TORN between two countries, three-year-old Tristan Dowse has been left in a year-long legal limbo after the couple who adopted him changed their minds and abandoned him in an Indonesian orphanage.
The actions of Joe Dowse, an Irish accountant, and his Azerbaijan-born wife Lala have been described as “dreadfully cruel” as the Irish and Indonesian governments try to unravel the international red tape that leaves the toddler not only homeless but also stateless, and unable to be adopted again.
Mr and Mrs Dowse were living in Jakarta when they adopted Indonesian-born Tristan shortly after he was born in 2002. The baby was granted an Irish passport and lost his Indonesian nationality, but two years later, after the couple decided that the adoption “wasn’t working out” — and Lala became pregnant — they left him at an orphanage and moved to Azerbaijan, where they cannot be contacted.
Tristan, who could speak only English, technically became an illegal immigrant. For the past year he has had no legal status in Indonesia and could have been deported. Another couple want to adopt him, but the child’s Irish citizenship means that the Indonesians cannot give the go-ahead. With pressure mounting in Ireland for something to be done, High Swift, the Singapore-based Irish ambassador with responsibility for Indonesia, has met the Jakarta authorities this week.
The Indonesians are hoping to cancel Tristan’s adoption, but the Irish Government says that any move to revoke the child’s Irish nationality must come from his legal adoptive parents through the High Court in Dublin.
“We have come up with a concrete plan,” Makmur Sunusi, of the Indonesian Department of Social Affairs, said. “We are going to submit a letter to the south Jakarta court calling on it to cancel the original adoption.”
Dr Sunusi said that the adoption was legally flawed and he expects few problems in getting it cancelled. Mr Swift would not comment in detail, but after visiting Tristan he told The Times that the Irish High Court and Government were committed to his well-being.
Dr Sunusi said that he hoped to have cleared the legal hurdles for the new adoption to go ahead in the next few months.
For the past year Tristan has been living in the Emmanuel orphanage in Bogor, 40 miles from Jakarta. “Over time we came to a painful realisation that the adoption wasn’t working out, an extremely difficult and painful realisation to make,” Mr Dowes told the Irish Examiner. “We felt it wasn’t in Tristan’s best interests to remain with us.”
The couple’s decision to abandon their adopted son has drawn withering criticism in Ireland. “What they have done is dreadfully cruel,” said Claire McGettrick, of AdoptionIreland, a support association for adopted people. “There is no way of justifying their behaviour. How difficult is it to commit to a baby boy? And strangely this all coincided with the birth of a child to them.”
Tristan’s guardians at the orphanage say he is a lively, intelligent boy who likes swimming.
According to the Irish Examiner, the Dowses, who have a daughter older than Tristan, were so thrilled when they adopted him that they sent this e-mail to family and friends: “New arrival — Joe, Lala and Tata are delighted to announce the adoption and arrival of Tristan into the Dowse family. Tristan is a healthy little boy who has now taken up full-time residence. We are thrilled.”
Nobody really knows why they changed their minds.
Times Online