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Deported woman seeks MEA’s help

Deported woman seeks MEA’s help

May 28, 2012

 

In a letter to Krishna, Jennifer Edgell Haynes, claims that she was a victim of child trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation after she was adopted by an American couple when she was seven years old.

Seeking the minister's help. Image courtesy PIB

 

“Until three years back I believed I was a citizen of the United States. Now I realize that I was a victim of child trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation,” Hayens said in an email sent to the minister through Anjali Pawar, of Sakhee, a Pune-based NGO.

“When I was just seven years old, I was adopted from an Indian orphanage by an American couple from Atlanta Georgia via American Aid for International Adoption,” she said.

“Unfortunately the adoption was a fraud and within a year of arriving in the United States I found myself placed with a foster family who later adopted me, where I was sexually abused and physically beaten. Thereafter for the next ten years I was shuffled from foster home to foster home,” she said.

“Never did I think that I was not an American citizen until I was arrested for a minor drug charge and send immediately for deportation.

“In 2008 I was separated from my husband and two children in the US and sent back to India, a country which I had forgotten and which had forgotten me,” Hayens said.

“I’m trying desperately to return home to my kids Kadafi, 9 and Kassana, 8 who are missing me a lot and need their mother,” she said adding that her case is also pending in the Supreme Court of India.

The petition before the Supreme Court, she noted, will “take years together for adjudication”.

“By then my children who are yet minor will be grown up. I request intervention by your office…” Haynes said in her email dated 28 May.

The copy of the email sent to Krishna was released in Washington today.

Washington:

An Indian orphan who was deported from the US in 2008 following her arrest on drug charges today wrote to External Affairs Minister SM Krishna asking him to help her get back to the US so that she can live with her two children – eight and nine year olds.

ACT CASE Jennifer Haynes

The New Adoption Law

The New Adoption Law
Last updated: 2012-05-28 12:42 EET
Print
Adoptiile in Romania We start with a point of view
recently voiced by the head of the Romanian Adoption Office, Bogdan Panait:


Bogdan Panait: ”We badly need to raise the awareness of all families; we
seriously need to raise the system’s awareness, but when things are not going
well in the family we need to find a solution so that children may live a normal
life. Nowhere around the world can a protection system provide a normal life. A
normal life can only be family life.”


A normal and caring family
that really wants you and where you can feel safe; that’s what any child around
the world wants. Recently, Romania has taken yet another step further to make
such a wish come true, passing a new adoption law. And, as “no one can live a
normal life in the system”, as the State Secretary with the Romanian Adoption
Office Bogdan Panait said in the beginning, the new law is trying to speed up
the entire procedure setting up clear deadlines. Speaking now is Ramona Popa, a
Cabinet Manager with the Romanian Adoption Office.


Ramona Popa: “For
children whose parents are unknown, the file can be submitted to court within 30
days since the birth certificate was issued. For children whose parents say from
the very beginning they do not want to look after them and want to give them up
for adoption, both they and their relatives up to four times removed can submit
the file to court within 60 days since the parents or the relatives issue their
last statement.”


Although statistics mention around 67 thousand
institutionalized children, the old legal provisions allowed for a limited
number of those children to be eligible for adoption. However, in Romania there
are around 1,700 families who want to adopt a child. Dina Pluhovici is the
president of the Bucharest Branch of the ADOR Copiii Association, the community
of adoptive families. She will now be sharing with us her experience of adoptive
parent.


Diana Pluhovici:” Under the old law, if we wanted a child to
be declared eligible for adoption we needed the consent of the relatives up to
four times removed. Now let’s be honest: I myself don’t know who my relatives
four times removed are, let alone the institution who goes at all lengths to dig
into the family history. A provision of the new law states that the very moment
a social protection measure is stipulated for the child, and if for a whole year
the family as well as the identified four-times-removed relatives do not wish to
get involved in the upbringing of the child, that particular child should become
eligible for adoption. My little girl became eligible for adoption almost four
years ago when she was about three years and eight months old. Three years and
eight months of doing nothing and letting that child in the system, depriving
her of the right to be raised in the middle of a loving and harmonious family!
And also with no balanced upbringing. Especially from an emotional point of
view, as these children have already been going through a trauma. The trauma of
being abandoned.”


