Ireland's mother and baby homes inquiry has "become aware of backup tapes" after it was criticised for deleting audio recordings of witness evidence.

It is not yet known if the backup tapes contain the deleted personal accounts given by former residents of the homes, but their content is to be examined.

Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman revealed the discovery on Friday.

He stressed he did not want to raise expectations unduly but very much hoped they contain the deleted testimonies.

The recordings were made when 549 people who had "lived experience" of mother and baby homes agreed to give evidence to an independent inquiry into the institutions.

VIDEOBREDA - She has been adopted, Rupika Kop from Breda. Thirty years ago she came to our country from Sri Lanka as a baby. She is incredibly happy with that, she says. Because her parents here saved her life.

Adopting children from abroad? That is no longer allowed. The cabinet's ban comes after a damning report by the Joustra Committee that investigated abuses surrounding foreign adoptions (see box).

And yes, they are terrible, those adoption excesses , Rupika Kop does not deny that. “But by now suspending those adoptions, the cabinet is affecting precisely the children who need help. This measure is far too drastic. For some of those children it is a matter of life or death. I don't hear anyone about that. ''

The Breda resident should know. If she hadn't been adopted thirty years ago, she wouldn't have lived now. Because, she says, her Dutch parents - whom she sees as her only real parents - saved her life. “My neck was completely crooked as a result of a bad pregnancy. After my adoption, I received physiotherapy at home for two years. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have survived. Healthcare in Sri Lanka is not as good as that in the Netherlands. The doctor involved in my adoption sent another letter to my parents a few years later. He wrote that they saved my life. ”

Adoption papers

Sander Huisman, eligible for election for the ChristenUnie and known to some as the face of the AFCA Supportersclub, does not think the adoption stop is justified. He was himself adopted from Indonesia in 1979.

The reason for the adoption stop, which was instituted last week by Minister Dekker, is an investigation by

the Joustra Committee. He concluded that a lot had gone wrong with adoptions abroad between 1967 and

1997. For example, it concerned child theft and forgery of documents.

'It is of course very sad and regrettable if abuses arise around adoption or if adoption cases simply did not

PHOENIX -- A former Arizona politician who acknowledged running an illegal adoption scheme in three states, including Arkansas, that involved birth mothers from the Marshall Islands has asked an appeals court to throw out his six-year prison sentence.

Attorneys for Paul Petersen argue that a judge double-counted factors in the case that increased the severity of Petersen's punishment, such as concluding that he abused his position as an adoption attorney.

Petersen, a Republican who served as Maricopa County's assessor for six years and operated an adoption practice on the side, is contesting the first of three sentences he'll receive for arranging adoptions that are prohibited by an international compact.

A month ago, he started serving the sentence for a federal conviction in Arkansas for conspiring to smuggle humans. He is to be sentenced next month on convictions for fraud in Arizona and for human smuggling in Utah.

Investigators estimated that Petersen handled a minimum of 30 Marshallese adoptions a year in Northwest Arkansas. His October 2019 indictment left 19 birth mothers and the prospective adoptive parents in legal limbo in Washington County Circuit Court. Those cases were dealt with under sealed records.

PPDA accusé de viol: qui sont les femmes de sa vie? (photos)

CINÉ-TÉLÉ-REVUE

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Publié le vendredi 19 Février 2021 à 11h11

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VIJAYAWADA: The state Women Development and Child Welfare Committee has welcomed the amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 that the Union Cabinet approved Wednesday. Post the changes, the adoption process in the country is expected to speed up as district magistrates have been empowered to issue adoption orders and monitor implementation of the law.

“The involvement of civil and district courts in issuing the adoption orders delays the overall process. The courts, which are already burdened by the heavy load of civil cases, struggle to prioritise the adoption-related procedures,” Women Development and Child Welfare (WDCW) director Krithika Shukla told TNIE.

At present, there are 288 children waiting to be adopted in Andhra Pradesh. While Visakhapatnam tops the table in terms of children waiting for adoption (57), West Godavari (three) is at the bottom of the list. As many as 3,241 prospective adoptive parents have registered from the state, and some of them have been in the queue since 2016.

“Of the 288 children, many were rescued and some were abandoned by their biological parents. They are being taken care of at Shishu Kendras till their adoption,” said WDCW additional director Vijayalakshmi. “The prospective parents have completed all formalities and are willing to adopt children from across India,” she added.

