Shocking admission by former DOCs worker

Posted on August 25, 2014 by apologyalliance

One comment I received privately about DLF’s comment to remove Baby Gammy from his mother and place him with a “good family” –   I sought and received permission to post publicly:

What constitutes “good”. When I worked at the Dept of Community Services I came across a lot of teen adoptees who were very damaged because of the adopted parents that had been chosen for them. Honestly you would not have given them the worst kind of pet let alone a child. (name withheld).

Brother Alex MacDonald worked with street kids in Melbourne in the 1980s.  He made the astounding comment published in a news article that out of 149 drug related suicides he attended – 147 were adoptees.

Psychiatrist Dr. Geoff Rickarby has spoken and written of the large number of adoptees he has seen in his clinical practice.  He advised the government as early as the 1970s that potential adopters were not being adequately screened and were not prepared for rearing a child who was so different from them.  He was not just talking about physical characteristics, but thinking patterns and behaviours that were alien to the adopters. He also complained that adoption was being used as a “cure for infertility” and many adopters had mental health problems that were believed to be cured if given an infant. Whilst many adoptees he saw suffered serious identity crises and  stated  they never felt as if they “fitted in”.  These adoptive families, Dr. Rickarby stated, were the “healthier ones” because they were seeking help.

Kerry Saint, an adoptee stolen from her mother: a widow, has been extraordinarily vocal about the physical and sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of the parents the state placed her with.

https://open.abc.net.au/projects/separated-01du6ze/contributions/kerri-daughter-17vj2ld

20% of parents who adopt from overseas go overseas and adopt whilst abroad.  They then apply to bring the infant back to Australia.  The adopters are never screened.  A fact I brought to your attention in a previous post.  This revelation was made during the Inquiry into Overseas Adoption (2005).  This is a dangerous precedent and once again shows that adoption is an institution to satisfy adult needs not the best interests of children.

The case of Baby Gammy highlights how easy it is for a paedophile to acquire a baby.

Infants forcibly taken from their unwed mothers became Wards of the State before being adopted.  It was the Minister’s duty to select adequate parents. I do not understand when many adoptees have complained of being physically and sexually abused and former DOCs workers are aware of abuse in adoptive home why adoptees were not included to give evidence at the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse. Adoption is an institution. Children are reared by two biological strangers.  Is there any real difference between a foster and an adoptive home? They are both creatures of the state.  If one argues there is more permanence in the adoptive home – then the high number of divorces  are not being taken into account – I am aware of cases where the divorce was initiated because the adoptive father was sexually abusing the adopted children. Neither is the fact that one adopter might die – as happened to many of our taken children – who were then ironically reared by a sole parent.

 

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Excellent comments re Baby Gammy’s Post & need for integrated Birth Certificate

Posted on August 25, 2014 by apologyalliance

I have copied and paste some excellent comments generated from the Baby Gammy Post – you can also find them on the right hand side of the page under comments  –  but to bring them to everyone’s attention I thought I would also collect them here:

I am saddened and outraged by Deborrah-Lee Furness’ ignorant statement. Gammy’s mother, from Gammy’s perspective is Ms Pattharamon. She is his womb mother, despite the biological input. She was his safety and nurturance for nine months. Furness’ comment is an insult not only to Ms Pattharamon, but to the Thai people as saying they are not good enough parents. We are repeating the pain of decades of adoption trauma of separation of infants from their mothers, if we think this is an easy solution to providing babies. Babies are not commodities and are not transplantable. Have we still not learnt that?

…………………….

“When the baby has a mother but the adopters stand at the foot of the bed waiting for it to be born so they cut the cord and take possession, in my opinion that is using another women’s womb for your benefit. It has nothing to do with the welfare or rights of the child.”

Yes, why is the baby never considered? Gammy has his mother.
He is bonded to her.
As someone who was taken from my mother at birth (relinquished), I can tell you, I remembered and suffered all my life, even though I did not know I was adopted until middle age (let alone being taken away after six months of life with her).
Just think about this for a moment.
Even though no-one told me, I knew in my body, in my marrow, in my cells, in my limbic system.
My body knew. My heart knew.
My soul knew.
My body lived out my existential grief across the decades.

Babies cannot simply be taken away and ‘given’ to someone else.
Why is Gammy’s mother not a good enough mother for him?
The answer to that question may expose many in the Western World to a charge of insensitivity, ignorance and/or unconscious arrogance.

…………………………

Taking a baby from the mother who carried him because she is not ‘a good family’! As always DLF seems to have no interest in what is best for the child.

What more is there to say, the article hits he nail on the head. DLF is as always only interested in pushing her agenda not about the best interests of the child. Unfortunately she has the ear of a fickle PM who runs with whoever seems the most influential.

……………………………….

In the Bringing Them Home report of 1997 it established that 90% of adult Aboriginal male prisoners in Australia had been adopted, fostered or institutionalized as children. In NSW 95% of adult male (self termed) Aboriginal prisoners had been adopted, fostered or institutionalized as children. Is removing a child from its family really in the best interest of the child?

Taking children from their biological family creates catastrophic consequences for that individual and the entire society. Many children extracted from their biological origins grow into adults who have had their true identities hidden and suffer from a range of distressing identity problems…. Their children in turn also have to take on fictive ancestries…. Is living a lie, in the best interest of the child/adult? What child/adult?

Waiting for eighteen years before being legally permitted to find the truth of your own identity defeats the purpose of individual security. How can it be in the best interest of a child to have a fictive identity forced upon him or her only to find the truth as an adult?

Who Do You Think You Are? Is an extremely popular and intriguing television series where well known individuals come to ‘find themselves through their ancestors’. I would like to know Who Debra Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman think they are. Have they told the boy they took at birth about his mother? Have they told her that his mother killed herself because she was not allowed to see him her son? The lies and secrecy gives a lifelong cover to adopters for their kidnapping of another woman’s baby. Is this lifelong secrecy in the best interest of a child/adult?
Just exactly who does benefit from lies and secrecy? Who is being protected by lies and secrecy and being removed from all natural biological communications…. Has the baby been abused by every member of its own family? Why stigmatize a baby/child/adult?

…………………..

