In their article Put an end to adoption (15/2), Pien Bos and Will van Sebille call on the temporary stop of intercountry adoption of children to be converted into a permanent one. Based on research among distance parents (usually mothers), legally correct adoptions should also stop, they argued. By signing a legal document, a mother does not become the ex-mother.

I was shocked by this, because drawing a definitive line under adoption has a significant impact. For example, for gay and straight couples who cannot have children and who really want to. The temporary stop on adoption is understandable in order to reconsider: how can we ensure that adoption is always done carefully in the future? Of course, taking into account the mother and the child itself.

I therefore think that adoption should be possible again in the future, but only from so-called safe countries, I am thinking of the OECD countries. The OECD now has 38 countries that subscribe to the principles of the market economy, the rule of law and (not unimportant in this regard) respect for human rights. In this way we can hopefully meet the justified concerns and the fervent wish for an adopted child.

Eddie Altenburg-Collin

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https://www.unicef.org/eca/media/19756/file/UNICEF-DataCare%20Policy%20Brief.pdf

Getting married, becoming a mother, leading a happy existence and then suddenly discovering, thanks to social media, that "I am not the person I thought I was for 40 years". It is the story of Enrica Locatelli, a young woman who lives in Bergamo whose life "was turned upside down a couple of months ago, when I learned that she was kidnapped in Paraguay a few months after her birth to be sold to an Italian couple".

I involved

Those who "I had always thought of as my real parents had actually gotten me by paying money." But to whom? An alleged "illegal child abduction" which, according to the complaint presented by the 40-year-old at the Prosecutor's Office in Bergamo, involves a Veronese missionary priest, Don Attilio Cordioli. The latter, who is originally from Mozzecane and belongs to the Redemptorists , denies any suspicion, claiming that it is "only lies", "false accusations made by the devil". This is how the Veronese priest reached the diocesan sanctuary of the Madonna del Perpetuo Soccorso dei Redemptoristi di Bussolengo on the microphones of the show Le Iene su Italia 1 :unattainable as he has already returned to Paraguay, he often travels commuting between South America and Verona . His cell phone? Don Cordioli does not have a cell phone, he never had one ».

New details

Those who, on the other hand, did not shy away from adding new details to her incredible story is Enrica flanked by her husband Fabio : theirs, they say, until recently was a family where "every piece seemed to be in the right place", where "everything ran for the better until, from one day to the next - Enrica recalls - I knew I was actually another person ». She thus discovering that "I was born from another family that I have now finally met, that I have ten brothers that I didn't even know existed". For 40 years, Enrica has in fact believed "erroneously" to "be the daughter of Rosa Bardelle , a housewife originally from Cavarzere nel Veneziano, and of the industrialist Piero Locatelli from Bergamo. I'mboth passed away before I learned that in reality they weren't the ones who brought me into the world. " The turning point dates back to two months ago when Enrica learned that “immediately after her birth, I was stolen from my real parents who had brought me into the world in Pilar, Paraguay. My twin brother has suffered the same fate and I take the opportunity - it is Enrica's appeal - to invite anyone who knows something, to help me find him or in any case to hear from him. They told us that he too could have been kidnapped like me and then sold to another Italian couple ».

Arrested include the mother and a couple from Madurai

Virudhunagar District Police have arrested nine persons in connection with illegal sale of a one-year-old baby girl on Thursday.

The police said besides the baby’s mother, grandfather and a childless couple from Madurai who adopted it, two of their relatives and three persons offering matrimonial service — Karthik, Maheswari and Nandakumar, all from Erode district — were arrested.

The police said the baby’s mother lost her husband sometime back. As she was raising the baby with her family’s support, her family members started looking for an alliance for her second marriage.

“It was then that Karthik, who was approached for the alliance, reportedly told the woman’s father that it would be difficult to find an alliance for a woman with a child. He advised them to sell the baby,” a police officer said.

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine population was expected to reach

109,991,095 at the end of 2021. Among these were children, who were

abandoned and still looking for their forever families.

