Latest news with #OrangaTamariki
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- Health
- RNZ News
Babies for sale: New Zealanders commissioning illegal surrogacy in Thailand
By Jeremy Wilkinson, Open Justice multimedia journalist of Oranga Tamariki has identified a trend where Kiwis are travelling to Thailand to commission illegal surrogacy arrangements. Photo: NZME / Paul Slater New Zealanders are travelling overseas to illegally commission surrogate babies from Thai women, and bringing them back home to adopt them despite opposition from Oranga Tamariki. It's a practice the agency has labelled a "concerning trend" and it said there had been five cases where surrogate parents have flouted international law to have children in recent years. In one of those cases a gay man paid a Thai fertility clinic worker to subvert the country's strict surrogacy laws, which prohibits foreigners from commissioning children from surrogate mothers. The man paid a "significant" sum of money, according to a Family Court ruling, to find a surrogate and then his sperm was used to fertilise a donor's egg. Once back in New Zealand, the man applied to the Family Court to adopt his son so he could be legally recognised as his father. Under the current legislation, which was written in 1955, every parent of a child born by surrogacy, whether the practice is illegal in the country of birth or not, must effectively adopt their own child even if they have a genetic link to them. This is because when the law was written more than 70 years ago lawmakers didn't foresee the advances in fertility medicine such as in vitro fertilisation. That legislation is currently before a select committee after the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill was first tabled before Parliament in 2022. The proposed law would effectively create a mechanism that accounts for these changes in science, technology and culture and mean that parents, lawyers and judges won't need to rely on a piece of legislation that was never intended to account for surrogacy. However, it's unlikely to change things for people who commission surrogacy arrangements in countries where it's illegal. They will still come under scrutiny from the courts when they attempt to bring their children back into New Zealand. It's a practice that Oranga Tamariki says is occurring more frequently, at least in Thailand, and there's a possibility New Zealanders desperate to have children will look further abroad to other countries as well. In the case of the gay man who paid a Thai surrogate, which made its way through the Family Court last year, Judge Belinda Pidwell noted that the law around surrogacy was complex and there was no statute in New Zealand to provide clarity. "A number of illegal steps or breaches of laws occurred in the creation of [the child]. However, he has now been born, and as a result, has the right to grow and thrive, to have a nationality, and the right to know and be cared for by his parent," her ruling reads. "The irregularities in his creation, or the sins of his father, should not be visited upon him." However, Oranga Tamariki objected to the adoption being granted by the courts, despite finding that the father was the only real parental option for the child and that, barring the illegal way in which the baby was created, he was an otherwise suitable parent. Lawyers for the agency tabled a report from a senior adviser in its Intercountry Adoption Team, which identified a "concerning trend where New Zealanders have engaged in surrogacy around involving Thai surrogates, despite the illegality". "The concern is if children born of illegal surrogacy arrangements are allowed entry into New Zealand, and their parentage is then endorsed by an adoption order, that could be seen as an endorsement of unlawful actions," the report read. Oranga Tamariki says the release of its report could cause diplomacy issues, but didn't give the courts any evidence about why. Photo: NZME / Supplied Oranga Tamariki refused to release the full report to NZME under the Official Information Act, and then opposed its release through the Family Court claiming that it could impact New Zealand's diplomatic relations with other countries. However, it didn't provide any evidence about that specific impact. Judge Pidwell recently released the full report to NZME, which outlines how there has been an increased demand for women to become surrogates, and this demand has caused an increase in the number of women being trafficked from countries where the practice has been banned. The report found that between 2015 and 2020 the agency wasn't aware of any evidence New Zealanders had been involved in these situations, but from 2020 it had encountered five cases where a commercial surrogacy arrangement had been commissioned by Kiwis involving Thai surrogates. Three of these cases have involved the transfer of the surrogate across international borders for the purpose of an embryo transfer. In the other two cases, the mothers were transferred to another country to give birth. "Not only do these emerging trends demonstrate New Zealanders are breaching and demonstrating disregard to Thailand's domestic laws, but there are also significant concerns about the risks these practices pose for the safety and wellbeing of surrogates and the children born via the arrangements," the report reads. "Whilst we have noticed these examples of illegal practices have occurred in Thailand, we are mindful to the possibility of surrogacies being commissioned in other countries where it is illegal and would place similar scrutiny on New Zealanders engaging in illegal surrogacy arrangements in any jurisdiction." In New Zealand there is currently no legal pathway for a surrogate child to obtain residency except via an exemption from the