CPFSA logged 136 adoption bids in 2025, survey shows

Jamaica’s Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) Adoption Unit took in 136 requests to adopt wards and non-wards during 2025, according to the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) Economic and Social Survey Jamaica 2025. Lawmakers received the survey when it was tabled in the House of Representatives on June 30.

The survey recorded 110 completed adoptions. Of those, 19 were wards of the State — nine boys and 10 girls — while 91 were non-wards, comprising 49 girls and 42 boys.

“In addition to processing adoptions, the unit also addressed 24 suspected cases of child abduction in family law cases, providing necessary welfare services for these children,” the document said.

Those steps, the survey added, continue to follow the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which sets up cross-border cooperation among designated Central Authorities to stop and settle parental child abduction.

Separately, the CPFSA kept running the Ananda Alert programme, which aims to find missing children quickly and offer psychosocial help once they are back. Over the period covered, 989 missing-child reports were filed — two per cent fewer than in the matching stretch a year earlier.

“Females accounted for the vast majority of these reports at 83 per cent (825 reports), while males accounted for 17 per cent (164 reports). Approximately 84 per cent of children (826 reports) were accounted for by the end of the period, while 161 children remained missing,” the report stated.