A man who found the identity of his birth mother after 41 years of searching says he can’t wait to finally meet her in person.

Auckland resident Jozsef Szabo, 49, was adopted as a baby in Hungary in 1974. His mother, Ilona Huszar, gave him up because she couldn’t keep him.

After finally tracking her down last year, she has had a heart scare and he’s determined to reunite with her again before it's too late.

From the age of 8, Szabo knew he was adopted after his parents told him he wasn’t their son by birth.

“My adopted family raised me in very hard conditions,” he said.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s group is getting into genetic mapping, looking to make a health care trend led by disruptive US startups like 23andMe more affordable and widespread in India’s growing consumer market.

The energy-to-ecommerce conglomerate will roll out within weeks a comprehensive 12,000-rupee ($145) genome sequencing test, according to Ramesh Hariharan, chief executive officer of Strand Life Sciences Pvt., which has developed the product. Reliance Industries Ltd., led by Asia’s richest person, acquired the Bengaluru-based firm in 2021 and now owns about 80% of it.

The genome test, which is about 86% cheaper than other offerings available locally, can reveal a person’s predisposition to cancers, cardiac and neuro-degenerative ailments as well as identify inherited genetic disorders, he said.

The project to bring affordable personal gene-mapping to India’s 1.4 billion people — on track to be the world’s most populous nation — will potentially create a treasure trove of biological data that can aid drug development and disease prevention in the region. It also dovetails with Ambani’s ambitions to dive further into the world of data — he has often called it the “new oil” — as he pivots his $192 billion empire beyond refining into consumer and digital services.

“It’ll be the cheapest such genomic profile in the world,” Hariharan said, who also co-founded Strand Life Sciences. “We’re going out at an aggressive price point to drive adoption as it gives us a chance to build a viable business in preventive health care.”

What you need to know:

The couple; Mr Nicholas Spencer and Ms Mackenzie Leing Mathias Spencer that is facing charges of aggravated trafficking and aggravated torture of a 10-year-old, has listed eight grounds for consideration for their release.

An American couple that has been on remand at Luzira prison since late last year, is seeking the intervention of the High Court to release them on bail.

The couple; Mr Nicholas Spencer and Ms Mackenzie Leing Mathias Spencer that is facing charges of aggravated trafficking and aggravated torture of a 10-year-old, has listed eight grounds for consideration for their release.

The couple states that they are responsible citizens of the United States of America with good character who until their arrest resided at Apartment 304 Plot 29 Ntinda View Crescent in Kampala District.

Dir: Margo Harkin. Ireland. 2023. 103 mins

The horrors of the Irish Mother and Baby Homes have been vividly conveyed in both drama (2013’s Philomena) and documentary (The Missing Children in 2021, and more). Familiarity does nothing to blunt the power and emotional charge of Stolen. Previously entitled Limbo, Margo Harkin’s heartbreaker of a documentary gives a voice to those silenced for far too long. An elegant layering of chapter and verse testimony underpins a wide-ranging portrait balancing individual suffering with an understanding of the bigger societal issues. Essential viewing in Ireland, Stolen should provoke outrage in audiences far and wide.

The homes and their horrors were the product of an Ireland determined to punish the transgressive

Harkin sets the scene by asserting her love for Ireland but also recognising it as a country with “dark secrets” buried beneath its “waterlogged surfaces”. Mournful shots of bleak rural settings punctuate the narrative, adding to the melancholy air. The first individual we encounter is Michael O’Donovan, a gardener at Sean Ross Abbey Mother and Baby Home in Tipperary from 1988 to 1991. He recalls the discovery of lots of small bones and a policy of planting trees that felt like a deliberate act of concealment. His many unanswered questions lay out the themes of a film which confronts shame, guilt , collusion and cover-up.

We move on to the site of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home that operated at Tuam between 1925 and 1961. Subsidence exposed a children’s graveyard on a site that is now a playground, adding to the sense that the horrors of the past are seeping to the surface. Historian Catherine Corliss is interviewed about her tireless, ground-breaking research into Tuam and the 796 babies and children who died there.