ministers of immigration or internal affairs, or through the antiquated Adoption Act. Oranga Tamariki receives referrals from commissioning parents, private lawyers or requests from the Family Court to complete reports under the Adoption Act, which assesses their suitability to adopt. Since international surrogacy was outlawed in Thailand in 2015, Oranga Tamariki as well as the Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Immigration New Zealand and the Department of Internal Affairs have all published advice for New Zealanders about the law change. Those agencies held a meeting in January 2024 to discuss the trend where New Zealand was flouting these rules. Then in May, Oranga Tamariki effected a policy to refuse to provide pre-court adoptive applicant assessments for people who commission surrogacy in a country where it is illegal. NZME asked Oranga Tamariki questions about whether it had liaised with the Thai Government about its concerns, about other countries where New Zealanders were commissioning illegal surrogacy and about its submissions to the new bill. New Zealand First MP and Children's Minister Karen Chhour says she hasn't received advice from Oranga Tamariki about the report. Photo: NZME / Mark Mitchell In an emailed statement the agency did not respond to those questions, instead noting that following an inter-agency meeting in 2024 Oranga Tamariki put in a formal policy to not support an immigration exemption for anyone commissioning an illegal surrogacy. "As outlined, we do not undertake any pre-court assessments of adoptive applicants who commission an international surrogacy in a country where it is illegal but will undertake such an assessment if we are required to do so by the court once an adoption application is received," the spokesperson said. "Oranga Tamariki has contributed along with other agencies to the review of surrogacy that has been led by the Ministry of Justice. "Through the course of that work, discussions were held about the issue of illegal surrogacy actions." A spokesperson for the Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, confirmed her office had not received any reports or advice from Oranga Tamariki about the illegal surrogacy its staff had identified. The Thai Embassy in Wellington did not respond to questions about whether it had seen the report, and was concerned by it. Domestic surrogacy, where someone volunteers to carry a baby for someone else, is legal in New Zealand, as long as no money changes hands. However, there's also no legal pathway to enforce this arrangement meaning that if the birth mother wants to keep the child, she can. If in vitro fertilisation needs to be done to get a surrogate pregnant then it has to be approved by the Ethics on Human Assisted Reproductive Technology committee (ECART). Oranga Tamariki will also assess the intended parents for their suitability. According to official information released by Oranga Tamariki there were 89 domestic surrogacy adoptions in New Zealand between 2020 and 2024, and over the same period there were 69 from international surrogacy arrangements. Barrister Margaret Casey, KC, says not much will change under proposed new legislation when it comes to illegal surrogacy. Photo: NZME / Supplied Margaret Casey, KC, is one of three legal experts who assist with surrogacy arrangements in New Zealand and told NZME under the new proposed surrogacy law, people would no longer have to adopt their own genetic children, rather it would become a parenting order. "The courts will still be juggling the same kinds of issues, it will just be through a different lens," she said. "Illegal surrogacies will still come before the court, and the court will still look at the background and make a decision about whether or not when you balance it all out it can make a parentage order." In terms of illegal surrogacy, Casey said not much would change under the new legislation, and there were already checks and balances in place that served to disincentivise people deliberately pursuing illegal arrangements. "You may not get to live where you want or with your child for a long time, you may have to give detailed evidence at a court hearing, be subject of further reports from Oranga Tamariki ... you will live in this state of uncertainty and probably panic for a long period of time," she said. In all five cases in recent years where New Zealanders have commissioned babies in Thailand, the New Zealanders who had paid a surrogate claimed that they didn't know it was illegal, despite clear advice from agencies in New Zealand to the contrary. Casey said this was likely born from optimism, rather than wilful blindness. "People are paying too much attention to the process of creating the baby and not concentrating on whether they can bring the child home and how long it will take, and is there anything I'm doing that will be a problem," she said. "Do your research and ask questions. If you don't do that and rely on an agency whose business is reproductive optimism, then you might not look as deeply as you should." Associate Minister for Justice Nicole McKee said the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill won't prevent people from seeking illegal surrogacies abroad. "It will expressly enable the Family Court to scrutinise these arrangements. The court will be able to consider whether it is in the surrogate-born child's best interests for the intended parents to become the child's legal parents," she said in a statement. Another expert in New Zealand surrogacy law is Jennifer Wademan, who agreed that in her experience there's nothing Machiavellian in parents seeking out illegal surrogacy. "I've never come across a case where someone has had the knowledge that it is illegal and still gone ahead. We simply point them in a direction