– CBC News
The Yukon government is getting ready to open up adoption records it has kept secret for decades, making it easier for adopted children and their birth parents to find each other.
Parents or adopted children who want their adoption files kept confidential have until the end of April to make that request.
The Yukon is following the lead of provinces like Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia, which have all opened up adoption records in recent years.
B.C. made the change in 1996 at the urging of advocates like Nancy Kato, who heads up an adoption support society in Surrey, B.C.
“It’s your heritage; it’s your genetic extension,” Kato told CBC News on Monday.
“Every child has a right to know what that is, and every birth parent has a right to know their child is alive and well.”
The opening of adoption records does not always result in happy reunions, Kato said, but nevertheless, the Yukon government is doing the right thing by ending the secrecy surrounding adoptions.
“They just want to know who they are,” Kato said. “They just want to know what their history is. They want to know what their medical [history] is. It’s just information.”
Yukon government officials say they will be advertising across Canada and contacting agencies such as Kato’s to get the word out to birth parents and adopted individuals about the unsealing of the territory’s adoption records.
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