Harjinder Thind, host at RED FM, asked doctors to report mothers who were putting up babies for adoption

A complaint has been filed with the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council (CBSC) over comments made by Harjinder Thind, a host at the RED FM radio station located in Surrey, B.C.

The complaint, filed by Pitt Meadows-based artist Jag Nagra on Monday, concerns Thind's Punjabi-language morning broadcast on Feb. 24.

Nagra, a member of the non-profit Punjabi Market Regeneration Collective, was scheduled to talk on Thind's show that day to promote the organization's search for new board members.

While waiting to go on air, Nagra heard Thind claim there was "breaking news" that numerous South Asian mothers at Surrey Memorial Hospital were giving birth and "abandoning" their babies by giving them up for adoption.

Decision on Wob request regarding communication with the COIA

Freedom of Information Act request | 02-03-2022

On 2 March 2022, the Minister for Legal Protection made a decision on the Government Information (Public Access) Act request regarding communication by a data subject with the International Adoption Investigation Committee.

Decision on Wob request regarding communication with the COIA (PDF | 7 pages | 174 kB)

Annex I to decision on Wob request regarding communication with the COIA (PDF | 240 pages | 22.6 MB)

For Morgan Terch, owner of Wilder Way Threads, business is more than just the bottom line. It’s gotta have heart. That’s why her shop, which sells vintage textiles, donates 25 percent of its proceeds to adoptive parents and families.

The story of Wilder Way began in 2020 when Terch and her husband and co-owner, Jeffrey, were on their own adoption journey. They were trying to bring their daughter, Eden, home from India and needed help to defray costs. Having both worked for a local adoption agency, they were aware of how difficult, and pricey, the process would be and knew they would need to get creative. Terch recalled a supplier in Turkey, whom she had bought pillow cases from for her home, and decided to reach back out to him. She purchased a small order, did a sale on her Instagram account, and sold all 40 items in an hour. Coincidentally, it turned out the man had been orphaned as a child, creating even more of a connection. From there, the seed of an idea blossomed into a plan and things seemed to fall into place. What if they could create a small business to help other people on the same path?

“I thought…let’s keep doing this,” says Terch. “I love looking at these textiles. I love that we’re supporting this man in Turkey…and his small business…that’s a win-win. And then we’re also helping make a way for us to provide a home for our future child.”

According to Terch, a typical adoption, international or domestic, can take years to finalize and cost upwards to $40,000. However, she goes on to highlight, it’s important to use a licensed, Hague-accredited service as it ensures that the proper, legal steps are taken.

“On one hand, that is probably a barrier that keeps a lot of people from adopting,” says Terch. “But, on the flip side, having worked in an adoption agency, I really see the benefit of [it] being expensive. The fees ensure that the adoption is done the right way.”

More than 14,000 girls and women went through the doors of mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries and other institutions between 1922 and 1990.

Police in Northern Ireland are probing 29 allegations of criminal activity around mother and baby homes.

Officers have received reports from a number of people who were adopted from different named institutions and also from some who either worked there or were residents within these institutions.

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<Bielefeld, 28.02.2022> Dr. Oetker condemns the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine as an act that violates international law and cannot be justified. This war is contemptuous of human life, it brings hardship and misery to people who want to live peacefully with their neighbors. A war will never be a solution - neither to deal with different views on future issues nor to overcome political or social conflicts.

All Dr. Oetker employees are members of a large family that is active in over 40 countries. Guided by our Purpose "Creating a Taste of Home", we work ever more closely together internationally. We know and appreciate each other, diversity is one of our great strengths and characterizes our cohesion. Our thoughts are therefore with our colleagues and their families in the regions affected by the war, whose safety is our top priority. We are in close daily contact with the management teams of our Ukrainian and Russian country organizations and are jointly examining all options for providing support.

Together with the company's owners, we have decided to make a specific donation of €500,000: Two SOS Children's Villages were evacuated from Kiev and from eastern Ukraine to Poland – with traumatized and starving children. We support this project out of our deepest conviction. In addition, 140 Ukrainian employees work in our Polish plants. We provide accommodation for their family members in particular, but also for others who have fled from Ukraine to Poland, to offer them a first port of call. In addition, we support the people with everything they need to live, primarily food and clothing.

