At the beginning of December, seven Croatian citizens were arrested in Zambia, due to doubts about the validity of the documents for the adoption of minor children from the DR Congo. The investigation is still ongoing, and the Croatian institutions are transferring responsibility for the adoption process, Croatian reports. Index.

The investigation involving several competent authorities will determine what really happened, whether someone forged Congolese documents or failed in the adoption process of Congolese children who received Croatian documents. Currently there are various theories about this and various information and misinformation is being spread.

On Wednesday, there was also a misunderstanding when the President of the Supreme Court of Croatia, Radovan Dobronić, stated that the Croatian courts made a mistake and that the procedure on the basis of which Congolese children received Croatian documents was not valid, because Congo is a signatory to the Convention on the Protection of Children. therefore the procedure should be different.

But Dobronic later admitted that he had made a mistake and confused the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Namely, DR Congo is not a signatory to the Convention and the adoption procedure is under the jurisdiction of the courts, not the Ministry of Family and Social Policy.

He announced that the Supreme Court will rule on the adoption on Thursday.

What is known so far?

The facts are that the relevant Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy reported that two of the four arrested couples are registered in the Register of Potential Adopters, which means that only two couples have started a proper adoption procedure.

In an intercountry adoption procedure, the prerequisites for adoption must be cumulatively met in accordance with the legislation of both the child's country of origin and the country of the potential adopters.

If it is a country that has signed the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in the Matter of Adoption between States, after the potential adopters receive the green light from the competent center for social work (CZSS) on their suitability for adoption, they send the application for adoption to the Ministry indicating which country they want to adopt a child from. The process is further led by the Ministry.

If, on the other hand, it is a question of a country that is not a signatory to the Convention, such as the DR Congo, the potential adopters, after the procedure before the CZSS, independently submit a request for the adoption of a child from another country to the competent institutions of that country, in accordance with their regulations.

After the end of the intercountry adoption procedure, the adoptive parents must request the recognition of the foreign court decision on adoption by the competent court in Croatia.

The Minister of Internal Affairs of Croatia, Davor Božinović, confirmed that the adopted children from the DR Congo have all the necessary Croatian documents. They are registered in the registers, have Croatian identity cards and passports, and received all Croatian documents based on court decisions.

The Croatian Ministry of the Interior clarified for "Hina" that requests for issuing travel documents and identity cards to children are submitted by parents, and children up to the age of 12 do not have to be present when submitting the request. On the basis of the data recorded in the birth register and in the civil register, adopted children, as well as other citizens who are Croatian citizens, are issued documents, the issuance of which is the responsibility of the Croatian Ministry of the Interior.

The Croatian Ministry of the Interior also points out that the specific case of acquiring Croatian citizenship is not within their competence, because the child of a foreign citizen or a stateless child adopted by Croatian citizens acquires citizenship by descent, in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Croatian Citizenship, so that after the adoption procedure the child is registered in the competent registry office, registered in the registry book of births and in the book of citizens.

Adoption from DR Congo banned?

The US State Department on its pages regarding intercountry adoptions from DR Congo to the US states that adoption is not legally possible at this time and continues to strongly recommend that no new DR Congo adoptions be initiated at this time.

"Due to the termination of adoption and the continuous suspension of issuance of exit permits in cases of adoption, adopted children do not have legal opportunities to leave the country," the notification states.

The UK, for example, advises against adopting children from the DR Congo, according to the government's website, and it has also been pointed out that the UK does not recognize adoptions from the DR Congo as the country is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on Protection to the children.

In 2013, the DR Congo imposed a moratorium on exit visas for children adopted by foreign parents, citing as one reason the fear that the children could be victims of abuse or trafficking.

On the other hand, Reuters wrote in 2015 that bans on intercountry adoption actually fueled the black market of child trafficking.

"Adoptions in DR Congo have become a job for government agents, judges, lawyers, representatives of adoption agencies and orphanages," a person familiar with the process in Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo, told Reuters anonymously at the time.

But in 2016, Reuters reported that DR Congo still granted exit visas to a large number of children adopted by European, Canadian and American families.

Croatian media reports that the arrested adoptive parents went to Zambia to pick up the children, allegedly for their own safety, and the Zambian police arrested them on suspicion of human trafficking.

The situation in DR Congo is indeed unstable, according to the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which advises in its travel recommendations to avoid all non-essential travel due to the unstable and dangerous political-security situation in that country.

The State Department notes that violent crimes – armed robberies, armed home invasions and physical assaults – are common in the DR Congo, while local police lack the resources to effectively respond to serious crimes.

Eight Croatian citizens are still in prison in Zambia, and four children between the ages of one and three, as reported by the Zambian portal "Lusaka Times", have been handed over to the social welfare system.