EIGHTEEN children have been adopted from Malawi to overseas in the past two years, but the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) has expressed worry some adoptions may have for ill-intentions.<\/p>\n
The 18 children include the twins American pop star Madonna adopted in February. MHRC has hinted that while there are genuinely altruistic adoptions, the existence of trafficking in persons, forced labour and smuggling of people, intercountry adoptions can easily be used to launder these illegal activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder these circumstances and the legal weaknesses in the adoption laws in Malawi, we cannot guarantee that our children were adopted in good faith. This also applies to domestic adoptions,\u201d said MHRC Chairperson Justin Dzonzi.<\/p>\n
He said if Malawi does not come up with strict laws, policies and procedures that are transparent to regulate the whole adoption process, inter-country adoptions would continue to be abused.<\/p>\n
Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare says the adopted children went to the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Netherlands.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is hard for the ministry to state why people from the mentioned countries adopted more children from Malawi as there are various reasons people opt for adoptions,\u201d said the ministry\u2019s spokesperson Lucy Bandazi through an emailed response to a questionnaire.<\/p>\n
She said the child\u2019s best interests are taken into consideration in any adoption and the laws of Malawi state that a child\u2019s home is the best place for their growth.<\/p>\n
Bandazi said Lilongwe has the highest number of adoptions in the country because it hosts the children\u2019s court and it is also centrally located. Responding to some public queries that Madonna has adopted four children from Malawi, Bandazi said there is no law that limits the number of children an individual can adopt in Malawi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndividuals can, therefore, adopt as many children as they can manage to provide for socially and economically. Madonna made the application [for the twins] two years ago,\u201d she disclosed.<\/p>\n
Beside the twins, Madonna also adopted David Banda and Mercy James from Malawi. Dzonzi said MHRC is more interested in the processes followed in processing inter-country adoptions to ensure that the best interests of the child are fully protected.<\/p>\n
He said the commission has not received any complaints regarding illegal adoptions but has come across such allegations during its monitoring exercises in child care institutions such as orphanages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we visit some institutions, it is apparent that there are inter-country adoptions taking place and whether they are necessary and in the best interest of the child, it is a matter of unsettled debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
MHRC said another concern is that there seems to be a lack of transparency and trust from the general public regarding inter-country adoptions. This can be contributed to the perception that there are no agreed standards and procedures in the processes of adoption. Some adoptions would take over two years and others would take few months if not days to complete.<\/p>\n
Dzonzi said the gaps and challenges were highlighted during the adoption of David Banda by Madonna. This prompted the review of the Adoption of Children Act of 1949. The act has a lot of gaps as it fails to incorporate the principle of the best interests of the child as being the primary consideration in all matters concerning children.<\/p>\n
It also does not embrace internationally recognised standards and policies in matter of children and it does not expressly provide for inter-country adoption and does not provide for offences and rescission of the adoption order. The Special Law Commission had worked on the review of this act since 2009 to modernise the law.<\/p>\n
The draft law prioritises the best interests of the child in all decisions concerning children and also incorporates the principles of the 1993 Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption.<\/p>\n
New provisions in the law cover the purpose of adoption; children eligible for adoption and the establishment of a register recording all eligible children; eligibility of prospective adoptive parents for adoption; circumstances in which an adoption order may be rescinded; the establishment of prospective adoptive parent register; restrictions on intercountry adoptions; and offences.<\/p>\n
MHRC and other stakeholders have been engaging the Ministry of Gender to hasten the process of enacting this law. The ministry did not take any active steps to have the law enacted despite serious lobbying and engagement.<\/p>\n
During the recent review of the progress Malawi has made in the promotion and protection of the rights of children in January 2017, the government committed to speed up the processes of getting the Adoption of Children Bill enacted and ensure that guidelines and regulations for alternative care are put in place.<\/p>\n
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Samuel Tembenu said the adoption laws are under review. \u201cI\u2019m not so sure if the revised adoption bill will be tabled in the next Parliament sitting but I can assure you that the revision process is almost through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EIGHTEEN children have been adopted from Malawi to overseas in the past two years, but the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) has expressed worry some adoptions may have for ill-intentions. The 18 children include the twins American pop star Madonna adopted in February. MHRC has hinted that while there are genuinely altruistic adoptions, the existence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42771,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42767\/revisions\/42771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}