Ethiopians protest outside Supreme Court over adoption case

Dozens protest in Jerusalem, break gate, clash with Border Guard forces as Supreme Court discusses custody case concerning Ethiopian child who was placed in foster care

Omri Efraim|Published: 11.05.13 , 16:53

More than 100 members of the Ethiopian community demonstrated outside the Supreme Court and clashed with Border Guard forces on Tuesday during a hearing on the adoption of an Ethiopian child.

The child was taken from his mother's custody shortly after his birth, as she was found to be unfit to raise him. The mother was diagnozed with schizophrenia.

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The child's aunt has been waging a legal battle to adopt him ever since. At the age of one, the child was placed in foster care. The foster family took him in with the intention of adopting him.

Protest outside Supreme Court (Photo: Shiri Fox)

Protest outside Supreme Court

They have been engaged in a legal custody battle with the child's aunt for the past two years, during which the Social Affairs Ministry argued that it would be in the child's best interest to stay with his foster family. The government claimed that the aunt has only met the boy twice, before the age of nine months and is effectively a stranger to him.

A district court ruled that the child remain with his foster family, a decision which was later overturned. The Supreme Court is now discussing the foster family's appeal.

Members of the Ethiopian community who demonstrated outside the courtroom demanded that "the lost prince" be returned to his family. They broke a gate at the court compound.

During the hearing, the aunt, an IDF officer, confronted the foster family's attorney and said: "You are ruining us. That's our child. You want to buy him with money." She made similar statements after the hearing: "He's our flesh and blood. God didn't give you (a child) so you buy children with money. That's our child, we'll gladly raise him. He has cousins that are waiting for him."

Attorney Ronen Daliahu, representing the foster family, said: "After two years in which the child has been with a family he knows, it is not possible to remove him. It's not a matter of skin color, but the child's best interest."

Some two months ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the child be returned to his aunt, despite the fact that adoption proceedings were already underway. The court thus overturned two previous district court rulings.