The Catholic Church sold around 30,000 children to adoptive parents without their mother's consent or knowledge, new testimonies reported by Het Laatste Nieuws reveal.

Created just after World War Two, institutions run by nuns took in underage girls and pregnant unmarried women until the late 1980s. These women were subjected to unpaid labour, humiliating conditions, and in some cases, sexual abuse.

During childbirth, some women were given general anaesthetic while others had to wear a mask – all ways to prevent mothers from seeing their child, who were immediately separated after birth. Some women were even sterilised. Others were forced to sign a document renouncing their child or were told the child was stillborn.

The children were then sold for large sums – between 10,000 and 30,000 Belgian francs (roughly between €250 and €750), sometimes much more – to adoptive families.

Unkept or destroyed files are now making reunion processes extremely difficult, says Debby Mattys (57), who was put up for adoption by the nuns and spent over 20 years looking for her birth mother. "My mother was 18 years old when she had an unwanted pregnancy," she told Het Laaste Nieuws.

UDUPI: A few hours after their 17-year-old adopted daughter went missing from home in Majoor village of Udupi district’s Kaup taluk, acclaimed theatre artist Leeladhar Shetty (68) and his wife Vasundhara L Shetty (59) hanged themselves with a nylon saree in their bedroom on Tuesday night.
Police sources said the girl was adopted by the couple about 16 years ago. Cops have registered a case of kidnapping and are conducting an investigation to trace the missing teen, on a complaint lodged by a relative of the Shettys.
 

Leeladhar once contested from Kaup assembly constituency and had served as head of Majoor gram panchayat. His well-regarded drama troupe reflected his popularity.

Gerard Depardieu stripped of Order of Quebec after vulgar comments caught on camera

French actor Gerard Depardieu speaks on the final day of the Montreal World Film Festival in Montreal, Monday, Sept.6, 2010.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Daniel J. Rowe

BARO

“Professional and free support for all adopted people”

“A restorative approach centered on the needs of the person”

Research to scope the support needs of people affected by historic forced adoption in Scotland.

Acknowledgements

The research team would like to acknowledge and thank the people affected by historic forced adoption who shared their experiences with us. Without your involvement, this research would not have been possible. Thanks also to the campaigners, support organisations, local authority representatives, and academics who took part in interviews, completed and publicised our online survey, and supported the recruitment of interviewees.

Research to scope the support needs of people affected by historic forced adoption in Scotland.

Acknowledgements

The research team would like to acknowledge and thank the people affected by historic forced adoption who shared their experiences with us. Without your involvement, this research would not have been possible. Thanks also to the campaigners, support organisations, local authority representatives, and academics who took part in interviews, completed and publicised our online survey, and supported the recruitment of interviewees.

Women and Child Development Ministry had notified Adoption Regulations, 2022, which have been framed in line with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (as amended in 2021)

More than 2,000 children have been adopted by Indians in the financial year 2023-24 so far while 224 children have been adopted by foreigners, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani informed the Parliament on Wednesday.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Irani said the Women and Child Development Ministry had notified Adoption Regulations, 2022, which have been framed in line with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (as amended in 2021), on September 23 last year.

The Adoption Regulations were framed keeping in mind the issues and challenges faced by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) and other stakeholders, including the Adoption Agencies and Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs), she said.

UDHR75: Revitalising the universal commitment to all children’s rights,

with and for children

Date: 12th December - 12:30 - 2pm (90 min) (Hybrid event)

Location: Room XXI, Palais des Nations, Geneva and online

According to a press release, the Italian couple adopted the orphan boy through the legalised adoption process by duly following the CARA norms

THE HINDU BUREAU

A six-year-old orphan boy, who has been staying in the town-based ‘Sishugruha’ for the past couple of months, was adopted by a childless couple from Italy in compliance with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) procedures.

According to a press release, the Italian couple adopted the orphan boy through the legalised adoption process by duly following the CARA norms.

The boy was handed over to the couple under the aegis of the Department of Women Development and Child Welfare in the presence of Karimnagar Collector Pamela Satpathy at the conference hall in the Collectorate here on Monday afternoon.

In France, people who were illegally adopted internationally are trying to make their voices heard by the courts. As this phenomenon does not currently constitute a criminal offence, the fight is likely to be difficult.

There are 120,000 children who have become French through international adoption between 1980 and today. A figure that is largely underestimated, not counting all the cases where children arrived without a visa. So how many were there illegally? The question makes all those involved in adoption tremble. " We don't have precise figures on the number of illicit practices, we would have to look at each case individually," notes Fábio Macedo, a doctor of history at the University of Angers.

The criminal response is also summary: "There is no specific law on illegal adoptions."  Joseph Breham, a criminal lawyer, firmly establishes this statement. He clarifies the legal situation in which people who have been adopted illegally find themselves.

"There is no specific law on illegal adoptions."

Joseph Breham, criminal lawyer

The lawyer has mastered this subject well to work, with his colleague, Noémie Saidi-Cottier, on the Malian case against the authorized adoption organization (OAA) "Le Rayon de soleil de l'enfant étranger". The establishment, which is said to be at the origin of several illegal adoptions between Mali and France, is currently the subject of an investigation after the lawyers of nine "adoptees", men and women who are sometimes well into their forties, filed a complaint for the offense of receiving stolen goods... All of them were adopted in France under an adoption regime that is not the same as in the country of birth; sometimes to the detriment of the wishes of the biological families. This goes hand in hand with the falsification of documents, false declarations and breach of trust by the parents. With no way of knowing their initial ties, these adoptees live in a biological void. "I know I have a brother, but no one wants to tell me ," complains Marie Marre, one of the plaintiffs in the Malian case and spokesperson for the movement [1].