Synopsis

The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has constituted a medical grievance committee to address recurring complaints about the health status of children given for adoption. This three-member panel will review grievances from adoptive parents and stakeholders, study data, and propose policy interventions to streamline the system within its one-month tenure, submitting recommendations to the CARA CEO.

The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has constituted a medical grievance committee to examine recurring complaints related to the health status of children given for adoption and suggest policy interventions.

The committee, approved by the member secretary and CEO of CARA, will review medical grievances raised by adoptive and prospective adoptive parents as well as other stakeholders and recommend measures to streamline the system, according to an official memorandum.

The three-member panel will include the deputy director (policy division), deputy director (grievance), and deputy director (in-country division).The assistant director concerned, either from the in-country or inter-country division, will assist the committee during its meetings.

The tenure of the committee will be one month, during which it will examine categories of medical grievances and propose next steps, the memorandum said.

Mie Lee Hansen, now 38 years old and living in Denmark, thought she knew the story of her adoption and the family that gave her away. She had documents that offered convincing information about her Korean background, including the fact that she had two older sisters.

After taking a DNA test, she was reconnected with a Korean relative — but the story she learned from this long-lost relative differed radically from what was in those files.

“The real story is that when my mother went into labor, she was rushed to the hospital,” Lee said. “She gave birth, and after she recovered and requested to see her baby, she was told that the baby was stillborn. The day after my mother went home, my maternal grandmother returned to the hospital to claim my body. But the doctors told her to go home and became angry with her.”

Needless to say, her family was shocked to learn that she was very much alive.

“When my Korean family read my adoption file, they said, 'Everything here is fake.' The file had their names and the city we lived in, and it was true that I had two older sisters. But everything else was false. Birth parents never gave permission for me to be adopted. Somebody took their child. Somebody stole me,” Lee said.

Background

The G. Barrie Landry Child Protection Professional Training program (Landry CP Training) is a one week, on site intensive course for mid-career professionals who work to protect children from abuse, violence, exploitation and neglect, whether at an international organization, a local NGO, or a government agency. While the conditions facing children may vary—from displacement to labor, from abuse and neglect to early marriage – all children, whatever their circumstances or legal status, have a right to health, education, justice and protection. Realizing these complex rights requires an integrated and multi-sectoral approach in which different state and civil-society partners act together to deliver a holistic system of protection.

The Landry CP Training will help participants gain a deep understanding of child protection issues and of the leadership and negotiation skills relevant to building and sustaining effective child protection systems.

G. Barrie Landry Professional Training program overview:

Many birth mothers hope to maintain contact with their child. But their agreements with adoptive parents can be fragile.

By Nicole Chung

When I was born, my Korean parents, immigrants to the United States, relinquished me for adoption. At the age of two and a half months, I was placed with a white family who lived in a small town in Oregon. This was the early 1980s, and mine was a closed adoption, which meant that growing up, I had no contact with my birth parents. I didn’t know their names or their circumstances. I didn’t know why they had chosen not to keep me. I was curious and confused about my history, but my adoptive parents couldn’t fill in the gaps, because they knew so little themselves.

When I was in my 20s, I decided to search for more information about my birth family. This required that I pay hundreds of dollars to an intermediary, who petitioned a Washington State court to unseal my adoption records. She couldn’t share my birth parents’ names or contact information with me until she found them and gained their consent. Throughout the process, which dragged on for months, I thought about how things might have been different had I grown up in an open adoption, one in which I might have known more about my birth family and perhaps retained contact with them. I wouldn’t have had to wait decades, and I wouldn’t have had to shoulder the financial cost of a search, to understand where—and whom—I came from.

Following a nomination by INEA, the Executive Board of the University for Humanistic Studies has appointed Elvira Loibl as Endowed Professor of Recognition, Dialogue, and Recovery after Intercountry Adoption. The chair is established by the INEA Center of Expertise on Intercountry Adoption. Elvira Loibl will focus on research into both the recognition of past abuses surrounding intercountry adoption and how recovery can take place, both at the individual and societal levels.   

Elvira Loibl on the endowed chair: “With this chair, I want to contribute to legal clarity and consistency in addressing the complex questions surrounding state responsibility and reparation. I also want to strengthen the role of adoptees by placing their voices and needs at the center of the debate, and build a bridge between the government and adoptees to promote constructive dialogue. My goal is to use this knowledge to better inform policy debates, stimulate broader public discourse, and jointly explore meaningful forms of recognition and reparation.”  

