Accra, Aug. 29, GNA - Mrs Gladys Asmah, Minister of Women and Children's Affairs, on Friday called for the review of the procedure of adoption to make it flexible and easier for responsible couples to adopt children.
She said many couples without children had the desire to adopt children as their own and bring them up in a family environment but the procedure for adoption was cumbersome and discouraged prospective child adopters.
Mrs Asmah was speaking at a day's stakeholders meeting on the process of adoption of children in Ghana.
Participants were taken through the adoption procedure, the courts and agency's perspectives, cross border adoption and a child in an orphanage.
The meeting was also to enable stakeholders to discuss the situation of orphaned and abandoned children, who were being cared for in orphanages and evolve measures to streamline and regulate the process to make it easier for the children to be adopted into home and family environments where they would be loved.
In our socio-cultural environment the normal thing is for people to live with their own families either extended or immediate and to enjoy security and assurance of family members but poverty has brought about some changes, Mrs Asmah said.
She noted that issues such as death, poverty, neglect, incapability of extended family relations to take responsibility for the care and upbringing of children were some of the circumstances under which these children ended up in the orphanages.
She suggested that fostering should be encouraged and be backed by law.
Mrs Margaret Kutsoati, Deputy Director of the Department of Social Welfare, said the procedure had been described as cumbersome because they wanted the right thing to be done to ensure that the children were protected.
"We have witnessed cases where adopted children have been thrown out of their adopted homes after the death of the parents and this is what we want avert," she explained.
She called for a law that would empower them to take children from parents, who would be found incapable of taking care of their children. Mrs Kutsoati also called for a review of the SOS International policy, which does not allow children in that institution to be given out for adoption adding; "this practice contravenes the laws here.
"Children should not be allowed to grow up in institutions but this is what is done in the SOS and when the girls are of age to marry, dowries are paid to the institutions."
She warned non-governmental organisations and private orphanages not run their homes for profit adding, "any orphanage caught selling children would have its licence withdrawn".
Mr Anthony Oppong, a Circuit Court Judge, urged couples that wanted to adopt children to ensure that it was done in accordance with the law.