Unforgettable moment for Maria Paola. For the very first time in 37 years, she met her biological mother. “I dropped all my bags to hug her.” Maria Paola was only a few days old when she flew from Guatemala to Belgium. She was received at Zaventem airport by her adoptive parents and her brother. She spent all her childhood in Belgium, but as a young woman she began to question her identity. That's why she went looking for who she was. She flew to Guatemala to consult the local database and came up with something surprising.

“According to the state, I never left Guatemala and I was not adopted at all,” says Maria Paola. "I have my doubts about how the adoption came about, but I have no idea about the extent of the smuggling and the falsification of documents."

She did not stop there and continued to look for her biological family. She found out with a DNA test that she has a half-sister with the same mother. This is how she first came into contact with her biological mother via FaceTime. "She saw me on the screen and she knew I was her daughter." When she meets her mother, Maria Paola has no more questions about who she is.

Parents want to start a mass claim against two ministries, the Safe Home reporting point, the Child Protection Board and youth care institutions. The policy by which many of their children were placed under supervision or removed from their homes was unlawful, says the foundation in which several parents have united.

Insufficient research has been carried out into custodial placements and supervision orders over the past thirty years, say the parents of the Stichting Collaboration of Parents with Youth Care. According to the foundation, policy in recent years has also been aimed at reducing parental control and legal protection “to virtually zero”.

The organizations and ministries thus went against Dutch law and international treaties, say the parents. Affected children and parents can register to participate in the mass claim. It is not clear how many parents will actually sign up. According to the foundation, "more than 100,000 children and their parents have probably suffered damage".

ANNEX “SEARCH FOR ORIGINS” CHINA Reviewed by local contacts

Strategic evaluation of the IRC | International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SERVICE To the attention of the Secretary General - Geneva

Introduction Created with the aim of defending children's rights and advancing reforms and public policies on delicate situations (adoption, placement of children outside their family of origin, children born of surrogate mothers, etc.), the IRC (International Reference Centre on the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family) offers a range of services and tools that make it a key player today and very much appreciated (this evaluation confirms it) by professionals in the field of protection and the authorities concerned throughout the world. In recent years, the IRC has focused on providing its basic services (monthly bulletin, inquiry service, country files) while developing specialized services (circulars, expert opinions in international fora), partnerships (with the United Nations, the Hague Conference on Private International Law, international child protection networks), technical assistance missions (Cambodia, Malta, Sweden, Mexico...), specialized publications and online training (MOOC). There are dozens of actions and they are praised for their quality. This record is all the more honourable given that the IRC team, based mainly in Geneva, is small (less than 10 people and occasional external experts). Today, the IRC is at a crossroad, and not only because of the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on its activities. The last evaluation of its activities was several years ago. Resources are decreasing, as are the contributions of the partner Central Authorities in a context of drastically decreasing international adoption. Part of the IRC team has recently left, and the recruitment of a new director must be done quickly while the team still in place is facing some difficulties in their work. Its positioning is delicate: hailed for the quality of its work and the relevance of its services, the IRC sometimes seems to be caught between the desire for independence and strategic autonomy and the desire to satisfy, above all, the main contributing central authorities. The only way to avoid being used is to seek financial independence by multiplying the number of tools and services for which fees are charged and by broadening the target audience. Moreover, its expertise in intercountry adoption is no longer to be demonstrated, but it seems to have locked it into this speciality, to the detriment of other fields related to the protection of children deprived of their family, and of other professionals who would nevertheless be quite happy to benefit from tools of equivalent quality on subjects related to adoption. In this context, the ISS General Secretariat has therefore commissioned an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the IRC, through the analysis of its current activities and work perspectives, with a view to reinforcing its added value for ISS, the authorities and entities benefiting from its services. The specific objectives of this evaluation were to:  Assess the current functions and activities of the IRC  Research and publication (on CLH 1993) including the bulletin  Country sheets/reports for the CRC/general inquiries  Technical support in the field (projects financed by UNICEF, governments, etc.) for projects to accompany and structure the central authorities in charge of adoption and alternative care 3  Explore with central authorities and other relevant actors the desirability and feasibility of developing similar or complementary activities on new themes, including training needs for ISS social workers:  Tracing  1996 Hague Convention (in whole or in part)  2007 Hague Convention  Any other relevant opportunity • Explore with different actors the opportunity and relevance of strengthening advocacy, with regard to the original mission of the IRC and the possible contributions to ISS in general • Assess the impact of the IRC's work on central authorities and propose ways to further strengthen the relevance and added value of these services • If time permits; study the opportunities for strengthening the use of technology in the service of the IRC (content layout, communication, brand image, tools and methods, strengthening interactivity, etc.). As part of this evaluation, 26 grantees were interviewed or responded to the questionnaire, specifically:  5 IRC team members and the ISS Secretary General  7 Central Authorities of receiving countries (Adoption)  4 Central Authorities of countries of origin (Adoption)  2 experts actively contributing to the activities of the IRC  7 members of the International Social Service network. Through a detailed questionnaire (see appendix), offered in English and French, and telephone interviews, it was possible to determine certain trends that would allow for an objective diagnosis of the IRC's activities and to formulate recommendations in 4 main areas:  the positioning of the IRC and the needs of beneficiaries with regard to it (Chapter 1)  the tools and services offered by the IRC (Chapter 2)  work prospects and topics of interest (Chapter 3)  the general management and the desired profile of the future IRC Leadership NB: Due to time constraints, the part of the evaluation devoted to the opportunities for strengthening the use of technology at the service of IRC (presentation of content, communication, branding, tools and methods, strengthening of interactivity, etc.) could not be completed and will have to be the subject of in-depth work within IRC itself and/or of external support

