Barrister Sabrina Zarin, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and partner at the FM Associates/

Daily Observer

Having dual citizenship has become a matter of concern for many citizens of Bangladesh due to the high interest in migrating to different countries of the world from Bangladesh. People from Bangladesh are moving towards the western countries to avail a higher standard of living and better opportunities for earning their livelihood. Therefore, they must have the scope for getting dual citizenship when they migrate to different countries because being a citizen of Bangladesh is a right they acquire at birth, which should not be given up lightly.

The Citizenship Act 1951 generally does not allow ‘dual citizenship’. If a person is a citizen of Bangladesh and is at the same time, a citizen of another country, he shall, unless he makes a declaration in that other country renouncing his status as a citizen or national, shall cease to be a citizen of Bangladesh.

However, the Bangladesh Citizenship (Temporary Provision) Order 1972, (as amended in 1978) 1978, Bangladesh now permits dual citizenship under certain limited circumstances. Therefore, Bangladeshi-origin nationals of certain countries as specified by the government may apply to the government of Bangladesh for the reacquisition of Bangladeshi citizenship without having to renounce their existing citizenship of other countries.

Once you have been granted Dutch nationality you will not automatically lose your Bengali nationality. It is not possible for you to renounce your original nationality.

Dutch:

Bij verkrijging van de Nederlandse nationaliteit verliest u de Bengalese nationaliteit niet automatisch. Het is voor u niet mogelijk afstand te doen van uw oorspronkelijke nationaliteit.

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A soldier with the U.S. Army adopted six children in 2000 and sexually abused them for years until one daughter reported the abuse in 2017, according to an indictment filed recently in a federal court in North Carolina.

Daniel Kemp and his wife Shanynn Kemp were arrested last year by New York State Police, each charged with several counts of sodomy related to the abuse in Jefferson County, New York, according to police. Daniel Kemp was based at Fort Drum in Jefferson County when he adopted the children, the FBI said in the indictment.

One of the victims told investigators “it happened so many times she was unable to quantify how many times she was abused,” according to the federal indictment filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina.

That victim told investigators the abuse began when she was 12 or 13 and the family was living in Clarksville, Tennessee, near Fort Campbell, according to the indictment. When the abuse stopped with her, Kemp began abusing another girl the FBI described as “mentally disabled,” the FBI said in the court filing.

The abuse came out in April 2017 when one of the victims, a senior at a high school near Fort Bragg in North Carolina, told school officials and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Command that her adopted father had been abusing her for years, according to the indictment.

Ireland has an extensive history of systemic human rights abuses of women and children, encompassing multiple institutional settings and spanning most of the 20th century: Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, industrial schools and the non-consensual practice of symphysiotomy in hospitals.

The legal responses of the state have been fragmented, generally narrow in approach, and often the subject of censure from various UN Treaty Bodies (see Concluding Observations on Ireland by CAT 2011, 2017, HRC 2014, CESCR 2015, CEDAW 2017), with consistent recommendations to the effect that there must be independent and thorough investigations, prosecution of perpetrators, and adequate redress – i.e. access to justice. However, while Ireland has been increasingly criticised regarding historical abuses of women, the specific issue of historical practices of illegal adoption has not been scrutinised to the same extent.

Therefore, the recent Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children regarding her visit to Ireland is noteworthy due to the detailed concerns expressed by the Special Rapporteur regarding historical practices of illegal adoption (in Mother and Baby Homes and related institutional settings).

The Special Rapporteur stated that not enough has been done “to provide information, accountability and redress” to those who suffered abuse in such institutions (Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries) and “to those who were adopted in a manner that would amount to sale of children under international law”.

In this manner, the Report draws much needed attention to the issue of historical practices of illegal adoption, while also offering a further indictment of Ireland’s poor legal responses to its history of systemic abuses of women and girls, building on the repeated recommendations of UN Treaty Bodies.

Ireland has an extensive history of systemic human rights abuses of women and children, encompassing multiple institutional settings and spanning most of the 20th century: Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, industrial schools and the non-consensual practice of symphysiotomy in hospitals.

The legal responses of the state have been fragmented, generally narrow in approach, and often the subject of censure from various UN Treaty Bodies (see Concluding Observations on Ireland by CAT 2011, 2017, HRC 2014, CESCR 2015, CEDAW 2017), with consistent recommendations to the effect that there must be independent and thorough investigations, prosecution of perpetrators, and adequate redress – i.e. access to justice. However, while Ireland has been increasingly criticised regarding historical abuses of women, the specific issue of historical practices of illegal adoption has not been scrutinised to the same extent.

Therefore, the recent Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children regarding her visit to Ireland is noteworthy due to the detailed concerns expressed by the Special Rapporteur regarding historical practices of illegal adoption (in Mother and Baby Homes and related institutional settings).

The Special Rapporteur stated that not enough has been done “to provide information, accountability and redress” to those who suffered abuse in such institutions (Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries) and “to those who were adopted in a manner that would amount to sale of children under international law”.

