The National Assembly yesterday passed an amendment to pave the way for the resumption of international adoptions with greater protections for children from potential abuse and exploitation.
Although the Adoption of Children (Amendment) Bill 2021, tabled by Minister of Human Services and Social Security Dr Vindhya Persaud, was supported by the opposition APNU+AFC, its speakers pointed out that the changes were inherited from the former David Granger administration.
The purpose of the bill is to amend the Adoption of Children Act to give effect to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption.
Apart from establishing that the Convention shall have force of law in Guyana, the bill sets out the provisions procedurally related to inter-country adoption, and provides for the recognition of an adoption certificate from a Convention country.
It also establishes that a person who commits a breach of the law for which no penalty is expressly provided is liable on summary conviction to a fine of $500,000 and imprisonment for six months.
In opening the debate, Persaud noted that statistics shows that under the existing legislation that governs inter-country adoption, between the years 2013 and 2020, a total of 247 children from Guyana were adopted by both non-Guyanese and overseas-based Guyanese.
She added that 55 children were adopted by non-Guyanese, while 192 children were adopted by overseas-based Guyanese.
According to Persaud, the existing legislation is comprehensive and already provides for many of the requirements and standards enshrined in the Convention. Therefore, she said, amending the Act would implement specific requirements of the Convention, which are intended to enshrine protections and to avoid legal and administrative conflicts and to build the structure for effective international cooperation in child protection matters between different legal systems.
She said there are many safeguards in the amendment, including the provision for a study of prospective adoptive parents. “…Also the prospective adoptive parent should be thoroughly evaluated and we are ensuring too that every conceivable thing that needs to be done to ensure that the child is protected from ills and abuses, those things must be dealt with within this bill,” she noted.
If there are any inconsistencies between the provisions of the Convention and the operation of any other law other than the constitution, the provisions of the Convention shall prevail. “And this is important because it removes any type of tangles that may arise between or amongst any laws that are within specific countries. In other words, it creates an environment so that the Convention be recognised so people will not have to do and redo” from other countries, she explained.
Persaud further said that the amendment will allow the establishment of common practice and procedures that will harmonize the regime which governs the country’s inter-country adoption process with other countries.
Inter-country adoption, she noted, is usually a humane commitment to children. “…It exposes service and love but we well know that even well intentioned legal processes like adoption can be manipulated, abused or exploited by profiteers willing to sell children, unscrupulous persons willing to buy children and adults seeking to obtain children for baseless … reasons such as sexual labour and criminal exploitation,” she said.
During the adoption process, Persaud said, violations of some of the most basic rights can occur. As a result, she said illegal acts and malpractices can involve criminal networks and sometimes people with accomplices are prepared to carry out these acts. “And sometimes others simply ignore these abuses in order to secure an adoption,” she noted.
Inherited
Guyana acceded to the Convention in 2019, under the former APNU+AFC administration, which was a fact that was not missed by the opposition.
APNU+AFC Member of Parliament (MP) Natasha Singh-Lewis, who opened the debate for the opposition, said the Convention had been drafted since 1993 and former PPP/C administrations did nothing for 22 years. “Sir it is the APNU+AFC who picked it up within the first year of being in office and started the groundwork,” she stated, noting that the coalition government began the process in 2016, months after taking up office.
According to Singh-Lewis, “a great deal of work” was done by the now opposition while in government to produce the bill. “…And it must be noted and recorded. It’s a reflection of our vision and commitment to protect and safeguard our children and so to ensure their safety is and will always be the APNU+AFC priority,” she said.
“I can only imagine this was a tactic to give someone else a consultancy but never the less Mr Speaker, I wish to put on the record that this bill, save and except for a few changes made recently, is the intention and deliberate hard work of the David Granger administration. I am happy that the Minister had committed to completing this part of the work to benefit the people of Guyana,” she added.
Saying that she supports the safeguards provided in the amended bill, Singh-Lewis said she believes that much more could have been done by the government.
She pointed out that by virtue of the PPP/C’s non-attendance in the National Assembly while in opposition, the bill was not previously discussed in the House.
Singh- Lewis’ claims were supported by fellow APNU+AFC MP Maureen Philadelphia, who in her presentation said that “minor” changes were made to the bill, which was first brought to the house on July 8, 2019 by former Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams, to give ownership.
“But Mr Speaker it could not have been supported and/or ratified because of the continued boycotting of Parliament by the PPP opposition… This is the type of politics being practised by the PPP. Mr Speaker, it is now brought to this house with minor change to the language to give ownership. What a shame,” Philadelphia said.
However, in response, Minister of Public Service Sonia Parag defended the government’s position, while stating that the bill was not tabled for political purposes but in the best interest of the nation’s children.
She also pushed back at the notion that the APNU+AFC did all of the foundation work as she pointed out that the Adoption Act had been in place since 2009. “It is not from thin air that this amendment is being made but on the foundation of the Adoption Act,” she noted.
New trafficking bill
Meanwhile, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall highlighted that as part of the effort to protect children, Government will be drafting new anti-human trafficking legislation.
“…We have a new trafficking bill that will be brought to the Parliament that has in it several provisions that will go hand-in-hand with the provisions here against transnational smuggling,” Nandlall disclosed.
Among its provisions, Nandlall said, are protections for children.
He explained that government has been engaged in several acts of preventing human trafficking from taking place. “Currently, there is a lot of people smuggling that we are speaking about and we are taking drastic guard against them,” he said.
The amendment bill, according to Nandlall, represents the government’s commitment to ensuring that any system involving children has as its guiding principle the best interests of those children.
“The well-being of our children remains a key concern for this government as children, due to their vulnerabilities, require our special attention. This bill symbolises the concrete action of this government to protect, fulfil and respect the rights of children,” Nandlall added.
Persaud urged both sides of the House to support the amendment so that adoption can resume and children can lead better lives.
Presently, she said, there is a list of children who are up for international adoption.
