Child protection takes priority

INTERNATIONAL legal cooperation and child welfare expert Ignacio Goicoechea has expressed optimism that Thursday’s high-level plenary convened by the United States Embassy in Jamaica will help crystallise the island’s position on The Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption. Delivering remarks during the opening session of the event Goicoechea, who serves as the representative for Latin America and the Caribbean for The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), said the timing of the discussions was right, given the fact that Jamaica is this year in the process of reviewing key legislation supporting its child protection framework. “We have already heard the will of the Jamaican Government to join an international convention; we have already heard that.

Incidentally, this is the year where the child protection system and the adoption law are being reviewed, discussed. So this international dimension of child protection should only feed in this exercise, and not be seen as isolated. That’s why I’m so happy and looking forward for these discussions we will have today, and hopefully we can finalise this exercise with some concrete ideas, ways forward, so everyone can put its part to make a difference for many, many children that are really in need to have this right of a family secured,” Goicoechea said.

He noted that while the HCCH develops international conventions, it differed from other organisations in that it ensures that states are guided and supported in their implementation in order to ensure that “these rules touch people”. “No one has the full knowledge of how these mechanisms should be improved. We need all the views, both at the international level and at the national level.

So this opportunity of having in this room ministers, judges, child protection officers — key partners in the child protection team within Jamaica and international organisations — all learning together and discussing how we can improve these mechanisms, I think is an incredible opportunity, and it’s the only way that we can do things better,” he said. We are here to make sure that the best interest of the child is the guiding principle in any protection procedure, and we are here today to learn from each other,” Goicoechea stated. Chargé d’affaires at the United States Embassy in Kingston Scott Renner, while noting that he had w…