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‘They just vanish’: whistleblowers met by wall of complacency over missing migrant children

As scores of youngsters are disappearing from hotels run by the Home Office and being trafficked across the country, sources claims warnings over their safety were ignored

On the first day of April, 17-year-old Wassim Hamam* disappeared near the bustling centre of Hove. He was never seen again. Days later another teenager, Burim Markaj, 16, vanished nearby. Within hours, a 15-year-old was also reported missing.

The disappearances continued. Four days later Alban Berisha, a 17-year-old whose portrait suggests a pensive, wary character, suddenly vanished from the streets of the Sussex coastal city. The same day, a 5ft 5in 17-year-old, Khalid Muha, was last seen wearing a black bomber jacket and white trainers.

Revealed: scores of child asylum seekers kidnapped from Home Office hotel

Another child went, then another. Detectives investigating the disappearances quickly identified two facts linking the lengthening caseload: all were unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. And all disappeared after staying at the same hotel. But this was no ordinary seaside hotel. The children were staying in a residence run by the Home Office, the government department whose mandate is keeping people safe.

State provides adoption incentives

Jan. 21—ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP — Ashtabula County Children Services officials are waiting for details, but are excited about potential new resources to help children be adopted.

Houses Bill 45 was passed in early January and provides funds to help famileis adopt children.

The Ohio Adoption Grant Program will provide $10,000 to any family adopting a child; $15,000 to any adopting family who was already providing foster care for the child and $20,000 to a family adopting a child with special needs.

The bill is written to allow the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services to apply for more money if it looks like the original $15 million will not be adequate to pay for the benefits during 2023.

The details are still being worked out so counties know proper procedures to handle the requests for the grants, said Ashtabula County Children Services Executive Director Tania Burnett.

Illegal adoption: ‘My search for the twin I was told had died’

Dorry Lawlor has lived a full and largely happy life. She is 70 years old and loved by her children, wider family and community.

Three years ago, Dorry received bombshell news that shook the foundations of her life. A relative confided in Dorry of their belief that her twin sister, whom she always was told was stillborn, had survived and was believed to have been illegally adopted in Dublin.

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Telefacts exposes Romanian child trafficking

Twenty years ago you could buy a child in Romania for a few thousand euros. In 'Dany's Choice' we see

how a Telefacts reporter goes undercover in 2003 and comes home with shocking images. Child

trafficking and illegal adoption will also remain a problem in Europe in 2023. In a large-scale action

against child trafficking, in which Belgium also participated, more than 130 people were arrested last

summer and 60 people were identified. According to UNICEF, 2 million children are trafficked every year.

Andhra Pradesh: Four-month-old baby girl given for adoption in Eluru

Eluru District Collector V. Prasanna Venkatesh on Saturday handed over a four-month-old baby to a Chittor-based couple for adoption under the aegis of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).

The baby girl, Snehitha, is an inmate of government-run Sishu Gruha in Eluru town. The couple, P. Anil Kumar and P. Vidhya, adopted the baby girl.

Mr. Prasanna Venkatesh has said that childless couple could adopt the children under the CARA. Integrated Child Welfare Officer K. Padmavathi and Child Protection Officer R. Rajesh were present.

Part 4: What's Jail Like for Two Accused Child Rapists?

This is Part 4 of a four-part investigative series.

Part 1 laid out the horrifying facts of the child-prostitution case, Part 2 explored the LGBTQ pedophile ring's reach, and Part 3 shined a spotlight on the state's failure to protect the two little boys from suffering through serial sexual abuse allegedly committed by their gay activist fathers, who became their adoptive parents thanks to Georgia's courts and child-welfare system.

Today's fourth and final piece details what life is like in jail for these two alleged child rapists each facing over nine life sentences.

Life Behind Bars

Since they're being prosecuted as co-defendants, the adoptive fathers are housed separately while in pre-trial detainment.

REVEALED: Parents of Philly's 'boy in the box' were 'beautiful' woman, 21, who'd given up previous baby for adoption and local m

REVEALED: Parents of Philly's 'boy in the box' were 'beautiful' woman, 21, who'd given up previous baby for adoption and local man who became construction magnate: Friends say boy was likely put up for adoption shortly after his birth

The parents of Philadelphia's 'Boy in the Box' have finally been revealed, 65 years after he was found murdered, as a Pennsylvania construction magnate and a 'beautiful, kind and quiet' woman.

Earlier this month, the slain Philadelphia child known as 'Boy in the Box' was finally given a headstone with his name on after his identity was uncovered in December.

The tot was found murdered in a box in the city in 1957 in what became a tormenting cold case murder for the City of Brotherly Love. A DNA breakthrough in December revealed his identity as Joseph Augustus Zarelli, 4.

His parents, who never married, have been revealed as Augustus Zarelli and Mary Abel, who went by Betty, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer. Family members believe that the boy was put up for adoption through a Catholic organization shortly after his birth. His mother died in 1991, his father in 2014.

The DCTH calls on the government to react

The affair made and continues to make noise in Zambia where the scandal broke out, but also in Croatia, the country of origin of 8 adoptive parents involved in this affair.

The DCTH ONGDH, Dynamics for the Fight Against Human Trafficking in acronym, seized of this file has decided to put it in the public square.

This is a case that started in the DRC near the border with Zambia, precisely in an orphanage run by a certain Emmanuel Va Kabongo.

It is this orphanage director who would have facilitated according to the DCTH, the illicit transfer of these children whose age varies between 1 and 3 years in Zambia for their adoption by 4 Croatian couples.

In the DRC, radio silence continues to be felt.

In some states, an unpaid foster care bill could mean parents lose their kids forever

When Sylvia and Brandon Cunningham got out of jail in North Carolina several years ago, after serving months on drug charges, a judge laid out the steps they needed to take to get their children back from foster care.

After a balky start, they followed through. They got sober and stayed sober. They attended parenting classes and therapy. They got jobs. They showed up for weekly visits with their kids.

Eventually, a judge determined that the Cunninghams had shown they could be good parents and that their house — a tidy trailer at the end of a dirt road — was safe for their children.

But only three of their four children came home.

In 2021, the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that one of their sons — who was then 5 — was properly placed for adoption on the grounds that the Cunninghams had failed to reimburse the government for some of the cost of their child's foster care.

Part 3: How Did an Accused Child Rapist Adopt Two Children?

This is Part 3 of a four-part investigative series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

There were more than just warning signs that went unnoticed during gay activists William Dale Zulock Jr. and Zachary "Zack" Jacoby Zulock's expedited adoption process. A little over four years later, the adoptive fathers of two are now facing a laundry list of charges for unspeakable sex crimes they allegedly committed against their young adopted sons, including rape, producing child pornography of the children's "routine" sexual abuse, and prostituting their 11-year-old boy to pedophiles in the area.

In the latest installment of the Zulock horror story, we're exposing everything we learned about the faith-based special-needs adoption agency that the same-sex couple used to adopt the two boys; the role that Georgia's child-welfare system played in placing the children, who are back in foster care, in an abusive household; and the lack of accountability across the board.

We're naming names.

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