United Adoptees International - News

Ethiopian Government gets cautious with Adoptions

2011-04-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

MOWA confirms intend to prevent further unethical and illegal adoptions

Today ACT received copy of a letter sent by the Ethiopian Ministry of Women Affairs (MOWA) to the President of the Ethiopian Federal First Instance Court, dated 23/2/2011, that confirms that Ethiopia wants to prevent further unethical and illegal acts in relation to adoption.
The letter confirms the ‘rumours’ that MOWA will review 5 adoptions per day, instead of the previous 50 cases per day.
Below some quotes from the MOWA letter:

In a situation where there are a number of problems related to intercountry adoption, it would be mandatory to examine the pertinent of documents of prospective adoptive parents before opinions are given to the court of competent jurisdiction. We would also need to ensure that such documents are bona fide. Considering the present situation, it is found rather difficult to examine up to 50 files per day and, among these, to scrutinize files of prospective adoptive parents of 2 to 3 children to assess accuracy and to take time where additional investigation in the matter is warranted.

It is known that working with the executive organs at varying levels and the community to avoid the unethical and illegal acts in relation to adoption is fundamental. There is also no doubt that taking time to investigate the processes of adoption is highly important to decrease the incidences of adoptions pursued in an illegal manner using falsified documents and leading to violation of the rights and safety of children. Considering the current practice of adoption, the above stated predicaments exist and the Ministerial Office finds it necessary to examine these issues with emphasis. In the business process re-engineering conducted in the office, we find that the major objective should not be to work towards concluding international adoptions but to focus on strategic issues whereby decreasing the vulnerability of children and ensuring that children who are found to be vulnerable are provided with family and community based services. This would require deployment of the available human resource in strategic issues.

[…]

We find that it would be appropriate to examine a limited number of files on a daily basis and to give accurate and appropriate opinions as well as to focus on strategic maters in order that the rights and safety of children as recommended in the business process re-engineering.

Therefore is to notify that we would only be able to give opinions on a maximum of five adoption files effective as of March 10, 2011.

Letter MOWA: HERE

RENE HOKSBERGEN PRESENTEERT 27 MEI 2011

2011-04-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

Geachte genodigde,

Afdeling Adoptie heeft het genoegen u van harte uit te nodigen voor de boekpresentatie van René Hoksbergen:

”Kinderen die niet konden blijven. Zestig jaar adoptie in beeld.”

Datum: 27 mei 2011, 15.00 uur

Plaats: De Uithof, Educatorium, zaal Megaron

Leuvenlaan 19, 3584 CS Utrecht

Aanmelden graag vóór 20 mei:

Universiteit Utrecht, Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen, Afdeling Adoptie,

Martine Lunshof, M.Y.J.Lunshof@uu.nl, 030-2534804 (ma, di en wo van 10.00-18.00)

Staatsecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie, de heer Fred Teeven zal aanwezig zijn om het eerste exemplaar in ontvangst te nemen.

Wij hopen u op 27 mei te mogen begroeten.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Afdeling Adoptie

www.fss.uu.nl/adoptie

Kinderen die niet konden blijven. Zestig jaar adoptie in beeld.

Auteur Prof. Dr. René Hoksbergen

Adoptie van kinderen is al zo oud als de mensheid. Het Romeinse Rijk kende van 96 tot 180 AD zelfs vijf adoptiekeizers, bij gebrek aan mannelijke troonopvolgers. In Nederland werd adoptie pas in 1956 wettelijk geregeld. Waren het aanvankelijk vooral Nederlandse en Europese adoptiekinderen, in de jaren ‘70 brachten de hartverscheurende tv-beelden over de situatie van Vietnamese oorlogswezen en gemengdbloedige Zuid-Koreaanse kinderen een golf van medeleven teweeg. Met groot enthousiasme ging men aan de slag om deze kinderen uit hun benarde situatie te halen en hier in Nederland een beter leven te gunnen. Sindsdien is adoptie niet meer uit de media weggeweest.

In de jaren ‘80 verschenen de eerste scheurtjes in de roze wolk die adoptie omhulde. Ouders kwamen naar buiten met verhalen over moeizaam verlopende en zelfs mislukte adopties. In de jaren ’90 lieten geadopteerden zelf voor het eerst duidelijk van zich horen. Talloze verenigingen werden opgericht, meestal gebonden aan het land van herkomst. De pijnlijke kant van adoptie, zowel voor de eersteouder(s) als voor de geadopteerde kwam duidelijker voor het voetlicht. In de media verschenen berichten over misstanden bij sommige buitenlandse adoptiebemiddelaars; er werd zelfs over kinderhandel gesproken. Voor adoptieouders die zich met hart en ziel voor hun kinderen inzetten, waren dit pijnlijke berichten. Het onbevangen idealisme van de jaren ’70 heeft anno 2011 plaatsgemaakt voor een kritisch realisme.

Emeritus hoogleraar Adoptie René Hoksbergen schetst aan de hand van vijf generaties adoptieouders en twee generaties geadopteerden een evenwichtig beeld van de ontwikkelingen in de afgelopen zestig jaar. Ook de verborgen adoptie, bij het gebruik van donorsperma en donoreicellen, komt aan bod. Dit boek is een neerslag van zijn veertigjarige ervaring in het adoptieveld. Er ligt daarnaast een uitgebreide documentenstudie aan ten grondslag en informatie die door tientallen betrokkenen is verstrekt. Het is een uniek beeld van een maatschappelijk fenomeen dat ook internationaal nog steeds volop in beweging is.

Uitgeverij Aspekt

Soesterberg

PROGRAMMA

Entree gratis

15.00-15.30 Ontvangst met koffie/thee

15.30-16.00 “Zestig jaar adoptie in beeld”, een schets door René Hoksbergen

16.00-16.30 Twee geadopteerden laten u delen in hun persoonlijke ervaringen

16.30-17.00 Reacties en vragen uit het publiek

17.00-17.30 Aanbieding van het eerste exemplaar aan Staatsecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie, de heer Fred Teeven en uitreiking van het boek aan twee vertegenwoordigers van de Faculteit en enkele kernpersonen uit de adoptiedriehoek

17.30-18.15 Gelegenheid om met een drankje in de hand na te praten

Er is verkoop van enkele adoptiegerelateerde boeken en dvd’s. Na 17.00 uur kunt u eveneens het nieuwe boek aanschaffen. (pinnen is helaas niet mogelijk)

Indien u niet in de gelegenheid bent om aanwezig te zijn kunt u het boek vanaf 27 mei via m.y.j.lunshof@uu.nl bestellen.

Bereikbaarheid

- Plattegrond en routebeschrijving: klik hier

- Parkeergelegenheid: Leuvenlaan, betaald parkeren

- Openbaar vervoer: Bus 11 en 12 vanaf Utrecht CS, halte Heidelberglaan

Teruglopen naar het Willem C. van Unnikgebouw, door de draaideuren, rechtdoor de gang in.

Universiteit Utrecht

Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen

Afdeling Adoptie

Heidelberglaan 2

3584 CS Utrecht

030-2534804

www.fss.uu.nl/adoptie

Indian parents lose Dutch adoption court battle

2011-04-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

A twelve-year-old Indian boy who was adopted by Dutch parents as an infant does not have to give a DNA sample to prove to an Indian couple that he’s their legitimate son.

The couple, Nagarani and Kathirvel, say their son was stolen from them and was subsequently put up for adoption. The ruling by a Dutch court ends a four year court battle.

Published on : 1 April 2011 - 2:32pm | By Johan van Slooten

In 1999, the couple’s infant son was kidnapped from their home in Chennai, India. Five years later the kidnappers were arrested and they confessed that they had sold the boy to an orphanage in Chennai. Subsequently, the boy was put up for adoption by a Dutch couple through the mediation of a Dutch adoption agency.

With the help of Dutch organisation Against Child Trafficking (ACT), Nagarani and Kathirvel (pictured above with their other children) managed to retrace their son to the Netherlands – or rather: the boy who they believed was their son.

DNA test

There was just one way to prove that Rahul (not the boy's real name, for privacy reasons) was indeed the Indian couple’s son: a DNA test. The couple first requested such a test in 2007, but Rahul’s adoptive parents rejected it.

Last year, Nagarani and Kathirvel and their Dutch lawyers took the adoptive parents to court to order a DNA test. They later also accused the adoption agency and Rahul’s adoptive parents of kidnapping and child trafficking.

Child's interest

A family court in the Netherlands has now ruled that 12-year old Rahul cannot be forced to undergo a DNA test if he doesn’t want to. Although the court said that Nagarani and Kahtirvel "may well be" Rahul’s biological parents, it also stated that the interest of the child would prevail. “If the child does not want to take this any further, it’s his own decision and we should respect that,” the judge explained.

Nagarani and Kathirvel were subsequently ordered to pay court costs of up to 4,800 euros. They have since returned to India empty handed. They have not met Rahul or his adoptive parents during their stay in the Netherlands.

'Nobody wins'

Hilbrand Westra of United Adoptees International says that this is a case of ‘nobody wins’. “ This ruling could be bad for all parties involved,” he told RNW. “It’s sad that this case had to be taken to court. It won’t do Rahul much good, I’m afraid. He’s been thrown into a situation he didn’t want to be involved in.”

Mr Westra says this court case revealed many shortcomings of adoption programmes which are running between the Western world and developing countries such as India, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh.

“There are fifty couples for every child that is put up for adoption,” he says. “So there’s a lot of competition between the parents and between the adoption agencies. Interests are huge. You never know what ‘s happened to the children before they’re picked up by these agencies.”

Doubts

He thinks that adoptive parents have their own responsibilities when they’re trying to adopt a child through an agency, even if that agency is fully approved (as in Rahul’s case). “We tend to say: when in doubt, never cross the street,” Mr Westra says. “In some cases, things just aren’t right. Adoptive parents should always try to erase any doubts.”

“In Rahul’s case, it’s quite clear – the Indian court ruled in 2005 that he’d been kidnapped before he was put up for adoption,” Mr Westra says.

“That puts a different light on the subsequent adoption process, even if that process in itself was conducted legally and according to Dutch and Indian laws. The agency should have investigated Rahul’s background more thoroughly before they offered him to the Dutch adoptive couple.”

Solution

Mr Westra has one, rather simple solution for cases like Rahul’s: “Every adoptive child should undergo a DNA test before it’s handed over to adoptive parents,” he says. “In that case there can never be any doubt who its biological parents are, if those details are available, of course. But it’ll probably never happen as it will scare off many adoption agencies and adoptive parents.”

“Things really have to change. For Rahul, for his biological parents, but also for his adoptive parents. And for all children who will enter the adoption treadmill in the future. There are still a lot of taboos in the adoption world and the willingness to alter things is small. Without those changes, adoption won’t lose its reputation that in a way, it’s a modern way of people trafficking,” Mr Westra says.

More about:

Rechter wijst gedwongen DNA-test Indiaas adoptiekind af

2011-04-02T06:02:00.000-07:00

Een 12-jarige Indiase jongen die is geadopteerd door Nederlandse ouders hoeft geen DNA-materiaal af te staan aan een Indiaas echtpaar dat beweert dat hij hun kind is. Het kind zou zijn gestolen en ter adoptie zijn aangeboden aan een Nederlands stel. Met de uitspraak van een Nederlandse rechter komt een eind aan 4 jaar touwtrekken.

Gepubliceerd op : 1 april 2011 - 5:20 pm | door Johan van Slooten ((c) RNW)

In 1999 werd het zoontje van het Indiase paar ontvoerd uit hun huis in Chennai. Vijf jaar later werden de daders gearresteerd. Zij bekenden dat zij de jongen hadden verkocht aan een weeshuis in Chennai. Vervolgens werd de jongen ter adoptie aangeboden aan een Nederlands echtpaar door een Nederlands adoptiebureau.

DNA-test

Met behulp van de Nederlandse organisatie tegen kinderhandel (ACT), slaagden Nagarani en Kathirvel (hierboven afgebeeld met hun andere kinderen) erin geslaagd om hun zoon op te sporen in Nederland - liever gezegd: de jongen waarvan ze denken dat hij hun zoon is.

De enige manier om te bewijzen dat Rahul (niet de echte naam van de jongen) echt hun zoon is, was door middel van een DNA-test. Het echtpaar deed hun eerste verzoek voor een dergelijke test in 2007, maar de adoptieouders van Rahul wezen dit af.

Kinderhandel

Vorig jaar gingen Nagarani en Kathirvel en hun Nederlandse advocaten naar de rechter om een DNA-test af te dwingen. Ook beschuldigden zij het adoptiebureau en Rahuls adoptieouders van ontvoering en kinderhandel.

Een Nederlandse rechter heeft nu geoordeeld dat de 12-jarige Rahul niet kan worden gedwongen om een DNA-test te ondergaan tegen zijn zin. Hoewel de rechter meende dat Nagarani en Kahtirvel best Rahuls biologische ouders zouden kunnen zijn, zei hij het belang van het kind te laten prevaleren. 'Als het kind dit verder niet wil, is dat zijn eigen beslissing en moeten we dat respecteren', verklaarde hij.

Kosten

Ook werden Nagarani en Kathirvel veroordeeld tot het betalen van de proceskosten van - maximaal - 4800 euro. Inmiddels zijn zij met lege handen teruggekeerd naar India. Tijdens hun verblijf in Nederland hebben zij Rahul en zijn adoptieouders niet ontmoet.

Hilbrand Westra van United Adoptees International zegt dat deze zaak 'louter verliezers' kent. 'Deze uitspraak kan voor alle betrokken partijen alleen maar negatief zijn', zei hij tegen de Wereldomroep. 'Het is triest dat de zaak voor de rechter moest komen. Het zal Rahul niet veel goeds opleveren, vrees ik. Hij is in een positie terecht gekomen die hij niet wil.'

Opgepikt

Westra zegt dat deze rechtszaak veel tekortkomingen heeft laten zien van adoptieprogramma's die worden uitgevoerd tussen de westerse wereld en de ontwikkelingslanden, zoals India, Sri Lanka of Bangladesh.

'Er zijn vijftig paren voor elk kind dat wordt aangeboden ter adoptie', zegt hij. 'Dus er is veel concurrentie tussen de ouders en tussen de adoptiebureaus. De belangen zijn enorm. Je weet nooit wat er is gebeurd met de kinderen voordat ze opgepikt zijn door deze instanties.'

Twijfels

Hij denkt dat adoptieouders hun eigen verantwoordelijkheden hebben bij hun poging om via een bureau een kind te adopteren, zelfs als dat bureau volledig is goedgekeurd (zoals in het geval van Rahul). 'We hebben de neiging om te zeggen: bij twijfel nooit, de straat over te steken', zegt Westra. 'In sommige zaken klopt het gewoon niet. Adoptieouders moeten iedere twijfel wegnemen.'

Volgens Westra ligt de zaak bij Rahul vrij duidelijk: 'De Indiase rechtbank oordeelde in 2005 dat hij was ontvoerd voor hij werd geadopteerd.'

'Dat zet het hele adoptieproces in een ander licht, zelfs als dat proces op zichzelf legaal is verlopen volgens de Nederlandse en Indiase wetten. Het agentschap had Rahuls achtergrond grondiger moeten onderzoeken voor het hem aanbood aan de Nederlandse adoptie-ouders.'

Oplossing

Hilbrand Westra heeft een vrij eenvoudige oplossing voor gevallen als dat van Rahul: 'Ieder adoptiekind moet een DNA-test ondergaan voordat het wordt overgedragen aan adoptieouders. In dat geval kan er nooit enige twijfel bestaan wie de biologische ouders zijn, indien hun gegevens beschikbaar zijn, natuurlijk. Maar dit gaat waarschijnlijk nooit gebeuren, omdat het veel adoptiebureaus en adoptieouders zal afschrikken.'

Er moet iets veranderen, vindt Westra. 'Voor Rahul, voor zijn biologische ouders, maar ook voor zijn adoptieouders. En voor alle kinderen die het adoptieproces in de toekomst ingaan. Er bestaan nog veel taboes in de wereld van de adoptie en de bereidheid om dingen te veranderen is klein. Zonder veranderingen zal adoptie in een kwaad daglicht komen te staan, namelijk dat het gaat om een moderne manier van mensenhandel.'

Lees meer over:

Adoption Agencies Using Adoptees

2011-04-02T00:49:00.000-07:00

The Business Of Adoption Agencies From The Inside

A Korean American Adoptee's Perspective

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

By Kevin - www.slanteyefortheroundeye.com

Please bear with me as I indulge some of my personal rants. Specifically, please be patient as I vent about the largest adoption agency in the lovely state of Minnesota.

My name is Kevin, and I’m what some call a KAD – Korean adoptee. Yes, I’m Asian. Yes, I’m Korean. Yes, I’m transracial. Yes, I love me some kimchi. And, no, strange girl from UCLA who opted to go off on Asian students, I don’t talk on the phone in the library.

I’m also a recovering “agency person” as well. A few years ago I worked for the largest adoption agency (as well as the second largest agency) in Minnesota.

Here begins my story . . .

During my time with this agency, I was a part of the team that recruited new, potential adoptive parents. I even worked with adoptive parents after they finalized their adoption to recruit other adoptive parents! It was fantastic. I was pretty good at my craft. Not as great as Blake from Glengarry Glen Ross, but I was a “closer.” Let’s just put it this way. There was a demand for a particular “product” and I helped meet that demand. Heck, I would go as far as to say that I even helped create a need for this demand.

At the same time, I was given the task of expanding the agency’s relationship with international and domestic adult adoptees, a significant group in its “constituency” with which it had an up-and-down relationship. Let’s just say that this agency had a knack for pissing off adoptees; it had a habit of blowing off adoptees and their thoughts and perspectives. In performing my duties as assigned, I attempted to cultivate deep relationships with some of the more vocal and active members of the adoptee community. I did so by reaching out to adult adoptees, meeting with them in person, inviting them into the agency to talk with members of the leadership, setting up an adoptee forum, creating an adult adoptee “advisory group,” etc. You know. I did all of that “relationship building” stuff.

Simultaneously, in performing my duties as assigned, I confronted, head on, the vocal and active members of the adoptee community who took issues with the practice and business of adoption. For instance, I had no qualms about openly criticizing adoptees involved in Adoptee Solidarity Korea (ASK) and Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK)!

Again, I was pretty good at my craft. I wasn’t a “closer,” but, at the very least, many of the adoptees with whom I engaged trusted that I was working on their behalf, which I too believed.

I was so naïve . . .

In the whole scheme of things, this adoption agency was good to me. It brought me to the states as a seven year old and placed me with my adoptive family in rural Minnesota. It was somewhat involved in my reconnection with my birth family in Korea. It additionally created a new position for me after I was let go by the second largest adoption agency in the state. And I made lifelong friends there; I consider one of its past vice presidents and directors true adoption advocates. Yeah, it was good to me.

Conversely, I was good for the agency. What better way to recruit adoptive parents than have a composed, well adjusted, transracial Korean adoptee who loves adoption? (“It’s the best thing since milk and cookies!”) What better way to engage potentially pissy adult adoptees than with an adoptee who openly talked about his pissy, non-well adjusted past? What better way to confront strong adoptees, with constructive arguments against adoption than with another adoptee who could easily express, with conviction, equally compelling arguments in support of adoption? Yeah, I, the poster boy transracial adoptee, was good for the agency. I played the “good Asian” role very well.

As they say, all good things must come to an end. I left the agency in 2006, absolutely disgruntled with the whole “adoption thing.” Through my job, I came into more contact with other professionals from different agencies and much of what I saw didn’t please me. Many adoption professionals, for example, are frankly patronizing to adoptees who work in agencies: “Oh, isn’t that precious? An adoptee who’s ‘giving back.’ Good for you.”

Some are self aggrandizing. “This is God’s work. I’m saving the world’s children! Do you know how many children I’ve placed?” The job got me to a point in which I started getting a tad bit pissy at certain adoptive parents. Some adoptive parents ask the most obscene questions: “Has my son’s teenage birthmother had another child so that she can put him/her up for adoption? Boy, my son would love to have a sibling!”

Some are the most entitled people in the universe: “Would it be possible for me to expedite the Russian adoption process for my wife and me? We could just pay the $35K right now. We have the money. Do you want a donation?” Some adoptive parents, in particular adoptive parents who work for adoption agencies, are frankly clueless: “Why would any adult adoptee have ill feelings about adoption agencies? We gave them good homes!” (uttered by a current president of a well known agency).

The job also got me to a point in which I started getting frustrated with certain adoptees. Let’s face it. Some of us adoptees are the most self centered individuals, and some of us just take ourselves way too seriously: “We bear all of the burdens in adoption!”, ”Do you know how hard I work in this adoption agency to make sure that the much needed voices of adult adoptees are heard? Do you have any idea how important that is? Don’t even think about questioning my motivation!” (uttered by me *sigh*).

The job, more than anything else, got me to a point in which I started questioning myself. After leaving the agency, I repeatedly asked “Have I been wrong this entire time?”

Fast forward. Within the last year, I had an employment conversation with the largest adoption agency in Minnesota, well, at least a few members of the agency’s leadership. I approached the agency not because I needed a job (I offered to take a very drastic pay cut.) Rather, I approached the agency because, like many nonprofits, the agency was financially struggling. As a result, it was laying off a number of people (individuals whom I considered friends) even though, in my estimation, some of the people the agency was letting go were the best employees for aiding the agency to rebound financially. Furthermore, the agency was hacking away at its already minuscule post adoption education budget when, at least in my estimation, post adoption services could actually be the “money maker.”

For me, as a fundraiser (the career path I chose after leaving adoption) I saw a great opportunity for this agency: what better time than now to reach out to adoptive parents and adoptees? What better time than now to ask for them to reconnect and remold the agency, to make it a better place?”

I talked with a few of the agency’s leadership about the idea of me rejoining “the team” to help fundraise. We talked about how I could help the agency to philanthropically engage adoptive parents and adult adoptees: to work with the leadership in creating lifelong relationships with adoptive parents and adoptees; to work with adoptive parents and adoptees to support the agency’s general operating expenses and post adoption programs. Gasp! I even suggested for this agency to reach out to the Korean adoptees living in Korea who are advocating for the end of international adoption in that country. What a statement it would make if the largest Minnesota adoption agency, in conjunction with their international counterparts in Korea, crafted a plan with ASK and TRACK that would aid Korea in thoughtfully ending international adoption!

I was so naïve . . .

