New State Department ruling makes inter-country adoption harder for prospective parents | Opinion

As an adoptee during China’s one-child policy, I’ve always understood and appreciated the value that international adoption can bring, especially as a response to child welfare crises and changing politics across the globe.

Unfortunately, new regulations from the Department of State on inter-country adoption impose significant burdens on parents trying to provide homes for vulnerable children overseas.

Opinion

This comes at an inopportune time when inter-country adoptions are already at an all-time low. International adoptions declined by 93% from 2004 to 2022. A 2023 State Department report showed that there were only 1,275 intercountry adoptions, down from 1,517 the year prior. Although many factors contribute to this drop, it is clear that the government is not establishing partnerships and pathways to facilitate adoption.

Police said, they got a tip-off about a gang of women visiting Jagtap dairy area for the sale of an infant

PUNE Wakad police have arrested six women in a child trafficking case in Kalewadi area of Pimpri Chinchwad city on Friday.
Accordingly, police laid that trap and questioned the women who stepped out from two auto rickshaws. As they failed to provide satisfactory answers they were detained. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC)

Police said, they got a tip-off about a gang of women visiting Jagtap dairy area for the sale of an infant.

The accused have been identified as Saida Bhimrao Kamble (35) from Shivajinagar; Supriya Sharad Waghmare (39) from Dhankawadi; Lalita Dattatreya Giri Gosavi (45) from Yerawada; Afarin Danesh Sheikh (25) from Hadapsar; Amrin Rahid Sayyad (32) from Yerawada and Asma Javed Sheikh (30) from Hadapsar.

During investigation police recovered conversations about the deal and they had also shared photos of the infants.

Mumbai: A sperm or egg donor has no legal right on the child and cannot claim to be its biological parent, the Bombay High Court held on Tuesday while allowing a 42-year-old woman visitation rights to her five-year-old twin daughters.
 

The woman, in her plea, said her daughters, born via surrogacy, were living with her husband and younger sister, who was the egg donor.

The petitioner's husband had claimed since his sister-in-law was the egg donor, she had a legitimate right to be called a biological parent of the twins and that his wife had no right over them.

A single bench of Justice Milind Jadhav, however, refused to accept this contention, citing that though the petitioner's younger sister was the egg donor, she has no legitimate right to claim that she is a biological parent of the twins.

The court said the role of the younger sister is that of an egg donor, rather, a voluntary donor, and at the most, she may qualify to be a genetic mother and nothing more.

Over 5000 case files stored in the basement of the old district court building in Sector 17 were damaged due to flooding

Around 5,000 to 6,000 High Court case files stored in the basement of the old district court building in Sector 17 were damaged due to flooding caused by heavy rainfall on Sunday. The downpour led to sewage backflow, resulting in extensive flooding in the basement.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court maintains two record rooms in this basement, which houses approximately 20 lakh files of decided cases. After the heavy rain, security guards inspected the basement, which also houses Chandigarh’s Arbitration Centre, and discovered that about a foot of water had accumulated, damaging thousands of files.

The flooding left stacks of case files, some decades old, soaked and susceptible to further damage. The waterlogged area was reportedly caused by an overflow of sewage and toilets in the basement.

Upon being informed, the security staff alerted High Court officials. Following this, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Sheel Nagu, along with Justice Deepak Sibal, who is also the Chairman of the Building Committee, and other High Court officials, personally visited the record room to assess the damage.

Former patients, staff and families welcome investigation into historical abuse allegations at Wolston Park Mental Hospital

Samarpan Programme for Adoption, Research Counselling and Consultancy. - ANNUAL REPORT 2016

Chandigarh: The Punjab govt is establishing adoption agencies in every district of the state to simplify the process of child adoption and creating 172 new posts to strengthen the infrastructure for the adoption.Social security, women and child development minister Dr Baljit Kaur has instructed all the additional deputy commissioners to ensure that child adoption applications received in the state are processed within the stipulated time. Kaur said the department is providing financial assistance of Rs 26 lakh per year to various non-governmental organisations involved in the adoption process. Over 300 destitute and orphaned children through the department's proper implementation of the child adoption process.

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The legislative history shows that restraint is appropriate in the case of adoption if there is opposition from one of the parents. In the context of a complex divorce, such as the case with the parents of an adult, even more restraint is appropriate when it comes to (step-parent) adoption. Moreover, the child has now reached the age of majority, which also requires restraint, since adoption is in principle intended as a child protection measure.

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The adopted son of former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin says he was abandoned in Jamaica after being rescued from a school accused of abusing its students. 

During his time in office from 2015 to 2019, the Republican and his wife Glenna often spoke of their four adopted children from Ethiopia and their desire to reform Kentucky's 'broken' adoption and foster care system. 

By Antonia Giordano

An overseas Korean adoptee from Denmark has filed a lawsuit for information disclosure against the National Center for the Rights of the Child (NCRC) in order to receive information on her biological family. With the help of the Adoptees' Right to Know Legal Representatives (LAAR) and the Danish Korean Truth Finding Group (DKRG), a press conference was held for the plaintiff, who is currently in Denmark, at the Seoul Administrative Court in southern Seoul's Seocho District on July 12, before the initial court date.

The NCRC was originally established as part of the Ministry of Health and Welfare to ensure that policies and actions were aligned to protect children's welfare. This agency is responsible for adoption and post-adoption services for international and domestic adoptees. One of its key roles is to advocate for and ensure adoptees' right to know their self-identifying information, including about their birth family.

According to the lawsuit and the LAAR, an adoptee advocacy group, the plaintiff originally filed a request for the information in 2021 with Korea Social Service, the agency that handled her adoption. However, the only information the organization gave was the surname "Lee" and that the birth father had passed away. The information gave no help in resolving Lee's identity; there are over 7.3 million Lees in Korea, accounting for 14.7 percent of the entire population.

In 2022, Lee again filed a request for the information including birth family — this time, however, with the NCRC. Lee was dismayed to receive the same information as her previous search. The NCRC cannot go beyond certain privacy laws, and birth parents can refuse to disclose information.