A woman’s mental and physical health is severely compromised thorough pregnancy alone. ‘Surrogate’ mothers ( baby would not exist without her) bodies are bombarded with hormones to prepare her body for a pregnancy….. 40 weeks pregnancy is hard going for many women. Often surrogate mothers have two embryos implanted into her body. Having twins is even harder on her body. She has no choice but to continue with the pregnancy. She has no legal rights. She has no idea how she is going to feel after giving birth to her children. Western babies are bigger than Asian babies and she is likely to undergo a Caesarean…. Do they use stilboestrol to dry the milk? Lasix? She could get maternal Diabetes, post Partum Depression/ Psychosis, bladder and/ or damage to her internal organs and I am certain Surrogacy has its own special repercussions socially for her and her family. Does she want a relationship with her child/children? Her health does not even enter the picture.

IF the ‘Surrogate’ mother does get paid it is not standardized and regulated. How come the surrogate mothers in India and Asia are still in poverty and have to suffer another pregnancy (usually with twins) after the 40 week ordeal of pregnancy? The orphans and surrogate mother do not seem to be benefiting economically from this slave trade do they? Yet time and again we are told that the going rate to buy a womans body for 40 weeks and own a child/children is around $40,000. The fertility slavers do not want to pay her…. They are demanding a baby for free.

………………………….

Furness is an ignorant , barren woman who believes, that by kidnapping another woman’s baby, she becomes a mother. She is NOT a mother and NEVER will be.

She is delusional if she believes adoptive parents (kidnappers) can give a child a better life than their mother and father.

By supporting Furness, Harmer has betrayed other mothers. Harmer should be ashamed of herself for actively promoting the kidnapping of babies from their mothers.

Furness is incapable of empathy for others and cares only about herself.

She will never be a real woman in the true sense of the word. If she wasn’t married to a rich and famous husband she would have no influence.

She has no achievements of her own. She can’t even bear a child. How pathetic is she!!!

………………………….

Reblogged this on The Life Of Vonand commented:
Here in SA we are lucky enough to have access to our BC’s but most likely our father’s name will not have been recorded if we were bastards. The BC is such an insult and if you are lucky enough to have both real and fake ones as I do, there is no connection between them. Nothing to show this is the same person because it was designed to wipe out that evidence and make us different people. It hits home for me particularly today as I am renewing my passport and as proof of identity have to show my afather’s BC!! How bizarre is that? I’m annoyed, I’m angry and triggered badly today. I cannot pretend otherwise and if I get through lodging my application at 3pm without tears I’ll be very surprised. A hot topic still for so many!

………….

Unhappily not so in my case. Father’s name were routinely not included or asked for in SA in 1944 and if my mother had not been alive and we had not found each other I would never have known about my father. Today I wrestle with a passport renewal which insists I show my afather or mother’s birth certificate as proof of who I am!! What sort of travesty and insult is that?

………………….

Now that so many victims of “forced adoptions” (kidnapping) have had their paperwork released to them ,is it possible to begin to compile a list of all of those (criminals) who were involved?
I have a full list of everyone involved in my family’s case and am prepared to release them for public viewing.

Just as the victims of institutional chid sexual abuse were named before that Royal Commission began, could this list be the beginning of a push for a justifiable Royal Commission into “forced adoptions”?

Those responsible need to be held accountable no matter how long ago these crimes were committed. Kidnapping is a criminal offence and these babies were kidnapped. The perpetrators have been protected for far too long.

I would value the opinions of others whose lives have been affected by this cruel practice.

 

 

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Furness wants Baby Gammy taken from his Mum and given to a “good family”

Posted on August 21, 2014 by apologyalliance

Furness is using  the tragic case of Baby Gammy to promote her pro adoption agenda. In an on-line article published today both adoption and making commercial surrogacy available in Australia are being touted as the answers to the problems that became apparent in the Baby Gammy case.  Unfortunately the article says little about adequate screening of adopters and even less about the long term emotional and psychological ramifications to a child being created via such commercial arrangements.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2729669/Theres-Gammy-born-Africa-everyday-Hugh-Jackmans-wife-adoption-advocate-Deborra-Lee-Furness-breaks-silence-Thailand-boy-abandoned-Australian-parents.html

In the above on-line article Furness suggests taking Baby Gammy from the only mother he has known “as soon as possible” to be given “to a  family”.  She obviously does not consider the woman who carried him for 9 months as his family? Baby Gammy’s Mum is poor and unmarried and certainly can not compete with the affluence, power and prestige of Furness and the people she represents.

Interestingly Furness is silent on the situation of Gammy’s twin sister – who is currently residing  with the paedophile who was wealthy enough to organise the surrogacy arrangement. I believe responses like hers are expected when individuals feel entitled to use another women’s womb to meet their needs.  This IS NOT ABOUT ABANDONED CHILDREN. This has nothing to do with “saving orphans”.   These children are being created purposely to satisfy someone’s need.  There is little difference, except in semantics, when a poor, young, pregnant girl/woman in the US is convinced that it is better for her unborn child to be taken at birth and brought up by wealthier strangers.  In my view this is a form of commercial surrogacy under the banner of domestic adoption.  When the baby has a mother but the adopters stand at the foot of the bed waiting for it  to be born so they cut the cord and take possession, in my opinion that is using another women’s womb for your benefit.  It has nothing to do with the welfare or rights of the child.

Under Thai law, Ms Pattharamon (Goy), Gammy’s surrogate mother, is the lawful mother of six-month-old Gammy (SMH, 11/8/2014, News p. 3).  Yet Furness still advocates for her baby to be forcibly taken.

The article states:

While she didn’t know all the facts about Gammy’s case, she said a safe home should be found for him ‘as soon as possible’.

‘You know what? Baby Gammy happens every minute in Africa,’ Ms Furness said.

‘There are so many special needs children that families don’t have the physical or emotional resources to care for those kids.

‘They are abandoned vulnerable children and they’re the kids that we need to find families for. ‘So I would say for baby Gammy, we need to find him a family as soon as possible.’

