A terminally-ill woman, whose six-year-old son has been in State care all his life, is fighting to prevent his adoption by an American couple because she wants to be reunited with him.
The woman, who is a security guard, said she had requested that her aunt be allowed to adopt the child so that she could be close to him. She said she had made this known to the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA).
She told this publication on Thursday that she was only made aware that the couple would be adopting her son on February 10, and a few days later she laid eyes on the couple for the first time.
According to the Report for the Adoption Board of the Child Care and Protection Agency, which was seen by this newspaper, on February 25 the matter for the dispensation of parental consent was heard in the Chambers of acting Chief Justice Ian Chang and he ordered that the applicants could proceed to the Adoption Board. The document stated that the dispensation of parental consent would be granted at the hearing of the Final Order.
The document indicated that a young couple (named) from the US, who were in no way biologically related to the child, had applied to the CC&PA in March, 2014 to adopt him.
It stated further that the applicants first met the child in 2014 while visiting the Red Cross Convalescent Home and then spent two weeks with him.
It stated that the couple had developed “a love for the child as if he was their biological child” and that he had “an attachment” with them. The applicants have been in continuous supervised visits with the boy.
In the High Court yesterday, the Adoption Board, through its secretary, asked the court for time to review its decision as it was unaware of certain information, which includes the fact that the biological mother had been hospitalized. As a result, Justice Chang put the matter down and the board will have to indicate to the court when it is ready to report.
The woman said she is fearful that her child will be adopted against her will. She stated that her son was taken from her at the age of three months and placed into the Red Cross Convalescent Home. She stated that her illness made her unable to care for him but it was not her choice to have him placed in institutional care.
She related that it was a hurtful process to write to the agency every time she wanted to spend time with her son. She stated that no mother should have to ask to visit her own child.
“I showed support of my son,” she said, explaining that when he was three years old she had tried to be reunited with him by getting her own home.
She said he had stayed with her for a couple of months. She recounted she had just acquired a piece of land to squat on and had asked her boyfriend to take care of the child for two weeks until she was finished weeding and cleaning the land so that they could build a house. The woman said the man agreed and she left, expecting to return to her son.
“Unknowing to me, he took the child back to Child Care because he said he said he didn’t have anyone to care for him while he was at work. But that wasn’t what he told me and I lost my son again,” she said.
She claimed said she was then told by the child’s case worker to get her own land and house or else she would not get back her son. Ever since, she said, she has been working to get a house so that they could be together. “I can’t understand this. I shouldn’t have to own my own house and land to get back my one and only son,” she said.
The woman said sometime after, she was hospitalized for her illness. She said it was on February 10, after she had recovered that she became aware that her son was being adopted. The woman said she was stunned because she had indicated to the CC&PA that she wanted her aunt to adopt him. She said she did not know the couple and when she asked for information on them she was told that she could not get any.
“I’m looking for some kind of justice,” she said. “I didn’t give consent for these people to adopt my son. They can’t take that right away from me. When they carry him away I won’t get to see him again. I won’t get to communicate with him…there won’t be any connection. I never even speak to these people. I don’t know these people. My son doesn’t have no bond with them. Child Protection knows that. They know I want my aunt to adopt him.”
She stated further that she was now physically capable to care for her son.
“All I’m asking is that I get my son so that my aunt could adopt him. I need to be with my son,” she said.
