Deborra-Lee Furness slams Oz anti-adoption culture

Read More ]"/> The actress wife of Hugh Jackman has slammed Australia’s “anti-adoption culture”.

Deborra-Lee Furness was in Sydney to launch National Adoption Awareness week. She called for the government to clean its house and reform the costly and onerous process of Australians adopting from overseas.

“Australia has the lowest adoption rate in the developed world – 270 last year including local [adoptions]. It’s embarrassing – when we have such resources and richness and wealth. So many people come to me and say ‘I want to adopt’ and they can’t – someone said to me they had been waiting 16 years.”

Furness and Jackman adopted their kids, Oscar, 9, and Ava, 4 in the United States. She recalled her own experience: “I went to a meeting years ago and it was so negative, it was so negative what they were saying to me and they were trying to deter us from doing it. The red tape process is so invasive and it takes too long – in other countries it can take [as little as] 12 months. They [Australian authorities] don’t want you to do it, [it's an] anti-adoption culture.”

She linked her view to the country’s history. “We haven’t done abandoned children well in our past history, [including] the stolen generation of Aboriginal [children]. I think people are scared to touch this, they are scared to stand up and make a decision that we have to do something. They signed the convention to rights of a child which said we would assist these children, 20 years ago.”

source: Splash News

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