 

Infertility is very sad, but the worst thing that can happen to a human being is to have their baby or infant taken  and to never know what happened to it.  The trauma, the grief is unbearable and lifelong. Just ask anyone who has gone through the experience of having a son or daugher kidnapped.  Do they ever really recover? The pain, trauma and heartbreak never go away. Eventually they may learn to live with it – So it is a shame that more women do not respect other women enough not to covet their children as does the woman who made the following comment:

SURROGACY IS NOT THE ANSWER TO THE PAIN OF CHILDLESSNESS

SMH – Monday, August 11, 2014, p. 20 – COMMENT

 

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The Murdoch / Furness anti-biological family media campaign: the term relinquishing back on the table

Posted on August 20, 2014 by apologyalliance

Deborra-lee Furness is back in town promoting her new pro adoption campaign.  The Murdoch controlled media are in full swing promoting her pro adoption agenda.

http://thehoopla.com.au/time-change-inter-country-adoption/

Prior to and after the National Apology (2013) we were dignified by being referred to as mothers who survived the Forced Adoption regime wherein 250,000 babies were illegally taken.  17% of whom were stolen from aboriginal mothers and placed with white married couples.  In Wendy Harmer’s article, Adoption: time for change, she interviews Furness who labels us “relinquishing mothers” and our stolen babies as “relinquished”.  I wonder in the US does Furness get away with using the “N” word to describe African Americans – because in my opinion she is getting away with the same level of insult here.  After I was drugged and held down and had my baby taken sight unseen to be referred to as a “relinquishing mother” is deeply insulting,  discriminatory and TRAUMATISING.  I guess though when your best friends with the PM and the Murdoch press you can get away with saying whatever you want about whatever minority you want  to insult.

The article once again regurgitates the lie that there are millions upon millions of orphans waiting to be saved.   Furness states:

UNICEF figures estimate 157 million orphans, (which would make it the 8th largest country in the world) but as we know, it’s tricky to do a door knock to have a true sense of the numbers.

UNICEF tried to correct the myth and stop the misuse of  labelling millions of children orphans – when they were not – for an obvious agenda.  They published the following on their website:.

Orphans | Press centre | UNICEF

UNICEF and global partners define an orphan as a child who has lost one or both parents. By this definition there were over 132 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in 2005. This large figure represents not only children who have lost both parents, but also those who have lost a father but have a surviving mother or have lost their mother but have a surviving father. Of the more than 132 million children classified as orphans, only 13 million have lost both parents. Evidence clearly shows that the vast majority of orphans are living with a surviving parent grandparent, or other family member.  95 per cent of all orphans are over the age of five.This definition contrasts with concepts of orphan in many industrialized countries, where a child must have lost both parents to qualify as an orphan. UNICEF and numerous international organizations adopted the broader definition of orphan in the mid-1990s as the AIDS pandemic began leading to the death of millions of parents worldwide, leaving an ever increasing number of children growing up without one or more parents. So the terminology of a ‘single orphan’ – the loss of one parent – and a ‘double orphan’ – the loss of both parents – was born to convey this growing crisis.

However, this difference in terminology can have concrete implications for policies and programming for children. For example, UNICEF’s ‘orphan’ statistic might be interpreted to mean that globally there are 132 million children in need of a new family, shelter, or care. This misunderstanding may then lead to responses that focus on providing care for individual children rather than supporting the families and communities that care for orphans and are in need of support.

In keeping with this and the agency’s commitment to adapt to the evolving realities of the AIDS crisis, UNICEF commissioned an analysis of population household surveys across 36 countries. Designed to compare current conditions of orphans and non-orphans, the global analysis suggests we should further expand our scope, focusing less on the concept of orphanhood and more on a range of factors that render children vulnerable. These factors include the family’s ownership of property, the poverty level of the household, the child’s relationship to the head of the household, and the education level of the child’s parents, if they are living.

In UNICEF’s experience, these are the elements that can help identify both children and their families – whether this term includes living parents, grandparents or other relatives – who have the greatest need for our support.

// Updated: 21 August 2008

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_45279.html

What’s worse in poor countries where there is demand for children orphans are manufactured. For example:  Orphan Tourism in Cambodia

http://nelbie.com/kevmarl/2014/8/5/the-cambodian-orphans-head-first-with-sabour-bradley-on-abctv

The above documentary implores Australians to stop  supporting an industry that exploits poor Cambodian children (who are not orphans) – It highlights the dreadful incidences of  tourists  walking in off the street and gaining unsupervised access to children or even being allowed to take them out of the orphanages on excursions – paedophile paradise!

On the Cambodian Orphanage Industry –

The desire of tourists to ‘help’ orphans – either as day tourists, volunteer tourists or donors – means there’s a huge amount of money on offer if you can start up an orphanage.

And many Cambodians are doing just that: stocking them with children they rent, buy or borrow from extremely poor parents (often in rural areas) with promises of a better life in the city. –

Hugh Jackman and Furness are both lobbying Tony Abbott to open up adoptions once more from Cambodia

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-06/5431870

/Deborra-Lee Furness has met privately with Tony Abbott in New York to discuss adoption reform 

The meetings follow a vow by Mr Abbott in April that he would slash adoption red tape in Australia and take full control of overseas adoption from the states and open discussions with Vietnam, Kenya, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, the US and Cambodia

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/deborralee-furness-has-met-privately-with-tony-abbott-in-new-york-to-discuss-adoption-reform/story-fni0cx12-1226951035812

Cambodia was originally closed to intercountry adoptions because of serious corruption and child trafficking

http://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/cambodia.html

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/15/1071336884728.html

Interestingly when intercountry adoption was banned the number of “orphans” declined

Babies for sale: no warranty – http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/15/1071336884728.html

“I believe such a big demand for children from Western countries is not solving a problem of abandonment, but creating it,” says the head of one Phnom Penh non-governmental agency involved in legitimate adoptions. “Some Westerners come here with bags of money, desperate to adopt children at any cost and even prepared to turn a blind eye to where those children came from.”

 

Australia does not permit direct adoptions from Cambodia because of the country’s failure to ratify the Hague convention and to act against traffickers. But a number of Australian couples have adopted Cambodian children after living in Cambodia or third countries such as Singapore, which do permit direct adoptions.

Returning back to Harmer’s article:

It also addresses the vexed issue of the supposedly anti-adoption culture  –  remembering anti-adoption is equated with a lack of care for children.  This is a false comparison and one that should never be made.

In reality the pro adoption lobby believe  supporting vulnerable families remain intact equates with being anti-adoption.  I suggest being pro adoption is being anti-biological family, particular  mother-headed families.

Furness states:

­

Then there are the children that were put up for adoption during the 50s to 70s who were born to single mothers – all the kids who were abused in State care. Society at the time did not look kindly on this situation.

No support for either the relinquishing mothers or for the relinquished children – there was so much pain and suffering for all concerned.

The people who travelled this path are angry and therefore are part of the reason we have an anti-adoption culture. Many of the people that were affected by this scenario work within the bureaucracy of adoption and foster care departments in Australia.

What a lot of lies!  For one there was both financial and other supports available (and were from early 20th century)  but they were never revealed to the mothers because married infertile couples wanted our babies.

