The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights will begin public consultations on the Adoption Bill.

In a change from the norm, the committee will head to the West and North over the next two weeks to carry out public consultations as opposed to beginning in Suva.

Committee Chair Alvick Maharaj says they will also be working with the new measures in place to increase public participation by working with the Turaga-ni-Koro and Advisory Councils to inform residents of their arrival.

“On Monday we’ll be in Navua early morning and the afternoon we’ll be in Sigatoka, followed by Nadi on Tuesday, Wednesday we’ll be in Lautoka, Thursday we’ll be in Ba and Friday we’ll try to cover Rakiraki and Korovou.  So I acutally urge people to come out in numbers and do submission the Adoption Bill.  This is our second bill that we are looking into.  For the next two weeks, next week we’ll in the West and following week we’ll be in Labasa.”

In addition, the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation will have officers travelling with the committee to hold information sessions on what the Adoption Bill entails.

The committee will also this time around be spending a whole day at their visiting townships to enable as many people as possible to have their say on the Bill before them.

The Adoption Bill is the result of the review of the Adoption of Infants Act 1944 which is outdated and does not comprehensively cater for the changing nature of adoption, which is mostly inter-country.