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Judge questions Nunavut custom adoptions after baby returned

Judge questions Nunavut custom adoptions

IQALUIT, Nunavut — A Nunavut judge is pointing out problems with how the territory handles traditional Inuit adoptions following a baby's return to its birth mother.

In a ruling last week, Justice Susan Cooper quashed a custom adoption certificate for a three-year-old girl who was being raised by her paternal grandparents.

Cooper says the birth mother never agreed to the adoption.

She says the case illustrates how the context around such adoptions is changing.

Cooper wrote that adoptions are sometimes arranged through social media, include non-Inuit parents and can result in Inuit children moving outside Nunavut.

She points out that the auditor general and the territory's law reform commission have called for reforms to custom adoptions.  

The Canadian Press