A former deputy head teacher of a primary school has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for paying and instructing teenagers in India to abuse younger children.

Matthew Smith, 35, from East Dulwich, was arrested by the National Crime Agency in November 2022, after investigators identified that he was sharing abuse material on the dark web.

Smith was online at the time of his arrest, speaking to a teenage boy living in India and asking him to send sexual images of a younger child, in return for money.

He also had dark web sites and forums open on his computer which were dedicated to child sexual abuse.

NCA investigators interrogated chat logs and financial transactions and were able to establish that Smith had paid that same teenager, and another also based in India, a total of £65,398 to abuse children over a five-year period.

It seems clear that adoption law reform won’t be a priority before the October general election. This will be bitterly disappointing for many New Zealanders.

Despite some significant progress, the Ministry of Justice has revised its timeline for delivering final proposals from the first half of this year to “in due course”. This means there is still no clear end in sight to what has already been a prolonged and frustrating process.

Most importantly, those touched by adoption – including extended families – continue to feel the enduring effects of the antiquated and outmoded Adoption Act 1955.

At the heart of the need for reform lies the “closed” form of adoption the law introduced. This has meant those adopted between 1955 and 1985 were prohibited from knowing their biological parents and family.

It wasn’t until the passing of the Adult Adoption Information Act in 1985 that adopted people (aged 20 or above) gained the right to seek identifying information about their biological parents.

Natalie Montaño was recently reunited with her biological mother from Colombia. And believes this is yet another illegal adoption case. Now she and other adoption activists are demanding a halt to adoptions while the investigation is ongoing.

- I have been an activist for a while, and was not surprised, because my case is not unique. What has happened in Colombia and other countries is just heartbreaking, says adoption activist and former vice-chairman of Utenlandsadopterte (UTAD), Natalie Montaño to Utrop.

Natalie was born in a clinic in Bogotá, and was then at the Lot Pisingos orphanage for nine months before she was adopted to Norway.

She says that she had no burning desire growing up to find her biological origin. But that she still made an attempt after she turned 18.

- This did not lead to anything. But four years ago I happened to come across a page for adopted Colombians worldwide, and posted without thinking too much about it, she says.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/lifestyle/relationships/a-gay-couple-had-twins-via-surrogate-but-were-almost-forced-to-raise-them-separately-the-dads-sued-to-keep-their-family-together-and-won/ar-AA1eXtTU?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=32b8c98ffda74ac68f1e059c572df615&ei=15

•  
• Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks had twins via surrogate. They were conceived using the sperm of each man.
• US immigration refused to recognize the biological son of Israeli-born Elad as an American citizen.

When Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks showed up at the US consulate in Toronto, they thought getting American passports for their newborn fraternal twins would be relatively straightforward.

The men had decided to move the family to Los Angeles, Andrew's home city. They wanted the boys, who were born via surrogate, to live closer to their relatives, including Andrew's parents and siblings.

BAR HARBOR — Children available for adoption tend to live in countries that think in terms of mother and child but rarely father and child. Robert Klose’s book, “Adopting Anton: A Single Man Seeks a Son in Ukraine,” tells of his experiences as a single adoptive father attempting a second international adoption in the shadow of 9/11.

Jesup Memorial Library is hosting Klose for an author talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17.

Presuming that already being an adoptive parent (Klose had previously adopted a boy from a Russian orphanage) would make a second attempt easier, Klose was confronted by a Ukrainian bureaucracy. “Adopting Anton” is the story of a single man determined to bring a 5-year-old boy to a new home in America, but not knowing until the last moment whether his efforts would result in failure or success.

Klose teaches at the University of Maine and is a regular contributor of essays to the Christian Science Monitor. He is also a four-time winner of the Maine Press Association award for opinion writing.

This event is a hybrid program and registration is required at www.jesuplibrary.org/events/klose or email eventsignup@jesuplibrary.org.

(Key Findings at a Glance)

Report : India

Submitted to :
National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights,
th 5 Floor, Chanderlok Building,
36, Janpath,
New Delhi – 110001

The words of an adoptive dad in the video below, “These babies are our challenge…” is the heart of an upcoming adoption seminar NewLife is hosting in Shashemene, Ethiopia.  Our orphanage director has met with leaders of evangelical churches asking for their support to encourage and vet potential adoptive families and to heighten overall interest in adoption in their churches.  Several pastors have adopted from our orphanage and, we are pleased to report, adoption is gaining momentum in the Christian community.

The keynote speaker is a well-known in Christian circles and is passionate about the Church taking responsibility for the orphan crisis in his country.  He is energetic and highly motivational.  Couples that have adopted will share their stories and the adoption process will be explained.  We expect to interact with 50 couples in this one-day workshop that, with God’s anointing, will result in a family for every abandoned child.

With reference to the documentary on TV2 'The secret in the shadow archive' about adoptions from South Korea, we must herewith make a short comment.

As we have previously expressed, the board of Adoption & Society fully supports the adoptees' desire to have certainty. It is absolutely crucial for all parties that the information provided in an adoption case can be trusted. 

The South Korean authorities, like the Danish authorities, have already launched an investigation into a large number of cases from the 70s and 80s. We eagerly await the conclusions of this, as it is essential for many adoptees and their families to find out whether the grounds for release in the cases have been truthful. 

Unfortunately, we have previously seen in connection with this type of investigation that the parties concerned are left without sufficient help from the authorities. All concerned parties, i.e. biological family/foster family, adoptive family and not least, of course, the adopted themselves, must be offered the necessary assistance and advice to handle both the emotional issues and the concrete, practical questions they/we face. This applies both before, during and after the conclusions are presented.

After viewing part 2 of the documentary, we will make a more in-depth statement in relation to this necessary support as well as the possibility of an impartial investigation. 

Sarah Ineichen had not expected these consequences: Five years ago she went public with her story and told how she was brought to Switzerland from Sri Lanka and adopted here as a baby under questionable circumstances.

From then on nothing was the same again. Her phone kept ringing. Dozens of those affected came forward, and soon there were hundreds. And everyone reported a similar experience. Sarah Ineichen just wanted to clarify the question of where her own roots are.

For her, the birth of her own children was a decisive factor: "That's when I realized: It can't be that a mother voluntarily gives her child away without leaving a mark on her," says Sarah Ineichen. “The pain of being separated from my mother and the need to find her consumed me completely.”

Looking for her mother

She was only able to trace her origins once she had put down roots herself with her family. And so in 2017, full of hope, she traveled to Sri Lanka with the information on her birth certificate from 1981. 

But the longed-for meeting with her mother did not happen. She did find the woman who was listed as the mother on the birth certificate. But as it later turned out, she was an acting mother; a woman who had been bought to play mother to the authorities and give her consent to the adoption.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making a push to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) mandated by Article 44 of India’s constitution. The UCC would be a single code of marriage and family law that would apply to all citizens equally regardless of their religion and local customs. While much of the focus of the debate has been on marriage law, adoption law, too, deserves serious attention.

Current drawbacks of adoption laws in India

Without the UCC, there are currently different adoption laws for different religious communities. There are a number of drawbacks, including:

— Lack of uniformity in the rights of adopted children. The rights of
adopted children vary depending on the religious community.
Under Hindu law, an adopted child is considered to be the
natural child of the adoptive parents. Under Islamic law, an
adopted child is not considered to be equivalent to a natural
child of the adoptive parents.

— Discrimination. The different laws governing adoption can also
lead to discrimination against certain groups of people, such as
single people, same-sex couples and interfaith couples. This can
make it more difficult for these groups of people to adopt a
child.