On the video Barrot says that the UNCRC is "un texte fondateur"

He does not say that the EU has not ratified the Convention.

Jacques Barrot

New frontiers: A comprehensive strategy on children’s rights

The European Commission welcomes the opportunity to join with UNICEF and partners in the global celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 20 November 2009. Respect for children's dignity and efforts to allow them to develop their full potential are subjects close to my heart. The Convention recognizes the unique vulnerability of childhood and calls on States parties and also the global community to do everything we can to protect children and provide for their material and emotional needs.

From The Times

June 17, 2009

Lisa B and Yasmin Le Bon team up for Romanian orphans

The model friends have launched a charity for Romanian orphans — and are offering a £2,000 net-a-porter.com voucher

Lisa Armstrong

Site last Updated: Jun 17 2009 11:21PM

Bulgarians arrested for selling babies

AFP Published:Jun 17, 2009

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Published: June 16,2009

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More than 1,800 U.S. adoptees from Russia in 2008

By Jaroslaw Anders

U.S. Adoptions Process Has Rigorous Safeguards

NCFA Responds to Madonna Adoption Controversy

The real news behind the headlines is not that Madonna has finally been approved by a Malawian court to adopt an abandoned and orphaned child after months of delays, but that there are some groups of so-called child welfare advocates who openly and without a hint of shame fought to deny a little girl a family by insisting that she live the rest of her childhood in the deprivation of Malawai’s orphanage system. An orphanage is no place to live, and in fact, many children in orphanages never survive childhood. Those children fortunate enough to survive the disease, squalor, and loveless conditions of an orphanage emerge, as adults, completely unprepared for the challenges of life. Many become victims again to homelessness, the sex trade, and crime. The anti-intercountry adoption crowd argues that a child belongs in his country, surrounded by his or whole culture, while at the same time asking that more money be given so they may provide the child with minimal institutional care. But common sense dictates that a starving, dead, or traumatized individual has no opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his or her culture.

Given that fewer than 50,000 children find families through intercountry adoption each year, it is obvious that intercountry adoption is not the solution for the majority of the millions of orphaned children around the world. Thus, best practices dictate that every effort be made to preserve families and encourage domestic adoption worldwide. For thousands of children, however, intercountry adoption is a solution, and self-described child welfare advocates who argue otherwise are guilty of furthering their ideology at the expense of the very children they claim to represent.

Chuck Johnson

Chief Operating Officer and Vice President, Training and Agency Services

Did Madonna spread $1.5 million around Malawi to adopt Mercy?

Last Friday, Madonna officially won her appeal in Malawi’s courts, ensuring that toddler Mercy James will be Madonna’s legal daughter within a matter of days. People reported that Madonna was overjoyed with the news, and that she was preparing a private jet to pick up Mercy from Malawi at some point. Now The Daily Mail is reporting on some of what has been going on behind the scenes in Malawi - and I’m a little shocked. That’s right. Something Madonna has done has shocked me.

It seems that after Madonna lost the adoption hearing back in April, Madge sort of knew that the initial denial wasn’t the end of the story. Not only did she have her lawyers prepare for the appeal, Madonna had Mercy’s care transferred out of the orphanage Mercy was living, and Madge had Mercy put into the care of a woman named Lois Silo, who is the coordinator of Raising Malawi (Madonna’s charity with the sketchy financials). Mercy has been living with Lois and her husband since April, and Madge also had Mercy placed in a private nursery school. In both the Silo home and the nursery school, Mercy was learning English, and taught “Western manners”. That’s not the only Raising Malawi connection, though. The rumor going around is that in the past few months, Madonna has spread around $1.5 million, funneled through Raising Malawi:

[Monday], according to Madonna’s lawyer, the singer or one of her close aides will arrive to collect the girl. But Mercy will have less than three weeks with her new mother before she departs for a seven-week European tour, beginning on July 4.

During the long wait for the court’s decision it appears Madonna left nothing to chance.

Adopting in Sweden: a draining process with amazing returns

Published: 15 Jun 09 16:44 CET

Dictionary tool Double click on a word to get a translation

Meet the Roberts family: Brett, 34, owns a small building company; his wife, Eleonore, is 33 and works in banking; their daughter, Iris, is two and just begun pre-school. On paper, they may seem like any other, but the family is a truly unique trio living in the heart of Stockholm.