The conversation went sour. The folks with whom I had been in talks decided that, if I were to join the team, I would only raise money for humanitarian aid – not for general operating costs and certainly not for post adoption education.

I fumed. I declined the employment opportunity.

Why? What’s wrong with humanitarian aid you ask?

Altruism definitely plays a key role for adoption agencies that have humanitarian aid programs. Many of these programs are run very well and support some fantastic endeavors in orphanages and child caring institutions.

However, there’s another reason why adoption agencies have humanitarian aid programs. Money. Money plays another key role for adoption agencies that have humanitarian aid programs. Humanitarian aid programs function as a way for adoption agencies to keep their international country partners (i.e., the individuals running institutions like orphanages) happy: “Hey, my favorite international partner in China! Did that supply of goods make it to your place? How’s that building we helped you renovate? You know there’s way more where that came from!” Happy country partners are much more apt to make more referrals, i.e., the children whom the partner agencies recommend for waiting parents to adopt. For adoption agencies in the US, more referrals mean more families moving through the adoption process. More families moving through the adoption process means more money for agencies.

Oh, right. I’ve failed to mention that the agency in question was having referral problems, that referrals weren’t coming quickly for them . . .

To put all of this differently, the agency was, once again, asking for me to help them “create” more adoptive parents and adoptees. They wanted me to do so without focusing time on another pivotal component in the field of adoption – post adoption education, support, and outreach for families and adoptees after the fact, something that the agency promises. Trust me folks. There is a significant amount of adoptive families and adoptees out there who would benefit from something as straightforward as an outreach program.

Yeah. Intentionally or not, the agency wanted me, a former orphan and a person who identifies as a transracial Koreaan adoptee, to sell out my own kind . . . again.

When I left this agency the first time, I absolutely felt as though I had sold out my own kind. Much of the anger I felt was directed internally. I had, for years, advocated for the business of adoption, and I had perpetuated one of the biggest lies in adoption – adoption agencies are there for adoptive parents and, most importantly, the adoptees for the rest of their lives.
Patently false. Absolute bullshit.

Most adoption agencies only care about the creation of adoptive families. The Minnesota agency in question serves as an example. Contrary to what the largest adoption agency in Minnesota says, its post adoption program exists only on paper (to interested folks, check out the agency’s website, read what is supposedly offered, and then call the agency to obtain more details. You’ll be very disappointed after the phone call). But, hey! If one takes a look at the agency’s last newsletter, there are plenty of events and information sessions for individuals who are interested in adopting and for potential adoptive parents who are in the process of adopting.

From what I understand, the agency has no plans to ramp up its post adoption services. To quote one of the individuals from the agency’s leadership, “Post adoption has never brought in enough money.” It has no plans, even though there is a great need for post adoption education, outreach, and support in the state of Minnesota, which is home to tens of thousands of adoptees. It has no plans, even though the agency has no qualms about placing children of color into heavily Caucasian communities in Metro and Outstate Minnesota.

I can see it coming now. The largest adoption agency is going to say, “Listen. I don’t know what planet you live on, but we’re in a recession. We can’t afford to have a lively post adoption program. And, you know what, we offer way more than the other agencies.” Well, in case the agency decides to respond in this particular manner, I have a few suggestions:

1. Perhaps it’s time for you to focus some attention to raising money for areas within the agency that actually matter. Perhaps it’s time for you to raise money for programs that people find of interest.

2. Perhaps it’s time for you to get creative. Perhaps it’s not working for you to continue the practices that you’ve been using for the last however many years. Perhaps your ideas are stagnant.

3. Perhaps it’s time for you to develop deeper relationships with some of your oldest constituents. Perhaps it’s time to work with adoptees, adoptive parents, and birthparents as equal partners.

4. Perhaps you would be surprised by all that you could accomplish if you quit being so interested in money.

5. Perhaps you’ll surprise many of us, but most likely not. Who am I kidding . . .

Ok! That wraps up my rant! If none of it makes sense, so be it!

And oh…before I forget. To the largest adoption agency in Minnesota . . .

I just brought it. I invite you to, ah, bring it.

DUTCH ADOPTION AGENCY NAS LOBBIES FOR REOPENING HAITI

2011-03-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

Nevertheless the Dutch government halted the adoptions from Haiti, the (prospective) adoption parents and the fastest growing adoption agency NAS pushing for reopening Haiti for adoption.

The UAI warned media and others in the adoption-chain the pressure of the (inter)national lobby of (prospective) adoption parents who are pushing harder and harder to get the children they want. Pointing to other European countries and the US who, after the Netherlands started the Haitian 'Babylift' campaign, who are continuing uncontrolled adoptions to get children from Haiti.

The UAI is urging the Dutch government to keep the 'embargo' on the Haitian adoptions, supported by adult Haitian Adoptees within in the Netherlands. The earlier international statement on Haiti, published by Adoptees of Color Roundtable has been send out again to make the public aware that not everyone is joining the statement of adoption agency NAS.

RECHT OP ADOPTIEKINDEREN ?

2011-03-30T23:39:00.000-07:00

TER INFO - EERSTE REACTIE - UAI De UAI ontving van de het Ministerie van Veiligheid & Justitie een schrijven (21 maart 2011) waarin wordt gesteld dat niet alle kinderen die vorig jaar binnen kwamen met de bedoeling geadopteerd te worden geformaliseerd kunnen worden, juist vanwege het niet gecontroleerd kunnen krijgen van de status van de kinderen. Voor alle drie categorieën blijkt dit bovenstaande te gelden. Citaat: "Mij is bekend dat de rechter tot op heden pas enkele gevallen deze 'zwakke' adoptie heeft omgezet in een sterke adoptie, mede omdat van deze groep kinderen niet alle oorspronkelijke, originele documenten beschikbaar zijn. Aangezien deze omzettingen privé aangelegenheden betreffen, heb ik niet de beschikking over informatie van al deze zaken en kan ik u geen exacte cijfers verstrekken." Tevens blijkt uit de brief dat het ook niet duidelijk is over er nog ouders zouden zijn alhoewel er wordt gesuggereerd dat er onderzoek zou zijn gedaan in Haiti, blijkt nergens uit wie en hoe dat onderzoek dan is gedaan. In kader van onderzoeken uitgevoerd door de Nederlandse overheid in India en China in vergelijkende omstandigheden, vragen wij ons af hoe objectief en volledig deze onderzoeken dan ook zijn uitgevoerd. Deze hele kwestie laat opnieuw zien, dat het halen van kinderen uiteindelijk ervoor zorgt, dat na het verstrijken van family life (artikel 8 evrm) je (andermans) kinderen gewoon kunt houden. Als diverse partijen aangeven, waaronder Unicef, ISS ed., dat het niet te controleren valt wat zich in Haiti afspeelt, en wij de gevolgen ondervinden van volwassen geadopteerde Haitianen die op een dergelijke manier al eens eerder in Nederland zijn terecht gekomen, met grote gevolgen voor hun welzijn, moet je je afvragen of je dergelijke ontwikkelingen wel moet toejuichen zoals de indruk wordt gewekt in het onderstaande artikel van Trouw. Je zou jezelf eveneens de vraag de moeten stellen in hoeverre adopties met een dergelijke achtergrond langer als een privekwestie moet worden bestempeld, als er gebruik is gemaakt van overheidsmiddelen om deze kinderen in Nederland te krijgen op een manier die op zichzelf eigenlijk al ter discussie gesteld zou moeten worden. Maar zoals gewoonlijk blijft de hele ethische discussie achterwege en ook de belangen van volwassen geadopteerden, met name uit Haiti, die op een dag zich afvragen waarom niemand zijn best heeft gedaan om beter en zorgvuldiger te handelen en na te denken over de mogelijke en (geen uitzonderlijke) maatschappelijke uitval van deze kinderen op volwassen leeftijd. Deze zorg wordt momenteel door steeds meer volwassen geadopteerde Haitiaanse geadopteerden en transraciale en transculturele geadopteerden over de hele wereld geuit. Het feit dat overheden geen oog en oor hebben voor volwassen geadopteerden maar wel voor de (aspirant)adoptieouder lobby is een bevreemdend fenomeen, omdat het toch over hun belang ging ? Nu duidelijk blijkt dat zij, de geadopteerden, steeds duidelijker (internationaal) hun kritiek uiten over dergelijke praktijken maar (inter)nationale overheden zich slechts richten op de belangen van de adoptielobby wordt zo langzamerhand zichtbaar, waar de werkelijke belangen liggen. UAI 2011 - HAITI ----------------------------------------------------

Adoptie uit Haïti kan Politiek TROUW In tehuizen zitten nu heel veel kinderen te wachten op ouders, zegt Macky Hupkes van de Nederlandse Adoptiestichting (NAS), die bemiddelt bij adoptie van ... www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4500/.../Adoptie-uit-Haiti-kan.dhtml

Iris Pronk − 31/03/11, 07:29

Adopteren uit Haïti is wél verantwoord, vinden aspirant-adoptieouders. Dat staatssecretaris Teeven van justitie de adopties uit dit land nog steeds opschort, is volgens hen 'niet in het belang van het kind'. In een petitie vragen ze Teeven om 'per direct' in actie te komen. Justitie zal later reageren.
"In tehuizen zitten nu heel veel kinderen te wachten op ouders," zegt Macky Hupkes van de Nederlandse Adoptiestichting (NAS), die bemiddelt bij adoptie van kinderen uit Haïti. Het omgekeerde is ook waar: op de wachtlijst van de NAS staan tientallen Nederlandse gezinnen die verlangen naar een Haïtiaans kind.

Een Nederlandse delegatie zou deze maand poolshoogte gaan nemen in Haïti, om te onderzoeken of de adoptieprocedure weer 'zuiver' kan verlopen. Vorig jaar repten verschillende internationale rapporten nog over corruptie, chaos en kinderhandel in het land dat in januari 2010 door een aardbeving werd geteisterd.

Maar omdat er nog geen nieuwe Haïtiaanse regering is, heeft de Nederlandse overheid de reis uitgesteld. Tot ergernis van de aspirant-ouders en de NAS, die vlak na de aardbeving via een luchtbrug voor het laatst 109 Haïtiaanse kinderen naar Nederland haalde.

"Het ministerie neemt nu wel heel erg de tijd," zegt Hupkes. "Intussen hebben landen als de Verenigde Staten, Canada, Duitsland en Zwitserland de adopties al hervat."Volgens haar is de orde in Haïti inmiddels voldoende hersteld. "De kinderbescherming functioneert, de rechtbank ook. Adoptie uit Haïti is geen gladde weg, maar we kennen de risico's en we kunnen maatregelen nemen om die te omzeilen."Kinderhandel is het belangrijkste risico, en dat denkt de NAS goeddeels te kunnen uitsluiten door géén wezen te adopteren. "Tenzij ook daadwerkelijk is vastgesteld dat ze wees zijn, en er een deugdelijk rapport over hun herkomst ligt."

Wel in aanmerking komen kinderen die zijn afgestaan voor adoptie. Hupkes: "Daarbij moet duidelijk zijn dat de ouders vrijwillig afstand doen, dat ze beseffen dat hun kind naar het buitenland gaat en dat de adoptie onomkeerbaar is." De NAS wil ook dat deze ouders een DNA-test doen. "Daarmee kunnen we niet de vrijwilligheid, maar wel de bloedband vaststellen. Zo wordt kinderhandel erg moeilijk."

Maar de lobby van de aspirant-ouders en de NAS overtuigt nog niet iedereen. Volgens Unicef was de Haïtiaanse wetgeving rond adoptie ook vóór de aardbeving slecht geregeld. Haïti heeft pas deze maand een handtekening gezet onder het Haags adoptieverdrag, dat kinderhandel moet tegengaan. Maar het duurt nog wel even voordat ze het in praktijk kunnen brengen. "De Haïtiaanse overheid kan een zorgvuldige procedure gewoon niet garanderen", aldus een Unicef-woordvoerder.

AT & UAI TEGEN PETITIE NAS - HEROPENING HAITI

2011-03-26T01:40:00.000-07:00

Een groep adoptieouders heeft onlangs een petitie opgezet om adopties vanuit Haiti weer mogelijk te maken.

Adoptie Trefpunt en de UAI adviseren om deze petitie vooral NIET te tekenen. Er is te veel aktuele schokkende informatie die bewijst dat adoptie vanuit Haiti nog lang niet aan de orde kan zijn. Een keiharde werkelijkheid waarvoor men liever de ogen wenst te sluiten, met het excuus dat opschorting niet in het belang van het kind zou zijn. Kinderen in Haïti worden verkocht voor minder dan 1 euro (21-2-2011)

LINK: http://welingelichtekringen.nl/11488-kinderen-in-haiti-worden-verkocht-voor-minder-dan-1-euro.html De Britse Daily Telegraph heeft verslag gedaan van het werk van BPM (Brigade de Protection des Mineurs), die dagelijks proberen illegale kinderhandel op te sporen. Children in Haiti are being sold for as little as 76 pence each by traffickers taking advantage of the chaos from last year’s earthquake, new figures from Unicef show.The Daily Telegraph gained exclusive access to film the work being carried out by Unicef to try and tackle the problem.

The charity is funding the Brigade de Protection des Mineurs (BPM) - working in conjunction with the police - which monitors the camps and Haitian borders to pinpoint vulnerable children. Zie:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/8328850/Haiti-earthquake-children-sold-by-traffickers-for-as-little-as-76-pence-each.html Het is pijnlijk te moeten constateren dat op de een of andere manier men niet bereid is te leren uit de lessen van Guatemala, Cambodja, Roemenië, Vietnam en Ethiopië. Hoe pijnlijk de beelden van beschadigde kinderen ook moge zijn, gezien de stand van zaken in Haiti (corruptie, vervalsing van papieren/documenten, omkoping, misleiding etc.) is het naief te veronderstellen dat er -op korte termijn- een deugdelijk procedure gewaarborgd kan worden. De motivatie van de groep adoptieouders die de petitie hebben opgesteld

Staatssecretaris Teeven heeft besloten de interlandelijke adoptie uit Haiti tijdelijk op te schorten. Zie: http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/nieuws/2010/12/13/voorlopig-geen-adopties-uit-haiti.html

In maart 2011 zou de staatssecretaris een werkbezoek aan Haiti brengen. Dit werkbezoek is uitgesteld tot na de installatie van een nieuwe regering. De groep adoptieouders (en anderen) die in de bres springen voor de kinderen in Haiti vinden dat deze opschorting niet in het belang van het kind is.

Volgens hun heeft de besluitvorming plaatsgevonden op basis van onduidelijke argumenten, en die niet getoetst aan het Nederlandse kanaal, waardoor er op dit moment adoptabele kinderen, met een uiterst onzeker toekomstperspectief, in tehuizen verblijven. De staatssecretaris vindt een werkbezoek noodzakelijk, maar heeft deze meerdere malen uitgesteld, waardoor kinderen onnodig lang moet wachten en blijvend schade kunnen oplopen. De aspirant-adoptieouders vinden dat ze aan het lijntje worden gehouden. Verder wijst deze groep oduers naar vergunninghouder NAS, die pretendeert een deugdelijke procedure te kunnen waarborgen.

Zie de petitie: http://petities.nl/petitie/heropening-van-adoptiekanaal-haiti De oproep en discussie over deze petitie vindt o.a. plaats op: http://adoptie.startpagina.nl/prikbord/13789237/petitie-om-adoptie-vanuit-hati-weer-mogelijk-te-maken#msg-13789237 De NAS

Het bestuur van de NAS heeft kennis genomen van het besluit van de staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie.

Al eerder heeft de NAS uitgesproken het te betreuren dat adopties vanuit Haïti naar Nederland zijn opgeschort. Het uitstel van het werkbezoek en daarmee de voortduring van de opschorting van de adopties is een besluit wat verstrekkende gevolgen heeft voor kinderen die in Haïti in tehuizen verblijven. Deze kinderen lopen het risico om door hun langere verblijf in het tehuis, meer beschadiging op te lopen dan nodig.

De NAS is van mening dat het mogelijk en verantwoord is om de adopties vanuit Haïti weer op te starten.

Gelukkig heeft het ministerie afwijzend gereageerd op het verzoek van de NAS. De NAS blijft het bijzonder spijtig vinden dat argumenten over de administratieve procedure de basis vormen voor het besluit van het ministerie en hoopt dat de staatssecretaris vanuit humaan oogpunt bereid is om op zijn besluit terug te komen. Zie: http://www.nederlandseadoptiestichting.nl/Haiti.htmOOK ADOPTIOUDER(S) TEGEN HEROPENING HAITI - DWIVI

De NAS had het al aangekondigd: ze wil graag adopties uit Haïti hervatten. Er is nu zelfs een on-line petitie om haar wens kracht bij te zetten. Teken de petitie vooral niet. Haïti heeft onvoldoende juridische mogelijkheden om kinderhandel te voorkomen. Je kunt er zonder problemen een 'weesje' verkopen aan een kindertehuis en dat tehuis kan zonder problemen naar een buitenlands adoptiekanaal sluizen. DNA-tests en handtekeningen zijn er makkelijk te vervalsen bij kinderen die 'afgestaan' zijn. Uiteindelijk moet je bij adoptie kunnen vertrouwen op de juistheid van het papierwerk. Zolang je dit niet kunt, is interlandelijke adoptie geen adequate optie voor Haïti.Wanneer leren we eens van Guatemala, Cambodja, Roemenië, Vietnam en Ethiopië? Als je wat wilt doen voor de kinderen in Haïti: verzin dan wat beters. Begin een school. Steun ongehuwde moeders. Stuur geld naar SOS kinderdorpen. Adoptie is nu in ieder geval niet in hun belang. Kinderen worden er gestolen van hun familie, en handelaren, tussenpersonen en ambtenaren verdienen er flink geld mee, zodra adoptie weer mogelijk wordt.

OFFICIELE UAI REACTIE - GEADOPTEERDE GEEN DNA TEST

2011-03-17T04:34:00.000-07:00

Reactie op het artikel 'Zaak-Rahul verdeelt adoptiewereld' (Trouw, 11 maart 2011)

Dat in het debat over adoptie steeds meer een rol aan de geadopteerden zelf wordt toebedeeld, is op zichzelf een toe te juichen ontwikkeling. Een ontwikkeling die met name door de inmiddels volwassen geworden geadopteerden zelf in gang is gezet. De beslissing van de rechtbank om in de zaak Rahul een prominente rol toe te bedelen aan de jongen zelf past in deze ontwikkeling.

Rahul is evenwel geen volwassen man, maar slechts nog een kind. Een kind dat een Salomonsoordeel over zichzelf en de vier betrokken volwassen in deze zaak heeft moeten uitspreken. De conclusie in het artikel dat het niettemin een geruststelling moet zijn voor Rahul dat hij, hoewel hij zijn voorgeschiedenis niet heeft gekozen, nu wel zelf mag weten hoe hij en wanneer hij aan dat verhaal verder schrijft, getuigt toch wel enigszins van een gemakshalve berusting in een situatie waarvoor geen van de betrokken partijen heeft gekozen. Wie met een kritische blik naar deze zaak kijkt, zou zich toch op zijn minst moeten afvragen hoe het zover heeft kunnen komen.

Het in 1993 gesloten Haags Adoptieverdrag dat tot doel heeft om problemen met betrekking tot interlandelijke adoptie te vermijden en de grondslag vormt van de Nederlandse adoptiewetgeving, kent aan ieder betrokken land een aantal taken toe waarvoor het de primaire verantwoordelijkheid draagt. Hoewel het verdrag de nodige waarborgen bevat voor een zorgvuldige adoptie, zijn het de eigen autoriteiten van een land die toezicht moeten houden op de adoptie-organisaties en de adoptieprocedures in dat land. Daargelaten dat van slagers die hun eigen vlees keuren niet altijd een kritische blik kan worden verwacht, zijn er nog vele andere financiële en politieke belangen die maken dat een land niet snel de eigen vuile was buiten zal hangen als het gaat om misstanden rondom interlandelijke adoptie. En het land waarnaar de kinderen worden geadopteerd, wast zijn handen in onschuld want het is immers niet verantwoordelijk voor de controle van de adoptieprocedure in het land van herkomst. Door deze gespreide verantwoordelijkheid zonder enig toezicht door een onafhankelijke internationale autoriteit, zijn de waarborgen uit het Haags Adoptieverdrag een wassen neus.

United Adoptees International pleit al jaren voor de oprichting van een dergelijke toezichthouder, doch tot op heden zonder enig resultaat. En hoewel de media in de recente jaren veelvuldig hebben bericht over ernstige misstanden rondom adoptie in landen zoals India en China, worden er niettemin nog volop kinderen uit deze landen geadopteerd. Een gegeven dat onbegrijpelijk is, als in dezelfde week wordt bericht dat justitie en politie berichten heling van consumentengoederen daadkrachtiger te willen aanpakken. Het aanpakken van heling van adoptiekinderen heeft blijkbaar minder prioriteit.

Hilbrand Westra en Ime Vreken

Hilbrand Westra is managing director van United Adoptees International

Ime Vreken is jurist

UAI Reponse to Rahul Case

2011-03-10T23:19:00.000-08:00

Rechten werken slechts een kant op, de vrije markt prevaleert

Door Hilbrand Westra, United Adoptees International

Anand Kaper, geadopteerd uit India

Datum 9 maart 2011

In familierechtzaken, zo werd afgelopen week aangegeven in diverse media weegt het belang van minderjarigen het zwaarst. Wat is, in het geval van vermeende kinderroof en Indiase ouders die graag willen weten of ‘Rahul’ hun zoon is, het werkelijke belang van het kind?

De toonzetting en de uiteindelijke uitspraak van de rechtbank in Zwolle-Lelystad heeft er alle zweem van, dat de rol van ontvangende landen beschermd worden. En dit over de ruggen van onbeschermde ouders in derde wereldlanden en geadopteerde kinderen die de omvang en complexiteit van een dergelijke zaak niet kunnen overzien. Er kan zelfs gesproken worden over een situatie waarbij Rahul een Salomonsoordeel heeft moeten vellen over zichzelf en zijn mogelijke ouders.

Als we echt in het belang van het kind hadden willen handelen, had de onpartijdige expert in moeten zien, dat geadopteerd zijn niet betekent, dat adoptie niet ophoudt bij de kindertijd maar een levenlang meegaat en dus de lange termijnontwikkeling voor Rahul, net als voor vele geadopteerden, op zijn minst had moeten worden overwogen. Het is bijvoorbeeld nu niet uitgesloten als een van de vermeende ouders of beide te komen overlijden, dat Rahul hierover dus nu zelf een besluit heeft genomen om niet te willen weten wie zijn ouders zijn. Een geadopteerd kind zou in dit geval tegen zichzelf en de vele belangen die in de adoptiewereld spelen moeten worden beschermd. Maar daar heeft ogenschijnlijk niemand over nagedacht. Incluis de Rechtbank in Zwolle niet.

