Romania Adozioni Internazionali: passi in avanti verso la riforma della legge.

Romania International Adoptions: steps towards reform of the law.
Important steps are being made in Romania for the affirmation and defense of the right of children to "receive the care necessary for their well being and thus their right to live and grow up in a family including the taking international law by 2001 in this country is effectively denied.

And 25 October to submit a proposal to amend the current Romanian law regulating adoptions and thus international adoptions.

What has been done is the last step of the work of the Romanian Association Catharsis in collaboration with the Districts to protect children from all over Romania, some authorized institutions including Italian and Friends AIBI adoption.

The bill was drafted to the Commission for Human Rights of the Romanian Parliament will be the case because a new law later this year.

In the first week of November the Association Catharsis, led by President Nitrogen Popescu, must be present for the third time in front of this committee because the law can then vetted by the Romanian Parliament and groped approval.

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Romania Adozioni Internazionali: passi in avanti verso la riforma della legge.

Passi importanti si stanno compiendo in Romania per l’affermazione e la difesa del diritto dei minori a “ricevere le cure necessarie al loro benessere” e quindi al loro diritto a vivere e crescere in una famiglia anche tramite l’adozione internazionale, diritto che dal 2001 in questa nazione è di fatto negato.

È del 25 ottobre scorso la presentazione di una proposta di modifica dell’attuale legge rumena che regolamenta le adozioni e quindi anche le adozioni internazionali.

Quello che è stato fatto è l’ultimo passo del lavoro compiuto dell’Associazione rumena Catharsis in collaborazione con i Distretti per la protezione dell’infanzia di tutta la Romania, alcuni enti autorizzati italiani tra cui AiBi e Amici dell’Adozione.

La proposta di legge elaborata è stata presentata alla Commissione per i diritti umani del parlamento rumeno perché possa essere così approvata una nuova legge entro la fine dell’anno.

Nella prima settimana di novembre l’Associazione Catharsis, guidata dal Presidente Azota Popescu, dovrà presentarsi per la terza volta di fronte alla suddetta commissione perchè la legge poi possa passare al vaglio del Parlamento rumeno e tentare l’approvazione.

Organizations: Catharsis, Amici dei Bambini

Countries: Romania

OrphanAid Africa urges government to phase out orphanages

September 09, 2010

Accra, Sept. 9, GNA - OrphanAid Africa, a non-governmental organization that supports orphaned children, has advocated for kinship and extended family care systems to replace the institutionalization of children at orphanages.

The international NGO said all over the world, abuse was common in orphanages and called on government to set a deadline to close down all orphanages.

In a statement reacting to recent revelations of abuse at the Osu Children's Home in Accra, the NGO said orphanages were often a cover for child trafficking and called on government to refuse registration of new ones.

Countries: Ghana

Organizations: Hague Convention on Protection of Children and International Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoption (1993)

Two held by Northern Police for child trafficking

Two held by Northern Police for child trafficking
Page last updated at Friday, November 26, 2010 10:10 AM // Leave Your Comment
Two Burkinabe’s; Fuseini Ibrahim and Seetu Nuhu, both 30, are being held by the Northern Regional Police Command for allegedly trafficking 13 children from Burkina Faso to Ghana.

The children aged between 4-15 are currently being given temporary shelter and meals by the Northern Regional Police and would be handed over to the Social Welfare Department for special care.

Chief Inspector Ebenezer Tetteh, Public Relations Officer for the Northern Police Command, was briefing some newsmen in Tamale on Thursday saying that investigation had already started on the case.

He said the police had information that Fuseini Ibrahim was travelling with the 13 children towards a lorry station to transport the children to Burkina Faso after travelling with them for two days on foot from Zinidom in the Karaga District of the Northern Region hence his arrest.

Chief Inspector Tetteh said Ibrahim who was in the company of the children said Seetu Nuhu brought the children from Burkina Faso to be taught in an Arabic school in which he (Seetu) was a teacher.

He said the suspects claimed the children were put in their care for Arabic tuition adding that one of the parents of the children had reported to the police and investigation caution statement taken from him to assist in investigation
.

Countries: Ghana, Burkina Faso

Jugendhilfe: Reiche Eltern sollen zahlen

Jugendhilfe: Reiche Eltern sollen zahlen

025.11.10||

Fürstenfeldbruck - Landrat Thomas Karmasin fordert, dass das Jugendhilfegesetz geändert wird. Reiche Eltern sollen selbst zahlen. Das untermauert er jetzt mit einem konkreten Beispiel.

