Sham Adoption: The DNA of a Conventional Servitude

Abstract

The 1956 Supplementary Slavery Convention sets out four conventional servitudes. This Working Paper sets out the DNA of the fourth of those conventional servitudes, and demonstrates that it should be given the common designation of ‘sham adoption’, a term utilised within the negotiation process as early as 1926. The provisions related to sham adoption found in the 1956 Convention are rather obscure or ambiguous; they read:Any institution or practice whereby a child or young person under the age of 18 years is delivered by either or both of his natural parents or by his guardian to another person, whether for reward or not, with a view to the exploitation of the child or young person or of his labour. As a result international law allows for recourse to the negotiation history so as to determine their meaning. In considering the legislative history set out in this Working Paper, it is evident that these provisions are meant to apply specifically to adoptions which are detrimental to the welfare of a child. The genealogy set out in this Paper demonstrates that when Article 1(d) of the 1956 Supplementary Convention speaks of a child being ‘delivered’, it was a term which the negotiators settle upon when seeking to express the transfer of a child for adoption or quasi-adoption. Further, the understanding that such adoptions were in fact a sham was manifest in the agreement that such transfers, where they took place, would be against the welfare of the child.