Rani (39) from Maarheeze was just 2 years old when she was adopted from her native India by a Flemish couple. She soon had numerous problems with her adoptive parents. She recently learned that her biological mother is probably still alive and started a search. “My adoptive parents hid this from me for years.”

Rani was picked up in India by her adoptive father. “I had tapeworms in my intestines when I entered Belgium. In all likelihood, I was ill and that is why my biological mother had to give me up,” says Rani.

She initially had a good relationship with her adoptive father, which she never had with her adoptive mother. “We tried to bond by going on trips together, but she never felt like my 'real' mother,” says Rani. As a four-year-old she already realized that these were not her biological parents. “My skin color was different and I was forced to say mom and dad.”

"I was locked in a garden shed."

Soon her relationship with her father also changed and a tense atmosphere arose within the family. Rani says she grew up in a loveless family. “I was abused on several fronts: beaten, locked in a garden shed and several times I had to sleep in my father's bath or garage. Sometimes my father wouldn't talk to me for days. He said I couldn't do anything and was unmanageable,” says Rani.

Bengaluru’s child helpline 1098 has been receiving at least 10 calls a day over the past week,

mostly from parents offering to adopt children orphaned by the pandemic.

Fake messages calling for adoptive parents and giving out numbers are also doing the rounds.

Most calls are from childless couples who have already registered on the Central Adoption Resource

Authority (CARA) website.

NEW DELHI: The

has reached out to the ministry of health and family welfare in

the backdrop of reports regarding children orphaned due to

loss of parents to Covid-19 pandemic.

The has sought that a column may be added to

A Bulgarian couple is in custody in Germany on suspicion of involvement in a human trafficking ring that allegedly brought pregnant women to Greece, where the babies were born and then sold to traffickers.

The 58-year-old man and his 51-year-old wife are suspected of having recruited at least nine poor pregnant women from Bulgaria to go to Greece as part of the trafficking operation, according to authorities in Germany. They were detained last week in Neunkirchen, a town near Germany's border with France.

Bulgarian authorities had issued a European arrest warrant for the couple, who are now in custody awaiting extradition.

They were indicted in February along with their son for "participation in an organized crime group for trade in newborn babies on the territory of Greece," Bulgarian prosecutors said in a statement on May 5. Their son is already under arrest in Bulgaria.

The three were accused of recruiting pregnant women from across Bulgaria to travel to neighboring Greece to give birth and sell their newborn babies to intermediaries for the equivalent of between $3,000 and $4,300. Mothers usually received only a fraction of the amount, with the larger portion pocketed by the traffickers.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) -A Croatian court has ruled that same-sex partners can now adopt children, backing a gay couple in their five-year fight for the right to family life, the government said on Thursday.

Zagreb’s Administrative Court ruled on April 21 that same-sex couples should not face discrimination in state adoption, the Rainbow Families Association (RFA), an LGBT+ group, said on its website, alongside a redacted copy of the judgment.

The head of the RFA, which funded the case, voiced excitement at this latest win for minority rights in the small Balkan state.

“I feel really relieved that this odyssey, that lasted so many years, has finally hit (its) conclusion,” Daniel Martinovic told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

He said the couple - Mladen Kozic and Ivo Segota - had only gone public with their victory after consulting the social worker of the two boys they look after, the first children to be fostered by a same-sex couple in Croatia.

SOS Children’s Villages has announced rapid improvements in safeguarding and governance measures following its International Senate meeting of 29 April 2021.

SOS Children’s Villages confirms with great regret cases of failings and is immediately introducing new measures to support victims, prevent further harm, and improve existing systems, to consistently ensure quality care for all children in its programmes.

SOS Children’s Villages has informed donors and governments that its highest supervisory body, the International Senate, has instructed that an independent Special Commission be established to address past and contemporary cases of failings, including child abuse, corruption, misuse of funds, and breaches of regulations that protect children’s and employees’ human rights.

The independent Special Commission will investigate why the failures occurred, while in other instances the organisation’s policies and processes were appropriately followed through. It will be established during May 2021 under the leadership of an external and experienced chair.

In addition, the International Senate also mandated the rapid creation of a global child safeguarding ombudsperson system to support victims/survivors and anybody seeking resolution of concerns.

