Call to encourage domestic adoption
Kathmandu Post
Kathmandu — June 11
Stakeholders working in the field of child rights on Friday called on the authorities concerned to give top priority to domestic child adoption as compared to inter-country adoption.
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) commissioner Gauri Pradhan stressed the need to promote child adoption within the country if families from poor background are ready for it.
“It is also crucial to find out the children’s siblings and relatives, who can also look after the children, before referring for inter-country adoption,” said Pradhan, who has long been associated with child related organisations.
The inter-country adoption is grabbing headlines in the country largely due to malpractice and corruption in the absence of effective monitoring mechanisms.
Speaking at an interaction on National Consultation on Inter Country Adoption and Hague Convention, Pradhan was of the view that the government must ratify the Hague convention at the earliest so as to secure the rights of children under inter-country adoption.
Nepal had signed the Hague Convention of Inter-country Adoption on April 2009. However, the government is yet to ratify it and implement it in the legal procedural level.
Nepal chief of the Terre des Hommes, Joseph Aguettant, pointed out the need for the government to take steps to encourage adoption at the domestic level.
“Taking children to orphanages was a good thing some hundreds of years go, especially in Europe and America, but things have changed now,” said Aguettant. “Orphanages have become the worst places to stay these days.”
According to him, about 62 percent of the children staying in orphanages have parents. In most of the cases, biological parents are misled that their child would come back again, he added.
“They do come but not being his/her child but as a tourist,” said Aguettant. “The child after adoption is no more a Nepali.”
Meanwhile, Secretary of the Ministry for Women, Children and Social Welfare, Mahendra Prasad Shrestha said the government is in the process of ratifying the convention. “We need to amend the law in order to ratify the convention. But this time around, we are more focused on the process of drafting the constitution,” said Shrestha.
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