MUMBAI: Bombay HC recently declined relief to the adoptive parents of a one-year-old child who had sought its intervention so that they continue to keep him with them.
The couple and the child’s biological parents are battling each other over the boy’s custody in the city civil court. The couple had moved HC to direct the Centre to amend the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956 (HAMA) “with respect to situations where custody is already handed over but consent is withdrawn”. They urged HC to issue norms in such cases to lower courts and pending framing of guidelines to direct the parties to maintain a status quo.
 

Justices Sanjay Gangapurwala and RM Laddha on September 20, though, said they “may seek appropriate relief before the court where proceedings are filed and pending”. The couple’s petition said they were desirous of a second child and wished to adopt. They had registered with the Central Adoption Resources Authority in November 2019 but there was no progress. In June 2021, they registered with NGO Aham Foundation. On July 16, 2021, its owner Julia Fernandes told them a newborn was up for adoption. While they were apprehensive about it, the child’s mother insisted on immediate adoption. After a small “give and take ceremony”, the adoption deed was executed with the biological parents and they were given custody of the child.
In September 2021, the couple filed an adoption petition under HAMA so they could submit the decree for Aadhar card and passport for the child. On March 16, 2022, the civil court dismissed their adoption petition holding adoption deed is not registered, and according to Section 16 of HAMA, “the court shall not presume that adoption is made in compliance with provisions of this Act”.

It further said as biological parents have objected to giving their child for adoption, “the adoption process can’t be completed without their consent”. In June 2022, the couple filed a review petition before the civil court and the biological parents filed for custody of their child.
The couple’s petition in HC said the adoption was complete when the adoption ceremony and signing of the adoption deed was done before a notary. Their advocate Aparna Vhatkar argued that therefore the adoption cannot be cancelled. The petition said the civil court erred in holding that the adoption deed is not registered as per HAMA as nowhere in section 16 it states that the adoption deed is required to be registered.

Advocates Edith and Mikhail Dey for the biological parents opposed the petition saying HAMA is not applicable as the biological mother is a Christian. The prospective adoptive parents and biological parents have to be Hindu to be governed by HAMA.

MOORE, Okla. (KFOR) – Imagine thinking you’ve finalized the adoption of your child abroad, and then learning you can’t take them home.

That’s exactly the situation that Moore couple Carrie and Ryan Pentecost found themselves in, following the adoption of their daughter Precious.

Their journey to adoption began not long after they were married but stalled while they attempted to walk through the process in another country.

Carrie said they met their match when they set their eyes and hearts on Nigeria.

In August of 2021 the couple matched with their daughter before officially adopting her in September of the same year.

Nearly two years after the Commission of Investigation published its final report, survivors are still being ignored, Órla Ryan writes.

HOW MUCH REDRESS should a person who spent less than six months in a mother and baby home as a child get?

How many Commissioners will appear before the Oireachtas?

How many official reports with disputed findings should be repudiated?

How many independent reviews will take place?

SG-DOSSIERS-ACCES@ec.europa.eu

Attachments

Fri, Oct 7, 5:10 PM (19 hours ago)

to me

Hello,

A table, pastel-coloured wallpaper, a play corner for children. Behind it, shelves full of archive folders. We are in an »lnternational Office for Childhood«, an invented place that the French-Vietnamese author and director Caroline Guiela Nguyen came up with after researching for many months in youth welfare offices, agencies for foreign adoption, and meeting people who work there or were adopted themselves. Different life paths cross at this place: a mother finally meets the boy who is to become her son after long years of waiting. He is seven years old and comes from Vietnam. A young teenage girl goes in search of her roots. A grandfather worries about her grandson’s future. They meet the stories of the women who keep this office alive, always aware of their own doubts and questions, their own great responsibility: How do you decide who deserves to be a parent? That it is really best to remove a child from their roots? Wanting to do the right thing does not mean that one cannot be wrong. From Cameroon to Vietnam, from Russia to Germany: Caroline Guiela Nguyen also questions a certain world view, our relationship to other cultures, other people, and the family.