Now Diana Pluhovici is the mother of Antonia, a
little girl of Rroma origin, whom the old adoption law had her spend almost five
years in the system before she was entitled to having a family.



Diana Pluhovici:” When I met her, my daughter was 4 years and 9
months old. A rather old child who, according to the statistics of the Romanian
Adoption Office was a child hard to adopt. However, her age did not bother us.
It was all we wanted: to become parents. We were not particularly interested in
her condition or her ethnic roots, I just said I wanted to be a mother. I wasn’t
interested in anything else. And that despite the fact that the moment I was
shown her file I saw she was a child with an Apgar 1 score, a resuscitated child
with a neurological condition. But that didn’t matter at all. I said I wanted to
see the child. And the moment I saw that little browned eyed wonder, who was
trying to draw your attention, all those things didn’t matter at all.”



Even though the diagnosis proved not to be accurate, and Antonia
turned out to be a perfectly normal child, there still was a problem: the new
family had a period of accommodation, with psychological blocks and fits of
rage. This is often encountered in families that bring in a new child all of a
sudden, and some time is needed for things to settle. From this point of view,
the law omitted a very important aspect, according to Diana Pluhovici and the
ADOR association.


Diana Pluhovici: “Since we adopted an older child
we got no parental leave for raising and caring for the child. This is a
problem, and it persists. You can’t tell the child ‘Well, we’ll spend this
weekend with you, but on Monday I’m going to work, you will go to kindergarten,
your babysitter or grandma will pick you up and that’s it.’ You cannot that,
because then it’s a failed adoption, and no one wants that.”


The
good news is that the law allows changes as long as they support and speed up
the adoption procedures. Here is Bogdan Panait, undersecretary with the Romanian
Adoption Office:

Bogdan Panait: “We are open to amendments. The law in
its present form is a living law, meaning it is undergoing changes, so that
whatever we didn’t take into account from the very beginning can be regulated as
things go along, so that in the next three years we have a law that is
completely in line with the interests of the child and totally meets the needs
of this nation”.


The most important thing for the institutionalized
child is to have a family, even if he or she lives in another country. The new
law on adoptions, which came into force on April 7th, opens the door for
international adoptions. Not for foreign citizens, but for Romanians living
abroad. Here is Ramona Popa, cabinet manager for the Romanian Adoption Office:



Ramona Popa: “We have expanded the range of persons who may adopt a
child in Romania to Romanian citizens residing abroad. So far, the means by
which a national or international adoption was defined was country of residence.
Now the principle is where one’s usual residence is. We have widened the range
of people who may adopt children to Romanians whose primary residence is
abroad”.


The new law, which is child oriented, brings about another
interesting change: the family adopting the child must tell them the truth in
order to avoid future trauma. Here is Diana Pluhovici once again:



Diana Pluhovici: “I actually encourage families to tell, and the new
law makes it compulsory to tell children the truth, and that is a good thing. It
is true that you can’t tell a three year old, ‘you’re adopted’, but you can tell
him or her your family’s history, at least that’s what I did. I told her when I
met my husband, when I got married, and Antonia really wanted to hear it. A few
days ago she herself told me that she’d adopt a child, too”.


As she
waits for Antonia to grow up, Diana Pluhovici and the ADOR association have one
more wish: for Romania to declare June 2nd National Adoption Day. If that
happens, we hope as many children as possible will celebrate this day within
their own families, which is where they really belong.
The New Adoption Law
Last updated: 2012-05-28 12:42 EET
Print
Adoptiile in Romania We start with a point of view
recently voiced by the head of the Romanian Adoption Office, Bogdan Panait:


Bogdan Panait: ”We badly need to raise the awareness of all families; we
seriously need to raise the system’s awareness, but when things are not going
well in the family we need to find a solution so that children may live a normal
life. Nowhere around the world can a protection system provide a normal life. A
normal life can only be family life.”