Ons inziens is het juist in het belang van Rahul, om de waarheid boven tafel te krijgen. Zonder dat er op welke wijze dan ook, sprake zou zijn, dat Rahul terug zou worden gezonden. Dat deze uitspraak telkens in elk rapport opduikt is verdacht, en creëert een zweem van projectie en angst van de adoptieouders inplaats dat het een uitspraak is weergegeven door Rahul zelf. Dat deze verdenking niet geheel ongegrond is, blijkt uit de uitspraak van de rechtbank waar gesproken wordt, dat de geadopteerde loyaal is aan zijn adoptieouders. Er wordt met geen woord gerept over het feit, dat een kind ook uitgelegd had kunnen worden dat er ouders zijn die hun kind zijn kwijt geraakt en willen weten waar dat kind is gebleven en of hij deze mensen zou willen helpen. Met misschien inderdaad de conclusie dat Rahul hun zoon is.

De uitspraak van de rechter lijkt ingegeven door angst voor deze waarheid. Want mocht het zo zijn dat Rahul inderdaad de zoon is van de Indiase ouders, dan zijn de consequenties niet te overzien. Maar deze mogelijkheid hebben de rechters geblokkeerd door duidelijk aan te geven dat de maatschappelijke relevantie van deze zaak in deze er niet tot doet en zich te richten op artikel 3 van het internationaal verdrag voor de rechten van het kind, dat spreekt over de wettelijke voogden of verzorgers van het kind. Ze hebben daarmee besloten dat ouders die kinderen zijn verloren door roof of anderzijds kunnen fluiten naar hun universele mensenrechten. Met andere woorden, de familie Kathirvelu-Nagarani, en met hen dus duizenden andere ouders, in met name derde wereldlanden, hebben geen poot om op te staan. En zullen uiteindelijk nog steeds niet weten wat er met hun zoon is gebeurd. Dit recht wordt hen dus ontnomen. Sterker nog, ze worden veroordeeld tot het betalen van de kosten van het deskundigheidsonderzoek van 4.763,- euro. Een bedrag dat ze, en dat zal de rechter zeker weten, nooit zullen kunnen betalen. Een onbegrijpelijke eis voor mensen die slechts slachtoffer zijn geworden van malafide kinderhandelaars waar wereldwijde adoptieorganisaties gebruik van maken. Iets wat ons als geadopteerden al decennialang zorgen baart.

Blijkbaar zijn alle middelen en financiën geoorloofd om een kind te adopteren en te houden. Dit ook nog eens met juridische ondersteuning door de Staat van het ‘ontvangende’ land. Iets waar (oorspronkelijke) ouders in hun land geen beroep op kunnen doen. En daarmee lijkt het erop, dat de vrije marktwerking die nog steeds in adoptieland regeert, uiteindelijk de bepalende factor is wie wel of geen recht heeft op kinderen.

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Steun het Indiase Echtpaar en doneer op ACT Fundraising for Kathirvelu & Nagarani

Als Rahul blond was geweest stonden zijn ’ouders’ sterker

2011-03-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

Westers idee van ’belang van het kind’ weegt zwaarder dan belang van Indiaas echtpaar dat op zoek is naar hun geroofde kind.

Twee kinderen in Tamil Nadu die door de tsunami wees werden. (FOTO EPA)

Ooit werd met stelligheid geloofd dat (interlandelijke) adoptie in het belang was van kinderen en dat dat belang voor altijd voorop zou staan en eeuwig geldend zou zijn. In de praktijk blijkt niets minder waar. Vele geadopteerden, eens geadopteerd met dit internationaal motto als uitgangspunt, fronsen hun wenkbrauwen als je hun uitlegt wat de gevolgen zijn voor henzelf en die van de beide ouderparen. Namelijk, de toe-eigening van de rechten op een kind door ontvangende landen, en het verlies ervan door de ouders in de landen van herkomst.

De mythe dat bij alle adopties werkelijk sprake zou zijn van kinderen zonder ouders en familie kan na vele internationale onderzoeken van de baan. Met andere woorden; dat er geen noodzaak zou zijn om de belangen van eventuele ouders in landen van herkomst te behartigen en de internationale kinderrechten hierin te volgen, blijkt een internationale misvatting. Maar iets wat is verworden tot een gewoonterecht, en daarmee een cultureel fenomeen, is lastig om te buigen.

Dit blijkt ook wederom in de praktijk. In 2007 werd bekend dat ’Rahul’, een geadopteerde jongen uit India, waarschijnlijk nog ouders had en dat hij nooit werkelijk vrijwillig is afgestaan door zijn vermeende ouders. Het verzoek destijds om één en ander op een goede wijze, zonder al te veel aandacht van de media, op te lossen, bleek op tegenwerking van de adoptieouders te stuiten.

Zij gebruikten ’Rahul’ als buffer om niet zelf een reactie te hoeven geven op deze situatie. United Adoptees International (UAI) heeft destijds in een gesprek met vertegenwoordigers van het adoptiebureau Meiling, via wie Rahul was geadopteerd, en de curator van de adoptiefamilie, mevrouw Van Tuyll (voormalige voorzitter van de Europese Koepel van adoptiebureaus, Euradopt) getracht een oplossing te bewerkstelligen voor alle partijen zonder het op een juridisch geschil te laten aankomen. Maar uit dat gesprek werd duidelijk dat niemand van de betrokken partijen van plan was hieraan mee te werken. Met als argument, dat het niet het belang van Rahul zou dienen.

Dezer dagen wordt Rahul opnieuw ten tonele gevoerd. Maar steeds als potentieel slachtoffer door de Nederlandse belangenpartijen. Hij zou niet willen meewerken aan een DNA-test. Angst hebben om terug te moeten keren naar India enzovoorts. Ik betwijfel de objectiviteit van de partijen die namens hem zeggen te spreken. Echter, als de jongen nu zou worden verteld, dat er een moeder is die graag wil weten of hij werkelijk hun zoon is en dat er geen sprake zal zijn van een gedwongen hereniging en terugkeer naar India, dan hoeft hij geen angst te hebben uit het ’rijke’ Nederland te worden gehaald.

Het heeft er alle schijn van, dat er wordt gepoogd een beeld neer te zetten dat hij een weloverwogen keus heeft gemaakt en de consequenties kan overzien voor de lange termijn. Een zogenaamde vrije keus. Maar of daar echt sprake van is, is nog maar de vraag. Want we weten langzamerhand wel dat veel geadopteerden zich vaak gevangen voelen in een dubbele loyaliteit en op een latere leeftijd worstelen met de daaruit voortkomende dubbele moraal. Echter, niemand spreekt over deze consequentie en hoe daar later mee om te gaan. Laat staan waar een geadopteerde eventueel terechtkan als hij daarin vastloopt.

Intussen zijn we drie jaar verder en is het drama verworden tot een juridisch geschil. De moeder en vader van Rahul, mevrouw Nagarani en mijnheer Kathirvelu, maken helaas een zeer kleine kans om hun belang beantwoord te zien. Want hier staan geen gelijkwaardige krachten tegenover elkaar, maar de adoptie-industrie versus een arm echtpaar uit een niet-westers land dat we liever uitbuiten dan beschermen. Want als Rahul nu blond was geweest, de landen waren omgedraaid en Madeleine McCann had geheten, was het pleit snel beslecht.

Er is echter nog een mogelijkheid voor een goede oplossing in deze kwestie. De curator wordt vervangen door iemand met een apolitieke adoptieachtergrond, de invloed van het adoptiebureau wordt uitgebannen en er komt een advies voor medewerking aan een DNA-test. Een volwassen geadopteerde uit India met pedagogische kwaliteiten gaat spreken met Rahul over zijn situatie en de mogelijke gevolgen.

Verder krijgen de vader en moeder van Rahul uitzicht op een ontmoeting met de jongen als blijkt dat de DNA-test positief uitwijst en de adoptieouders hun persoonlijk belang op de achtergrond stellen. Als deze lijn wordt gevolgd, is de kans aanwezig dat er een gezonder klimaat wordt gecreëerd voor alle direct betrokkenen.

Maar de hoop op zo’n oplossing is gering. Immers het kind is geadopteerd onder de westerse definitie van ’in het belang van het kind’ en niet die van armere landen.

Hilbrand W.S. Westra, directeur stichting United Adoptees International − 10/06/10, 00:00

Request Indian parents for DNA testing rejected

2011-03-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

ADOPTED BOY DID NOT AGREE

Source: http://www.rechtspraak.nl

Zwolle-Lelystad, March 7, 2011 – The Family Court of Zwolle-Lelystad has ruled on March 4 in the case of the Indian couple. The Indian couple’s request for a DNA test to determine that a boy adopted by Dutch parents is their biological son, was dismissed by the Court.

Kidnapping

The Indian couple was robbed in 1999 of their son when he was two years old. He would be with the adoptive parents in the Netherlands. These adoptive parents would have adopted their son would in good faith and take care of the now 12-year-old boy since many years.

Request of Indian couple

Besides the request for DNA tests the couple also asked to identify their biological parenthood, information on the boy and contact. The court also rejected those requests.

Conclusion expert

The Court has at its meeting on June 23, 2010 appointed an expert because the boy did not agree with DNA. The expert concludes that the question of whether DNA testing should be done is primarily a question of timing. Timing in which the pace of the minor must be decisive.

Court decision and consideration

The Court held that in itself is possible that the Indian couple are the biological parents of the boy. Also, the starting point is that in principle it is in the interests of adopted children that they know who their biological parents are.

In assessing the requests, the Court considers the various interests of the involved, but the interests of the child prevails.

Given the development of the minor and the events so far the court considers it currently not in the interest of the minor, now that he is not willing to cooperate, to order him to cooperate in a DNA investigation.

The request for a DNA test to be carried out is therefore rejected. In view of this, the court cannot agree to the remaining requests. The question whether the Indian couple are the biological parents, cannot be answered by the Court before DNA testing has taken place.

LJ Nummer BP6936

Source: Court Zwolle-Lelystad

Date actuality: 7 maart 2011

Dutch Court Decided - Adoptees Interest leading ?

2011-03-08T02:12:00.000-08:00

The Dutch Court of Zwolle-Lelystad ruled that the request of the (alleged) Indian Parents will be overruled due to the fact that 'Rahul' (the alleged son of these parents) said not want to cooperate.

The Dutch Court decided upon his decision, using the best interest of the child as the continues mantra. The court ruling nevertheless shows an inconsistency stating that Rahul is loyal to his adoptive parents but is considering his age (12) able to make a balanced decision.

This will conclude in the fact, that the Indian family, whose son was stolen has to wait at least until he is 18 before it will be certain this is their child or not. Besides the fact, that the UAI has the meaning that Rahul should have been protected against himself in this situation, different international examples show that evidently , Adoptees are always tangled in between emotions of several layers and interest (groups) of adoptive parents and their origin. The court should have considered this also next to the rights of (first) parents and adoptees in general. Again it looks like, that the world of adopters created another possibility to block search of parents for children they lost and also does this ruling not support adoptees who are searching for their parents abroad starting in the Netherlands. Again adoption jurisprudence will help receiving side more as the ones who lost their child.

And again, an adoptee does not comply to a social group then the adoptive world where he lives in and therefore does not have an inhibited self which might seem to be hurt. As we already stated earlier. It looks like, adoptees do have a body as transferable object but no heart and soul. At least not one, which is intrinsically bond with his family and culture of origin. Who told this boy that he would be send back to India ? And why ? The priority of the Indian family was to know if this boy was their child. Even a child – at least one who suddenly understand his adoption status, as the expert in this field reported to the court – would understand the longing for a mother and a father for her child.

And if not enough punished by this ruling, the Indian Parents have also to pay the Court Expenses of 5000 euro's.

This all might conclude an atmosphere of neo-colonialistic tendencies.

2011-03-03T00:17:00.000-08:00

Recalling the pain of forced adoption

by Clare O'Dea, swissinfo.ch

They came for her one day in the café where she worked – two policemen and a woman from the authorities. “It’s a nice day,” they said, “we’re going for a drive”.

For the next 16 months Michèle Gillard would be in “administrative care”, her rights as a free citizen temporarily suspended.

Until 1981, young people who stepped out of line could be deprived of their freedom without trial or any means of appeal. A recommendation from the guardianship authorities was often enough to seal their fate.

On the grounds of “depraved lifestyle”, “licentiousness” or “alcoholism”, victims were often placed in prisons alongside genuine criminal offenders. Others ended up in residential institutions. The Swiss justice minister apologised last year to all those imprisoned under this legal provision.

National figures have not yet been compiled as the legal procedure was implemented independently by each canton but Bern, for example, recorded 2,700 cases in the four decades the law was in place.

Many cases involved young girls who got pregnant, were then shunned by their families and ended up being forced to give up their babies for adoption.

Confinement

So it was in the winter of 1970 for 21-year-old Gillard. She cried all the way on the drive from Delémont in French-speaking western Switzerland to the “social home” in Walzenhausen in the German-speaking east.

“It was terrifying, arriving in this building in a forest and seeing the girls’ faces, like a horror film. ‘How long are you in for?’, they asked me but I had no idea, all I could do was cry.”

The home in canton St Gallen was notorious among interned girls as a stepping stone to the country’s main women’s prison, Hindelbank in Bern, according to Gina Rubeli-Eigenmann of the victims support group Administrativ Versorgte 1942-1981.

“For the slightest thing that happened in Walzenhausen, you would end up in Hindelbank and many mothers signed adoption papers under fear of being transferred there,” explained Rubeli-Eigenmann, who herself spent time at Hindelbank under the same “administrative care” legal provision.

For the remaining months of her pregnancy Gillard walked to work every day at a nearby factory in Wolfhalden where she embroidered handkerchiefs. She was not entitled to keep her earnings. In the evenings the girls watched correctional films or knitted.

Unhappy memories

It was not the first time that Gillard had lived in an institution. After her parents’ marriage broke up, she was sent to an orphanage in Epagny, Fribourg run by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Ingenbohl.

In December 2010, the Sisters appointed a committee of outside experts to investigate allegations of abuse and cruelty in the past in the homes and schools run by the order.

Gillard lived in the orphanage in Epagny from the age of six to 13, a time of brutality, hunger and terror, as she remembers it.

There followed an unhappy period when Gillard and her younger sister tried to live with their father and his new wife. Her sister managed to challenge her father’s status as guardian in court and went to live with another family.

At 19, Gillard found lodgings with an old woman in Delémont and started work in a café. She began to enjoy a life of relative freedom after the restrictions and privations of her childhood. It wasn’t to last.

" Phone calls forbidden, visits forbidden, I had no-one. "
Michèle Gillard

“Naive”

“I was having a good time, going out and meeting boyfriends. But I was ignorant, I was naive, I think I was stupid really. We had been told nothing. The only education I received was the ABC.”

On a night out with her brother, with whom she had been temporarily reunited, Gillard was not able to gain access to the house where she was staying, because she says, she had forgotten her key and the landlady was deaf.

So she and her brother decided to sleep outside nearby, only to be picked up by the police. In the conservative society of the time, far from being dismissed as a harmless teenage prank, this incident earned Gillard a charge of vagrancy and put her on the radar of the local authorities.

By the time she fell pregnant, wheels were already in motion to have her sent away to an institution.

Her family, such as it was, was not prepared or able to help. The father of the child, although he said he wanted to support her, was threatened with being cut off by his family and kept his distance.

And so it was that Gillard found herself in the summer of 1971 on the other side of the country in a maternity clinic cut off from anyone she knew.

“Phone calls forbidden, visits forbidden, I had no-one.”

" I was sent back to work and I only saw her for a half an hour per day "
Michèle Gillard

Kindness of strangers

Gillard breaks down as she remembers the kindness of one midwife who asked other nurses to sit with her during visiting hours and brought presents.

“I stayed a few days there and then they came to collect me. I thought everything was fine but afterwards they put my daughter in a different section, I was sent back to work and I only saw her for a half an hour per day.”

Five months later Gillard’s father and step-mother, with the full support of the authorities, wanted to take custody of the baby girl and Gillard was unable to stop them.

After being released from Walzenhausen, she was barred from their home but refused to sign the adoption papers for years until she eventually gave in when the child was aged seven.

Shame

Deprived of her first child, Gillard felt great shame and unhappiness in the years that followed.

She had another child several years later while living independently who was also taken for adoption, after the authorities threatened to withdraw her social security payments. Taken, not given, she says.

Gillard did manage to meet with her two biological daughters when they reached adulthood but she said the gulf was too great to build proper relationships with them.

Now aged 62, Gillard lives with her husband in modest circumstances and does not talk about her past with friends and acquaintances. Out of shame and fear, she explains. Shame for herself after a lifetime of being judged and mistreated, fear of not being believed; of being thought a liar.

Clare O'Dea, swissinfo.ch

Adoption based on thoughts of “natural law” and is “anthropological,”

2011-03-03T00:07:00.000-08:00

Colombian bishops stress protection of adopted children

CNA STAFF, Feb 28, 2011 / 02:04 pm (CNA).- The Bishops’ Conference of Colombia is calling on the country’s Constitutional Court to reject arguments in favor of the adoption of children by same-sex couples.

The bishops stressed that the rights of children should be placed above “the affective and emotional needs of same-sex couples.”

The bishops’ call came after the Constitutional Court announced Feb. 23 that it would hear arguments on whether to grant custody of a young girl to her mother and her lesbian partner. The child was conceived through artificial insemination.

The Constitutional Court will issue a final ruling on the case after two lower courts ruled that the adoption should take place.

The secretary general and spokesman of the bishops’ conference, Bishop Juan Vicente Cordoba spoke with CNA on Feb. 25, noting that adoption is a “juridical mechanism” the state of Colombia employs to place a child in a two-parent home made up of a mother and father.

This is meant to “replace what was lost, namely, the child’s biological mother and father, and the child is given a substitute mother and father so he can have a new home,” the bishop said.

Such a process is founded upon “natural law” and is “anthropological,” he explained. “It has nothing to do with faith.”

Bishop Cordoba noted that a poll was carried out recently showing that “82 percent of Colombians do not support the adoption of children by same-sex couples.”

“We told the court not to rule based on the ideas of five or six of its members, but rather on those of 45 million Colombians, of whom 82 percent do not want gay adoption,” he said.

“Five people cannot decide for 45 million,” the bishop explained, adding that the bishops have asked the court “to take into account the will of the Colombian people in its ruling.”

Bishop Cordoba, noting the psychological aspect of the issue, pointed out that children raised by same-sex parents “face great difficulties.”

“Some may grow up to be healthy but many grow up to become homosexuals, bisexuals or they will have identity problems that will affect their ability to sustain a relationship.”

Bishop Cordoba also rejected the statements by some that a child adopted by a same-sex couple would be denied the sacrament of Baptism. “The Church is universal and welcomes everyone,” he said. “The child is not at fault, and if they bring him to the Church to be baptized, the Church will baptize him.

“He will be joyfully accepted in the Catholic Church,” the bishop concluded.

Right of Information for Adoptees start with Medical Files ?

2011-03-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

Adam Pertman

Executive Director, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

A Healthy Reminder: Adopted People Are Americans Too

Read More: Adoption , Adoption Anonymity , Adoption Health , Adoption Privacy , Adoption Records , International Adoption , Health News

News flash: Michelle Obama didn't invent the crusade to improve Americans' well-being. Her focus (as we all know) is childhood obesity but, for the last several years, the office of the U.S. Surgeon General has been waging an even farther-reaching, get-everyone-healthy campaign that centers on this website.

Essentially, citing the obvious fact that many diseases are inherited, the top health official in our country is encouraging all American families to keep abreast of their medical histories, not only in the past but in an ongoing way. And, to make this important task easier to accomplish, the surgeon general's site includes software that everyone can download at no cost to help track medical information about our parents, grandparents and other relatives.

For tens of millions of people, however, this well-intentioned initiative is nothing more than a mirage, an enticing glimpse of water in the desert that they know they cannot reach. Because all of the Americans whom this campaign targets do not in fact include the vast majority of those who were adopted, rather than born, into their families.

Adoption in the United States has made enormous strides in the last few decades, moving out of the shadows and becoming an increasingly conventional, normal way of forming a family; that's especially good news for children who need permanent, loving homes.

But progress has been uneven. One way in which adoption has not yet entered the 21st Century is the anachronistic reality that most states still prohibit adoptees, even after they reach adulthood, from obtaining their birth certificates or other documents that would enable them to follow the Surgeon General's sage advice.

Proponents of keeping these records sealed assert that it's a necessary measure to maintain the anonymity that was guaranteed to birth mothers at the time their children were placed for adoption. That argument, unfortunately, is based on cultural myths and faulty stereotypes.

In fact, nearly every shred of research and experience over the last few decades shows that none of these women were given legal assurance of anonymity; at least 90 percent of them want some level of contact with or knowledge about the lives they created, regardless of what they might or might not have been told verbally; and adopted people are not stalkers or ingrates, but simply human beings who want the most basic information about themselves.

The good news is that we have learned an enormous amount about adoption and its participants as the institution has steadily moved into the mainstream, and many positive changes are occurring as a result. Among them are that parents adopting domestically, and an increasing number who adopt from abroad, routinely receive medical information about their sons and daughters at the outset and -- because relationships with birth families are becoming increasingly commonplace -- on an ongoing basis as their children grow up. Indeed, providing such information is now a widely accepted "best practice" for adoption practitioners.

Some states have changed their laws to permit adopted people, once they become adults, to gain access to their records. And there has been no hint, anywhere, that the recipients of those records are violating their birth mothers' privacy or otherwise disrupting their lives.

States from coast to coast -- from New York and New Jersey to Indiana and Hawaii -- today, right now, are considering legislation that would enable adult adoptees to comply with the Surgeon General's potentially life-saving advice. And next Thursday, March 10, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute is holding a unique event on this subject at the Hard Rock Café in Manhattan; for more information, go to www.adoptioninstitute.org.

With all that activity on the ground, it's a propitious time for U.S. health officials at the top, starting with the Surgeon General, to use their influence to break down the legal barriers across our country that for far too long have relegated adoptees to a special, less-privileged class of citizenship.

