Do not give up your children for adoption just because you are mired in poverty.
This was the call made by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to poor parents who are mulling over to have their children put in child-caring or placing organizations for adoption.
"Sa ganitong pagkakataon , ang ating pong prinisipyo po, ang kahirapan po ay hindi dapat maging sagabal, na ipaampon o give up ang ating mga anak (In this case, our principle, poverty should not be the reason to give up our children),” Director Wilma Naviamos of the DSWD's Program Management Bureau (PMB) said in an online media forum dubbed “Family for Children in Need Amidst the Pandemic: Support to Adoption Implementation During the Time of COVID-19” on Saturday as part of the week-long Adoption Consciousness Celebration (ACC) from Feb. 6 to 12.
"Naniniwala tayo na kailangan natin i-preserve (ang ating pamilya) at mamuhay ang isang bata sa kanyang pamilya (We believe that we should preserve our family and that a child should live with his or her biological family),” she stressed.
Naviamos advised these poor families to seek assistance to the nearest DSWD Offices or to social welfare officers, so that giving up their children for adoption would be their "last resort.”
“Mayroon tayong community-based services at direct intervention, social welfare intervention sa ganitong pamilya at bibigyan po natin sila ng tulong para maging resort na ang pag-give up sa bata (We have community-based services and direct intervention, social welfare intervention for these families and we will provide them assistance so that giving up their children would be their last resort) ,” she noted.
The DSWD has been reminding would-be adoptive parents to resort to legal adoption rather than transacting with social media pages facilitating illegal adoption.
Based on the DSWD-PMB data, there were around 312 domestic adoption cases in 2019. In 2020, the number of domestic adoption cases decreased by almost 11 percent or to 278.
From 2009 to 2020, the DSWD recorded a total of 2, 815 domestic adoption cases.