A/HRC/34/55 of intercountry adoption, as well as a lack of a common understanding of the sale of children and other illicit practices at the source of illegal adoptions. 48. An overarching violation of the intercountry adoption procedure has been the perception of adoption taking place independently from the national child protection system. In certain countries, such as Haiti and Nepal, the absence of or severe deficiencies in the alternative care system have not prevented the launching of intercountry adoptions. 42 The core principle of subsidiarity has thus been completely circumvented. 49. In several instances loopholes have been used to conduct private and independent intercountry adoptions, which are prohibited by the 1993 Hague Convention, as the absence of oversight seriously jeopardizes the integrity of the process. 43 Prospective adoptive parents have, for example, resided temporarily in countries of origin long enough to be able to conclude a domestic adoption and then brought the adopted child back to their country, thus bypassing the intercountry adoption process. 44 Similarly, in Uganda foreign parents have been granted legal guardianship of children and taken them abroad where they then concluded a domestic adoption in the receiving country. 45 The conversion of a kafalah guardianship arrangement into a domestic adoption, once the child has been brought back to the receiving country, has also been used to circumvent intercountry adoption procedures under the 1993 Hague Convention.46 50. As indicated in the section on adoptability, documents are often falsified to render a child eligible for intercountry adoption. This is particularly true for children with specific or individual requirements, who are preferentially selected for intercountry adoption by certain countries of origin. In several countries in Central and Eastern Europe and of the Commonwealth of Independent States, medical reports have been falsified to create or exaggerate the seriousness of a child’s illness or disability in order to make him or her eligible for intercountry adoption.47 51. Intercountry adoptions in the context of emergency situations are specifically open to several abuses. For example, in Haiti adoption processes were not interrupted but rather expedited following the 2010 earthquake, under the pressure of receiving countries. 48 In Rwanda, during the genocide, several children were evacuated abroad and some were subsequently adopted without the consent of surviving parents. 49 52. International commercial surrogacy is a growing phenomenon quickly overtaking the number of intercountry adoptions. The international regulatory vacuum that persists in relation to international commercial surrogacy arrangements leaves children born through this method vulnerable to breaches of their rights, and the practice often amounts to the sale of children and may lead to illegal adoption. Indeed, several countries do not recognize such arrangements and, in order to establish a parent-child relationship, national laws often require parents to legally adopt the child born through international commercial surrogacy. However, if the international commercial surrogacy arrangement is found to amount to the 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 12 See https://assets.hcch.net/upload/wop/nepal_rpt09.pdf and https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/288019/Adoptions_rest ricted_list_2010.pdf. https://assets.hcch.net/upload/wop/adop2010_rpt_en.pdf. Information elicited through a questionnaire. See www.alternative-care-uganda.org/resources/adoption-study-march-2015.pdf. See https://travel.state.gov/content/adoptionsabroad/en/adoption-process/faqs/islamicsharia%20law.html. See https://www.unicef.org/ceecis/UNICEF_ICA_CEE_Guidance_WEB.pdf. A/HRC/19/63 and Corr.1. CRC/C/70/Add.22.