A normal and caring family
that really wants you and where you can feel safe; that’s what any child around
the world wants. Recently, Romania has taken yet another step further to make
such a wish come true, passing a new adoption law. And, as “no one can live a
normal life in the system”, as the State Secretary with the Romanian Adoption
Office Bogdan Panait said in the beginning, the new law is trying to speed up
the entire procedure setting up clear deadlines. Speaking now is Ramona Popa, a
Cabinet Manager with the Romanian Adoption Office.


Ramona Popa: “For
children whose parents are unknown, the file can be submitted to court within 30
days since the birth certificate was issued. For children whose parents say from
the very beginning they do not want to look after them and want to give them up
for adoption, both they and their relatives up to four times removed can submit
the file to court within 60 days since the parents or the relatives issue their
last statement.”


Although statistics mention around 67 thousand
institutionalized children, the old legal provisions allowed for a limited
number of those children to be eligible for adoption. However, in Romania there
are around 1,700 families who want to adopt a child. Dina Pluhovici is the
president of the Bucharest Branch of the ADOR Copiii Association, the community
of adoptive families. She will now be sharing with us her experience of adoptive
parent.


Diana Pluhovici:” Under the old law, if we wanted a child to
be declared eligible for adoption we needed the consent of the relatives up to
four times removed. Now let’s be honest: I myself don’t know who my relatives
four times removed are, let alone the institution who goes at all lengths to dig
into the family history. A provision of the new law states that the very moment
a social protection measure is stipulated for the child, and if for a whole year
the family as well as the identified four-times-removed relatives do not wish to
get involved in the upbringing of the child, that particular child should become
eligible for adoption. My little girl became eligible for adoption almost four
years ago when she was about three years and eight months old. Three years and
eight months of doing nothing and letting that child in the system, depriving
her of the right to be raised in the middle of a loving and harmonious family!
And also with no balanced upbringing. Especially from an emotional point of
view, as these children have already been going through a trauma. The trauma of
being abandoned.”


Now Diana Pluhovici is the mother of Antonia, a
little girl of Rroma origin, whom the old adoption law had her spend almost five
years in the system before she was entitled to having a family.



Diana Pluhovici:” When I met her, my daughter was 4 years and 9
months old. A rather old child who, according to the statistics of the Romanian
Adoption Office was a child hard to adopt. However, her age did not bother us.
It was all we wanted: to become parents. We were not particularly interested in
her condition or her ethnic roots, I just said I wanted to be a mother. I wasn’t
interested in anything else. And that despite the fact that the moment I was
shown her file I saw she was a child with an Apgar 1 score, a resuscitated child
with a neurological condition. But that didn’t matter at all. I said I wanted to
see the child. And the moment I saw that little browned eyed wonder, who was
trying to draw your attention, all those things didn’t matter at all.”



Even though the diagnosis proved not to be accurate, and Antonia
turned out to be a perfectly normal child, there still was a problem: the new
family had a period of accommodation, with psychological blocks and fits of
rage. This is often encountered in families that bring in a new child all of a
sudden, and some time is needed for things to settle. From this point of view,
the law omitted a very important aspect, according to Diana Pluhovici and the
ADOR association.


Diana Pluhovici: “Since we adopted an older child
we got no parental leave for raising and caring for the child. This is a
problem, and it persists. You can’t tell the child ‘Well, we’ll spend this
weekend with you, but on Monday I’m going to work, you will go to kindergarten,
your babysitter or grandma will pick you up and that’s it.’ You cannot that,
because then it’s a failed adoption, and no one wants that.”


The
good news is that the law allows changes as long as they support and speed up
the adoption procedures. Here is Bogdan Panait, undersecretary with the Romanian
Adoption Office:

Bogdan Panait: “We are open to amendments. The law in
its present form is a living law, meaning it is undergoing changes, so that
whatever we didn’t take into account from the very beginning can be regulated as
things go along, so that in the next three years we have a law that is
completely in line with the interests of the child and totally meets the needs
of this nation”.


