Abstract
The focus of this book is the law and practice of adoption in the island states of the Pacific. It explores the law and practices governing both state and customary adoptions and the relationship between the two. As discussed later in the following chapters, whilst the term ‘customary adoption’ is a convenient shorthand for referring to informal adoptions made outside the state system, the arrangements for the child may bear little resemblance to the introduced concept.
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Notes
- 1.
Pacific Community (2016).
- 2.
Nauru 39.5%.
- 3.
ABC, ‘Teenage pregnancies in the Pacific still cause for concern, says United Nations’, ABC News (online), 23 April 2014. www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-23/an-united-nations-says-teenage-pregnancies-still-cause-for-conc/5407574?pfmredir=sm. See also Simmons M, ‘Teen birth worry’, Fiji Times (online), 20 July 2016, reporting that ‘about three in every 100 teenagers get pregnant every year in Fiji.’
- 4.
Arnold v Earle (1758) 2 Lee 529.
- 5.
Per 1000 births the infant mortality rate in 2016 in Australia was estimated to be 3.10 and that of New Zealand 4.50, compared to Fiji where it was 18.70; Kiribati 42.40; Papua New Guinea 42.40; Vanuatu 23.10. Data from World Bank (2018).
- 6.
See, e.g., Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 (Victoria).
- 7.
Population Division, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2009).
- 8.
Ibid., p. 86. More recent data suggests that inter-country adoption is declining (see below). This report includes in the appendix country profiles which include a number of Pacific island countries although much of the information here is missing. One of the achievements of this book will be to fill some of those gaps.
- 9.
See, for example: The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Brandeis University (2011) News Reports of Adoption Irregularities in Samoa.
- 10.
China’s one baby policy, for example, seems to have provided a flow of adoptive children to America. The Financial times reported that in 2005 ‘15,000 Chinese children—mostly little girls, as a result of the one-child policy—were adopted by families from other countries’: Romei V, ‘Intercountry adoption falls sharply’, Financial Times (online), 6 December 2016. https://www.ft.com/content/eb32208a-b625-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62.
- 11.
On Marshall Islands see Walsh (1999) Adoptions and agency: American adoptions of Marshallese children. www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/adoption-and-agnecy-american-adoptions-of-marshallese-children/; on Micronesia more generally see Triede (2004), pp. 127–141. In this collection see also Damian (2004) and Anderson (2004).
- 12.
See, e.g. Department of Social Services, Australian Government (2017).
- 13.
Adopting from the Pacific Islands, Adoption Reddit (2014). https://www.reddit.com/r/Adoption/comments/2au26q/adopting_from_the_pacific_islands/. This is a point illustrated by an article by Joyce K, ‘Do you understand that your baby goes away and never comes back?’, New Republic Magazine, 22 April 2015. https://newrepublic.com/article/121556/do-understand-baby-goes-away-never-comes-back; and Peet E, ‘The Tragic Confusion of Adoption from the Marshall Islands’, The Wilson Quarterly, 25 June 2015. https://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/the-tragic-confusion-of-adoption-from-the-marshall-islands/.
- 14.
See Farran (2009).
- 15.
Including the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, 32 ILM 1134 (29 May 1993) (The Hague Convention 1); the United Nations Declaration on Social and Legal Principles Relating to the Protection and Welfare of Children with Special Reference to Foster Placement and Adoption Nationally and Internationally, GA Res 41/85, UNGAOR, UN Doc A/41/85 (3 December 1986) and the Hague Convention II.
- 16.
Lal and Fortune (2000), p. 414.
- 17.
To be read with the Adoption of Children Act 1968.
- 18.
Quoted in Elijah v Doery (Unreported, National Court, Papua New Guinea, Woods J, 2 November 1984) available via www.paclii.org at [1984] PGNC 16 by Woods J.
- 19.
