Chennai: A sordid tale of exploitation of a minor girl by her mother, male companion and two others has come to light in Tamil Nadu with the girl accusing them of forcing to sell her oocyte to private hospitals. While the accused including her mother and companions were arrested, a six-member team from the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services commenced a deeper inquiry into the case on Sunday.

The team met the 16-year-old girl, who hails from Erode district in western Tamil Nadu, and conducted inquiries for nearly three hours at a Government-run home where she has been lodged after being rescued.

The girl was staying with her mother Indira alias Sumiya following the latter’s estrangement with her husband. Indira’s male companion Syed Ali allegedly sexually abused the girl. In a complaint to the police, she alleged that the abuse was going on for five years and she was taken to different private hospitals in Erode and its surrounding districts since 2017 where she was forced to sell her oocytes. She alleged Rs 20,000 was paid to her mother during each visit and a woman Malathi, who acted as an intermediary, received Rs 5,000 as commission. Another accused John had got her a forged Aadhaar card under an assumed name to make it appear she had attained the age of majority.

The complaint blew the lid off an illegal egg donation racket in the district, which has numerous infertility clinics and a case was registered under the POCSO Act. All accused were arrested last week.

“We have taken the girl’s statement. Based on what she revealed, we will be visiting hospitals in Erode and other places to take statement from the staff and initiate further action,” A Viswanathan, Joint Director of Medical and Rural Health Services told journalists. He said action including cancellation of licenses would be taken against hospitals found guilty of the illegal extraction of oocytes. Doctors, if they were complicit in the crime, will also face action, he added.

This temporary commission of inquiry was established as of April 1, 2021 by Minister Grapperhaus of Justice and Security (JenV). This independent commission investigates the phenomenon of organized sadistic abuse of minors. The committee would finalize its investigation report in July 2022. More time is needed, the investigation report will be ready in November 2022.

Task of the Hendriks committee

A motion by Van den Berge (GroenLinks), Van Nispen (SP) and Kuiken (PvdA) (October 2020) requested an independent investigation into the nature and extent of organized sadistic abuse of children. Experiences of ritual abuse survivors and those of their therapists are included. The results of this can help in an effective detection of these networks.

In other motions related to this, an inquiry was also made into the National Expertise Group Special Sexual Affairs (LEBZ). They have also been asked to set up a hotline for victims and families of sectarian abuse. On the basis of the outcome of the assessment of the research assignment by the WODC and the political and social urgency of the problems, Minister Grapperhaus has set up an independent commission of inquiry. The committee has been given the following task:

Report to the minister on organized sadistic abuse of minors in the Netherlands. We use as many sources as possible for this. This includes victims, therapists, scientific sources and experts in this specific field. On the basis of the findings, give the minister an advice about the investigation.

Do I have much more family? How much more family do I have? Who are my siblings? These are many of the questions counselor and coach Maureen Davis's clients grapple with. Due to the extensive media attention surrounding donor conception and gynaecologists who used their own sperm, among other things, more donor children are now looking for where they come from.

Maureen Davis started at the age of 58 in addition to her work on a four-year college degree as a counselor and coach, majoring in psychology. The years-long search for her information about her silently unknown Indian father runs like a red thread through her life. Her father died during the search. Unfortunately she never got to meet him. Nevertheless, she went on a search for information about her father, met his relatives and got to know her half-brother and half-sister. Through her own experiences she understands the feelings of donor children all too well.

During her bachelor's degree in psychology, she researched the desire to know from whom you are descended and placed this desire in a broad social context. In 2014 her book Treasures in Aunt's Basement, Search for the Unknown Biological Parent was published . It is Maureen's personal conviction that wanting to know who your biological parents are is a primal urge, a primal desire. During the course of his life, someone who does not know his origin is confronted with a variety of complex feelings, such as insecurity, lack of self-confidence and identity problems. Feelings that – out of fear and shame – are often suppressed and concealed for years.

No research has yet been conducted in the Netherlands into how not knowing your biological father can influence the development of donor children, but international studies and the demand for help that has already arisen in the Netherlands have shown that it does have an influence.

Guidance

Even as Indians are opening up to the idea of adoption by single parents or adopting a sibling for their biological child, they remain averse to accepting children with special needs.

Fewer than 50 children with special needs found a home within India in the past three financial years, accounting for less than 1% of the total 9,443 in-country adoptions between 2019-20 and 2021-22.

However, applicants from outside India are considerably more open to embracing children with special needs. Such children comprised 39.1%, 56.1% and 73% of the total inter-country adoptions in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively. The category covers non-resident Indians, overseas citizens of India and foreign prospective adoptive parents.

