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Mr. Benjamin Otoo, the National Director of Social Welfare, has urged Ghanaians who apply to adopt children from the Department to be modest with their preferences, saying some requests are outlandish. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Wednesday, on the trend of adoption, Mr. Otoo said the fastidious attitude of some prospective adoptive parents delayed the adoption process.

He cited one such couple, who requested a light-skinned female child, with wide hips saying, “Such people could find themselves waiting for years because of the difficulty in finding their choice.” Mr. Otoo said another challenge the Department faced was that most people preferred female children; and also did not want to adopt children with disabilities because of lack of the requisite structures and amenities to enhance their growth and well-being.
On the adoption process, the Social Welfare Director said after ascertaining the criminal records of applicants and clearing them, their health status had to be evaluated.

When they are found medically fit, the eligible applicants are then made to give their specifications of how they wanted their child to look like for the matching process to start.Mr Otoo said, unfortunately, some people found the legal processes of adoption unduly bureaucratic.However, he explained that, they were very important to secure the best interest of the child.In order to qualify to adopt a child, one must be 25 years and above, while the age difference between the prospective individual or couple and the child should be 21 years and above, unless the child is a relative. Though a single female is eligible to adopt, a single male is not permitted by law to do so.

He explained the adoption process was different from foster care, saying people often confused the two.
Mr Otoo said when people brought home the children of their relatives or others to cater for them it was considered as foster care until they had successfully met the legal requirements for adoption.He said misconstruing those concepts had brought many complaints to the Department. “In one of such cases, a couple once agreed to foster their niece because they could not have children of their own, later on, the parents of the child returned for her, leaving the aunt heartbroken.” The Social Welfare Director said to prevent such happenings, Ghanaians must foster children in orphanages, or adopt only through lawful means.

“Adoption is legally making a child who originally did not belong to you, your own, this is the only way a child cannot be taken away from his or her adoptive parents,” he emphasised. Mr. Otoo cautioned that it was criminal to inform an adopted child about his or her original parentage, adding that this was punishable by law.
He said Ghanaians should, therefore, desist from stigmatising adopted children as well as couples and individuals, who he said, took the honourable initiative to offer love and care to children who were not biologically theirs, to prevent prosecution