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Day 1, Mar 25, 2022

09:00AM - 10:30AM

Friday Morning Breakout Sessions

09:00AM - 10:30AM

Illegal adoptees have begun receiving a once-off payment of €3,000 from the Department of Children, to help cover the costs of DNA tests and any legal bills.

The money is being paid out following a recommendation last year by the former government Special Rapporteur on Child Protection on foot of an independent review into illegal registrations.

Professor Conor O’Mahony had called for a state inquiry into the issues raised and said the Government should formally apologise to those affected.

It is estimated that as many as 15,000 people were illegally registered as the birth child of their adoptive parents after the adoption act was introduced in 1952.

That law was meant to protect illegal trafficking of children. However, it has since emerged private unlawful adoption arrangements continued until at least the 1970s.

Kinderhandel: EU officials betrokken bij mensenhandel maffia.

Bought children in Congo: European officials supported human trafficking mafia.

Buying people in Africa, cash for children from the Congo – the “adoptive parents” in Europe paid up to 40,000 euros, including even lawyers. The journalist Aurora Weiss, UN Global Reporter, reports exclusively for the eXXpress on the unbelievable scandal.

April 14, 2023 21:20

After months of silence, Dickson Matembo, undersecretary at the Zambian ministry, confirmed the information for the first time: Eight Croatians arrested in Zambia last December for attempted child trafficking used travel documents obtained thanks to forged adoption documents.

A newborn was left in one of Italy's safe haven baby boxes over Easter, sparking a fierce debate around motherhood and women's rights in the country.

In Italy, a woman who -- for whatever reason -- decides she can't take care of her baby can leave it in a safe haven baby box, in complete anonymity.

It’s increasingly rare for Italian women to choose this option, but it still happens.

Over Easter, one woman decided to anonymously drop her baby boy into such a box at one of Milan’s biggest hospitals, Policlinico di Milano.

Many would say the event should have been private, as the concept of anonymity suggests.

The civil court had in its order said since Ms Ansari was a working woman and a divorcee, she would not be able to give personal attention to the child and that the child ought to be with her biological parents.

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has said refusing a divorced woman to adopt a child on the ground that she is working and hence would not be able to give personal attention to the child reflects a "mindset of medieval conservative concepts".

The court in its order on Tuesday allowed a 47-year-old woman to adopt her four-year-old niece.

A single bench of Justice Gauri Godse in the order said a single parent is bound to be a working person.

A single parent cannot be held ineligible to be an adoptive parent on the ground that he or she is a working person, it said.

The top court on October 1, 2021 had issued notices to the Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Women & Child Development while seeking their responses on the PIL, which said Section 5(4) of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 was discriminatory and arbitrary.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court agreed to hear on April 28 a plea challenging the Constitutional validity of a provision of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 which states that a woman who legally adopts a child below the age of three months would be entitled to maternity leave.

The petition submitted that the purported 12 weeks of maternity benefit to adoptive mothers is not only a "mere lip service but when juxtaposed with the maternity benefit of 26 weeks provided to biological mothers, fails to stand even the basic scrutiny of Part III of the Constitution which is wedded to the concept of non-arbitrariness."

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala took note of the submissions of a lawyer who mentioned the matter seeking urgent hearing.

The top court on October 1, 2021 had issued notices to the Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Women & Child Development while seeking their responses on the PIL, which said Section 5(4) of the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 was discriminatory and arbitrary.

There’s a resounding silence around the world from the majority of adoptive parents when adult intercountry adoptees start to talk about whether our adoptions are illegal or illicit. Why is that? Let’s begin the conversation and unpack it a little.

