Scotland: Ban on Adoption of Cambodian Children Maintained
Adoption - special restrictions: list of countries
Published: 12 Mar 2021
Last updated: 12 Mar 2021 - see all updates

Cambodia

Title of order: Special Restrictions on Adoptions from Abroad (Cambodia) Order 2008
Date order in force: 7 October 2008

The Order places on a statutory footing the suspension of adoptions from Cambodia that is currently in place. On 22 June 2004, Margaret Hodge, the Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families at the (then) Department for Education and Skills, within the UK Government, announced a temporary suspension of adoptions of Cambodian children by UK residents. The suspension was introduced in response to evidence that the safeguards in the Cambodian adoption system were insufficient to prevent children being adopted without proper consents being given by their birth parents and improper financial gain being made by individuals involved in the adoption process. The specific areas of concern included:

-evidence relating to the systematic falsification of Cambodian official documents related to the adoption of children
-evidence relating to the extensive involvement of adoption facilitators in the adoption procedure in Cambodia, even though Cambodian law expressly forbids facilitators participating in the adoption process
-evidence relating to the procurement of children for intercountry adoption by facilitators, including by coercion and by paying birth mothers to give up their children
-concern about the prevalence of child trafficking and corruption generally in Cambodia

On 27 September 2007, Kevin Brennan, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, within the UK Government, announced a review of the suspension introduced in 2004, the purpose of which was to update the information on which the suspension was based, to find out what concerns, if any, remain valid and whether there are any other concerns about practices taking place.

On 2 April 2008 following that review, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State announced that the suspension remained in place. Evidence from the review demonstrated that:

-adoption legislation, practice and procedure in Cambodia remain insufficient to ensure the proper protection of children and their families
- lifting the suspension would expose Cambodian children and their families to an increased risk of improper practices that are contrary to the principles of the Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption (the Hague Convention) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The Cambodian government has requested assistance in this area from the Secretariat of the Hague Convention. However, there is no evidence to demonstrate that there have been substantive changes to practice on the ground since the announcement of the outcome of the review. The Scottish Ministers are of the view that, because of practices taking place in Cambodia, it would be contrary to public policy to further the bringing of children into the United Kingdom from Cambodia as specified in section 62(1) of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/adopt ... countries/

UPDATE: 2022
It appears that Cambodia has lifted the ban on intercountry adoptions of Cambodian children, with the announcement that adoptions will be resumed made this year, as the Cambodian authorities believe that the necessary legal safeguards are now in place for the protection of the Cambodian children who will be adopted overseas.

Cambodia to resume controversial child adoptions
April 5, 2022

“Despite Cambodia acceding to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption in 2007 and enacting numerous laws and policies, there is no guarantee that inter-country adoptions would occur in children’s best interests.”

Social Affairs Ministry spokesman Touch Channy told the Khmer Times that the government was in the process of approving at least nine inter-country adoption applications submitted by international agencies. That included the US and Italy.

“We have had the laws on inter-country adoption since 2009, but back then we did not have adequate mechanism and capacity to enforce them. We have all of those now,” he added.

“Now we are working on strengthening some legal instruments under the laws. We work with agencies, not individuals, for the adoptions. The agencies have to inform the government of the number and type of children their clients are looking for. The Ministry of Social Affairs will grant them the license, and we ourselves will look for the children in orphanages.”

The US banned adoptions from Cambodia in 2001 after allegations that Cambodian mothers had given up their children to adoption agencies in exchange for payment.

Other countries, including the Netherlands and Britain, followed suit and banned adoptions from Cambodia. Demand dropped and Cambodia formally stopped all foreign adoptions in 2009.

According to a US government website, Washington welcomed all efforts by Cambodia to strengthen its child welfare system and to improve the integrity of its domestic and inter-country adoption processes.

“We look forward to receiving additional information from the Cambodian government on their internal inter-country adoption process in order to be able to determine whether Cambodia has a fully functional Hague Convention process in place that would allow the United States to process convention adoptions with Cambodia,” it said.

https://www.preda.org/2022/cambodia-to- ... adoptions/


Children and Families Face Irreparable Harm as Cambodia Reopens Intercountry Adoptions
Published on 29 March 2022; Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO)

We are deeply alarmed by Cambodia reopening intercountry adoptions and the Italian government’s apparent disclosure that at least nine potential adoptions from Cambodia are being processed by Italian adoption agencies. We fear these decisions will lead to more families being irreparably torn apart by a poorly regulated system that has failed to protect children’s best interests in the past.

Cambodia reports having sent 3,696 children abroad for adoption between 1998 and 2011. The country suspended intercountry adoptions following evidence of fraud and corruption. Cambodian officials forged documents to falsely change some children’s names or ages or claim they were orphaned or abandoned, before children were adopted abroad without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

Cambodia today still lacks a sufficient child protection system, judicial system and anti-corruption measures to guarantee that adoptions will proceed legally and ethically. Despite Cambodia acceding to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 2007 and enacting numerous laws and policies, there is no guarantee that intercountry adoptions would occur in children’s best interests.