Other proposed amendments to the law require stricter recruitment norms in the child welfare committees. “The Centre has asked for stricter norms for CWC recruitments. Andhra Pradesh has a robust appointment policy in place since 2017,” Shukla added.

DebateA touch of corruption when the State Treasury on behalf of the government investigates international adoption activities, write Maria Fredriksson and Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, themselves adopted from Korea.

On behalf of the Government, the State Treasury has written the report “The organization of international adoption activities (2021: 1). It is based, among other things, on interviews with representatives of relevant actors, such as intermediaries and associations for adoptees, as well as four unnamed adopted persons who have not been members of any interest group. They were contacted through the adoption organization Adoptionscentrum.

Questioned selection

The statements of the four adoptees are similar to those of the adoption agencies, which is why the State Treasury was asked who these four adoptees were. It turned out to be the Adoption Center's current chairman, vice chairman (also adoptive parent), an administrator for the association's activities "Travel and roots", and a former chairman. The choice of these four is justified by the fact that "it is important for the credibility and legitimacy of an investigation to shed light on different perceptions that exist within the discourse."

These adoptees cannot be considered to add any perspectives that have not already been presented via other interviewees other than that, unlike some of the other adoptees, they are clearly in favor of continued adoption mediation. Furthermore, it is serious that the State Treasury seems to consider that a legitimate fight for ethical adoptions and redress is about perceptions and perspectives and that they pose victims of illegal adoptions against opinions from four adoptees who are so strongly linked to Sweden's largest adoption agency.

Journalists Cindy Huijgen and Ruth van der Kolk were babies in the same Chinese children's home and were adopted by Dutch parents. They write to each other about how their fairytale image changed from adoption: "The story I was told is now unsettled."

Journalists Cindy Huijgen (29) and Ruth van der Kolk (27) were born in China and ended up in the same children's home as babies. In the 1990s they both ended up in the Netherlands via adoption. Years later, the women go in search of their roots separately. The romantic image that they would have been rescued from a hopeless situation does not last. An exchange of letters.

CINDY HUIJGEN: 'MY LIFE IN CHINA HAD NOT BEEN HOPELESS'

Cindy Huijgen was adopted from China in 1993 and grew up in a village close to Rotterdam. Since 2019 she has lived in Beijing, where she works as a correspondent for De Telegraaf, among others .

Hi Ruth,

The Joustra Committee rightly recommends the establishment of an expertise center for adoption. First of all it is appropriate to consider the grief that has been done. But with the suspension of international adoption, children are once again left out in the cold ...

On 8 February, the Joustra committee presented the results of its investigation to the Minister for Legal Protection (RD 5-2 and 8-2 ). The adoption community has been deeply shocked by those adoptions that saw abuses in the 1970s-90s. It is appropriate to recognize the grief that has been caused to those involved, adoptees and their biological family, but also their adoptive parents.

The Adoption Vereniging Gereformeerde Gezindte (AVGG) was founded in 1979, in the middle of the period studied. Also (former) members of our association (adoptees and adoptive parents) have to deal with abuse. This should never have happened! Pain and uncertainty are felt (again). We are also thinking of adoptive parents who entered a procedure in good faith that subsequently turned out to be based on an impure basis. We recognize that this can raise questions and doubts about God's providence, of which adoptees and their adoptive parents have previously been firmly convinced.

The Joustra Committee makes recommendations for the government to recognize that it has failed to combat adoption abuses. She also advises the establishment of an expertise center. These recommendations wholeheartedly endorse the GDPR. However, we do not support the recommendation to suspend intercountry adoption, which received the most attention. This recommendation causes attention to be diverted from the results of the original research assignment: what exactly happened in the 1970s and 1990s and what was the role of the Dutch government in this?

The period studied was followed by the Hague Adoption Convention (HAV), which entered into force for the Netherlands on 1 October 1998. This convention formulates all the conditions that international adoption must meet and can be tested. More than 66 'sending' and 'receiving' countries subscribe to this convention. The committee cites the principle of trust that is part of the HAV as a potential weakness in the system. The Netherlands no longer receives adopted children from those countries about which doubts have arisen.

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