There's good reason for them to do it. After all, their medical advice is supposed to apply to all Americans.

See the reality behind the Eyes of Adopted Children from Haiti

2011-02-26T00:10:00.000-08:00

FROM PORT AU PRINCE TO PARIS

Nach dem Erdbeben in Haiti vor einem Jahr gab es einen Skandal um die Adoption haitianischer Kinder: Verschiedene Organisationen, darunter US-Missionare, hatten vermeintliche Waisen aus dem Land bringen wollen, obwohl sie Eltern hatten. Wir zeigen Bilder von haitianischen Waisenkindern, die bereits vor dem Erdbeben adoptiert worden waren. Erst Ende 2010 wurden diese Kinder von ihren Adoptiveltern nach Frankreich geholt. Das Chaos nach dem Beben und die Cholera hatten das Verfahren verzögert

After the earthquake in Haiti a year ago there was a scandal surrounding the adoption of Haitian children: Various organizations, including U.S. missionaries, alleged orphans wanted get the chldren out of the country, although they had parents. We show pictures of Haitian orphans, which had been adopted before the earthquake. Until the end of 2010 were brought these children from their adoptive parents in France. The chaos after the quake and the cholera had delayed the process

Adoptions from Ethiopia incompatible with the fundamental principles of German law

2011-02-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

Ethiopian adoptions: German Higher Regional Court denies recognition

On 31 May 2010 the German District Court of Düsseldorf ruled that an Ethiopian adoption may not be accepted under German law, as it is obviously incompatible with the fundamental principles of German law, in particular with the fundamental rights. This decision was was appealed by the adoptive parents.

On 18 January 2011 the German Higher Regional Court (Dusseldorf) confirmed this ruling. This cannot not be appealed.

The ruling was based on the fact that article 21-b of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was not complied with, meaning that a child may only be transferred for adoption into a foreign country and into another culture, when all avenues have been exhausted for the placement of the child in his own family and in its own country.

Article 21
States Parties that recognize and/or permit the system of adoption shall ensure that the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration and they shall:
[...]
(b) Recognize that inter-country adoption may be considered as an alternative means of child’s care, if the child cannot be placed in a foster or an adoptive family or cannot in any suitable manner be cared for in the child’s country of origin;

Additionally, the appointment of new (adoptive) parents further requires that they have factually grown into the role of the failed parents, so in terms of German law that between the child and his new parents and vice versa, a parent-child relationship has been founded or its formation can be expected. Therefore, the personality right of the child has not sufficiently enough been respected, as far as before the adoption no initiation of a parent-child relationship took place, which for practical reasons (visa handling ) should have taken place in Ethiopia.

For the full text (informal translation):

Translation LG Dusseldorf – Ethiopian Case

Spanish mother reunited with daughter she was told had died at birth

2011-02-22T08:58:00.001-08:00

Case is latest in growing scandal over babies allegedly
stolen by doctors and sold for adoption over several decades

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 February 2011 18.16 GMT

Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco (left) gives a certificate to a family in Madrid in 1942.

For many years, parents were awarded for having large families. Baby-stealing is alleged to have begun during Franco's long rule. Photograph: AP

A Spanish mother has been reunited with her daughter four decades after being told
the child had died at birth. It is the first proven case in a growing scandal over babies stolen
by Spanish hospital doctors and sold for adoption.

A DNA test proved the blood tie between the two women after the daughter hired private detectives to trace her biological mother.

"The adoption was legal, with her birth certificate saying she was 'adopted from an unknown mother'," Antonio Barroso, the head of an organisation investigating cases of missing babies, said.

The mother was left to mourn her baby after being told she had died at birth in a Barcelona clinic. "The doctors told her that her daughter had died. She even has the death certificate," Barroso said. "We went to a laboratory and the result left no doubt. It is only now that the girl has seen her own death certificate."

Barroso said mother and daughter – who have asked not to be named – were reunited in December and the case had since been passed on to the attorney general's office.

Another spokesman for the group, Juan Luis Moreno, told El Pais newspaper that the mother had always suspected her child had not really died, but hospital authorities in Barcelona had told her they would take charge of burying the baby.

Many of those now seeking lost babies are women who never saw their baby's corpse because hospitals said they would take charge of burial.

Barroso's organisation has asked the attorney general to investigate several hundred cases of illegal adoption.

The attorney general agreed to co-ordinate the different investigations that will be carried out by prosecutors at a provincial level.

Barroso said the case opened up the possibility that many children who were adopted in circumstances that may have seemed legal at the time were actually stolen.

These would be added to existing cases where adopted children were apparently registered as the biological children of their adoptive parents.

Barroso helped found the group after discovering that his own parents had paid an intermediary who produced children for adoption from a hospital in Zaragoza.

The cases go back many decades. Although they began during the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, they seem to have carried on after his death in 1975. On Tuesday, the Catalan Republican Left party will ask Spain's parliament to aid those seeking lost children, with the creation of a DNA bank to help them.

RACE DOESNT MATTER ?

2011-02-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

Katharine Birbalsingh

Katharine Birbalsingh is the teacher who exposed the failings of the comprehensive school system at the Conservative Party conference this year. Her speech can be seen here. She is now looking for a job. Katharine has been teaching in inner London for over a decade and loves children. This is a resurrection of her popular blog, To Miss with Love, where her name was Snuffy. Her book, also called To Miss with Love, comes out in April 2011. Follow @Miss_Snuffy on Twitter to see what Katharine's doing now. Katharine's personal website iswww.katharinebirbalsingh.com.

Michael Gove's adoption guidelines may not satisfy 'race oriented' social workers. But they'll do wonders for children

By Katharine Birbalsingh Politics Last updated: February 20th, 2011

145 Comments Comment on this article

Ethnic minority children usually wait three times longer to be adopted than white children (Photo: GETTY)

Michael Gove is to unveil new adoption guidelines on Tuesday to say that race should not be a “deal-breaker” when adopting a child. In other words, white couples should be allowed to adopt black and ethnic minority children.

Until now, white couples have been unable to adopt British black or ethnic minority children, and have been forced to pay thousands of pounds abroad for the joy of adopting a child. Why? Because they’re white and there aren’t enough white babies to go round.

Social workers are so ‘race-oriented’ that when they receive an application they try to place a child with a family of the same heritage as that child. All I can say is thank goodness my parents were around when I was growing up. Otherwise I might have been in care forever. They would have had to find a mixed-race couple, one Indian, one black. I wonder if it would have been necessary for the Indian parent to be Indo-Caribbean? Or was it only race that mattered, allowing any citizen of India to have a go at raising me? I wonder if a Pakistani would have been allowed to adopt me?

It is completely absurd and yet this practice has been going on for years. As a result, ethnic minority children wait on average three times longer than white children to find a permanent home. And while they are in care, they wreak havoc on some poor school. Then we say it isn’t their fault: they’re in care. There are different rules at school for kids who are in care. They are given more leeway. They don’t get punished in the way that other kids are. And that, of course, just encourages them to misbehave all the more. I have seen a Head make a decision about a kid, and when realising the kid is in care, change his mind because he realises his hands are tied.

But the damage to schools and children doesn’t stop there. It has always been cool to be bad, and if one black kid is bad, then some of the other black kids will copy him. Even some white kids will too. So bad behaviour spreads. Then we turn around and say we’re trying to help these kids by ensuring that they’re with parents of matching racial background!

I presume the obsession with matching racial identity stems from the idea that ethnic children need to understand their position in the Western world as one of belonging to a minority group that is liable to face racism from time to time. But is it really impossible for a white family to understand this and pass their understanding to their adopted child? Surely the applicant’s capacity to give the child the right kind of love and support is what should be judged! After all, if this is a real issue, diversity training could be put to good use here.

The faster we get our ethnic kids out of care, the more likely they are to find harmony and love and the more likely they are to behave at school. This development in the adoption laws is a stroke of genius. Its results may take years to show, but its impact on schools will be immediate, not to mention how many children’s lives it will transform.

Once again, I look at what Michael Gove is doing for children and take my hat off to him. I clap my hands in glee and wonder how anyone could possibly take issue with this decision. But experience has taught me, where I see common sense and cause for jubilation, others see dark motives and corrupt intentions. I’m looking forward to what the opposition says about this one!

Tags: adoption, Michael Gove, race

USA - Another childmurder by Adopter

2011-02-17T04:14:00.001-08:00

Source: Body In Pest Truck Likely Driver’s 10 YO Daughter

February 15, 2011 11:10 PM

The body in the pickup truck was identified as the owner’s 10-year-old adoptive daughter. (Source: CBS4)

Reporting Ted Scouten

MIAMI (CBS4) –As investigators continue to piece together the mystery surrounding a pesticide truck parked along the side of I-95 in West Palm Beach that sent a father and son to the hospital, a senior law enforcement source has told CBS4 News the body found in a bag inside the back of the truck is believed to be the driver’s 10-year-old adopted daughter.

The girl was the twin sister of Victor Vocter, the 10-year-old boy rescued from the truck, according to the source. Now, the children’s father is chaged with aggravated child abuse, accused of injuring the surviving child inside the truck. “We can’t really specify,” explained police spokesman Chase Scott. “But an instance that occurred here on the side of I-95 with his 10 year old son, that’s where the aggravated child abuse charge stems from.”

We do know the child suffered severe burns. “He did suffer some burns from the chemicals that were on his clothes and his body as well as some internal issues,” said Scott, “some severe internal reaction to breathing in the fumes of the chemicals.”

The body remained on the scene until 8:30 in the evening. The strength of the chemicals made it hard to move the body. In fact, just to get it into the medical examiner’s vehicle was difficult. “I believe they tried to do a partial decontamination,” Scott explained. “Then the bag was placed into another bag, which was placed into another bag, then on the gurney and then placed into the vehicle for transport.”

One day after the disturbing discovery, it is still a very active scene near the Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard exit on I-95, except now several large tents cover the small red pickup truck where the body was found.

Chase Scott said while he could not say the body on the truck was not the twin girl, someone saying so now “would have to have x-ray vision”, because the body is still wrapped in plastic, surrounded by hazardous material, and has yet to be unwrapped as experts work to decontaminate the scene.

The discovery was made Monday when a Road Ranger stopped to assist the driver of what he thought was a broken down truck which had the words “C. J.’s Pest Control Miami” on its side.

When the ranger approached the truck he found the driver, Jorge Barahona, 53, of Southwest Miami-Dade, and his 10-year-old adopted son, Victor Vocter, conscious but having breathing difficulties.

Barahona was taken to Columbia Medical Center with a unspecified medical condition caused by the chemicals and the son was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center. Both are said to be in fair but stable condition.

It was when firefighters on the scene also started feeling sick that a hazardous materials crew was called in to take over the investigation. In the back of the truck they found a leak in a container which contained acid. It’s believed that fumes from this chemical were what sickened Barahona, the boy and four firefighters. According to police, the chemical is not the type typically used in pest control but it is used to clean metal.

It was while the Haz-Mat team were looking through the truck that they spotted something unusual.

“The Department of Environmental Protection went into the rear of the vehicle, moving aside some chemicals,” said Chase Scott, spokesperson for the West Palm Beach Police department, speaking to reporters late Monday night. “(They) located a body in a bag in the rear of the vehicle.”

With the discovery of the acid and the body, Miami-Dade Police and Fire Rescue Haz-Mat were sent to Barahona’s home in the 11000 block of Southwest 47 Terrace in Southwest Miami-Dade to search for more potentially dangerous chemicals and possible clues as to why Barahona had a body in his truck.

Neighbors said Barahona regularly parked his truck in front of his home and kept a steel container full of pesticides on his property. Jim Sheppard said he never noticed a problem.

“He was always very cautious when he did his stuff,” said Sheppard. “He sprayed my house, and when he came in and sprayed my house he’d always put on a big respirator and ask me to step out. He’s always really cautious and careful about the chemicals.”

Late Monday, the FBI joined the investigation, though no reason was given for the federal interest.

According to state records, Barahona operated his business out of his home. Last week, he filed with the Florida Secretary of State to use the name C.J.’s Pest Control for his business. The Florida Secretary of State’s office said Barahona had operated a business as C.J.’s Pest Exterminator, Inc., since March of 1998. That corporation was dissolved by the state last September, when he failed to file the proper state documents.

Barahona’s wife, Carmen, was holed up inside her parents Southwest Miami-Dade home with two of the couple’s four children, according to CBS4′s Gary Nelson. But the two children were removed from the home by child welfare officials.

The couple has four adopted children, ages 7 through 11, according to the Department of Children and Families. Those children are under DCF protective supervision at the grandparents home, according to DCF’s Mark Riordan.

Related Stories

Jorge Barahona Accused Of Horrific Child Abuse Has Dead Daughter In His Truck [Video]

Posted on 17 February 2011

Tags: Florida's Department of Children and Families, Jorge Barahona, Jorge Barahona burned his son, Jorge Barahona child abuse, Jorge Barahona child neglect, Jorge Barahona dead daughter in truck, Jorge Barahona killed his kids

Jorge Barahona Accused Of Horrific Child Abuse Has Dead Daughter In His Truck

This is one of those stories that you wish would not get reported. Because this is the kind of story where the perp needs to be taken out to the Florida Everglades, dipped in chicken grease and towed very slowly by an airboat until the gators have had their fill.

These kind of scumbags have a special place in hell and instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on a trial they should just take terminate him. And it should not be a humane execution. I’m sorry, when it comes to kids, you should be punished accordingly. No judge, no jury…just a few hungry gators.

Jorge Barahona is a Florida exterminator and father of four children adopted from Florida’s foster care system has told police that a body found in the pest-control truck he was driving is one of them — his 10-year-old daughter, authorities said Wednesday.

Barahona, 53, already faces a charge of aggravated child abuse for injuries to the dead girl’s twin, Victor, who was also found in the truck, which was parked on the side of I-95 near West Palm Beach, Florida, officials said.

According to a probable-cause affidavit filed by the West Palm Beach Police Department, a roadside assistance ranger with the Florida Department of Transportation stopped to check the red Toyota pickup Monday around 5:30 a.m. and found the 10-year-old boy inside next to an open gas can.

The boy “appeared to be in respiratory distress and (was) trembling” and his clothing “was soaked with an unknown chemical,” the affidavit said.

The ranger then found Barahona on the ground beside the truck and called for help.

The boy was hospitalized in intensive care with severe burns to his abdomen, upper thighs and buttocks, the affidavit said. While examining the boy, doctors noted he had sustained previous injuries, including a broken collarbone, a broken arm, scarring to his buttocks and lower abdomen, and ligature marks on both wrists, police said.

After Barahona and his son were taken to a hospital, a worker decontaminating the truck discovered the body of the girl, wrapped in a plastic bag, the document said.

Barahona told police he was distraught over the death of his daughter, and had intended to commit suicide by dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself afire, the affidavit said. Barahona said he didn’t go through with his suicide plan because his son was with him, the document added.

“Basically, to paraphrase, he was stating that he placed his daughter in a plastic bag being distraught over her death,” West Palm Beach Police Spokesman Chase Scott told reporters. “He drove here from South Florida accompanied by his son, Victor. He then pulled off to the side of the road saying that he poured gas on his self, intending to light himself on fire. His son’s head was in his lap and he decided, after giving his son some sleeping pills, that he wasn’t going to do that.”

Barahona told police that he doused himself with gasoline and inadvertently got some on the boy, Police Capt. Mary Olsen said.

But, she added, the man’s story doesn’t add up — there was no gasoline on the boy. Instead, he was covered with another chemical whose composition had yet to be determined. “That’s why we’re still treating this as a hazmat (hazardous materials case),” she said.

Scott said the chemicals were so potent that staff caring for the boy at the hospital became ill as well, he said.

Victor, who was transferred Wednesday morning to a specialized burn unit at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, has not been able to talk to investigators because he is on a breathing tube, she said.

Olsen said police would decide how to charge Barahona further once the autopsy on his daughter determines her cause of death. Asked whether Barahona has expressed remorse, she said, “He feels remorse, but we’re not getting consistent statements with what we’re seeing in our evidence.” She added, “It’s a complex case.”

At a hearing Wednesday in Miami attended by Barahona’s wife, Carmen, a judge ordered that the remaining two children in the home be placed in foster care.

Florida’s Department of Children and Families had opened a child protection investigation within the past few days to look into a complaint involving the Barahona family, and it wasn’t the first such complaint, spokesman Mark Riordan said.

Reporters in the courtroom Wednesday heard tales of abuse, mainly concerning the twins, from state officials and experts. The caller to the child protection hotline in the latest case reported that the twins were routinely locked in a bathroom for long periods of time and had been bound with tape, the court heard. The story was corroborated by interviews with the other two children in the home, officials said in court.

An investigator told the court that she had showed up last Friday night at the family’s home but had not seen the children. Instead, she said, she had left the family’s house after speaking with Carmen Barahona, planning to return on Monday. Asked why she had not planned to return sooner, she said, “I’m not allowed to do investigations on a weekend.”

However, a spokesman for the department, John Harrell, said it is the job of investigators to follow through immediately or refer to someone else in the department to follow through when a matter is urgent.

The Catholic Church against adoption by singles

2011-02-17T04:06:00.000-08:00

Vatican cardinal: Adopted children need both a father and a mother

Rome, Italy, Feb 16, 2011 / 04:08 pm (CNA/Europa Press)

The president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, recently affirmed that adoption policies should prioritize “the good of the child, who needs both a father and a mother.”

Cardinal Antonelli’s comments came in response to a petition filed by the Supreme Court of Appeals in Italy requesting that Congress pass a law allowing the adoption of minors by single adults.

According to Italian law, only married couples can adopt children.

The Court of Appeals made the petition after a woman from Genoa requested the court legitimize her adoption of a Belarusian girl. The girl lived with the woman for two years in Russia and then in the United States, where the adoption was declared valid.

Although the ruling by the U.S. court was upheld by the Court of Appeals in Genoa in 2009, the mother is still subject to some limitations under the law.

Even when a child finds a loving home with an adoptive family the circumstances surrounding that relationship are complex

2011-02-16T03:06:00.000-08:00

Local Adoptee Shares Her Story at Watchung Booksellers

BY Stacey Gill | Tuesday, Feb 15, 2011 11:00am | COMMENTS (5)

Montclair resident, adoption-advocate, and author Zara Phillips just released the American version of her adoption memoir, Mother Me, after having previously published it in her native England. It hit bookshelves here yesterday, Valentines Day.

Phillips’s book chronicles her journey to discover the truth about her birth and herself. Although Phillips knew she was adopted ever since early childhood, it was something that was never spoken about.

“Yes, you know, but don’t tell anybody,” Phillips recalled of the prevailing sentiment in 1964 when she was adopted. “I could never talk about being adopted.”

And, so, Phillips kept those feelings inside, never at liberty to discuss her conflicted and confusing emotions. “I didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel connected to anybody or anything. I really needed to know my story because in my head I thought I must be a mistake. I really felt my [biological] mother didn’t want me. I carried that into my teenage years.”

Years that are tumultuous for most became disastrous for Phillips. She began to act out, use drugs and alcohol and express her internal strife. “I had a terrible anger.” Phillips said. “It was rage, really.”

At the time neither Phillips nor her mother understood the root of her emotions and behaviors, and Phillips’s involvement in the 80’s London rock scene didn’t help provide any clarity.

It wasn’t until Phillips read the book, The Primal Wound, that she began to understand the dynamics of adoption. After reading the book she said she felt “a sense of relief that I wasn’t alone.”

At 22, Phillips put down the alcohol and drugs and stopped running from her feelings. She knew she needed to make a change. “I can’t move forward with my life until I know my story,” she realized. But she admits, “I was terrified to do it.”

More than 40 years after she was adopted, Phillips notes that while adoption has become more prevalent, many of the same issues still persist. She hopes sharing her story can illuminate some of the issues for all those involved in the adoption triad: the adoptees, the adoptive parents and the birth parents.

Phillips points out that even when a child finds a loving home with an adoptive family the circumstances surrounding that relationship are complex.

“Your child comes with another set of parents. Even if you don’t meet them, they are still around us. They are in the shadows.”

Those shadows, whether acknowledged or not, seem to hang over the head of the child as well as both sets of parents.

“Some people think, ‘You have a new mom and dad. What is there to complain about?’ But our first family we lost,” Phillips said of the emotional scars left on adoptees.

These scars cannot be healed by love alone according to Phillips. “Parents say, ‘I love this kid as my own, but the baby doesn’t come from the same place. The baby has a wound – the primal wound – because it was relinquished, which cannot be filled even with love.”

When Phillips became a mother herself, she began to gain an understanding of the situations both her mothers had faced as pieces of the adoption puzzle. It seemed that grief blanketed all three of the women. Phillips grieved over the loss of her first family as her adoptive mother grieved over never being able to give birth to a child herself while Phillips’s birth mother grieved over the shame of enduring an unwed pregnancy, the terror of laboring alone in a girls’ home and finally the enduring sadness of giving up a child.

“It’s complicated,” Phillips said of the bonds broken and formed by adoption. Undoubtedly an understatement, but one Phillips plans to bring some clarity to with her book. In doing so she hopes to help those involved to understand and accept the emotions involved. You can hear her story this Thursday at Watchung Booksellers.

Adoptions from Ethiopia Unsafe

2011-02-15T23:47:00.000-08:00

Fruits of Ethiopia - A study on intercountry adoption in Ethiopia

Wiht courtesy of Pound Pup Legacy - Sat, 2011-02-12 21:49 - Niels

Adoptees to access identifying information important

2011-02-14T04:34:00.000-08:00

Kinship

This week I read "Adoption, Identity, and Kinship: the Debate Over Sealed Birth Records" by Dr. Katrina Wegar, published in 1997. Wegar is an Adult Adoptee born/adopted in Finland. Finland was one of the first countries to allow Adult Adoptees to access identifying information. Wegar's experience as an Adult Adoptee in a country that allows access as well as sociologist who does not see any of the problems in her home country that are alleged by U.S. anti-rights groups as inevitable to occur if American adoptees are allowed access, has urged her to examine the records debate in the U.S.

Her book gives a good overview of history, although there are certain points here and there where other sources I've read would disagree with when and why records were sealed. She provides a glimpse into feminist perspective as well as the perspective of Sociologists and Social Workers. She believes that both Adoptee Rights Activists and anti-rights groups present arguments that further stigmatize adoptees. If you read her book, you may notice that she refers to the Adoptee Rights Movement as "the search movement." It refers to search, in-general, as the search for one's origins. I believe that because so many anti-rights groups use the adoptee stereotype of "searching, finding, and disrupting" in their arguments against "Adoptee Rights" that the term "Adoptee Rights" is more preferable, to me.

