Students who hide their pregnancy under thick sweaters and give birth alone, it still happens in the Netherlands. Stichting Beschermde Wieg, which helps women in all phases of an unwanted pregnancy, has seen the group of students grow in recent years. ‘Above all, these women want to prevent parental interference.’

It sounds like a story from another time. Yet last year a student gave birth alone in her student house. She immediately went out onto the street to give the baby up for adoption, wrapped in a blanket.

Kitty Nusteling, operational director at the Beschermde Wieg foundation, has seen these types of students more and more in recent years. ‘Sometimes they take another exam the following week.’ Every year, around 1,500 women contact the Beschermde Wieg foundation for help in all phases of pregnancy. This can involve a listening ear, advice, shelter or medical support, or giving babies up for adoption. This year, the foundation has already facilitated seven births of women who wanted to give their child up for adoption, three of whom were still studying. Two of those births were in Amsterdam.

Whether this also means that the number of students in the Netherlands who hide a pregnancy is increasing is difficult to say. However, Nusteling does see more women who only use natural contraception, methods to prevent pregnancy without hormonal agents, which are less reliable. Nusteling. 'In addition, there is always a number X, the women who do not report to us. Research shows that women who want their child never to be found succeed in their plan.'

Forced adoptions in Switzerland have so far received little research. According to historian Rahel Bühler of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences and Arts (ZHAW), the procedures were mostly legally correct, but unmarried mothers were under enormous social and official pressure.

Young women were "put under severe psychological pressure and forced to consent to an abortion, sterilization, or adoption of one or more of their children." The Federal Office of Justice records this under the heading "Victims of Coercive Welfare Measures and Out-of-Home Care." 

Unlike, for example, indentured children, forced adoptions have received little public attention. From a scientific perspective, the events have also been little studied. "There are many unanswered questions," says Rahel Bühler (44) of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). The historian has co-authored recent studies on adoptions in forced situations in Switzerland since the 1960s.

DAVANAGERE: A special-needs child from Amulya Orphanage in Davanagere will soon join his adoptive family in Italy, marking the tenth international adoption from the facility.

The child's adoptive parents were chosen through Central Adoption Resource Authority's (CARA) selection process after his teenage biological mother expressed her inability to raise him.

Tarun, 3, with walking disabilities, will be transferred to his adoptive parents through DC G M Gangadharswamy on May 13.

T N Kavitha, the district child protection officer, said: "Govt-specialised adoption agency Amulya Kendra, Davangere, rceives legally free adoption (LFA) recommendations from the district child welfare committee in keeping with rules for orphaned, abandoned, and surrendered children."

The officer further said: "A 19-year-old unwed mother had surrendered Tarun about three years ago. When the Italian couple showed interest in adopting him, we completed the formalities." The couple had satisfied all adoption criteria.

While law prohibits direct adoptions, the process is based on an assessment of prospective parents' health, psychological well-being, social standing, and financial capability.

Post-adoption monitoring continues for two years with quarterly welfare updates.

Cathy Terkanian was happily married and living in Massachusetts but would often think about the smiley, blue-eyed baby girl she had given up for adoption when she was a teenager - hoping she was having a good life.

Then, after years of wondering, she made the shocking discovery that her daughter, Alexis Miranda Badger, had in fact been murdered by her adopted father, Dennis Bowman, who dismembered her body and buried her in a shallow grave in the backyard of his Michigan home.

Now Terkanian, who is featured in Netflix's Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, tells the Daily Mail the true horror of discovering that her daughter, re-named Aundria Bowman, had been placed with a serial killer.

'There were a few people my daughter grew up with who told me quite a few graphic details... terrible things,' she said. 

'I think he (Dennis) was molesting my little daughter at a very young age,' she added. 

Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten are raising adopted Black children – something he recently discussed on the "Flagrant" podcast. And they're hardly alone.

Scroll through TikTok and you'll find wholesome, heartwarming stories about White parents with Black children posting videos perfecting their children's hair. Many comments are encouraging: "omg her hair is beautiful and so is a mothers love." "A mother who TRIES is all our kids need." "You’re doing a great job caring for them."

Buttigieg alluded to plenty of advice he received on his children's hair from Black parents on social media. "They're like, 'let me tell you how to do it,'" he said.

Today, there are plenty of resources for parents who adopt children of a different race, a process known as transracial adoption. But that wasn't always the case.