The most important thing for the institutionalized
child is to have a family, even if he or she lives in another country. The new
law on adoptions, which came into force on April 7th, opens the door for
international adoptions. Not for foreign citizens, but for Romanians living
abroad. Here is Ramona Popa, cabinet manager for the Romanian Adoption Office:



Ramona Popa: “We have expanded the range of persons who may adopt a
child in Romania to Romanian citizens residing abroad. So far, the means by
which a national or international adoption was defined was country of residence.
Now the principle is where one’s usual residence is. We have widened the range
of people who may adopt children to Romanians whose primary residence is
abroad”.


The new law, which is child oriented, brings about another
interesting change: the family adopting the child must tell them the truth in
order to avoid future trauma. Here is Diana Pluhovici once again:



Diana Pluhovici: “I actually encourage families to tell, and the new
law makes it compulsory to tell children the truth, and that is a good thing. It
is true that you can’t tell a three year old, ‘you’re adopted’, but you can tell
him or her your family’s history, at least that’s what I did. I told her when I
met my husband, when I got married, and Antonia really wanted to hear it. A few
days ago she herself told me that she’d adopt a child, too”.


As she
waits for Antonia to grow up, Diana Pluhovici and the ADOR association have one
more wish: for Romania to declare June 2nd National Adoption Day. If that
happens, we hope as many children as possible will celebrate this day within
their own families, which is where they really belong.
Bogdan Panait
Romania

The New Adoption Law

The New Adoption Law
Last updated: 2012-05-28 12:42 EET
Print
Adoptiile in Romania We start with a point of view
recently voiced by the head of the Romanian Adoption Office, Bogdan Panait:


Bogdan Panait: ”We badly need to raise the awareness of all families; we
seriously need to raise the system’s awareness, but when things are not going
well in the family we need to find a solution so that children may live a normal
life. Nowhere around the world can a protection system provide a normal life. A
normal life can only be family life.”


A normal and caring family
that really wants you and where you can feel safe; that’s what any child around
the world wants. Recently, Romania has taken yet another step further to make
such a wish come true, passing a new adoption law. And, as “no one can live a
normal life in the system”, as the State Secretary with the Romanian Adoption
Office Bogdan Panait said in the beginning, the new law is trying to speed up
the entire procedure setting up clear deadlines. Speaking now is Ramona Popa, a
Cabinet Manager with the Romanian Adoption Office.


Ramona Popa: “For
children whose parents are unknown, the file can be submitted to court within 30
days since the birth certificate was issued. For children whose parents say from
the very beginning they do not want to look after them and want to give them up
for adoption, both they and their relatives up to four times removed can submit
the file to court within 60 days since the parents or the relatives issue their
last statement.”


Although statistics mention around 67 thousand
institutionalized children, the old legal provisions allowed for a limited
number of those children to be eligible for adoption. However, in Romania there
are around 1,700 families who want to adopt a child. Dina Pluhovici is the
president of the Bucharest Branch of the ADOR Copiii Association, the community
of adoptive families. She will now be sharing with us her experience of adoptive
parent.


Diana Pluhovici:” Under the old law, if we wanted a child to
be declared eligible for adoption we needed the consent of the relatives up to
four times removed. Now let’s be honest: I myself don’t know who my relatives
four times removed are, let alone the institution who goes at all lengths to dig
into the family history. A provision of the new law states that the very moment
a social protection measure is stipulated for the child, and if for a whole year
the family as well as the identified four-times-removed relatives do not wish to
get involved in the upbringing of the child, that particular child should become
eligible for adoption. My little girl became eligible for adoption almost four
years ago when she was about three years and eight months old. Three years and
eight months of doing nothing and letting that child in the system, depriving
her of the right to be raised in the middle of a loving and harmonious family!
And also with no balanced upbringing. Especially from an emotional point of
view, as these children have already been going through a trauma. The trauma of
being abandoned.”


Now Diana Pluhovici is the mother of Antonia, a
little girl of Rroma origin, whom the old adoption law had her spend almost five
years in the system before she was entitled to having a family.



