Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll — Raising the bar

Illegitimate! The Adoption Act 1955

Aotearoa | New Zealand was the first country in the world to introduce closed stranger adoption, in the form of the Adoption Act 1955. Reflecting the sociocultural context of the time, closed adoption was considered the most appropriate response to the problem of illegitimacy. Unmarried parents and their children could be redeemed through the permanent legal severing of their relationship, and in the child’s case, the erasure of birth identity. The consequences were lifelong, and in many cases devastating. Conversely, today we recognise the illegitimacy of the Adoption Act itself, that it is not “in accordance with accepted standards or rules”. The right to know who we are is widely accepted and enshrined in declarations of Indigenous, human and children’s rights. Yet the Adoption Act remains in force, reform promised but not guaranteed. In this talk Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll will share her adoption experiences and research, as provocation to consider what will achieve much-needed change.

Bio

Dr Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Kahungunu) is a Senior Lecturer Above the Bar in the Faculty of Health at UC. Annabel has researched a broad variety of Māori health kaupapa in her 22 years as a researcher. Annabel’s personal story is one of adoption; she was born to young parents and adopted at the age of 4 months to a loving Pākehā family. She completed her PhD research on the experiences of being adopted and Māori in 2020 and has since utilised the findings to support adoption law reform.