Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-15-Speech-1-081"
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"en.19991115.6.1-081"2
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"Mr President, many tragedies there are in the world but none more moving than those that affect children. There are none worse than the ones we have heard about today involving trades in children. I want to refer to one of those trades and that is the trade that takes place in adoption.
In the United Kingdom, in the 1960s, we had some 25,000 adoptions, with 12,500 under one-year-olds. In the 1970s that figure had fallen to 13,000 and the under one-year-olds to 3,000. By the 1990s that had dropped again to 7,000 with only 900 under one-year-olds. Much of the differences stem of course from the wider and freer availability of abortion. In Britain the figure is one in five pregnancies, in London it is one in three. More children who are available for adoption have disabilities – mental or physical or behavioural problems – and so couples, not surprisingly, look further afield for babies to adopt. And further afield, indeed, there are babies available for adoption.
The first duty for all of us should be to the child. For any child that needs a family, the preference is for its own family and if that is not available then a family in its own community. If that is not available then a family, perhaps with a different background, within its own country. If that is not available, then, and only then, should one start looking for a home abroad. But it must be a properly vetted and loving home and the couple taking on the responsibility for that child must show an understanding of the child's background. Too often we have seen abuses in the system which puts couples' wishes before the child's interests. So we have seen rackets developing in baby-selling, mothers having their babies stolen, mothers being bribed to part with their children, mothers being conned that the child is going to benefit from a good start in life and return to the family when, of course, there is no such intention.
That is why we have the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption. That is why I ask the Commission to make sure that Hague Convention is properly implemented throughout the European Union nations. I ask for a report to be brought forward to show the state of law in each member country and the state of legal practice.
On this, the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we must stand up for those children, for their rights to be children. That means supporting children in need because of illness, or disability or hunger or poverty or lack of educational opportunities. It means an end to child labour and exploitation and the awful trades in children. So much of that is caused by the cruelty or neglect of adults and the least adults can do is to ensure that when a child genuinely has no family we apply the provisions of the Inter-Country Convention when giving that child another chance in life through adoption."@en1
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