HUGH AND DEB’S ADOPTION JOY!
If anyone knows the true joy of being adoptive parents, it’s Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness. And now, after many years of hard work and tireless campaigning, the Aussie duo are set to celebrate some exciting adoption news.
As the couple launched their #ahomeforeverychild awareness campaign, through their Adopt Change organisation, last week, it was revealed talks to reopen adoption between India and Australia were in their final stages. The news will no doubt bring a smile to the faces of Hugh, 49, and Deb, 61, who have long fought to make adoption in Australia an easier, more streamlined process.
’Once you have an empathy, once you’re a mother, when you meet these children with no-one there to watch their back, it’s heartbreaking,’ says Deb.
‘Since I’ve been involved in this issue, I have found it is one of the most complex, emotionally charged issues around but I was organically attracted to it. There are so many kids caught in the system and we have the lowest adoption rate in the world.’
Forced to move to the US in order to adopt their children Oscar, 17, and Ava, 12, after becoming frustrated with the Australian system, Hugh says it was their ‘destiny’ to become adoptive parents.
‘I don’t think of them as adopted – they’re our children. Deb and I are believers in – I suppose you could call it destiny. We feel things happened the way they are meant to,’ says Hugh.