Minister halts adoption of Cambodian babies
The Government has suspended the right of UK couples and individuals to adopt babies from Cambodia.
The suspension comes in response to concerns about the rise in forced adoptions and baby traffickers in Cambodia.
Anecdotal reports abound of parents either being bribed or forced to hand over babies by “facilitators”, who then sell the children onto western couples desperate for a child.
France, Finland, Switzerland, Holland and the US have already banned adoptions from Cambodia.
Children’s Minister Margaret Hodge said that she had taken the serious step of suspending adoptions because: “We have had representations through the media, from our embassy, from human rights organisations and from individual adopters who allege that there has been child trafficking with mothers forced to give up their babies or indeed offered money to give them up.”
She told Sky News “‘That is not acceptable and that is why I have taken the very serious step – the first time ever the British government has done this – of banning adoptions for a temporary period from a particular country.”
According to the Minister, the UK is now hoping that the Cambodian government would “stand by the international protocol around adoption where the child’s interest have to be central, where there is no selling of babies and no profit made from the adoption process, and where every effort is made to keep the child within their local community”.
Charles Clarke is due to make a written statement to the House of Commons on the issue later this week.
