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...

[cherry*135]

I read that this morning.

What do you think should happen OP?

[catsnknots]

I think they should be given full and permanent custody... 

Child rights to a healthy and happy and secure upbringing is more important... 

They gave the girl to them.. what if they had given the girl to a family that had a peadophile?? 

The family should be charged with abandoning a child. Anyone else would cop a charge like that. 

[j*oono]

So what do you think about the story Nero?

I read the story this morning and it is a very tricky situation.  No doubt Mr Swift and Ms Mudford are doing everything they possibly can for the little girl but do they have the right to remove her from her community? I don't know the answer. 

[catsnknots]

The community abandoned the girl when she was at her most vulnerable time in her life... Why should the community get a say now? 

[the_great_she_elephant]

Surely in this day and age being raised by a white family doesn't mean the child would have to lose her culture. It's not as if she is going to be isolated from her family and community -Tenant Creek has a very large aboriginal population; there must be 'aunties' there who can be role models and teach her what she needs to know. And if she attends the local school surely she will be mixing with a lot of indigenous children. I think her foster parents should be allowed to adopt her with the proviso that she grows up understanding and proud of her heritage.

[j*oono]

Yes She_el but Mr Swift has been posted to Tennant Creek and he has extended his stay there.  Should he be allowed to move the little girl away from her community?  Isn't that what the lost generation was all about?

[azureline**]

I think if the law is that he is too old to adopt, that is how it is.I don't think being white should matter but she should have access to learning about her heritage.

[the_great_she_elephant]

Yes She_el but Mr Swift has been posted to Tennant Creek and he has extended his stay there.  Should he be allowed to move the little girl away from her community?  Isn't that what the lost generation was all about?

It's a terribly difficult situation, and I confess I am a bit biased as Mr Elephant and I fostered and later adopted a little boy under similar circumstances. Our little son was not indigenous, which made things a lot simpler and we did legally adopt him - his mother was actually the one who suggested this -  but we lived in fear of her changing her mind right up till the adoption was finalised, so I understand only too well what Mikayla's foster parents are going through..  

[cueperkins]

Surely in this day and age being raised by a white family doesn't mean the child would have to lose her culture. It's not as if she is going to be isolated from her family and community -Tenant Creek has a very large aboriginal population; there must be 'aunties' there who can be role models and teach her what she needs to know. And if she attends the local school surely she will be mixing with a lot of indigenous children. I think her foster parents should be allowed to adopt her with the proviso that she grows up understanding and proud of her heritage.

I agree....whether she's indigenous or not, she's still a small child and her welfare has to come first.  any non indigenous child in the same situation would be removed from that kind of risk wouldn't they?.   though there are a lot of stories of kids being returned to drug and alcohol affected parents only to be killed or injured.  I'd vote to keep her where she is and let her grow up with her family around her.  sooner or later she'll make her own choices.