Why Bangladesh needs a civil legal framework for adoption

Recent reports about children being sought or sold for money, both online and offline, should force Bangladesh to confront a long-standing gap in its legal framework: the absence of a comprehensive civil law governing adoption. A recent Prothom Alo investigation found Facebook groups in which children were being offered, sought and, in some instances, negotiated over for substantial sums of money. Of the 288 posts examined by reporters, 63 offered children and 34 sought them. Some involved newborns or pregnant women, while discussions included payments running into lakhs of taka. Separately, another investigation in Kishoreganj reported allegations that five children from a single village had been sold by their parents over the last six years. Poverty and parental drug addiction featured in accounts surrounding some of these cases.

These reports do not establish that every informal transfer of a child is criminally motivated, nor should we assume that every missing child has been sold or trafficked. What they demonstrate is that children are moving between families outside a clear, uniform, and accountable legal structure. As already noted, there is currently no comprehensive adoption law applicable to all citizens. Adoption is largely governed by personal and religious laws, while guardianship is regulated primarily by the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890. The Children Act, 2013 also provides mechanisms for alternative care for children in need of care and protection. These protections are important, but guardianship and adoption are not legally interchangeable.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Guardianship concerns responsibility for and authority over a child. Adoption, where legally recognised, creates a permanent parent-child relationship and consequently raises wider questions of parentage, identity, birth records, inheritance, consent and long-term legal status. The shortcomings of the present system become obvious in the absence of clear answers to basic questions: who may lawfully arrange the permanent placement of a child with another family? How is the free and informed consent of biological parents established? What safeguards apply where poverty, addiction, coercion or financial inducement may influence that consent? Who assesses prospective parents? Who preserves the child’s original records? And who determines that the arrangement is genuinely in the child’s best interests?

A modern child protection system should have clear answers. Where formal pathways are uncertain or inaccessible, informal mechanisms fill the gap. Social media groups, private intermediaries, personal connections, and informal agreements begin performing functions that belong within a regulated child protection system. At its most dangerous, the distinction between finding a family for a child and finding a child for a family becomes blurred. This is why the absence of a civil adoption framework is not just an inconvenience for prospective parents but it fundamentally affects a child’s safety and well-being.

Any reform must nevertheless begin with an important qualification: poverty should never become a mechanism for permanently separating children from their families. A parent unable to feed or educate a child should, wherever reasonably possible, receive support rather than be placed in circumstances where surrendering that child to another family appears to be the only solution. Family preservation, kinship care, and properly regulated foster care must remain part of the same conversation. There will, however, be children who cannot safely remain with their biological parents, cannot appropriately be placed with relatives, or have been abandoned or orphaned. Bangladesh needs a credible legal answer for them too. Institutional care should not become the automatic destination for a child simply because the legal system has failed to develop sufficient family-based alternatives.

In this regard, a question may arise as to whether a civil legal framework for adoption can coexist with Bangladesh’s religious and personal laws. It can, provided we stop treating religious freedom and access to a civil arrangement as mutually exclusive.

We confronted a similar argument in discussions over the recently passed Property Transfer (Amendment) Act, 2026—particularly its provision for a distinct form of property transfer (beyond heba and other recognised methods) that allows donors, including potentially vulnerable elderly parents, to retain lifetime usufruct rights. In response to criticism that this violates sharia provisions on property transfer and inheritance, proponents of the amendment have argued that people should remain free to follow religious rules while also having the option of choosing a lawful civil arrangement outside those rules. “There is no reason to turn these two rights into enemies,” as a columnist of this daily wrote.

This same principle has even greater force where vulnerable children are concerned. A civil adoption framework need not compel anyone to adopt in a manner contrary to their religious beliefs. Nor must it abolish guardianship or arrangements recognised under personal law. Those wishing to follow the rules applicable to their faith should remain free to do so, but those who prefer a regulated civil arrangement should also have that option. Such a framework could establish a central authority responsible for adoption and permanent placement, require judicial or independent approval, prescribe assessments of prospective parents, establish procedures for informed parental consent, prohibit the sale or purchase of children as well as unlicensed intermediaries, preserve accurate birth and identity records, and provide appropriate post-placement supervision.

It should also determine the legal consequences for parentage, maintenance, nationality, and inheritance, protect a child’s ability to access information about their biological origins where appropriate, and ensure that the child’s views are considered according to age and maturity. Most importantly, every placement would leave an accountable legal and administrative trail.

That said, a child is not property to be transferred by contract. No private agreement, affidavit or payment can substitute for an independent determination of that child’s best interests. This principle must sit at the centre of reform. An adoption law should not be constructed around an adult’s supposed right to obtain a child; it should be constructed around a child’s right to protection, stability, and family life. The primary objective should be to find suitable families for children who need them, not children for adults who want them.

Bangladesh already has laws addressing trafficking, child protection, and guardianship, but these separate mechanisms do not amount to a coherent system regulating permanent family placement. That gap creates vulnerability on every side, as the recent reports amply suggest. Prospective parents face uncertainty over how to proceed lawfully. Biological parents in desperate circumstances may be vulnerable to exploitation. Authorities lack a single transparent process through which placements can be scrutinised. Children, who exercise the least control over these decisions, naturally carry the greatest risk.

A civil framework on its own will not eliminate trafficking, poverty, addiction or abandonment. But a good law can establish who may make decisions concerning a child, create safeguards against abuse, impose accountability when those safeguards are breached, and provide a legitimate route for families acting in good faith. The recent reports should, therefore, provoke a discussion larger than whether individual Facebook groups should be closed or particular intermediaries prosecuted. These measures only address symptoms. It is the underlying legal vacuum that must be addressed.

If our civil law can evolve to provide greater security to elderly parents or grandparents, it should certainly be able to provide it to children who have little power to protect themselves. For them, legal certainty is not an abstract jurisprudential concern. It determines who they call family, what identity they carry, what rights they possess, how they grow up, and even whether the state knows where they are at all.

Barrister Noshin Nawal is a columnist for The Daily Star. She can be reached at nawalnoshin1@gmail.com.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.