Diana Pluhovici:” When I met her, my daughter was 4 years and 9
months old. A rather old child who, according to the statistics of the Romanian
Adoption Office was a child hard to adopt. However, her age did not bother us.
It was all we wanted: to become parents. We were not particularly interested in
her condition or her ethnic roots, I just said I wanted to be a mother. I wasn’t
interested in anything else. And that despite the fact that the moment I was
shown her file I saw she was a child with an Apgar 1 score, a resuscitated child
with a neurological condition. But that didn’t matter at all. I said I wanted to
see the child. And the moment I saw that little browned eyed wonder, who was
trying to draw your attention, all those things didn’t matter at all.”



Even though the diagnosis proved not to be accurate, and Antonia
turned out to be a perfectly normal child, there still was a problem: the new
family had a period of accommodation, with psychological blocks and fits of
rage. This is often encountered in families that bring in a new child all of a
sudden, and some time is needed for things to settle. From this point of view,
the law omitted a very important aspect, according to Diana Pluhovici and the
ADOR association.


Diana Pluhovici: “Since we adopted an older child
we got no parental leave for raising and caring for the child. This is a
problem, and it persists. You can’t tell the child ‘Well, we’ll spend this
weekend with you, but on Monday I’m going to work, you will go to kindergarten,
your babysitter or grandma will pick you up and that’s it.’ You cannot that,
because then it’s a failed adoption, and no one wants that.”


The
good news is that the law allows changes as long as they support and speed up
the adoption procedures. Here is Bogdan Panait, undersecretary with the Romanian
Adoption Office:

Bogdan Panait: “We are open to amendments. The law in
its present form is a living law, meaning it is undergoing changes, so that
whatever we didn’t take into account from the very beginning can be regulated as
things go along, so that in the next three years we have a law that is
completely in line with the interests of the child and totally meets the needs
of this nation”.


The most important thing for the institutionalized
child is to have a family, even if he or she lives in another country. The new
law on adoptions, which came into force on April 7th, opens the door for
international adoptions. Not for foreign citizens, but for Romanians living
abroad. Here is Ramona Popa, cabinet manager for the Romanian Adoption Office:



Ramona Popa: “We have expanded the range of persons who may adopt a
child in Romania to Romanian citizens residing abroad. So far, the means by
which a national or international adoption was defined was country of residence.
Now the principle is where one’s usual residence is. We have widened the range
of people who may adopt children to Romanians whose primary residence is
abroad”.


The new law, which is child oriented, brings about another
interesting change: the family adopting the child must tell them the truth in
order to avoid future trauma. Here is Diana Pluhovici once again:



Diana Pluhovici: “I actually encourage families to tell, and the new
law makes it compulsory to tell children the truth, and that is a good thing. It
is true that you can’t tell a three year old, ‘you’re adopted’, but you can tell
him or her your family’s history, at least that’s what I did. I told her when I
met my husband, when I got married, and Antonia really wanted to hear it. A few
days ago she herself told me that she’d adopt a child, too”.


As she
waits for Antonia to grow up, Diana Pluhovici and the ADOR association have one
more wish: for Romania to declare June 2nd National Adoption Day. If that
happens, we hope as many children as possible will celebrate this day within
their own families, which is where they really belong.
Romania
Bogdan Panait

Lumos - Assessment children "Childhood for All"

“Childhood for all”

28 May 2012

The State Agency for Child Protection, the Agency for Social Assistance and Lumos Bulgaria met with the parents of 1252 children with disabilities living in institutions in order to explore their willingness and possibilities to maintain contact with them. The assessment took place within the framework of the project “Childhood for all” aimed at deinstitutionalization of children with disabilities. Such assessment is done for the first time in Bulgaria. During the meetings with the parents, the experts heard hundreds personal stories about the reasons of abandonment, the feeling of guilt, about the secrets kept for years.

Photo: flickr/taschik

k

Lumos
Bulgaria

Crisis zorgt voor minder adopties

Crisis zorgt voor minder adopties

      AMSTERDAM - Het aantal Nederlandse ouderparen dat een adoptieverzoek doet loopt sterk terug. Dat komt vooral door de economische crisis.   

