A draft adoption law has suggested that international adoptions be relegated as a
final option when dealing with orphaned children. The law, which was developed by
UNICEF, was presented at a June 23-24 workshop to discuss the draft.
UNICEF's Sarah Mills said the current regimen did not hold the best interests of
the child as the primary consideration.
"[The draft law] looks at local alternatives in the family, the community and
province ahead of international adoption," she said, adding that it was difficult
to say when the law, which was first drafted more than two years ago, would be presented
to the National Assembly.
The long-stalled law aims to regulate international adoptions. Detractors of the
current system say it operates as a lucrative business, which fuels the trafficking
of infants, and favors international adopters over Cambodians.
A situation report issued in May by the Netherlands Embassy in Bangkok said it appeared
that government officials had stymied efforts to implement alternative systems such
as foster care and domestic adoption. It concluded that the practice of international
adoptions here was "still deeply tainted with unlawful and corrupt practices
and ... suffered from a lack of transparency".
It also stated that the precise level of baby trafficking was impossible to assess,
but noted that reported trafficking cases probably represent the tip of the iceberg.
Article 7 of the proposed law would outlaw the payments or gifts to induce the consent
of the child's natural parents. Its inclusion follows the suspension of adoptions
to the US and France after widespread allegations of baby trafficking, document fraud
and official corruption.
Families from the US routinely pay between $12,000 and $20,000 to adopt a Cambodian
child, but much of that money is unaccounted for. The report stated that "the
biggest chunk" was thought to go to the facilitators, rather than ministry officials
or orphanages.
Mills said the new law would seek to regulate adoption facilitators more tightly,
rather than exclude them altogether.
"The agency would need to be accredited in their home country and in Cambodia,
and it would need to be non-profit," she said.
A further provision would see a fee schedule set for government ministries. Adoptions
are currently regulated by a vaguely-worded March 2001 sub-decree, which allows for
"voluntary donations" to the ministries involved. US-based facilitators
quote "government fees" of up to $9,000 on their websites.
Under the new law, the courts would make the final decision on adoptions. The role
of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labor, Vocational Training and Youth (MoSALVY)
would be reduced to making technical assessments and referring cases to the courts.
The law calls for the establishment of a "technical entity" in MoSALVY,
which would include social workers, sociologists, psychologists and people with legal
expertise to assess the suitability of prospective parents.
The Dutch report had questioned the suitability of many people who come here to adopt.
"Psychological and social assessments are not always conducted by qualified
professionals ... parents that have been rejected elsewhere [take another chance]
in Cambodia where the rules are more easily bent," the report said.
The body within MoSALVY would also be responsible for creating and updating a list
of children eligible for adoption, in order to guard against children with fraudulent
paperwork being presented for adoption.
The Dutch report noted that while only 22 percent of Cambodian children are registered
at birth, "amazingly" all children for adoption had a birth certificate.
"Official documents required for adoption are widely known to be doctored,"
it concluded.
Stephane Rousseau, who authored the Dutch report and works as a special advisor to
the Netherlands Embassy, said more work was needed before the draft would be ready
to pass into law.
"There is a need to harmonize this draft law with the current drafts of the
Civil Code and Penal Code," he said, explaining that those codes contain provisions
for trafficking and adoption, but contradict UNICEF's draft adoption law.
