New Delhi: Ahead of next month’s proposed India-European Union summit in Portugal, European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee has called for both sides to work closely but also expressed concern over the “deteriorating human rights situation in India”.

On April 13, the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament adopted a report which has a set of recommendations on strengthening the bilateral relationship. The report, adopted with 61 votes in favour and six votes against, will be made public after the European Parliament approves it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to travel to Portugal to attend the India-EU summit on May 8.

According to a press release, the report calls on the EU and India to work together to “promote a shared vision of a rules-based world order in multilateral settings, reinforcing international security, fostering connectivity, fighting climate change and enhancing global economic stability”.

Quoting the committee’s rapporteur, Finnish member of European Parliament(MEP) Alviina Alametsä, the press release stated that India and EU “as the world’s largest democracies have all the possibilities to build a better planet”.

“To fulfil our potential, we need to be more ambitious in our cooperation on preventing climate crises, promoting human rights, building connectivity, sustainable trade and defending a multilateral international order,” she said.

The Constitutional Court has ruled that a trust created by a donor for the benefit of his children and their descendants unfairly discriminated against children adopted by one of his daughters as it did not include them.

Louis John Druiff executed a deed of trust as well as a will “for the benefit of his children and their descendants”.

The deed of trust said any income should be for his four children and their children.

At the time of execution of the deed‚ Druiff had four children‚ three of whom already had children of their own.

One of his daughters‚ Dulcie Helena Harper‚ was married but did not have any children. She later adopted two children.

Mrs Mohini Raghunath

Founder & Secretary

Mrs. Mohini Raghunath, founder and secretary of CWD has had a long and distinguished career in the field of child welfare in India. Her scholarship, vision and commitment to the cause of the ‘disadvantaged child’ is the stuff of legends.

Since the 1970s, key policy initiatives, and path-breaking legislation ideas in the field of child welfare in India, especially adoption and sponsorship have been realized under her signature.

A Delhi School of Social Work graduate (class of 1952), Mrs. Mohini Raghunath started her career at the Maharashtra Government-run Beggar’s Home in Mumbai. In 1976, she joined the Indian Council of Social Welfare (ICSW) as advisor. There, under the guidance of Simone Tata, she authored trend-setting guidelines for inter-country adoption.

They don't cheer. But that adoptions from abroad have been stopped is the only right decision, say Kim, Sophie, Niranka and Kumar. They still have doubts about who they really are. "For years I had a picture on my nightstand of an unknown woman who is not my real mother."

I should be grateful?

Kumar (36): ,, I find some things incomprehensible. Then I hear people say that it is only a problem for a small number of people. And then I think: there are so many Sri Lankan children who have problems because of the adoption. The same people say: we must stop boats with refugees, but bring children from distant lands, that must continue?

“I had to look for my family for 32 years, but I found them. In the end I never met my mother. She passed away in 2010. That is a hard blow. I would have loved to take care of her. “I experienced a lot of racism in my youth, in Zevenaar. On the football field, but also during job interviews.

“There are so many things that you start to doubt. When I was 16, I heard that my date of birth was a completely different one. I suddenly had a different day for my birthday.

A woman who spent almost five years battling to adopt a boy in Uganda said it was "surreal" to now be living in the UK.

Emilie Larter, 29, from Worcestershire, was volunteering for a children's charity in 2014 when she took care of baby Adam, whose mother had died.

She raised thousands of pounds to adopt him, and the pair have been back in the UK since January.

Adam has now started school and is making friends, she said.

Emilie Larter

NEW DELHI: SOS Children’s Villages of India (SOSCVI), the country’s largest child care NGO dedicated to the welfare of the children who have lost or are at the risk of losing parental care, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Meghalaya to design and implement a five-year programme for providing individual foster care to 50 children without parental care.

Individual Foster Care is a form of family-based care wherein children are raised in families other than their biological families. As the implementing agency and technical partner, SOSCVI will assist the Government of Meghalaya in supporting the children and their caregivers in and around Ribhoi and East Khasi Hills districts, the regions identified for this pilot project. The children will be placed in unrelated but suitable families in the community initially for a short period, which could be periodically extended till the child attains 18 years of age.

The MoU was signed by the Secretary General, Sumanta Kar, SOS Children’s Villages of India, and D.D. Shira, M.C.S., Director of Social Welfare, Meghalaya, Shillong.