We will continue to closely monitor this extraordinarily difficult situation and take all the necessary measures and decisions. Above all, it is incontrovertible that Dr. Oetker stands for family values – in Ukraine and everywhere!

About Dr. Oetker

An apology to the experimental children has been followed by compensation from the Danish state.

In 2020, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen gave an official apology on behalf of Denmark to the so-called "experimental children" for the first time.

And now the apology is being followed up with 250,000 kroner to each of the six living Greenlanders.

This is stated by the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Elderly in Denmark.

The compensation comes after the six people filed a lawsuit against the Danish state, as they believed that the move to Denmark in 1951 was a violation of, among other things, their right to private and family life.

The first time Elspeth Ross knew she was going away was when she returned home from her work sewing shirts in Glasgow city centre to find a case in the hall.

“I had never seen the case before. I never even knew there was a case in the house,” Elspeth, now 76, says.

Elspeth also did not know she was pregnant, her condition worked out by a family friend and, she believes, possibly a back street abortionist who examined her. Elspeth’s mother and sisters never talked about sex. She had grown up with a boy in the neighbourhood, Ian, and got pregnant aged 15 without knowing what had happened.

In Scotland in 1962, pregnancy outwith marriage was seldom talked about, and often covered up. Later, it emerged, there had been some chat that Ian’s parents did not want the couple to wed as they needed their son’s wages. Certainly, nobody talked to Elspeth as their baby grew within her.

She was instead ushered away that night with a suitcase she had never seen before, to a place she had never been before.

"The transition of CCIs to FBC helps promote the NGO sector. There are some great ideas coming from the workshop which will strengthen family services access"

Vikas Sawant, UNICEF

On Thursday 27 February 2020, a unique event took place in Pune: an immersive simulation lab that allowed child protection allies in Maharashtra a hands-on look at transitioning from a system relying on child care institutions (CCIs; orphanages) to a system based on a range of family-based care (FBC) and family strengthening services. This was the first pilot of this conference model in South Asia and our report below shows it to have been a huge success!

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Snehalaya's credibility allowed us to approach the Maharashtra Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MSCPCR) and secure Chair, Pravin Ghuge’s support. Another important party in this venture was Children’s Emergency Relief International (CERI)’s Global Director of Advocacy, Ian Forber-Pratt, who is one of the people involved in drafting the guidelines for FBC at the national and state level. Mr Forber-Pratt has been providing Snehalaya with guidance on the move towards family-based care over the preceding 18 months.

At a time when most Irish people chose to ignore the thousands of girls and women locked up in Magdalene Laundries, one Galway family went to extraordinary lengths to break 15 young women free from one such ‘prison’.

It was a feat that could have come straight from a heist movie involving an insider, a getaway van and a heroic family in the west of Ireland in the early 1960s.

A new two-part RTÉ series, Ireland’s Dirty Laundry, details the desperate escape attempts by young girls incarcerated in the laundries, which often ended up heartbreakingly in failure, with gardaí returning them to the religious orders.

Along with new identities, the documentary reveals that female inmates, some just young girls, were assigned a number prefixed by the letter PEN, which stood for penitent, meaning someone who is repenting.

Labelled the “Maggies”, the women were sent to the laundries where they worked for nothing, some for their entire life, simply for being unmarried mothers or regarded as morally wayward or for transgressions such as going to the cinema twice in a week.

HANCOCK COUNTY, In. (WXIX) - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is personal for a Tri-State family in the final stages of adopting two orphans from Ukraine.

The Hansome family is already one strong with a Ukrainian-born son, 15-year-old Andrey whom they adopted in 2020. Now Joe and NaTosha Hansome are trying to adopt brother orphans Misha, 16, and Andrii, 17.

The brothers were best friends with Andrey in Ukraine before Andrey moved stateside.

But now the adoption process is in limbo.

“If you can just imagine what it’s like to have your kids in another country when a war is going on. It’s really difficult, and then not knowing if they will ever get to be with us again,” said NaTosha.