Der Fall: Betuchte Eltern aus dem Landkreis adoptieren gegen ausdrücklichen Rat Kinder aus der Ukraine. Aus guten Gründen habe das Ehepaar in Deutschland keine Genehmigung zur Adoption bekommen, sagte Karmasin. Die Eltern kommen mit den zwei Kindern nicht zu Recht. Es kommt zu Misshandlungen.

Die Kinder kommen ins Heim. Das Ganze entwickelt sich, so Karmasin wörtlich, zu einer „menschlichen Tragödie“.

Und zu einem finanziellen Desaster. 700 000 Euro verschlingt der Fall. Dass der Kreis diese Summe zahlen musste, sei ein „ bodenloser Skandal“, sagte Karmasin.

Zumal den Eltern wirklich geraten worden sei, auf die Adoption zu verzichten. „In diesem Fall halte ich es für denkbar, dass die Eltern ihr Einfamilienhaus zur Verfügung stellen.“

Karmasin schilderte das Beispiel nicht nur im Kreisausschuss. Auch in seiner Rede beim Wirtschaftsempfang hatte er es in ähnlicher Form vorgetragen.

Damals erinnerte er daran, dass der Landkreis gerade einmal die Hälfe des erwähnten Betrags als Zuschüsse an die Musikschulen im Kreis überweise. Der Hinweis, dass beides nicht miteinander vergleichbar sei, stimme nur bedingt. „Wir werden in einigen Wochen bei den Haushaltsberatungen über das eine reden, weil wir nach derzeitiger Rechtslage das andere bezahlen müssen.“

Countries: Germany, Ukraine

Forcible foster care ‘genocide’: UN Declaration

Forcible foster care ‘genocide’: UN Declaration
WRITTEN BY ADMINISTRATOR
THURSDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2010 11:38
UOI OFFICES (November 24, 2010) – Anishinabek have the right to keep their children in their own communities, including those who require foster care.
“Other governments must put a stop to the harm that has been caused to thousands of our kids – first in residential schools, then in foster homes,” said Deputy grand Chief Glen Hare. “They have to give us the resources our communities need to look after our own children; their welfare is more important than providing jobs for outside agencies.”
“And now that Canada has finally endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” he added, “it needs to understand that forcibly removing children from one group of peoples to another is considered genocide by the standards of international law.”
Hare noted that a Human Rights complaint has been filed against Canada for its funding of First Nations child welfare agencies across the country at an average of 22 per cent less than the budgets of provincial agencies like Children’s Aid Societies.
The Anishinabek Nation established the Union of Ontario Indians as its secretariat in 1949. The UOI is a political advocate for 40 member communities across Ontario, representing approximately 55,000 people. The Union of Ontario Indians is the oldest political organization in Ontario and can trace its roots back to the Confederacy of Three Fires, which existed long before European contact.
For more information contact:

Marci Becking
Communications Officer
Union of Ontario Indians
Phone: (705) 497-9127 (ext. 2290)
Cell: (705) 494-0735
E-mail: becmar@anishinabek.ca
Follow AnishNation on Twitter

Countries: Canada

Muslims seek to reconcile Islamic, western adoption law to find homes for orphans

Muslims seek to reconcile Islamic, western adoption law to find homes for orphans
By: Rachel Zoll, The Associated Press
24/11/2010 2:44 PM

