Civil Liability in the Re-abandonment of Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Adopted or Are in the Process of Adoption

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of the re-abandonment of children and adolescents adopted after the final judgment and during the cohabitation stage, with an emphasis on the need for compensation. To represent this, a historical survey of adoption will be carried out, from antiquity to its current format, including various stages – qualification, preparatory course, cohabitation stage and adoption – in order to contextualize the discussion on relegation. In this way, the motivations and difficulties encountered by adopters in choosing to “return” a child or adolescent to the institution of origin will be analyzed, as well as the psychological and legal implications and the impact caused in a real case analyzed. Subsequently, the work will investigate the use of civil liability in the return of the adoptee, an institute already applied by case law in cases where the adoption has been consolidated and will raise questions about the application of the institute when the process is withdrawn during the cohabitation stage. In order to carry out this work, the methodological approach used was based on the deductive method, through bibliographical and documentary research. It was possible to verify, from the study, that withdrawing from the finalized process, as well as the process that is at an advanced stage, generates various damages to the adoptee, so that the gap found in the legislation regarding a specific provision facilitates the practice of the illegal act by adopters.