For several years, international adoptions have been increasingly regulated due to abuses by several organizations around the world, but also due to the fact that adult adoptees have spoken out. The best interests of the child and the principle of subsidiarity must be at the centre of every decision. A child may only be placed for adoption abroad if no adoptive parents can be found in the child’s own country. But this precaution unfortunately does not solve all the other questions that adoptions from abroad raise: How is one supposed to grow up and develop an identity with two different first names, with different histories of origin? How does one manage to grow up without the feeling of having been mercifully saved, of having to pay off an eternal debt?

Caroline Guiela Nguyen and her company Les Hommes Approximatifs are developing a production with actresses from the Schaubu?hne ensemble for the first time.

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The VPRO documentary prize 2022 was awarded to the Filho crew on Friday 7 October. The documentary tells the personal story of filmmaker Tomas Ponsteen, who was adopted from Brazil as a baby in 1994. The prize was awarded for the fifteenth time by the VPRO to the best graduation documentary of the Dutch Film Academy.

In Filho , Tomas Ponsteen focuses on the question: is it a duty of every adoptee to find his or her biological mother? Even if you don't feel that need at all?

Tomas was adopted as a baby from Brazil. He is satisfied with his life as it is now and does not feel the need to look for his biological mother. But there is much to be done about adoption, and the abuses are great.

With every news item the question arises: what if I have not been surrendered voluntarily? And above all: shouldn't I investigate why I don't feel the need to search? These questions are the starting point for a series of impressive encounters.

verdict of the jury

Thousands of people are being promised new rights to information, a potentially momentous step in a country where unmarried mothers were pressured for decades to give up their babies.

DUBLIN — For tens of thousands of people who were adopted in Ireland — or gave up children for adoption there, often under heavy pressure — knowledge that for decades was shrouded in secrecy and shame may now be a mouse-click away.

The Irish government introduced an online service this week that for the first time promises adopted people born in Ireland, wherever they now live, the right to see any information the state holds about them — including the names of their birth mothers. It also offers a free tracing service for anyone, including birth mothers, trying to find relatives lost to them through Ireland’s adoption system.

The authorities are permitted up to 30 days to respond to requests, and adoption rights activists are waiting to see how well the service works. But they say it has the potential to be a significant step in reckoning with a painful national legacy of mistreatment of unmarried mothers and their children.

Over decades, ending as recently as 1998, thousands of pregnant and unmarried women and girls in Ireland were confined to church-run “mother and baby homes,” where they were expected and often pressured to give up their babies after birth. An official inquiry published last year acknowledged poor conditions, high death rates and abuses at the institutions.

Friends Annick (37), An Sheela (42) and Sheela (41) lead different lives, but have one thing in common: all three were adopted from India. and they know what you struggle with when you don't know exactly where you come from. “Adoption is not always a fairy tale.”

Recognition and recognition

“Recognition and acknowledgment. I find that with An Sheela and Sheela and all those other adopted children from our Facebook community. For example, if I say, "I don't know exactly who I am," they know exactly what I mean by that. It is something that unites us. What problems do you face if you don't know who your biological parents are? How does it feel when the start of your life is unclear and what you know about it may be based on lies? What do you struggle with? These are things that we discuss when we see each other during meeting days.” Annick is speaking. In 2008, she was only fifteen when she wanted to meet other adopted children. Together with her mother, she founded the Facebook group Adoption Link, for children adopted from India and their parents. Initially a friendly group that exchanged messages and saw each other occasionally, years later it became a more serious community. On which members post messages and photos, but which also organizes and undertakes all sorts of things.
The club received more and more members from the Netherlands and Belgium. At a certain point, Annick was no longer able to manage everything on her own. In 2017 she asked An Sheela to help, and a year later Sheela too. The three of them are trying to take the Facebook group to an even higher level. Together they organize meeting days and information evenings about DNA tests, for example. The three also fight against illegal adoption in their home country Belgium. Even though their adoption stories are completely different, the trio feels connected to each other and to the members of their community.
Annick: “In the fourteen years that I have been working on this, the adopted children have grown up. Many have started families or have now made a roots trip to India. Sometimes they find what they are looking for, but often it is impossible. India is a very large country and the government discourages adopted children from searching for their biological parents. It is simply not done. The moral is: let the past be.”

