‘No logic’ to foreign adoption development aid

Ireland’s foreign adoption system that permits so-called ‘development aid’ be paid by prospective parents to authorities in a child’s country of origin was slated yesterday by an international consultant on child protection policy who contrasted that approach with Swedish law that absolutely prohibits it.

“I see no logic, based on the rights of a child, for requiring development aid in exchange for the right to adopt a child,” Nigel Cantwell yesterday told delegates to an international conference on adoption held at University College Cork.

“It does not stand up on any rights-based logic and it is even worse when the adoptive parents are required to provide that aid,” he said.

Mr Cantwell was one of a number of speakers who addressed the issue of inter-country adoption on the second day of the two-day conference.

He said that some countries extracted contributions from parents under the guise of an administrative fee. “These fees are set by the country of origin. In one African country I dealt with they wanted $10,000 and, even after negotiation, they refused to consider less than $5,000.”

The keynote speaker at yesterday’s session was Judge Rosemary Horgan, president of the District Court. She outlined the work involved in revising the European Convention on the Adoption of Children and her role as part of the working committee charged with that process.

Describing the 1967 convention as a “typical lawyer’s solution to a problem”, Judge Horgan said it became clear that changes were needed due to developing European jurisprudence and the growing recognition of child rights.

Sweden, which had ratified the convention, denounced it in 2003 when it brought in legislative changes to allow same sex couples to adopt. The UK followed suit in 2005, with the exception of Northern Ireland. “It was likely that more contracting states would also denounce the Convention,” Judge Horgan told delegates.

The process of updating the convention had already begun by 2002 and took five years to complete. “The old convention was out of date and it was important that any revision would recognise developments in child rights,” she said, adding that the recognition of same sex unions by signatory states were also factors.

Under the revised convention, member states are not obliged to allow same sex couples to adopt but, where they do, they cannot discriminate between them and heterosexual couples.

The theme of same sex adoptions was addressed by British businessman Nick King who spoke movingly of the joy he and his husband continue to experience with their adopted boy and girl. “Nothing we have ever done has come close to being as fantastic as those children,” he said.