In the age of 'Instagram adoptions', sophisticated con artists are defrauding prospective parents of large sums of money by digitally posing as viable birth mothers. With the scope of this fraudulent industry only just emerging, Sarah Green speaks to victims of the burgeoning crime, and those who are fighting it in the dark.

Christmas Day 2021 should have been one of the happiest of Breanne Paquin’s life. After almost a decade of disheartening doctor visits and diagnoses, Paquin and her husband boarded a last-minute flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Houston, Texas for what they thought was their Christmas miracle.

The hopeful couple were expecting a baby boy, and they were flying almost 1,300 miles to meet him. Leading up to their trip, Paquin had been in near-constant communication with a pregnant woman named Ingrid Hernandez — their online relationship developed through daily good morning and good night texts, picture updates, video messages and FaceTime calls, along with an expectant promise that grew with each passing day.

Five months prior, Hernandez had promised the Paquins her unborn baby boy via social media. In the months that followed, they had spent dozens of hours and thousands of dollars perfecting every detail for his homecoming — from building and furnishing his nursery, to stocking frozen breastmilk and baby supplies.

The young couple never could have predicted the trauma that waited for them in Texas. Instead of spending their Christmas with Hernandez in a hospital delivery room, the Paquins found themselves in an emergency meeting with their lawyer on a deserted restaurant patio.

Body of North Dakota child was found in the woman's basement

A North Dakota woman has been sentenced to life in a federal prison for fatally abusing her 5-year-old foster child.

Tammy Longie, of Tokio, earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, child abuse and neglect in the May 2020 death of Raven Thompson. His body was found the basement of Longie's home on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation.

Longie was sentenced in federal court Monday in a case that U.S. Attorney Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl called "tragic and horrifying."

The FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs responded the Longies' home and found Raven dead and his 7-year-old brother in need of medical care due to abuse and neglect.

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NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel is learned to have recommended omitting the reference to "illegitimate child" from the adoption law, saying that no child is illegitimate whether born within or out of wedlock. The panel has also underlined the need to enact a single comprehensive law covering guardianship aspects of various categories of persons and applicable to all, irrespective of religion, sources said.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice chaired by senior BJP leader Sushil Modi made this recommendation while reviewing the "Guardians and Wards Act".

The panel is likely to table its report on 'Review of Guardianship and Adoption Laws, in the ongoing Monsoon session.

The committee in the report is understood to have suggested that it strongly feels that the word 'illegitimate' should be omitted as no child is illegitimate and law should be the same for all children whether born within or out of wedlock. It feels there is a need to amend the Guardians and Wards Act to give primacy to the 'welfare principle' over parental authority.

It is also of the view that there is a need to define what constitutes the welfare of the child in broader terms in both the Acts, the sources said.

RIBBON -The fifteenth edition of the Antwerp Pride will start on Wednesday. For Lintenaar Tim Küsters, who played in the final of Mr. Gay Belgium stands, promises to be busy days and is especially committed to the people from its community who want to have children.

“Wednesday I will be present at the opening party and during the Antwerp Pride parade on Saturday we will be on one of the cars with all the finalists to drive through the city. Finally, I'm going to the Pride Village on Sunday," says Tim.

With the different presences, Tim naturally wants to put his final place in the spotlight, but he wants to bring even more attention. “During Mr. Gay Belgium we can commit ourselves around a theme of our own choice. I do this for the LGBTQIA+ community with a desire to have children. My partner Tim has two children from a previous relationship. So basically my wish to have children has been fulfilled. I am lucky that Nick and Lissa accepted me very quickly. Despite me coming into their lives early in their teens, they handled this pretty well. Their father was before me with a woman.”

But Tim wants every same-sex couple to enjoy this childhood bliss. “In May 2006, the legislation on adoption for same-sex couples was approved in Belgium. We are 2022 and things are not going smoothly at all. For example, there are only nineteen countries where adoption is possible for these couples. There is no law at all about surrogacy. I hope to draw more attention to this theme so that it is discussed in the media and even in education, for example. It should be easier for future generations in our community to realize their wish to have children. Now it is a difficult search for the possibilities.”

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The same day last week that Indiana adopted an abortion ban with limited exceptions, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed into law another measure the state’s Catholic conference says has the potential to help families.

Known as SB2, the legislation, which received broad bipartisan support, provides for a tax exemption for an adopted child, cuts the state’s tax on children’s diapers, caps the gas tax, and increases the adoption tax credit, the Indy Star reported.

It also creates a $45 million fund for a variety of family-related programs and initiatives, the Criterion, the newspaper of the Indianapolis Archdiocese, reported.

“The Catholic Church has a history of providing aid, comfort, and support for mothers and families,” said Angela Espada, executive director of the Indiana Catholic Conference, the Criterion reported.

“It hopes that the allotted $45 million will improve the lives of Hoosiers by supporting adoption, pregnancy planning, the health of pregnant women, postpartum mothers, and infants, along with supporting the needs of families with children less than 4 years old,” she said. “Additionally, there are funds to address the barriers to long-acting reversible contraception.”

Elenore was born in 1970 to an unmarried woman and adopted four days later by UK family. She recently traced her mother to Kildare and has established a relationship with her.

“It’s not for everyone. But though I felt loved my entire life, I needed to know where I came from. I wanted to understand the circumstances of my adoption’.

Elenore is one of hundreds of Irish people who were sent abroad for adoption when they were babies as a result of hostility towards unmarried mothers. Now new legislation means many more are now entitled to unrestricted access to their official documents, including birth certificates, for the first time.

The Adoption Authority of Ireland is now managing the database established by the new Birth Information and Tracing act. The new law relates to all those born to parents within Ireland and adopted at home or abroad since the foundation of the state 100 years ago.

Collated

As a therapist for children who are being processed through the American immigration system, Cynthia Quintana has a routine that she repeats each time she meets a new patient in her office in Grand Rapids, Michigan: She calls the parents or closest relatives to let them know the child is safe and well cared for, and provides 24-hour contact information.

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This process usually plays out within hours of when the children arrive. Most are teens who have memorized or written down their relatives’ phone numbers in notebooks they carried with them across the border. By the time of that initial call, their families are typically worried, waiting anxiously for news after having—in an act of desperation—sent their children into another country alone in pursuit of safety and the hope of a future.

But in the summer of 2017, Quintana encountered a curious case. A 3-year-old Guatemalan boy with a toothy smile and bowl-cut black hair sat down at her desk. He was far too little to have made the journey on his own. He had no phone numbers with him, and when she asked where he was headed or whom he’d been with, the boy stared back blankly. Quintana scoured his file for more information but found nothing. She asked for help from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, who came back several days later with something unusual: information indicating that the boy’s father was in federal custody.

At their next session, the boy squirmed in his chair as Quintana dialed the detention center, getting his father on the line. At first the dad was quiet, she told me. “Finally we said, ‘Your child is here. He can hear you. You can speak now.’ And you could just tell that his voice was breaking—he couldn’t.”

A Georgia couple has been charged with using their two adopted children to record child pornography, police said.

Walton County Sheriff’s Office raided a home in Loganville July 27 on reports that a man there was downloading child porn.

After interviewing the suspect, who was not identified, police said they learned there was another suspect in the county who was “producing homemade child sexual abuse material with at least one child who lived in the home,” the sheriff’s office said Thursday.

Around 11:30 p.m. that same night, executed a search warrant in Oxford at the home of William Dale Zulock, 32, and Zachary Jacoby Zulock, 35.

Walton County’s Division of Family and Child Services joined deputies in responding to the home to help protect the two brothers who lived there.

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