The CWC has also refused to allow the couple to visit the two-year-old boy, who was sent to Bal Anand, a specialised adoption agency in July, when the racket was busted.

THE MUMBAI Child Welfare Committee (CWC) has refused to grant permanent or temporary custody to a couple who had allegedly purchased one of the six children rescued by the Mumbai police from an inter-state child-selling racket. The CWC has also refused to allow the couple to visit the two-year-old boy, who was sent to Bal Anand, a specialised adoption agency in July, when the racket was busted.

“The committee is mindful of the fact that incidents of child trafficking is rampantly increasing. Children are being trafficked under the garb of adoption, from hospitals, nursing homes and institutions that do not figure in the adoption set up at all. The committee cannot encourage the practice of illegal adoption,” the CWC stated, while rejecting the application filed by the couple earlier this month.

The boy, along with five others, all aged between 18 months and seven years, were rescued by the Mumbai Police crime branch in July and, as per orders of the CWC, sent to Bal Anand.

The police claimed that the couple and others, from whose custody the children were rescued, had not completed any legal formalities to adopt the children. The “adoptive” parents were arrested in July and later granted bail by the sessions court.

It all started when a Facebook user Sandhya was browsing multiple online gifting sites for Rakshabandhan this year, and came across a website that sold ‘combo’ gift items for siblings. All that was fine, of course, except that there were some products designed and marketed in a way that specifically addressed one of the siblings as an adopted child, and in a manner that many found to be derogatory.

At a time when the concept of adoption is still not very well accepted in our society, the last thing we need is people making fun of an issue that has so many layers and is such a sensitive one for many. To trivialise it or pass ‘cool’ jokes around adoption, which is often overwhelming for families going through it, is just not done.

As Sandhya delved deeper and did more research, she found that there were a number ofother websites which had similar products and she took it upon her to bring it to the attention of these sites, pointing out that they were actually hurting the sentiments of adoptive parents.

One of the companies indulging in selling such products was OyeHappy. The products listed ranged from magnets, picture stands, mugs and rakhis. Each one of them carried a text where one of the children was a natural sibling and the other an ‘adopted’ one — the latter, mostly represented by a caricature that looked subdued.

Sandhya and many others are part of a Facebook group which addresses and discusses the issues, concerns and life of adoptive parents. She brought this to the attention of the Facebook group which joined together to pull such product listings off the website.

Stringent rules slowdown international adoption

Nasra Bishumba

By

Nasra Bishumba

Published : August 26, 2019

Stringent rules slowdown international adoption

Nasra Bishumba

By

Nasra Bishumba

Published : August 26, 2019

Despite lifting the ban to allow foreigners or persons outside Rwanda to adopt children in the country two years ago, only two children have since been adopted and another eight could be handed over to their new families soon, The New Times has learned.

In 2010, the government temporarily suspended receiving new applications for international child adoption pending clear structures and mechanisms required under The Hague Adoption Convention on the protection of children.

The suspension was, however, lifted in September 2017 after the government put in place the required mechanisms, which outline the requirements that must be fulfilled before the child is placed with a permanent adoptive family.

Among the requirements a nation is required to fulfill is the establishment of an institution that is equivalent of National Children Commission (NCC), commitment through different laws, including the law relating to the rights and the protection of the child, law governing persons and family, and the ministerial order determining conditions for inter-country adoption.

By 2016, 103 countries had signed the Hague Convention with the aim of making adoption a safer and less complicated process by establishing an international standard of practice.

At a panel discussion in Bengaluru by NGO Padme, panelists discussed various aspects of adoption like root search by adoptees and representation in the media.

Take a group of people and ask them for their thoughts on adoption, and chances are at least a few of them will say that adoption is a noble thing to do, that it allows needy children to be saved. At least, these were the responses students of Mount Carmel College got when they did some randomised interviews in Bengaluru a couple of months ago.

These interviews were put together by Padme, a registered non-governmental organisation that works to demystify adoption and guide and support prospective adoptive parents, among other things. On Sunday, Padme organised a panel discussion in Bengaluru which looked at such perceptions around adoption as well as related privacy issues.

