I need no apology for being rescued with love, says ex-BBC boss ROGER MOSEY as politicians are pressured to say sorry to thousands of adopted children taken from their biological parents

I have always known that I was adopted. My parents — and I think of them as my real parents, although they were the adopters — told me the basic facts when I was still a toddler.

It was an approach often recommended as textbook. They explained there had been a lady who had a baby but sadly wasn't able to look after it; and a couple who had wanted a baby but couldn't have one.

So it was agreed the infant would go live with the couple; and he made that journey aged just six weeks on an icy February day in 1958. And that baby was me.

While I was growing up in Bradford in Yorkshire, I found this explanation perfectly satisfactory — and being adopted didn't bother me.

OfOfAnders-Peter Mathiasen

A Danish doctor-married couple discovered six years ago how official medical statements were being falsified when the humanitarian organization Terre des Hommes was mediating adopted children from Romania to Denmark.

The couple then reported the case to the Danish authorities. Nevertheless, several years passed before the Ministry of Justice, under current Minister of Justice Frank Jensen, intervened and stopped Terre des Hommes.

The case started for the married couple Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther, Århus, when they received a severely disabled girl in 1995. The child was two and a half years old and came from the notorious Romanian orphanage Babadag in the city of Tulcea.

Prayed especially for a healthy child
- We were getting old and had therefore stipulated that we did not want a disabled child, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen, who is now 56.

- At that time we had heard a little about the fact that many disabled children were coming up from Romania. That's why we specifically asked about it when we were at Als and spoke to Anne Botfeldt, the person responsible for Terre des Hommes' adoption department.

Anne Botfeldt promised the parents that they had nothing to be afraid of:

- No, there was no danger and no problems. On the contrary, we had been very lucky, because the orphanage Babadag was the best in all of Romania.

Before the adoption went through, medical reports were issued on the child. They determined that the little girl was healthy, of normal development and could both talk and walk.

So retarded girl in Kastrup
Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther were not down to pick up their daughter themselves. She was brought to Denmark by a young Danish man who was a volunteer for Terres des Hommes in Romania.

Already at Kastrup Airport, the couple could see that their child was ill.

- We are both doctors, and knew straight away that it was crazy. The girl was retarded and could do nothing. But of course we accepted her.

Immediately afterwards, the couple complained to the Directorate of Civil Rights under the Ministry of Justice.

- We told them what had happened and asked who actually controls the organizations that mediate the children.

Was threatened with Interpol
The couple's complaint did not cause the Directorate of Civil Justice to sound the alarm, but triggered a lengthy exchange of letters between the Directorate and Terre des Hommes.

But the complaint caused Terre des Homme's then chairman of the board, Jessie Rosenmeier, to write and scold the couple several times:

- We called her 'the lady in the hat'. She threatened to report us to nothing less than Interpol because we wouldn't report every six months and tell how the child was doing.

- Our answer was that when Terre des Hommes could falsify medical documents, they could also write such a report themselves, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

Traffic continued
Even though the authorities were now involved in the case, Terre des Hommes, Anne Botfeldt and Jessie Rosenmeier continued to send sick adopted children to Denmark. And the traffic continued with false medical certificates that officially made the children healthy.

The Civil Rights Directorate and the judicial authorities' reaction did not come until three years later.

Namely, a late summer day in 1998, when Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther talked about their experiences in a DR broadcast made by the now deceased TV documentarian Steen Baadsgaard.

A few days after the case was raised on television, the Ministry of Justice decided to conduct a retrospective study of around 200 Romanian adoption cases. Especially by Terre des Hommes and the organization's contact person in Romania.

But Terre des Hommes itself was allowed to continue its activities.

Right up until January 1999, when the organization was once again exposed as having sent a disabled child to an unsuspecting family.

Is eight years old and wears diapers
- The cases were hushed up, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

- What the motives have been remains uncertain. But there is a part that must have been sitting inside with some knowledge.