According to data from the Philippines Orphanage Foundation, out of the

over 109 million population in the country, there were at least 2 million

Dear PAO,

I am 16 years old, and I just discovered that I have a brother who is an illegitimate child of my father. He is almost the same age as me. His mother recently died, and now my father wants to make up for the years he wasn't able to be a father to his illegitimate child. My father is convincing my mother to jointly adopt his illegitimate child to give him a chance of having a whole family. However, this is a lot to process. I cannot believe that after all these years of being an only legitimate child, I have a brother. This may sound selfish but if my parents proceed with the adoption, do I have any right to say no?

Emmanuel

Dear Emmanuel,

With regard to your concern, Section 23 of Republic Act (RA) 11642 or the "Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act" provides:

The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that a man can fight the adoption of his children, even though he killed their mother.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio father can fight the adoption of the children whose mother he killed, after a divided state Supreme Court said there was a good reason he hadn't been in touch with them since the slaying: He was following a judge's order not to contact them.

Under Ohio law, parental consent is not required for adoptions if proof exists that a parent had little or no contact with the child for at least one year before the filing of adoption papers.

In the current case, the father had previously lost his attempts to block the adoption of his daughters by the girls’ maternal grandparents, who took custody of the children after their mother was killed. An appeals court agreed the father couldn’t use his imprisonment to justify his failure to contact the children, since his actions led to the prison sentence.

Then in 2019, the state Supreme Court ruled in a different case that a woman couldn't stop the father of their child, who was not paying child support, from objecting to the child's adoption by her new husband. The reason: The father was following a court order that eliminated his responsibility for support payments, an order requested by the mother.

Eurochild launches second phase of its DataCare project in four countries – France, Ireland, Portugal and Romania

With the beginning of 2022, so too begins a new chapter in Eurochild’s DataCare project, with continued funding and support from UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO). Together, we are working to influence how Member States and the EU will monitor the new European Child Guarantee - utilising our final findings from the project.

Despite differing national definitions and categorisations of alternative care across the region, enough data are being published at national level that can be used at an aggregate level to establish comparable indicators on children in residential care and three other relevant and interlinked indicators:

The proportion of children placed in residential care compared to those placed in formal family-based care provides a useful indicator to monitor progress towards a shared goal: to ensure that children in alternative care receive high quality, inclusive, family and community-based care.

If implemented across the EU, this indicator can shed light on the effectiveness of the deinstitutionalisation reforms that are taking place in many European countries, including under the European Child Guarantee.

“We must stress that under the law, the right to adopt a child is granted to individuals, and not to couples,” Defensor, vice chairperson of the House Committee on Welfare of Children, said in a statement over the weekend.

“Our adoption law does not discriminate against LGBT individuals who may wish to adopt children who are legally available for adoption,” stressed Defensor, who is running for Quezon City mayor in the upcoming May 9, 2022 polls.

The solon made the clarification to counter the widespread public misperception that only a heterosexual couple or husband and wife may adopt a child. By his explanation, people in a same-sex relationship also have a right to do the same.

“We want to encourage the adoption of abandoned and neglected children so that they may enjoy the living conditions conducive to their full development,” Defensor said.

“We would also prefer domestic over foreign adoption to preserve the child’s identity and culture here at home,” he added.

Thailand is revising surrogacy laws to allow foreigners to hire Thai surrogate mothers without requiring one partner to be Thai. Under the proposed changes, foreigners will also be allowed to bring the eggs and sperm out of Thailand for surrogacy overseas.

Revisions to the law are aimed at promoting Thailand as a medical hub, gaining more income for the country. The authorities share that the revision will take around two months to consider and the revisions will need to be adjusted before submitting to the Cabinet.

Under the present rules and conditions, surrogacy in Thailand is allowed only for Thai couples or foreigners who have a Thai partner. Those in Thailand also cannot send their frozen eggs or sperm overseas. Thailand is losing opportunities over these two restrictions, according to the Director-General of the Department of Health Service Support, Thares Krassanai-Rawiwong.

If the law is revised, there will be a system for Thai women interested in being a surrogate to register to make sure that the children will not be trafficked. During the nine months of pregnancy and after delivery, hospitals will have a tracking system to check on the mother and baby.

There have also been a number of cases in Thailand related to illegal surrogacy. Back in May 2020, a Thai doctor faced charges for human trafficking and involvement in an illegal ring using Thai women to carry babies for people in China.