We did not relinquish our babies THEY WERE STOLEN – THAT IS WHY WE RECEIVED FEDERAL AND STATE APOLOGIES  –  FURNESS PLEASE READ THE APOLOGIES

I am 62 years old and I am on the younger side of many I have fought alongside to gain justice for mothers who had their children stolen for adoption – yet Furness is claiming many of us are NOW working within the adoption and foster care system  – doesn’t anyone question the rubbish that comes out of her mouth?

The whole nonsense about being anti-adoption is a strategy originally employed by the billion dollar unregulated adoption industry to stop adoptees who wanted their sealed adoption records opened.  Former President of the National Council for Adoption USA and President and Executive Director for the Committee of International Association of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, William L. Pierce, stated that anyone who wanted adoption records opened was anti-adoption.  This strategy was employed here by adoptive parent organisations such as Adoptive Parents Privacy Group and the Australian Council for Adoption (formerly the National Council for Adoption (Aust)).  The latter organisation and a number of its members submitted with their submission to the Inquiry into Overseas Adoption (2005) chaired by Bronwyn Bishop, a paper written by William L. Pierce, titled Death of Adoption in Australia? which criticised the opening up of records in Australia because we were being seen as a rallying point for US civil rights activists (mothers and adoptees) there.

Pierces states:

New Zealand, which has anti-adoption scene similar to Australia, has long been cited along with Australia as being a “model” for the US by anti-adoption interests such as Bastard Nation, the American Adoption Congress, Concerned United Birthparents and similar groups.

Anyone who reads the transcripts of the evidence given at that Inquiry cannot help but see the complete bias in support of adopters and the disregard for any damage done to adoptees and the mothers from whom they were taken.

The anti-adoption slogan also  happens to be a world wide strategy utilised by the international pro adoption lobby to garner societal support for the movement of  children across borders and for forcibly removing children from poor to comparatively wealthier families domestically –  and most relevantly – to silence its critics.

See: Submission 56 adoption – Google Search australian council for adoption – Parliament of Australia

To contrast the above pro adoption smoke and mirrors campaign described above please read the following media release from the WA Government:

A Memorandum of Understanding has been agreed with the Canadian province of Alberta to share the WA-developed Signs of Safety child protection practice framework. It is a tool embedded in WA’s child protection practice which enables child protection workers to rigorously assess the safety of a child.

“WA is a world leader in child protection practice, with the locally developed Signs of Safety child protection practice framework now being used in more than 100 jurisdictions and 17 countries around the world,” the Minister said. “Signs of Safety places families at the centre of assessing, planning for and taking responsibility to provide a safe and positive environment for their children.

Critically, the framework has strengthened our work with families, meaning more children can stay at home with a safety plan in place where needed. “Today’s signing will benefit both parties – we look forward to sharing the knowledge, skills and experience we have in WA with our Alberta counterparts, and in turn learn from them.”

The agreement was signed simultaneously via video link by Mrs Morton, and Alberta Minister of Human Services Manmeet S. Bhullar. “We know that removing children from their families is devastating and traumatic for all involved. I strongly believe children should remain with family or within their community unless there is a clear threat to their safety and wellbeing,” Mr Bhullar said.

Since the Signs of Safety Child Protection Framework was introduced, the average growth rate in numbers of children needing out-of-home care in WA over the past five years has almost halved to 6.7% in 2013-14 from 13% in 2007-08

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Mothers and Adoptees have right to access honest birth certificate

Posted on August 19, 2014 by apologyalliance

The birth certificate that is issued to an adoptee is the only legal document that is allowed to lie. It is a fraudulent document in that its purpose is to deceive.  The birth certificate removes from history the real mother and father and records the names of two biological strangers as the parents. It pretends that it was they who  are responsible for the birth of the child.  It is a  legal fiction.  The real mother and father are thus rendered invisible.  And is possibly why the legal scholar, Robert Ludbrook, stated to the Law Reform Commission in 1994, that an adoption certificate was akin to a property deed, in that it reflected a transference of ownership rather than a person’s true heritage.

A birth certificate is a powerful symbol of a person’s identity. Every human being has an inherent need to know from where they came. Knowing who we are is an inherent right that everyone has except adopted persons.  They do not have  what we take for granted: knowing our forebears.  This knowing gives us a  sense of security, connectedness and belonging – it gives us a truthful reflection of our place in the world.

Recommendation 13 of the Senate Inquiry into former forced adoption polices and practices states:

  • all jurisdictions adopt integrated birth certificates, that these be issued to eligible people upon request, and that they be legal proof of identity of equal status to other birth certificates, and

  • jurisdictions investigate harmonisation of births, deaths and marriages register access and the facilitation of a single national access point to those registers

Recommendation 14

  • All jurisdictions adopt a process for allowing the names of fathers to be added to original birth certificates of children who were subsequently adopted and for whom fathers’ identities were not originally recorded; and

  • Provided that any prescribed conditions are met, the process be administrative and not require an order of a court

Nearly all mothers provided the name of the father and all his family history. I provided my stolen daughter’s father’s name, his parents and siblings.  I gave his work history, his likes and dislikes, his mother and father’s employment histories.  Yet his name was omitted from my daughter’s birth certificate.  Why?  Because keeping the father’s name off the birth certificate made it easier for the social worker in cases where a father might challenge the adoption order.  Such as a father who was living with the mother or  had been providing for her care during the pregnancy.  Additionally inserting the father’s name on the birth certificate gives voice to an alternative narrative to the one given by adoption agents. It revealed the child had a father who cared enough to be named on the birth record. This is highly symbolic and makes a lie of the stories social workers’ spun to assuage the guilt of would be adopters – such as the father left the mother penniless – or the baby was the result of a brief affair or a one night stand – hence the baby was unwanted.

Please sign the petition

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/forcedadopt

which now also includes calling on the legislature to undo past legislation  that shrouded the theft of our children in lies and hid their true identity.  This past unjust and unfair legislation  has an affect on our present.  Not just in denying adoptees their right to know their true history, but in cases where mothers find their infant has died before they ever got a chance to meet and when they apply for a death certificate they are denied that as well.  Being legally wiped out of existence via the original birth certificate has a flow on effect down the generations.  One of the posts on this site was of an adoptee who cannot access details of his father because they were never included on his birth certificate and his mother sadly passed away before they met. The grandchildren will never know their grandmother and are now denied any opportunity to meet their grandfather.  The authorities have the details but will not release them.  The law was not followed then, but unfortunately for this adoptee is being stringently adhered to now.

