THE HAGUE - Sebastian Kruis, leader of the PVV party in The Hague in daily life, was at Schiphol a month ago, not knowing what the following weeks in Colombia would bring him. He went on a trip to the South American country to look for his biological family. And with success, less than two weeks later he found his biological mother in a shelter for the homeless elderly in Medellín. "I went from no information at all about my mother to a meeting with her in a matter of days."

The 32-year-old party leader was adopted at a young age by a couple from the Netherlands. 'When I was nine months old, I was adopted and came to the Netherlands. I grew up there in Zoetermeer and when I was eighteen I moved to The Hague, the most beautiful city in the Netherlands', Kruis begins in the radio program Menno in de Middag. 'I am now 32 years old and in all this time I really didn't feel the need to know more about my biological family and look for them.'

Until more than a year ago a report was published about abuses in international adoptions and the role of the Dutch government in this. 'There have been stories for some time that things have gone wrong with adoptions. But that research showed that things often did not go well with adoptions and that the government played a reprehensible role in this,' explains the PVV member. 'That made me, like many other adopted children, start to doubt whether my adoption file is correct and I really wanted to find out', says the politician.

Tour of Colombian population register and police

So Kruis put his money where his mouth is and he was standing at Schiphol on 22 April with a suitcase and ticket to Medellín in his hand. 'I mainly went to Colombia with the idea to see if I could get more information about my adoption file. I only had a name and a place of birth', he says.

Nine cases in six months; focussed communication needed from govt to curb the practice, say experts

HYDERABAD: The alleged case of illegal adoption by cine actor Karate Kalyani has exposed the deep-rooted issue of illegal adoption. The issue, in fact, is neither new nor uncommon for Telangana as the State has seen nine such cases in the last six months. However, on the positive side, the Women Development and Child Welfare Department rescued all the nine children who had been adopted illegally during this period and rehabilitated them at Shishu Vihar, which is one of the nodal child care institutes run by the State government.

All the nine children, who were rescued from different parts of the State, are under the age of five. However, it may be mentioned here that there are other such government centres in different districts so the actual number of children rescued after illegal adoption may be higher. In 2020, the State also saw a total of 127 legal adoptions both within the country and from abroad.

Detrimental to children

Meanwhile, experts stressed the need for a focussed communication from the government to convey that adoptions done out of sympathy hold no legal sanctity and are, in fact, detrimental to the adopted children.

To identify more than 66,000 children whose adoptions failed, USA TODAY scoured a massive database designed to track every child in America who passes through foster care.

The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, started in 1993, contains data that states submit twice a year. USA TODAY entered a data-sharing agreement promising to ensure the security and confidentiality of the data. Reporters reviewed the records of 3.4 million children who spent time in foster care from 2008 to 2020.

A key feature of the AFCARS database is the clues it holds to a child's past.

When child welfare workers remove kids from home and place them in foster care, states are supposed to note whether they were previously adopted. That offers a potential window to see children whose adoptions failed.

But USA TODAY found errors or blank spots where this information should be recorded. The adoption flag was consistently missing or marked as “unable to determine” in the records of more than 400,000 kids served by the child welfare system from 2008 to 2020. Reporters found that Washington listed some children as previously adopted when they were not.

Andhra Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairman Kesali Apparao said on Friday that the commission would take stern action against those found guilty of adopting children illegally.

“Couples who are childless can approach the Sishu Grihas to adopt children in a legal manner,” Mr. Apparao said while visiting the Sishu Griha in Vizianagaram, where he distributed clothes to the staff and nutritious food to children.

Speaking to reporters, he said actor Karate Kalyani’s reported illegal adoption case which was registered in Hyderabad was referred to the commission recently as the actor hails from Viziana

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CLEVELAND, Ohio— A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the former owner of a now-defunct Strongsville adoption agency to three months in prison for her lying to U.S. and Polish authorities about the adoption of a 5-year-old girl from Poland, whose caregiver later violently raped her.

Margaret Cole, the owner of European Adoption Consultants, will also spend a year on house arrest after she serves her prison term and must pay a $7,500 fine.

U.S. District Judge James Gwin sentenced Cole to far less than the two years in prison and a $90,000 fine sought by prosecutors. Cole’s defense attorneys argued for probation. Gwin also allowed Cole to self-report to prison.

“I’m really sorry for what happened, but I worked for 24 years to help 8,000 families,” Cole said. “The children were the joy of my life.”

Gwin said he factored in the 74-year-old’s age and health issues before handing down his sentence.