where people can do it legally," she said. Wademan said she primarily gets two kinds of clients; those who work with her from the start, and those who only come to her once they realise their baby's foreign birth certificate won't get them through the border in New Zealand. "By the time these families are turning to international surrogacies they've been through hell and back and their desire to have a child is so great, it's optimism rather than deliberate avoidance of research," Wademan said. "I think for many it's putting the blinkers on. As human beings we can all understand that." As for Oranga Tamariki identifying cases of this happening, Wademan said that while the numbers might appear small, a spike of five is quite significant in the world of international surrogacy. "It's enough for me to go, hmm, I don't like that," she said. In terms of the proposed law change, Wademan doesn't see it changing much in the way of illegal surrogacy, but for domestic parents she predicts it will change the landscape altogether for an area of law that is particularly ad hoc. "Every day we get a new challenge," she said, "We're having to be innovative about legislative process about science and culture because our legislation doesn't provide for it. "The international landscape will always be more complex because we're dealing with another country's laws that we have no control over. "At the end of the day, these are overwhelmingly New Zealanders who just want to be parents so badly." -This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald .
NZ Herald
16 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Babies for sale: New Zealanders commissioning illegal surrogacy in Thailand
New Zealanders are travelling overseas to illegally commission surrogate babies from Thai women, and bringing them back home to adopt them despite opposition from Oranga Tamariki. It's a practice the agency has labelled a 'concerning trend' and it said there had been five cases where surrogate parents have flouted international
RNZ News
4 days ago
- Health
- RNZ News
Child slavery cases prompt move on intercountry adoption laws
RNZ has reported on cases where adopted children were beaten, sexually abused, lived as servants at home and had their wages removed once they started paid work. Photo: 123RF Fears over child slavery and abuse have prompted the government to make a move on intercountry adoption laws. Briefings to ministers show they have been warned of a 'myriad of risks' to children, involving physical and sexual abuse and domestic servitude, as recently as three months ago. Oranga Tamariki said in a January briefing that despite regular warnings about intercountry adoptions in the last seven years there 'remains no strategic response'. The government says it is now prioritising work on intercountry adoption, including legislative change before the election. Oranga Tamariki (OT) said it was also working to share information with Samoa on New Zealand-resident parents who are applying to adopt. RNZ has reported on cases where adopted children were beaten, sexually abused, lived as servants at home and had their wages removed once they started paid work. Some had been adopted despite their new parents having previous criminal convictions . Children become citizens by descent if they are under 14 when adopted, or can come to New Zealand on a dependent child resident visa if they are under 25. In a briefing to children's minister Karen Chhour, Oranga Tamariki said it had concerns about the 'safety, rights and wellbeing' of children being adopted from overseas, and had been warned about one new urgent case by Internal Affairs (DIA). "The Citizenship Act 1977 does not require the adoptive parent to provide evidence to DIA that the adoption was in the best interest of the children, or that the adoptive parents were assessed as being suitable to adopt," said the briefing. "This case presents a challenging situation for the New Zealand government. Despite concerns raised with the government in briefing papers in 2018, 2019 and 2024 about the risks that section 17 poses, adoption law reform has been paused. "There remains no strategic response to the risks that have been previously identified in the movement of overseas born children across international borders via an adoption recognised by the New Zealand Adoption Act. This is not an isolated case of Section 17 being used as a mechanism to move overseas-born children." The details of the case were redacted. Elsewhere, OT officials said some adoptive families were claiming to be related to the birth mother but "DNA evidence is not required to prove any claims made by adoptive parents that they have a familial link to the children they have adopted." While many children and adoptive families have to undergo assessments, reports and home visits involving Oranga Tamariki and the Family Court under the Hague Convention, a different adoption pathway - section 17 - is open in New Zealand to those being adopted from countries which are not signatories to that international convention. It allows them to be customarily adopted or adopted via a court process in their home country, but does not mandate checks on the New Zealand family by child welfare officials. "Section 17 in its current form compromises the New Zealand government's ability to uphold its responsibilities to the conventions we have ratified, and presents a myriad of risks, as highlighted by the case at hand," the minister was told. A February briefing reiterates the concerns. "There is a body of anecdotal evidence demonstrating that section 17 of the Act lacks adequate safeguards for children who were adopted in overseas courts with compatible legislation and are moved from their country of origin to live with New Zealand citizens or permanent