Beyond the prejudice, children and teenagers with HIV/Aids need to overcome the delay of justice in order to have any chance of adoption
In December 1st we celebrate the International Fight Against Aids Day. Since the beginning of this epidemic in Brazil, in 1980, until july of 2011, Brazil registered 608.230 cases of infection by HIV virus, according the Epidemiologic Press of 2011. In the last year only, 7.762 cases surfaced nationwide, of which 2.491 only in the south. Out of them, 87 concerning children and teenagers ranging from zero to 19 years old.
When it first appeared, the disease was seen as a death sentence. But, along with the advances in treatment of the disease and the development of new classes of medications that control the spree, the infected started enhancing their average life span to the point of being similar of those who are not infected. However, the great misinformation of the public about this subject only made the prejudice about the infected people be, even nowadays, very large.
In order to establish a landmark on its fight defending the infected children who lives in foster homes and special institutions, the National (Brazilian) Movement for Inadoptable Children (MONACI, Movimento Nacional das Crianças Inadotáveis – in Portuguese) released on this Thursday (27), in Curitiba, a protest to show people the real situation of these boys and girls.
MONACI was created when a couple from Curitiba experienced the bureaucracy that surrounds the adoption processes in the country. According with the president of the movement, Aristéia Rau, the process and the actions necessary for a children to be included in the National Adoption Database (CNA) and become available for adoption is way too slow. This slowness is even greater, according to Rau, when these kids belong to the “inadoptable” group (as they are referred to when out of the “preferential” group – with less than 3 years old, white and healthy), especially those who are infected with HIV.
In august, 2010, Aristéia and her husband, Alberto Rau, joined the process of adoption of four infected girls in Curitiba. Even having acquired the right for visitation, allowing the kids to spend the weekends with them, in December of the same year, without any justification, according to Aristéia, Justice denied the provisory guard of the children to the couple. Right after, the have been informed that the permission for visitation has been revoked. Desolated, they started questioning and pressuring the Justice System in order to achieve any explanation for the refusal, but got nothing in response. In March, 2011, the founded the MONACI, which evidenced the situation and the negligence of the Justice System in regard of the children who lives in special institutions and foster homes, especially the ones infected with HIV. Today, after a year without seeing the girls, the couple recently achieved the guard of two brothers from Rio de Janeiro, but still haven’t given up on the four girls because they fell in love for them and, as far as they know, they still live in the same foster home as before.
According to Aristéia, the Justice System speech consists of the argument that the adoptions must be done with care. But, for her, after showing all the necessary documents, the process should be quicker. “The adoptions are slow, the Children and Teenager Estatute is not a pill and, as for the black, older and handicap or infected children it takes even longer to join the Adoption Database”, says. For her, the Justice supposes these children won’t be adopted and so it doesn’t care about the process of familiar destitution for them, and, due to that, these children remain institutionalized for 10 years and are practically invisible inside the system.
For her, the adoptions that are outside the main pattern of search should be done faster. “Every time someone gets interested for one of these kids the Justice should put their process in advance and not suppose that these people are lunatics”, says.
According to the CAN, in 2011, the state of Paraná was the second state with more adopting-intended people in Brazil. Only in Curitiba there were 600 couples licensed for adoption and 153 children and teenagers available for adoption.
However, MONACI questions the truth behind these numbers, since, according to the presidente of the institution, Aristéia Rau, many institutionalized, specially the HIV infected ones, haven’t joined the Database (CNA).
According to her, there’s a negligence of the Justice System in relation to these children, whom stays for years in foster homes without the due process of family destitution or reintegration ever being concluded. So, these children remain forgotten in these institutions and are forbidden of freely exercising their right for a life in family.
“These numbers are not real, they only show the children that are in regular process of adoption. There’s a huge delay for familiar destitution, and, in many cases, it just doesn’t happen, since the process involving HIV positive children just remain unsolved in the judge’s office. The infected children, whom usually come as babies in the institutions, only join the adoption queue with the age of 10, 15 years old, when their chances for adoption decrease even more”, explains Rau.
The fragility of the CNA’s data is easily confirmed when we observe the difference between the official numbers of HIV positive children available for adoption in Curitiba and the number of children living in both institutions responsible for maintaining these infected kids: The APAV (Happiness of Living Association of Paraná) and the ACOA (Aids’ Orphans Association of Curitiba). The first holds 15 infected children and the second one, 10 of them. However, according to Maria Rita Teixeira, president of APAV, as for the National Council of Justice, there’s only 13 children and teenagers available for adoption in the whole state of Paraná.
For her, it’s not enough that justice simply drive these kids into the institutions and end of story. It’s necessary to check what can possibly be done for these boys and girls, who can’t get older in an institution without even having the chance of being adopted.
“We can’t waste any time. If there’s families completely receptive for receiving these kids, why make it so hard? There are couples that stand nine, 10, 11 years in adoption’s queues. On the other side, we have children who lives in foster homes without having family destitution for the same period. But, a family which doesn’t pay a visit for eight years, have any interest in receiving this child back? In my opinion, no”, says Maria Rita.
The other side
According to the district attorney from the Operational Support Center of the Children and Teenager of Paraná, Murillo Digiácomo, there’s no difference between both process of adoption for kids with or without HIV. The only concern of the justice is to orientate the people intending an adoption about the child’s need of especial care. “It’s necessary to inform the future parents about the child’s condition, so they can take all the necessary precautions in order to avoid familiar or scholar segregation of these kids, so they can continue with their treatment without treating that child as a sick person, even so because Aids nowadays is a controllable disease and the expected life span of these boys and girls is practically equal to those who don’t have the same condition”, says the district attorney.
About the alleged delay on the inclusion of these children on the CNA database, Digiácomo explains that justice’s priority is for the child’s life in family and, due to that, the institutionalization is avoided as much as possible. So, it’s necessary, before sending a child for adoption, verify if there isn’t any condition for reintegrate this kid to their family, being the destitution the last alternative.
As for the judge of the 1st Infancy and Youngness Office of Curitiba, Lídia Munhoz Mattos Guedes, the math concerning the number of couples wanting to adopt and the number of children available for adoption doesn’t match is because of the very restrictive parameter established by the adults who look for them. It’s so rare finding people subscribe for adopting a HIV positive children or any other sort of disease”, says the judge.
In order to solve this problem, the judge and the district attorney both recognize it’s necessary for the Justice System to promote the adoption of children who are out of the parameters. “The difficult for adoption is not on the law, it’s on the profile stabilished by the adults, but it’s possible to change it. There are plenty of movements trying to change this point of view, stimulating the adoption of brothers, older children, with a disease of some sort. These groups try to alert these people that not only the child of their thoughts is able to fulfill their parenthood wish, quite the opposite”, explains Digiácomo.
Accessed in: Dec. 4th, 2012.
