Why we need to protect sibling relationships under human rights law

Iconic rock band Oasis has announced a reunion tour, 16 years after the feuding brothers, Liam and Noel Gallagher, disbanded the band. The brothers announced: “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised.”

This reflects the strength and resilience of sibling relationships, which are often the most enduring relationships in our lives, given that we tend to outlive our parents, and partners and children come into our lives much later. It’s our siblings who can be in our lives from cradle to grave.

The high esteem accorded to sibling relationships is seen in observances such as Siblings Day (10 April), National Brothers Day (24 May), National Sisters Day (first Sunday in August) and the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan (in August), which celebrates the special bond between siblings.

In a bygone era, it was pretty easy to define who’s a sibling. However, with advances in reproductive technology and changes in family structures, who constitutes a sibling has become much less clear.

Do siblings include half-siblings, adopted siblings, step-siblings, and those who share genetic origins (for example, through use of the same sperm donor) even though they may not have met each other?

Given the importance of both genetics and shared experiences, the term “sibling” should be defined broadly. A useful, contemporary definition of sibling is, individuals who are related by:

• the presence of a shared biological origin by virtue of a shared biological parent or shared sperm or egg donor
• the presence of a shared parent or parental figure
• the marriage or de facto relationship of the parents of two or more individuals.

Notwithstanding that sibling relationships are recognised as one of the most valuable and enduring connections that we will ever forge, there are several situations where sibling relationships are being severed.

When parents separate, custody arrangements can see children being divided between parents (often, shamefully, along gender lines; boys go with the father, and girls with the mother). Children are entirely reliant on their parents to maintain their relationships with their siblings, in the midst of what could be a bitter divorce or separation.

Courts need to specifically consider the right to maintain sibling relationships following ruptures in parental relationships, particularly because research has found that siblings can be a source of emotional support for each other during difficult periods of family breakdown, acting as a buffer and providing each other with comfort.

Siblings are also separated through being adopted by different families or being allocated to different out-of-home care placements. This may be due to a range of factors, including the size of a sibling group, large age ranges between siblings, the type of out-of-home care a child is placed in, complex trauma, challenging behaviours, or disability.

Research reveals that siblings want to be together in care, and are more likely to describe their placements as feeling “like home” when they are placed with their siblings.

Another circumstance where siblings are separated is the rare, but high-profile cases of twins born via surrogacy, where the intended parents choose to take only one of the children. The most infamous case was “Baby Gammy,” where a couple from Bunbury in Western Australia brought only the female twin, Pipah, home, leaving her brother, Gammy, who has Down syndrome, in Thailand.

A similar situation occurred in 2012, when another Australian couple engaged a surrogate in India, who gave birth to twins. They returned to Australia with only the girl twin, leaving the healthy boy twin behind.

The couple said they could not afford both children and intended to leave behind the twin boy, and complete their family with a girl. Documents obtained under freedom of information laws disclose other cases of this nature, suggesting that the separation of twins born via surrogacy is not an isolated occurrence.

Although children born via sperm or egg donation are increasingly able to connect with their donor, the same is not true for connecting with genetic half-siblings, commonly referred to as “donor siblings” or “diblings”.

Where a donor contributes gametes to multiple families, there will be multiple genetically-related offspring. It’s rare for a donor-conceived person to be given access to information about their diblings.

The Donor Sibling Registry in the US operates as a worldwide registry to connect diblings. To date it’s connected more than 25,000 diblings, including in Australia.

One 67-year-old man who has met nine of his diblings said:

“One of my brothers looks so much like me he could be my twin. Since I have connected with my siblings, I have gained a much more complete sense of myself, my identity.”

He regrets not being able to connect with them when he was younger.

The bond between siblings is too important to not be explicitly recognised as a human right. The law needs to recognise the right of siblings to stay together, reunite if they’re separated, and identify and connect with each other in the case of genetically-related siblings raised in different families.