.

NEW DELHI: The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act 2015 to give district

magistrates the power to issue adoption orders and monitor functioning of various agencies responsible for implementation of

the Act.

The divisional commissioner will have the power to decide appeals with regard to adoption cases. The government says it will

enable “speedy disposal of adoption cases and enhance accountability”. Currently adoption orders are issued by the district

The Union Cabinet today approved landmark amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, to allow district magistrates and additional district magistrates to pass adoption orders ending the existing challenge of legal hurdles to adoptions.

Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani flagged the amendments which seek to make childcare institutions and child welfare committee members and chiefs accountable, besides ensuring that district magistrates have the power to monitor child shelter homes to ensure child safety.

At present, childcare institutions need to state their intent to get permission from state governments to set up homes. But after new amendments, the permission would be subject to reports submitted by district magistrates who will do antecedent checks. Also, eligibility will be fixed for CWC members.

The most important amendment relates to the DM and ADM being allowed to issue adoption orders to fast track the process.

Former CEO of the Central Adoption Resource Agency Lt Col Deepak Kumar, who was involved in drafting the amendments, said: “At present, the family court, district court or a city civil court is competent to pass the adoption order under Section 61 of the Act. However, large scale pendency in the court is observed despite the Act mandating decision within two months. This causes duress to adoptive parents and the child.”

After decades of campaigning from advocates, and multiple recommendations from the Law Commission, UNICEF and the Human Rights Commission, NZ’s adoption act is finally going to be repealed. But will it address the rights and needs of those whose lives it has affected – and are we at risk of repeating the same mistakes?

The government has this week told adoption reform campaigners it intends to overhaul the 1955 Adoption Act - a long awaited action over a law widely accepted to be outdated and unfit for purpose.

The law was created when unwed mothers were seen as shameful - their newborn babies often forcibly removed and placed with strangers, mostly married P?keh? couples.

In a letter sent this week to adoption law reform advocate and author Barbara Sumner, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi says the Government will take up the issue this parliamentary term.

It had already indicated the prospect of adoption law reform in its release of Briefings to Incoming Ministers (BIM) late last year, but this has only now been confirmed.

The government has failed to combat adoption abuses, but the same government can also organize safe adoption, argues René Hoksbergen.

After the publication of the report of the Joustra committee, there was immediately a lot of attention in the media and also in the Volkskrant for international adoption. It was to be expected that adoptive parents and some adoptees would resist an adoption stop.

The committee's recommendations: acknowledge that the government has failed to combat adoption abuses and suspend all adoptions for the time being, are after all painful for those involved. Serious abuses in intercountry adoption had been known for decades . Only the lawsuits of a few adult adoptees forced the government to set up the Joustra commission of inquiry.

Of course, immediate reactions followed that an adoption stop would be at the expense of foreign children . After all, they are now living well with their adoptive parents. Parents who indeed often devote themselves with love and attention to these children in need. And that's how intercountry adoption started around 1970, with idealism and the involvement of possible adoptive parents. They themselves often already had children. The taboo on adoption had virtually disappeared in the meantime. By the way, the world became more and more open due to the increasing air traffic and the rise of television . Poverty and misery entered the living room almost every day through the CRT . The need for aid to the Third World was widely accepted.

Abuses

New Delhi: The Ministry of Women

and Child Development (MWCD) has

requested the foreign ministry to have

dedicated nodal oicers in Indian

embassies for monitoring adoption

The woman's husband and in-laws allegedly harassed her and asked her to give her son to her husband's sister for adoption, an official said.

Thane: Police have registered an FIR against a man and five other members of his family for allegedly harassing his wife after she refused to agree for adoption of her five-year-old son by a relative in Maharashtra, an official said on Wednesday.

The woman, 26, got married in 2015 and gave birth to a boy the next year.

However, her husband and in-laws, residents of Bhiwandi town in Thane, allegedly harassed her and asked her to give her son to her husband's sister for adoption, the official from Nizampura police station said.

When the woman refused to part with her son, her husband threatened to divorce her, the official said quoting the complaint filed by the woman on Monday.

Half of all intercountry adoptees who are now adults have ever searched for information on their background. Slightly under one-fifth are planning to do so in the future. A small number have been able to find all the information they were looking for. Adoptees from China are less likely to search for birth information than those from other birth countries. The search was also less successful in the case of adoptees from China and from Bangladesh. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports this on the basis of new research.

Over the first six months of last year, CBS surveyed the living situation, well-being and search behaviour of adults in the Netherlands who were adopted from other countries as a child. This survey was commissioned by the Committee Investigating Intercountry Adoption. Altogether 3.5 thousand people participated in the survey who were adopted from a foreign country between 1970 and 1998. The report elaborates on the experiences of adoptees from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, China, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and South Korea. More information on the survey is provided in the final paragraph below.

Fewer searches in China

Fifty-one percent of the adult adoptees have searched for information on their background, while 18 percent intend to search for this information in the future. The number of searches is varied, depending on the country of birth. Adoptees born in China are least likely to search for information (26 percent). The share is roughly 50 percent among other adoption countries.

The most common objectives for people to set out searching for information by themselves are: finding out more about their roots (82 percent), their birth relatives (69 percent), a resemblance in appearance and character (61 percent), and finding out whether there are any siblings (56 percent).

Nicole (44) and Babette (29) had one more meeting to go with the Child Care and Protection Board before they could possibly receive approval for an adoption. Due to the adoption ban, they are now in uncertainty.

“There is never a guarantee that it will go ahead, but that it will not happen for this reason, we never expected,” said Babette.

The women do not want their last name to be mentioned for privacy reasons.

ADOPTION STOP

After a damning report by the Joustra Committee on intercountry adoption in the Netherlands, Minister Dekker suspended all intercountry adoptions last week. The committee speaks of 'structurally serious abuses ' in the Dutch adoption system. According to the report, the system is 'susceptible to fraud'.

This Belgo-Congolese from Namur is suspected of fraud in the adoption of Congolese children.

The Dinant council chamber referred Julienne Mpemba to the criminal court on Tuesday, Eric Van der Sypt, spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office, said Wednesday, confirming information from several media. This Belgo-Congolese is suspected of fraud in the adoption of Congolese children.

In this case, the prosecution suspects that five adoptions of Congolese children by Belgian couples were carried out fraudulently. Some had been taken from their families. Julienne Mpemba is suspected of human trafficking, forgery and forgery. She has in the past suggested that she delivered thirty to forty orphans to adoptive parents in Belgium and the United States. Seven officials from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation were also suspected of being involved in this case. Searches were carried out at the FWB. They were accused of having turned a blind eye to fraudulent manipulation of dates of birth and photos of children. However, these were not referred by the Dinant council chamber to the criminal court.

.