- Today we know that at least one in eight 'healthy' children who came to Denmark with Terre des Hommes had severe injuries and will be dependent on institutions for the rest of their lives.

- We ourselves love our own daughter, who is now eight years old, very much. She is loving, talks like a waterfall, and we have many happy moments together. But she is developed as a three-year-old, wears diapers and will never be able to fend for herself.

- And it has given us both a completely different life than we had imagined.

C(2021) 5580 final addressed to Ms Roelie Post

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'NOT 100% SURE' Angelina Jolie’s pal claims ‘orphan’ son Maddox’s biological parents ‘may not have both been dead’ before 2002 adoption

ANGELINA Jolie’s pal claimed her “orphan” son Maddox’s biological parents “may not have been dead” before his 2002 adoption.

Sarath Mounh, a former aid worker that helped the actress adopt her oldest son, said he isn’t “100% sure” if Maddox’s parents were alive at the time of his adoption.

Angelina's pal said claimed 'orphan' son Maddox’s biological parents 'may not have been dead' before his adoption

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RANCHI: The officers and active service personnel of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) will adopt children who have lost their parents due to Covid-19.

Earlier this month, IG Railway Board (HQ) Sumati Shandilya wrote to the general managers of all railway zones and intimated about a new adoption programme under code name “Reach Out, Secure and Rehabilitate”. The programme is aimed at preventing the orphaned and vulnerable children from being drawn into the cauldron of human trafficking, Shandilya wrote.

Accordingly, the RPF officials at Ranchi railway division of the South Eastern Railways are gearing up for the programme. Under the programme, each officer or serving personnel will be assigned to look after one child and oversee their upkeep, academics and other requirements.

Speaking to TOI, RPF’s commandant of Ranchi railway division Prashant Yadav said: “We will be on the lookout for such children. As and when they are found, they will be brought and given shelter in local shelter homes through local NGOs. They will be lodged by the NGOs and their studies and other expenses will be taken care of by the Indian Railways.”

One officer or serving RPF personnel will be assigned to a child. The personnel will be in constant touch with the child, pay a weekly visit and even offer mental support and provide counselling. Special training module is being drafted for the RPF personnel.

Pakhi Kumari was 2 years old and abandoned by her parents. She was raised at the Specialised Adoption Institute in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, as per The New Indian Express.

A childless couple from West Bengal, Reena and Sudipta Pal, adopted her on June 10.

Then a childless couple from USA went to Madhubani to adopt a 2-year-old abandoned girl, Kavya.

They did so in front of a magistrate.

The trend that is visible is that more girls are being preferred over boys.

In many regions of Uganda, Kugatta means ‘bringing together’. If you are new to this website and our work, a big part of what we do is to help bring together families that have been separated by intercountry adoption. One of the main reasons I started this organization was because of my own experience with intercountry adoption. Our family adopted from Uganda only to realize a year and a half later that “our” daughter had been unlawfully separated from her loving family in order to fulfil our application to adopt. That experience propelled me to dig deeper and ensure this wasn’t happening to other Ugandan families. Those investigations and research proved that our experience was in fact the norm and not the exception. Kugatta has met one Ugandan family after another, all with similar stories. Families who were seeking temporary help are only offered help through intercountry adoption. These families do not fully understanding adoption to mean anything more than “help” or “sponsorship” and they unknowingly signed away their parental rights.

A statistic that really stands out for me is that 4 out of 5 children in orphanages in countries like Uganda HAVE FAMILIES. Usually the first question I get after sharing that statistic is, “Why are families placing their children in orphanages if they want to parent them?” Well, in countries like Uganda where the government infrastructure is developing and there is little to no welfare system in place, families often look to local orphanages when they have fallen on hard times. Just like we in America look to social services for help when we are going through difficult times, orphanages promise to provide three meals a day, access to education, medical treatments, and to amenities like electricity and programs to receive school supplies and other such much needed items. The most influential reason for placing a child in an orphanage is the promise of a good education. Education in Uganda is very costly, and there is no free primary education. Just like most parents, we all want the best education for our children. So in essence most of these parents are doing what they believe is best for their children. Also, parents are promised access to their children and that they can come home at any time.

