Local institutions have joined an international effort to break down bureaucratic obstacles preventing foreign couples from adopting Czech children.At a Sept.
24 conference in Brno, south Moravia, addressing international adoption, a panel of European experts agreed that children should be placed within their country of origin as much as possible, but stressed that other options must be made available. A mere 277 Czech kids have been adopted by foreign families since 2000, when the Czech Republic ratified a Hague convention on adoption and child protection. These children, predominantly of Roma origin, often find their new homes in Denmark, Germany or Italy. “Czech parents are very picky. They practically require a warranty with their adopted child,” said panelist František Schneiberg from the Institute of Social Medicine and Public Health. “They expect guarantees that the child will be always healthy, extremely talented, get good marks at school and go to university. Foreign parents are much more tolerant.”Aside from this comment, most panelists skirted the exact reasons behind the difficulty in placing children with suitable families in the Czech Republic. However, Lenka Pavlová, director of the government Office for International Legal Protection of Children (ÚMPOD), reluctantly hinted that prejudice and racism in Czech society prevents locals from adopting underprivileged children.“Our priority is always to keep Czech kids in the Czech Republic, but we are often faced with problems of ethnicity or health, whether mental or physical disabilities,” she said. “International adoption is the only hope for many kids to lead a normal life in a loving family, which will provide them with education and a good start into independent life.”Overall, the findings presented at the conference indicated that the Czech Republic was improving its efforts to facilitate the adoption of local children by foreigners. However, when asked how many foreign children had been legally adopted into the Czech Republic since 2000, Pavlová responded briskly: “None!”The problem is not caused by a lack of interest in foreign children, she said. The institute has already recorded more than 80 applications for foreign adoption since 2000, but all of them still await processing. “We are faced with the lack of a legal and institutional framework. The guarantees that a receiving state has to provide for the safety of the child are complicated,” Pavlová said. In addition to bureaucratic hurdles, the government currently displays little interest in helping children and families, she added. The ÚMPOD office has only 15 employees, who are too overloaded by the current agenda to address broader issues. The Czech Republic also lacks accredited bodies to help parents adopt kids from abroad, unlike countries such as Italy, which has 69 such institutions. Laid-back parentsIn other European countries, prospective parents view issues such as physical disabilities or Roma ethnicity in a different light than their Czech counterparts, experts said. “In Denmark, a different skin color is considered an advantage,” said Margrethe Primdhal, director of AC International Child Support, a Danish nongovernmental organization. “Denmark has a 50-year tradition of international adoptions. Everyone sees that the child is clearly adopted, and the whole society tries to make the child feel welcome. Later in life, the children will meet with positive discrimination, so their lives will be much simpler than they would be back home.”In countries such as Italy, adopting Roma children is more common for socio-ethnic reasons, according to former Italian Adoption Central Authority Director Carmela Cavallo. “Often, they look like their parents, especially in Sicily,” she said. “Italian parents are also more laid-back in their upbringing, and don’t mind lively kids.” Also attending the conference were several Italian families who had recently adopted Czech Roma children. The youngsters were indeed lively: They ran around the premises for the duration of the meeting, and even climbed over the assembled international experts. “Our greatest fear was the language barrier, but the two brothers learned fluent Italian within three months,” said a mother who recently adopted two Roma boys. “At the beginning, we were more nervous than the boys. When we took them home to Italy, they kept pointing at us and repeated [‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ in Czech], after which they’d collapse in laughter. They were clearly making fun of us.”Experts say it is often the parents — rather than the children — who require psychological help. “We provide parents with pre- and post-adoption service. Even when they go to pick up their child abroad, we stay in touch with them,” said Marina Virgillito, an Italian psychologist who has herself adopted a Czech Roma girl. “Even though I lead these courses, they gave me a lot of insight and understanding once I had gone through them as a client.”
(Prague Post)
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