When is an adoption “irregular” ?

Getting this story back to what happened in Chile, the situation gets somewhat more complicated. I will do my best to explain why and when we refer to an adoption being “irregular”.

In Chile, the adoption law came into place in the year 1988. Before that time, there was no adoption law and so, those who have been “send” to foreign countries, have actually never been adopted within the borders (jurisdiction) of Chile. Most of us adoptees have been adopted in the country where we went to live. But not in Chile!

So how did it work?

In Chile we were able to leave the country because most of our adoption documents show that we were “abandoned” by our birth mother / family. For those who have the Spanish version of their adoption documents available, you might be able to find the word “abandonado” somewhere written in there. The document I refer to is written by a type writer, usually consists of 2 to 4 pages, and concerns the judges order that decided for you to be adoptable because you were “abandoned”. If that was really the case is a different conversation.

The other word that can be found in your adoption papers is the word “tuición”, which is a form of personal care. This aloud the judge to actually approve for us to leave the country to then be adopted in the country where we went to live. If you look at your adoption documents, look for the following words: “Abandoned”, “Tuición” or “Cuidado Personal”

“Tuición” is a form of personal care but is no where close to be the same as an adoption. Only with an adoption is the legal parent-ship of the biological parents being transferred to the adoptive parents. So therefor for most of us, when the judge decided what would happen to us, it was this form of “Personal Care” that made the way free for us to leave the country.

In Chile, for this reason, we were not adopted. Meaning; that when our birth-mothers were able to register us at the “Civil Register office” (known in Chile as “Registro Civil”), they became automatically also our legal / juridical mothers. When you will try get your birth certificate out of the system of the Registro Civil, you will most likely see that you still exist as a citizen of Chile. Usually with our RUT Number (that can be found on your red coloured chilean passport), and the name given to us by our mothers when we were born.

Reach out when you would like to find out if you are still registered as a Chilean citizen.

This would never be possible when the adoption would have been taken care of in a regular way. Remember, as mentioned before: you should have been completely eliminated from the system in the country of origin. Therefor, when you are able to get your birth certificate out of the Chilean system today, your adoption has been dealt with “irregularly”, which refers to your adoption administratively not being dealt with correctly.

When the judge in your new adoptive country spoke out your adoption by legal order, this order should have been send back to Chile in order to be “legalised” within the Chilean system. As a result most of us would then have been “eliminated” as a citizen from the Chilean “Registro Civil”. But that did never happen…

Hence, this is what we refer to as an “Irregular Adoption”