residents. "Section 17 is an unchecked adoption pathway, as there may be no requirement for the overseas court to seek independent information on whether the adoption will serve the best interests and rights of the children, or whether the adoptive applicants are suitable to adopt." The law was "deficient at preventing serious and preventable harm to occur to children, young people and families using New Zealand adoption processes". "Children who are being adopted into harmful environments in New Zealand continue to be reported to Orange Tamarack in the absence of New Zealand adoption law reform." World Vision New Zealand's head of advocacy Rebekah Armstrong said adoptions should be halted from the Pacific countries where "repeated breaches are coming from first and foremost". She welcomed news that adoption law reform was being prioritised, as a "long-overdue step". "However, it's incredibly important that such reforms are developed within a coherent policy framework and not in isolation. In particular, alignment with New Zealand's trafficking in persons and modern slavery legislation is essential. "Currently, our legal definition of child trafficking is out of step with international standards as it requires proof of deception or coercion - even in cases involving children. This is a major flaw and we have been subject to major international criticism regarding this for years now. "There are definitely some red flags in the cases we are hearing about in New Zealand. Adoption becomes trafficking when it involves exploitative purposes - such as forced labour, sexual abuse - or when illicit practices are used, including the falsification of documents, misleading biological parents, or offering or receiving improper payments. "Even when adoptive intentions seem benevolent, the use of unlawful means or the circumvention of legal processes, especially in unregulated or cross-border contexts, can constitute trafficking. To prevent such abuse, adoptions must be transparent, legally compliant, and always prioritise the child's best interests, following safeguards like those outlined in the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption." Reform of the Adoption Act, and trafficking provisions under the Crimes Act, had taken too long, she said. "What is it going to take for the New Zealand government to take this seriously? What I'm scared of is that if we don't urgently act and strengthen these frameworks, which are incredibly weak, we could end up having a terrible catastrophe that results in the loss of life. Slavery is one of the worst offences in the history of mankind. The fact that there are potentially slavery cases now, that's catastrophe enough to me. "We can't be allowing the potential trafficking of children because we've got loopholes in our law." Adoption researcher Dr Barbara Sumner said intercountry adoptions should be halted. "We shouldn't be importing children," she said. "We have countries like Sweden beginning to put an end to the intercountry adoptions because of illicit practices. We know internationally that children in non-biological families suffer, are at greater risk of negative experiences. But we have no figures for that in New Zealand at all." Oranga Tamariki's reporting to Hague Convention monitors had gaps and inconsistencies that did not accurately reflect the adoption situation in New Zealand, she said. There was no way to set the record straight with Hague authorities, who only referred them back to OT. "They are absolutely hiding [information]. Or maybe it's not as extreme as that, that they're just rewriting what adoption is to meet what the general public believes it is, sanitising it. I think they're avoiding critical analysis of systemic exploitation in in the country of adoption for sure. They frame poverty as justification and ignore inequalities and coercion in the sending countries. These are pretty basic understandings. "Just the fact that they can say that law reform is underway (in 2024) when it is indefinitely delayed, just simple things like that. They know where they're at with it, but they don't tell the truth in it. It presents stalled reform as active progress, for instance. And that there's support [available] when there isn't." Immigration lawyer Richard Small said while social worker reports should be completed on families, closing the category in full would hurt genuine adoptions. Oranga Tamariki refused an interview request but international child protection unit manager Sharyn Titchener said in a written statement it was committed to advocating for the right safeguards in a complex area. "Government agencies in New Zealand and Samoa have recognised the urgent need to address the absence of safeguards for adopted children," she said. "We currently have representatives on a government cross-agency group from New Zealand working in partnership with key agencies in Samoa to ensure adoptions are in the best interests of the children involved. "The agencies are working towards an information sharing arrangement which would allow the courts in Samoa to request information New Zealand holds about prospective adoptive parents, such as criminal histories." Chhour's office said she could not comment, as adoptions fall under the responsibility of associate justice minister Nicole McCoy, who also declined an interview. "Several of your questions fall within the remit of other agencies, and I am currently awaiting their advice, which will be considered and discussed with Cabinet colleagues before any public comment can be made," she said in a written statement. "Work on adoption law reform was slowed down in 2023 and paused later that year by the previous government. Given the pressing need for targeted reform relating to international adoption legislation, I have prioritised this work and intend to make legislative change this parliamentary term. "I have asked officials to provide advice on short-term options while we progress more comprehensive legislative reform." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
