Sophia Frazer-Binns’ life-altering adoption journey

This following story is Part 1 of a series looking at adoption and related issues.

Lawmaker Sophia Frazer-Binns was informally adopted at the age of 12. Now the mother of two boys, she and her husband are planning to welcome a little girl into their family in a way similar to how the late Elsa May Binns, a dedicated public servant, made Sophia part of her family after the passing of Sophia’s biological mother.

“I want to give somebody the opportunity my mother gave me, so this is something I am committed to,” she shared.

As an attorney, Frazer-Binns is determined to use her role in the legislative process to push for changes to the current adoption laws, aiming to address a gap in the statute that hinders people who wish to adopt.

In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, Frazer-Binns recalled how, after Elsa May Binns and her husband invited her to join their family, she wanted to adopt their surname. However, the law required the consent of both biological parents for such an adoption, and while her biological mother had passed, her father’s whereabouts were unknown. As such, the adoption proceedings could not be completed.

Undeterred, the young Sophia Frazer took matters into her own hands. At the age of 18, she went to the Registrar General’s Department and completed a deed poll to add the surname ‘Binns’ to her name – a decision that brought immense joy to her adoptive parents.

More recently, Frazer-Binns raised the issue in the Upper House, tabling a motion focused on adoption and fostering. Drawing on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which asserts every child’s right to a family, she urged the Government to “move with alacrity to complete the amendments to the Adoption Act and to establish a special taskforce to review and fast-track all existing adoption applications with adequate resources”.

Her motion also proposed creating a special parliamentary committee to investigate the challenges surrounding adoption and fostering to make the process more accessible and accommodating. However, the motion was not debated and eventually fell off the Senate’s Order Paper.

Despite this setback, Frazer-Binns has vowed to bring the issue back to the Senate through a similar motion.

“We have to change the law. There are children in state homes whose parents have never visited the facility to look for them, but they still have to stay in the system. They can’t be adopted because of the provisions in the law,” she explained.

Frazer-Binns, like many Jamaicans, has a story rooted in growing up in a single-parent household. After her biological mother, the family’s primary breadwinner, passed away while she was attending Westwood High in Trelawny, Frazer-Binns and her siblings moved in with their aunt, who already had her own children. The burden of caring for both her own children and her sister’s was heavy for their aunt.

One day, when Frazer-Binns was at school and needed something her aunt could not afford, it left her in a predicament and she cried openly. She was taken to the principal, who offered her the opportunity to board at the school and she gladly accepted without even discussing the matter with her aunt. The then principal of Westwood, Ivin Logan, knew her aunt.

An unexpected

turn of events

Frazer-Binns told The Sunday Gleaner that at 12 years old, she was on the threshold of experiencing an unexpected turn of events in her life when her aunt got a call from her principal that she was supposed to meet with her would-be adopted mother.

On the day the meeting was supposed to take place, the prospective adoptive mother did not show up, and Frazer-Binns moved on, thinking nothing would come of it.

“The amazing thing is one day, I’ll never forget that Saturday morning during the summer, just before school reopened, I am walking down to Brown’s Town from Orange Hill, I just saw this green car and she just stopped and said, ‘Hi, Sophia. I am your new mother’,” Frazer-Binns recounted.

From that moment, Frazer-Binns experienced a significant shift in her life. Her new mother took her shopping in Brown’s Town for clothes and other essentials for boarding school, and she was embraced warmly by her new siblings.

“Here you are in this family and the next minute you get a call and your life changes into a whole complete new world because we used to walk and take the bus, but now you are getting into a situation where everyone is driving,” she said.

Despite being of German descent, the Binns family made her feel fully included, and she never felt any sense of difference because of her background.

“If you did not know, you would not know, except for the difference in our complexion, because never for one day did I feel that I wasn’t blood related. Never once ever did I think I was different from them,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

When she turned 18, just like her adopted siblings, Frazer-Binns got her driver’s licence and a motor car.

Her adoption experience was so transformative that many people who knew Elsa May Binns in the last 30 years of her life assumed that Frazer-Binns was her biological child with a different man.

“My whole social consciousness, my understanding of politics came from her,” the senator said.

Although Frazer-Binns initially planned to work and then pursue tertiary education after completing sixth form, her adoptive mother would have none of it and insisted on university being her priority.

Not only did her adoptive mother set an example of how to be a responsible person, but she also encouraged her to maintain a close relationship with her biological family.

“My mother told me I need to be in touch with my biological family. You need to know your history and background,” she said.

As a child with deep Christian conviction, Frazer-Binns questioned the untimely death of her biological mother at a time when she and her siblings were very young, but she ultimately believed God had a plan for her, which led her to her new family.

Having had such a positive adoption experience, Frazer-Binns is passionate about providing children in similar situations with the opportunity for a better life through adoption.

“So many people want to foster, they want to adopt, but there are so many challenges,” she said.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com