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Jan and Esther Ekkel-Vorstenbosch

Jan and Esther Ekkel have been waiting for this for years. They have been told that they have been assigned a son. They can pick him up at a children's home in Malawi. Jan and Esther Ekkel have been waiting for this for years. Finally the time has come! They have been told that they have been assigned a son. They can pick him up at a children's home in Malawi. All they have is a photo and his name: Chimwemwe. We follow Jan and Esther to Malawi. We see their first meeting with the still silent Thomas Chimwemwe. Uncomfortable and unreal, for Jan and Esther as well as for Thomas. For the first few weeks they live together on the grounds of the orphanage, while they wait for the legal conclusion of the adoption procedure. Meanwhile, they pay an emotional visit to Thomas

Countries: Malawi

Tory MEP who smuggled drugs and porn quits

This article is more than 26 years old

Spencer vows not to contest safe seat in June as whip is withdrawn

Lucy Ward and Stephen Bates in Brussels

Organizations: European Parliament, PEDOS/PERVERTS

Persons: Tom Spencer MEP

Terre des Hommes Denmark stops adoptions from Romania

Stops adoptions

Terre des Hommes stops the adoption work in Romania after the TV-newspaper's information that the child's medical certificates are still being cheated.

JANUARY 30 1999 KL. 19.00 | UPDATED 01. JAN. 1970 KL. 01:00

PLEASE NOTE: THE ARTICLE IS MORE THAN 30 DAYS OLD

Terre des Hommes will immediately cease to work in Romania. This happens after the Minister of Justice Frank Jensen has decided that so far no adoption children from Romania to Denmark through Terre des Hommes. Ministerial intervention comes after the TV newspaper has revealed that there are still scams with medical declarations and social reports in Romania.

Countries: Denmark, Romania

Organizations: Terre des Hommes Denmark

Stops adoptions

Terre des Hommes stops the adoption work in Romania after TV-Avisen's information that there is still fraud with adopted children's medical certificates.

erre des Hommes ceases its adoption work in Romania with immediate effect. This is happening after Minister of Justice Frank Jensen has decided that, for the time being, no children may be adopted from Romania to Denmark through Terre des Hommes. The minister's intervention comes after TV-Avisen has revealed that there is still fraud with medical certificates and social reports in Romania.

The accusations against Terre des Hommes and the organization's Romanian partner Domnita Gavenea began in September last year. The DR documentary program Ønskebarnet showed how adopted children, in which the Romanian medical reports were described as retarded, in Domnita Gavenea's English translations were described as completely normal. Last night, TV-Avisen was able to document that the fraud continues.

Terre des Homme's Romanian partner says that there are no perfect Romanian adopted children. But several adoptive parents have openly accused Domnitas Gavernea of embellishing the medical reports, and now they have founded an association to support each other. At the same time, the Danish Parliament's legal committee is dealing with a bill that will tighten the supervision of the organizations that mediate adoptions in the fraud country.

Countries: Romania

Organizations: Terre des Hommes Romania, Terre des Hommes International Federation, Terre des Hommes Denmark

Report of Special Rapporteur - 1999

See quote about definition trafficking - adoption

Countries: Romania

Organizations: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

Europe is out to get me

Paul van Buitenen blew the whistle on huge levels of corruption within the European Commission. Now, he says, they've made him a non-person. Stephen Bates reports

Monday 11 January 1999 17.06 GMT Last modified on Wednesday 20 July 2016 05.57 BST

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Organizations: WHISTLEBLOWERS

Persons: Paul van Buitenen (European Commission)

Bill set to curb sale of children

Tougher controls on overseas adoption are expected after the Government indicated it would back a private member's bill to be published this week.

The bill would make it an offence to bring a child into Britain without prior approval, following concern over the abduction, sale and trafficking of children from developing countries and eastern Europe.

The measure would also enable Britain to ratify the Hague convention on inter-country adoption. Although Britain signed the treaty in 1994, it has faced criticism for failing to pass the legislation necessary for ratification.

Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat MP for Winchester, who will introduce the bill, said: "Almost five years is too long to wait and, with Government support, I am glad to have the chance to put that right."

Concern about inter-country adoption came to a head about 10 years ago with a number of cases involving Romanian children.

Countries: United Kingdom

Organizations: Hague Convention on Protection of Children and International Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoption (1993)

KRO-team in het nauw op Haïti/TV vooraf

Het team van het KRO-televisieprogramma 'Spoorloos' heeft vlak voor Kerstmis op Haïti moeten vluchten voor een woedende menigte om kort daarna bijna in een vunzige politiecel terecht te komen.

Fred Lammers8 januari 1999, 00:00

Presentatrice Karin de Groot, redacteur Liz de Kort en cameraman Boudewijn Huisman waren met de achttienjarige Mirlaine van der Pol en haar adoptiemoeder Hilly Visscher naar Jacmel, een dorp aan de kust van Haïti, gereisd om daar de ontmoeting van Mirlaine met haar grootmoeder te filmen. Het was haar hartenwens om oma terug te zien.

Twaalf jaar geleden werd Mirlaine samen met haar twee jaar jongere zusje Manouschka door de in Friesland wonende familie Van der Pol geadopteerd. Dat betekende voor hen een gedwongen afscheid van oma, die zich tot dat moment over de meisjes had ontfermd nadat hun biologische moeder hun leven in een hel had veranderd. Mirlaine deed een beroep op 'Spoorloos' in de hoop op die manier de vrouw die zo'n grote rol in haar jonge leven had gespeeld, nog eens te ontmoeten. Een plaatselijke correspondent lokaliseerde de biologische moeder van het meisje, die beloofde haar dochter met het camerateam naar oma te zullen brengen.

