Adoption Agencies On Spot Over Declaring Children With Families Orphans

Three children up for adoption by two foreign couples were not abandoned orphans as declared by adoption agencies.

This new information led to The High Court halting two Swedish couples and one Danish couple from taking the three children out of the country.

Issuing the order on Friday, vacation Judge Lady Justice Lydia Achode directed that the minors be placed under the care of the Director of Children Services.

She further ordered the adoption process be halted until an application filed by their birth families determined.

Despite the children being declared abandoned and up for adoption, their families have been searching for them.

One of the minors only 2 yeats old was born at a city hospital then the mother died after developing complications. The child was later placed at a local charitable home. An adoption agency later declared the child abandoned then handed the minor to a Swedish couple in January 2015 for adoption.

However the child's grandmother learned of the adoption process and rushed to court to stop it.

She told the court she was searching for the child and was neither consulted nor had she given consent to the adoption process.

The second child, also a 2 year old, went missing from their home in Kibera. The police then placed the child in a charitable institution which declared the child an orphan on 26 November 2014. The agency then placed him for adoption to a Swedish couple on February 19.

The third child, a four-year-girl, got lost while traveling with her mother in Naivasha mid 2014.

Matatu crew took the child to the police. The police took the child to a home in Kiambu County. The home declared the child abandoned in January and later placed her with a Danish couple for adoption.

The family lawyers of all the three cases blamed the police, adoption agencies, and the charitable homes for failing to do investigations on the background of the children before declaring them homeless.

Sections 158 and 159 of the Children Act No. 8 of 2001 requires written consent from parents or guardians before offering them for adoption.

The adoption process for all the three cases have been stopped.

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