This article is part of our Greek American History Preservation Project in collaboration with the Greek America Foundation. We need your help! Support the Greek American History Preservation Project as we seek to record important moments in our community’s history. There are vast archives waiting to be tapped and brought to the public’s attention on our digital platform. Support our work today to keep our history alive for future generations. The Greek American History Preservation Project by The Pappas Post and the Greek America Foundation aims to digitize and share unique stories of Greek America and make them accessible to casual readers and researchers alike. Donations support research from various American archives, writing, as well as rights usage rights to allow newspaper articles, photographs and footage to be published online on our platform. Use this link to make a recurring or one time donation to support our efforts.

After my partner Eleonora and I attended a funeral three years ago at Agioi Anargyroi, one of the northwestern suburbs of Athens, she suggested we visit the Mitera Center for the protection of children. It is located within walking distance from the local cemetery, a solemn reminder of the closeness of life and death. But for the many persons who passed through there as infants, it is a reminder of the place they were adopted and started a new life.

Little did I know at the time about how many of those infants in the 1950s would be headed for adoption in the United States. I remembered sporadic articles about illegal adoptions through a network of intermediaries that included prominent Greek Americans who had begun their involvement as members of the American Hellenic Progressive Association (AHEPA) whose involvement in the early 1950s was also not above reproach. The full extent of the adoption phenomenon would become known only recently.

The Mitera (not to be confused with the Maternity and Children’s hospital with the same name which is also in Athens) is one of the leading institutions in Greece for housing children that have been given up by their biological parents or must live away from them.

Mitera’s mission is to find homes for these children by placing them into either adoption or foster care programs. It started operating in 1953 and opened officially two years later, on publicly owned property with thirteen separate picturesque pavilions with stone walls and red roofs spaced out around the main building. Within a few years it would accommodate a total of one hundred children and a number of expectant mothers.

When the 1955 Adoption Act came into force, many M?ori children were separated from their birth parents and became part of non-M?ori families.

Now, a new University of Otago research project, supported by a Marsden grant, is looking to help descendants of M?ori adoptees reconnect with their birth families.

School of M?ori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies Te Tumu researcher Dr Erica Newman said the project was socially significant because it would bring to light the consequences of trans-racial adoption on identity and wellbeing for adoptees and their descendants in New Zealand as they searched for their turangawaewae.

"These adoptees had no knowledge of their M?ori ancestry. And because they were unable to [or chose not to] have contact with their biological wh?nau, their unknown history has not been passed on to their descendants.

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Nagpur: Social media has been flooded with messages about children orphaned due to Covid-19 and how people can adopt them by simply reaching out to a number mentioned in the message. Legal experts warn that indulging in any such activity is nothing short of ‘child trafficking’ because adoption involves a very comprehensive legal process.

In India, adoption process is solely under the purview of Centralized Adoption Resource Agency (CARA), which is a statutory body under the Union ministry of women and child development. This agency then has a State Adoption Resource Agency (SARA) to coordinate at the local level. So, regardless of a prospective parent approaching an NGO or an orphanage, all applications will ultimately be routed to CARA.

Well-known lawyer Shyam Dewani said if your adoption process is not registered with CARA, then it’s illegal. “The law is very clear and there are two things you must not do. First, don’t forward such messages to anyone regardless of who sent it. Second, don’t ever call on that number because out of the goodness of your heart, you wish to adopt that child,” he said.

“If you do any of these things, then knowingly or unknowingly you become part of a larger criminal conspiracy. And people must use some common sense too that you just can’t call up a number and take home a baby. We are talking about a human being here, not some product on online site,” said Dewani.

These fake or illegal social media messages can get extremely creative to pull at people’s heart strings. Emotional messages about a child being found wandering after both parents died due to Covid-19 and how he needs a new home, are being circulated.

Child rights activists have urged the public not to circulate or fall for fake messages seeking adoption of Covid orphaned children that are increasingly seen on social media in recent times.

They have urged people to report such messages to 1048, clarifying that adoptions take place according to

established norms. Recently, a message asking people to contact a person to adopt a girl child went viral on

social media.

“If anyone wishes to adopt a girl, please feel free to contact 097******73 (Priyanka). One girl is 3 days old, and