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Warning of new ‘baby industry’ system: Increased abductions and child trafficking

Posted on August 19, 2014 by apologyalliance

Professor Nahum Mushin, Chair of the Implementation Working Group for Forced Adoption,  warned that Tony Abbott’s policy of  making intercountry adoption “easier, quicker and cheaper” for childless couples could end in a baby trafficking scenario similar to the one that operated in Australia for decades.  Approximately two hundred and fifty thousand newborns were taken from their single mothers and given to white married couples because they were considered “more effective” parents purely and simply because of their marital status.

Mushin states:

“The working group, together with the whole of the forced adoptions sector, have grave misgivings about the continuation of inter-country adoptions per se. They assert that inter-country adoption should be seen as a last resort after all other measures to assist children have been exhausted,” chairman Nahum Mushin wrote to the ­inquiry.

“The forced adoptions era in Australia saw the development of a ‘baby industry’ which privileged the needs of middle-class childless couples over the wishes or rights of single women and their babies. Inter-country adoptions do the same.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/warning-of-baby-industry-system/story-fn59nm2j-1227028627882
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PETITION: RECOGNITION OF FORCED ADOPTION PRACTICES

Posted on August 17, 2014 by apologyalliance

Please sign our petition at

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/forcedadopt

Petition reads:

PETITION: RECOGNITION OF FORCED ADOPTION PRACTICES – PetitionBuzz

invites all NSW mothers, adoptees and affected family members, who were forcibly separated under a national policy of Forced Adoption enacted via state government institutions, to petition the NSW government to fulfil its moral and legal duties commensurate with the apology it issued to the citizens it wronged.

 

Any NSW resident who supports this initiative – even though not personally affected, can also sign the petition.

When we get 250 plus signatures this Petition will be presented to Hon Jan Barham MP (Greens) to table at NSW Parliament House on our behalf .

Barham states: Your petitioners request that the House will call on the NSW Government to establish:

  • an annual Day of Recognition of Forced Adoption Practices,
  • a public memorial to commemorate the apology to those affected by forced adoption practices in NSW,
  • and a public awareness campaign to recognise forced adoption practices

……………………………………………………….

I would also like included in the request that:

  • the 303 accounts submitted by mothers at the NSW Inquiry  practices –
  • given in good faith on the condition that they were  made public – no longer be suppressed,
  • but made freely available on-line so that they are rightfully included
  • in the nations’s historical account of Australia’s policy of Forced Adoption.

Dr. Christine A. Cole

[1]  http://www.janbarham.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Petition-Forced-Adoption-Recognition.pdf
[2] Unwed mothers and newborns forcibly separated (stolen)
Apology for Forced Adoption Practices, the Hon Jan Barham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JvnibcPEV0
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No protection from hate mongering for single Mums

Posted on August 6, 2014 by apologyalliance

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975 – SECT 18C Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely … to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group

…

ABC News Breakfast talks to Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson 6/8/2014

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-06/news-breakfast-talks-to-human-rights-commissioner/5651440

Tim Wilson: “I think it is incredibly important that laws apply to everybody equally.  One of the great misunderstandings about this law is that there are equivalent standards against other types of prejudices that we don’t like.  There is no equivalent  to 18C against sexism, against issues of sexuality or unjust prejudice against people on the basis of disability … this is just a specific one of race that goes substantially further that any other law and has a chilling effect on free speech … I think the Prime Minister is very wrong  removing proposals to change the law. Even if the proposals he had put forward had been adopted they still would have gone further than  regulations on speech in any other areas of unjust prejudice such as sexism or  issues of sexuality or disability  … this law does not deal with harassment those sorts of laws exist at a state level and deal precisely with what a lot of people are concerned about … I think we need to get back to the simple proposition that all speech is legal until it is made illegal and imagine if we establish the standard that it is was unlawful to offend people on any number of other categories on restrictions on free speech and people would rightly be outraged. [The shock jocks?] And all I have argued at every point and remains the case and should be legislated is that if a standard applies to one it should apply to all

Virginia Trioli: We do have that?  You could argue that the Sex Discrimination Act is based on that.

Tim Wilson:  That is factually incorrect if you look at the Sex Discrimination Act it has no provision like Section 18C – it deals with issues of harassment in the workplace.

…………………………..

Don’t be fooled by Tim Wilson’s double speak.  He does not want substantive protections against hate speech implemented, rather he is using this country’s lack of protections for certain minority groups to provide an argument to get rid of 18C.  He does not want a level playing field, he would prefer to be rid of all referees and like Attorney General, George Brandeis, give bigots a free run.

He is right the Sex Discrimination Act does not protect women from hate speech or intolerance and intimidation.  If it did would all the shock jocks and the Murdoch media have got away with insulting and humiliating the highest woman in the land: former Prime Minister Julia Gillard.  Imagine printing a disgusting sexist menu based on our Prime Minister’s body parts that was presented at a Liberal part dinner for MP Mal Brough!

Julia Gillard says Mal Brough should be disendorsed over ‘grossly sexist’ menu – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-12/opposition-on-back-foot-in-sexism-row-after-menu-published-onli/4748826

“The Opposition was forced on to the back foot in the row over sexism in politics after the menu, which contains crude references to Ms Gillard’s breasts, thighs and genitalia, emerged online. It was used at a dinner for about 20 people hosted by Mr Brough in Brisbane on March 28. Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey was the guest of honour. It featured a dish called “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail – Small Breasts, Huge Thighs & A Big Red Box”.

Absolutely disgusting and portrayed Australia as a deeply misogynist country.

So it seems Australians are free to continue to practice intolerance and state the most hateful and prejudicial statements against women and  in particular  single mothers.  So to Tim Wilson’s discredit as Human Rights Commissioner he is not arguing for  more protections for women or for that matter any other minority group  from hate speech –  and this is where we differ.  His argument is that he wants 18C removed because no such equivalent exists to prevent hate speech and stigmatization of other vulnerable groups. This is a dangerous as it attempts to be divisive and water down the very real need to stop hate mongering.   I argue to not only  keep 18C but strengthen the Sex Discrimination Act so that it really protects women in all situations, in particular single mothers, from being stigmatized and ridiculed by pundits and right wing ‘think tanks’. In short to protect women and girls from the institutional hatred and intolerance that led to a quarter of a million newborns being stolen from their mothers with no-one ever being brought to account. The atrocity of  stealing generations of white Australian babies will be repeated because none of the structural changes that are needed to protect women from being held up to ridicule and and hate have been put in place.  Such as the simple insertion of legislation to protect them from hate speech which of itself leads to intolerance and unpunished crimes against women’s basic human rights.