Helene Lauffer knew Muslim children — orphaned, displaced, neglected — needed homes in the United States. She knew American Muslim families wanted to take them in.
But Lauffer, associate executive director of Spence-Chapin, one of the oldest adoption agencies in the country, couldn't bring them together.
The problem was a gap between western and Islamic law. Traditional, closed adoption violates Islamic jurisprudence, which stresses the importance of lineage. Instead, Islam has a guardianship system called kafalah that resembles foster care, yet has no exact counterpart in western law.
The differences have left young Muslims with little chance of finding a permanent Muslim home in America. So Lauffer sought out a group of Muslim women scholars and activists, hoping they could at least start a discussion among U.S. Muslims about how adoption and Islamic law could become compatible.
"At the end of the day, it's about trying to find families for kids," said Lauffer.
Lauffer is not alone in raising the issue. As Muslim communities become more established in the United States, pressure is building for a re-examination of Islamic law on adoption.
Refugee children from Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere are being resettled here. Muslim couples who can't conceive want to adopt, but don't want to violate their faith's teachings. State child welfare agencies that permanently remove Muslim children from troubled homes usually can't find Muslim families to adopt them because of the restrictions in Islamic law.
"I get all kinds of families who come to me for fertility issues. They want to adopt and they want to adopt Muslim children and I'm thinking this is a crime that they can't," said Najah Bazzy, a nurse and founder of Zaman International, a humanitarian service group in Dearborn, Mich. "No one is going to convince me that Islam makes no allocation for this. Either somebody is not interpreting it right, or it needs to be reinterpreted."
Mohammad Hamid, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of the Hamdard Center, a social service agency in the Chicago area that has many Muslims among its clients, said he regularly received requests from American Muslims for advice on how they could adopt.
"We don't tell them it's Islamic or un-Islamic," said Hamid, whose non-profit does not handle adoptions. "Our job is to facilitate the process. We believe if the child can be adopted, you are saving a child."
The prohibition against adoption would appear contrary to the Qur’an's heavy emphasis on helping orphans. The Prophet Muhammad's father died before his son was born, so the boy's grandfather and uncle served as his guardians, setting an example for all Muslims to follow.
However, Islamic scholars say the restrictions were actually meant to protect children, by ending abuses in pre-Islamic Arabic tribal society.
Ingrid Mattson, professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, said adoption in that period had more in common with slavery. Men would take in boys, then erase any tie between the child and his biological family. The goal was to gather as many fighters as possible as protection for the tribe. Orphans' property was often stolen in the process.
As a result, Muslims were barred from treating adopted and biological children as identical in naming or inheritance, unless the adoptee was breast-fed as a baby by the adoptive mother, creating a familial bond recognized under Islamic law.
When an orphan reaches puberty, the Islamic prohibition against mixing of the sexes applies inside the home of his or her guardians. Muslim men cannot be alone with women they could potentially marry, and women must cover their hair around these men. Islamic law sets out detailed rules about who believers can and cannot marry, and an orphan taken in from another family would not automatically be considered "unmarriageable" to his siblings or guardians.
For these reasons and others, Muslim countries only rarely allow international adoption.
"There hasn't been a concerted push to open doors for Muslim orphans because the expectation would be that those efforts would fall flat," said Chuck Johnson, chief executive of the National Council for Adoption, a policy group in Alexandria, Va.
Advocates for a new interpretation of Islamic law are more hopeful, at least about the prospect for a different approach to the issue in the United States. Mattson argues that the flexibility in Islamic law for accommodating local cultures and customs can lead to a solution.
Open adoption, which keeps contact between the adoptee and his biological family, is seen as one potential answer. In New South Wales, Australia, child welfare officials created an outreach program to Muslims emphasizing that Australian adoptions are open and adopted children can retain their birth names. The New South Wales program is the only well-known adoption campaign targeting a Muslim minority population in a western country.
The Muslim women scholars Lauffer consulted in New York, who meet annually as a shura (advisory) council, tackled the complexities of modesty rules inside the home. They debated whether Muslim adoptees in the West could be considered Islamically "unmarriageable" to their siblings or guardians, since western governments classify adoptees the same as blood relatives. The shura council will soon release a statement on the issue through its organizing body, the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality.
It's unclear how successful their efforts can be. There is no central authority in Islam to hand down a ruling on adoption. Muslims consult individual scholars, or, in the United States, seek an opinion from an imam at their local mosque.
Catherine England, a Muslim who teaches in the Seattle area, adopted four children after she and her husband learned they could have no children of their own. One of her children is an orphan from Afghanistan. Two others are biological siblings.
"I felt that my understanding — and this is entirely my understanding — is that what is forbidden in Islam is closed adoption," said England, who converted to Islam more than three decades ago. She consulted a Muslim scholar who she said affirmed her view that open adoption was allowed.
Lauffer hopes to hear more stories like England's soon.

Countries: United States of America, Morocco

Organizations: Spence-Chapin

Facebook: I Bambini di Preet Mandir

Name:

I BAMBINI DI PREET MANDIR (INDIA) - ADOZIONI IN PERICOLO

Category:

Organisations - General

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The children of Preet Mandir are the innocent victims of a system that condemns adoptive parents and adoptees on paper. THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG, neither one nor the other, but who cares. There are many tragedies in the world, many injustices perpetrated: that of Preet Mandir is just one among many and perhaps it is too small, too limited, to move people to action, to make bureaucracy wake up and allow humane justice its way. After all, only 18 children are affected!

