Hundreds of Kenyan children are being taken out of the country every year to be offered for adoption in foreign countries, it has emerged.
Documents filed in the High Court, in a dispute between agencies licensed to conduct adoption of children, show demand for Kenyan children has risen in recent years with more boys being taken out than girls.
The information made public for the first time upon an application by city lawyer, Ken Ogetto, show The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Germany and US as among the most popular receiving nations for Kenyan children.
Mr Ogetto applied to have the data supplied in court by the National Adoption Committee under Article 35 of the Constitution that provides for right of access to information held by the state. Although the total number of children taken out over the years is unknown, figures submitted to court showed five private adoption agencies took out a total of 639 children in Kenya between 2005 and 2013.
One agency alone processed 330 children in the period covered according to documents filed in court.
The figures produced in court were, however, not comprehensive for all the years and for all agencies. While the law provides for inter-country adoptions, it was the first time official statistics were being made public.
Although inter-country adoption is provided for in law, (Children Act, 2001), parents and families of missing and lost children still searching and praying in hope for a happy re-union may find the revelations shocking.
Given that there is no central point of sharing information on lost and separated children held in institutions across the country, and police departments receiving reports of lost and missing children, there could be a chance that some of them may have been taken out of the country even as their families continued searching.
Organisations holding destitute children and offering them for adoption are owned by the same entities, not to mention they rely on revenues generated from adoption for existence. The law allows charitable organisations receiving abandoned, lost, separated and orphaned children to offer them for adoption if no one shows up to claim them.
But claims made in court suggested private adoption agencies had commercial interests in not advertising or tracing families of lost children in their custody, as doing so would be reducing revenues generated from processing adoptions. Submissions made before Justice Weldon Korir, claimed private charities preferred international adoptions as they generated higher financial returns than domestic ones.
The information came up during Judicial Review Suit No 164 of 2014 filed by Child in Family Focus-Kenya, over a disputed Exemption Order granted to Child Welfare Society of Kenya (CWSK), by Cabinet Secretary, Kazungu Kambi.
The Order exempted CWSK- now a state corporation-from seeking annual renewal of its adoption license from the national adoption committee. Child in Family Focus-Kenya on May, 28, 2014, applied to have the exemption order No 106 of October,17, 2013, reversed on grounds it was unconstitutional, discriminatory against other adoption agencies, and in violation of safety and rights of children.
“The Exemption Order is capable of abuse due to the 6th Interested Party (CWSK), operating under an illegal exemption and carrying out functions of an adoption society while not registered as such,” said executive director for Child in Family Focus-Kenya, Mr Peter Kamau Muriithi in his affidavit.
The petitioner argued exemption from annual renewal of license would mean CWSK would operate outside of the law , and granted CWSK immunity from regulations providing for supervision of adoption societies by the Adoption Committee.
Through her lawyer, Mr Ogetto, Executive Director of CWSK, Irene Muriithi, submitted her organisation was exempted upon application to the minister for exemption, and the suit was aimed at intimidating CWSK from advocating against international adoption of Kenyan children.
“The issue here is not the rights of children, but selfish commercial interests in which the applicant and some interested parties consider the 6th interested party, (CWSK), a spoiler for conducting free adoption services,” she said though her lawyer, Ogetto.
“It is not the respondent who is a danger to the best interests of the children of Kenya, but those in the business of adoptions to make big money... the applicant is a member and a partner in a group of agencies who are involved in the business of selling Kenyan children outside the country in the name of international adoptions,” her affidavit says in part.
However, an interested party in the petition, M/S Little Angels Network, submitted that “it was not in the adoption for profit and any fees charged was only meant to facilitate adoptions.”
Justice Korir overruled Kambi’s Exemption Order on September 25, arguing adoption process needed to be closely supervised as it was likely to be abused if not checked.
“Any attempt to remove any adoption society from the supervision of the adoption Committee would defeat the intentions of the legislature...”
However, Justice Korir suspended implementation for three months.
“In order to give CWSK time to come back to the fold by seeking renewal of registration, I will suspend the order of certiorari (prohibition) for a period of three months from the date of this judgement”.
