MUMBAI: Granting bail to a Worli businesswoman accused of running a child trafficking racket, a sessions court said the charge of "trafficking for exploitation" does not appear to be applicable as the child was sold for adoption. Instead, a case can be made out for the child's sale.

The FIR says there is trafficking of a newborn child and its purpose is mentioned as "giving in adoption". Section 370(4) of IPC is about trafficking of a person for exploitation. "Therefore, prima facie offence under Section 370(4)... does not appear to have been committed," said the court in its detailed order granting bail to 35-year-old Julia Fernandes and her aide, Shabana Shaikh, 40.

Section 370(4) prescribes rigorous imprisonment for a minimum of 10 years up to a life term. However, the court pointed out that another charge under the juvenile justice Act, punishable with up to five years imprisonment, is applicable.

"If Section 81 of the Juvenile Justice Act is seen, it is about sale and procurement of a child for any purpose. In view of the allegations, applicants along with other accused sold the child for adoption... I am of the opinion that if the case of prosecution is taken into consideration, it is about sale for the purpose of adoption," said the court.

Since the child was in safe custody and the money involved had been seized, further custodial interrogation of the two women was not required. "Taking into consideration the previous crime registered against applicants, they may be released on heavy bail by imposing conditions," said the court.

President Joseph R. Biden 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award Presented to Anna Belle Illien, An “Angel in Adoption” Congressional Award Recipient in 2012

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The United States President Joseph R. Biden 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award, along with the Presidential Volunteer Service Award, is being presented to Anna Belle Illien, Founder and Director of Illien Adoptions International, Inc. and the Founder and Director of Foundation for Our Children, Inc. both 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations serving vulnerable children worldwide, at a ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, August 26th, 2022.

“I am very grateful to President Biden for conferring this prestigious award upon me. I am also grateful to President Biden for standing with Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in defense of the children and people of Ukraine”

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Anna Belle Illien received the Angel in Adoption Award in 2012 from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute in Washington. DC. She received the Global Achievement Award in 2021 from the Johns Hopkins Hospital Alumni Association.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday emphasised that the child adoption process in India needs to be streamlined as there are three-to-four years waiting period under the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to adopt a single child while there are "lakhs and lakhs of orphan children waiting to be adopted".

The top court had earlier also termed the process as "very tedious" and said that there is an urgent need for the procedures to be "streamlined".

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, AS Bopanna, and JB Pardiwala told Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for the Centre, "There are a lot of young couples waiting to adopt the child but the process is so tedious that it takes three to four years to get a single child to be adopted through the CARA. Can you imagine a three to four years period to adopt a child in India? It should be made simpler. There are lakhs and lakhs of orphan children waiting to be adopted".

Nataraj said that the government is seized of the issue and sought six weeks to come up with a reply to a plea filed by an NGO seeking to simplify the process of child adoption in the country.

The bench asked Nataraj to ask someone responsible from the Ministry of Child Development to hold a meeting and look into the suggestions of the NGO 'The Temple of Healing' and prepare a report to be filed in the top court.

Carisa Lee

A management member at the Children’s Authority is urging people to consider adoption as an option.

Her appeal comes as the country has seen two incidents recently in which children suffered as a result of the circumstances in which their parents found themselves.

In the last week, little McKenzie Hope Rechier was strangled to death while a days-old baby was abandoned in a garbage bag at the San Fernando General Hospital.

Despite this, acting Adoption Manager at the Children’s Authority, Renee Neptune, said as of yesterday, there were no children waiting to be adopted.

A spokesman for Canada's foreign affairs minister says new sanctions against a Russian official will make her a "global pariah."

Adrien Blanchard says the economic penalties against Maria Lvova-Belova are meant to "isolate her and hold her accountable for her crimes."

Lvova-Belova is Russia's children's rights commissioner.

But Global Affairs alleges she is also the architect of a scheme to abduct Ukrainian children and facilitate their adoption into Russian homes.

Thousands of kids have been transported to Russia from the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the months since the war began.

A lawyer, Igwe Ifeoma, has been arraigned before Chief Magistrate P.E Nwaka sitting at the Magistrate’s Court, Yaba, Lagos State, on Wednesday, on charges bordering on child trafficking, assault of an 11-year-old girl, Esther Onwa.

Ifeoma is facing six counts of conspiracy to traffic a child, child trafficking, inhuman treatment, unlawful assault, and inflicting bodily injuries.