18 CHILDREN HAVE BECOME HOSTAGES OF THE SYSTEM!

Guilt, blame and punishment for what has happened should not fall equally on all involved but the wheels of the Law do not make any distinction between guilty and innocent but move inexorably ahead grinding up both the guilty and the innocent. This is what is happening at Preet Mandir, an institution for abandoned children, in Pune (India). What has happened is well known in India and outside India too by the adopting families involved. This is the tale:

· At the beginning of 2010 the India press and TV began to talk about a CBI investigation underway at the time concerning malpractices at a Children’s Home called Preet Mandir in Pune. Under investigation were: excessive demands for money from adopting parents made by the Director of the Home, appropriation of funds and illicit dealings with minors.
· On 20 May 2010, CARA (the Indian Government Commission that oversees adoptions), without warning, suspended Preet Mandir’s license to organise international adoptions, backdating the effects of the suspension back to 15 February 2010. This suspension immediately affected all adoption procedures underway, even those started as early as June 2009.
· In June 2010 the Mumbai High Court stopped any attempt to move the 170 Children currently in Preet Mandir thus blocking any possibility of adoption for the children and preventing the 18 adoptions already underway from being completed.
· In August 2010 the Director of Preet Mandir was arrested by the Mumbai CBI and two weeks later a new director was appointed. The High Court also offered a gleam of hope that the 18 adoptions already agreed would be able to proceed.
· In early September 2010, following an agreement between the parties involved, CARA sent a request to the Mumbai High Court that these 18 adoptions should be authorised to go ahead.
· On 21 September 2010 the High Court sent the case to another Court which has effectively stopped any decision being made about these 18 children until December 2010.
· CARA has said that if they move these 18 children to another institution it will be possible to continue with the adoption procedures but, they cannot legally be moved because of the June 2010 decision of the High Court itself.

All the papers, the bureaucracy, the forms talk about businesses, institutions, Directors under investigation, and groups of children are only mentioned as faceless, abstract entities and not as individuals who have already been offered a hope of a better life, a future. In this flood of paper-work there has been no mention of the adopting families either, all of whom are waiting anxiously to welcome their Indian brothers and sisters, children who have already suffered, sometimes dramatically, and who are hoping to go to their new family whose love will surely help ease their pain. Who has listened to the voices of the children of Preet Mandir? Children who may now have to spend the rest of their childhood in an institution with no hope of succour of a better life? No-one has talked to them, or about them. So we want to do it because even though, given what is happening, they may yet be sentenced for a crime they did not commit, at least we want others to know what has been happening and to tell the tale of their and our pain.

There are adopting parents like Sonia and Alessandro, who already have one Indian daughter. Their first child was at the time defined a “special case”: she had been found in a rubbish bin, thrown there immediately after birth and already attacked by rats who had eaten part of her face, causing neurological damage, and some of the muscles of her right arm.
When they saw the detailed photos of the little girl, the couple felt that a child who had escaped such a cruel destiny deserved to have a family who could protect her and help her to grow in a loving atmosphere. Sonia and Alessandro are not rich, both work full time to maintain the family, and they knew helping their new daughter back to health would probably be expensive, but they took on the task gladly and have focussed all their efforts on giving her a “normal” life.
Seeing that this, their first daughter was doing so well, healthy, happy, surrounded by friends of her own age and doing well at school, they decided to adopt a sister for her. But this second adoption is proving more and more difficult and although they have the name and details of their second child she cannot come to join them. All Sonia and Alessandro want is to give these two girls, who have lost their families - or never had one, a chance to grow up surrounded by caring adults, parents, a mother and a father, who want to bring them as their own even though they did not give physical birth to them but instead have chosen them as their daughters to love and care for every day.
After waiting for 5 years, in October 2009, Sonia and Alessandro were given the name and details of their second daughter who lives in Preet Mandir, Pune: Sayali. They knew nothing about the Home, and the scandal of these past months has come like a bolt out of the blue. Their new daughter’s room is ready, her elder sister is waiting anxiously, but the little girl still is a long way off and they can only wait and hope that she will arrive.

Paola and Massimo too already have an adopted Indian son, Vinod, who was classified as retarded with low motor and cognitive capacity. Paola and Massimo did not hesitate to adopt him and brought him back to Italy where they have given themselves over, body and soul, to helping him. Today Vinod is a happy child, he loves his school his friends and India, which he often thinks about. His desire to have a little brother or sister encouraged his mother and father to begin adoption procedures and, in May 2009, they too were allocated a child from Preet Mandir. The scandal that has hit Preet Mandir is causing all three them much pain and anguish. Every day Vinod asks for news of his little sister.