(Unreported, Malampa Island Court, Vanuatu, Macreveth, Shem, Daley and Rory JJ, 30 June 2004) available via www.paclii.org at [2004] VUIC 2.
- 20.
This was in central Malekula, but in the south–east of the same island a ‘custom ceremony’ alone may be sufficient—Manassah v Koko (Unreported, Island Court, Vanuatu, Macreveth M, Obediah, William, Arhambat, Assessors, 9 November 2005) accessible via www.paclii.org at [2005] VUIC 3. See further the chapter on Vanuatu and the field work of Paterson cited therein.
- 21.
Opened for signature 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3 (entered into force 2 September 1990), p. 3. All the countries under consideration signed this in the period 1993–1997.
- 22.
Article 21.
- 23.
UNICEF, Press Release on Intercountry Adoption. 26 June 2015. https://www.unicef.org/media/media_41918.html.
- 24.
GA Res 41/85, UNGAOR, UN Doc A/41/85 (3 December 1986).
- 25.
See Cava v Sovasova (Unreported, High Court, Fiji, Phillips J, 19 February 2008) available via www.paclii.org at [2008] FJHC 279, where magistrates appeared to have attempted to prevent the removal of a child of Australian citizenship from Fiji pending a contested adoption application taking place in Australia, presumably at the request of her Fijian father.
- 26.
The determination of applicable laws is a complex and often uncertain matter. See more generally Corrin (1997).
- 27.
See for example: Adoption Act 1955 (Niue); Adoption of Children Ordinance 1965 (Nauru); Adoption Act (UK) 1958 in Vanuatu and Kiribati; Infant Ordinance 1961 (Samoa); Cook Islands Act Part XV 1915 (UK); Fiji Adoption of Infants Act Cap 58.
- 28.
For example, in Niue the New Zealand Adoption Act 1955 applies and refers extensively to Maori issues and to the infra-structure available in New Zealand at the time. Similarly the Children Act 1975 (UK), which applies in Kiribati, makes extensive reference to ‘local authorities’ and ‘adoption societies’.
- 29.
English adoption law, for example, has been amended and changed a number of times. See Adoption Acts 1958, 1964, 1968, 1976 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002.
- 30.
Recent modernization has occurred in Marshall Islands, which reformed its law in 2002, Solomon Islands 2004, Nauru which amended its law in 2015—Adoption of Children (Amendment) Act 2015 and Tuvalu—Adoption of Children Amendment Act 2015. See Farran (2008).
- 31.
National Parliament of Solomon Islands, Parliament passes the Adoption (Amendment) Bill 2016. 23 February 2017. http://www.parliament.gov.sb/index.php?q=nonde/1090.
- 32.
In Re MM Adoption Application by SAT (Unreported, Supreme Court, Vanuatu, Harrop J, 3 July 2014) available via www.paclii.org at [2014] VUSC 78.
- 33.
See Farran (2014).
- 34.
See, e.g., Kioa v West (1985) 159 CLR 550.
- 35.
(Unreported, Court of Appeal, Cook Islands, Barker, Fisher, and Paterson JJA, 14 February 2017) available via www.paclii.org at [2017] CKCA 1.
- 36.
- 37.
Browne v Munokoa (Unreported, Court of Appeal, Cook Islands, Barker, Fisher, and Paterson JJA, 14 February 2017) available via www.paclii.org at [2017] CKCA 1, [44].
- 38.
Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights Pacific Region (2007).
- 39.
Unreported, Court of Appeal, Cook Islands, CA2/14, 19 February 2016.
- 40.
Browne v Munokoa (Unreported, Court of Appeal, Cook Islands, Barker, Fisher, and Paterson JJA, 14 February 2017) available via www.paclii.org at [2017] CKCA 1.
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Farran, S., Corrin, J. (2019). Introduction. In: Corrin, J., Farran, S. (eds) The Plural Practice of Adoption in Pacific Island States. The World of Small States, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95077-8_1
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