Mamma H with her eldest daughter

Meet Mama H (pictured above with her eldest daughter). This Ugandan mother reached out to Kugatta to help her find her son who was adopted to America. While in most cases when we search for children and find the adoptive families they are very open and receptive to the injustices that have incurred, some aren’t. In fact, in some instances they want nothing to do with any of it. As overwhelming and tragic as that is, Kugatta honours their decision, even when we don’t agree. When this happens we continue to work with and empower the vulnerable family member who was left behind. We provide a platform for their experiences to be heard and shared so we can all learn and grow from their experience and hopefully prevent things like this from ever happening again.

Here is an interview Gladys did with with Ugandan mother whom we will refer to as Mama H. She unknowingly signed away her parental rights. She is sharing her experience for two reasons: to ensure others will learn from her experience and loss; so hopefully her son will one day see and hear her story and know he was loved and searched for, from the moment he left her side.

Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has argued in an appeal against a landmark court ruling that she does not have a duty of care to protect Australian children from climate harm caused by the potential expansion of a coal mine.

The minister’s appeal also says the primary judge, Justice Mordecai Bromberg, erred in his findings about global temperature rise. During the Federal Court case, the scientific evidence on temperature rise was not contested by the government.

A partially successful class action was brought by eight Australian teenagers against the Environment Minister to challenge a proposal by Whitehaven Coal to extend its Vickery coal mine, near Boggabri in NSW.

The teenagers argued the mine expansion would endanger their future because climate hazards would cause them injury, ill health and economic losses, and in his judgment Justice Bromberg agreed. He said 1 million Australian children would be hospitalised at least once in their life for heat stress and the Great Barrier Reef would die along with the east coast’s eucalyptus forests should climate change not be halted.

While the court dismissed the teenagers’ application in May to prevent the minister approving the coal mine extension, it found Ms Ley owed a duty of care to Australia’s young people.

A BENTHAM woman who was forced by her parents to give her newborn baby boy up for adoption, has found him 66 years later, happy and well and living in Australia.

Issy Carr, 86, of Lowther Hill Farm, said her tale was one of heartache which has turned into a miracle thanks to her niece Angela Bowskill and relative Janet Staveley.

Issy said she was only 20 and very naive when she found out she was pregnant, but her parents, Margaret and Roy Staveley forced her to give the baby away.

“I had him at Homesteads Nursing Home, in Melling, on June 13, 1955. I loved him straight away and called him George, but Nurse Eccles, a lovely nurse, said she had been told I was not to see or hold him. He was rushed away and I never saw him again.

“My mother told me I would soon forget about him but I never did and tried many times to find out where he had gone but failed. I never forgave my parents, whatever their reason was,” she said.

A couple of days ago, a childless couple from the US reached Madhubani and adopted a 2-year-old abandoned girl, Kavya, in the presence of the district magistrate.

PATNA: Abandoned by her parents, two-year-old Pakhi Kumari was brought up at the Specialised Adoption Institute in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar.

She was adopted by a childless couple from West Bengal, Reena and Sudipta Pal, on June 10. A couple of days ago, a childless couple from the US reached Madhubani and adopted a 2-year-old abandoned girl, Kavya, in the presence of the district magistrate.

These adoptions show a trend: more and more childless couples prefer a girl child from the state’s various Specialized Adoption Agencies (SSAs), run by the Social Welfare Department or NGOs.

The adoption of male children, abandoned by their biological parents in Bihar, has also increased in recent years. Recently, a couple arrived from Italy and adopted a male child from Muzaffarpur-based SAA.