At issue is whether the Fulton County Juvenile Court properly exercised subject matter jurisdiction to terminate the parental rights of the adoptive parents of a minor child born in and a citizen of Zambia, but who, at the time of the termination proceedings, had lived in Fulton County for at least six consecutive months with persons acting as her parents. On appeal from the order terminating their parental rights, the adoptive parents contest only the Juvenile Court’s subject matter jurisdiction—they do not claim that the Court lacked personal jurisdiction over them or the child, nor do they claim that the evidence introduced at the termination proceeding was insufficient under OCGA § 15-11-94 to support termination of their parental rights. We find that the Juvenile Court properly exercised subject matter jurisdiction over the termination proceedings pursuant to OCGA § 15-11-28 and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act UCCJEA OCGA § 19-9-40 et seq.. Accordingly, we affirm the Court’s order terminating parental rights.
The child was born in Zambia in June of 1997 and was almost 14 years old at the time of the June 2011 termination order. Orphaned at a young age, the child lived at an orphanage in Zambia and suffered from extensive facial deformities after a tumor caused by measles was removed from her face. The orphanage sought medical treatment for the child and in 2004 arranged for a medical charity, Childspring International, to sponsor the child’s travel to Atlanta, Georgia to receive surgical and other medical treatment to correct her facial deformities. Pursuant to this arrangement, Childspring placed the child with a host family where the child has resided in Fulton County since 2005 while undergoing multiple surgeries and other medical treatment. Additional surgery is still necessary. In 2005, while the child was absent from Zambia, the married couple who operate the orphanage and claim dual United States and Zambian citizenship, adopted the then 8-year-old child in Zambia without notice or knowledge of the child. In 2006, the child made an outcry to medical providers that the couple the adoptive parents pursuant to the Zambian adoption and others had sexually abused her while she lived at the orphanage operated by the couple in Zambia. Based on the allegations of sexual abuse, the Fulton County Department of Family and Children Services took the child into protective custody, investigated the allegations, and brought deprivation proceedings in June 2006. The Fulton County Juvenile Court adjudicated the child deprived in July 2007 and placed the child in the legal custody of the Department, which placed the child in foster care with the same host family that the child had lived with in Fulton County since 2005. The adoptive parents appeared at the deprivation proceedings, stipulated that the child was deprived, but denied any inappropriate sexual contact with the child. Subsequent to the Juvenile Court’s order finding that the child was deprived, the adoptive parents did not appeal, did not complete the court-ordered plan for reunification with the child, provided no financial support for the child, and failed to maintain any contact with the Department concerning the child for three years prior to the termination of their parental rights in June 2011.
