A/HRC/34/55 sale of a child, the adoption too will consequently be illegal under international standards. Such a situation underscores the need for States to ensure that they are not inadvertently legitimizing the sale of children born through international commercial surrogacy by granting adoption orders. D. Push and pull factors and the enabling environment 53. The underlying push and pull factors that affect illegal adoptions and the sale of children are multidimensional and linked to the political, legal, socioeconomic, cultural and environmental context, at both the national and transnational levels. Situations of poverty and economic hardship, the lack of birth registration and discrimination, including genderbased discrimination and violence, are prominent root causes of and risk factors for illegal adoption, abandonments and relinquishments. An overarching enabling factor for illegal adoptions is weak or inexistent child protection systems at the national and local levels. 54. Vulnerability owing to poverty underlies decisions to abandon children and relinquish parental rights over them, thus rendering them adoptable. Nevertheless, poverty alone cannot be invoked as sufficient justification for placing or receiving a child in alternative care.50 National authorities and foreign actors — the latter being more inclined to finance “orphanages” than family-strengthening programmes — are failing in their responsibilities to support vulnerable families through comprehensive child protection systems. 55. As highlighted in the previous section, multiple forms of discrimination have been at the origin of several large-scale practices of forced adoption. In particular, gender-based violence and discrimination, and discrimination against families in vulnerable socioeconomic situations (e.g. families from rural areas or belonging to indigenous peoples) have been used to justify the removal of children from their parents without any regard for their consent. 56. In the context of conflicts or following a natural disaster, children are often separated from their families and the national infrastructure is weakened or rendered incapable of functioning. In such situations, adoption processes are particularly open to abuse: children may be deemed adoptable even though their parents are still alive or there may be no monitoring function to ensure that no illegal acts are being committed. 51 57. In respect of intercountry adoptions, the enabling environment points to prevailing conditions in countries of origin (such as limited domestic care options, laws that influence the determination of adoptability and the lack of adequate resources to verify the origins of children and to ensure the free and informed consent of biological parents) and to the approach taken by receiving countries, including the pressure they exert and the conditions they accept in order to secure children for adoption, as well as the lack of information provided to prospective adoptive parents. In addition, corruption and impunity allow illegal acts and illicit practices to proliferate. 58. Such systemic issues create an environment that enables illegal adoptions and that Governments, both in countries of origin and in receiving countries, are allowing or promoting through laws and policies, often taking advantage of them. 50 51 See General Assembly resolution 64/142, annex, para. 15. A/HRC/19/63 and Corr.1. 13