Bill to streamline adoption before Parliament
A draft bill to make the adoption of children more stringent is currently before the Cabinet for approval and subsequently passage by Parliament.
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If approved by both the Cabinet and Parliament, it would ensure that prospective adopters meet certain criteria before children are handed over to them by the Department of Social Welfare.
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, stated this when she appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament yesterday, to answer questions with regard to the performance audit report of the Auditor-General, on the regulation of orphanages in the country.
Outmoded laws
Nana Lithur admitted that the current laws on adoption were outmoded and had been violated for many years.
She said for example that while prospective adopters in the UK were required to pay £50,000 per child adopted, any individual or family in Ghana interested in adopting a child under the care of the state was required to pay GH¢50 under the current law.
She said the adoption process in Ghana was also fraught with many irregularities that the ministry had initiated moves to address.
As part of the measures to stem the abuse of the process, the ministry had placed a moratorium on adoptions in the country.
She also raised questions with regard to the motives for adoption of children in Ghana by foreigners and said child traffickers appeared to have taken advantage of the laxity in the law to engage in the sale of Ghanaian children.
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Nana Lithur said there was a particular country which appeared to be interested in Ghanaian children and added that records had shown that about 70 per cent of children adopted in Ghana in recent years were sent to that country.
She declined to name the country for "ethical reasons".
Orphanages
Nana Lithur also admitted that many orphanages in the country were operating without licences and said as a result, 81 out of 120 had been closed down.
She said 96 per cent of orphanages in the Greater Accra, Western, Ashanti and Northern regions were operating illegally and added, "Nobody checked whether what they were doing was right."
The minister said she had given those still in operation up to the end of the year to acquire the necessary permit and added that if by the beginning of next year they had not done that, their proprietors would be prosecuted.