Foto:  ANP

Dat zegt directeur Peter Benders van Stichting Adoptievoorzieningen zondag tegen de NOS. De kosten van een adoptie kunnen oplopen tot 35 duizend euro.

In 2006 werd 2569 keer verzocht om een eerste kind te adopteren. Vorig jaar was het aantal verzoeken gedaald naar 956. Benders ziet een overeenkomst met het begin van de jaren tachtig, toen er ook een economische crisis was en het aantal verzoeken daalde.

Chronische ziekte

 

De afname is voor een deel ook te verklaren door nieuwe vruchtbaarheidstechnieken en het teruglopen van het aanbod van gezonde adoptiekinderen.

Tegenwoordig worden vaak kinderen uit bijvoorbeeld China en India ter adoptie aangeboden die een chronische ziekte hebben of anderszins begeleiding nodig hebben. Dat er minder wordt geadopteerd is een wereldwijde trend, zegt Benders.

Netherlands

Door crisis minder adopties

Door crisis minder adopties

Een adoptiekind met zijn moeder»Een adoptiekind met zijn moeder         NOS    
Toegevoegd: zondag 27 mei 2012, 17:24
Update: zondag 27 mei 2012, 18:09

Door verslaggever Pauline Broekema

Het aantal adoptieverzoeken van ouders in Nederland loopt terug. Waren er in 2006 nog 2.569 verzoeken om een eerste kind te adopteren vorig jaar liep het terug naar 956. Volgens directeur Peter Benders van Stichting Adoptievoorzieningen is de economische crisis de hoofdoorzaak.

Daarnaast zijn er ook andere factoren. Zo maken steeds meer vrouwen met succes gebruik van nieuwe vruchtbaarheidstechnieken. Ook loopt het aanbod van jonge adoptiekinderen sterk terug. Wel worden veel 'special needs kids' aangeboden. Dit zijn kinderen met een chronische ziekte of kinderen die extra lichamelijke of geestelijke begeleiding nodig hebben.

Dikke portemonnee

Benders ziet een historische parallel met begin jaren 80 toen er ook een economische crisis was en zich eenzelfde dalende trend voordeed. Vooral bemiddelde ouders adopteren. De kosten voor een adoptie kunnen oplopen tot 35.000 euro.

Door de recessie lijkt adoptie alleen nog maar te zijn weggelegd voor mensen met een dikke portemonnee. Het echtpaar Stokkel zou heel graag nog een tweede kindje willen adopteren. Maar moeder Yessica raakte haar baan kwijt en kan in deze economische slechte tijden niet aan ander werk komen. Dus zal Vaglary, die drie jaar geleden uit Haita kwam,  zonder broertje of zusje blijven. "Dat bekekent dus," zegt moeder Yessica, "dat een kinderwens niet in vervulling kan gaan."

China en India

Het kleinere aanbod van kinderen lijkt ook een rol te spelen. Vooral in landen met een groeiende economie zoals China en India worden kinderen vaker in eigen land geplaatst. De afname van adoptie is wereldwijd, zegt Benders. In de Verenigde Staten, van oudsher het land met de meeste adopties, is eveneens sprake van een sterke afname.

Naar de terugloop van het aantal adopties is nog geen wetenschappelijk onderzoek gedaan. Wereldkinderen, één van de vergunningshouders, is daar mee bezig.

Pleegzorg

Femmie Juffer, Professor of Adoption Studies, Universiteit Leiden, denkt dat sommige ouders kiezen voor pleegzorg. Mensen die in adoptie zijn geïnteresseerd krijgen eerder dan vroeger iets over pleegzorg te horen en dat kan leiden tot de keuze voor pleegzorg in plaats van adoptie.

"Bij de Stichting Adoptievoorzieningen zijn  al ontslagen gevallen. Peter Benders verwacht dat de vergunningshouders door de afname zullen besluiten verder te samen te werken.

