This is such a good move – I hope it goes through
It’s been a shocking problem for generations. Parents dump their children in orphanages but retain rights over them and do not give them up for adoption.
They play a negligible part in their lives or no part at all, but still they retain control of them for pretty much the same psychological reasons, I would say, that Maltese people find it difficult to throw anything away ‘because it’s still good and it might come in useful’.
If this legislation goes through, parents who manifest indifference towards their children who are cared for in orphanages will lose their rights and the child may be adopted.
I have been bothered for years about the existing situation. In all aspects of our law, and the interpretation of the law, it is always the child’s interests which are paramount. When the child’s interests are in conflict with the parent’s interests, the law/courts decide in favour of the child.
This situation with children in orphanages is the one exception (perhaps there are more, but I don’t know of them). Children are forced to live in orphanages until they are 16 (and face the big, wide world alone thereafter) even when there are single women or couples who would love to adopt them, perhaps even fostering them and forming a bond with them.
This is because the presumed right of the parent under Maltese law not to be stripped of the legal status of parent under any circumstances is given precedence over the right of the child to be raised in a loving home by parents who actually give a damn.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150126/local/parents-who-abandon-children-in-care-homes-may-lose-right-to-block-adoptions.553368
As far as I know this has been the practice for quite some time now; it was a policy/process since Dolores Cristina was minister.
‘even when there are single women or couples who would love to adopt them, perhaps even fostering them and forming a bond with them.’:- excuse me, but why not single men?
Because nature intended otherwise, but I will agree with you regarding single women.
Who is the Minister directly responsible for this, besides Owen Bonnici?
A good move finally.
Children need stability and not the drama of parents who don’t have time for them. adoption by more stable couples or individuals would offer a tremendous jump in these children’s quality of life.
You want another exception: children raised by a gay parent and his boyfriend or girlfriend, as the case may be.
Orphanages do not exist because children in residential homes are not orphans but are children with one or both parents who are placed in care because of various social circumstances.
Children in care are the victims of their parents’ circumstances. Today we speak of homes and not orphanages.
Not all homes have an age limit of 16. Modern practice has seen an increase in Maltese homes not putting an age limit so that emphasis is now being placed on the effective readiness of the individual to leave the home.