Afrikanske børn adopteres for pengenes skyld

Forfatter billede

Siden 2003 er mere end 40.000 børn i Afrika blevet adopteret til familier udenfor kontinentet. Nu vil afrikanske myndigheder have reglerne kigget efter, da en ny undersøgelse viser, at mange adoptioner kun sker på grund af økonomiske interesser.

ADDIS ABABA, 6 June 2012 (IRIN) – As the number of African children adopted by people outside the continent reaches record levels, experts, activists, government officials and academics have called for the practice to be stemmed, warning that adoption was too often motivated by financial gain rather than the best interests of the children involved.

Between 2003 and 2011, for example, at least 41,000 African children were sent abroad for adoption from Africa, according to a study entitled Africa: The New Frontier for Inter-country Adoption by the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF).

Børn er blevet en handelsvare

“Commercial interests have superseded altruism, turning children into commodities in the graying and increasingly amoral world of inter-country adoption,” the ACPF study said.

In 2010 alone, it said, some 6,000 African children were involved in inter-country adoption, representing an almost threefold increase in just seven years. Global rates are at a 15-year low, the report said.

Participants at the fifth International Policy Conference on the African Child, held in Addis Ababa at the end of May, called for “a reversal of the current trend of resorting to inter-country adoption as an easy and convenient option for alternative care in Africa, and for giving absolute priority to enabling all children in Africa to remain with their families and their communities”.

Flest adoptioner fra Etiopien

Inter-country adoption should only take place when “an alternative family environment cannot be found in the home country, and, in line with the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, is used as a last resort”, the participants said in a joint declaration.

Ethiopia was in 2010 ranked the second top origin country for inter-country adoptions after China. Other top 10 African countries in 2009 and 2010 were Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.

Læs videre på: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95591/AFRICA-Call-to-reverse-soaring-adoption-rates

Begynd fra: ” They also expressed concern…”