Do you want to learn more how civil society organisations can deliver a change for the most vulnerable children? Eurochild is organising a workshop highlighting the experiences of our Greek and Turkish members and how cultural differences and religion shape child protection.

The online event takes place on ZOOM on 1 June 2022 14h-15h30.

Join Eurochild as we highlight country-level practices from Greece and Turkey that support the transition from institutional to family- and community-based care. We will also hear from EU representatives on what opportunities lie ahead for child protection reforms in the EU and pre-accession countries - the European Child Guarantee and Enlargement Package in particular. We will discuss how EU policies & funding can further support these civil society efforts.

Eurochild members Roots Research Centre Greece and Hayat Sende Youth Association Turkey will share their lessons learned and good practices on what worked best for preparation of professionals and foster carers as well as how to increase an interest among the public to become a foster parent. They will also explain how cultural differences and religion shape child protection systems.

In cooperation with the Martin James Foundation, Eurochild provides capacity building and targeted technical assistance to convert the good practices and innovations of our members into systemic change. Read about our new push to support our members and strengthen family-based care.

With abortion rights on the verge of collapse, some conservatives have acknowledged that pregnant people will need more support.

For some conservative politicians and anti-abortion advocates, that means increasing services – and one key solution is increasing adoption.

When Justice Samuel Alito wrote the leaked draft of his opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, he cited the conservative argument that someone who places a newborn for adoption today will likely find the baby a good home because of high demand.

In a footnote, he cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from 2008 describing the domestic supply of infants available for adoption as “virtually nonexistent.”

That got the attention of writer and adoptee Aimee Christian. She wrote an essay for NBC News saying that adoption is no solution if Roe falls.

Minister for Legal Protection Franc Weerwind wants to resume intercountry adoptions and set up a 'new' adoption system with stricter conditions. The best interests of the child must come first [BD April 8; 'Adoption from abroad will now go through the state'].

Opinions differ on what this importance means. "Stop," says one. "Continue," says the other. The minister wants to accommodate both groups. The result, however well-intentioned, is a dragon of compromise that does not resolve structural abuses. It should not be about the supporters and opponents of adoptions from abroad. It is about protecting vulnerable children against the loss of their identity and preventing abuses.

irreversible

One child suffering from intercountry adoption is one too many. The same goes for their birth parents. Intercountry adoption is very drastic for children. They are separated from their birth parents and country of birth. This is irreversible and has a major impact on the development of their identity. When they look for information about their adoption, their original family and origins, that information often proves impossible to retrieve. This causes anger, pain and sadness among many, now adults, intercountry adoptees and their birth parents.

The problem with this adoption is that the system entails structural abuses. An 'adoption market' has emerged, in which the demand for adopted children creates supply. Even the government has been involved in fraudulent adoptions in the past. The minister acknowledges that it is impossible to set up the system in such a way that abuses can be prevented. He wants to reduce the risks by merging the brokerage firms and placing them under stricter government authority. But we already know that this will actually have no effect. The Netherlands has no say whatsoever in the countries of origin. The country of origin itself determines whether a child can be offered for intercountry adoption.

Once a child is adopted from foster care, it’s as if they are reborn in the eyes of many child welfare agencies.

In required data reports to the federal government, these agencies remove evidence that would illuminate the child’s past journeys through the system. They take away the ability to trace details of a child’s round trip from foster care to adoption and back again when an adoption fails, or to examine what might have led to a better outcome.

The result, a USA TODAY investigation found: No one knows how well each state is fulfilling its mission of finding children their forever homes.

At stake are the fates of more than 50,000 children adopted out of foster care every year. The federal government funnels about $3 billion a year to families who adopt from foster care, now the leading type of adoption in most states, according to data compiled by USA TODAY.

Cortney Jones, a child welfare advocate who spent 10 years in foster care and lived through a broken adoption, said following the paths of foster children into adoptions could boost the odds that adoptions succeed.

There was no safety net for Anthony Thornton when he walked out of his adoptive home six weeks before his high school graduation.

The Texas teen was on his own, left with nothing but two trash bags full of clothes.

Thornton told USA TODAY he had always been uneasy about being adopted. His siblings had been adopted out of foster care years earlier, but he resisted. Agreeing to it felt like a betrayal of his biological mother.

“There’s still relationships,” he said. “There’s still love and caring and kindness. And, you know, amid that toxicity and tumultuous living, it’s still your family.”

But at 14, Thornton said he felt he had a decision to make: agree to be adopted by his foster parents or run the risk of having to move elsewhere.