For Silvia and Alessandro August came with the most horrible news: “We never lost hope but we started asking ourselves what did Aayesha and us do wrong to be trapped in this situation... why us? We always wanted to pursue justice and act according to law to be a good example for our children and now it was the law itself holding far away from us our child... We are only guilty of our own desire to build a family...One year has passed and our diary has over 100 pages, our baby’s third birthday has gone by, we had a small party with a cake but without her; we still did not have the chance to see her smiling. The regret is even more heartbreaking as our Aayesha will never be able to meet neither her grand-grandmother, who died last December, nor her grand-mother, Alfreda, who passed away on August 9th, 2010 and hoped up to her very last moment to finally see and hug her niece”.

Now we the parents have spoken, but the children of Preet Mandir will have no chance to do so. Thiers is a silent scream that goes unheard in busy, noisy Halls of Justice where people are just pieces of paper. We can only hope that this, their mute cry for help, will be heard in the small hours of the night by anyone and everyone with a conscience and a belief in humane, and human, justice.
The children of Preet Mandir are innocent victims. Their names will mean nothing to you but they do exist and do hope and should be remembered, one by one:

Jayshree, 11 years, girl – waiting to join her Italian family
Shivray, 8 years, boy - waiting to join his Italian family
Aaeysha, 3 years, girl - waiting to join her Italian family
Durga, 5 years, girl - waiting to join her Italian family
Sayali, 7 years, girl - waiting to join her Italian family
Geeta, 2 years, girl - waiting to join her Italian family
Soni, 8 years, girl - waiting to join her Italian family
Suryakant, 8 years, boy - waiting to join his Italian family
Chandrakant, 4 years, boy - waiting to join his Italian family
Kayal, 1 year, girl - waiting to join her South African family
Amrapaly, 1 year, girl - waiting to join her South African family
Varad, 1 year, boy - waiting to join his South African family
Heena, 1 year, girl - waiting to join her South African family
Aditya, 9 years, boy - waiting to join his Italian family
Kanchan, 1 year, girl - waiting to join her Canadian family
Aarti, 9 years, girl - waiting to join her Italian family
Manasi, 2 years, boy - joining a Belgian family
Nupoor, 4 years, boy - joining a German family

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SI CERCAVA GIUSTIZIA, TROVAMMO LA LEGGE

I bambini del Preet Mandir sono vittime innocenti di un sistema che condanna sulla carta genitori e figli adottivi. NON HANNO ALCUNA COLPA, ma che importa… Nel mondo ci sono molte tragedie, molte ingiustizie: quella del Preet Mandir è solo una, certo, forse troppo piccola per scuotere gli animi, per smuovere la burocrazia e la giustizia umana. Dopo tutto, sono SOLO 18!

18 BAMBINI IN OSTAGGIO DELLE ISTITUZIONI!

Le colpe di chi sta più in alto non dovrebbero ricadere su tutti ma la legge degli uomini non fa distinzioni: stritola i colpevoli e gli innocenti facendo girare l’inesorabile ruota della giustizia. E così sta accadendo nella vicenda Preet Mandir, istituto di Pune che accoglie i bambini in stato di abbandono. La vicenda, in India e per le poche famiglie adottive coinvolte, è tristemente nota.

· A inizio 2010 la stampa e la TV indiane riferiscono di indagini in corso del CBI (organo investigativo) su possibili malversazioni dell’istituto di Pune conosciuto come Preet Mandir. Si parla di indebite richieste di denaro da parte del direttore alle coppie adottanti, di appropriazione di fondi e di sottrazione di minori.
· Il 20 maggio 2010 il CARA (la commissione governativa indiana che si occupa delle adozioni) sospende la licenza alle adozioni internazionali a Preet Mandir senza alcun preavviso e postdatando l’effetto della sospensione al 15 febbraio 2010. L’effetto immediato è la sospensione anche delle procedure di adozioni iniziate in alcuni casi anche a giugno 2009.
· L’Alta Corte di Mumbay a giugno 2010 si pronuncia contro lo spostamento degli oltre 170 bambini ospiti di Preet Mandir ma al contempo blocca sia la possibilità di adottarli che di completare le 18 adozioni in corso.
· Ad agosto 2010 viene arrestato dal CBI di Mumbay il direttore di Preet Mandir e dopo 2 settimane viene nominato un nuovo direttore. L’Alta Corte di Mumbay fa trasparire uno spiraglio per sbloccare le pratiche di adozione dei 18 bambini.
· A inizio settembre 2010 il CARA emette all’Alta Corte di Mumbay una richiesta di autorizzazione per sbloccare i casi dei 18 bambini e lo fa a seguito di un accordo fra le parti.
· Il 21 settembre 2010 l’Alta Corte sposta il caso di Preet Mandir ad una nuova corte giudicante con l’effetto di rinviare a dicembre 2010 qualunque decisione sulla sorte dei 18 bambini.
· Il CARA dichiara che se si spostano i 18 bambini in corso di adozione in un altro istituto si potrebbero sbloccare le loro pratiche. Ma i bambini non si possono spostare per l’’ordine dell’Alta Corte di giugno 2010.