It is ironic that Tony Abbott’s justification for going back on his promise to remove 18C is because he wants to be able to crack down on hate speech because he states hate speech incites individuals to commit acts of violence.  Yet Mr. Abbot hate speech does lead to members of society believing they can take the law into their own hands and commit acts of violence on those it marginalises and de-humanises.

If mothers’ rights had been protected in the past there would have been no way state welfare departments’ around the country could have run bigoted campaigns attacking single mothers as ‘unfit’ to rear their newborns. Or label their newborns as “unwanted”.  Or make claims that their babies were better off adopted by  white married couples, purely and simply  because of their mother’s unwed status.  Such hate mongering bred intolerance and indifference in the broader community.   It gave those working in the adoption industry the justification they needed to excuse themselves of  the theft of hundreds of thousands of babies and children. Then it created the intolerant and prejudicial environment that existed and allowed these criminals to get away with their crimes for decades with impunity.

If  adequate laws existed now to protect single mothers from the intolerance and hate mongering  of individuals like Dr. Jeremy Sammut,  spokesperson for the right wing think tank: Centre for the Independent Studies (CIS), his comments would never be tolerated let alone published.  Sammut has written that we need to bring back Forced Adoption because supporting single mothers will breed an underclass of criminals in Australia.  These derogatory and highly inflammatory comments are  published on the CIS website and reiterated through Murdoch publications.

Sammut accuses welfare payments accorded to single mothers to having “led to the creation of an underclass of never-married single mother families that are significantly over-represented in cases of child abuse and neglect”. Further he suggests “the dangers of welfare for the unwed has contributed significantly to the creation of an underclass of children who would be better off being removed and adopted by good families”.

He states: “The politically incorrect reality is the introduction of the single mother’s pension by the Whitlam Government in 1973 has led to the very social problems that forced adoption was intended to prevent: the rise of a dependent class of single mothers reliant on public assistance and unable to properly care for children outside of a traditional, financially self-supporting family (2013d).

Excerpt from Thesis: Stolen Hearts Stolen Babies pp. 78-80 Vol 1 (linked to this Blog)

“So concerned that adoption would be put under societal scrutiny and be found wanting Sammut released his research paper titled: The Fraught Politics of Saying Sorry for Forced Adoption: Implications for Child Protection Policy in Australia (2013, Mar 19) the same week that Prime Minister Julia Gillard issued the apology to all white mothers forcibly separated from their stolen children (2013, Mar 21). At the same time CIS published several pro-adoption articles: Apologise but allow adoption (2013, Mar 19) and Why adoption should … continue (2013, March 22) His concerns were reiterated in the Murdoch press (Sammut: 2013g; Morton: 2013).  Sammut acknowledged that he was being ‘politically incorrect’ criticising both the apology and the Survivors of Forced Adoption at such a time, but being a ‘thinker’ in a ‘think tank’ gave him the freedom to speak out (Sammut: 2013f).  To add insult to injury he reduced all the thousands of mothers and adoptees who have been campaigning for justice for decades to mere ‘anti-adoptionists’.  He accused the Survivors of the Federal Government’s illegal removalist polices of misusing the national apology for their own political agenda. Which he claimed, was to discredit adoption, promote family preservation policies and keep ‘problem families together’, hence endanger children. So conflating the issue of the state-sanctioned theft of newborns (Xamon: 2010a & b) from their mothers and fathers to a separate issue entirely, that of children growing up within an abusive environment (2013c). Listening to his diatribe was a poignant reminder of past justifications used by proponents of forced removal policies.

Ironically because of his deep fear that ‘adoption will be tarnished’ by the Federal government apologising for Forced Adoption (The Australian: 2013, Mar 19; Morton: 2013, The Australian, Mar 19) Sammut caused abuse.  The apology was to facilitate the healing process of those who had unnecessarily suffered the trauma of illegal separation. To have Sammut equate their/our experience with a failed child protection policy was uniquely distasteful and unnecessarily cruel.  None of the newborns were taken because of abuse, but rather because there was a demand for them by white, middle class couples.   Mirroring Patrick Fagan’s (2006) eugenic rhetoric, Sammut accuses welfare payments accorded to single mothers to having “led to the creation of an underclass of never-married single mother families that are significantly over-represented in cases of child abuse and neglect”. Further he suggests “the dangers of welfare for the unwed has contributed significantly to the creation of an underclass of children who would be better off being removed and adopted by good families” (2013d). Such emotive and prejudicial language is very much at home with the past eugenic ideology that underpinned the forced removals of the Aboriginal Stolen Generation, The Forgotten Australians, the British Child Migrant Scheme as well as the White Australian Stolen Generation who were the subject of the apology. Rather it is Sammut and the CIS who have an obvious political agenda and that is to make available more newborns for infertile couples, and be of pecuniary benefit to the State.  Sammut states:

‘The politically incorrect reality is the introduction of the single mother’s pension by the Whitlam Government in 1973 has led to the very social problems that forced adoption was intended to prevent: the rise of a dependent class of single mothers reliant on public assistance and unable to properly care for children outside of a traditional, financially self-supporting family’ (2013d).

Summat it seems, and the CIS, would like a return to the era of Forced Adoption that led to the high number of babies available that took place in the late 1960s to 1971.

Excerpt from A Stolen Generation in the Making Part 5:

[11] Sammut cites extensively eugenicist Charles Murray in his Centre for Independent Studies  Issue Analysis (‘The Fraught Politics of Saying sorry for Forced Adoption, Implications for Child Protection Policy’ (2012, p. 8))  to support his argument that giving welfare to single mothers will create  “an underclass”. Sammut states: “The tragic reality is that there is a growing underclass of inadequate parents who are not fit to care for children, which includes disproportionate numbers of single-mother families”. Murray in a widely discussed 1993 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal (‘The Coming White Underclass’), described illegitimacy as “the single most important social problem of our time, more important than crime, drugs, poverty, illiteracy, welfare or homelessness because it drives everything else”. The heart of this problem, according to Murray, who also spoke in November 1994 on This Week with David Brinkley, is that “we have too many babies living in communities without fathers … [white illegitimacy] is overwhelmingly a lower-class phenomenon” Murray cited in  Barbara Yngvesson, (1997).  ‘Negotiating Motherhood: Identity and Difference in “Open” Adoptions’, Law & Society Review, 31(1), pp. 31-80 at p. 39.  Prime Minister Tony Abbott clearly influenced by the above 2 eugenicists stated that adoption should be promoted for the children of “parents who are not effective”  see  Emma Griffiths. (2013, Dec 19). ‘Tony Abbott announces new measures to simplify  adoption within a year’, ABC News, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-19/tony-abbott-vows-measures-easier-

adoption/5167098

Yes we need 18C but we also need better protections for women from hate mongers like Jeremy Sammut and others who incite intolerance which then in turn lead to social policies that are discriminatory, divisive and devoid of human rights.