As an intercountry adoptee, I was purchased through illicit and illegal means and it has taken me years to come to terms with what this means and how I view my adoption. I’m not alone in this journey and because of what I hear and see amongst my community of adoptees, I believe it’s really important for adoptive parents to grapple with what they’ve participated in. This system of child trafficking in intercountry adoption is widespread! It’s not just a Guatemalan, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan or Russian issue – it impacts every country we are adopted to and from, beginning back in the 1950s enmasse, through to current day adoptions. The 1993 Hague Convention came about because of the vast number of illegal and illicit adoptions. The Hague could possibly blind adoptive parents into believing their adoptions cannot be illegal or illicit because they went through the “approved” process and authority. But while a Hague adoption is less likely than a pre-Hague private or expatriate adoption to have illegal and illicit practices within, it is no guarantee because the Hague lacks mechanisms to enforce and safeguard against child trafficking.

To date, most adoptive countries have also not curbed or stopped private and expatriate adoptions that bypass the Hague processes. This means illegal and illicit adoptions are very much still possible and facilitated through a country’s immigration pathways and usually the only role an adoptive country will play in these adoptions, is to assess visa eligibility. This remains a huge failing of adoptive countries who assume a birth country has all the checks and balances in place to prevent illegal and illicit practices within private and expatriate adoptions.

If you aren’t grappling with what you’ve participated in as an adoptive parent, you can be sure your adoptees are, at some point in their lives. More so these days, as the world around us changes and country after country (Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, France) eventually investigates and recognises the wrongs done historically in intercountry adoption. Germany, Denmark and Australia are countries where adoptees are currently pushing for their governments to investigate. Support comes from the UN who last year, issued their joint statement on illegal intercountry adoptions.

It’s important we have these discussions and be truthful with adoptees about illegal and illicit practices that are our adoptions. In ICAV, we grapple with the reality, especially when it comes to searching for our origins and finding out the truth. Here’s a webinar I co-facilitated two years ago on this topic. As you’ll see from the webinar, we are all impacted by these practices – adoptees, adoptive parents, and our original families.

Khan and Sayeed found a childless couple in Hyderabad who were willing to adopt a child... once the newborn's condition improved, the child was handed over to them, said an officer

Four persons, including a mother of a six-month-old, were arrested after the newborn was illegally handed over to a childless couple in Hyderabad, police said.

Cops are investigating if the child’s mother – identified as Shamima Shah – and her accomplices got any financial benefits.

Shah, who is already a mother to five other children, however, told police her husband had married another woman. He was not supporting them financially due to which she decided to give away her sixth child.

“We are checking if the four got any monetary benefits. But it appears Shah was not in a position to take care of a child and a childless couple wanted a baby. So, the newborn was handed over to them without following due legal procedure,” said an officer.

In March of 2018, an SUV carrying two adults and six children drove off a cliff along Pacific Coast Highway. It was deemed a murder-suicide at the hands of Jennifer and Sarah Hart, a white lesbian couple who adopted the Black children from two families in Texas children on board.

When Houston reporter Roxanna Asgarian sought out the birth families of those children, she discovered a flawed and over-burdened child welfare system that routinely mistreats Black families. What started as a newspaper assignment turned into Asgarian’s new book “We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America.”

The book explores how and why those children were removed from their birth families and placed in the care of a couple who abused and eventually murdered them.

The birth mother of three of the children battled drug addiction. Her children were cared for by their aunt and a father figure who was not related to them, but were removed by Child Protective Services when the aunt asked their birth mother to babysit on a day she could not find other childcare.

The other three were removed from their birth family for medical neglect when one child was bitten by ants at a birthday party and their birth mother had a hard time finding a ride to the hospital.

ABOUT US

CARE Belgium was created, in December 2013, by a group of women and men already active in CARE International. Very quickly, other people joined this initiative. Today, they are part of the Board of Directors of CARE Belgium. Volunteers also come to support the association during the organization of events.

Find here our statutes.

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CARE Belgium Aisbl is constituted in the form of an international non-profit association governed by the law of 27 June 1921, as modified by the law of 2 May 2002, on non-profit associations, international non-profit associations, and foundations. It is entitled to receive legacies and donations.