For transracial adoptees who grew up in White families decades ago, these TikTok videos and the attention this subject is now getting bring mixed emotions. It's encouraging to see how far things have come in terms of adoptive parents working to better understand their children's needs. But these viral positive posts aren't reflective of what they experienced.

In a landmark judgment, the Chhattisgarh High Court has held that women employees who adopt children are also entitled to childcare/child adoption/maternity leave since it is a fundamental right of every mother under Article 21 of the Constitution, irrespective of the mode of attainment of motherhood, to give motherly care and attention to their new-born children.Justice Bibhu Datta Guru...

Korean adoptees worldwide are grappling with a devastating possibility: they were not truly orphans, but may have been made into orphans.

For decades, adoptees were told they were “abandoned”, “rescued” or “unwanted”. Many were told their Korean families were too “poor” or “incapable” to raise them – and they should only ever feel grateful for being adopted.

But these long-held stories are now under scrutiny.

Our recent research interrogates the narratives that have obscured the darker realities of intercountry adoption. Rather than viewing adoption solely through the lens of “rescue”, our work examines the broader power structures that facilitated the mass migration of Korean children to western countries, including Australia.

South Korea’s reckoning with its adoption history

Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirms human rights violations,
including false records of missing children as orphans by omission of parental consent by brokerage agencies , and first acknowledges the issue of state responsibility Insufficient data to find roots Even if an adoptee with a rare ankle disease needs genetic information from their family history, it cannot be disclosed without the consent of their biological parents The government must first issue a sincere apology and correct errors in adoption records to restore family reunions










 

May 11th is 'Adoption Day'. According to the Special Act on the Promotion and Procedure of Adoption revised in 2005, it became a legal commemorative day the following year to establish adoption culture and promote domestic adoption. The day before, the 10th, is also a legal commemorative day, 'Single-parent Family Day', which was established in accordance with the Single-parent Family Support Act revised in 2018 to increase public understanding and interest in single-parent families and to break down prejudice. Although it is not widely known, civic groups that opposed the establishment of Adoption Day played a major role until the government commemorated Single-parent Family Day.

The non-profit organization Root House, which has been advocating for the rights of overseas adoptees for 22 years, has been at the forefront. The organization's co-representative, Kim Do-hyun, pointed out, "(At the time of the establishment of Adoption Day), the Roh Moo-hyun administration was immersed in the romantic idea that if they increased domestic adoptions through campaigns, overseas adoptions, which were criticized domestically and internationally, would disappear," and "In reality, overseas adoptions have never decreased because of domestic adoptions." He criticized, “The purpose of establishing Adoption Day is flawed and its policy goals have never been achieved, but the government does not accept this reality. Every year, the Prime Minister comes out and gives awards to adoptive parents and adoption agencies at a large hotel attended by 2,000 to 3,000 people, saying, ‘Domestic adoption is a beautiful thing, so please participate.’”

Since 2011, Roots House, together with overseas adoption organizations, birth family groups, and the Unwed Mothers' Family Association, has independently declared May 11th as "Single Moms' Day" and has held international conferences in the National Assembly for nine years, ending in 2019, to raise our voices in minimizing child adoption. Ultimately, Representative Kim said that the government also designated Single-Parent Family Day right before Adoption Day, meaning that it should first focus on social reconstruction so that birth mothers and children are not separated.

 

Six adopted children, once trapped, are now safely home with their American parents through private rescue efforts—while many others remain stranded in Haiti amid worsening violence and a lack of support from government authorities.

Grey Bull Rescue’s staff members and two American adoptive families pictured after landing at the Tampa International Airport with two 6-year-old adopted girls from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 30, 2025. Photo Credit: Adoptive families.

Overview:

Agartala: A few-days-old infant was rescued from Khowai hours after she was handed over to a childless couple by her biological parents in lieu of alleged pecuniary benefits, sources in the police department said. 

The shocking incident occurred at Katlamara hospital where the baby girl was born. However, due to the timely intervention of the police, the baby was rescued. 

The biological parents of the baby hail from the Katacherra area of Simna Assembly constituency. 

According to police sources, the child's parents had been struggling to make two square meals. 

They took the decision to ensure that the baby gets a good life. Admitting the fact that they had allowed a family to adopt their baby, the biological mother of the child, Laxmi Rani Sarkar (Das), said,