The adoptive parents of a girl child have moved the Supreme Court challenging a Kerala High Court judgment of April 9, which had set aside the adoption of the child on the ground that a deed of surrender had not been executed by both the biological parents.

A Bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheswhari stayed the judgment of the Kerala High Court after the petitioners pointed out that the High Court had passed its verdict without hearing them.

“Considering the facts and circumstances of this case, in the meanwhile, the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed,” the Court ordered.

Advocates Liz Mathew, Manisha Singh and Sonali Jain appeared for the petitioners (adoptive parents).

Background

As 17 year olds, Ernst and Tonny Fickweiler (68) gave their baby up for adoption after an unplanned pregnancy. They would never see him again. Or so they thought. "There is a hole somewhere and every time you think about it it makes it very emotional, it is just tangible."

It should be a few A4 pages, briefly describing the family history of the prodigal son. To catch up with him, to make up for the lost years. But it turned into a project that took four years and resulted in a book that turned out to be much more than a family chronicle.

Bomb

Anyone who reads their book feels how the bomb hit the lives of two 17-year-olds. It was a beautiful evening in September 1970. And as so often there was reason for a party, this time with a mutual friend in the attic in their Waddinxveen, where they grew up. Ernst writes about it as a happy memory. And then the song Albatros from Fleetwood Mac was played. ... When I brought Tonny home that evening, we were both happy and deeply in love with each other. Only from that moment on everything would be different, everything would be different. The world upside down. Our young life would change forever.

What followed was a succession of impressive events. As soon as her pregnant belly became visible, Tonny left for a foster home, so that she would not get the scandals in the village. In all loneliness and homesickness she carried her pregnancy there, in order to give birth to her son in the presence of strangers in a clinic. She would never see him, only hear him cry from behind a held up towel: a sound she wouldn't forget for the rest of her life.

The widow and daughter of the Maltese man who died from Covid-19 in India arrived safely in Malta on Sunday evening.

Ivan Barbara, 47, was cremated on the couple’s 19th wedding anniversary after falling ill while in India to adopt their daughter.

He died on Friday after developing complications minutes before he was set to board the air ambulance sent to fly him back to Malta. Reportedly, Barbara’s ashes have been brought to Malta.

Two other Maltese couples who travelled to India to adopt were also flown in safely by Maltese authorities.

Last week

The adoptive parents of a girl child have moved the Supreme Court challenging a Kerala High Court judgment of April 9, which had set aside the adoption of the child on the ground that a deed of surrender had not been executed by both the biological parents.

A Bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheswhari stayed the judgment of the Kerala High Court after the petitioners pointed out that the High Court had passed its verdict without hearing them.

“Considering the facts and circumstances of this case, in the meanwhile, the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed,” the Court ordered.

Advocates Liz Mathew, Manisha Singh and Sonali Jain appeared for the petitioners (adoptive parents).

Background

Preet Mandir, Pune

From this orphanage, only one child has come to FFIA. As soon as that adoption was complete, FFIA suspended the collaboration for several reasons. On the one hand, the children did not receive the care we were guaranteed, and on the other hand, neither the financial nor the administrative process was handled as promised.

For many years, the orphanage transferred children to other organizations around the world. Many serious social workers and organizations reported the misconduct on Preet Mandir, but it was extremely difficult to get their license revoked due to the organization's contacts in influential circles. See article below for more information.

https://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/docs/adoption_Dohle_cumb_final.pdf

Noida police, along with the district Childline, has started a helpline to help the children who are stuck alone in a house because of their parents and other family members being hospitalised after testing Covid positive and in need of food and shelter. Cops have said that such children can be provided food, shelter and water in case they require and can also be dropped at a relative’s place in case they need to. The helpline number — 9870395200 — can be contacted in case a neighbour or relative wants to give information about such children needing help.

Satya Prakash, manager, FXB India Suraksha, the NGO that runs Childline for Noida, told TOI that in a discussion with police, the idea was developed and transportation can be arranged for children who need to go to their relative’s place in case they are left alone.

“If someone wants to donate a transportation service for such a child or provide children with food, such Good Samaritans will be welcomed and help be extended to the child in need,” he said.

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In our series of letters from African journalists, Ismail Einashe learns how a Nigerian mother who had been trafficked to Italy nearly had her son taken away - an experience that many African woman in Italy have gone through.

One sultry afternoon in the main city of the Italian island of Sicily, a Nigerian mother is intensely watching her two-year-old son play.

They are in the courtyard of a housing block they share with other African families in a run-down corner of Palermo.

The woman is content sitting on a worn plastic chair enjoying her son having fun in the sunshine while a meat stew cooks in the kitchen with heady aromas of Nigerian food wafting through the air.

But the 25-year-old is haunted by dark memories. Not so long ago, she says she came close to having her son taken away by the authorities in the shelter for migrant women and children where she once stayed.

Nanna Behmer has grown up in a good and loving adoptive family. Still, she believes that all children should have the right to know their biological origins.

At a small country house near Otterup on Funen, just a few kilometers from the north coast of Funen, 19-year-old Nanna Behmer is on her way out to air the family dog.

She has lived here since she was very young, with her adoptive parents and her older brother, who is also adopted.

But even though Nanna Behmer has a loving family and could not wish for a better life, she now chooses to meddle in the debate about forced adoption.

She believes that all children should have the opportunity to know their biological origins. Also the children who are adopted away by force because the parents for various reasons are not considered suitable to raise a child.

When Agnes (56) was seven, she learned that she had been adopted. She always kept quiet about that. Only last year did she bring it out.

“I grew up in an ordinary middle class family. My parents worked hard and were busy, but they loved my little brother and me very much. I was seven when my mom said, 'I need to tell you something. You and your brother have been adopted. ' Strangely enough, that didn't shock me at all. Somehow I had always known. I felt different, like I didn't belong anywhere. And those freckles of mine, nobody in our family had them, that was crazy, wasn't it? ”

"My mother didn't know much about my origins, only that I had been in the Mother Health Monastery in Breda until I was five months old and that my young biological mother had given me up because she couldn't take care of me."

Adopted

The next day I told my neighbor. She didn't believe me. I just left it that way; actually I was ashamed of my adoption. I didn't want to be seen as 'different' from now on. And I was just a cheese head, so no one would guess. If I was somewhere with my dad and they said, 'Gosh, you don't look like your dad at all', I would quickly say, 'No, I look like my mother, she's at home.' ”

When Xueli was a baby her parents left her on the ground outside an orphanage. In China, albinism is seen by some as a curse.

The rare genetic condition causes a lack of pigment which makes Xueli's skin and hair very pale and also makes her extremely sensitive to sunlight.

But looking different led Xueli to her modelling career. Now aged 16, she has graced the pages of Vogue and fronted campaigns for top designers.

This is her story as told to Jennifer Meierhans.

Xueli