The panel consisted of Supriya Deverkonda, an admin of People’s Group of Child Adoption in India (PGCAI); Dr Aloma Lobo, former chairperson of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA); Baradwaj Rangan, senior editor at Film Companion; and Geetika Mantri, a journalist with The News Minute. The panel was moderated by Sharon Lopez of the Dept of Communications, Mount Carmel College.

The panel felt that there was a need for a more child rights centric approach, especially in the media, while dealing with adoption.

The fate of the two Bulgarians adopted in the United States must be decided by mid-September

posted on 26.08.19 at 09:26 Author: Tonya Dimitrova

Parents are accused of child abuse.Photo: www.ky3.com

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Through her latest book In My Heart, Nandana Dev Sen talks about adoption and love and why every child has a need to know where they came from

Nandana Dev Sen wears many hats – actor, activist, screenwriter, writer and recently, a mother. She adopted a girl child and is as happy as she has ever been. Her most recent book, In My Heart, also talks about adoption, and in the most intimate and sensitive way possible. The book is about Mia and her quest to discover her 'tummy mummy' — her biological mother. And what does she find? Read the book to find out! Here's a conversation we had with Sen that should convince you to grab this book. Excerpts:

The book wonderfully describes adoption to a young mind. How and when did you think of writing this book?

I’d been thinking for a long time – in fact, for as long as I’ve been working with children, many of whom were institutionalised, displaced or homeless – about how much we need a gentle children’s book about adoption. We know that loving homes could transform thousands of young lives in India, yet adoption is rarely addressed either in our books for kids or our mainstream media. In My Heart addresses questions that every adopted child is bound to ask about her/ his birth mother – I’ve witnessed them being raised by adopted kids within my own circle of friends and family, long before I became an adoptive mum. Going through the process myself made the topic even more emergent, of course.

Nowadays, more and more people are adopting, or at least want to adopt, and don't want to have a child of their own. What do you think of this trend?

By mid-September, the fate of two US-adopted Bulgarians who were removed from their family and protected by the Missouri Department of Children and Family Affairs must be decided. What will happen to the two girls will be decided by the US court, with the first hearing scheduled for September 6, 2019.

The case is a precedent for the Bulgarian institutions.

"She was dirty, not well dressed, she had no shoes. She ate two peanut butter sandwiches and a few packets of chips in a hurry and continued to ask for more food." Sheriff Darin Braulley's story from Shannon County, Missouri, about his first date with one of the two twins. She is found by a neighbor on a dirt road not far from the house of the McGregor family, with greasy hair, scarring and bleeding feet, thirsty and hungry. The girl and his sister live with the 8 children of 56-year-old Mark Magregor and his 40-year-old wife Melissa. The two Bulgarians are kept in a dark room for hours, they are allowed to use pillows only with good behavior, they eat mostly raw vegetables, they were hit with kitchen utensils in front of their biological children, they had to ask for permission to bathe and dress. There is no such attitude towards biological children. Two charges have been filed against Mark and Melissa McGregor, leading to a sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. The couple is currently under $ 100,000 bail. And Bulgarian girls aged 14 with initials R. and K. are placed in a home for children deprived of parental care.

"The children themselves have an appointed guardian from the state of Missouri, that is, a person who directly cares for their rights and interests," said our consul in Chicago, Ivan Anchev. He met with them and said that the children were calm and feeling well:

"The conversation was entirely in English. From the very beginning, I asked them how they wanted to talk - in Bulgarian or English, and they preferred English, so this testifies to the level of adaptation of the children in the local environment."

Cuttack: Dealing with the case of a mother who had allegedly given away her child to a couple but now wants it back, the

Orissa high court has said biological parents are the most fit to raise a child and ordered the handing over of the three-year-old

girl to the birth mother within a week.

“In our land, parents hold a preferred position for children below five years. For that, there is a presumption that the parents are

the most fit and proper person to raise the child,” a bench of justice S K Mishra and justice A K Mishra said in its August 19