Cambodian and Italian government agencies have ignored requests for information from LICADHO in recent months about the reopening of intercountry adoptions, including requests for information about the bilateral agreement, related procedures, and when children are expected to leave Cambodia.

Since 2017, six families have approached LICADHO to seek information about 15 children who were fraudulently adopted from Cambodia in the 2000s. Each family had temporarily placed their children in shelters or orphanages after being told their children would receive care and an education before returning home. Parents often only learned their children had left the country when they returned to visit them and found them missing. Each family has spent years seeking information about their children. While some children have been located abroad following extensive investigations, for others there has been no confirmation of where they are, who is caring for them, or if they are even alive, leaving families in a state of limbo and continued suffering.

It is clear that Cambodia’s current systems still fail to protect children living in shelters and orphanages and lack competence and transparency. Since 2020, LICADHO has worked on four cases involving 10 children who were placed in institutions in recent years. In each case, authorities refused to tell the parents or guardians where their children were for months. In one case, a child went missing from a state-run institution and a process of domestic adoption began without the knowledge or consent of the child’s mother and despite her desire to be reunited with her child. Each child was only reunited with their families following multiple interventions.

This context makes the severe risks of reopening intercountry adoptions clear. At least 5,440 Cambodian children lived in institutions as of last year, some of whom still have a living parent. Family-based care within Cambodia, such as family reunification, kinship care, foster care and domestic adoptions, are all preferable over intercountry adoptions, yet these systems are not fully functioning and each lack adequate resources, social workers, and training for staff.

The only way to guarantee that children are not again wrongfully and fraudulently taken from their families is to immediately halt all pending intercountry adoptions from Cambodia. The Cambodian government and receiving states must establish mechanisms for those who have already been harmed by intercountry adoptions, including adopted children, birth parents and adoptive parents, to seek truth and justice and reconnect with loved ones if they choose. Sending more children abroad before these past wrongs have been addressed, and before there are failsafe and transparent measures to guarantee children’s best interests, would cause further irreparable harm.

For more information, please contact:
▪ Ms Naly Pilorge, Outreach Director LICADHO, on Signal at +855 12 214 454 (English)
▪ Mr Am Sam Ath, Operations Director LICADHO, on Signal at +855 10 327 770 (Khmer)
https://www.licadho-cambodia.org/pressr ... p?perm=496

An Australian woman goes looking for a child to adopt from a Cambodian orphanage ...

‘Orphanage babies don’t cry’: My adoption journey
Hoping to give another abandoned child a home, Sarah Salmon visits an orphanage in Cambodia.
By Sarah Salmon
November 20, 2022

I don’t want a biological child. Most people think that’s odd. In fact, they don’t believe me. But after three rounds of supposedly “non-invasive” fertility treatment, I am 100 per cent sure.
“You don’t want to try IVF?” my husband, Ben, asks regularly.
“Positive,” I say.

I look into my 18-month-old daughter’s black possum eyes every day – beautiful eyes gifted to her by her birth mother – and I am saturated with love. I squish Sophea’s Cambodian button nose against my pointy Caucasian one and I inhale her sweet scent. It’s an unbeatable high.

My awe and adoration of this perfect child couldn’t be any stronger with a genetic child. I want to adopt again and give another abandoned child a home.

So here I am in a Cambodian orphanage. Languid babies and toddlers sit at my feet. A young boy with scarred legs and tangled hair bounces over to me. He runs in circles around me and I smile as I try to catch him in my arms. When he darts away, his giggle fractures the quietness of the room.

“That boy three years,” says Vichet, the orphanage director, in a rough voice. He waves his chubby hand dismissively at the boy, as though he’s a product past its use-by date. “Italian family will adopt.”

Vichet points to a toddler standing in the corner next to a pile of bricks. Twig legs poke from beneath his pot belly like an M&M cartoon character. Yet, this child lacks the gaiety of those candy-covered chocolate guys. His expression is dull to match his brittle hair, its bleached colour a sign of malnourishment. The boy clasps a plastic comb; a toy of sorts in this one-room home devoid of playthings. “He free to adopt. Mother not want. She raped.”

My spine jolts and I look at the innocent child, a product of violence, discarded like rubbish.

His unwashed jumpsuit hangs loose at his knees, about five sizes too big, the buttons undone. One sleeve flaps at his elbow as it falls off his shoulder.

Vichet gestures to an infant cradled in the lap of a nanny sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“That boy also can adopt.”

A daunting feeling swamps me.

There is no point in crying; they know no one will come for them, so they shut down. They carry a morbid moroseness. It’s the loudest silence I’ve ever heard.

I glance over to Sophea, who sits balanced on Ben’s hip. Her fringe is stuck to her forehead with sweat from the humid air. I want her to engage with the children, to be drawn to one, to help me choose, but she’s busy tugging Ben’s earlobe as though she’s stretching Play-Doh.

I remember the day we met her in an orphanage not far from here, on the other side of Phnom Penh. Her orphanage had the same dormitory feel, the same silence.

