Intercountry adoption needs better rules and regulations

    Leading adoption experts have called for intercountry adoption
    to be cleaned up, with better regulation in countries of origin and
    receiving countries.

    Romania was targeted for criticism by Carolyn Hamilton of the
    Children’s Legal Centre. She said that over the past decade
    children had been flooding out of the country. There was little
    compliance with the concept that intercountry adoption should only
    be used as a last resort.

    She told delegates that in Romania large sums of money were
    being paid to agencies, often based in the US, which were
    unaccountable and unregulated.

    Hamilton also said that a “points system” introduced by Romania
    in an attempt to reduce the flow of children to other countries,
    and to ensure adequate resources for local preventive and child
    welfare services, had backfired. As a result, the number of
    children adopted rose from 1,057 children in 1995 to 2,500 in
    2000.

    While agencies were attempting to introduce more stringent
    controls in an attempt to take out the financial incentives,
    Romania was also unlikely to be able to afford losing the estimated
    $125 million dollars that intercountry adoption brought in each
    year.

    Hamilton also said she had “real doubts about the Hague
    Convention”, adding: “I think there are questions about whether the
    convention makes something socially acceptable when it really
    isn’t.”

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