The adoption of children abroad has been one of the most vicious issues for politicians for several years. Should children be allowed to be adopted abroad or should it be denied, restricted or allowed under control?
The latest changes to the Law on the Protection of Children's Rights, agreed by the Saeima, will make adoption abroad more difficult, while adoption to the United States will be basically prevented. Even more interesting is the decision of MPs to set up a Foreign Adoption Committee, which will be the main body deciding the fate of children. Meanwhile, "Latvian patriots" have become active on social networks, believing that children should grow up in Latvia. Even if in an orphanage, but in Latvia. No one will deny that foreign adoption issues need to be sorted out, but can the responsible state authorities now put their hand on their heart and say that everything has been done in Latvia to ensure that children who have lost their parents due to various circumstances can live in families?
The issue of foreign adoption came to the fore about six years ago when the Ministry of Welfare put forward a proposal in the Law on the Protection of Children's Rights to restrict foreign adoption, firstly so that children who have been left without parental care and are currently living in foster families or in conditions close to a family environment cannot be so easily and simply placed for adoption abroad. With the change in the political leadership of the Ministry, the focus on foreign adoption has also changed. The issue has been discussed several times in the committees of the Saeima, where a number of problems related to foreign adoption have emerged, ranging from the decision to adopt specific children, the process, the work of the orphans' courts, to the assumption that Latvia, by allowing children to be adopted abroad, is unable or not interested in following how children fare in their new country with their new parents. At the same time, foreign adoption opposers have raised suspicions that children adopted abroad from Latvia are being rehomed, i.e., the child is passed from the family that adopted him or her in Latvia to another family. The Ombudsman's Office has pointed out a number of problems in the foreign adoption process.
Last week, the Saeima adopted new amendments to the Law on the Protection of Children's Rights in the third reading, which provide for changes to the regulation on the adoption of children abroad. These changes stipulate that in the cases and in the procedure provided for by the law, a child may be adopted to a foreign state which is bound by the Hague Convention of May 29, 1993, on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, as well as by the Convention on the Rights of the Child of November 20, 1989, and with which Latvia has concluded a bilateral agreement establishing the specifics of mutual legal cooperation in the field of foreign adoption. This means that foreign adoption will only be possible to a country that has acceded to these conventions or has concluded a bilateral agreement between that country and Latvia.
Artuss Kaimiņš, the chairman of the Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee, which is responsible for the draft law's advancement in the Saeima, said that the issue of adopting children abroad had come to the attention of the Committee after the Ombudsman's Office had identified cases in which orphans' courts had decided to terminate a child's stay in a foster family in Latvia and place them in a child care institution so that they could be adopted abroad.
Adoption abroad will be possible if the orphans' court that decided on the out-of-family care receives an opinion of the Foreign Adoption Committee, which includes a conclusion that the adoption process abroad complies with the principles of child rights protection and the best interests of the child as laid down in the law.
The Law also provides for the establishment of a new instance - the Foreign Adoption Committee. The Cabinet of Ministers is to decide on its establishment, composition and competence.
The law will enter into force on July 1, 2022, but in cases of adoption proceedings abroad initiated before June 30, 2022, the procedure in force at the time of the initiation of the adoption proceedings will apply.
It is not openly stated, but it is clear that the new rules will prevent children from Latvia from being adopted to the United States. In a debate in the Saeima, Artuss Kaimiņš, chairman of the Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee, said that the proposal "contains a number of agreements at a transnational level that would have to be fulfilled, to take place, to be signed, for us to give our Latvian citizen up for adoption outside Latvia's borders". According to A. Kaimiņš, Latvia is the first country in the world in terms of the number of adoptions per million inhabitants. The largest number of children from Latvia are adopted directly to the United States (in the US, the largest number of children are adopted from China, while Latvia, according to the MP, is in 13th place).
Juris Pūce, a Member of the Saeima, pointed to the fact that these conventions have been ratified by most countries in the world, among which there are countries with a very low rule of law rating, but children from Latvia can be adopted there. "We will believe that Latvian children are sufficiently protected, while our strategic ally apparently does not sufficiently protect children. That is the whole point of the first part of this provision, so the first direction, to say that adoptions to the United States should be stopped. Personally, I can't understand what signal the Saeima is trying to send with this," said J. Pūce.
Evita Zālīte-Grosa, Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Welfare and a Member of the Saeima, reminded that the law will now contain three prerequisites for foreign adoption to be possible: the Hague Convention sets out the procedure for international adoption, the bilateral treaty sets out specific rules for adoption and supervision between certain countries, and the Children's Convention guarantees a framework of rights when the child arrives in the new country of residence. "The adoption committee will assess what is in the best interest of the child," the politician said. "Until now, due to the lack of mechanisms for assessing the best interests of children in transnational adoption cases, all possibilities for Latvian children to grow up in a family environment and receive care in our country have not been sufficiently assessed." She also mentioned some of the measures Latvia has taken to ensure that children have the opportunity to grow up in Latvia, such as the creation of specialized foster families, and the issue of child support payments to guardians. "Next year's priorities for the Ministry of Welfare are professional crisis foster families for adolescents and long-term care," said E. Zālīte-Grosa. "I am convinced that Latvia, as a member of the European Union and the OECD, is able to take care of its own children."
Opposition MPs, who are critical of the situation in childcare in Latvia, had a different opinion during the Saeima debate. Regīna Ločmele, a Member of the Saeima, believes that the amendments to the Law on the Protection of Children's Rights "are unfortunately an attempt to ban the adoption of Latvian orphans to one specific country in the world - to the richest country in the world, the United States of America".
"The USA is now presented to us as a terrible country where children suffer, and that by not adopting this provision we will deny these children a happy life in their homeland, Latvia...
Unfortunately, Latvia cannot take care of its orphans at the moment. We are talking mostly about children in their teens, children with disabilities, who are not wanted here in Latvia as family members for life. Yes, they are placed in foster families, but they will only be in foster families until they reach adulthood. What happens to them after that?" asked R. Ločmele.
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