Irregular adoption looks like an act of love, but it’s not good for anyone, says expert

Brazil has advanced a lot in the organization of adoption processes, but there is still a culture in the country in which this is seen as an act of charity – when it should be, above all, an act of responsibility.

The assessment is by Isabely Mota, one of the creators of the SNA (National Adoption and Reception System) and a researcher at the CNJ (National Council of Justice).

In an interview with BBC News Brasil, Mota explains that, since 2019, the system created has allowed the unification of data from all over Brazil and speeded up compliance with deadlines and the crossing of digitized information – such as that of children with the desired profile and a family suitor.

With the system, it is now possible to know, for example, that, in 2021, there was a record number of adoptions in the country: there were 3,736 adoptions of children and adolescents completed in 2021, an increase of 18.7% in relation to the 3,146 minors. adopted in Brazil in 2020. At least since 2015, the year from which there are national data, there had never been such a high number of adoptions.

However, in parallel with this recent systematization, Brazil deals with a legacy of decades in which adoptions were made outside the law, such as the so-called “direct adoption”, in which the biological family gives a child to known or trusted people – a practice prohibited by law 12.010/09, with some very specific exceptions (such as the request for unilateral adoption, by a stepmother or stepfather for example). Precisely because it is an informal practice – and after the institution of some laws, it is irregular –, it is difficult to quantify the dimension of this problem in the country.

“Adoption is an act of love, yes; but it is an act of love and a lot of responsibility. It is the life of a child for which you will be responsible”, says Mota, a graduate in law and a post-graduate in children’s law, of adolescents and the elderly.

“Irregular adoptions are not good for anyone. The mother who delivers (the child) is usually in a situation of extreme social vulnerability and is mourning the loss of her child, even if this was a rational decision. child, who has often been denied his right to know about his biological origin. The third victim is the suitor himself, because this person is doing it irregularly. He knows this, and he is not supported either.”

“It may seem like an act of love, but everyone is a victim,” says Mota about irregular adoptions.

According to the specialist, some of these cases end up arriving late in court – such as when a new family, which has been living with the child for years, seeks to regularize the adoption. These cases are a clue to the extent to which irregular adoptions have taken place.

“Irregular adoptions that go through the Judiciary to be approved have decreased. But, mainly in the interior of the North and Northeast, there is still this type of adoption happening”, explains the CNJ researcher.

This week, the topic of adoption appeared in the news and on social media after presenter Carol Nakamura announced, on her social media, that a child she met and came to live in her home decided to return to live with her biological family. On Instagram, the presenter stated that she did not have custody for the purpose of adopting the boy, but an “authorization” given by the child’s mother – an informality not provided for by law.

“In the beginning, there was really no idea of ​​adoption, there was trying to somehow help a child who had never been to school to be literate”, justified Nakamura.

BBC News Brasil tried to contact the agency that represents the presenter by phone and email, but was not answered.

‘Even with all the preparation, there are returns’

The law determines that every person or family interested in adopting must seek the judicial system, through the Childhood and Youth Courts and pre-registration with the SNA. In the process, there is the so-called qualification for adoption, a preparation with courses and psychosocial care to guide the prospective families on possible difficulties and actions that can help in the education of the child or adolescent to be adopted. It is the “protection” to which Isabely Mota was referring, when she said that families who adopt irregularly no longer have it.

“For many years, adoption was seen as charity. Adoption is not that. These (preparatory) courses are important to deconstruct these myths of adoption. To deconstruct the myth of innate maternal love; the myth that you can only build bonds in early childhood; or that the creation made cannot be undone”, lists the researcher.

“People arrive with many prejudices, so we need this period of preparation. It’s not a time to keep people waiting: it’s a necessity.”

“And even with all this preparation, we still have returns”, recalls Mota, referring to adoption processes that were started and ended up interrupted, with the child returning to a shelter.

According to unpublished data provided by Mota to BBC News Brazil, based on information from the SNA, in 2021, 8.7% of the adoption processes started – that is, from the moment the child left the shelter to live with the family foster child, in a coexistence stage – led to the return of the minor. Last year, this occurred in 363 of the 4,183 adoptions initiated; in 2020, in 401 of the 4,609 adoptions initiated (also 8.7%).

“Many childhood judges still think this number is high. Because you have people (applicants) who are being trained, qualified. Even preparing, there is this number. If we didn’t do all this preparation, it would be much worse. past: there were many more returns because the preparation was not done well”, explains the researcher, who traveled to more than 20 states to help implement the SNA.

“It’s not blaming the suitor, but we see cases where people are really not prepared to assume maternity and paternity. We see babies being returned because the baby cries too much, because he doesn’t let him sleep at night”, he exemplifies.

“For the (returned) child, it is a new abandonment.”

“It is very important that the person who is going to adopt is informed, knows other people who are going through or have gone through the process… We need responsible people to make the adoption in Brazil.”

Preliminary data for 2022 show that, so far, the percentage of returns is lower: 3.8%, or 62 of the 1,613 adoptions initiated.

The ideal: reintegration, also record in 2021

Another record in 2021 was that of children and adolescents reintegrated with their biological parents – that is, those who were welcomed into shelters and, after social assistance work, returned to live with their parents. There were 11,052 minors reinstated last year.

This is, in fact, the priority of institutions and professionals who work with the SNA, according to Isabely Mota – remembering that the system’s acronym includes, in addition to the A for adoption, the A for “reception”.

“In foster care, we have thousands of children who never go for adoption. And it’s not because they are forgotten in the institutions, but because we are doing a work of reintegration in their family – with the strengthening of bonds, assistance in the social rent for this family, among others”, explains Mota.

“It is always ideal for the child to return to its family. The Child and Adolescent Statute is very clear about this: adoption is an additional hypothesis, when it was not possible for the child to return to its biological family.”

The specialist says that, in Brazil, shelter is synonymous with poverty: the majority of children who are sheltered do not reach this situation because they are victims of crimes such as sexual violence, for example, but because of the family’s lack of financial conditions.

“Welcoming should always be the last protective measure to be applied, but it often ends up being the first because the family is unable to raise that child – which shows the lack of public policies aimed at these families. family was structured, so that the child does not need to be removed because the mother has to go out to work, or is unable to provide the minimum support.”

Mota emphasizes that social status should not override the importance of family ties that still exist and can be reconstituted.

“That child, especially teenagers (in foster care) who are able to consent, make it clear that they want to be with their family (of origin). That social condition is not an impediment for them to be there. If the government helps that family to get out of the situation of vulnerability, we know it’s better for them to be together.”