Dr Barbara Sumner: adoption researcher calls for additional changes to adoption laws

There's growing pleas for broader changes to adoption laws before an international ban lifts. 

The Government's looking to suspend some international adoptions until 2027 while it works on new adoption laws due to safety and child abuse concerns.

Adoption researcher Dr Barbara Sumner says other legislation also needs changing, noting overseas adoptees switch to the 1955 Adoption Act on arrival.

"There are no guarantees that any adoptive home is safe. No checks, no balances - because once you're under the 55 Act, it's not welfare."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the government's immediately it's announced it's immediately stopping international adoptions.

(00:04):
Their Minister Responsible, Nicole McKee, says they're worried about abuse
and slavery, and they've cited a case of one family
adopting more than ten children from overseas. Adoption researcher doctor
Barbara Sumner is with us right now. Have Barbara hi?
How can families I'm well, thank you? How can families
adopt that many children? Are there no checks? Can you
just go overseas get a child adopted and bring it back?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, it depends. Yes, you can from some countries and
the government is absolutely right to suspend this and do
it immediately. We're following Canada and the US and the
Dutch where they've made restrictions on a large number of countries,
around twenty four countries that you can no longer adopt
from because they're often not covered by the Hague Convention

(00:47):
on Into Country Adoption and so they're not required to
meet those standards.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
How many do you reckon? We have every year?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, in general, across all adoptions, we have less than
one hundred at the moment, and.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Is that counting domestic adoptions as well?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yes, although most of them now are surrogacy. There's very
few domestic adoptions. But the issue is much bigger than that,
and it's not as simple. The Minister has said that
then they have been able to bring those children and
young people back to New Zealand where they've been neglected,
abused or exploited. This is true, but what they're not

(01:30):
talking about is that once they are in the country
they switch to the nineteen fifty five Adoption Act. So
it's a seventy year old act and they so if
you adopt in another jurisdiction and you enter New Zealand
are under our intercountry adoption laws, you switch to the

(01:51):
nineteen fifty five Act. There are no guarantees that any
adoptive home is safe, no checks, no balances, because once
you're under the fifty five Act, there it's not welfare.
It's not treated like any form of welfare. You are
treated as if you are born to the adopters. You
gain a new birth certificate that shows your adopters as

(02:13):
your birth parents.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Oh, I see does that mean like as in, there
is no real reason for OT to come and knock
on your door and check that the child's okay.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
None whatsoever unless the child comes to their attention through
you know, the normal welfare issues. A teacher, you know,
brings it to their attention, that sort of thing. So
the government says that it's the abuse is preventable and
acting decisively to prevent future harm to children and adopted
overseas into unsafe situations. But we don't. You can't have

(02:44):
it both ways. You can't have a nineteen fifty five
Act but by the way covers the lives and controls
the lives of over one hundred thousand people in New
Zealand and transfer those children to that Act with all
its restrictions. So, for instance, health records, original birth certificates,

(03:04):
any kind of records that may exist for that adoption
become secret. They are completely hidden at the point of
the court order. Right.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
So what that sounds like to me is so Nicole
m Key has only temporarily suspended the adoptions, and obviously
some things need to change before she lifts that suspension.
And obviously what needs to change, according to you, as
a whole bunch of legislation.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
You can't change one without the other. If you are
changing I mean, what they could do, of course, is
just ban international adoptions from countries that are not signatories
to the Hay Convention on Into Country Adoption. But it
doesn't change the fact that these children come in and
are then controlled under a seventy year old act. And

(03:54):
you know, in Aranga Tamariki has made a number of
submissions to the HAY talking about New Zealand's position and
where we're at with it, and it's very easy to
do a deep dive and discover that they don't always
tell you exactly how it is. So, for instance, o
Anga Tamariki said recently in their most recent submission that

(04:18):
adoptions that they make sure that the adoption would serve
the best interests of the child, But we have no
data that tells us what best interest is we have
there are not a single there's not a single outcome
study in New Zealand seventy years. We have no idea
of what the long term impacts of adoption are, whether

(04:39):
they are in the best interests of the person.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Well, as I say, lots of work to do while
the suspension is underway. Thank you very much, Barbara, Doctor
Barbara Sumner, adoption researcher. For more from Heather Duplessy, Allen
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