4 days ago
- Health
- RNZ News
'High and ongoing' risk of more Oranga Tamariki privacy breaches
Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster says doesn't have "robust systems" in place to protect the personal information it holds. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster says the children's ministry remains at "high and ongoing risk" of disclosing vulnerable children's highly sensitive information. He has issued Oranga Tamariki a compliance notice to compel it to do more to fix its deficient training, data sharing and privacy systems. "Oranga Tamariki currently doesn't have sufficiently robust systems and practices in place to appropriately protect the personal information it holds," he said. In breaches documented in an investigation report kept under wraps for a year, and only revealed by RNZ in March, several women and whānau suffered actual physical harm including from being attacked, after Oranga Tamariki disclosed information it should not have. It had let slip addresses and names, for instance. A series of serious breaches have been notified to the commissioner since 2020 (prior to 2019, OT and other public agencies were not mandated to alert him). "These incidents have put vulnerable children, parents and caregivers at risk as well as retraumatised victims," Webster said in the [ compliance notice] issued on Monday and announced on Wednesday. "I consider there is a high and ongoing risk that without taking steps to mitigate the risk, serious privacy breach incidents will continue to occur." The compliance notice said OT had improved under a fixit plan that did not go far enough, ordering the ministry to take further measures by October, and some by March 2026. Webster listed ongoing weaknesses around personal information he had identified, including documents and devices being lost, or disposed of loosely, and inadequate access controls. Staff persisted in having access to personal information they should not have, over a year after an investigation report had warned OT it must clamp down on access. At that time, even trainees were being allowed into files which they shouldn't have been allowed to access. The investigation report was released to RNZ in March 2025 after months of asking for it. Not only did the April 2024 investigation state the scale of breaches was impossible to know as OT did not keep proper records of them, but the compliance notice is now once again ordering the ministry to set up a proper privacy breach reporting framework. The other measures the ministry must undertake by October entail not just strengthening its own systems, but externally, too, with the commissioner ordering stronger contracts with NGO service providers around keeping information secure and disposing of it. The ministry must begin to audit how it was going, the compliance notice said. Earlier this month, RNZ reported how the ministry had yet to make a start on half a dozen of the recommendations in the privacy breach April 2024 report, while a dozen others were underway but not complete. Among those not started was the setting up of an induction process so new staff were less likely to breach clients' privacy. In June 2024, RNZ reported that dozens of analysts at the ministry had access to personal details about at-risk children they should not have. A key weakness is technology: The ministry's core information IT systems, including its social worker records about thousands of children, are old and weak, but it has continued to struggle to find the resources, expertise and time to replace them. Webster said the new compliance notice was necessary to "underpin" the improvements OT was making. The ministry said on Wednesday it continued to work closely with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on improving how it looked after information. It elevated the chief privacy officer role higher up among management, and instituted an improvement plan that would be completed in 2026. "The Privacy Commissioner was involved in the development of that plan. We continue to make good progress on implementing the plan, with several actions already completed or significantly progressed prior to receiving the notice," Acting chief privacy officer Jane Fletcher said in a statement. It had not had any notifiable privacy breaches in the past 18 months, she added. A tech upgrade called the Frontline Technology Systems Upgrade would "deliver greater safety, security and privacy". The ministry said Fletcher was acting in the role while Philip Grady was on secondment at Health New Zealand. The chief privacy officer job was elevated from a tier five to a tier two management role eight months ago as a result of the breaches investigation. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
4 days ago
- Health
- RNZ News
Midday Report Essentials for Wednesday 28 May 2025
technology health 27 minutes ago In today's episode, A former All Black says the controversial collision game is allowing influencers and organisers to make money off head injuries and concussions, New Zealand's privacy commissioner Michael Webster has issued Oranga Tamariki a compliance notice to compel it to do more to fix its deficient training, data sharing and privacy systems, Police are investigating a report of a Christchurch Hospital worker being assaulted on Monday night - the second assault on a hospital worker in the space of a week, and Minister for Regulation David Seymour has taken a razor to regulations in the hairdressing industry but the changes have been dismissed as a waste of time by some.
