Workshop on adoption reform procedures held in Accra
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) on Sunday engaged stakeholders as part of a process to reform and strengthen the national adoption and foster care procedures.
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The reform processes include the amendment of the Children’s Act of 1998 (Act 560) to enhance the protection of children’s rights, with particular emphasis on alternate care.
They also include amending the act to conform with the 1993 Hague Convention, an international convention dealing with international adoption, child laundering and child trafficking, in an effort to protect those involved from the corruption, abuses and exploitation which sometimes accompany adoption.
The sector Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, speaking at the event in Accra, said the input of the stakeholders would help strengthen the child protection system in Ghana, especially in the area of alternate care.
The stakeholder engagement was organised by the Department of Social Development of the MoGCSP.
The stakeholders included the Social Welfare Department, the Ghana Education Service, the Judiciary and development partners.
Hague convention
The 1993 Hague Convention is considered to be crucial because it provides a formal international and inter-governmental recognition of inter-country adoption to ensure that adoptions under the convention will generally be recognised and given effect in other party countries.
Ghana’s accession to the convention will make the monitoring of children placed in inter-country adoption effective.
The accession requires that the Children’s Act be amended and, accordingly, the Cabinet has approved a request from the Gender Ministry to amend it.
Nana Oye said the overall goal of the reform was to help formulate child and family welfare programmes and activities to more effectively prevent and protect children from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and guided by national and internationally recognised principles, as well as values, beliefs and practices specific to Ghana.
“Enhancing child care protection systems is one of the government’s key areas of concern because it is linked with national sustainable development,” she added.
Why the reforms
Nana Oye explained that the reforms had become necessary because national research had identified lapses in the Children’s Act, making room for abuses in its implementation, many a time to the disadvantage of the children involved.
She said other research on alternate care had established that due to the lapses in the current Children’s Act, Ghana was among the top 20 countries ranked in the intra-country child adoption report for 2013.
The findings, she said, indicated that approximately 300 children were adopted and sent outside the country without any post-adoption monitoring annually.
Nana Oye said it also came to the attention of the government that 96 per cent of sampled homes were unlicensed and unknown to the government, while the number of orphanages increased by 169 per cent between 2005 and 2012.
She said due to the lapses in the act, the government mandated a working group to assess the alternative care system in Ghana and make recommendations for improvement.
Recommendations
“The group recommended that the government should accede to the Hague Convention on the protection of children and cooperation in respect to inter-country adoption,” she added.
Nana Oye said the group also prepared guidelines on adoption and foster care to strengthen the protection of children in need of alternate care and protection.
In 2013, as an interim measure to safeguard the rights of children in need of alternate care and curb associated abuses, the ministry issued a directive to suspend all adoptions pending the streamlining of adoption processes and procedures.
The suspension, which is still in place, restricts adoption measures to limited circumstances.
Writer’s email Doreen.andoh@graphic .com.