13. Adoption

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter examines the place of adoption within the government’s child protection policy, the legal framework for adoption under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (ACA 2002), the core principles underpinning the ACA 2002, the adoption process, and the ongoing reform agenda. It considers the application of the welfare principle to three contentious issues: (i) the importance of the birth family in an adoption dispute; (ii) trans-racial adoption; and (iii) step-parent adoptions and adoptions by a sole natural parent. The chapter also examines the issue of ‘open adoption’, focusing on adopted children’s right to information about their birth families and provision for post-adoption contact, and, finally, considers the main alternative to adoption: special guardianship.

Dobrostan dzieci wychowywanych przez kohabitujących rodziców. Co wynika z badań dotyczących znaczenia struktury rodziny dla rozwoju dzieci?

Due to the changes in the modern family, many children are brought up in non-traditional families. Cohabitation is one of the alternative forms of the family. The results of the studies on the welfare of children raised in cohabitation relationships are not conclusive, yet the data indicate poorer developmental achievements of these children in comparison with children brought up by married couples are predominant. The article presents the results of research which compares the welfare of children in different forms of relationships and points to three possible reasons for lower developmental achievements of children raised by cohabiting partners. These include: characteristics of the partners, characteristics of the cohabitation relationships and the way of selecting a group for a study which compares the welfare of children in different forms of families, connecting cohabiting partners who are the child’s biological parents with those persons forming cohabitation relationships in which only one of the partners is the child’s natural parent.

The Customary Law and Adoption: The ‘O e Gapa le Namane’ Custom

Whilst the Children Act of 2005 regulates most aspects regarding the adoption of children, it does not seem to be covering the entire spectrum of the amalgam known as the South African legal system. Indeed the Act regulates issues relating to consent to adopt, procedure relating to adoption of children born out of the wedlock, exclusions regarding consent for such children, as who can adopt a child and provides a list of who can adopt a child. Amongst those who can adopt a child are: A married couple, Partners in a life-partnership (including same-sex partners), a person who has married the natural parent of a child, a single person (a widow or widower or an unmarried or divorced person) with the consent of the Minister. It is further in terms of section 18 of the act required that the adoption of a child be effected by a court order. In effect, it means that, an adoption not endorsed as prescribed is not recognised as an adoption.Yet this dispensation does not seem to embrace well-established adoption practices such as o e gapa lenamane (Loosely literally translated, it says, “You lead it with its calf”) amongst Batswana, which would now have no effect in law regarding adoption of such a namane (calf). It is the argument in this paper that much as customary law is recognised as law in its own right, the courts should be responsive enough to develop the customary law adoption practices; otherwise the opportunity to attain the envisioned inclusive South African law of the 21st century will be lost.

13. Adoption

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter examines the place of adoption within the government’s child protection policy, the legal framework for adoption under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (ACA 2002), the core principles underpinning the ACA 2002, the adoption process and the ongoing reform agenda. It considers the application of the welfare principle to three contentious issues: (i) the importance of the birth family in an adoption dispute; (ii) trans-racial adoption; and (iii) step-parent adoptions and adoptions by a sole natural parent. The chapter also examines the issue of ‘open adoption’, focusing on adopted children's right to information about their birth families and provision for post-adoption contact, and, finally, considers the main alternative to adoption: special guardianship.

UNINTENTIONAL PARENTHOOD: THE CASE OF THE RELUCTANT MOTHER

A Question which is increasingly asked is whether there is a right to be a parent. The recent decision of the House of Lords in Re B (Adoption: Natural Parent) [2002] 1 F.L.R. 196 may provoke some debate about whether there is a right not to be one.

The Adoption Act of Sierra Leone

The long-awaited Adoption Act was passed in 1989. The object of the Act as indicated in the objects and reasons of the Bill is to make provision for the adoption of juveniles by persons who are fit and willing to do so. Informal adoptions existed in Sierra Leone in a variety of situations but for the past decade there has been a growing realization that these arrangements needed a legal stamp in order to provide proper security for the child and for the adopters who often feared that the natural parent might claim possession of the child after a number of years of care by the adopters. The absence of any provision for legal adoption was a cause for concern for couples who wished to provide a permanent home for children who were not their natural children.In the past lawyers have attempted to fill this vacuum by ensuring that the natural parent or parents executed a contract with supporting affidavits, where requisite, disclaiming all rights and liabilities towards the child. Such contracts were not strictly legal and lawyers therefore attempted to include a clause (which did not have legal validity) whereby the natural parent could resume his or her rights over the child only if he or she compensated the adopters for all expenses incurred during the child's upbringing. The size of the expenditure involved was often enough to discourage the natural parent's efforts to gain custody over the child.