Aboriginal girl Mikala caught in middle of adoption struggle

[nero_bolt]

Very interesting.

What should happen to the young girl? What is best for her and her future?  What is safest for her as a child? 

LEIGH Swift and Yvonne Mudford fear the time is coming when the Aboriginal girl they have raised will be taken from them.

The idea plagues them. Mr Swift, 56, the Tennant Creek fire chief, and Ms Mudford, 46, who works for the Health Department, have fallen in love with Mikala, aged four. She is at preschool, getting to know her colours and numbers.

When she was six months old, Mikala's parents, who live across the road, asked the white couple to babysit the child when they went drinking, which was four nights a week.

Mikala was put in the care of her aunt.

The aunt asked Mr Swift and Ms Mudford to look after Mikala for a few nights. When they arrived to collect her from an Alice Springs address, they found the front yard covered with crime scene tape from a homicide the night before.

They later tried to return Mikala to the care of her aunt, but Ms Mudford said Mikala "kicked and screamed and it was just horrible. I said to the mum, 'We can't keep doing this. It's too hard for everyone."'

Mikala's mother asked Mr Swift and Ms Mudford to "grow her up".

Late last year, the birth mother wanted to reclaim Mikala.

They now fear Mikala will end up with her relatives, or any Aboriginal family, despite the stability they have given her.

They would gladly adopt or foster Mikala, and took hope from NT Chief Minister Adam Giles' recent comments that seriously neglected children should be adopted.

NT Child Commissioner, Howard Bath, has said the law should be changed so the child's well-being is considered ahead of cultural issues.

"I don't think she's got a culture to lose," says Ms Mudford. "How do a family that are continually drunk pass on an oral culture in a true and faithful manner?

"I think she needs to know her family, but at this point in time they're not able to look after her because of the drinking and the violence in the home."

Mr Swift's 50-plus age prevents him from adopting. He has extended his posting in Tennant Creek just to be with Mikala.

"I want her to grow up in society where she won't have the outcomes of her family, which is alcoholism, abuse, jails. It's the grog," says Mr Swift.

He says he'd be happy for Mikala to go back home, if home was safe. "I honestly don't think it's going to happen," he says. "That's what we've asked for - commit to the child for three months, off the grog. They can't do that.

"We'll go broken hearted, and she'll grow up like a sister, handed around the family.

We'd like to adopt her, but it won't happen because of my age, and because we're white

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/aboriginal-girl-mikala-caught-in-middle-of-adoption-strug...

[*notatroll]

Surely in this day and age being raised by a white family doesn't mean the child would have to lose her culture.

Surely being raised from the age of six months to the age of four years old by a white family, that child's "culture" is going to be a white Anglo one. Being returned to an aboriginal family now really would entail some loss of the culture she has been raised in.

[bella_again]

This irks me seriously, so in order to maintain culture people would prefer these kids are continually abused, end up with no hope and have the outcomes of so many in the community.  The child should be place under the best interests principal, another words the best interests of the child should be paramount.

The only reason the couple are raising the child is because the community and family are unsuitable and can not raise the child in a safe environment.  The aboriginal culture is not one of abuse, alcoholism and violence at its roots.  Until the communities get back the roots of their culture so many children are at risk.

I remember the coverage of the town of Toomelah.... devastating, so we destroy the innocence of children in the name of culture... 😞  I definitely think culture and identity are important but to continually place these kids at risk.  I think there are many ways to ensure cultural identity is not lost whilst keeping these children safe.

But at the end of the day the best solution is to see these communities resolve their difficulties, more needs to be done to help those caught up in the cycle of abuse to break that cycle and change their lives so their children have a future with them instead of in care.