Parliamentary committee enquires into international child adoptions
5 Oct 2012Flash News
Members of the parliamentary human rights’ committee say that the time has come to draw criminal responsibility in cases of international and so-called forced adoptions of children from Slovakia. They made the comments in connection with an MPs' inquiry into the work of the Centre for International Legal Protection of Children and Youth.
Opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) MP Lucia Nicholsonová said, as quoted by the SITA newswire, that more than 100 cross-border adoptions of children from Slovak orphanages took place without the supervision of the commission responsible for pairing children with suitable parents. A meeting of the parliamentary committee on Thursday, October 4, was also attended by the current director of the centre, Andrea Císarová, who said that an audit, begun on the instructions of the labour minister, has started at the centre to look at international adoptions.
Nicholsonová said that after more and more parents contacted her she decided to look into information from 357 files on international children adoptions. She said that the largest number of children adopted from Slovakia end up in Italy, which is the only country that is represented by a private company in international adoptions of children from Slovakia. According to her, the disproportionate transfer of children to Italy has been going on for at least ten years. In this matter, Nicholsonová has filed a criminal motion alleging children trafficking, and said she plans to turn to Interpol and the Italian police. Nicholsonová says there have been 106 cases when children went abroad without the commission's involvement and without documenting of their problematic health conditions. Another serious problem is the archive of the centre, which she said is lacking files related to international adoptions before 2002, SITA wrote. This means that it is not currently possible to get an overview of transfers of children from 1993 to 2002.