Yahoo – AFP,
25 Jan 2015
Thai surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua (L) holds her baby Gammy, born with Down Syndrome, at the Samitivej hospital in Chonburi province on August 4, 2014 (AFP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri) |
Australia
said on Sunday it was simplifying the process of adopting children from
overseas, setting up a single body to manage applications while working on new
arrangements with the United States, Poland and Vietnam.
Prime
Minister Tony Abbott said a new "one-stop shop" -- the Intercountry
Adoption Support Service -- will have staff advocating on behalf of prospective
families and dealing with local state authorities and partner countries.
Australia
has one of the lowest levels of intercountry adoption in the world, according
to a government report last year.
"For
too long adoption has been in the too hard basket, for too long it has been too
hard to adopt and for too long this has been a policy no-go zone," the
Australian leader said in a statement.
"It shouldn't
be that way because adoption is all about giving children a better life."
The new
service -- which could start as soon as April -- will also seek to reduce the
length of time parents have to wait to adopt children, currently an average of
five years.
The
announcement came just a week after a baby boy at the centre of an
international debate about surrogacy was granted Australian citizenship.
Baby Gammy
was reportedly abandoned in Thailand by a Perth couple who went home with just
his healthy sister.
While
commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia, growing numbers of people are
travelling to countries such as India and Thailand to engage women to carry
their babies.
Adoption
levels have fallen to a record low in Australia, Abbott said, with just 317
domestic and international adoptions finalised between July 1, 2013 and June
30, 2014, nine percent lower than the previous year and 76 percent down from 25
years ago.
Australia
has intercountry arrangements with 14 countries, and the government said it was
establishing new adoption programmes with the US, Poland and Vietnam, and
working on schemes with four other countries.
The four
countries were not named by the government, but the Sunday Telegraph said they
were Latvia, Kenya, Bulgaria and Cambodia.
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