“The motivation of parents outside India is different. They are mentally prepared to take care of such children. Also, it is not just the parents who adopt such kids but the entire country does that,” a senior Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) official told ET on condition of anonymity. “Such applicants have to compulsorily undertake a 34-hour course in their country before applying for adoption.

They also undergo several preadoption counselling sessions.” CARA is a statutory body of the ministry of women & child development.

I was dressed in a clown costume: brightly colored baby-doll dress, bloomers, big shoes, red nose—the works—preparing to run the annual Fourth of July 5k race in Skagway, Alaska. As I stretched at the starting line, playing up to the crowd, my husband strode up, grabbed my arm, and tried to pull me toward a side street. Distressed at his forcefulness, I yanked away, ready to demand he explain himself, when his face seemed to melt.

"Michael died."

His gray complexion and the way he reached for me slammed the reality home. Like in a movie scene, my body crumbled to the ground, and as if in a lucid dream, I hovered above: my body was slumped in the middle of the city's Third Street, smack in the center of the hoop-bottomed dress like a bullseye. The sound that escaped my lips still echoes down that empty street—and in my skull.

In the days and weeks to follow, people expressed their condolences. They placed gentle hands on my forearm and nodded wordlessly or, more often, uttered the phrase "I'm so sorry for your loss." Emails filled my inbox, and messages popped up on social media feeds with broken hearts and sad face emojis.

These sympathetic offerings were welcome, if painful, reminders that I was a mother who'd lost her child. But their kindness marked a clear delineation from the last time I'd grieved the loss of this same child: after I'd relinquished my parental rights 23 years earlier.

Iwas dressed in a clown costume: brightly colored baby-doll dress, bloomers, big shoes, red nose—the works—preparing to run the annual Fourth of July 5k race in Skagway, Alaska. As I stretched at the starting line, playing up to the crowd, my husband strode up, grabbed my arm, and tried to pull me toward a side street. Distressed at his forcefulness, I yanked away, ready to demand he explain himself, when his face seemed to melt.

"Michael died."

His gray complexion and the way he reached for me slammed the reality home. Like in a movie scene, my body crumbled to the ground, and as if in a lucid dream, I hovered above: my body was slumped in the middle of the city's Third Street, smack in the center of the hoop-bottomed dress like a bullseye. The sound that escaped my lips still echoes down that empty street—and in my skull.

In the days and weeks to follow, people expressed their condolences. They placed gentle hands on my forearm and nodded wordlessly or, more often, uttered the phrase "I'm so sorry for your loss." Emails filled my inbox, and messages popped up on social media feeds with broken hearts and sad face emojis.

These sympathetic offerings were welcome, if painful, reminders that I was a mother who'd lost her child. But their kindness marked a clear delineation from the last time I'd grieved the loss of this same child: after I'd relinquished my parental rights 23 years earlier.

Joyce Sylvester writes weekly about topics that touch her. This week she talks about adoption. "I also wish the children a more open society after arrival."

Even as Indians are opening up to the idea of adoption by single parents or

adopting a sibling for their biological child, they remain averse to accepting

children with special needs.

Fewer than 50 children with special needs found a home within India in the past

three financial years, accounting for less than 1% of the total 9,443 in-country

Claude Griscelli, the former boss of Inserm, aged 86, distinguished himself by re-reading, in favor of the Servier laboratories, on June 21, 2011 in the Senate, the copy of Marie-Thérèse Hermange (UMP) before she does not submit her report on the Mediator.

Caught by the patrol. Professor Claude Griscelli, the famous pediatrician, pioneer of bone marrow transplants for newborns is under threat of a sanction from the Order of Physicians for having re-read, in favor of Servier, the 2011 Senate report on the Mediator . The Collective of victims of the Mediator which had filed a complaint in January with the order obtained satisfaction: on March 16, the authority not only transmitted the request to the disciplinary chamber but it also associated itself with it. . The order joins the plaintiffs only when it considers that a doctor has committed an ethical fault, the latter then incurs a penalty that can range from a simple warning to radiation.

Rosanne (41, midwife) and Martin (38, owns their own marketing and strategy business), have three adopted children: Shawn (12), Josiah (9) and Hannah (3). All three children are from South Africa. First came Josiah (when he was 11 months), then Shawn (who was then 5.5). Hannah came in April 2020, when she was almost 1.5. The family lives in Veenendaal.

No need to be pregnant

Rosanne: 'I don't recognize the need to carry a child. Not even to give birth. As a midwife I am often asked that, logically. I think it's fantastic to experience, but for myself I don't feel that need very strongly.

Now that I am a mother, I can miss that feeling that you know from scratch where your child is and what it is going through. I sometimes feel sad about that. That I couldn't be there for them from day one. I was able to save them from that difficult and sometimes damaging start they had.

Fix the damage