Thiruvananthapuram ∙ Mother Anupama S. Chandran came to the Navakerala audience and filed a complaint against the adoption of the child by the Child Welfare Committee without her knowledge. Yesterday, Anupama and her husband Ajith came to the Navakerala Assembly in Vattiyoorkau and lodged a complaint demanding strict action to be taken against the culprits. 

Anupama protest was held at the Child Welfare Committee and the Secretariat to get the baby released. Anupama's baby was taken back from Andhra after it was found that the adoption procedure was not followed. The government promised to take action against the culprits when the strike ends. It was announced 2 years ago that the police will investigate the incident and take departmental action. However, the complaint states that the government has not fulfilled this promise so far

"Past abuses should not make adoption from abroad impossible." This is what prospective adoptive parents Marjolein and Kris say after the decision by Minister of Welfare Hilde Crevits (CD&V) to temporarily suspend intercountry adoption. Gitte, herself adopted from Guatemala, disagrees: "Child trafficking will always exist." What should happen next?

Kris and Marjolein are candidate adoptive parents. They are in the final stages of their adoption process. Because Kris himself was adopted from India, the couple chose India as their country of origin.

“We could probably have a baby of our own. But we consciously choose adoption. We believe it is important to welcome a child who has little or no chance of a quality life into our family. We made the specific choice for a child with special needs. Their future is even worse in their country of origin. We can provide minor medical procedures that are very expensive in India in Belgium.”

Many more rules

“A lot of things have changed for the better in the last 30 or 40 years. I am a living example of that,” says Kris. “Two years after my adoptive parents started their procedure, they had me. I was a perfectly healthy 8 month old baby. That situation could never arise again.”

Former Ambassador Susan Jacobs spent much of her career in diplomacy focused on international children's issues, including a position as the United States’ first Special Advisor for International Children's Issues, helping to uphold The Hague Conventions on adoptions and abductions. In this episode, Jacobs joins Annelise Riles to talk about her career in the foreign service, as one of the first married women to become a foreign service officer, and her work as it relates to United Nations Sustainable Development goal number 16, which includes targets related to protecting children.

We need to be working with countries so that children aren't pushed to the borders, that they have opportunities in their own countries that will enable them to have full, productive lives. And I think that our aid programs should be geared more towards helping children be protected and protecting their security so that they don't have to come to the border.”

– Susan Jacobs, Former Special Advisor for Children’s Issues, Department of State

Background reading:

Adoption Support Center believes it is important to support aftercare projects. That is why we launch an annual incentive call with which we want to give aftercare projects a substantive and financial boost. In October we launched the 2024 call. But how did the 2023 projects actually go? Earlier this year we provided an overview of the projects that emerged as winners during the previous round. As the end of the year approaches, it's time to take a look back at some of the completed projects! What did they organize and what motivated them to commit themselves to organizing it?

Diversity Beauty Wellbeing Day - by CAFE

CAFE is an interest group that brings together adult adoptees from all countries of origin, first parents and adoptive parents. People with a foster care background and donor children are also welcome with us. From a critical view of the enforcement of children's and human rights within the transnational adoption system, we stand up for the rights and well-being of our target group. We do this by thinking about policy regarding adoption, denouncing abuses, organizing informative events and contact with fellow sufferers.

With the help of the incentive from Support Center Adoption, we organized our annual Wellbeing Day, which this year had the theme "Diversity Beauty". Adoptees were informed about the care of all skin types and afterwards a make-up workshop was provided.

Macron slams ‘manhunt’ against Depardieu

French film star Gérard Depardieu still has some friends.

President Emmanuel Macron was interviewed on French TV channel France 5 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

BY CLEA CAULCUTT

Reflecting on 25 Years as Founder of ICAV

Dec 20, 2023

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by

lynelle long

On 8 December 2023, the Federal Council revealed the results of a study on the adoption of foreign children in Switzerland. The report highlights frequent irregularities in the adoption process and pushes the executive to want to revise international adoption law.

The Federal Council has not yet finished with the issue of illegal adoptions. Indeed, after a shocking report published in 2020 which revealed the illegal and sometimes mafia-like practices of private intermediaries and Sri Lankan authorities in the 1980s, the executive made public, at the beginning of December, the conclusions of a second study, this time on the adoptions of children from ten other countries between 1970 and 1990. This study conducted by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) states:

"There are also indications of illegal practices in these countries, child trafficking, falsification of documents and false indications of origin."

What happened? What was Switzerland's role? What are the responsibilities? Watson spoke with Sitara Chamot, coordinator of the Bureau d'Aide à la Recherche des Origines (BARO), which supports adopted adults.

On Friday, December 8, the Federal Council issued a statement on the report reporting irregularities in international adoptions committed in the past. What was your reaction to this statement?
Let's say that these are not major revelations; for me, who has worked in supporting adopted people for about ten years, what this report shows was not a surprise. Obviously, we regret these events and the role played by the Swiss authorities who sometimes turned a blind eye, but we are satisfied that this large-scale study was commissioned by the Federal Council.

In 2022, an employee alerted the adoption agency DIA that they were mediating adoptions from Madagascar on a misleading basis. Still, DIA continued with the adoptions.

When Denmark's only adoption agency, Danish International Adoption (DIA), received an official warning from the Danish Appeals Board in November this year, the message was clear: 

DIA's adoption mediation in the African island nation of Madagascar was in violation of conventions and the adoption law. 

The backdrop for the warning was, among other things, illegal money transfers and an unnecessary delay in the adoption cases of two children. But Danwatch can now reveal that DIA has brokered adoptions to Denmark, even though they knew that the children's papers could contain incorrect information about their biological parentage. 

Danwatch has gained access to a number of children's cases from recent years that contain conflicting stories about the children's past, while there are also two cases where there is doubt as to who consented to the adoption. 

Amicus Curiae Advocate A. Parvathi Menon on Monday informed the Court that subjecting the children of rape or POCSO victims, who had thereafter been given in adoption, to DNA tests would tantamount to defeating the purpose of 'the divine concept of adoption'. "An adopted child cannot be at any point of his/her/their growth be violated of his/her/their privacy. There are instances where...

The 31-year-old has bottomless love for his adoptive mother after a good upbringing in Molde. Still, she wishes she was never adopted from Sri Lanka.

In 1992, Turid Fiskerstrand and Nils Harald Oterhals traveled from Molde to Sri Lanka to adopt a little girl. She was only 13 days old when they held her for the first time.

The language differences meant that the Norwegian couple and the Sri Lankan mother, Pojani, could not talk to each other. But they met daily for several weeks.

- I had a heart rate of 120 before our first meeting. It was a huge moment for us, but I don't know what Pojani was thinking. That's why I asked the manager at the orphanage if she could interpret for us, explains Turid.

They sat down together and looked at albums from Molde. Turid wanted to show Pojani where her daughter Priyangika would live and grow up. Explain that she was going to go to school and that they were going to take good care of her. Give her lots of love.