In an interview granted to cotidianul.ro , Dana Maria Dezotell recounts her journey in the "Promised Land", which began with a tragedy and continued with remarkable performances in a field where few succeed.

Reporter: Let's start with your arrival in this country. 12 years ago, you married an American citizen, a few months later you became pregnant with your first child, but fate was cruel to your new family after your husband lost his life in a tragic car accident . She didn't even get to see her son and you were left alone, two months pregnant, without money, without a stable home and without a secure job. How did you manage to get over this terrible moment in your life?

Dana Maria Dezotell:That's right, on March 21, 2001, I got married in Romania to Lyman, my husband. It was a quick marriage, after a year or so of mutual groping. I moved to the state of Vermont where he lived. As you rightly said, eight months after their marriage, he died in a car accident on his way to work at IBM. Three people died in that accident, all colleagues. They were commuting together on that sad day of November 29, 2001. While Lyman was sleeping in the back seat, he was hit by an oncoming car. The next day I would have had my first medical check-up, to find out if I was pregnant. I knew I was, but I had to get under the care of a doctor. In September 2001 I had started my first job in America, teaching assistant at a high school where I was living at the time. God helped me survive hunger and the lack of my family. Looking back, I think I would have chosen the same, to stay and fight for my child. I wanted him to know why he didn't have a father. This tragedy lasted about 12 years, until I found out why my husband died.

What came after? How did you face, as a widow with a newborn child, this downright desperate situation? I think that even the most powerful man in the world would have been devastated after such a tragedy, especially since you were in a foreign country and could not rely on the support of your family, located in Romania?

In short, the ambition not to be beaten. The details are in the book I'm writing now.

Foreign adoption barriers unlocked

PATRICIA KARVELAS THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 04, 2014 12:00AM

FULL adoptions from Taiwan, South Korea and Ethiopia will be recognised automatically in Australia, under changes that Tony Abbott will announce today.

Amendments to the Family Law (Bilateral Arrangements -- Intercountry Adoption) Regulations will lift restrictions and make it easier for Australians to adopt from these countries.

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Foreign adoption barriers unlocked

PATRICIA KARVELAS THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 04, 2014 12:00AM

FULL adoptions from Taiwan, South Korea and Ethiopia will be recognised automatically in Australia, under changes that Tony Abbott will announce today.

Amendments to the Family Law (Bilateral Arrangements -- Intercountry Adoption) Regulations will lift restrictions and make it easier for Australians to adopt from these countries.

In 2012-13, 40 per cent of intercountry adoptions were from Taiwan and South Korea.

by Google translate:

New scandal in India affects hundreds of Danish adoptions

An Indian orphanage, which supplied a large number of children to Denmark in the years 1988-2006, is accused of child trafficking and falsification of documents.

accused. The orphanage Shejar Chhaya, located an hour's drive outside the metropolis Mumbai, was for many years AC International Child principal partner in India. - Private Foto (archive)

Dorrit Saietz

Nora is the first child in Romania who will be adopted by Americans. How many minors are gone in families from other countries

1 March 2014

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11 children adopted by the new law on adoptions will now live abroad. Monday will leave a girl of 6 years in the United States and 10 other minors already have families in other 3 countries.

Nora, the girl who will arrive in San Diego, was abandoned at birth and was denied several Romanian families. Now, 6 years old, will enjoy a welcoming home and overseas brothers.

See interview with Horvath

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The legacy of Romania’s lost children

When the Iron Curtain was torn down almost 25 years ago, the images shocked the world: tens of thousands of Romanian children warehoused in cold, grey institutions, sometimes stacked six to a bed.

Author of the article:Ottawa Citizen

Publishing date:Feb 28, 2014 • May 20, 2014 • 4 minute read • Join the conversation

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Struggles weren't left behind in Romania for many orphans adopted in Canada

Dene Moore

Sonya Paterson, right, and her adopted daughter Carmen Paterson, 27, sit for a photograph at their home in Langley, B.C., on Tuesday January 28, 2014, while holding a photo of themselves taken in 1990. Paterson coordinated hundreds of adoptions in Romania after the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

February 27, 2014 - 2:35 AM

Haiti judge: US citizen faces trafficking charges

By Associated Press, Published: February 25

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A U.S. citizen and her Haitian mother face child-trafficking charges after they were caught carrying thousands of dollars in cash and running an adoption agency without a license, a Haitian official said Tuesday.

Judge Borgella Shoute said Farah Marlin and Yrose Pressoir were stopped last Wednesday by police with Haiti’s child protection unit after they had just left the Hotel Karibe, a high-end hotel popular with foreigners.

In this picture provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, 19-month-old Daniele De Sanctis, dressed up as a pope, is handed to Pope Francis as he is driven through the crowd during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014. Francis kissed the child as the new must-have Carnival costume made its debut at the pope's general audience Wednesday. During Carnival in Italy, children often go to school and spend their weekends dressed up in pirate, princess — and now pope — costumes. Carnival, also known as mardi gras, marks the period before the church's solemn Lenten season begins. Daniele's mother, Paola Ciabattini, said she dressed her son as a pope in a demonstration of affection towards Pope Francis. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho)

Under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, only a Hindu can adopt a child and only a Hindu child can be adopted. Under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, only a Hindu can adopt a child and only a Hindu child can be adopted. (IE)

Tahir Mehmood

Supreme Court has spoken of prospective parents, but remains silent on adoptees.

Nine years ago, social activist Shabnam Hashmi had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court, seeking a direction to the Central government to enact a general law of adoption that would be applicable to all. After a long delay, the court disposed the matter on February 19, 2014. No such direction was issued, but the court emphasised that the provisions relating to adoption under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, can be availed by any person, notwithstanding the position of adoption under a personal law.

There is no general adoption law in India. Successive governments have been reluctant to enact such a law in view of the opposition from certain sections of society on religious grounds. The enactment of a general adoption law has been vehemently opposed by Muslims and Parsis. While the latters’ religion prohibits the assimilation of an “outsider” into a Zoroastrian family, the former believe that their religious law totally prohibits adoption. This belief has not been dislodged in any of those Muslim countries that have reformed and codified Islamic family law — the only two exceptions are Turkey and Tunisia, where adoption has been permitted by law, subject to certain restrictions meant to accommodate clear provisions from the Quran. I have always held that opposition to a secular adoption law is irrational because such a law would only be an enabling legislation. It would not force anyone to adopt against the dictates of their religion. In the early 1970s, when a secular adoption bill was being considered, I had publicly favoured it and also registered my views with the parliamentary select committee working on the bill. This had met stiff resistance from Muslim religious circles.