Terminally ill

“I was four and a half years old when I came here from India. I had a fantastic childhood, I was able to study and was given all kinds of opportunities to develop myself. But I also wondered where I came from, who my parents were. My mother's name was known, I knew nothing about my father. About five years ago I had my DNA registered with an international DNA bank. I was lucky enough to find a brother and an uncle that way. Through them I found out that my father was still alive. I was pregnant with my son at the time, he is now almost four years old.
My father turned out to be terminally ill, he suffered from a muscle disease. If I wanted to see him again, I had to hurry. I traveled to India and visited him. He had a baby picture of me in his wallet, all crumpled up, but still. That little detail touched me: for me it was a sign that I belonged to him. I also recognized something of myself in him. My father was emotional, he felt guilty about how things turned out in the past. He couldn't take care of me. On the other hand, he was also down to earth: things go the way they go and you can't change the past. He didn't want to talk about my biological mother.
Meeting my father was nice. Searching for someone for thirty years and seeing him just before his death is a gift. He was able to answer many of my questions, although the reunion also raised new questions. Is the muscular disease he suffered from hereditary? What was the relationship like between him and my mother? The latter in particular is a matter of guesswork. But I can't complain. I realize very well that I know more than most of us. An Sheela and Sheela, for example, both have no concrete connection with their biological parents.”

A parliamentary panel has found that a rise in the number of child abandonment cases may lead to a rise in the number of illegal adoptions.

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Why was the adoption process in the news recently?

The Parliamentary Panel on the Review of Guardianship and Adoption Laws has recommended a district-level survey of orphaned and abandoned children, given the huge mismatch in the number of children available for adoption in Specialized Adoption Agencies (“SAA”) and the persons in line to become adoptive parents. Even though a large number of children are orphaned or abandoned, very few find their way in the formal adoption process.

The need of the hour, therefore, is the easing of the adoption process and the disincentivization of child abandonments. For parents who no longer wish to keep a child, a spree of social considerations may stymie their decision to surrender their child to an SAA, and abandonment may seem an easier choice. One such consideration is the anticipated future repercussions of the decision to surrender, especially in the absence of a guarantee against public dissemination of its information. A root search lies exactly at the heart of this consideration, which is an adoptee’s search for their biological parent in pursuit of obtaining knowledge of their identity, biological heritage and their sense of self.

How a family lives together varies by country and culture, but the standard family of husband, wife and children is no longer the norm. Living together with several partners, adult children, grandchildren, adopted or foster children, eight cats or three dogs: in this series people talk about their families. This week: Miranda Tollenaar (49), who single-handedly adopted daughter Mica (5) from Haiti.

By Hannah König

Miranda Tollenaar had a traditional picture in mind: marry a nice man, four children. Her great wish was a large family with both biological and adopted children. The pedagogical employee from Arnhem did not meet the love of her life and therefore decided to fulfill her wish to have children alone. Recently, her dream came true: she became the mother of five-year-old Mica from Haiti.

Waited eleven years for an adopted baby

Tollenaar took the time to discover who she was, traveled extensively and worked for charities. She was open to a husband, but the right partner did not come along. Relationships broke down, but her desire to have children remained. "I consciously chose not to let the children pass by me. I decided to go for adoption from abroad on my own. That moment was eleven years ago. How did I survive all this time? I kept thinking : it will take a maximum of two or three years and then I will be a mother."