Wegar writes on the importance of sharing one's own personal narrative:

"Autobiographical accounts have been instrumental in the mobilization of the search movement, and their human-interest potential and cultural resonance have attracted publicity in the media. By revealing the personal quandaries of adoptees who have been denied the opportunity to search for their biological origins, search activists have presented a picture of American adoption that stands in stark contrast to the positive image traditionally presented by adoption agencies and child welfare organizations. They have also described for the first time the institution of adoption from the viewpoint of the adopted (Wegar, 1997, p. 74).

This quote, for me, is similar in explaining why I write as the "why I write" quote is at the top, right-hand corner of my blog. Adult Adoptees speaking for themselves is very important and so is others lending a listening ear. When I talk Adoptee Rights with other people, I generally explain how records came to be sealed and then explain why it is a problem. It is hard for people who do not know much about adoption, other than stereotypes and usually in a positive sense, to grasp a concept of adoption where people are not happy. It is the adoptee experience to often be scolded for voicing something about adoption that sounds negative as if they're being "negative people." Au contrare, secrecy and inequalityare negative; period.

Photo credit: jscreationzs

ICA seems more favorable than TRA of American children is based on issues of race, class, and gender

2011-02-07T02:58:00.000-08:00

Inter-Country Adoption and Adoptive Parent Motives & Preferences

This was the study I had posted about before for those that are interested, I've blogged a little article summary/analysis (more summary than analysis, I am tired today).

The study sought to determine why adopting parents pursuing Transracial Adoption (TRA) might prefer Inter-Country Adoption (ICA) rather than domestic adoption. While ICA rates have increased in the past 20 years, so have the amount of children in the U.S. foster care system. The Authors noted that, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (2007), less than 10% of White women "adopt across racial lines" (Zhang and Lee, 2010, p 2.). When they do adopt across racial lines, they are "five times more likely to adopt children of other [than African American] races" (p. 2). The authors propose that adopting parents preferences are "embedded in an intersection of larger discourses of race, class and gender (referencing Dorow, 2006)" (Zhang & Lee, 2010, p.2).

The literature review of the study I found intriguing. Going over previous literature and studies, the authors of this study hypothesized that the reasons that ICA seems more favorable than TRA of American children is based on issues of race, class, and gender. The reviewed literature covered topics such as the "enduring boundaries (p. 4) between the Black and White communities in the U.S. and the disapproval in the Black community of White individuals adopting Black children as possible contributing factors as to why ICA seems to be more favored among Adoptive Parents. Mentioning that fewer newborn babies are available for adoption in the U.S. the authors referenced other literature and research that addressed Adoptive Parent preferences for age and gender as possible contributing factors as well. Referencing the Census Bureau (2003), the authors stated that adopting women tend to prefer girls and "[m]any babies waiting to be adopted internationally are girls. For example, girls account for 95% of children waiting for adoption in china" (Zhang & Lee, 2010, p. 5). As for adopting parent preferences for children of younger ages:

"Half of all ICAs involve infants less than 1 year old, and 90% of children adopted aged less than 5 years (Fisher, 2003). In contrast, only 6% of children adopted in 2005 in the foster system were less than 1 year old, and less than 30% were younger the age of 5 years (Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, 2007)"
(Zhang and Lee, 2010, p.5, their citations included in the quote).

The authors also noted literature that discussed that ICA may be an easier process, the closed-nature of ICA vs. the increasing trend toward openness in adoption in the U.S., and the fear that the original parents of an adopted child born in the U.S. would change their minds, may contribute to the why adopting parents would choose ICA vs. TRA of a child born in the U.S.

The study consisted of asking in-depth, open-ended questions to 10 families in Ohio over the course of 3 years. 6 families adopted through ICA and four were of TRA through domestic adoption.

The study found some major themes in motivations to adopt were consistent with many of the variables noted in the literature review. Variables such as infertility, wait time, age preference for child, etc.

The authors concluded that TRA domestic adoption was perceived by many who pursued ICA to have more disadvantages. They noted that it seemed as though ICA was viewed in terms of cultural differences that might be fun to learn and incorporate in the family, whereas, TRA domestic adoption was "phrased in terms of social problems such as possible parental drug addiction and adverse neighborhood influences on child development" (Zhang & Lee, 2010, p. 20).

The authors indicated that more research was needing involving a broader, more representative, and more diverse sample of Adoptive Parents.

Reference:

Yuanting, Z., & Lee, G. R. (2011). Intercountry Versus Transracial Adoption: Analysis of Adoptive Parents’ Motivations and Preferences in Adoption. Journal of Family Issues, 32(1), 75-98. doi:10.1177/0192513X10375410

2011-02-06T05:32:00.001-08:00

Nobody’s child (The Himalayan Times)

By Prakriti Pathak -January 30, 2011

The international adoption trade is a booming multibillion-dollar industry, as families in the west increasingly adopt more babies from developing countries. Nepal, it seems does not want to miss out on this global opportunity.

In 2007, Nepal adoption alter it faced pressure and severe criticism from national and international media over allegations of corruption and children being sold. In addition, the report, Adopting the Rights of a Child prepared by the UNICEF and the Swiss-based child relief agency foundation Terre des hommes revealed instances of children and babies being put up for adoption without the parents’ consent. As a result, the United States and a number of European countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Norway, Spain, Canada, Italy, Switzerland and Germany banned adoption from Nepal.

In 2008, Nepal promptly reopened inter-country adoption and in 2009, signed the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect to inter-country adoption. With an objective of ratifying the Hague Convention, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) formed a high level committee on May 14, 2010. Later in December 2010, new policies were introduced to facilitate the inter-country adoption process. “To discuss inter-country adoption, a team is heading to Italy in the first week of March, where all the European countries are expected to meet and most probably European countries will agree on adopting children from Nepal,” says Sher Jung Karki, under secretary at MoWCSW.

The optimism and speed to get things back on track is surprising. If only such promptness and dedication was displayed by our government in tackling much bigger issues that have almost brought Nepal to a standstill. What’s odd is the fact that while the government is going the whole hog to encourage international adoption, it has done precious little to even facilitate domestic adoption within Nepal and the vagueness of laws and provisions are often seen as a deterrent.

“The government is more focused on inter-country adoption, introducing new rules and regulations repeatedly and has completely neglected domestic adoption. Many factors are responsible for pushing the inter-country adoption but ’capital ’ is the main factor as lo reign countries have to pay hefty amount to adopt Nepali children and even with the new policies, there may still be space for irregularities,” says a source at the same ministry.

Interestingly, there is no data or any information on domestic adoption at the ministry. When a country neglects domestic adoption and focuses solely on inter-country adoption, it raises many questions. The answers themselves are not very hard to figure out. “We welcome recent improvements announced by the ministry but they are focused solely on inter-country adoption. Local solutions should be developed as a priority in line with international commitment”, says Joseph Aguettant, country representative of Terre des hommes in Nepal. He further added that local solutions include kinship, foster care and domestic adoption. Recently, Terre des hommes has been involved in promoting domestic adoption in mid-western regions in collaboration with Social Welfare Council, the local administration and NGOs. Besides creating a new mindset, the task involves deciphering the existing laws which are vague and need simplification.

“Nepal lacks adoption law and domestic adoption has not been fully practiced in Nepal yet. Though it is mentioned in Muluki Ain (Country Code), the process is vague and lengthy,” says Lochan Regmi of Central child Welfare Council. According to the Code, domestic adoption can be done by adoption can be done by relatives. But through various amendments, now any Nepali can adopt a child. “Though the horizon for domestic adoption has expanded, it is impractical and unscientific. There is no mention of the process for domestic adoption as the concerned body is busy regularly updating the policies of inter-country adoption,” says Rudra Kandangwa, advocate and chairman of Children Home Federation.

According to advocates and people involved in children’s homes to encourage domestic adoption, the government has to simplify the rules and laws. In the absence of proper and clear laws for domestic adoption, children’s homes are making their own. Aasha Shrestha, in charge of planning and sponsorship section of Bal Mandir says, Nepalis wanting to adopt a child legally from Bal Mandir have to fulfil a list of requirements.

Couples have to submit citizenship certificates, medical certificates to prove their infertility approved from Nepal Medical Board, marriage certificates, character certificates, details of economic status including land papers and bank balances, letters of consent from their family members, letter from authorized doctor proving the couple free from diseases like HIV; Hepatitis and mental illness. In addition to these, the age difference between the to-be adopted child and prospective parents should be not less than 35 and not more than 55 years. After completing all the required documents, they have to register the adoption case at the Land Revenue Office. According to her, Nepali children can gel genuine homes in Nepal rather than in other countries. But that is only possible if the government places the rights of orphans above all other issues.

To facilitate families and homes for orphans should be the priority. Whether in Nepal or abroad is secondary. Shrestha says the ministry’s priorities are misplaced; the concerned body should encourage domestic adoption rather than just aiming to maximize revenues from adopting parents from foreign countries. Till date, there is not a single child home in Nepal with the sole objective of promoting domestic adoption in Nepal.

The irony is that the ministry has all the data related to inter-country adoption but nothing on domestic adoption. Domestic adoption is supposed to be handled by the Land Revenue Office. However, many officers at the office itself were unaware about this fact. According to Beni Madhav Bhattarai, under secretary at the Ministry of Land Reform and Management, there is zero record maintained of domestic adoption and he argues that MoWCSW is the concerned body for both inter-country and domestic adoption.

When domestic adoption is not promoted serious questions arise. What kind of ‘New Nepal’ are we building in which our orphans have no place and no rights in their own country? For a country emerging from civil war and on the path to reconciliation, is our society not open to adoption and reaching out to orphans? Are Nepal’s orphans only worth the foreign exchange they bring in? What exactly is the government’s commitment and arrangements for orphans in this country?

Presently commitment is not visible. Orphans are housed in private children’s homes till they are exported to western families. These homes receive no financial assistance and hence little monitoring from the government. Over 198 of these children’s homes are far below the minimum standards. “The children’s homes that are not running in accordance with the government’s minimum standards should be shut down to ensure rights and the best interest of children,” says Gauri Pradhan, member of National Human Rights Commission of Nepal.

When contacted, even the minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare, Sarwadev Prasad Ojha admitted that “domestic adoption is unsystematic and major steps have to be taken to promote it”. Then he hands us the age-old diplomatic line. ’’A team will be set up to make the new guidelines for domestic adoption."

From:

http://www.tdh.ch/en/news/nepal-perspectives-nobodys-child

PDF copy of original article:

http://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/gender/adoption/docs/NobodysChild_HimalayanTimes30Jan11_Pathak.pdf

Childabuse within Adoptive Families goes across boarders

2011-02-06T05:20:00.000-08:00

Uproar over adopted boy's punishment

Video aired on 'Dr. Phil' in November

Updated: Friday, 04 Feb 2011, 7:17 AM EST
Published : Friday, 04 Feb 2011, 7:16 AM EST

RACHEL D'ORO,Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Russian officials are closely watching a case involving an Anchorage mother of six who was charged with child abuse after a video that aired on "Dr. Phil" showed her punishing her adopted Russian son by squirting hot sauce into his mouth and forcing him into a cold shower.

The case has sparked a public uproar in Russia at a time that nation is nearing completion of a bilateral treaty with the U.S. on adoptions. Russia called for the agreement following the deaths of Russian children who were abused or neglected by their adoptive American parents in recent years.

Russian officials say they have not ruled out pushing for the return of the 7-year-old boy to his native country should his adoptive mother, Jessica Beagley, be found guilty.

"This video caused a huge wave of outrage in Russia," said Andrey Bondarev of the Russian Consulate in Seattle. "We're going to pay attention because this behavior is absolutely unacceptable."

Beagley's attorney, meanwhile, maintains she is a caring mother who submitted the video to the show because she genuinely wanted help.

The boy and his fraternal twin brother remain in the home with Beagley, her husband and their four biological children. Bondarev, who twice visited the family, said he saw no reason to have the boys removed at this point, and neither did authorities. He said Beagley vowed to never exert that kind of discipline again.

Authorities began investigating Beagley, 36, after the video aired in November in a segment on the CBS show called "Mommy Confessions." The city charged Beagley with one misdemeanor count of child abuse last month.

She has pleaded not guilty.

The video, shot by Beagley's 10-year-old daughter, included sounds of the boy screaming behind the shower curtain and Beagley yelling about the consequences of misbehavior. It brought many in the show's audience to tears.

On the air, host Phil McGraw called Beagley's actions abusive and over the top.

Beagley is married to an Anchorage police officer who was aware of the punishment, Bondarev said. The husband, Gary Beagley, also was investigated, according to municipal prosecutor Cynthia Franklin. She declined to elaborate, saying only that he has not been charged.

On the show, Jessica Beagley said the boy acts up and lies. She said other disciplinary actions such as time-outs, spankings and soap in the mouth have had no effect on his misbehavior.

"I would definitely say that (the boy) is the biggest stress in my life," she said.

Bill Ingaldson, Beagley's attorney, declined to make his client available for an interview. He said she was on the show to seek help about the boy, who was adopted with his brother when they were 5 years old. She saw a "Dr. Phil" episode inviting frustrated parents to the show, according to her lawyer, so she wrote to producers but didn't hear back until 18 months later.

She originally sent a video showing her talking to her children about cold showers as a consequence of misbehavior, but producers wanted to see the actual discipline, Ingaldson said.

The subsequent video was made after legitimate misbehavior, and Beagley's sole motivation was to find solutions, he said.

"She's being portrayed as this evil person, which isn't at all the case," he said. "She's a really caring mom."

Show spokeswoman Stacey Luchs said producers routinely accept home videos or ask participants to tape "naturally occurring behaviors and interactions, in order to gain insight" when dealing with family dynamics.

"We were shocked by what we saw, and called for the immediate halting of this behavior and also referred, at the show's expense, both mother and child for evaluation and treatment with appropriate professionals," she told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

Yevgeniy Khorishko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said his office is following the case, which has prompted many reactions in his country.

Russia and U.S. officials are concluding work on a new, binding agreement to cover adoptions between the two countries. Russia demanded such an agreement after a Tennessee adoptive mother put her 7-year-old boy on a plane back to Moscow last year, unaccompanied by an adult.

There also have been instances of severe mistreatment by American parents, Khorishko said.

"There were several cases in recent years with adopted Russian children, including the deaths, beatings and cruel attitude of the parents toward these children," he said. "We actually questioned many times our American counterparts on these issues, and we both understood that we actually need an agreement."

An estimated 17 adopted Russian children have died in instances of domestic violence in American families since 1992, according to Pavel Astakhov, Russia's government-appointed children's rights ombudsman. His office also is monitoring the Beagley case.

"Theoretically, we don't rule out that we could insist on the return of the boy to Russia. But at this point we're not going to," Astakhov said. He

suggested that could happen if the family is shown to be unfit to raise him, but he added it's too early to draw that conclusion.

___

Associated Press Writer Varya Kudryavtseva in Moscow contributed to this story.

ADOPTIVE MOM CHARGED WITH CHILD ABUSE

Video of Alaska Woman Allegedly Punishing Son by Force-Feeding Hot Sauce, Giving Cold Showers Prompts Viewers to Call Cops

(CBS) A mother in Alaska has sparked outrage for allegedly punishing her son with hot sauce and cold showers. Now, she's the one facing punishment: charges of child abuse.

CBS News Correspondent Betty Nguyen reported on "The Early Show" Thursday a disturbing home video started it all.

Jessica Beagley, a 36-year-old mother of six, is seen disciplining her adopted son by making him hold hot sauce in his mouth. The reason for the severe punishment? He'd lied.

In the video, Beagley can be heard saying, "What happens when you lie to me?" The boy answers, "I get hot sauce. You get hot sauce."

The mom asks, "What else happens when you lie to me?"

The boy answers, "I get a cold shower."

The 7-year-old, adopted from Russia, is then put into a cold shower and can be heard screaming.

The video created an emotional uproar and resulted in criminal charges.

Beagley sent the video, shot by her 10-year-old daughter, to the "Dr. Phil" show, seeking help in disciplining her child.

Read the rest of the article at CBS News

TDA - defending adoption and surrogacy under the concept of feminism ?

2011-02-06T05:05:00.000-08:00

Are Adoption and Surrogacy Feminist?

Joy's p ost over at Joy's Divi sion has me really thinking today. I had commented on Joy's blog that her experience on another blog was the first time I had ever heard of someone defending adoption and surrogacy under the concept of feminism. I'm thinking now that this isn't exactly true, I have, in a way, heard at least adoption defended with allegedly "feministic" arguments. A few months ago I, along with several others, wrote emails and letters to a feminist organization who was opposing Adoptee Rights under the claim that mothers were promised anonymity through the amending and sealing of records. I even tried appealing to one of the organization's representatives in an hour-long conversation over the phone. Their stance was appaulling, not only because they were in opposition to us but because their opposition was based on not being aware of adoption laws and policies and adoption and mother's rights in history. Promised secrecy? It was more like having secrecy forced upon them: adoptees and mothers alike.

Both adoption and surrogacy can involve ethical issues such as the commodification of children and of women's bodies. Many adoption policies and practices in the United States are absolutely antiquated and outdated. Adoption has a horrendously unethical history it has yet to offer an apology for and yet to declare an ethical plan for the present and future. In the United States, we still haven't figured out how to eliminate secrecy from these institutions or be truthful on birth documents, let a lone give these individuals equal access to truth that the rest of society receives about themselves. Women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy may still have trouble finding resources to parent, finding employment and higher education that has hours conducive to the schedules of caregivers, and finding affordable child care; adoption is hailed as the solution to this. Instead of providing women with equality and seeking to address the roadblocks that cause women to have to choose between parenting and poverty, society suggests surrendering to adoption while these societal problems still persist. Still, in this country, the losses of these individual, both the mothers and children, are still some of the most misunderstood, diminished, and dismissed losses...ever.

Because I am an Adult Adoptee and Feminist, it is a stretch for me to perceive how adoption (in this context, infant adoption) and surrogacy are feministic. I suppose people may view it as one woman getting the chance to parent while another woman has the opportunity to make the decision as to whether or not she wants to parent or would like to help someone else become a parent.

But what about the third party? The individual born/adopted, I mean. Is this yet another failure to incorporate everyone whom these institutions impact? I'll say here as I told to the feminist organization that had opposed Adoptee Rights:

"do I really need to remind a feminist organization that supports the rights of women that I AM A WOMAN TOO?"

The label "adoptee" doesn't legally nor socially allow me to grow up past the "child" label; now I'm not allowed to be viewed as a woman either? Adopted women in the United States often do not have access to medical history to make informed health care decisions for themselves and their descendants with their health care practitioners. They are unequal citizens under the law and are denied the Basic Human Right of knowledge of Original Identity and the equal right of access to factual birth documentation. They and their descendants lack geneological continuity and knowledge of their origins and ancestry. They live a different life than 98% of society; experiencing nature and nurture separately (and sometimes not having access to their natural roots at all) and it's an unacknowledged, diminished, and dismissed loss. I am sure the donor conceived individuals who read my blog could chime in. Since I was neither donor conceived nor born by surrogacy; I will not attempt to speak for them.

Read more at the TDA Blog

VOLUNTARY COLONIZATION ?

2011-02-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

Poinsette: Adopting Third World children is voluntary colonization

Freelance commentary

Oregon Daily Emerald > Opinion

By Bruce Poinsette | Freelance columnist

Published: Monday, January 31, 2011

Updated: Monday, January 31, 2011 01:01

I don't usually pay any attention to the tabloids, but one recently caught my eye in the checkout line. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are looking to adopt yet another child. The couple has already adopted three children from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam to go along with three children of their own.

One has to wonder how the couple is able to maintain the cultures of all these children while simultaneously assimilating them into the lifestyle of the American elite. Children, as well as adults, have the toughest time integrating into the wealthy elite of this country, which gets increasingly white and exclusive the further you go up the ladder.

Jolie and Pitt perpetuate the myth of the American "saviors." As the story goes, the generous Americans enter Third World countries, rescue children from heart-wrenching situations and turn them into prosperous U.S. citizens. The children's past and countries become distant, backwards memories.

Adopting a child from a foreign country, especially a country with internal conflict, does nothing to address the country's problems. It suggests American exceptionalism is the only solution to the world's problems and creates a cycle of dependence rather than empowerment. "Making the world a better place" is not synonymous with Americanizing it.

When you take a child from his country, make him learn your language, assimilate him into your culture and possibly give him your last name, the process should sound very familiar. It's voluntary colonization.

A couple of centuries ago they would have to put you on a boat and beat your culture out of you. Now it's as simple as dangling the carrot of American exceptionalism, even though this country is filled with xenophobia, increasing poverty and rising unemployment, especially for minorities.

Most parents adopting children, both foreign or domestically, have the best intentions in mind. They want to provide children with a better life, but when they adopt across cultural lines they are limited in how much they can impart knowledge of self to them. It is important for parents to take whatever steps they can to help their children maintain a sense of being bicultural.

For example, when a friend of mine was adopted from Poland, his parents made sure to expose him to the Polish Festival as well as a Polish school in Portland, Ore. Neither one of the parents had a culture rooted in Poland, but their conscious effort to connect their son to his culture made sure he didn't forget his history or where he came from.

Another question that needs to be asked is why the tabloids and major media outlets are quick to praise international adoptions while the plight of orphans in the U.S. is seemingly invisible?

According to the Administration for Children and Families there were 423,773 American children in foster care as of the last estimate in 2009. 114,556 of these children were on the waiting list for adoption.

Third World "made for TV" adoptions neglect the Third World conditions facing poor people in the U.S. Low-income neighborhoods are filled with crumbling infrastructure and broken schools. Teachers are more likely to dump children into special education or the corrections system than teach them how to read. This cradle-to-prison pipeline has created an atmosphere where single black and Latino mothers 18 and younger have a median wealth of $0.

It makes you wonder why the media puts such an emphasis on the Third World while there is an increasing disparity between the rich and poor at home.

Although the number of international adoptions in the U.S. has steadily declined over the last decade from its peak of 22,900 in 2004 to 12,753 in 2009, the "rescue" myth continues. The number of children in foster care has also steadily decreased over the last decade, but there are still hundreds of thousands of children in need of parents.

