A/HRC/34/55
Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, and incorporate the 2009
Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children into national legislation;
(b)
Adopt clear and comprehensive legislation that prohibits and
criminalizes illegal adoption as a separate offence, as well as the sale of and trafficking
in children that result in illegal adoptions, with sanctions that reflect the gravity of the
crimes;
(c)
Review national laws and regulations to ensure that they do not
contribute to the creation or maintenance of an enabling environment for illegal
adoptions;
(d)
Strengthen and invest more in effective national child protection
systems, inter alia, by increasing support to vulnerable families, by providing
alternative childcare measures in which adoption and in particular intercountry
adoption respect the principle of subsidiarity and ensure the best interests of the child
and by establishing adequate birth registration mechanisms;
(e)
Establish and implement a single, well-recognized process for adoption
that includes a holistic assessment of the child’s full range of rights, and prohibit
private and independent adoptions;
(f)
Adopt adequate regulation on procedures and safeguards in relation to
domestic and intercountry adoptions, including in relation to the determination of
adoptability, and establish effective and well-resourced mechanisms for overseeing
adoption processes, especially with respect to strictly verifying the background of any
child who is declared an orphan and his or her documents;
(g)
Take particular care in the use of adoption orders to establish a parentchild relationship in cases of international commercial surrogacy, and ensure that the
adoption order is consistent with the child’s rights and best interests, in order to avoid
the illegal adoption of children born through international commercial surrogacy;
(h)
Establish and implement standardized information systems to obtain
and share accurate and reliable data on domestic and intercountry adoptions, on
children subject to adoption and on their family and background;
(i)
Establish mechanisms for addressing the concerns of adoptees, adoptive
parents and biological parents about the circumstances of an adoption and for
facilitating the search for origins and the request for reparations where appropriate,
providing adequate psychosocial support when necessary;
(j)
Ensure the right to information about one’s origins and access to
information about the rights of victims of illegal adoptions, and facilitate the work of
victims’ organizations in that respect, including in terms of helping them to trace
biological parents and children;
(k)
Ensure the right to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of nonrecurrence of victims of large-scale illegal adoptions, inter alia, by reforming
institutions that were either involved in or incapable of preventing abuses, and
guarantee the effective and meaningful participation of victims in the design and
implementation of measures to obtain comprehensive redress;
(l)
Take effective measures to protect children who are victims of armed
conflict and natural disasters from becoming victims of illegal adoption.
96.
Specifically in respect of intercountry adoptions:
(a)
Central authorities should ensure the effective monitoring of activities of
adoption accredited bodies to guarantee their transparency and accountability;
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