Politics and a Regulatory Regime for Adoption

Abstract

Determining if and how the adoption process is to be regulated is a political matter. By 2020 all the countries considered in this study had introduced legislation that laid down the basic procedural stages, accompanied by their respective checks and balances, which permitted applicants to acquire a legal adoption order. Indigenous societies, though obliged to comply with national legislation, nonetheless remained relatively immune from some aspects of the legally regulated processes, as did ‘simple’ adoptions and kafala, while much domestic adoption in China and elsewhere in Asia often eluded official legal procedures, but for the most part adoption had become subject to a statutorily prescribed regulatory regime.