Black children are over-represented in the foster care system in the U.S. Although blacks make up 12 percent of the U.S. population, they make up 30 percent of the foster care population according to the ACF. Hispanics aren't far behind at 20 percent.

Recently Mississippi governor Haley Barbour rejected an invitation to an NAACP Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration and told the group to kiss his butt and take up the issue of race with his adopted Jamaican son. While Barbour is correct in asserting that his refusal to attend doesn't make him a racist, one must wonder why he had to travel all the way to Jamaica to get himself a black child.

Some might claim this is to combat the child trafficking that occurs in poor countries, but what does it say when you "rescue" one child and watch thousands of others suffer? For example, an October report in the Miami Herald estimated more than 7,300 children have been smuggled from Haiti since the earthquake. Members of the Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge were even arrested for transporting children who still had family to the Dominican Republic.

We have to turn our eyes to children in need at home as well as attack the root problems of poverty and joblessness abroad to truly "save the children" instead of Americanizing them.

bpoinsette@dailyemerald.com

One third breaks down and two third needs significant support by Adoption

2011-02-01T02:48:00.000-08:00

When adoptions go wrong

One leading charity estimates that a third of adoptions break down these days. Is it any wonder when so many adoptive parents take their new children home only to find they have a secret history of appalling abuse? Bridget Freer reports

It is not known exactly how many families have to end an adoption Photo: MICHAEL KIRKHAM

7:00AM GMT 31 Jan 2011

With courtesy to UK Telegraph

3 Comments

Rachel Humphreys punches in the numbers on her phone. She is calling work, yet again, to tell them she has to take her son, Tom, to an emergency appointment and is going to be in late. She is a management consultant and over the past two years has frequently taken time off at short notice, and occasionally turned up with a black eye or other visible injuries.

'They have been fantastic,’ she says, 'but the last time it happened I also said to them, “If people like me aren’t supported, and this isn’t a success, then these children, children like Tom, are the granny-bashers of the future.” I didn’t need to spell it out.’

If she was going to spell it out, however, it would go something like this: two years ago Rachel adopted a child who,unbeknown to her, had acute emotional and psychological problems. Tom, eight, is frequently violent towards her. He needs psychological support, and Rachel also needs a lot of support. Unfortunately for Rachel, the support and understanding she gets from her employers is about as far as it goes.

Tom first came to live with Rachel and her husband, Richard, in 2008. The social workers had told them that Tom was the youngest of five children who had had a disturbed early life. 'He’d had 27 moves in six years and had been on the at-risk register as an unborn child because of the way the family was and the risk of neglect,’ says Rachel.

'But I didn’t find all that out until quite recently, and we didn’t understand how neglect and abuse can affect a child, so were not at all worried by the little we had been told. We had been trying to adopt for two years and had fallen in love with him on sight. He did swear at his foster carer when we first met him, but we just thought it was the stress of facing another move, and that all he needed was enormous amounts of love and lots of good food.’

It didn’t turn out quite like that. On his second afternoon in his new home Tom told Rachel to 'f— off’. She was rather taken aback. They had visitors so she took him aside quietly, 'but he carried on swearing at me, and hit me. And that was the start… Alarm bells began to ring. A couple of days later something else kicked off, and Richard took Tom upstairs to talk to him and he went for him, saying, “Who the f— do you think you are?” We calmed him down but then he attacked me and that was when Richard said, “I can’t do it.”

'Richard couldn’t cope with seeing Tom being violent and abusive to me all the time. It made him so angry that he was frightened he would hurt Tom, and he wanted us to end the adoption.

I couldn’t contemplate giving up on this child that no one else cared about so soon after he’d come to us, but Richard told me I had to choose: my child or my marriage. Within a week Richard had gone. It was completely out of the blue and it was very hard at the time but we are still great friends.’

Rachel was then left to parent Tom on her own and went on formally to adopt him as a single parent a year later, during which time Tom continued to be violent towards her. 'The social worker had warned me that he sometimes used bad language under stress and showed occasional challenging behaviour. But he used grotesquely sexualised language. I had no understanding that a six-year-old who looks like a four-year-old could talk like that.’

Not knowing what to do and feeling that Tom was, in fact, very frightened by yet another new set of circumstances, Rachel rang social services. 'I said, “This child needs help. We need help.” And they refused.’ Three years later, she says rather grimly, 'We are hanging in there.’

It’s something that, to their deepest regret, Mary and Craig Allen are no longer doing. Eight years ago two sisters from the North West were placed with them, but both girls are now back in care.

Charlotte and Katie were five and six when they were taken into care, and seven and eight when they came to live with Mary and Craig, in Hertfordshire. 'We had been given a reasonable history of the things that had happened in their lives,’ says Mary. 'We knew that they came from a background of extreme neglect and domestic violence, and that their father had been violent to both girls and sexually abused Charlotte. There was a suspicion he’d sexually abused Katie, too.’

But the couple felt that all of the children’s behavioural problems were glossed over. 'It was all about how wonderful they were and how well they’d settled with the foster family. They did say the reports were a bit out of date.’

So Mary and Craig asked for them to be updated and were given the new reports just before the girls came to live with them. 'I was sitting in the hotel room reading Katie’s report when suddenly I saw the words “attachment disorder” [in laymen’s terms, fear of loving] thrown into the long text. It was a worry, but it was 24 hours before we were due to bring them home; we were too far in. We’d fallen in love with them because they are gorgeous, lovely girls; it was too late to turn back.

'This was July 2004 and it had been decided that it was a good idea for the girls to come to us in the summer holidays so we could all get to know each other. Big mistake,’ says Mary. 'Children need routine and structure, and their behaviour was off the rails, extreme. Charlotte was very withdrawn and wetting the bed every night, and Katie was having huge tantrums, hour after hour, day after day.

'If her tantrum was still raging at eight or nine at night, sometimes I’d take her out of the house and walk around the streets to give Charlotte a chance of sleeping. And Katie would try to push me in front of cars, shouting obscenities at me.’

By the end of the holidays Mary and Craig were on their knees and the girls’ social worker referred them to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services). 'But we just never got the support we needed,’ says Mary. After three years of struggle the social worker told Mary, 'I think this adoption is about to “disrupt”,’ the formal term for an adoption that is never finalised. 'We had just gone on and on and on – trying, trying, trying,’ recalls Mary. 'To walk away purely because people wouldn’t give us the depth of support we needed? Well, that would have been awful.’

Mary did for a while get some online coaching from the girls’ placing authority. 'One morning I was sobbing down the phone. Katie had hit me so many times and I was trying to get her to go to school and she was whacking me. We had been seriously abused, verbally and physically, for years. We were domestic-violence victims and were falling apart; you can only take so much.’ Meanwhile, they felt powerless to help Charlotte, who, says Mary, had done 'an awful lot of self-harming. She’s cut herself over the years, and threatened suicide.’

As they got into their teens both girls started bunking off school. When she was 14 Charlotte didn’t come home one night. 'And then a week later it happened again for three nights. We knew she was using cannabis and sleeping with unsuitable people – doing horrible, horrible things.

'There was always something new to worry about. The police were frequently called to try to find the girls and get them out of whatever trouble they’d got in. Otherwise it was just me screaming at any professional that would listen, “We can’t keep her safe and we can’t give her an education.” It was all escalating and eventually I called my support worker, sobbing, and said, “I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”’

Mary and Craig asked if Charlotte could go into foster care. A year later they were facing the same situation with Katie: 'She’s in a highly therapeutic unit where she can get an education and where we can still be Mum and Dad. She is still free to come home from time to time.’

It is not known exactly how many families in this country go through the agonising process of having to end an adoption. But the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), estimates that one in five adoptions fall apart before the adoption order is granted, which, if all goes well, happens a year after the child is placed.

Meanwhile the charity Adoption UK estimates that as many as one third of adoptions break down after the adoption order has been granted. Its director, Jonathan Pearce, says, 'Two thirds of adoptive families need significant support to overcome the history of abuse and neglect children bring into their family. Contemporary adoptions are becoming more and more complex; adoptions are at higher levels than they used to be 15 years ago.’

Speak to social workers, child-protection officers, child psychologists and adoptive families and you will hear stories very similar to that of Mary, Craig, Charlotte and Katie. Anecdotally, they will tell you that over the past five years it feels as though there has been an increase in the number of adoptions that disrupt or break down.

In the nine months from April to December 2009 local authorities across Britain saw care applications by social workers rise by an unprecedented 46 per cent, in the wake of the Baby P case, when 17-month-old Peter Connelly was found dead in his cot after suffering months of abuse and neglect. Yet not enough is known about the damage caused by early trauma on the infant brain to be able to help adoptive families to cope.

Professor Stephen Scott, the director of the adoption and fostering team at the Maudsley Hospital in London, says, 'Some adopted children are extremely disruptive. Not only do they fail to learn to regulate their emotions – they were never calmed and comforted by a loving parent – but also it affects their brain function. The slightest frustration can trigger a wave of stress hormones that sends them into an unreachable state of rage.’

Christine Dobson, the director of programmes at the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas, explains that, 'Neuron development is most rapid at the beginning of life, and all of brain development takes place from zero to three. A child who has a loving, nurturing primary care-giver for the first three years of life will get a good start and will walk through the world assuming that people are good until they learn otherwise. But a child who gets scattershot care-giving in the early months or years will assume the world is not a safe, nurturing place.’

And this in a nutshell is the story of Rachel Humphreys’s son: 'Tom doesn’t want to be bad. He is a damaged child,’ she says. 'He has an attachment disorder. He tells me it is easier not having a mum, as it is really scary to love somebody. I have a child who cannot play. The toys disappear; he cannot allow himself to get attached even to them.’

One thing that is known to make a huge difference to the success of adoptions is the speed with which a child is taken from its potentially perilous birth family and placed with what it is hoped will be its 'forever family’. Martin Narey, the former chief executive of Barnardo’s, says, 'The really successful adoptions are when the child starts with the adoptive parents while still a baby. The older a child is when they are adopted the greater the likelihood of a disruption, and the younger the child is the smaller the likelihood of breakdown. It is better at two than three, but best of all when a child is a few weeks old.’

Julie Selwyn, the director of the Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies at the University of Bristol, agrees. Yet across England and Wales, says Selwyn, 'It can commonly take 12 months for the decision to be made. A year in adult terms is not very long, but in the life of a baby it is a long, long time – so much is happening developmentally during that time.’

A new type of adoption called concurrent planning could be the answer. Developed by the children’s charity Coram in 1999 it allows babies at risk to be placed with their putative adoptive families within days of birth. The adoptive family provides foster care for a year, during which time the birth parents are allowed contact with the baby and given every chance to turn their lives around and show that they could parent the child. If they don’t manage that within the 12 months, the child is placed for adoption with the foster family. This way the adults – the potential adoptive parents – have taken the risk rather than the child.

BAAF would like to see concurrent planning rolled out nationally, and while most local authorities agree that the benefits to children are enormous and say they would like to use the system, most of them also say that it is too expensive and they would have to have smaller caseloads or more social workers to make it work. The disruption figure for Coram is consistently 2.8 per cent – one out of the 60 to 80 placements they make each year – whereas the average disruption rate for local authorities is 16 per cent. So they are obviously on to something.

For Rachel Humphreys, this is small consolation. She lays the blame for the problems she and Tom are struggling with squarely on the social workers who placed Tom with her.

'They weren’t honest with us. I have since been able to get hold of his school records, and there are reports in there that he bit other children, and a letter from one of his foster carers saying that he’d attacked other children in her care and she couldn’t allow him to stay overnight with her anymore because he was so violent. We wouldn’t have touched him with a bargepole if we’d been shown that; we’d have known that we couldn’t handle him.’

On a good day, though, Tom’s adoring mum will say, 'My son is a bright spark, a lovely enthusiastic, football-loving child. There are wonderful times and he is lovely until he is in a muddle and it is all there bubbling up and he will smash a plate or

a glass and get abusive. Sometimes he says, “I need to kill you because I want to go back to care.” I say, “You will go somewhere really not nice if you kill me, and you will not get apple crumble there.”’

Barnardo’s Fostering and Adoption Week is from 31 January to 6 February,

barnardos.org.uk/fosteringandadoption

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Adoptee Rights do Exists ?

2011-01-31T02:58:00.000-08:00

Canadian Adoptee lobbies UN Commission on the Rights of the Child

January 31st, 2011 | Author: Good Parents

Halifax (PRWEB) April 22, 2004 -

Â Canada not doing enough to open up adoption records, UN says. Provincial governments throughout most of Canada could be doing a lot more to help adopted children find their birth parents, says the draft report of a UN committee.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child met in Geneva last month to review Ottawa’s record of implementing an international convention designed to improve protection for children throughout the world.

“The committee is concerned by the fact that certain provinces do not recognize the right of an adopted child to know, as far as possible, her/his biological parents,” said an Oct. 3 draft report obtained by The Canadian Press.

“The committee notes that while adoption falls within the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories, the ratification of the Hague Convention has not been followed up by legal and other appropriate measures in all provinces.”

While the UN report does not name the provinces, an expatriate Canadian who lobbied the commission on the adoption issue in Geneva said Nova Scotia tops the list when it comes to keeping records closed.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” Ron Murdock said in a recent interview from Amsterdam. The other provinces that restrict access to adoption records are New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec.

“What we’re asking for is not painful reunions,” said Mr. Murdock, who was adopted out of the infamous Ideal Maternity Home in Chester, N.S., which was chronicled in the book .Butterbox Babies “Opening adoption records does not automatically mean painful reunions are thrust on people who don’t want to meet. What open adoption records should entail is: release of information and then contact, but only if desired.”

In a submission to the UN Commission, Mr. Murdock argued that Canada was violating the international charter on the protection of children by allowing provinces to continue their restrictive practices.

“How can you sign the United Nations charter on the rights of children and have sealed adoption records?” he asked. “The charter clearly states that a child has the right to know who it is and from whence it comes.”

While the commission did not go as far as to say Canada is in breach of the agreement, Mr. Murdock said, it’s clearly worded rebuke was heartening to see.

Mr. Murdock, 62, a singing instructor in some of Europe’s best opera houses, has spent the better part of 27 years trying to get information on his biological parents. His journey began when his son was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome.

With the advent of genetic screening for many diseases, it’s more important than ever that adopted children have access to their records, according to a group that represents birth mothers.

“There are thousands of inherited diseases,” said Karen Lynn of the Canadian Council of Natural Mothers, which supported Mr. Murdock’s submission.

“If you have a group of people who can access knowledge about their inherited diseases and another that can’t, it amounts to discrimination. This is what has emerged with modern medicine and the ability to identify in advance genetic disease.”

Nova Scotia was singled out by Mr. Murdock, not only because it was his birthplace, but because of the Conservative government’s spectacular failure four years ago to open up the system.

In the fall of 1999, the newly elected government of Premier John Hamm moved quickly to fulfill a campaign promise of more open access to adoption information.

The bill was withdrawn after an emotional and bitter debate through public hearings and in the legislature.

“The bill was shot to pieces in the house,” said Mike Slayter of Parent Finders Nova Scotia.

“I suspect it will take a court to order the province to open adoption records now.”

The province has taken what critics have described as a couple of meek steps forward by telling new birth and adoptive parents that their records may be opened years down the road, but has staunchly refused to open older files.

“The understanding that was in place when the birth parents gave up the child for adoption was that their identities would be protected,” said David Morse, Nova Scotia’s community services minister.

“This is a really sensitive area.” The only way adoptees and birth parents can be reunited now in the province is if one or the other contacts the government, which will make discrete inquiries to see if contact is desired.

Mr. Morse said there are no plans to rewrite the legislation in the near future, although provincial officials will study the UN commission report.

Adoptees kept in the dark in India

2011-01-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

Half a life: Abandoned, adopted, abandoned

Ambika Pandit, TNN, Jan 30, 2011, 06.02am IST

Comments

Tags:NGO Sakhee|inter-country adoption|Family Welfare Centre|Campaign Against Child Trafficking

Manisha (name changed) is 15 and brighteyed . She might be the regular teenager . The adults in contact with her say she is polite and disciplined and is always ready to help anyone in trouble. But Manisha is not a regular teenager and hers is no ordinary story. She lives in a home run by an NGO in Gurgaon for abandoned or abused children or those with special needs. She is the helpless victim of inter-country adoption gone terribly wrong.

Six years ago, Manisha was adopted by an American family from a centre in Mumbai. But soon enough, they were unwilling to keep her, blaming Manisha's newly apparent hyperactivity, mood disorders and depression. Rejected and abandoned all over again, Manisha was sent across the seas and has been in the children's shelter from early 2010.

Should it be this way? Almost all her young life, Manisha has been a victim of the system — and all its faults. In 2003, she and her sister were found abandoned at Mumbai railway station. Both children were placed with an NGO, the Family Welfare Centre (FWC), by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). In 2005, the CWC declared that the children could be adopted because no one had come forward to claim them.

Soon enough, an American couple expressed interest in taking both sisters. The FWC, coordinating with an adoption agency in US, completed the formalities. The girls were cleared for adoption in April 2006 by the Central Adoption and Resources Agency (CARA), the nodal body for adoption under the Union ministry of women and child development .

But within months, the American foster parents were complaining that Manisha had behavioural problems and insisting they would keep her young sister, but not her. Manisha's case wound up in the Indian courts. The Bombay High Court, which has been hearing the case, was informed that the link adoption agency (in the US) had placed Manisha with another family, but things didn't work out and she was repatriated to India in June 2008. She was admitted to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, her adoption revoked and her guardian now is Nigama Mascarenhas, director of the FWC. The high court said the American couple who adopted Manisha cannot be absolved of responsibility and they are still liable for financial support for the child's treatment and needs. The court has sought sixmonthly updates on Manisha's progress.

So how has all of this left an innocent child, flown across continents and rejected twice-over - once by her birth parents and then by her adoptive father and mother? Her guardian, Mascarenhas says Manisha seemed to be settling down when she visited the home in December 2010 , she is now trying to find a foothold in life. Staff at the home say the child is endearing and participates in every activity . Apart from attending a special school that is helping overcome her learning disability, she is undergoing therapy with a psychologist and a psychiatrist . Counsellors say Manisha has potential to do well in say, the hospitality sector.

If Manisha is indeed fine, she is one of the luckier ones. There are no statistics of the number of Manishas all over India — abandoned children, who were adopted overseas and then turned out like a troublesome puppy. Significantly, the Bombay High Court has used Manisha's case to ask CARA, India's nodal adoption agency, to plug gaps in the system.

The court asked CARA to create stringent inter-country adoption guidelines, as well as a system that makes foster parents financially liable if they seek to revoke an adoption.

Activists like Anjali Pawar, of the NGO Sakhee, say this is badly needed. Pawar, who works on issues related to inter-country adoption in Maharashtra , says, "The existing norms call for monitoring of children adopted by families abroad for five years after the adoption. But what happens to the child after that, no one knows. The monitoring should go on till the child attains 18 years."

All of this is urgent. The latest data on CARA's website shows that in 2009, 666 Indian children were placed with families abroad. When contacted , a top CARA official said that an expert committee had been constituted to frame stringent guidelines for inter-country adoption. He claimed that the committee's report has been sent to the law ministry, denied there had been delay and insisted the revised guidelines would come into effect soon.

But Bharti Ali of the National Coordination for the Campaign Against Child Trafficking, who has been part of the stakeholders meetings on the drafting process, contradicts the CARA official's claim. She says it's been three months since the stakeholders heard about the status of the guidelines and the draft is anyway "not as tough about protecting the rights of the child if one reads between the lines."

Manisha's case has exposed another grey area. Is India careless about the psychological health of the children it puts up for overseas adoption? The Bombay High Court has expressed concern about information presented to it, which seemed to suggest that many Indian children adopted abroad have a disturbed childhood. But what if everything fails and an adopted child is sent back to its home country from overseas? Ali says it is imperative the Indian government "take responsibility for a child in case of a failed inter-country adoption."

Is anyone listening?

Male Adoptees start to accuse adopters for Child Molestation

2011-01-30T23:34:00.000-08:00

Hospital director's adopted son calls dad monster

By: AMY TAXIN 01/28/11 11:27 AM

Associated Press

The adopted son of a California state mental hospital director on trial for child molestation says his father is a monster who abused him for more than a decade and destroyed his life.

The young man testified Friday in Long Beach Superior Court that former Napa State Hospital director Claude Foulk abused him at age nine, when he was Foulk's foster child.

Foulk adopted the boy at age 13 and he fled when he was 21 years old.

The Associated Press is not naming the witness because it has a policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual abuse.

Foulk has pleaded not guilty to 35 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child.

The San Francisco Examiner

Hospital Director Denies Abuse Claims By Adopted Son

January 28, 2011 7:01 PM

(File Photo)

LONG BEACH (AP) — A state mental hospital director on trial for child molestation flatly denied any wrongdoing Friday, following emotional testimony by his adopted son who characterized his father as a monster who abused him for more than a decade and destroyed his life.

The 27-year-old man, who wept on the stand, said Claude Foulk began abusing him at age 9, when he was Foulk’s foster child, and continued for more than a decade until he fled at 21.

Foulk, who was fired as director of Napa State Hospital after his arrest last year, had adopted the man when he turned 13.

The Associated Press is not naming the witness because it has a policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual abuse.

Foulk, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 35 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child. If convicted of all the counts, he could face a maximum of 280 years in prison.

Wearing a button-down shirt and silk vest, a gray-mustached and balding Foulk denied all allegations of molestation.

He said he adopted the witness because he believed older children needed parenting too, adding that he had previously served as a foster parent and had adopted one other son.

“There was no physical abuse. There was no sexual abuse. There was no intimidation,” Foulk said.

Those claims were contradicted by testimony earlier in the day by Foulk’s alleged victim.

“He’s a monster,” the witness said, adding that he quit college and left home to escape the abuse. “He has torn me apart.”

Authorities contend 13 men, including another one of Foulk’s four foster sons, came forward to claim Foulk molested them as children as far back as 1965. Only one of the cases, however, could be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations.

In cross-examination, defense attorney Richard Poland suggested Foulk’s son had a history of lying from the time he entered the foster care system, from making up excuses as an adult to avoid taking calls from his adoptive father.

He also asked the witness why he waited so long to tell Foulk to stop the alleged abuse or report it to police.

“Is it fair to state that you never told him to stop because you wanted to continue getting the toys or the cars or going wherever you wanted?” Poland asked the witness, who answered with a resounding “no.”