Lees ook de weblog van Pauline Broekema

Netherlands
Wereldkinderen aka NICWO
Femmie Juffer

Een echte Urker jongen

Een echte Urker jongen

Binnenland
Pauline Broekema
27-5-2012 18:11

Soms heb je in dit vak van die ontmoetingen die je nooit meer vergeet. Twee jaar geleden was ik op Urk. Voor een onderwerp over een wonderlijk negentiende eeuws onderzoek. Waarmee een arts de raszuiverheid van de Urkers wilde aantonen. Daarvoor roofde hij schedels van het plaatselijke kerkhof. Twee jaar geleden werden ze teruggegeven. En herbegraven. We filmden de kerk waar de overdracht met een kleine plechtigheid plaats had. In de straten bij de kerk hing de vlag uit.  Dat kon niet zijn vanwege de afsluiting van die onverkwikkelijke affaire. Wat de reden wel was bleek toen een busje stopte.

Het portier zwaaide open en een jonge vrouw stapte uit. Op haar arm droeg ze een piepkleine donkere baby. Pieter Jacob, roepnaam P.J. Uit de Verenigde Staten. Of we zijn aankomst mochten filmen, vroeg ik . `Graag!’ zei de moeder. En  straalde alsof ze licht gaf met de trotse, boomlange vader aan haar zijde. Zo liepen ze naar hun met slingers versierde woning.

Met de thuiskomst van de baby kwam een einde aan de lange jaren dat ze bezig waren geweest een kind te adopteren. `Mijn wondertje’ zoals moeder Janneke hem noemde.  Dat wondertje, dat in de hand van zijn vader Albert paste is nu, zoals zijn ouders zeggen, een echte Urker jongen. Gisteren zag ik hem weer. Hij was in dracht, vanwege Urkerdag.  Op die feestdag halen de Urkers hun oude goed uit de kledingkast. `Altijd vrolijk, zo staat ie  ’s ochtends op, zo gaat ie ’s avonds naar bed’ vertelde moeder Janneke. En we bekeken nog eens de foto’s van de eerste dagen met z’n drieën in Amerika. En zijn aankomst.  P.J speelde ondertussen met een bal op het veldje bij het huis. Kwam geregeld langs voor een knuffel.

Naar goed Urker gebruik, het was tenslotte zaterdag, serveerde vader Albert een gebakken visje. Zo werd een gedenkwaardige week afgesloten. Want de Kinderbescherming gaf toestemming voor de adoptie van een tweede kindje. Janneke en Albert hebben lang gewikt en gewogen. De financiële  consequenties overwogen. Dan maar botje bij botje leggen. Ze willen dat P.J niet alleen blijft. Anderen is het door de recessie niet gegeven een kindje, of een tweede te adopteren. Heel verdrietig, vindt Janneke. Want  ze gunt iedereen het grote geluk dat haar en haar man ten deel viel toen Pieter Jacob in hun leven kwam.

Netherlands, United States of America

Irish flock to Florida for child adoption opportunities

Irish flock to Florida for child adoption opportunities

Figures highlight huge increase in adoptions from Ireland

By: PATRICK COUNIHAN | Published Sunday, May 27, 2012, 8:23 AM | Updated Sunday, May 27, 2012, 8:23 AM

See More: News from Ireland

 

Ireland, United States of America

Help Kairi Sheperd an Adopted Indian Girl Stay in Her Home in the U.S.

Help Kairi Sheperd an Adopted Indian Girl Stay in Her Home in the U.S.

May 27, 2012
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Kairi Sheperd

by Rita Banerji

Kairi’s story forces us to ask many questions about the fate of  India children who are adopted abroad.  How do you determine where a person belongs? Is it determined by the color of their skin? The place of their birth? Or is it determined by the environment they’ve been raised in, the people they connect with and the only place they’ve known as ‘home?’

Can you return a child to a country you’ve adopted her from, 30 years after the adoption, like you would return a merchandise purchased from a shop? Are children ultimately commodities to be bought, sold, exchanged and returned?