Countries: Haiti

Blog: Familie Meier (Romania/Haiti)

xxx

Ons verhaal

De aanmelding

In mei 1994 hebben we ons als adoptiefouders aangemeld bij Justitie. Ergens in maart 1995 kregen we bericht dat we 6 V.I.A. - bijeenkomsten moesten volgen. De juiste data waren nog niet bekend. Van november 1995 tot en met februari 1996 hebben we deze gevolgd in Amsterdam. In die bijeenkomsten werd naar ons gevoel te veel de nadruk gelegd op wat er allemaal mis kan gaan bij adoptie. Ook kregen we een gevoel van ''Hoe halen jullie het in je hoofd om een kind te willen adopteren?'' De bijeenkomsten waren 's ochtends en 's middags hadden we gelukkig ook vrij omdat we meestal thuis zaten met een knetterende hoofdpijn. Gelukkig zat er iedere keer 2 weken tussen de bijeenkomsten. Dan was het nare gevoel weer afgezakt om weer met een bepaalde vorm van woede naar de volgende bijeenkomst te gaan. Ik begrijp best dat enige voorlichting nodig is, maar als we via de natuurlijke weg een kind hadden kunnen krijgen, had niemand ons zo 'gemangeld'

Voorlichtingscursus

Countries: Netherlands, Haiti, Romania

Organizations: Wereldkinderen aka NICWO

"Take This Child": Why Women Abandon Their Infants in Bangladesh

Journal article by Margot Wilson; Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 30, 1999

Journal Article Excerpt

"Take This Child": Why Women Abandon Their Infants in Bangladesh

by MARGOT WILSON

MARGOT WILSON [*]

INTRODUCTION

On Friday, a young woman came to the gate. She appeared to be no more than 16 years old. Her feet were bare and her sari was torn and very dirty. She handed an equally tattered bundle to the social worker and said, "Take this child. I can't manage her any more. She will die if you don't take her." (Field journal, Centre for the Training and Rehabilitation of Destitute Women, Bangladesh 1992)

The abandonment of children is by no means a recent development. Abandonment is, in fact, an ancient strategy as demonstrated in the social histories of Western Europe (Boswell 1988), England (Fairchilds 1984, Rose 1986), France (Fuchs 1984, Litchfield and Gordon 1980, Maza 1983), Russia (Ransel 1978, 1988), and Spain (Sherwood 1988). Even as recently as the 1950s abandoned children were brought from foundling homes in Britain to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Rhodesia to work as labourers on family farms [1] (Bean and Melville 1990, see also Harrison 1979, McClure 1981, Wagner 1982).

More recently, Gulati et al. (1977) have described an "orphanage-cum-rescue home" operating in Goa where Indian women routinely abandon their infants born out of wedlock. Ait-Zai (1989) has shown that women in Algeria often give up or kill out of wedlock children due to the disgrace such a birth brings on the family. Thus, abandonment is restricted neither geographically nor temporally to modem-day Bangladesh. Nevertheless, little detailed information is available regarding the reasons why mothers choose to abandon their infants.

In response to this dearth of information, this study provides an in depth analysis of the decision processes of abandoning mothers and families. The data were collected from the Centre for Training and Rehabilitation of Destitute Women (CTRDW), a shelter for abandoned women and children located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Akanda(1981) has described the situation of abandoned children in state institutions in Bangladesh generally. She recommends the placement of these children in permanent homes but discusses numerous difficulties inherent in their "adoption." Among these difficulties are illegitimacy, poverty and "unknown origin" of the child. Chowdhury and Shamim (1994) have written specifically about the CTRDW program. They review primarily those aspects of the CTRDW programme related to the abandonment of children and permanent fosterage. Their discussion of the "reasons" why women abandon their children is confined to a single table from which they conclude, "economic reasons are inseparable from the social ones in most of the cases of abandonment" (Chowdhury and Shamim: 51-53).

The discussion that follows moves beyond the work of Chowdhury and Shamim to provide a detailed analysis of the circumstances under which families, and in particular newly parturient mothers, choose to abandon their infants to the CTRDW. In the following sections, "reasons" for the abandonment as given by the relinquishing mothers are discussed. Many of these "reasons" are related and overlap. They describe two alternative paths to abandonment for children depending on the marital status of their mothers. The paper begins with a description of the CTRDW and the client population followed by a discussion of the methods used in this study. The ways in which individuals become detached from their families are discussed along with how abandonment is related to the positioning of women within kin systems and the broader society. Similarly, the impact of poverty on family dynamics, the ways in which attitudes surrounding abandonment are culturally constructed and how economic constraints influence the decision-mak ing of mothers and families who abandon their infants is discussed.

CTRDW

The CTRDW is a shelter for abandoned women and children located in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. Situated near to several long-established slum areas, the CTRDW draws the majority of its clientele from the lowest economic classes.

Accordingly, the data presented here reflect the experiences of poor women and children and do not attempt to portray the situation of women in other circumstances. The primary focus of the CTRDW programme is providing support and shelter to abandoned pregnant women. The care and placement in permanent foster homes of the abandoned infants of these women is a concomitant concern. Programme supports include a residence for women and children, an intensive care unit, a 24 hour day care centre, and life skills and income generating training. [2]

The CTRDW opened its doors in December 1981. The data presented here cover the 8 year period from its inception up to and including January l989. ...

Countries: Bangladesh