In this manner, the Report draws much needed attention to the issue of historical practices of illegal adoption, while also offering a further indictment of Ireland’s poor legal responses to its history of systemic abuses of women and girls, building on the repeated recommendations of UN Treaty Bodies.

Een Congolees kind.

Foto: Flick.com, Mulungwishi mission station, D.R. Congo

Congolese adoptiekinderen eindelijk hier

12 APR 2016

DEN HAAG - De Nederlandse adoptieouders van bijna dertig Congolese kinderen hebben deze eindelijk in de armen kunnen sluiten. Ze hebben lang moeten wachten. De Democratische Republiek Congo wilde sinds 2013 geen kinderen meer naar verschillende westerse landen laten afreizen, ook al waren ze wettig met instemming van een Congolese rechter geadopteerd. Congo zag gevaren op het gebied van mensenhandel.

In recognition of Adoption Month, we interviewed two scholars, Peter Hayes and Ingi Iusmen, about intercountry adoption (ICA) to raise awareness of some of the complexities presented by intercountry adoption. Today, we present a brief Q&A with Peter Hayes, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Sunderland and author of “The legality and ethics of independent intercountry adoption under the Hague Convention” in International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family.

Where is independent, intercountry adoption (ICA) legal?

An independent ICA can be interpreted to mean a private adoption that has not been scrutinised and endorsed by either the sending or receiving state. This will almost certainly be illegal. However, more usually an independent ICA means one where an initial match is made without the involvement of official state agencies, although the state authorities in either the sending or receiving state do decide whether or not to authorise the match. This form of independent ICA is much more likely to be legal.

When state adoption authorities were asked about the legality of independent ICA in 2010, their responses were more or less equally divided between states that said that it was not permitted (e.g. China) and states which said that it was (e.g. France). It was not always clear, however, which definition of independent ICA was being used. The United Kingdom ducked the question by replying ‘not applicable’. In fact, ICAs in which the initial match was made by non-state actors have been authorised by the British courts so independent ICA is legal in the United Kingdom.

The 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption provides a framework for arranging ICA, and independent ICA, in the sense of independent preliminary matching, is permitted under the Convention at the discretion of each state. When the Convention was drawn up there were mixed views on whether to sanction independent ICA. However, a majority of state representatives were in favour of allowing for it; the United States in particular made it clear that it would only sign up to a treaty that permitted independent ICAs. After the United States implemented the Convention in 2008 the arguments against independent ICA were reinvigorated by the Permanent Bureau’s Guide to Good Practice, which claimed incorrectly that independent ICA was inconsistent with the 1993 Convention. This misleading guidance has become the source of continuing confusion over the legality of independent ICA.

In a recent flurry of articles, the National Council for Adoption asserts that the State Department is responsible for the plummeting number of intercountry adoptions. They are wrong. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

There are a multitude of reasons international adoptions to the United States and all other receiving countries have declined. Foreign governments have moved, in many cases, to bolster their own child welfare programs. But as they make progress they have also become concerned about what they increasingly view as lax practices by U.S. adoption service providers (ASPs) and inadequate regulation by federal and state child welfare agencies.

The unfortunate practice of unregulated custody transfer, more commonly referred to as “rehoming,” has become the focus of major concern for sending countries, as well as the State Department. Guatemala, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nepal have all closed their intercountry adoption programs due to concerns about child trafficking as well as rehoming and other questionable practices by ASPs. The U.S. Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted more than one ASP for criminal activity, but concerns remain.

Russian adoption is a particularly troublesome issue. Russian children have been overrepresented in child fatality and abuse statistics. In one notorious rehoming case, an American adoptive mother put her Russian adopted son on a flight back to Moscow with a one-way ticket.

Ultimately, Russia’s closure was out of the State Department’s hands when Russia chose to close intercountry adoptions in retaliation to U.S. Congress’ passage of the Magnitsky Act.

INTRODUCTION

The 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption was preceded by a lively debate over the type of framework that should be put in place to regulate the practice. Proposals ranged from the broadly social democratic and pro-organizational contention that this framework should rely on the state and on authoritative organizations to the more liberal view that intercountry adoption (ICA) should be framed around groups in society and individuals. The Convention provided a compromise that admitted to both approaches, but the debate has continued to rumble on, and since the USA brought the Convention into force in 2008, it has acquired a new impetus from the guidance issued by the Permanent Bureau at the Hague Conference.

The Permanent Bureau is one of a number of bodies that supports a social democratic approach and wishes to exclude as far as possible more liberal approaches. In accordance with this objective, it has set about interpreting the adoption process set out in the 1993 Convention in a way that emphasise its reliance on a central authority and authorised organizations at every stage, with little or no scope for allowing individuals and societal organizations to have decision making roles. The Convention requires all states to designate a central authority to act as a gatekeeper, with all adoptions in and out of the country being channelled through its system of checks. From the outset, the Permanent Bureau has argued that the role of the Central Authority is not just one of checking matches but also of making them. This interpretation was proposed in the Explanatory Report of Gonzalo Parra-Aranguren (1994) and has been strongly reiterated in the Permanent Bureau’s (2008)Guide to Good Practice.