The profile of people registering to adopt a child in Malaga has changed greatly in the past decade. Ten years ago there were practically no same sex couples that started the procedures to adopt. Now, these account for 75 per cent of the requests that reach the child protection system.

«Right now it is couples made up of men who are mostly offering themselves as adoptive families,» explains the delegate of Social Inclusion, Youth, Families and Equality of the Junta de Andalucía, Ruth Sarabia.

This trend coincides with a decline in adoption applications nationally. From 193 requests in 2011 to a total of 70 in 2022. In little more than a decade, applications have dropped 63.7 per cent.

The decline is even higher in international adoption applications. From 2011 to 2022 these have plummeted by 89.3 per cent, going from 84 couples who offered themselves 12 years ago as adopters to nine last year, the lowest in history.

«The drop in international adoptions began to be noticed as a result of the 2008 crisis, adding to this that the prospects for national adoption are better, since they involve fewer procedures and a shorter waiting time, as well as being less expensive», stated Sarabia.

India does not have adequate safety mechanisms for children who face abuse at home. It’s time to build systems for their protection.

The film Mrs Chatterjee v/s Norway, set to be released on March 17, chronicles the traumatic story of Sagarika Bhattacharya and her ex-husband whose very young children were forcibly taken away by the Norwegian child welfare authorities, the Barnevernet, in 2011 because they believed that the children were being abused. It subsequently became a diplomatic row since the Chatterjees and their children were Indian citizens.

This was not the first — or the last — such intervention by the Norwegian state. Migrant families have especially been under scrutiny because their child-rearing practices (co-sleeping for example) are different from the cultural practices of the country. In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Norway had violated the right to respect for privacy and family life, home, and correspondence which is protected under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights because of the forced child removal in multiple cases. The ECHR fined Norway because a child was removed from a Somali family, and put up for adoption.

Child protection rules, such as banning physical punishment for disciplinary infractions, are, in fact, beneficial for children, and in the case of the Bhattacharyas, this was one of the reasons (even if it happened just once) that made the family reunification process more arduous. The film has unsettled many Indian immigrant families in Europe. For example, a social media post in the largest international mother’s group in the Netherlands, Amsterdam Mamas, indicated the worries of several South Asians.

India is home to nearly 440 million children, one of the highest numbers in a single country. Yet, we do not have adequate mechanisms to ensure a safety net for children, should homes turn out to be unsafe. UNICEF argues that figures on violence against children, their exploitation, and abuse are likely to be underestimated because most of these cases are not reported.