Right: Too many restrictions? "Being single, fat or unemployed may be something you'd want to change in yourself, but it doesn't reduce your capacity to be a good parent." - Joanna Moorehead, writing in a British newspaper, about Britain's adoption laws. Prospective adoptive parents in Australia face a similar situation
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Arguments in favour of Australia relaxing its regulations for foreign and local adoption
1. Australia has the lowest adoption rate in the world
Australia's inter-country and domestic adoption rates have been dramatically declining over the past few decades. In 2011/12 there were only 333 adoptions in Australia; the lowest annual adoption rate on record. The previous year, 2010/11 there were only 384; of these only 169 were adopted locally within Australia. The number has fallen from 1494 in 1987, so there has been a 78 per cent drop in the numbers of adoptions in Australia over the past 25 years. In 2012, only 78 children in foster arrangements were able to be adopted into permanent homes. Australia now has the second lowest adoption rate in the world.
Most of the adopted foreign children came from The Philippines, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Ethiopia and Thailand, with 86 per cent arriving from Asia.
The Federal Government banned adoptions from Ethiopia in June this year, citing an 'increasingly unpredictable, complex and uncertain' adoption environment in the impoverished African country.
Prospective parents are now waiting four-and-a-half years, on average, between the time they are given official approval and the child's arrival. Australians have to wait six years, on average to adopt a child from China.
Part of the reason for the fall in numbers is that there are more local adoptions occurring overseas. South Korea now gives priority to local adoptions, and has reduced the number of exit permits for children. Domestic adoption numbers in India have more than doubled in the past five years, and Thailand has introduced a quota for children sent overseas. Lithuania now only accepts adoption applications from people of Lithuanian origin.
However, critics of Australia's adoption policies claim that the other half of the problem is the attitude of Australian state and federal governments, which, they claim, make it unnecessarily difficult to adopt either from within or outside Australia.
2. There is a pressing need for adoption places and a demand for children to adopt
The situation in New South Wales has been described as typical of that across Australia. There are more than 18,000 children in the foster care system seeking a permanent home. About a third of these have been uprooted at least three times and placed with new foster families. In 2010/11, when only 169 local adoption occurred within Australia, there were 3347, 648 children who were living in out-of-home care.
New South Wales Families Minister, Pru Goward, has claimed there are 715 children on the waiting list for adoption. Ms Goward has stated, 'The number of adoptions is not going up enough.' She has argued that the target for the future should be 'in the hundreds'.
ABC reporter Annie Guest has asked, 'At a time when we hear stories about too many foster children and too few carers, many older women desperately wanting children, trying IVF and not being able to have children - at this time then why are there so few adoptions?'
Diane Harapin, a member of the National Adoption Awareness Week committee, has stated, 'Once you leave our shores and you see how many amazing kids there are needing a home, it's hard to imagine why we don't put more resources into helping families connect.'
The situation has been summed up by an Australian Women's Weekly editorial published on June 28, 2011. The editorial states, 'There are hundreds of thousands of children around the world who are genuinely orphaned, and would have access to better education, health care and opportunities if they could be adopted by a family in a developed country.
Moreover, there are thousands of families in Australia who would love to give these children homes because they are not able to have children, or would prefer to adopt a child than go through IVF.'
Chief executive of the foster-care organisation Barnardos Australia, Louise Voigt, has claimed, 'We've been talking about this for years. The only adoptions we've managed to do is when we place ACT children in New South Wales. That's a most unsatisfactory situation because it means ACT families have no opportunity to adopt children.'
3. A secure family setting is necessary for children's wellbeing
It has been claimed that children in Australia in short-term care are being deprived of the security which is vital for their healthy development, as this security can only be derived from reliable, sensitive long-term care, such as that supplied by adoptive parents. It has further been claimed that the same concerns apply to orphans overseas, especially those living in impoverished or war-ravaged countries, who also lack secure, reliable long-term care...
Chief executive of the foster-care organisation Barnardos Australia, Louise Voigt, has claimed that adoption is important because it gives foster children a sense of security, and ensures a stable family well after the young person has turned 18.
Ms Voigt has stated, 'Children don't just relate to their family until they're 18. [Adoption] means mum and dad are around through those years of the early 20s, when mistakes are made and that background of security is there. It's a lifelong thing, adoption.'
In 2006, the New South Wales Department of Community Services, issued a report titled, 'The importance of attachment in the lives foster children'. The report states, 'Having a caregiver who provides consistent, responsive care helps children to learn to recognise the nature of their own emotions, and to regulate their own behaviour and emotional states. Through experiencing responsive and sensitive care-giving, a child also develops social competencies, empathy and emotional intelligence, and learns how to relate to other people and understand what to expect from them.'
The report further concludes, 'When a caregiver is sensitive to a child's emotional needs and responds positively, this helps the child to develop a sense of being loved and lovable. This is how children learn that they will be able to rely on others for help in times of trouble later in life. Children are better able to cope with traumatic experiences when their earlier experiences are of being safe and protected.'
4. Adoption processes need to be reformed to minimise the length of time children have to wait for adoptive parents
It has been claimed that far too many Australian children have been left waiting far too long for adoptive parents. Indeed in many cases, these parents are never assigned.
Similar concerns have been expressed in the United Kingdom where a series of reforms have just been put in place, in an attempt to reduce the period of time children have to wait before they are placed with adoptive parents. Cathy Ashley, Chief Executive of the UK Family Rights Group, has written, 'Politicians, the public and those of us in child welfare are united that children who cannot live with their families need the opportunity to be raised in a permanent, loving environment without unnecessary delays.'
Many cases apparently fail or are excessively delayed due to the resistance of the birth parents involved, even when they are incapable of raising the children themselves.
Critics have noted that there are ways around these obstacles. In New South Wales, adjustments are being made to adoption procedures which will help to minimise the opposition to adoption from birth parents who are unable to care for their children.
The new scheme recently adopted in New South Wales will focus on 'open adoption', meaning the child will be raised with another family but their biological parents will always maintain a relationship and connection to the adopted child.
Critics have argued that such changes need to be made more generally to facilitate adoptions within Australia.
5. More support and fewer restrictions should be offered potential adoptive parents
It has been claimed that governments both in Australia and overseas place unnecessary burdens before adoptive parents, placing demands on them that are not placed on birth parents.
Joanna Moorehead, writing in the British newspaper, The Independent, on December 29, 2013, stated, 'Being single, fat or unemployed may be something you'd want to change in yourself, but it doesn't reduce your capacity to be a good parent.'
Simultaneously it has been argued that adoptive parents need to be offered more on-going support. Again, referring to the situation in the United Kingdom, Joanna Moorehead has stated, 'Families need to be supported not just around the adoption itself, but all the way down the line. They need to be offered whatever might be helpful - counselling, parents' groups, expert input - so it's there when they need it, if they need it, and for as long as they need it.'
Similar demands have been made by adoptive parents' groups in Australia.