The investigation was sparked when someone reported sexual abuse to police last September after learning Foulk was head of Napa State Hospital, prosecutors have said.

Detectives from the sex crimes division found evidence that five boys under 14 had been molested in Long Beach, where Foulk had lived, and in Rancho Murieta in Northern California, authorities said. Additional victims were listed in an amended complaint filed last year.

Foulk was paid $98,000 a year at Napa State Hospital, where he was responsible for supervising the 1,260-bed institution that houses adults mostly judged mentally incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of insanity. He previously worked as a high-level administrator at several private psychiatric hospitals and with the state Department of Mental Health.

Records show he was briefly married in the 1970s.

During the trial in Superior Court in Long Beach, the witness told jurors he found photos of naked boys on his father’s computer.

He said he craved his father’s love as a child, and was afraid he would be sent back to foster care if he spoke out.

“He said, ‘If you don’t love me, we won’t be able to do this. This is how a man shows love,”‘ the witness said.

Foulk will continue to testify on Monday, and attorneys could wrap up the trial with closing arguments later that day.

After Argentina now Spain gets public with Stolen Children

2011-01-29T01:11:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of Spanish babies 'stolen from clinics and sold for adoption'

The families of 261 babies who disappeared in Spanish hospitals over five decades call for an investigation

A man wearing a t-shirt of ANADIR, an association of people looking for lost children or parents, reacts while listening to a news conference. Photograph: Paul White/AP

Hundreds of Spanish babies were stolen from their parents by a secret network of doctors and nurses and sold for adoption, according to a petition filed in Madrid.

The families of 261 babies who disappeared in Spanish hospitals over five decades called on the attorney general to open an investigation into the scandal, after presenting evidence from former employees at maternity clinics and parents who admitted illegally adopting babies.

What started as a system for taking children away from families deemed to be politically dangerous to the regime of General Francisco Franco became an illicit business that continued at least until the 1980s, a campaign group has claimed.

Doctors, nurses, nuns and priests are all suspected of lying to mothers who were told their children had died during, or straight after, birth. Journalists investigating a clinic in Madrid at the centre of the allegations found a baby's corpse in a fridge, leading to suggestions that bodies were kept to show parents to prove their own child had died. Campaigners believe thousands of cases of stolen babies will eventually come to light.

"The father of a friend of mine admitted to him that both he and I had been bought from a priest and a nun from Zaragoza after being born in the Miguel Servet hospital," said Antonio Barroso, who discovered four years ago that he was adopted. DNA tests have proved that the people who raised him were not his real parents.

"There are cases that are accompanied by proof in the form of DNA tests and others that are simply mothers who suspect that their babies were stolen," said lawyer Enrique Vila, who represents the National Association of Irregular Adoptions. "We think it was an organised mafia."

Inés Pérez, 89, has confirmed that a priest encouraged her to fake a pregnancy so she could be given a child due to be born at Madrid's San Ramón clinic in 1969. Her adopted daughter, also called Inés, was among those demanding an investigation.

In a separate case, workers from an undertaker's in Malaga said they sometimes buried empty children's coffins that arrived from a local clinic.

The street outside the attorney general's office was blocked by weeping people today hoping to discover what had become of their lost children.

Many said they had been told that apparently healthy babies had died within hours of birth. They had never seen the bodies and the hospitals had taken care of the burials.

Russian Children costs between $ 50,000 and $70,000

2011-01-29T01:08:00.000-08:00

“We don’t know all cases of Russian child abuse abroad” - Ombudsman

Tags: child abuse, child adoption, Commentary, World, Russia, Politics, Pavel Astakhov

Jan 28, 2011 15:14 Moscow Time

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Pavel Astakhov. Photo: RIA Novosti

Russia's Children's Rights Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov has called for a halt to adoptions of this country's children by foreign families until bilateral agreements to regulate adoptions are signed.

Without such bilateral agreements Russia is unable to lok after the Russian children adopted by foreigners and protect them from abuse.

Russia and the US have a 16-year history of international adoption and during this time more than 600,000 Russian children have found a new family in the US. However the cases of abuse and mistreatment of Russian children in the US adoptive families has become a regular thing.

The last scandal, which added fuel to the legal disputes, was the case of 7-year old Daniil Boukharov. Adopted by Gary and Jessica Bigley, the boy was forced to drink Tabasco sauce as a disciplinary measure. And this is not the most terrifying story, Astakhov says.

In the US 17 children have been killed by their adoptive parents. The law of large numbers can’t be applied here with 600,000 being adopted and only several killed. No! The US ambassador in Russia John Beyrle said that even one case is more than enough for Russia to act the way it is acting now. I agree with him. We do not have such problems with other countries, only with the US. Moreover, we do not know about all the cases. We have learned there is a ranch where adopted Russian children rejected by their US parents are sent to. And nobody tells us about it. That’s a fact – we do not know what is going on with more than 400 children because the primary adoption was cancelled and after that the child “got lost”.

As at now, only Ireland has officially refused to sign a bilateral agreement on child adoption with Russia and adopt Russian children. France, Great Britain, Finland and Spain are ready to sign such agreements. But until the agreements are signed, it is necessary to halt the adoption and make the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, introduce amendments to the Russian Family Code, Pavel Astakhov says.

Today it is necessary to add new provisions to the Family Code to stipulate that only children who were not adopted in Russia may be put up for international adoption. But this should be predicated on the relevant bilateral agreement being in place.

The Children’s rights ombudsman admits that it is impossible to now ban the international adoption of Russian children. Though the law provides for such an option there is a powerful international lobby, making big money on protecting international adoption, which is a very profitable business. For example in the US, the services for finding an adopted child in Russia costs between $ 50,000 and $70,000.

Adoption Parents in Belgium unsatisfied with Adoption procedure

2011-01-29T01:06:00.000-08:00

"Helft adoptieouders ontevreden over procedure"

De helft van de adoptieouders in ons land is ontevreden tot zeer ontevreden over de adoptieprocedure. Er zijn vooral klachten over de hoge kosten, de lange wachttijden, het maatschappelijk onderzoek en het gebrek aan nazorg eenmaal de adoptie een feit is. Dat blijkt uit een enquête door Test-Aankoop waaraan 419 ouders deelnamen die een ervaring met adoptie achter de rug hebben.

Tussen 10.000 en 20.000 euro
De kostprijs voor buitenlandse adopties varieert tussen 10.000 en 20.000 euro voor bemiddeling, vliegtuigtickets en verblijfkosten. Het volledige adoptieproces neemt al snel vier a vijf jaar in beslag. Daarnaast is ook het maatschappelijk onderzoek voor twee op drie kandidaten een grote bron van ergernis. Een andere klacht die door 58 procent wordt aangestipt is het gebrek aan nazorg. Na de optie zou er te weinig ondersteuning en psychologische begeleiding zijn.

Gezin stichten topreden
De meest genoemde motivatie voor een adoptie is het stichten van een gezin (78 procent), gevolgd door het geven van een goede thuis aan behoeftige kinderen (65 procent) en onvruchtbaarheid (68 procent). De keuze voor een bepaald herkomstland wordt meestal ingegeven door het vertrouwen in de adoptiediensten in dat land en de etniciteit van het kind. Geslacht en leeftijd zijn minder belangrijk, kandidaat-ouders hebben vooral verwachtingen over de mentale en fysieke gezondheid van het kind. Factoren zoals handicaps en psychische, lichamelijke en /of gedragsproblemen zijn voor de meeste kandidaten doorslaggevend voor de beslissing om een kind al dan niet te adopteren. (belga/svm)

28/01/11 18u20

Franco's Regime Stole children for Adoption

2011-01-29T00:56:00.000-08:00

Aangifte van massale babyroof onder Franco

Driehonderd families in Spanje doen vandaag bij de procureur-generaal in Madrid gezamenlijk aangifte van babyroof onder dictator Franco.

Tussen de jaren dertig en jaren tachtig van de vorige eeuw zijn naar schatting tussen de dertigduizend en driehonderdduizend kinderen gestolen en illegaal geadopteerd. Het motief hiervoor veranderde in die jaren van ’het Spaanse ras zuiveren van een marxistisch gen’ tot handel waarmee goed geld verdiend werd. Moeders, vaak alleenstaand (of anderszins kwetsbaar) werd na hun bevalling in een ziekenhuis verteld dat hun kind was overleden. In werkelijkheid werden de kinderen verkocht. Voor zover bekend heeft geen van de geroofde kinderen ooit zijn biologische ouders teruggevonden.

De aanklacht van vandaag komt van de landelijke vereniging voor illegale adopties, Anadir. Voorzitter Antonio Barroso is zelf een gestolen kind. „Op school werd ik adoptiekind genoemd. Mijn klasgenootjes wisten kennelijk via hun ouders dat mijn moeder nooit zwanger was geweest”, vertelt hij. Drie jaar geleden, toen Barroso 39 was, werd het bevestigd door een DNA-test. In 1969 was hij verkocht voor 150.000 peseta’s, nu omgerekend 900 euro, destijds een veelvoud waard. Over zijn biologische moeder kan hij geen gegevens vinden. „Kennelijk hebben zowel het ziekenhuis als ambtenaren bij de gemeente destijds documenten vervalst”, zegt hij. „Dat moet op grote schaal gebeurd zijn.”

Barroso hoopt dat het Spaanse Openbare Ministerie de aanklacht in behandeling neemt. Een eerder verzoek tot onderzoek dat hij bij de rechtbank in de stad Zaragoza indiende werd afgewezen. Net als een aanklacht die vorig jaar ingediend werd door het Platform voor Gestolen kinderen bij het gerechtshof in Madrid. De hoofdaanklager gaf als reden dat hij zich niet bevoegd achtte. Alleen in vier steden in het zuiden worden aanklachten onderzocht, maar het lijkt er verder op dat de Spaanse justitie zich niet wil branden aan dit onderwerp. Over de burgeroorlog en de Francodictatuur wordt vooral door oudere generaties liever gezwegen.

Het gebrek aan documenten over de adopties maakt het onderzoek er niet makkelijker op. Er zijn alleen verklaringen van getuigen. Zo vertelt één van hen in de documentaire ’Los niños robados del franquismo’ (De geroofde kinderen uit het Franco-tijdperk) over een massale roof in de gevangenis in Saturrarán, Baskenland. Nonnen lieten gevangen vrouwen bijeenkomen op het binnenplein, zonder hun kinderen. Na een paar minuten mochten ze weer teruggaan maar hun kinderen, ongeveer honderd, waren verdwenen. Vorig jaar is deze gebeurtenis verfilmd in ’Estrellas que alcanzar’, rijzende sterren. In een boek van Benjamín Prado getuigt de geestelijke Gumersindo de Estrella over de gebeurtenis: „Ik hoorde hartverscheurende kreten en geschreeuw: ’Neem mijn kind niet van mij af’, ’Ik wil mijn kind niet achterlaten bij deze beulen. Dood ons dan maar samen”

Sinds vorig jaar duiken steeds vaker verhalen op van families van geroofde baby’s. Slachtofferverenigingen en journalisten zetten zich nu in om de waarheid over de gestolen baby’s boven tafel te krijgen

Rassenleer nazi’s diende als voorbeeld

Het idee om baby’s te roven en ze onder te brengen bij ’goede’ families komt van de psychiater en legerarts Antonio Vallejo Nágera. Volgens hem waren marxisten (communisten) geestesziek en moest het Spaanse ras hiervan genetisch worden gezuiverd. De rassenleer van de nazi’s diende als voorbeeld voor hem. Totale scheiding van moeders en kinderen was volgens hem de beste oplossing. Geïnspireerd door Nágera nam de Spaanse regering onder Franco in 1940 een wet aan die stelde dat „families met ideeën die niet als ideaal werden beschouwd geen contact mochten hebben met hun nakomelingen”. Vier jaar later waren al twaalfduizend kinderen weggehaald bij hun moeders die in gevangenissen zaten.
NOS - Podcast

Gays tending to have the idea to have rights to have children

2011-01-29T00:47:00.000-08:00

Gay Live

Het verdriet is enorm bij Peter Meurrens (37) en Laurent Ghilain (27). Het homokoppel heeft een zoontje van twee, Samuel, dat vastzit in een Oekraïens weeshuis. Dat blijft zo tot een Belgische rechter de vaderschapsband eindelijk wil erkennen. Koppen brengt vanavond hun verhaal.

Peter: “Adoptie kan in ons land, maar bleek in de praktijk zo moeilijk, dat we voor een draagmoeder kozen uit Oekraïne, waar dat legaal is. Maar niemand had verwacht dat uitgerekend de Belgische autoriteiten zouden tegenwerken.”

Het jongetje is verwekt met het zaad van Laurent bij een Oekraïense draagmoeder, die hem meteen na de geboorte zoals afgesproken afstond. De problemen begonnen toen de Belgische consul in Kiev de pasgeboren baby geen Belgisch paspoort wilde geven.
Bart Ouvry van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken: “De praktijk van draagmoeders is eigenlijk een leemte in de Belgische wet. Daardoor kunnen we de nationaliteit van het kind niet erkennen.”

“Eigenlijk zijn we te eerlijk geweest, we hadden hem beter meteen meegenomen met een toeristenvisum, dan was hij wel illegaal in België maar tenminste bij ons”, vertelt Laurent “Die meubeltjes staan hier nu twee jaar, de luiertafel zal niet meer nodig zijn en het bedje is intussen te klein.” Peter is vooral bang voor de toekomst: “Een jaar bij een Oekraïense pleegmoeder en een jaar in een koud weeshuis, daar komt een kind niet ongerept uit.”

Koppen: op donderdag 27 januari om 20.45 u. op één

Belgium Adopters unsatisfied with Adoption Procedure

2011-01-29T00:44:00.000-08:00

Test-Aankoop: "Helft adoptieouders ontevreden over adoptieprocedure"

3 reacties

28 januari, 18:16

De kostprijs voor buitenlandse adopties variëren tussen 10.000 en 20.000 euro voor bemiddeling, vliegtuigtickets en verblijfkosten. Het volledige adoptieproces neemt al snel vier tot vijf jaar in beslag. Daarnaast is ook het maatschappelijk onderzoek voor twee op drie kandidaten een grote bron van ergernis.

Een andere klacht die door 58 procent wordt aangestipt is het gebrek aan nazorg. Na de optie zou er te weinig ondersteuning en psychologische begeleiding zijn.

Vierhonderdnegentien ouders, die een ervaring met adoptie achter de rug hebben namen deel aan het onderzoek.

Vertrouwen

De meest genoemde motivatie voor een adoptie is het stichten van een gezin (78 procent), gevolgd door het geven van een goede thuis aan behoeftige kinderen (65 procent) en onvruchtbaarheid (68 procent).

De keuze voor een bepaald herkomstland wordt meestal ingegeven door het vertrouwen in de adoptiediensten in dat land en de etniciteit van het kind. Geslacht en leeftijd zijn minder belangrijk, kandidaat-ouders hebben vooral verwachtingen over de mentale en fysieke gezondheid van het kind.

Factoren als handicaps en psychische, lichamelijke of gedragsproblemen zijn voor de meeste kandidaten doorslaggevend voor de beslissing om een kind al dan niet te adopteren.

Adoptees are last in line to have rights

2011-01-29T00:30:00.000-08:00

Oprah’s reunion exposes the folly of closed adoption records

January 25, 2011

She was a secret. She was a foster kid bounced from home to home. She was an adoptee. She was one of millions of Americans who callously rejected by their birth parent. But thanks to a robust adoption file and a keen eye for the media, Patricia Lloyd can now stick “Oprah’s sister” onto the pile of labels next to her name.

Monday’s Oprah Winfrey Show chronicled a tear-jerking, Oprah-worthy reunion between the talk show host and a half-sister who presented as an affable and sensitive Midwestern mom.

Patricia was born in 1963. Her mother chose to give up for adoption so that she could get off welfare and Patricia spent the first month of her life in the hospital before going through various foster homes for the first seven years of her life. She was then adopted but described her life as “difficult”.

In 2007 Patricia applied for her adoption records which she described as a “big old package”. She was able to get non-identifying information such as medication information and a description of her birth family but no names or addresses.

Wisconsin’s adoption record laws

In Patricia’s home state of Wisconsin they won’t give an adult adoptee the birth mother’s name without first obtaining her consent. So, if the birth mother says “Sorry, no.” That’s usually the end of the road for an adoptee searching for the truth. This is what happened with Patricia.

In her article The Strange History of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Records, Elizabeth Samuels explains that most American adoptions in the first half the 20th century were not buried in the secrecy of sealed records, amended birth certificates. She quotes author Jean Paton’s description of a probate court in 1942 “There was no rigmarole then; you were allowed to see your own paper in a kindly procedure”. In 1960, about 40 per cent of adult adoptees had access to their original birth certificate but from 1960 to 1990 most states implemented laws which restricted or eliminated an adult adoptee’s access to heir own birth records.

Fortunately for Patricia, her thick adoption file gave up enough clues to put more of the pieces together. A chance interview with Oprah’s mother on the local news station as well as an official Oprah biography was enough to convince her that she was, in fact, Oprah’s half sister.

She contacted other relatives, eventually connecting with Oprah who was thrilled to meet her new sister saying she looked forward to building a relationship with her in the months and years ahead.

It’s not just the birth mother’s call

Lori Jeske, an adult adoptee from Washington State, pretty much summed up my feelings on the story.

“What I hope comes across clear to the public is the fact that ‘contact’ or ‘reunions’ are not just the decision of the birth parent(s),” posted Jeske on an adoptee rights Facebook group. “There are adult siblings and other biological relatives that may in fact want to interact with the adoptee.”

I think Monday’s Oprah show is a perfect example of why closed adoptions or “birth mother has to agree to it first” reunions are so wrong.

If it was up to Vernita Lee she probably would have just hung up the phone and gone to her grave with that secret. But since Patricia’s sister has a huge public profile she was one of those rare adoptees who were able to circumvent the closed record laws of her state.

Vernita Lee was not enthusiastic about the reunion. During a home video interview Vernita Lee coldly refers to Patricia, who is seated next to her, as “it”, “that” or “the baby” as though she was talking about a ghost.

Finding family

The reaction of other relatives, however, was profound. Patricia first approached Oprah’s niece who is the daughter of Oprah’s late sister who was also named Patricia. Oprah said that Patricia bears an uncanny resemblance to her late sister and described it as a Beloved moment, referring to a scene from the 1998 film in which a deceased sister comes back to life.

When Vernita Lee hung up the phone she was not just closing off contact between mother and daughter she was making an attempt, backed by the heavy hand of the law, to cut Patricia off from other relatives who as it turned out are happy to have her in their lives.

Patricia hit the nail on the hammer when she said this was a family matter that should be handled by family alone. Adoption has redefined the contemporary notion of family. The search for biological relatives and subsequent reunions, while not obligatory or inevitable, represent a healthy part of this new norm. It is up to adoptees and birth families to work this all out. The government, or any adoption agency, have no right to withhold records.

Posted in adoption | 8 comments »

Read also: The Sound of Hope
TDA - Oprahs Sister
Carrie Craft - Oprah's Big Secret ?

Dead Haitian Children can be claimed for Insurance Money ?

2011-01-26T03:38:00.000-08:00

Adopted Haitian Baby Killed for Insurance Money

Counterpunch 25 January 2011

Haiti Quake Journal

Where Urban Legends Come to Life

By BOADIBA

[...] Urban legends also are flying on the breeze. From mouth to mouth:

The US soldiers sent en masse right after the quake went into the rubble only twice to remove safes at Citibank and Caribbean Market. (This must come from the memory of the American occupation which started in 1916 and ended in 1935 with marines withdrawing the safes containing the nation’s entire gold reserve. It now sleeps in vaults in New York or D.C.) [...]

Some camps are well organized, but not the one across from the police station in Petionville.

At the restaurant across from the police station and the refugee camp, on the terrace overlooking the pool, foreign correspondents sit with their video cams. Two women are eating and talking at a table next to us. “Two women adopted a baby here in Haiti and took him back to New York. There, in the middle of winter, they left him locked up in a car and he died of pneumonia. Afterwards they got the insurance money. They would have gotten away with it if they hadn’t come back some time later to adopt another baby and try the same thing. The second baby was strong and didn’t die. The insurance company got suspicious and investigated. They got arrested.” [...]

Oprah Winfrey Shocks Viewers By Revealing Her Adopted Secret Sister

2011-01-25T05:29:00.001-08:00

Oprah Winfrey became the subject of the news today when she revealed to a shocked audience that she has a secret sister. Oprah claimed that her sister, Patricia, was put up for adoption at birth. They are half sisters from the same mother and Oprah claim that her mother never revealed the other sister to her until recently.

PHOTOS: Shots of Oprah Winfrey’s sister, Patricia, on the set of her show Monday morning!

Patricia was put up for adoption shortly after she was born in 1963. For the first after so many years, Oprah, Patricia and their mother will be reunited on the show. Before the show aired on Monday, Oprah released a promotional video ‘in which she said that, “I was given some news that literally shook me to my core. This time, I’m the one being reunited,” she said. “I was keeping a family secret for months, and on Monday you’re going to hear it straight from me.”

Oprah has made several revelations about her very difficult life. Over the years she has shared how she was abused when she was growing up and the difficulties that she faced growing up in the slums. Oprah’s blockbuster show, the Oprah Winfrey Show is in its 25th and final season. After this season, Oprah will concentrate on her OWN network that was launched at the beginning of the year.

To view exclusive photos of Patricia Winfrey, Oprah’s sister, on the set of her sister’s daytime talk show, you can click here to view the gallery.

Read also - Oprah reunites with her birth sister

TDA - Emotions that simply went without labels

2011-01-23T03:58:00.000-08:00

Why Didn't You Say Something?

"Why didn't you say something before?" That's the one of the very first questions my Adoptive Mother asked me when I went from being a silent adoptee to a very out-spoken adoptee. Here I was, all of a sudden, correcting the stereotypes, advocating for an adoptee's validity in valuing all of their various family ties (biology, adoptive etc.), wanting OBCs unsealed, supporting others in their reunions, pointing out a broken system, and voicing critiques about adoption in-general.

She was surprised, likely not only because I hadn't been sharing something with her, but also because I am an out-spoken person in-general. Why, in one area of my life, I would be so quiet (which lead people to believe I had no thoughts and feelings on it), when I was so open about everything else? She initially mistook advocacy for unhappiness and felt like she could have done something differently when raising me so that I would have been "happier."

A previous post of mine "Silence = Success?" has me thinking about this topic.

