HC Deb 22 June 2004 vol 422 cc77-8WS
The Minister for Children (Margaret Hodge)

I am announcing a temporary suspension of adoptions of Cambodian children by UK residents.

The temporary suspension is being introduced in response to concerns raised by and investigated by officials from the DfES who visited Cambodia, by the British Embassy in Cambodia and, separately, by other stakeholders about the intercountry adoption process in Cambodia.

I believe that the safeguards in the Cambodian adoption system are currently insufficient to prevent children being adopted without proper consents being given by their birth parents and in proper financial gain being made by individuals involved in the adoption process.

The specific areas of concern include: Evidence relating to the systematic falsification of Cambodian official documents related to the adoption of children; Evidence relating to the extensive involvement of adoption facilitators in the adoption procedure in Cambodia even though Cambodian law expressly forbids facilitators participating in the adoption process; Evidence relating to the procurement of children for intercountry adoption by facilitators, including by coercion and by paying birth mothers to give up their children; and Concern about the prevalence of children trafficking and corruption generally in Cambodia.

The temporary suspension will take effect immediately and will be imposed on all UK applications to adopt children from Cambodia where the prospective adopter has not yet received a matching report from the Cambodian authorities. This is the latest point in the adoption process in Cambodia where a temporary suspension could take effect before a Cambodian adoption certificate is issued.

Although the UK authorities could intervene where a prospective adopter applies to bring a child into the UK there is a considerable risk that tho child might be left in the situation where they have been legally adopted in Cambodia, and as such are no longer an orphan but are unable to enter the UK with their adoptive parents. This would pose a significant risk to the individual child and would clearly be unacceptable.

I intend to consider reviewing the temporary suspension when the Cambodian Government pass new adoption legislation or if there is another development I consider to be significant, for example if Cambodia were to implement the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of intercountry adoption.

Only in exceptional circumstances will I consider that the temporary suspension should not apply in a particular case. Any decision relating to a particular case will of course take account of what is in the best interests of the child and all the facts of the particular case.

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