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Babies for sale

Posted on August 5, 2014 by apologyalliance

In an ABC 7.30 Report, 4/08/2014,  titled: Babies For Sale the host Sarah Ferguson discusses the surrogacy case concerning Baby Gammy that has captured national and international attention.

Creating families artificially, specifically by Forced Adoption, was made palatable to the broader community by painting it as an altruistic endeavor where couples opened up their home to an unwanted child – their insatiable desire to parent at any cost was recast as: “saving babies”.   Unwed mothers were dehumanised as women who willingly gave away their babies to strangers.  This was a purposeful campaign – if the community had empathised with the young unwed mother Forced Adoption would not have continued on for as long as it did.  However surrogacy cannot be packaged like past Forced Adoption.  It is too obviously a trade that is built on satisfying the needs of individuals or couples who want a baby.  Spin doctors like Dr. Jeremy Sammut cannot sell surrogacy like Forced Adoption under the guise of child protection.  There are no “ineffective” parents from which the baby must be removed – there is no ‘welfare cheat’ creating an underclass that must be stopped and the child moved/saved by more affluent parents.

In the previous post I discussed how little freedom impoverished women have in ‘choosing’ surrogacy. Gammy’s surrogate, Pattaramon Chanbua, is one such a case.  She is a mother to a six and two year old.  She hoped that the $16,000 she would receive for carrying twins for an Australian couple would improve the life of her family.

Pattaramon Chanbua: “Because of my poverty and debt the money offered was a lot for me. In my mind with that money we can educate my children, repay our debt, we can help our mother and we still have have some funds to start a small business selling things”.

When the Australian couple rejected their disabled son Pattaramon stated she would raise him because: “… I love him, he was in my tummy for 9 months. My child I love him like my own … [speaking to Gammy] never think that you are not my child, never”.

Initially when one of the twins Pattaramon was carrying was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome the Australian couple asked her to abort.  She could not because she had become attached to the twins.  She stated: “I just cried because they were like my children, we lived together every day.  I could feel their movements, their bodies, their hearts are already beating. They were already children, once I heard the word abortion I was upset and cried”.

This is the side of surrogacy that desperate adopters do not want to acknowledge.  The forming of a bond between the mother and the infant/s she is carrying and the heartbreak she will inevitably feel when she and her newborn/s is parted.  As will the infants that have grown in her body listening to her heartbeat, her voice, experiencing the rhythm of her language, her smell.  All of which become familiar so that when born the baby knows it is safe because it still resides in the only environment it has ever known – it feels at home. Surrogacy like Forced Adoption is grounded on loss, heartbreak and long term emotional and psychological damage.  However the parents who “must have” a baby are blind to all of the above. Surrogacy is turning something as primal as motherhood into yet another consumer commodity.

Ferguson noted that the international surrogacy industry is basically unregulated.  and explained that  South East Asian correspondent, Samantha Hawley discovered the plight of Gammy and his surrogate mother while investigating the dark side of an industry in which unwanted fertilized  human eggs are sold on the black market and unwanted embryos discarded. Whilst the surrogates are mistreated and underpaid and children, like Gammy, when  no longer wanted are discarded and abandoned.

On tonight’s ABC 7.30 Report, Dark Past, Sarah Ferguson, following on from the above segment, announced a “shocking revelation”: “Gammy’s biological father is a convicted pedophile. What now for Gammy’s twin sister”? … The boy’s father  has twice been convicted and imprisoned for indecently dealing with children under the age of 13. The news as  provoked questions about the lack of regulation of the international surrogacy trade. It has also exposed the weakness of Australian laws that ban commercial surrogacy here but ignore what happens overseas”.

Gammy parents met through an on line dating agency and David Farnell traveled to China to marry Wendy Li in 2004.  Prior to this Farnell was sentenced to three years in  jail in 1997 for sexually molesting two girls under the age of 13. He was later charged with 6 counts of indecent dealings with child under the age of 13.  When he was found guilty the second time he received a further 18 month jail sentence.

When Pattaramon Chanbua heard that the biological father is a convicted pedophile she stated ” I was startled and worried … ”  And said if it was safer for Gammy’s sister to be brought back to her she would take of care of both the twins.

In the last post I discussed the lack of screening of parents who traveled abroad and adopted. This was brought to the government’s attention during the Inquiry into Overseas Adoption conducted in 2005, chaired by the now Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop. I brought the matter to the government’s attention again this year. I never received a response.

The ABC reporter noted that the Thai authorities do not conduct any background checks on any of the parents.  The only state that does criminal checks on those conducting surrogacy arrangements in Australia is Victoria.

Reporter: It will be up to West Australian child protection authorities decide whether Gammy’s sister stays with her Australian parents

Surrogacy lawyer states: “If they think there is a risk to this child they will take action if they don’t think there is they won’t”

The above comment is hardly reassuring since the father is a convicted pedophile.  And what will be the effect of all of this on Gammy’s sister. Separated from the mother in whose womb she grew, separated from her twin, taken to a foreign country where she may be  removed yet again. Abuse on abuse –

Forced adoption normalised the transference of a child away from its biological family to be brought up by strangers.  It normalised supplying children to an adoption market, so much so when the number of adoptions dropped it was labelled a “crisis”.  It created the environment whereby moving infants and children from poor families in developing countries to comparatively wealthy countries under the guise of intercountry adoption, is seen as elevating the child’s status and giving it a chance in the “lucky country”. The loss of the child’s identity, culture and connection with their communities is nullified with some adopters stating that they lost nothing only gained a better life. Forced Adoption  paved the way for surrogacy and the normalisation of exploiting another woman’s body to satisfy the personal needs and want of those in more powerful and privileged positions.