Brett, originally from Australia, met Eleonore, a Swede, 12 years ago while he was backpacking across Europe and she was on holiday with friends. They married in 2000 and spent time living between Sweden and Australia before settling in Stockholm to start a family. After many failed attempts to conceive, they decided to research the option of adoption.

15-06-2009

Goedkeuring Gelgela

Hallo,

Deze avond vernamen we dat het Gelgela-weeshuis de definitieve goedkeuring gekregen heeft van K&G.

Dat wil zeggen dat er waarschijnlijk zeer binnenkort toewijzingen vanuit dit weeshuis zullen binnenstromen.

Standing in the lobby of London's Savoy hotel, pregnant and with a crying bundle in her tattered shawl, Dublin woman Florrie Kavanagh must have attracted some disdainful looks.

A combination of desperate poverty and daring had brought her here. While she waited to hear whether she would be seen, she would have cried a little herself and tried to quieten the child. And, most of all, she would have reasoned with herself: this was the Fifties and babies were abandoned all the time. Better to be left in the plush suite of a Hollywood film star than in some dire orphanage or at a railway station.

Florrie, like everyone else in London, had heard the news. Jane Russell, the "moody, mean and magnificent" Queen of Hollywood had swept into town and was looking for a young addition to her family. On the front page of the paper that morning there had been just two huge photos. One showed a smiling Winston Churchill, who had just been re-elected Prime Minister. The other showed the bejewelled screen goddess with the caption: "Miss Russell in London to adopt baby boy."

Years before, Florrie had moved to England in search of a better life, but things had not been easy. She already had three small children and was living in a shabby, tiny house in south London with no working toilet inside. She and her husband Michael, also from Ireland, were struggling to make ends meet. This latest baby, Tommy, left her young family on the brink, and with one more on the way she had few other options. She had heard of rich Americans adopting children back home and had read that Jane Russell was devoutly religious. Florrie told herself she was securing her little boy "a place in heaven".

In ordinary circumstances, of course, an Irish church mouse with a crying baby would have had no chance of getting in the orbit of an imperious film deity such as Russell. The actress had starred alongside Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and, together with Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth, embodied the sensuously contoured "sweater girl" look. With her topaz-coloured eyes and perfect figure, she represented what one publicist described as "lust, desire and everything that good boys are not supposed to think about". She was one of the biggest stars in the world.

Standing in the lobby of London's Savoy hotel, pregnant and with a crying bundle in her tattered shawl, Dublin woman Florrie Kavanagh must have attracted some disdainful looks.

A combination of desperate poverty and daring had brought her here. While she waited to hear whether she would be seen, she would have cried a little herself and tried to quieten the child. And, most of all, she would have reasoned with herself: this was the Fifties and babies were abandoned all the time. Better to be left in the plush suite of a Hollywood film star than in some dire orphanage or at a railway station.

Florrie, like everyone else in London, had heard the news. Jane Russell, the "moody, mean and magnificent" Queen of Hollywood had swept into town and was looking for a young addition to her family. On the front page of the paper that morning there had been just two huge photos. One showed a smiling Winston Churchill, who had just been re-elected Prime Minister. The other showed the bejewelled screen goddess with the caption: "Miss Russell in London to adopt baby boy."

Years before, Florrie had moved to England in search of a better life, but things had not been easy. She already had three small children and was living in a shabby, tiny house in south London with no working toilet inside. She and her husband Michael, also from Ireland, were struggling to make ends meet. This latest baby, Tommy, left her young family on the brink, and with one more on the way she had few other options. She had heard of rich Americans adopting children back home and had read that Jane Russell was devoutly religious. Florrie told herself she was securing her little boy "a place in heaven".

In ordinary circumstances, of course, an Irish church mouse with a crying baby would have had no chance of getting in the orbit of an imperious film deity such as Russell. The actress had starred alongside Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and, together with Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth, embodied the sensuously contoured "sweater girl" look. With her topaz-coloured eyes and perfect figure, she represented what one publicist described as "lust, desire and everything that good boys are not supposed to think about". She was one of the biggest stars in the world.