The Guide calls for the prohibition of a form of ICA in which individuals or mediating bodies outside the formal structure of the central authority propose a match. This is referred to as an ‘independent adoption’. The Permanent Bureau argues that such adoptions are inconsistent with the Convention and that states should take measures to ‘eliminate’ them (Permanent Bureau, 2008: 626–7). Similarly, the draft guidance on accreditation of adoption agencies drawn up by the Permanent Bureau warns of ‘the dangers of private and independent adoptions’ (Permanent Bureau, 2010a, 32). A 2010 Special Commission has placed independent adoptions under further pressure. In preparation for the meeting of this Commission, the Permanent Bureau distributed a questionnaire to Convention countries. Under the pejorative heading ‘Questions on Abduction Sale and Traffic in Children in the Context of Adoption’, it asked ‘are private or independent adoptions permitted by your state’? Not surprisingly, numerous states answered ‘No’.1 The Special Commission met at The Hague on June 17–25 2010. Invited speakers presented papers that criticized independent adoptions (Mezmur, 2010; Smolin, 2010) and International Social Service (ISS) presented a paper that, in passing, classified them as illegal under the Convention (ISS, 2010a, 8). Towards the end of the conference a small committee got together and 2 h before the meeting came to an end, draft conclusions and recommendations were circulated to those in attendance and accepted (ISS, 2010b). Amongst them was the claim that if an adoption system is to be well regulated it is essential to prohibit independent adoptions (Special Commission, 2010: rec. 1). Independent adoptions, it was said, are ‘not compatible with the Convention’ (Special Commission, 2010: rec. 23).

It will be shown that independent ICAs are compatible with the 1993 Convention. The checks that are imposed by both the receiving state and the state of origin mean that they fully comply with its terms. The claim that independent ICA is inconsistent with the Convention can only be sustained by ignoring things that are in the Convention and inserting things that are not. However, what is legal under the articles of the Convention is not necessarily ethical and if the ethical case against independent ICA is relatively strong, then one might concede that such adoptions violate the spirit of the Convention, even if they abide by the letter. However, the empirical basis for the argument that independent adoption is more open to abuse than organised forms of adoption is weak. Because the claim is a comparative one, the evidence must also be comparative, but such evidence is very limited. An indirect comparative analysis of independent adoptions against state organized adoptions was made in a report by Defence for Children International, ISS, and Terre des Hommes that circulated at the discussions preceding the Convention (Defence for Children International, 1991; Parra-Aranguren, 1994: 13). The report considered comments solicited from member organizations in 12 receiving states and 11 sending states with somewhat inconclusive results: ‘According to the receiving country reports, illicit and questionable practices are most often linked to independent adoptions; in contrast, there is no agreement (consensus) among country of origin reports, some of which associate them with agencies, independent adoptions or both’ (Defence for Children International, 1991: 14). Terre des Hommes and ISS have gone on to harden their position against independent ICA without either of them appearing to have undertaken systematic comparison of independent and agency adoptions. Sometimes, it is simply assumed that independent ICA is more risky (ISS, 2004). Sometimes the heightened risk is presented as a logical deduction that does not require empirical support, as in the Terre des Hommes report Adoption at What Cost (Lammerant and Hofstetter, 2008). The argument against independent adoption by UNICEF also lacks a comparative evidence base. In calling for all adoptions to be centralised, UNICEF makes the universal claim that ‘by far the worst and most frequent problems arise in the context of ‘private’ adoptions’ and selects sources to fit this claim, beginning with a newspaper report from Russia (UNICEF, 1998). UNICEF is in a delicate position as criticism of a state for, say, widespread corruption, is a much more serious matter than making a general assumption about corruption in civil society. It may, eg jeopardize reform initiatives undertaken in conjunction with that state. It is perfectly understandable, therefore, that criticism of states by UNICEF is muted. However, the resulting one-sided presentation of problems as emanating from society should not be mistaken for objective analysis, as such an analysis would at least consider the contrary possibility that in a venal state the sphere of civil society may give scope for people to act with relative honesty and dignity.

Growing up in the Netherlands, Linde Welberg knew she had the most loving parents a child could ask for. Yet she had always felt something was missing from her life.

Long before her father and mother told her she was adopted, she instinctively knew it.

“I felt a part of me was missing,” she says.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in the US city of Philadelphia, Lianna Fogg was going through similar turmoil. “I shared the same dream of every adoptee,” says Fogg. “Not just to find my birth parents, but to be accepted by them.”

The two young women have never met, but share a common experience. Put up for adoption as a consequence of China’s now-abandoned one-child policy, both have lived lives far removed from the circumstances of their birth.