Since Tony Abbott has announced he is going to get rid of the red tape and make it “cheaper, quicker and easier” for prospective parents to adopt, both domestically and internationally Australians should not be surprised if they hear many more stories like that of Gammy’s.  Abbott is introducing legislation whereby parents can more easily acquire citizenship for children adopted overseas, and he is going to open up bi-lateral arrangements with non-Hague convention countries. The Hague Convention was set up to try and fix some of the many illegalities and corruption occurring in intercountry adoption. There are moves a foot to set up private adoption agencies so commercialize Australian  adoption. Who is going to speak up for the children, many of them yet to be born?

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Surrogacy like Forced Adoption is to service the needs of adults – what about the children?

Posted on August 5, 2014 by apologyalliance

More shocking news has come to light about  the biological parents from WA that procured the services of another’s woman’s womb. Not only did they reject the little boy because he was ”imperfect’ but the father is a pedophile. These facts will not surprise mothers and adoptees who visit this blog.  Children being rejected because of imperfections was common under the Forced Adoption regime as was the case that a number of children forcibly taken for the adoption market were sexually and/ or physically abused in their adoptive homes.

http://m.dailylife.com.au/life-and-love/parenting-and-families/what-baby-gammys-story-teaches-us-about-commercial-surrogacy-20140804-3d4ac.html

http://www.smh.com.au/world/report-that-father-of-surrogate-baby-gammy-has-child-indecency-conviction-20140805-100g5b.html

Under Australia’s past policy of forced removals many children with imperfections often languished for years in foster care or institutions.  Approximately 20% of children each year were categorized as un-adoptable by a pediatrician because of some suspected biological imperfection. The thinking being that since adopters were doing a child and the state a favor they should not be burdened with one that had any physical or mental disability. Another dirty little secret is that many adopters took an infant and found that they could not attach so they gave the baby back and got another one.  This was considered normal by social workers of the day who deemed that the adopters would eventually  find  an infant to whom they could attach.  By the late 1960s to about 1971 so many infants were taken that supply overtook demand and adopters began to refuse to take a newborn simply because they did not like their skin colour or  shape of the nose..

Adopters were supposed to be intensively screened as to their suitability to be parents – this simply did not happen.  Dr. Geoff Rickarby  stated that all one needed to apply for a baby was a job and a marriage licence. Rickarby went on to treat many adoptive families with serious emotional issues.  They, stated Rickarby, the ones that came for help, were the healthy ones!

Recently it was revealed that 20% of intercountry adoptions are conducted by individuals who go overseas for the requisite 12 months then adopt in the country in which they are residing then apply for a visa to bring the child back to Australia.  There is no screening of the adopters.  And once adopted no ongoing scrutiny of how the child is fitting into the family or if there is any abuse occurring.

Surrogacy like Forced Adoption is to service the needs of adults  –  has anyone during the national conversation currently taking place on surrogacy  seriously considered what it might be like for a child to be born via surrogacy?  Surrogacy as was the case with Forced Adoption is assumed to be a win win for all involved.  The mother from presumably a poor country supposedly made a ‘choice’ so she and her family will be a little better off financially – it is assumed the  parents will stay together forever and the child will  be happy and grateful to have been born.  Unfortunately there is a dark side to commodifying children. Great demand that is unregulated, particularly when money is involved, becomes corrupt and women from poor countries are exploited.  Their poverty and/or  low status makes them ripe for exploitation – not only by unscrupulous middle men, but even their own husbands. And what about the mothers who attach to the baby they carry for nine months? Like Gammy, the surrogate mother, even though she is biologically unrelated to the twins she carried, she became attached and even as poor as she is was willing to bring up a little boy with down’s syndrome.

We know a lot about the terrible pain adoptees suffer around identity issues: identity confusion, genetic bewilderment etc,  how much more if you are created by biological parents who do not know each other and carried by another woman  and then brought up by two  other complete strangers. I would suggest this is a ticking social  time bomb. To add to this mix are  serious emotional problems caused by abandonment. Adoptees are four times more likely to commit suicide than their non-adopted peers. – irrespective of how loving the adoptive parents because at their core they felt their mother abandoned them.  In the case of surrogacy when I hear surrogates boast how they never attached to the baby because they always knew the baby did not belong to them they were only the “carrier”  – my heart goes out to the baby.  Research has shown that women with mental health problems that prevent them from attaching to their growing fetus are far more likely to give birth to children that have severe and life long emotional problems.  It is believed to be caused by the growing child’s experience of  unwantedness or abandonment,  in short they felt abandoned before even being born.

……………..

Re Senator Bishop’s concern with the lack of screening people who go overseas with the intent to adopt: 

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/commrep/8288/toc_pdf/3867-2.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/commrep/8288/0000%22

At p. 71

Bronwyn Bishop:

 

CHAIR—That is quite a large number of people when the total number of adopters is 502. It seems to me that the implication of that paragraph, about trafficking, abduction and sale of children, is that this is a method that could be used by those people, which takes me back to the statement that you have to be checking the would-be parents.

Mrs IRWIN—So the parents who are expats overseas have never ever been checked?

Ms Cubbage—No. If the other country has finalised an adoption and it is a full and permanent adoption then the other country is likely to have done that.

Mrs IRWIN—Asking for federal and state police checks of those people in Australia?

Ms Cubbage—We do not do that.

Mr Mills—I think the answer is that we do not character check Australian citizen expatriates offshore. That is correct.

Ms Cubbage—But in the state and territory programs the states and territories do character checks, yes.

Mrs IRWIN—I hope there are no children being lost through the cracks.

CHAIR—It seems to me that if this is your concern—the trafficking, abduction and sale of

children—then immediately that somebody is obliged to bring a child back into this country, or get citizenship for a child, you should do a criminal check on those parents. 

p. 72 

CHAIR—One in eight files. But they are checked by the agencies, whereas these people are in a different category. I can see the potential for the same sorts of people who wanted to go to Aceh and abuse children finding a loophole. If we are looking to avoid that, I do not think we have found the solution.

………………………………………

Obviously nothing has been done to remedy the above situation since it was brought to the government’s attention back in 2005.  Now it seems the same lack of screening is occurring when couples are engaging in creating children to meet their needs via surrogacy.  Who will speak out for these children?

Contrast the lack of scrutiny of  couples wishing to adopt or artificially create families with that of  disadvantaged families who might suffer from mental health problems, homelessness,  or drug dependence – families Tony Abbott labelled “ineffective” –  in the following article:

Parents of fostered-out children given year to clean up act

http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/parents-of-fosteredout-children-given-year-to-clean-up-act/story-fnii5sms-1227013464516#comments

 

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