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ADOPTEES AND THE RIGHT TO REVOKE OWN ADOPTION
Adoption under the Children’s Act in the UK is designed as what legislatures consider to be ‘’What is in the Child’s best interests’’. Minors who find themselves without families to care for them are placed into foster care and are then selected to be placed into homes under the Adoption Act in what is often referred to as the ‘forever home’.
Whilst the UK’s child protection system has received international scrutiny and criticism as to Forced Adoptions (adoption without consent of the parents), the reality is that many children need a permanent and stable environment to grow in with love and support.
Sadly, what is often not publicly discussed or scrutinised is the fact that many of these so called ‘forever homes’ turn into ‘forever nightmares’ for the children being adopted. The high level of adoption breakdowns continue to rise and the UK openly admit that these cases will never be published or the birth families informed, all under ‘what is in the child’s best interest’. Adoption breakdowns happen because of incompatibilities, adoptee is ousted when a birth child takes precedence or worse, the adoptee is abused or neglected by the adopters. There are so many more reasons for adoption placements to break down and in some cases, social care will step in and move the child to a new home for what can turn into umpteen more placements for that child. The long term damage done to that child is lost in the mountain of paperwork and in the very act of trying to do what is in the best interests, and that often is not in the child’s best interests.
But what happens when the child grows up in an adoptive home that IS abusive, neglectful, psychologically harmful and even abandonment? Who does the child turn to when that child has lost all trust in authoritative figures who were supposed to be there to protect their best interest?
Since starting our organisation in 2008, we still receive high levels of weekly letters from adult adoptees wishing to revoke their own adoptions. All these letters speak of a desperate need to remove themselves from any link to their adoptive families. Some have reunited with their birth families and wish to be readopted back into their original background, whilst others have been left with such severe mental scarring from the abuse they endured at the hands of the adopters. So many of the stories will make your skin crawl and leave you wondering how a child was ever placed with the adopters, where were the checks and balances?
So how does an adult adoptee go about revoking their own adoption?
Simply put, they can’t!
There is currently no legal pathway for an adoptee to have their adoption overturned. In all of the letters we receive, the adoptee is unable to begin to heal until they have been allowed to break away from what one adoptee refers to their adoption as ‘’toxic’’.
So why is it so difficult?
a) The first problem is to find a law firm that will take the case on. Under the current Act, anything that challenges the premise of adoption is dismissed. The UK Gov spend millions each year to promote adoption due to the high level of children being taken into care and needing homes and any realistic prospect of a case succeeding to challenge the thinking that adoption is harmful and that prospective adopters could invest thousands of pounds and years bringing up a child to then be ‘dumped’ when the child deems fit, does not make the whole window dressing of adoption appealing.
b) Funding for any such application will have to be self funded, and anyone who has ever been through court proceedings will attest, this is not a cheap endeavour. Legal Aid is awarded to remove the child from their home and government grants and legal funding is offered to adopters to adopt, alter their homes to suit, educate and whatever else the adopter deems is required, including emotional and other support to help the adopters adjust. With all this funding, none is available for an adoptee to overturn their own adoption.
c) Filling any such application is likely to fail at the first hurdle. Judges are tasked to consider whether the case is a public interest case or not. Because of the implications on adoption and the Children’s Act, it will fail. Then we need to look at the consequences of such an application. Will the adopters be party to the application and what if they contest? Are there any financial consequences of all the years the adopters ‘invested’ in the child that they feel they are now due back?
d) What about any allegations of abuse, neglect etc the adoptee levels for the basis of the application to revoke? Will there be any investigations, what is the threshold of evidence for such an investigation? What about the harm caused to the child and the cost of counselling?
e) What about changing their name by deed pole? This does not legally disconnect them from their adopters and only offers a superficial view of being unconnected.
f) What about emancipation from the adoptive parents? Spend a few minutes on line looking for any legal framework on emancipation from parents within the UK and you will find links relating to other countries except the UK. Kind of speaks volumes don’t you think?
There are so many adoptees desperate to overturn their adoptions for one reason or another. Their lives were legally uprooted without their knowledge, consent, understanding or comprehension of the consequences these acts would have on their lives. They now deserve to have the legal right to be able to choose the family they wish to be legally joined to. They deserve the right to be allowed a voice in who they are and who they want to be.
We ask that you put your support behind this petition to allow adopted adult child the legal right to revoke their own adoptions.
We ask you to support their choice to choose their own family and for the UK Government to support, help and guide those in making that informed decision without challenges or discrimination.
PETITION:
Allow Adoptee Rights to Revoke Own Adoption
We call on the UK Government to allow all adult adoptees the rights to seek legalised emancipation / revocation from their respective adoptive parents and to do so under the Children’s Act as laid out within UK legislation and the Rights of the Child.
We seek a subsection be created and added to the Adoption Act whereby a child on reaching the age of maturity be automatically awarded the legal privilege to apply to the courts for revocation of their own adoption and to do so with the financial support under Legal Aid or the Adoption support fund. Any such application to be allowed the right to be heard and supported whereby the applicant adoptee will be allowed the rights to choose their own family, a right previously not afforded them as a minor.
https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/petitions/574599/increase-adoptees-right-to-revoke-own-adoption
We will soon be posting more information on this as an Adoptee has taken up the fight for all Adoptees. Stay tuned.
Adoptee’s are taken up the fight themselves:
People who have been adopted call for changes to protect their human rights
