Intercountry adoption in Kenya: A critique on the role of government regarding the modern-day human trafficking

Abstract

Intercountry adoption is the process by which one takes a child from one country to their own through permanent legal means, bringing the child into their family, treating them as their own and giving them all the rights and duties of their own children.The process ought to be carried out in a manner that would give priority to protecting the child’s best interests as provided by the Constitution of Kenya 2010. Unfortunately, intercountry adoption has increased vulnerability of children to human trafficking;a term defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Since the matter involves the violation of human rights, it is the duty of the government to protect the rights of the children involved. To this end, the research seeks to assess the role of government in upholding the child’s best interests.