Kim Ju-won (left) and Park Sun-min (right) say same-sex couples in South Korea are excluded from incentives to start families.

Lee Hyeon-ju and her husband Choi Kyu-ho have been helping out at her grandmother’s dried fish business on weekends.

The couple married in 2019, and live in Pohang on South Korea’s east coast. They’re already making plans to travel overseas once the pandemic is over.

Lee and Choi, both 29, have a secret that they are keeping from some members of their family — they don’t plan to have children. Lee said that revelation would be very disappointing to her husband's parents who expect her to produce a grandson for them.

South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, and in 2020, its population shrank. The government plans to increase financial incentives for married couples to have babies, but that excludes nontraditional families such as same-sex couples and single parents.

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Section 37 in The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000

Section 36 in The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000

The Children Act, 1960

In a case regarding the custody of a 13-year-old boy, heard as a habeas corpus petition by his biological parents accusing his uncle and foster father of kidnapping and keeping the child in illegal custody, a division bench of the Gujarat High Court gave priority to the child’s desire and directed that the child may continue in the custody of his foster father, in an order dated January 19.

The boy, born to a Botad couple in 2006, was adopted by his father’s sister and her then husband. The adoption was formalised by December 2008. However, the couple who adopted the boy divorced by mutual consent in July 2019 and it was agreed upon that their child will continue with the foster mother and the adoption deed would be revoked.

Read |CBI nabs 2 for selling child sexual abuse material through social media

The custody was thus handed over to the foster mother and biological parents. The child was residing at Patdi in Surendranagar since the age of two years until 12 years. He was attending school and had friends in the locality. However, he was taken to his foster mother’s native place in Botad where the child found it difficult to adjust. His schooling was interrupted with no school admission processed by the biological parents.

“The biological mother and the foster mother voluntarily called up the foster father and asked him to take away child… as he was not able to adjust to the new place,” advocate Amrita Ajmera, representing the foster father, submitted before the court, in response to the habeas corpus petition moved by the biological parents in December 2020, seeking that their child be produced before the court.

PHOENIX (AP) — A former Arizona politician must report to prison Thursday to begin serving the first of three sentences for running an illegal adoption scheme that paid pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to come to the U.S. to give up their babies.

Paul Petersen, a Republican who served as Maricopa County assessor for six years and also worked as an adoption attorney, was sentenced to six years after pleading guilty in federal court in Arkansas to conspiring to commit human smuggling.

Petersen, who has acknowledged running the adoption scheme, is awaiting sentencing in state courts in Arizona for fraud convictions and in Utah for human smuggling and other convictions. Sentencing dates have not yet been set for those cases.

Prosecutors have said Petersen illegally paid women from the Pacific island nation to give up their babies in at least 70 adoption cases in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas. Marshall Islands citizens have been prohibited from traveling to the U.S. for adoption purposes since 2003.

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From: MBX Euro-Ombudsman

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 at 20:08

Subject: Complaint 202100127?- Acknowledgement of receipt [CMSEO]:0034754

To: Arun DOHLE

European Ombudsman

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: ACT

Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 at 13:30

Subject: Fwd: reply from ambassador

To:

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Thursday said it would hear next week a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to remove "anomalies" in the grounds of adoption and guardianship and making them uniform for all citizens.

The plea came up for hearing before a bench, comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, which said that the matter be listed next week.

The plea, filed by advocate and BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has sought to declare that the "discriminatory grounds" of adoption and guardianship are violative of Articles 14, 15, 21 of the Constitution and also to frame "uniform guidelines" for adoption and guardianship for all citizens.

Article 14 of the Constitution deals with equality before the law, Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth and Article 21 deals with protection of life and personal liberty.

The plea, filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, has alleged that current practice of adoption is blatantly discriminatory as Hindus have a codified law of adoption but Muslims, Christians and Parsis don't.

The Department of Social Welfare has debunked the notion that the application process for child adoption is strict and cumbersome.

This comes on the back of the arrest of some 11 persons in connection with baby harvesting and human trafficking at some health centres in Accra.

The group sold two baby boys for GHS30,000 and GHS28,000 respectively.

The Deputy Director in-charge of Child and Family Welfare at the Department of Social Welfare, Fred Sakyi Boafo explained that “the application form costs GHS70 and after going through the process one will spend on the average GHS1,200 “.

He argued that this process is seamless and “adoption from the start to the end should not be less than three months.”

The embattled chief executive of Oranga Tamariki has stepped down, saying the focus of the story has become about her, rather than the well-being of New Zealand’s most vulnerable children.

Gráinne Moss’s resignation follows growing concern about the uplift of M?ori babies, and the high number of M?ori children in care – they account for 65% of kids in state care though M?ori comprise just 16.5% of the country’s population.

A two-part investigation by the office of the children’s commissioner into Oranga Tamariki released at the end of last year found that M?ori infants were five times more likely to be taken into state custody than non-M?ori, often in traumatic circumstances and including from maternity wards.

Meng Foon, the human rights commissioner, noted that the report highlighted persistent inequities that affect M?ori, including intergenerational harm being done to M?ori children and wh?nau (family), and how this collides with entrenched disadvantage, colonisation and systemic bias.

“Such systemic bias needs to go,” Foon said.

The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned hearing on a petition filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking removal of anomalies in the grounds of adoption and guardianship and making them uniform for all citizens.

The matter was listed before the bench headed by the Chief Justice S.A. Bobde. The Court told the petitioner’s lawyer that a similar matter was dismissed in 2019. The Court asked petitioner to refer to that order and come back next week. Senior Advocate Anjana Prakash appeared for the petitioner. The matter will be considered next week.

The Court has directed to list the matter next week along with record of Writ Petition (Civil) No. 598 of 2019. Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice V. Ramasubramanian were also part of the bench who passed the order.

The petition has been filed by BJP leader and spokesperson Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who sought directions to declare the grounds of adoption and guardianship under different acts based on different religions per se as discriminatory.

The petitioner has submitted that Several acts such as Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, The Guardians and Wards Act 1890, Hindu Minority and Guardianship act and personal laws of Muslims Christians and Parasis contain different provisions for adoption and guardianship, which are against gender equality, dignity of women and children.