Commenting about the MoU with the Meghalaya Government, Sumanta Kar, Secretary General, SOSCVI, said, “It is a great honor and privilege to associate with the Government of Meghalaya on this individual foster care project. We have decades of experience in extending care to children lost parental care under the Group Foster Care model in our Children’s Villages, as well as other models of alternative care for every child in need. We already have a strong presence in the state. The SOS Children’s Village Shillong that was established in the year 1999 is sheltering 127 children in 12 family homes. Additionally, over 500 children are under our direct care through the community based Family Strengthening Programme. We are also supporting 22 children through 15 families through the Kinship Care Programme. The knowledge and competency that we acquired over half a century will help us take this project to its fruitful completion. Children require different care solutions based on their need and this project is an attempt towards that.”

He added that SOSCVI will be focusing on empowering the care providers with necessary skills, including parenting, social, emotional, child safeguarding and communication skills, to bring a rights-based approach to their caring practices for ensuring holistic development of the children. Every family/child will have a dedicated mentor/coach within 3 months of enrolment. The technical experts and field workers of the NGO will also train the children and facilitate their holistic development by organizing various activities, besides supporting the children in their career plan and higher education. The NGO will arrange for house visits by its staff every quarter to monitor and record the progress of children and their family. It will assess the overall effectiveness of the programme once every 6 months and make course corrections where needed.

On 12 April, the EU Delegation organised a public online conference to mark the recent adoption of the new EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, map out synergies with the upcoming Council of Europe respective Strategy in this field and grasp the importance of international standards for the protection of the rights of children across Europe.

The conference brought together key speakers from the EU and the Council of Europe, engaged in the definition of strategies, policies and recommendations on the rights of the child: Ms Valeria Setti, European Commission Coordinator for the Rights of the Child and Ms Regina Jensdottir, Head of the Children’s Rights Division and Coordinator for the Rights of the Child at the Council of Europe.

The conference provided a very good opportunity to highlight the coherence and convergence between the EU and the Council of Europe’s respective standards of protection for the rights of the child, as well as the great willingness of both organisations to strengthen their cooperation and synergies in this field. The speakers made clear that the newly adopted EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child and the upcoming respective Council of Europe Strategy are in very close alignment and will complement each other along the way, building on their respective strengths.

You can find a recording of our conference on the Commission’s streaming platform or on our Facebook channel(link is external)

Two European-level Strategies for the Rights of the Child: What Added Value for us?

Salem Town All-Women police on Tuesday arrested a couple and a businessman in a case of illegal “adoption” of a seven-year old girl.

According to the police, the parents Sumathi and Sathish were launderers and worked out of a corner shop at Annamalai Nagar in Salem. They had two daughters and a son. Worsening financial constraints allegedly forced the couple to illegally give their seven-year-old second daughter in adoption recently to Krishnan, a businessman from the same colony. Ms. Sumathi’s mother Chinnaponnu opposed this and asked her to bring the child back.

However, the couple refused to do so. Based on Ms. Chinnaponnu’s complaint, the police and Childline members rescued the girl from the businessman here, the police said. The police have registered a case under various sections of the Juvenile Justice Act and are investigating.

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The prosecution requested the death penalty for the mother-in-law of Wool, who was arrested for murder and convicted of killing Jeong In after 16 months of age abuse.

The 13th Criminal Division of the Seoul Southern District Court held a trial of resolution on Jang Yang, who was handed over to the trial on charges of murder today (14th).

The prosecution requested the death penalty from Jang, and asked the court to sentence them to a 10-year order to restrict employment in children's institutions, 30 years to attach electronic devices, and five years to order probation.

In addition, Ahn Mo, his adoptive father, who was prosecuted with Jang for violating the Child Welfare Act, was asked for 7 years and 6 months in prison and an order to restrict employment related to children for 10 years.

The prosecution explained the reason for the sentence, saying, "(Mr. Jang) has a responsibility to be responsible as a mother. .

NEW LEGISLATION THAT would allow for the exhumations of bodies at former mother and baby homes must include as many sites as possible, Catherine Corless has said.

Corless is among those attending a meeting of the Oireachtas Children’s Committee today to discuss the legislation.

The Commission of Investigation was set up following claims that up to 800 babies were interred in an unmarked mass grave at a former Bon Secours home in Tuam, Co Galway – following extensive research done by Corless.

Excavations carried out between November 2016 and February 2017 found a significant quantity of human remains, aged from 35 foetal weeks to two to three years, interred in a vault on the site.

The General Scheme of the Certain Institutional Burials Bill was published in December 2019 and new Heads of Bills were approved by the government on 12 January 2021 – the day the Commission’s final report was published.