HAPTER ONE
Introduction
Background to the Study
The issue of child adoption is attracting world wide attention in the recent times. Biological ties form the hallmark of parent-child relationship and its absence has caused concern throughout the history of adoption (Logan, 1996). Nevertheless there is evidence that adoptive relationship can form along other lines, so adoptive parents enrich their children’s lives to compensate for the lack of biological ties and external challenges. There is a biological tie relationship that exists between a mother and her child. This relationship makes a child feel the mother’s absence when she is not around or dead. The adoptive parent can compensate an adopted child by showing him/her a good motherly care which ought to exist between a biological mother and her child.
Years ago, adoption was a taboo in many countries including Nigeria, but today it has become more common and acceptable (Wayne, 2004). According to Wayne, (2004) because people’s attitude towards adoption is changing, there is a polite behavior towards adopted children and their families. Raynor (1980) observed that the aim of child adoption is to cement a new family. Wayne (2004) similarly revealed that the aim of child adoption is to find a permanent home for babies who are the result of unwanted pregnancies.
World Health Organization WHO, (1980) defined a child as a person who is less than eighteen years of age. Molechine (2004) described a child as a person who has not attained maturity or age of legal majority. In the context of this study a child is a young person of either sex (male or female) who is not up to eighteen years of age. Adoption is the act of taking up a new idea and making it one’s own by individual (Rogers, 2003). It could also mean the act by which couples take up children who need adoption and making them their own. Adoption in the context of this study is the act of making use of a new idea as the best course of action available.
Child adoption according to (Eze, 1993) is a statutory process of terminating a child’s legal rights and duties toward the natural parent and substituting similar right and duties towards adoptive parent. Adamec and Pierne (1995) defined child adoption as a legal process by which people take as their own child a person not biologically born to them. Resolving the issue of adoption is a life long process but through an awareness of the issues inherent in adoption, an adoptive parent can use strategies that will enhance children’s self esteem and decrease their emotional vulnerability (William & Christine, 1996). This could be perhaps the reason why Boswell (1998) stated that child adoption is the act of taking a person or child into ones family as a son or daughter Adoption raises unique issues and challenges for the child and adoptive parents. Barbara (2004) observed that child adoption is the act of establishing a person as parent to one who is not in fact his child.
Child adoption in the context of this study is the practice by which couple agrees to rear a child/children which are not biologically their children with the aim of giving the child/children a good and better future. It incorporates the practice by which individual or families with impaired fertility accept to take and care for a child not related to them and have him/her as their child instead of going in for divorce. Every Child need a parent who will take care of him, this parent can be a birth parent or an adoptive parent. According to Boswell (1988) a parent is a person who beget, rear, nurture or give birth to a child. Section 567 of Edict act of 1996 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria viewed a parent as any person who cares for a child or young person.
A biological, natural or birth parent refers to a parent who is the biological mother or father of an individual United Nations Organization (UN 2008). An adoptive parent according to Eze, (1993) is that person or couple who has completed all the processes involved in adopting a child and has taken the child to their home to take care of the child till the age of maturity. This parent must have in one time or the other married either by court, traditional or Christian marriage. In this study it is only ever-married people that suppose in adopt because they are the people that can give hope for the orphan, and the abandoned by giving them good training permanent home and standard education like other children who live with their biological parent. These are the main aims of child adoption and it is the ever-married that can properly provide them to abandoned and neglected children. Single boys and girls may adopt but may not be able to provide for all that the child will need like good health standard education, permanent home and comfortable environment to grow happily like other children who live with their biological parent.
Ever-married people according to United Nations Organization (UN, 2008) include men and women who have married at least once in their life either by court, traditional or Christian marriage although their current marital status may not be married. The rationale for chosen ever-married people as the subject of the study is because they are the people that are supposed to rear, care and offer a permanent home for these children.
603411 639923Quite informative and great bodily structure of content material material , now thats user friendly (:. 721717