Government reluctant to allow adoptions
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| The De Gree family in Washington D.C have six children and although many people would view them as a big family, they feel incomplete. That's because thousands of miles away in a children's home in Johannesburg, there's a little girl waiting to find out if she will become the ninth member of their family. Dona de Gree: 'We have come up with a family tradition that every night at dinner another child sits next to their dad. And whichever child's night it is that sits next to their dad - that's the child that can gets to pray for Ruth. And we pray for her safety, we pray for her protection and we pray that the process will be completed as soon as possible. And when Ruth comes, Ruth gets to sit next to daddy for a whole year, to make up for her lost time.' It was on a trip to South Africa in 2005 that Dona and her family met Ruth. Their friends, David and Caroline Webb run the children's home where she lives. David Webb (Director: Children's Home): 'They had originally visited our project as many of our friends from the States have done to do a safari tour of the country and see what we're doing. But this is a couple that attends our home church in the United States. The husband has a very good job. The mom is a stay at home mom and they love children. And they saw this little girl and they said 'she would fit right, she would fit right in with our family'.' Django de Gree has always felt strongly about adopting because his own father was adopted. Django de Gree: 'We knew that adoption was something that we wanted to do and we knew we wanted to adopt a girl. So our hope was to go there and meet these children ... spend time with them. At some period after we got there and spent some time with the children. It was almost at the same time that we knew that Ruth Joy was going to be our daughter.' But adopting Ruth has not been as easy as they'd hoped. They've spent thousands of dollars, made hundreds of calls and been to South Africa several times. For more than 18 months they've been embroiled in a legal battle to gain custody and guardianship of Ruth. This month their case goes to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein where five judges will decide on her future. Django: 'We've gone through a lot of things in the last two years as we've attempted to adopt Ruth Joy. I would call it the highest highs and the lowest lows. The price has been heavy on us, on our family, financially it's been a burden, but we said we had to go forward and if I go all the way to the end and she doesn't become a part of our family in the way that I'd planned for it, I can accept that. But I can't accept the fact that I would quit under any other circumstances. I can't do it.' Handling Ruth's case for the past year-and-a-half is family law attorney Debbie Wybrow. Debbie Wybrow (Family Law Attorney): 'We were in court last year for an application for sole guardianship and sole custody on behalf of Mr and Mrs De Gree in respect of Ruth Joy Webb and judgement was handed down in April 2006 in terms of which our application was denied. The opposition in the De Gree matter has primarily been that the High Court is not the correct forum for placements to be decided'. Another area of concern for the judge was that should he grant the placement, it might give affluent foreigners an advantage over less affluent South African citizens. Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'If the judgement goes your way, what will the effect be?' Debbie: 'The net effect of the De Gree judgement, should it go in our favour, would be that sole guardianship and sole custody applications could in fact continue being made to the Supreme Court throughout our country '. International adoptions in South Africa are a relatively new phenomenon and currently only a few countries who have working agreements with South Africa can adopt our children. Because many other countries have difficulty adopting, David believes for orphans like Ruth, justice has been delayed. David: 'She could have been in this family's home more than a year ago and instead she's in an institution - however good, however loving, however pretty in Johannesburg. I believe she should have been in her permanent family's home. That would have been best for her ... that would have been her right I believe and that right has been denied.' Ruda: 'There are millions of orphans in South Africa. There are people in other countries who are willing to adopt them. The Department of Social Development has to say yes or no and in very many cases they're saying no.' Musa Mbere (Department of Social Development): 'The first thing we tell people is that an inter-country adoption is the last option. We have to first check if there is no one in South Africa at different levels from community to the whole country, from relatives to non-relatives to see if there's no one to adopt the child.' Musa Mbere is the Director for Children at the Department of Social Development. Ruda: 'Why not say whoever wants to give a caring home for this child, we will do our best to facilitate the process?' Musa: 'Yes, well ... once we also have the register. We are going to have a register according to the new act of adoptable children and prospective parents'. For the last decade the Department of Social Development has been finalising the new Children's Act. Chair of the Family Law Committee for the Law Society, Susan Abro, hopes that the new act will speed up the international adoption's process. Ruda: 'How far along are we in putting the new Children's Act in place?' Susan Abro (Law Society of SA): 'The Children's Act has been passed. It is in fact part of our law. It just hasn't been implemented and that's the problem. Ruda: 'So the regulations are still being worked out?' Susan: 'The way they dealt with international adoption even up to now is to go to the High Court. What will happen when it's done through the Children's Courts is that you'll have an adoption order here and it will be made a mirror order in the other country - so then it's a simpler process really.' It's because the process is currently so complicated that Debbie Wybrow has only placed 20 children in the past 12 years of working with international adoptions. Ruda: 'If our laws were different, if the Children's Act was in place, could you have placed more children?' Debbie: 'Absolutely. We probably get about ten new enquiries every single week from around the world, and I mean from everywhere from Saudi Arabia to the outermost areas of New Zealand across through to America'. Unfortunately adoptions of South Africans by South Africans are very low. Last year only 2 298 of an estimated two million orphans were adopted locally. And the numbers are escalating - the UN predicts that by 2015 there will be four-and-half million orphans. David: 'There's a sense that everyone's trying to keep a lid on a situation that might explode. And that they're hoping that keeping things under control today will keep a crisis from happening tomorrow, but I think the crisis is here already'. Django: 'We believe that this case is not just about Ruth Joy, it's a story of orphans around the world who are hopeless and helpless, who don't have an advocate, who don't have people that will stand up for them.' Ruda: 'We're facing a deluge of orphans. What is this department doing to try and streamline a process so that children can get into homes more quickly?' Musa: 'There's a strategy that's being pulled together with our Communications Unit to encourage families in South Africa to adopt children so that our children don't leave the country.' Ruda: 'But Mrs Mbere, I'm sorry to sound as if I'm playing on one string, but there are people out there who really want to adopt babies and you have at the moment one percent of the orphans in the country are being cared for. Why are you not trying to make it easier?' Musa: 'Well we have some children also in residential care...' Ruda: 'My impression is that you are resisting - with everything you've got - international adoptions of South African children. Am I correct?' Musa: 'We are not resisting. We are just saying it must be the last option because we don't want to see a whole exodus of children leaving the country. If we can avoid that we would like to avoid it, or minimise it. We don't want to see a whole slew of children going to grow up abroad because they will never be the same children if they don't grow up in their own communities.' Yet it's often difficult tracing the communities of abandoned children. In Ruth's case, her own cultural background remains a mystery. She was found abandoned in the veld and, despite national news coverage, none of her family members have ever been traced. According to the Webbs, no one other than the De Grees have come forward to adopt her. Ruda: 'If Ruth Joy cannot go to them, what is her future?' David: 'Well that breaks our hearts ... we don't know. We've had her here for over two years. She knows us, we have six kids, we had not thought at this stage of life, being in our late 40's to adopt another, and yet that question weighs there.' Dona De Gree and her family are hopeful that the outcome of their case will open the doors not just for Ruth, but for other orphans to have parents. Dona: 'During this time there have been many nights where I've cried myself to sleep, because you realise that your child is some place else. And you have to depend on others to take care of your child but the hope is that one day she'll be able to come through the doors and we'll be able to say 'Welcome home'.' |
2007 May 6