Orphanage babies don’t cry. There is no point in crying; they know no one will come for them, so they shut down. They carry a morbid moroseness. It’s the loudest silence I’ve ever heard.

An infant with a head like a bowling ball sleeps in one hammock, its disproportionately small body moulded into the curve of the hanging fabric.

“What about that baby?” I ask Vichet, pointing to the hammock. I immediately regret my question. It feels so coarse, so business-like … so wrong.

This is not what I envisioned when we booked our flights to Phnom Penh. This is nothing like our first meeting with Sophea, when my eyes welled with tears the moment I held her featherweight body; my voice cracked and a strong maternal spark ignited within me as I stared at her angelic face. Today, I am no more than a heartless meat-trader standing in a marketplace that has no room for emotions.

Vichet shakes his head and scrunches up his face like someone who has sucked on a lemon wedge. “Sick. Has deformity.” He nods to another infant lying idle in a green canvas cocoon that acts more like a cage. “That girl baby can adopt. Two month old.”
Full article: https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-a ... 5bye7.html

What can you say to this ? It's just awful for all concerned.Good intentions are not enough.

Several shades of awfulness as deeper down one is in the selection process.
The leftovers kids of the leftovers batches of the leftovers orphanages, how to make so that they get equal opportunity to be adopted ?
That would be through some arbitrary decisions, hence the adopters would complain not to be given enough choice...
And as what could be done to avoid having so much, it wouldn't be through increased freedom regulations for all anyway...

Freedom of choice at some degree for all parts involved, except for the kids, who have none degree of freedom in it.
No wonder they shut down straightaway.

How different are the ways to allocate a kid to a family among all countries ? Any lottery, algorythmn, lucky draw involved ?
Random seems fairer than choosed, for some issues, but how random can you be when deciding of the future of a kid ?

Headaches, broken hearts, crushed souls, and success for some lucky ones

May 5, 2023
Cambodia agrees to resume child adoptions with Italy
Hang Punreay / Khmer Times

Cambodia has agreed to resume international adoptions between Italy after the two countries temporarily suspended the process due to legal and technical issues.

The agreement came after Minister of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation Vong Sauth met with Vincenzo Starita, Vice-President of Italy’s Commission for Intercountry Adoptions, at the ministry on Wednesday.

After the law was drafted, the government announced the resumption of the adoption process, but it was interrupted due to the spread of COVID-19 in Cambodia, as well as in Italy and other countries, Sauth said.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501284813/ ... ith-italy/

UPDATE
NGOs Want Government, Italy to Halt Reopening of Intercountry Adoptions
28 June 2023 6:09 PM
Sovann Sreypich
Reopening intercountry adoptions will put Cambodian children and their families at risk, a group of NGOs said in a statement Wednesday, urging the Cambodian government to stop the process.

Cambodia suspended intercountry adoption in 2009, following reports of unethical actions connected to adoptions. Multiple other countries also banned intercountry adoption from Cambodia during the 2000s. But in the last couple months, Italy and Cambodia have been taking steps to resume adoptions of Cambodian children.

Cambodian rights groups Cambodian Center for Human Rights, ADHOC and Licadho, along with the international group Intercountry Adoptee Voices, released a joint statement asking Cambodia and Italy to immediately halt any actions leading to the resumption of intercountry adoptions.

A 2018 Licadho report states that thousands of Cambodian children were adopted overseas between the late 1980s and 2009, but many of the children were not orphans. Rather, their parents had placed them in orphanages due to poverty.

“The reopening of intercountry adoptions will only put Cambodian children and families at risk. Adoptions from Cambodia throughout the late 1990s and 2000s were defined by fraud, corruption and coercion,” Licadho outreach director Naly Pilorge said.

Pilorge said these “horrible” human rights violations had devastating consequences. Neither Cambodia nor Italy had acknowledged the pain and suffering they caused by these illegal adoptions and have yet to offer any assistance to those children and families that were torn apart, she said.

“Italy needs to recognise the reality of the situation in Cambodia. New laws will not provide any guarantee of protection against the fraud that was systemic in past adoptions, especially given Cambodia has shown no willingness to hold those responsible for past abuses to account,” she said. “Cambodia must also do more to care for its children here, before even entertaining the possibility of sending them abroad.”

Cambodia’s Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSAVY) met with a delegation from Italy’s Commission for Intercountry Adoptions in May 2023.

Three Italian adoption agencies have been authorized to operate in Cambodia and three additional agencies are pending authorization, according to Italy’s commission. By the end of the year, up to two children per agency can be matched with Italian families.

The commission also stated it expected to receive a list of children eligible for adoption from the Cambodian government around June 2023. There are currently nine “pending proceedings” for adoptions from Cambodia to Italy, according to the commission’s website.

MoSAVY officials have been invited to Italy in 2024 to follow up on adopted children.

The Italian embassy did not respond to requests for comment sent on Monday.
https://cambojanews.com/ngos-want-gover ... adoptions/

I've seen plenty of rubber plantations around the country. Maybe, if people would use that rubber for the right reasons nobody had to become an orphan.