When the adoption of a child is done in violation of stipulated laws, it is illegal. Some of these abuses include abduction of children, sale of new-born babies, trafficking in children, among other illicit activities against children. Put the other way, an adoption fraud, an alternative term for illegal adoption, takes place when an individual or institute attempts to either illegally adopt a child or illegally give up a child for adoption.

Before now, adoptions were basically viewed from the perspective of the childless married couples’ attempts to normalise their relationships, but the current trend has stretched beyond this. The mindset has re-defined adoption to mean an institution that helps children from a less improved environment to an improved environment. In Nigeria, however, the old mentality still prevails. While one may not quarrel with the reasons, especially if the intention is genuine, what bothers the well-meaning public now is the rate at which illegal adoptions are proliferating.

Since adoption involves the creation of a parent-child relationship between individuals who are not naturally related, which entitles the child to rights, privileges, and responsibilities as heir by the adoptive family, equally, the best interests of the child are of paramount importance in policy considerations towards adoption.

The violations of these interests, which serve as the pivot of adoption, have generated immense concern from experts and institutions have proffered solutions on how to put this menace at bay.

A medical doctor, Chukwuemeka Okwuonu, posits that to check the menace, government should engage measures that would strictly regulate the activities of social homes, to ensure that only those that are approved by the government and which activities conform with legitimate standards operate.

According to him, “There are glaring cases of illegal adoptions in the society and we cannot run out from the fact that this is strictly attributed to the proliferation of illegal social homes that cut corners in their activities.

“If government is sincere in checking this trend, it must scale up actions to ensure that the social homes who undertake the activities of child adoption are duly registered and conform to legitimate standards.”

The medical practitioner is of the opinion that since there are childless families out there that want to have babies, the best thing is for these social mothers to be admitted into the social homes and taken care of until they are delivered of the babies and the legal adoption procedure is taken.

The report of the special rapporteur on the Sale of children, Child prostitution and child pornography during the 34th session of the Human Rights Council in March, 2017 stated that illegal adoptions violate multiple child rights norms and principles, including the best interests of the child, the principle of subsidiarity and the prohibition of improper financial gain. “These principles are breached when the purpose of an adoption is to find a child for adoptive parents rather than a family for the child.”

The report also noted that “adoptions resulting from crimes, such as abduction and sale of and trafficking in children, fraud in the declaration of adoptability, falsification of official documents or coercion, and any illicit activity or practice, such as lack of proper consent by biological parents, improper financial gain by intermediaries and related corruption, constitute illegal adoptions and must be prohibited, criminalised and sanctioned as such.”

The report listed some key recommendations as follows:

(a) Adoption of legislation that prohibits and criminalises illegal adoption as a separate offence, as well as the sale of and trafficking in children that result in illegal adoptions, with sanctions that reflect the gravity of the crimes;

(b) review of national laws to ensure that they do not contribute to the creation or maintenance of an enabling environment for illegal adoptions;

(c) strengthening and investing more in effective national child protection systems by increasing support to vulnerable families and providing alternative childcare measures in which adoptions respect the principle of subsidiarity and ensure the best interests of the child;

(d) establishing and implementing a single process for adoption that includes a holistic assessment of the child’s full range of rights, and prohibit private and independent adoptions;

(e) adopting adequate regulation on procedures and safeguards in relation to domestic and inter-country adoptions, including in relation to the determination of adoptability, and establish effective mechanisms for overseeing adoption processes, especially with respect to verifying the background of any child who is declared an orphan;

(f) establishing mechanisms for addressing the concerns of adoptees, adoptive parents and biological parents about the circumstances of an adoption and for facilitating the search for origins and the request for reparations where appropriate;

(g) ensuring the right to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence of victims of large-scale illegal adoptions by reforming institutions that were either involved in or incapable of preventing abuses, and guarantee the effective and meaningful participation of victims in the design and implementation of measures to obtain comprehensive redress.

Among other recommendations, the report affirmed that effective measures should be taken to protect children who are victims of armed conflict and natural disasters from becoming victims of illegal adoption.

•Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu, a public policy analyst, writes from Aba, via keshiafrica@gmail.com

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