Kairi who was adopted as a baby, and is now 30,  is virtually stateless because her adopted mother in the United States failed to do the paperwork for her citizenship before she died.  She has no citizenship in India either since she was adopted out according to Indian legal proceedings 30 years ago.   Kairi is now being referred to as the “Global Orphan.”

Kairi whose mother died after her birth, was adopted from India by an American woman, Erlene Shepherd.  Erelen took Kairi with her back to the United States when Kairi was just 3-months-old.

Erlene died of cancer when Kairi was 8-years-old.   Erlene’s death left Kairi in the lurch because now not only was she orphaned for the second time, but suddenly she also had no citizenship.  How did that happen? To claim Kairi’s U.S. citizenship, Erlene had to file papers with the US government re-adopting the child before she turned 21.  However, Erlene died without doing so, leaving Kairi orphaned and stateless.

Kairi fell through the cracks of the system again as happens so often with abandoned children.

Kairi as a little girl wearing a T-shirt with an American flag. She never knew that she isn’t American!

She developed a drug addiction.  Later Kairi was arrested and convicted of the felony of check forgery – a crime she committed because of her drug habit.  This is one the factors that prompted deportation proceedings against Kairi.  She is being deported as a “criminal alien.”

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the deportation proceedings were in line with immigration enforcement priorities.  Their spokesperson Virginia Kice said, “ICE has reviewed Ms Shepherd’s case at length and believes seeking her removal is consistent with the agency’s immigration enforcement priorities, which include focusing on identification and deportation of aliens with felony criminal convictions.”

At the age of  30, Kairi  now is staring at the prospect of being deported from the United States to India, a country she left when she was 3 months old.  After her adoption Kairi has never been to India!

Kairi says being sent back to India would end her life as she knows it.  She has never lived in India.  Does not know the language and culture.  Has no family.  How will she survive? It is like taking any child who has grown up in the U.S., lived there all his/her life and suddenly exiling them, without any means, to a foreign country which they have no understanding of.  It is a terribly inhumane!  Kairi who suffers from multiple sclerosis says, “The deportation order which may force me to part from my physicians, family, and friends here, could be a death sentence to me.”

There are at least 40 cases of adults adopted as children in a foreign country who  have been deported to their countries of origin.

In 2008, Jennifer Haynes who had been adopted from India, was similarly deported from the US to India.  Jennifer had been adopted by an American couple when she was 8 years old.  She moved to the U.S. where she was  sexually abused by Edward Hancox, her adoptive father.   She was then moved from one foster parent to another, and ended up being moved through almost 50 foster homes.  In 2008, when Jennifer was 32 years old, she was charged with drug possession,  and it was also determined that she had no legal status in the U.S.  There after she was deported to India.   She had two children, ages 8 and 9 years who live in the U.S. without their mother.  Jennifer  says, “I am away from them for more than four years now and I am not sure if I will ever see them again. What kind of law is this?”

Kairi has a safety net though.  She cannot be deported if India does not issue travel documents to her. Her family, adoptive sibling, friends, and lawyers working pro-bono on the case, are hoping the Indian government will simply ignore US efforts to persuade New Delhi to accept her.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP KAIRI:

  1. Send an email to the External Affairs Minister and urge the Government of India not to assign any travel documents for Kairi.  Here is the email eam@mea.gov.in
  2. If you are in the United States please send an email to President Obama and Secretary Clinton and tell them that Kairi is America’s child and the government must protect her.
ACT Case Kairi Shepherd

EXCLUSIVE: Kairi Abha Shepherd’s unedited answers to India America Today

EXCLUSIVE: Kairi Abha Shepherd’s unedited answers to India America Today

Article | May 27, 2012 - 1:03pm | By Tejinder Singh

 

Kairi Abha Shepherd/ Photo provided by Kairi through a mutual connection

Washington DC - Kairi Abha Shepherd responded to questions from India America Today through a mutual connection; below are her unedited answers. Kairi, like her foreign-born siblings, was raised a Mormon. None of them were granted US citizenship, which raises the question as to why the Mormon church community did not step in to provide the necessary assistance.

ACT Case Kairi Shepherd
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