Freeze on adoptions necessary – Oye Lithur

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has explained that its decision to halt all adoption processes is to allow for a streamlining of the system and ensure that irregularities associated with it are done away with.

The freeze, the Ministry added, will also provide an opportunity for Ghana to regulate its laws on inter-country adoptions in the best interest of the child.

The Ministry said it had realised that an unusually high number of children were adopted and taken abroad, often with little or no paperwork amidst violation of laid down procedures, hence the need to act to stem the exodus.

Sector Minister Nana Oye Lithur revealed this in an interview with Accra100.5FM’s Akua Agyeiwaa on the sides of an adoption stakeholders’ meeting in Accra on Friday June 10.

“We realised that a lot of children are given out on adoption and taken abroad. When we examined the statistics, in one year 300 children had been taken to several other countries. So, allowing that number of children to be taken out of the country for adoption will be a problem,” she said.

The gender advocate further stated that in the current arrangement, government had no idea where exactly such adopted kids were taken to and how they were being taken care of, “because once you give out your child on adoption, you cut ties completely with the child, you have no control over the child”.

“So, after our audit, we realised we had to carry out a change in the procedure in Ghana. So, we have had discussions with the Attorney-General to amend the Children’s Act, so you cannot just go for a child from the village for adoption. We have set up a special office, an adoption authority for the Social Welfare [Department], to take care of issues regarding adoption,” Mrs Lithur said.

“Also, henceforth, there will be no adoption in Ghana. We want to put some special arrangements in place. So, while putting that together, there will be a freeze on adoptions in Ghana unless, as Minister, I give approval.”

The minister added that the adoption process was fraught with shady characters, many of whom viewed adoption as strictly business, often bypassing laid down procedures to offer kids to desperate adopters and extorting thousands of dollars, hence the imposition of the moratorium by the Ministry to review the entire system. The ban on adoption came into effect on April 30, 2013.

“We won’t lift the moratorium unless we have finished with the procedures to be certain that if you adopt a child, it’s through the right processes,” she stressed.

“And we have signed on to the International Hague Convention. So, what the convention stipulates is what we will be following. Every district’s technical committee will have a register stating where each child has been taken to, with their photos and progress reports on their conditions,” she said.