Prof. Ann Skelton, Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

ISS/IRC analyses intercountry adoption (ICA) statistics yearly since its inception, three decades ago. The analysis provides with a global and comprehensive picture on current ICA trends and their evolution throughout the years.

Following the recent publication of General Comment No. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate (GC26) (see child friendly version) and its launch on 18 September 2023, the ISS/IRC team has been reflecting on the link between climate change and children without or at risk of losing parental care

In this interview, Dr. Katherine Wade, Professor. Kirsty Horsey, and Dr. Zaina Mahmoud, collectively the team of the project Children’s Voices in Surrogacy Law, provide insights on the project’s aim and activities. The project took place in a regulated surrogacy context currently undergoing reform.

Adoption is essentially a measure to protect the child deprived of a family. It is based upon the best interest of the child and not on the wishes of adults. It consists of providing a family for a child and not of providing a child for a family…Principles seemingly generally accepted. Nonetheless, politics intervene in several aspects of adoption: attitude of certain receiving countries, regulations of certain countries of origin and individual decisions.

«A family for a child, rather than a child for a family». It is a principle easier said than done. How can one switch from the demand of prospective adopters in search of a supply of children «available for adoption» (the vocabulary used is often very indicative), to the supply of prospective adopters who meet the demand of children in need of adoption (psycho-medico-socially and legally «adoptable» children)? Here are a few ideas to explore.

“Recognizing that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment… – Recalling that each State should take, as a matter of priority, appropriate measures to enable the child to remain in the care of his or her family of origin – Recognizing that inter- country adoption may offer the advantage of a permanent family to a child for whom a suitable family cannot be found in his or her State of origin.” Extracts from the preambles to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and The Hague Convention of 1993.

Children are waiting …

Millions of children and young people « with special needs » or “who present particularities” reportedly live in family or institutional placements around the world, both in developing countries or those in transition and in the industrialized countries. Too often, no permanency planning has been drawn up for them. Even if adoption is probably not the solution for the adequate permanent protection for each of them, a certain number are psycho-socially and legally adoptable. Many of them, however, do not find an adoptive family.

After ten years’ existence, the IRC is changing its name. It is in no way a change of mandate but the intensification and a more precise rendering of the terms of its activities.

Making it compulsory for prospective adopters to go through the adoption accredited bodies (AAB) of the receiving countries, although not imposed by The Hague Convention of 1993 (THC-1993), constitutes an absolute guarantee for inter-country adoptions between countries, be they members or not of the Convention. These AAB must be approved by the receiving countries (art. 9-11 of THC-1993), and authorised by the country of origin (art. 12).v

Experience shows that the involvement of the adoption accredited bodies of the receiving States in the inter-country adoption process can make a positive contribution to promoting the rights of the child deprived of family, to respecting the principle of subsidiarity of inter-country adoption, as well as providing multidisciplinary support at various stages for the children, the parents of origin and the adopters. The AAB’ mediation thus increases the chances of a successful adoption and serves as an ethical guarantee (see the Editorial in Bulletin 70). Nonetheless, this safeguard is not automatic. Thus, numerous private adoption accredited bodies, sometimes accredited in their own State, have never given serious consideration to what, in their practice, the ethics of the best interests of the child means. Some have been or are accomplices and sometimes protagonists in exerting pressure, in abusing, in violating the rights of the child, or even in trafficking. Furthermore, determining the number and the profile of adoption accredited bodies authorised to collaborate with a State of origin, often takes no account of children’s needs and from the outset becomes a source of competition and pressuring (see the Editorial in Bulletin 65).

Millions of children throughout the world are currently in, or in need of, out-of-home care because their parents are unavailable or unable to care for them. They live with relatives, in foster care, in residential facilities, in child-headed households or in the street. They reside in their own country or are displaced internationally (children placed abroad, separated child asylum seekers or undocumented migrants …). Sometimes, care is provided under conditions that violate their rights: abuse, lack of efforts towards family reunification and/or permanency planning, deprivation of liberty, etc.

For an adequate protection of children separated from their family during natural disasters

The ban on discrimination is a basic principle of the protection of human rights in general and the rights of the child in particular.

The ISS/IRC study on the age of prospective adoptive parents has been brought up to date. A sizeable number of States impose a minimum age but few of them fix a maximum age.

The spirit of The Hague Convention 1993 invites States of origin to collaborate with the number and type of partners in receiving States that best fit the needs of their children.

This article establishes minimum standards: they can surely be improved by good practices in both receiving countries and countries of origin.

Besides preventing the separation of the child from his/her parents, one of today’s great challenges for many countries resides in the development, for each child placed in institution or in a foster family, of an individualized plan for permanent and preferably family life.

One of the difficulties of the adoption process consists of striking a balance between two apparently contradictory aims: on the one hand, the need to take the time to identify the best permanent solution for the child, and on the other hand, the child’s need not to stay too long in the uncertainty of a provisional solution (institution or foster family).

While some children are certainly “trafficked for the purpose of adoption”, there is no evidence, as far as we know, that children have been “trafficked through adoption for subsequent exploitation.”

A State giving preference to simple adoption or to full adoption is certainly linked to its cultural concept of the family and thus raises ethical questions when it comes to recognising intercountry adoptions.