"Why didn't you say something before?"

My initial response? - read the rest at Amanda's Weblog

The powerful impact of rejection for Adoptees

2011-01-23T03:56:00.001-08:00

Rejection and the Adult Adoptee

After 14 interviews, 5 rejection letters, 2 rejection phone calls, and zero job offers, I felt compelled to blog about job rejection. Since I am an adult adoptee, and after extensive soul searching and therapy, I have found the issues I have with rejection are directly related to the fact that I was adopted. I take rejection as a personal attack on my sense of self.

Nancy Verrier, a psychotherapist and adoptive mother, briefly wrote about her experiences with adoptees and their issues with work and rejection. In her book, the Primal Wound she states:

Now while many people would just go on to the next interview and keep pursuing it until a job was found, the adoptee will often feel paralyzed by that initial rejection. It is felt, not just as failure to have the necessary skills or training for the job, but as a rejection of the basic person. He was not good enough for the job. He was a failure. This makes going out and facing the next interview seem like a monumental task.

I really connect to Verrier's words, like she is personally speaking to me. She goes on to describe how the fear of rejection may be connected to a sense of unworthiness felt by the adoptee, ending in self-sabotage:

The fear of rejection in the workplace is often accompanied by a fear of success or an inability to believe in one's competency or expertise. There is a kind of self rejection of one's own talents and capabilities, which sometimes results in a sabotaging of one's success.

Many people can recall their first experiences of rejection; getting picked last in gym class or not being able to play with the "cool" kids on the playground in elementary school. For adoptees, on the other hand, we cannot remember our initial reactions to our abandonment at birth (unless you were adopted at an older age). We, as adoptees, don't have a reference point for our early experiences with rejection. What often ends up happening, is a belief develops into thinking that one's personal value is the reason for the rejection. In my personal experiences with rejection, particularly in regards to jobs, I often think I was not "good enough" as a person or that I was "unworthy" for the job.

However, everybody experiences rejection throughout the course of their life; whether it is through significant others, school, sports teams, and in the workplace. So, if everybody encounters rejection some point in their life, why do some react more strongly than others?

In opinion, the answer to that question comes down to how each individual deals with loss. Adoptees, like myself, were faced with the loss of her biological mother at a very young and vulnerable age (in my case, in infancy). Being unable to mourn with the loss of one's biological mother, the person may not be able to effectively cope with later losses in life. In dealing with rejection, the inability to cope comes in many forms, including; personalization ("I must have said something wrong during the interview"), catastrophizing ("I'll never find a job," "I am going to lose my house," etc.), or even denial ("I didn't even want that job in the first place").

So how do we get over the negative beliefs of ourselves and stop taking rejection so personally? We first need be aware that there is a problem and we need to be motivated to change how we think about ourselves. The biggest challenge for me is to remind myself that it wasn't my fault. It was nothing I did or did not do... I am who I am and the best employer for me will realize this. My day will come...

Russia - Returning Adoptee Costs Money - double income by sending countries ? -

2011-01-23T03:23:00.000-08:00

Russia Demands Money For Returned Adoptee

Shelbyville Woman Fights Claim

Nashville News

POSTED: 7:18 am CST January 22, 2011

UPDATED: 10:05 am CST January 22, 2011

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. -- A Tennessee woman who sent her adopted son back to Russia has been hit with a child support claim by an adoption agency, but her attorney asked a juvenile court to throw the claim out.Torry Hansen, who had been living in Shelbyville, sent the 8-year-old boy on a plane to Moscow by himself last April with a note saying that she didn't want to be his mother anymore because the child had psychological problems.

The incident created an international uproar.According to documents obtained by the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, Hansen's attorney filed a motion to dismiss child support claims made by Hansen's adoption agency, World Association for Children and Parents, in juvenile court in Shelbyville.The newspaper reported Thursday that Russian authorities want Hansen to pay about $2,500 a month to care for the child, who is living in an orphanage.

Hansen's attorney, Trisha Henegar, filed the response Dec. 28. Hansen has since retained a different attorney, Jennifer Thompson, who declined to discuss details of the case when reached by The Associated Press on Thursday.Henegar argued that the juvenile court lacks jurisdiction to order child support because Tennessee is not the boy's "home state" and said the termination of Hansen's parental rights is currently being handled by a Russian court.Henegar said in the documents that Tennessee state law defines the "home state" as where a child lived with a parent for at least six months. She said the boy, who was named Justin Hansen, lived with the family in Bedford County less than six months before he was sent back.

Henegar wrote that the National Council for Adoption, an adoption advocacy group that joined in the petition against Hansen, has been trying to persuade a court in Moscow to postpone proceedings that would terminate Hansen's parental rights. Hansen "will not have to pay child support in Tennessee once her rights are terminated and will not be held criminally liable," Henegar wrote.Neither Torry Hansen or her mother, Nancy Hansen, who put the child on the plane under the care of the flight attendants, has been criminally charged. Local authorities have said they have not been able to determine if a crime occurred in Bedford County.An attorney representing the adoption agency did not immediately return requests for comment Thursday.

Previous Stories:

January 18, 2011: Report: Russian Boy's Adoption Still In Limbo
November 30, 2010: Russia, US To Meet After Shelbyville Adoption
August 23, 2010: E-Mails Suggest Russian Adoption Papers Altered
August 3, 2010: China To Change Adoption Policies After Tenn. Case
April 19, 2010: Volcanic Ash Delays Russian Adoptions Meeting
April 15, 2010: Questions Still Surround Russian Adoptions To US
April 15, 2010: Co-Worker: Adoptive Mom Felt Lied To By Agency
Story: Report: Russian Boy's Adoption Held Up
PDF: Letter Tenn. Mom Sent With Adopted Son Back To Russia (pdf)
Video: Russia Adoption Confusion Puts Families In Limbo
Video: Russian Driver Speaks About Child's Well Being
Video: Family Friend Shares Mother's Side Of Russian Case
Video: Russian Adoption Policy Concerns Old Hickory Family
Video: Will Charges Be Filed In Russian Adoption Case?
Video: Adoption Experts Explain Domestic Options
Video: Mom Who Sent Child To Russia Could Face Charges
Video: Adopted Russian Boy Sent Back Home
Video: Bedford Co. Mom Sends Child Back To Russia
Video: Bedford County Reacts To Russian Adoption Case
Video: Media Converge On Small Bedford Co. Town

Also Belgium is Supporting EU Adoption Resolution

2011-01-23T03:03:00.000-08:00

Adoptie in de EU: het recht op een familieleven voor kinderen.

Adoptie en zelfs internationale adoptie moet worden aangemoedigd om weeskinderen of verlaten kinderen een thuis te geven. Een resolutie hierover werd woensdag in het Europese Parlement goedgekeurd.

De nadruk ligt op het vermijden van een lang verblijf in weeshuizen. Adoptie of pleegzorg zou voornamelijk moeten plaatsvinden in het land van herkomst maar indien dit niet mogelijk is, moet er in een ander land een geschikte familie worden gezocht.
Lidstaten moeten zich ook bewust worden van de psychologische, emotionele, fysieke en sociale implicaties door het weghalen van een kind uit zijn oorspronkelijke omgeving. De resolutie stelt daarom voor om begeleiding aan te bieden aan adoptieouders.

Meer info: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/nl/pressroom/content/20110119IPR11957/html/Adoption-in-the-EU-ensuring-children's-right-to-a-family-life

UAI Comment

After the Netherlands and also many other countries within the EU the Flemish Agency VLEVA is also selling EU adoptions under the mantra of get the children out of institutions. But as no one is asking how these children end up in the so called orphanages also Vleva is not making clear why these children do end up in these institutions.

The UAI is wondering, why these kind of agencies are supporting so firmly the resolution without creating openings for adoptees to discuss their still denies access to birth records and asstistance finding their (first) parents. No one is asking attention for these issues. If adoption would be in the real interest of children than rights for adoptees should be also implemented. But looking at the history of adoptee rights, which is quite isolated and deminished by the adoption community as a whole, the interest end by getting the children for those who have (most times) none.

Deportation of Adoptees Continue in the States

2011-01-20T23:51:00.000-08:00

Another adoptee faces deportation

Posted: January 25th, 2011 | Author: resistance | Filed under: -ing while brown, can't see 'em | Leave a comment »

U.S. adoptive parents: Make sure your kids have their certificates of citizenship.

From New America Media:

A Korean woman in Arizona, who was adopted and brought to the U.S. when she was eight months old, is facing deportation after a second conviction for theft, reports the Korea Times. The 31-year-old mother of three is currently being held in a federal detention center in Arizona.
According to officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Seo (not her real name) was first convicted on theft charges in 2008, for which she served a seven-month sentence. She was arrested on a second theft charge in 2009, and sentenced to a year-and-half in jail. In January, ICE initiated deportation proceedings against her, requesting for a travel certificate from the Korean consulate in Los Angeles.

As I’ve noted previously, articles about adoption and citizenship often report that citizenship is “automatic” for international adoptees. New America Media repeated the erroneous statement from the original article in Korean:

“Although [she] was adopted as an infant, she is only a green card holder and not a citizen,” says Kim, adding that adoption laws were changed after 2004, long after Seo’s adoption, to grant adoptees citizenship 45 days after their arrival in the country.

This is false. The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 did grant citizenship to internationally adopted children who meet specific conditions. And in January 2004, CIS began to issue automatic certificates of citizenship within 45 days of arrival to children who became citizens under the Act.

However, children who arrive on IR4 visas do not obtain automatic citizenship. Thousands of internationally adopted children are at risk if their parents do not obtain citizenship for them or if they do not file for citizenship on their own. (Note that it’s a much easier process when the applicant is a child.)

In case you can’t tell, I don’t have the energy to froth at the mouth lately (although I can summon a spirited “Fuck you” when the occasion warrants). You can read previous froth about immigration and citizenship by searching the blog.

So the moral of the story is get that certificate of citizenship. That is all.

UAI Against Intra European Adoption Resolution - EU Opens gates for Intra EU Childtrafficking

2011-01-19T23:49:00.001-08:00

Europe Heading for New Markets Romania used as Battering ram

Last Monday the European Parliament debated about a proposed resolution for intra European adoptions, especially to reopen adoptions from Romania. Nothing has created more tension in the European Adoption debate politically, as the closure of Romania at the beginning of this century. It seems that the European Parliament and also many allied organisations within Europe has forgotten the history and the need for immediate halt of Romanian Adoptions early 2000.

Within three years Romania lost more than 9000 of its inhabitants for the international adoption market. Most adoptions where irregular and also uncontrollable due to the fact that the speed and need to fly the children out of the country had more priority then follow the necessary care and understanding the long term consequences for the country, their citizens and the created adoptees .

The 'Babylift' from Romania was an clear extension of the modern institutionalised international practise of childtrafficking for intercountry adoptions since major receiving countries put their political interest in the arena. Also adoption agencies seemed to get direct access to the European political Arena. So showed Italy huge interest in the Romanian case by a petition filed by their biggest Adoption Agency Amici dei Bambini: which called for the reopening of international adoptions by Romania. This backed up by France and Spain.

But others like Victor Bostinaru opposed the pressure by stating that:

That “opening the gates for international adoptions in Romania, has meant creating an unprecedented network of child trafficking, including cases of kidnapping children and selling them to the West, in collaboration with European and international organisations. ”

In concluding his intervention in the plenary, Victor Bostinaru asked Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship and Vice President of the European Commission Viviane Reding to clarify the allegations published in Romanian and international media regarding the establishment of a European Agency for Adoption.
According to revelations in the press in December last year, the European Commission pressured the law firm appointed to draw up a report on the status of adoptions in the 27 EU member states to include the conclusion that there is a need for the establishment of a European Adoption Agency.This agency should be followed to unite all the lobby mechanisms in order to force Romania to reopen international adoptions.

Understanding this and looking at the European Adoption History, the Eu has become one of the biggest receiving continents besides the US. The political aim for more adoptions - the lack of implementing Adoptee Rights, the acceptance of uncontrolled adoptions from each part of the world, the incomprehensible and lack of correct adoptions figures from most of the European countries, the million budget for animal protection and sero for unwed mothers and adoptees, the political coalition between the biggest receivers and the brutal violations of international child and adoption treaties by members of parliament of different countries who adopted outside the normal adoption procedures (Schelfhout (B), Miliband (UK), Schroder (D), etc.) and other political celebrities wanting to adopt like Carla Bruni the wife of France President Sarkozy - will keep the market for unregulated adoptions open.

Now the internal markets within the own West European Countries diminish, the search for white infants has to be settled in new European Community members of weaker former East European countries. Since Romania closed down their supply to the west, this was an act of historical importance. Not only showed an former East (read, Communistic) European country opposition to the west but also the fasttrack adoptions where halted from a popular country for western adoption agencies due to the fact, that this was one of the biggest chances to get white children. As all adoption watchers know, white infants are the most popular next to Asian girls.

HUMAN RIGHTS SOLD FOR ADOPTION

For many years, United Adoptees International protest against the practise of intercountry adoption based on breaking the rules of engagement regarding International Human Rights and the International Convention for the Rights for Children and creating international treaties to establish easier ways to adopt children from economic or socially impoverished societies with lack of regulated legislation to protect the vulnerable.

The UAI condemns this practice and sees this as an act of exploitation even when the international community presents this as save haven for children in need.

The UAI believes also, if the international community really believes in the well being of children and their families, the implementation of an independent international taskforce to see upon control of implementation of children rights in each country where other countries adopt from, the adjustment of the international criminal law with a new paragraph for punishing childtrafficking trough the whole adoption chain, and the protection, support of adoptees legally and financially should be commenced.

To conclude, if the international community really believes that adoption is in the best interest of children and should primarily not happen, than act to support those who fight for dignity and self and family preservation and let adoptees not standing alone in their fight for Human Rights.

Voor een NL reactie, lees ook: De Wereld is van Iedereen en de UAI reactie daarop

EU Presents New Adoption Resolution as Child Protection ?

2011-01-19T23:45:00.000-08:00

Adoption in the EU: ensuring children's right to a family life

Citizens' rights − 19-01-2011 - 14:00

Plenary sessions

Adoption, and where necessary international adoption, should be encouraged, so as to give children who are abandoned or at risk of becoming institutionalised in orphanages a family life, says the European Parliament in a resolution approved on Wednesday.

The resolution, presented by EPP, S&D, ALDE, ECR and GUE groups, stresses the need to protect a child's right to a family life and preclude the need for long stays in orphanages. It was approved by a show of hands.

Adoption or an alternative family care solution, such as foster and residential care, should preferably take place in the child's country of origin. Failing this, an adoptive family should be found in another EU Member State, says the text. Placing a child in institutional care should be the very last option and also a temporary one it adds. In cases of international adoption, Member States should recognise the "psychological, emotional, physical and social/ educational implications" of removing a child from his or her place of origin and offer appropriate assistance to the adoptive parents and the child. National authorities are also asked to report periodically on the child's development to his or her country of origin.

Facilitating adoption within the EU

All EU institutions should play a more active role in the relevant international fora so as to facilitate international adoption procedures, and remove unnecessary bureaucracy whilst safeguarding children's rights, say MEPs.

The institutions should also explore the possibility of co-ordinating the use of the international adoption instrument at EU level, whilst bearing in mind that adoption is a Member State competence. Co-ordination could, for example, improve assistance in information services, preparation for inter-country adoption, processing of application procedures, and post-adoption services.

Preventing child trafficking

The resolution insists that all EU institutions and countries must participate actively in the fight against child trafficking for adoption.

Proper control of all adoption documents, including birth certificates, is essential to remove doubts over a child's age or identity. A reliable system of birth registration can prevent child trafficking for adoption, notes Parliament, adding that all the requisite legal measures should be put into place to facilitate mutual recognition by Member States of adoption-related documents.

REF. : 20110119IPR11957

READ ALSO - ICA Child Protection of Breach of Children rights ?

MEPs debate Romanian adoptions

2011-01-19T23:35:00.000-08:00

PPL

POUND PUP LEGACY

Wed, 2011-01-19 01:51 - Kerry

USA Gay Adoption Debate gets new impulse

2011-01-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

Scott says he continues to oppose gay adoption, won't discuss adoption ban

Gov. Rick Scott left open the possibility Wednesday that he could revive the ban on gay adoptions outside of Miami Dade County amid his appointment of David Wilkins, former Accenture executive and finance chair of the Florida Baptist Children's Home, as new Department of Children and Families secretary.

The Florida Baptist Children's Home is a private agency that allows only ``professing Christians'' to adopt children in its care and Scott repeated his position that he opposes gay adoptions. "I believe adoption should be by married couples,'' Scott said at the annual Associated Press planning session in Tallahassee.

Last summer, a Miami appeals court declared unconstitutional a Florida law that banned adoption by gay men and lesbians. Outgoing DCF Secretary George Sheldon and then-Attorney General Bill McCollum chose not to appeal the Third District Court of Appeal's ruling to the Florida Supreme Court, saying the decision held sway throughout the state. Sheldon ordered his leadership team to cease enforcing the ban.

But Wilkins and Scott could challenge the Miami ruling by refusing to allow a gay man or woman to adopt elsewhere in the state -- which could trigger an appeal to the state's highest court.

On its website, the Baptist Children's Home says that ``in order to adopt through the Florida Baptist Children's Homes we require that you be a professing Christian, be active in a local Christian church, and follow a lifestyle that is consistent with the Christian faith.''

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi, speaking to the same meeting, said she has no plans to challenge the appeals court decision. "We are following through with what Gen. McCollum did on that and chose not to continue that.''

Scott said he hasn't discussed whether to enforce the gay adoption ban again with Wilkins and said it doesn't matter what Wilkins' personal view is. "I'm the governor and whatever my position will be, will be the position that will be enforced,'' he said.

Scott defended Wilkins as "a very accomplished individual...He's an experienced executive and he's very focused on children's issues and family issues."

Pennsylvania Enforcing Open Adoption Contact Agreements

2011-01-18T23:24:00.000-08:00

Open Adoptions are now Legally Enforceable in Pennsylvania

On October 27, 2010, Governor Ed Rendell signed into law Act 101 of 2010, which makes several amendments to Pennsylvania's Adoption Act. The most significant change is that Pennsylvania will now enforce open adoptions, or voluntary agreements for continuing contact or communication, for the first time in Pennsylvania.

Currently, adoptive and biological parents can make their own agreements about continuing contact or communication after the adoption, but unlike 23 other states with open adoptions, the contracts were not legally enforceable. The change to the current law now allows these agreements to be enforceable. If an agreement between the adoptive parents and birth relatives to allow continuing contact or communication between the parents or between the child and parents is breached, then the birth relatives can petition the court to enforce the agreement. The Act also requires parties to an adoption, including a child who is old enough to understand, to be notified about the right to have an open adoption.

Our firm has several attorneys who work regularly with adoptive parents and provide guidance with regard to open adoptions so we want to take this opportunity to address some frequently asked questions regarding this new law:

Q. Who can make an agreement?

A. A birth relative of the child to be adopted and the adopted parents. This includes the biological grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives.

Q. What steps need to be taken to make the agreement enforceable?

A. The parties must submit the agreement to the court where the adoption where the adoption will be finalized and have the agreement approved. The court will determine if the agreement was entered into knowingly and voluntarily and is the best interest of the child or children who are being adopted. If the prospective adoptive child is twelve years old or older, the child must also consent to the agreement.

Q. What happens if the agreement is breached?

A. If an agreement is approved by the court then the birth relative or adoptive child or children can petition the court that approved the agreement to enforce the continuing contact or communication. The court will order specific performance, meaning the court will order the adoptive parents to comply with the agreement. The court will not set aside the adoption.

Q. Can the agreement be changed after the court approves it?

A. Yes. The court can change the agreement if either the adoptive child who is twelve years of age or older or the adoptive parents petition the court. The court will modify the agreement if doing so is in the best interest of the child.

The agreement will also automatically be terminated upon the child reaching eighteen years of age, unless the agreement states that it will end earlier. A party to an agreement or a child that is at least twelve years of age may seek to discontinue the agreement by filing an action in the court that finalized the adoption. The standard for discontinuance is also best interest of the child.

If you have questions about the Act or are interested in an open adoption agreement, you should consult an attorney with experience in Adoption Law.

Amanda
Important to note that this same law also contained a provision that robbed Adult Adoptees further of their right to access their birth documentation, along with vague wording appearing to provide for "open adoptions." How they will *really* be enforced and how mothers will be able to afford an attorney and court fees in order to persue enforcement are still questions we are asking. But open adoptions for adopted children were included in with this law that also impacts adopted adults.

Intra European Adoptions ?

2011-01-18T05:26:00.000-08:00

Reopening intercountry adoption – subject of a Resolution of the European Parliament

Published by www.victorbostinaru.ro on Tuesday 18 January 2011 (informal translation)

On Monday night, European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg has discussed an initiative of 62 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), mostly Italians, to re-open international adoptions to the European Union. Although both the debate and the resolution aimed at the general situation of international adoptions in all 27 Member States, in the MEPs speeches, Romania was the country mentioned almost exclusively with the criticism that its legislation does not allow international adoptions. The MEPs resolution will be put to vote tomorrow, 19 January.

The European Parliament debate comes less than a year after the petition of the Italian organisation Amici dei Bambini “, which called for the reopening of international adoptions by Romania, the proposal was closed by MEP Victor Bostinaru (PSD) and with the agreement of all members of the Petition Committee of the European Parliament.

MEP Victor Bostinaru welcomed last night’s debate in the European Parliament plenary session on the premise that “protection of child rights is and should be a priority of each EU member state as long as our ultimate goal for everybody here is to promote children’s interest. ”

At the same time, however, the MEP reminded those present that “opening the gates for international adoptions in Romania, has meant creating an unprecedented network of child trafficking, including cases of kidnapping children and selling them to the West, in collaboration with European and international organisations. ”

“Between 1997 and 2000, Romania has “exported” 9.150 children and my country will not ever again accept such a monstrosity,” said Victor Bostinaru.

In concluding his intervention in the plenary, Victor Bostinaru asked Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship and Vice President of the European Commission Viviane Reding to clarify the allegations published in Romanian and international media regarding the establishment of a European Agency for Adoption. According to revelations in the press in December last year, the European Commission pressured the law firm appointed to draw up a report on the status of adoptions in the 27 EU member states to include the conclusion that there is a need for the establishment of a European Adoption Agency.This agency should be followed to unite all the lobby mechanisms in order to force Romania to reopen international adoptions.