New research and expanding knowledge 

When INEA was established,  it was tasked  with revitalizing the scientific infrastructure surrounding intercountry adoption. The chair was established to promote research, education, and knowledge transfer in the areas of recognition, dialogue, and recovery surrounding intercountry adoption. The chair's ambition is to bring together and deepen the relevant interdisciplinary scientific knowledge. James Timmermans, INEA manager: "Funding for this chair creates the opportunity to conduct new research and expand knowledge on relinquishment and intercountry adoption. This is not only beneficial for science but also for practice, as it contributes to improving the care and support for adoptees."  

Relational perspective 

A three-month-old girl was reunited with her biological parents in Tripura’s Gomati district after police and childline officials foiled an alleged unlawful adoption attempt in Karbook subdivision.

Officials said the infant’s parents, Kanchan Chakma and Santana Chakma, handed her over to a childless couple from Madhumag para. In return, they allegedly received Rs 10,000 and an additional Rs 1,500. Later, when the parents sought the baby back, the adoptive family refused. The issue came to light after local media reports, prompting police to intervene and recover the child within 24 hours.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer Gamanjoy Reang said neither family admitted to exchanging money during questioning, though the biological father earlier acknowledged the payment. He added that financial distress and the burden of raising a second child likely influenced the decision. The Chakma family, dependent on a small rubber plantation, already has a two-year-old son.

Authorities decided not to register a case as the matter was resolved amicably. Both families were counselled on the legal adoption process and cautioned about possible consequences of bypassing it. The baby was formally handed back to her parents in the presence of police and child welfare officials.

Couples were charged around Rs 30 lakh for the process, purportedly meant for the surrogate. However, the probe revealed that in several cases, the children handed over were not biologically related to the commissioning parents. 

The Enforcement Directorate has unearthed a massive illegal surrogacy and child trafficking racket in Hyderabad, where a fertility centre supplied babies not biologically related to couples opting for surrogacy. These babies were taken from poor and vulnerable pregnant women, lured into giving up their newborns immediately after childbirth.

Acting under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, the agency carried out search operations on September 25 at nine locations across Hyderabad, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam.

The searches at the Universal Srusthi Fertility and Research Centre, allegedly run by Dr Pachipalli Namratha, also known as Athluri Namratha led to the seizure of incriminating documents exposing the large-scale fraud, including records of couples who were allegedly defrauded and details of properties amassed by Namratha.

In an office memorandum issued last week, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) pointed to Rule 23(3) of the Juvenile Justice Rules and point 4(1) of the Model Foster Care Guidelines, which states that only children aged six years and above are eligible for placement in foster care, under circumstances defined in Rule 44 of the Act

The government has clarified that children aged below six are not eligible for placement in foster care, following concerns over differing interpretations of the new regulations.

In an office memorandum issued last week, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) pointed to Rule 23(3) of the Juvenile Justice Rules and point 4(1) of the Model Foster Care Guidelines, which states that only children aged six years and above are eligible for placement in foster care, under circumstances defined in Rule 44 of the Act.

The statutory body noted that some agencies had raised issues regarding the interpretation of the regulations, prompting the clarification.

Oslo, September 23, 2025 – Korean adoptee Uma Feed delivered a formal notice of intent to sue the Norwegian state through a dramatic performance art piece at the Ministry of Children and Families today. Feed alleges her international adoption was illegal and demands both declaratory judgment and compensatory damages.

She alleges that the Norwegian state violated her rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to private and family life. She also claims that Norwegian authorities contributed to her being subjected to human trafficking in violation of Article 4 of the ECHR.

The case references a September 28, 2022 joint statement on illegal intercountry adoptions from UN committees, including Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED), which established that illegal adoptions violates numerous international human rights laws, and can constitute human trafficking. Additional supporting arguments cite the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts.

The legal notice was delivered through a performance piece titled “ARV” (Norwegian for Heritage/Legacy), performed by Feed herself at the ministry’s reception. The performance referenced the tragic deaths of other international adoptees in Norway, including victims of drowning, shooting, and domestic violence by adoptive parents.

“These three fates are not mine, they belong to other international adoptees who had to pay with their lives,” Feed stated in her performance. “The dead cannot return, but from today we adoptees will no longer carry them! Norwegian State! The notice has been given – from today it is you who must carry them.”

Latest investigations found that 15 babies had been sent to Singapore “under the guise of adoption”, with each sold for around S$20,000 (US$16,000).

JAKARTA: The Indonesian National Police (Polri) are working with their counterpart in Singapore to investigate an alleged cross-border baby-trafficking syndicate based in West Java, in which three Singaporeans are suspected to be involved.

The syndicate’s operations allegedly spanned the areas of Bandung, Jakarta, Pontianak in West Kalimantan as well as Singapore, according to Untung Widyatmoko, secretary of Interpol's National Central Bureau (NCB) in Indonesia. 

“We are tracing the trafficking of these babies all the way abroad,” Untung was quoted in a Polri statement that was updated on Monday (Sep 22).