ground for law making. Referring to court decisions; it is evident that control of the guardianship on the child is limited by the best interests of the child, because this interests is what we are sure to understand from the reason of custody of the child and that this system is designed only to secure child’s best interests since he/she might be incapable to secure his/her interests alone. The Iranian legal system, especially in the family law section is based on the Islamic rules. The main documents in the Shia Jurisprudence in Islam are Quran, Hadith, Consensus and reasoning which will be defined herein. In addition, a more recent review will be made in this study regarding the ratified laws regarding children’s rights and international treaties and conventions while focusing on the Convention on the Rights of the Child even though, Iran joined this convention by having several reservations.


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).


Author(s):  
V. Dorina

The article is devoted to ensuring the best interest of the child and his right to education. Attention is paid to the problems associated with the implementation of this right by various groups of children, depending on their social status and ethnic origin. The author draws attention to the implementation of the law under study in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated the problems of gender inequality, the quality of educational services, as well as access to them. The need for certain actions on the part of the state is indicated, in particular, making changes to the curricula to bring them in line with the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in order to realize the right to education of the child from the standpoint of ensuring the best interest.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 701-730
Author(s):  
Virve Toivonen ◽  
Jatta Muhonen ◽  
Laura Kalliomaa-Puha ◽  
Katre Luhamaa ◽  
Judit Strömpl

Abstract A child’s right to participate is one of the general principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (crc). It is an integral part of a child’s right to have his/her best interest taken into account as a primary consideration. Therefore, it is indispensable in the decision-making connected with child welfare removals, the effects of which on the child’s life are long lasting and profound. In this article we examine the perceptions and practices of child-welfare professionals in the context of children’s rights, especially participation rights, in two neighbouring countries: Finland and Estonia. The findings are based on a survey and suggest that in the context of children’s rights, legislation also has its role in making children’s rights a reality, both as a prerequisite for reform as well as in shaping attitudes. However, legal regulation is not enough – full realisation also reguires more information, education and resources.


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