The charges read in part, “That you, Barrister Igwe Ifeoma, on the said date, time and place, in the aforesaid Magisterial District, did take away one Esther Onwa, 11, in order that she would be held or treated as a slave or servitude under your custody.

“That you, Barrister Igwe Ifeoma, on the said date, time and place, in the aforesaid Magisterial District, did unlawfully assault one Esther Onwa, 11, by repeatedly inflicting various degrees of bodily harm on her ears, left eyes, her back, neck, laps, buttocks, and other parts of her body.

“That you, Barrister Barrister Igwe Ifeoma, on the said date, time and place, in the aforesaid Magisterial District, did grievous harm to one Esther Onwa, 11, by injuring her in her eyes with a wire capable of rendering her permanently blind.”

Activist Petitions Nigerian Attorney-General Malami From Prison, Seeks Investigation Into Child Trafficking Case Allegedly Involving Retired Judge, Policemen, Others

In a petition signed by Aghogho and obtained by SaharaReporters, the activist alleged that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), State Security Service (SSS), Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficked-In Person (NAPTIP) had the facts of the case but kept mute by “promoting injustice

Ahuman rights activist, Ighorhiohwunu Aghogho, has petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami over an alleged child trafficking investigation involving Delta State Government officials, police officers, and a retired chief judge among others.

In a petition signed by Aghogho and obtained by SaharaReporters, the activist alleged that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), State Security Service (SSS), Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficked-In Person (NAPTIP) had the facts of the case but kept mute by “promoting injustice against children in Delta State.”

He added that the Delta State Commissioner for Justice and Director of Public Prosecution had similar facts but decided to shield the culprits and prosecute him on trump-up charges instead.

If you were separated at birth through forced adoptions between 1950 and 1980, you may be eligible for compensation under a new redress scheme.

Background

For more than a year, Shine Lawyers has been lobbying for the removal of the statute of limitations for mothers whose newborn children were forcefully taken from them by the State between the 1950s and 1980s.

Unwed mothers were made to feel like they weren’t fit to be parents, and it was their fault this was happening to them. It has taken decades for many to find the courage to seek legal advice only to be told it's too late to sue.

The Victorian government has now responded to the?new recommendations by the Forced Adoption Inquiry?supporting ‘in principle’ the majority of the 56 recommendations. These recommendations included the removal of the significant injury threshold, statute of limitations, and the creation of redress for mothers and children affected.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found the country’s past military governments responsible for atrocities committed at Brothers Home, a state-funded “vagrants’ facility” where thousands were enslaved and abused from the 1960s to 1980s.

The landmark report on Wednesday came 35 years after a prosecutor first exposed the horrors at the facility in the southern port city of Busan and details an attempted cover-up of incriminating evidence that would have confirmed a state-sponsored crime.

The commission’s chairperson, Jung Geun-sik, urged South Korea’s current government to issue a formal apology to survivors and explore ways to ease their suffering as he announced the initial results of its investigation into Brothers, including extreme cases of forced labor, violence and deaths.

The commission also called for the government to review the conditions at current welfare facilities around the country and swiftly ratify the United Nations convention against enforced disappearances.

The commission “confirmed that the direct and indirect exercise of government authority resulted in the forced confinement of people deemed as vagrants at Brothers Home and caused serious violations of human rights, including forced labor, physical assault, cruel treatment, deaths and disappearances,” Jeung said in a news conference at the commission’s office in Seoul.

Dozens of South Koreans adopted by Danish parents decades ago have formally demanded the South Korean government investigate their adoptions, which they say were marred by widespread practices that falsified or obscured children’s origins

SEOUL, South Korea -- Dozens of South Koreans adopted by Danish parents decades ago have formally demanded the South Korean government investigate their adoptions, which they say were marred by widespread practices that falsified or obscured children’s origins.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Seoul has up to four months to decide whether to accept the application collectively filed Tuesday by the 53 adoptees. If it does, that could possibly trigger the most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions in the country, which has never fully reconciled the child export frenzy engineered by past military governments that ruled from the 1960s to ’80s.

The application cites a broad range of grievances emphasizing how scores of children were carelessly or unnecessarily removed from their families amid loose government monitoring and a lack of due diligence.

Perhaps more crucially, the country’s special laws aimed at promoting adoptions practically allowed profit-driven agencies to manipulate records and bypass proper child relinquishment.