Le carte parlano di enti, istituzioni, di direttori incriminati, di gruppi di bimbi come se fossero entità astratte che sopprimono le singole identità. Ma chi ha mai parlato delle famiglie che attendono, dei bimbi già adottati che aspettano i loro “fratellini” o “sorelline” indiani, delle loro storie, alcune drammatiche, delle loro ferite che l’amore di una famiglia ha saputo lenire? Chi ha mai sentito la voce dei piccoli del Preet Mandir, destinati a vivere forse per sempre in istituto? Nessuno ne ha parlato. E allora lo facciamo noi perché, anche se condannati, visti gli ultimi sviluppi del caso, almeno vogliamo raccontare cosa sono stati questi mesi di attesa e quale dolore ci sta stritolando.

Ci sono genitori, come Sonia e Alessandro, che hanno già una prima figlia indiana. La loro primogenita era definita “caso speciale”: era stata trovata subito dopo la nascita in un cassonetto dei rifiuti e i topi le avevano deturpato il viso, con danni neurologici, oltre ad asportare una buona parte dei muscoli del braccio destro.
Davanti alle foto, drammaticamente dettagliate, che all’epoca erano state loro mostrate, hanno subito capito che quella bambina a cui era stato riservato un destino così crudele aveva diritto al calore di una famiglia che la proteggesse e la aiutasse a crescere in modo sereno. Pur non essendo ricchi e lavorando entrambi per sostenere la famiglia, l’impegno che il recupero della piccola avrebbe comportato non li ha spaventati: ridonarle ciò che le era stato tolto è stato il loro primo progetto di vita.
Vedendo come la prima figlia cresceva in salute e serenità, amata dai suoi compagni di gioco e ben inserita nell’ambito scolastico, Sonia e Alessandro si sono messi al lavoro per una seconda adozione ma la strada è stata lunga e ora tutto sembra perduto. Il loro sogno? Far sì che due bimbe a cui era stata tolta la gioia dell’abbraccio materno e paterno potessero abbracciarsi tra di loro e trasformare due vuoti nella pienezza di una vita insieme, sotto lo sguardo amorevole di chi, pur non avendole messe al mondo, se ne è occupato giorno dopo giorno.
Dopo 5 anni di attesa, ad ottobre 2009 hanno avuto un abbinamento con una bimba del Preet Mandir di Pune. Nulla sapevamo di tale istituto e lo scandalo scoppiato in questi mesi è giunto come un fulmine a ciel sereno mentre già avevano pronto il secondo lettino e il nome della piccola, ancor lontana, tornava ogni sera nella loro preghiere.

Anche Paola e Massimo hanno già un primo figlio indiano. Vinod era considerato un bambino ritardato, con scarsissime abilità motorie e cognitive. Paola e Massimo lo hanno accolto subito nel loro cuore e una volta arrivato in Italia si sono dati anima e corpo nel recuperare il loro bambino. Vinod ora è un bambino felice che ama la scuola, i suoi amici e l'India che è sempre nei suoi pensieri. Il suo desiderio di avere un fratellino è stato accolto da mamma e papà che hanno avuto un abbinamento con una bambina di Preet Mandir a maggio del 2009. Lo scandalo di Preet Mandir sta generando un dolore profondo in Paola, Massimo e Vinod, che tutti i giorni chiede notizie della sorella.

Silvia e Alessandro non si danno pace: “Ci chiediamo che cosa abbiamo fatto di male Aayesha e noi per essere intrappolati in questa vicenda! Perché noi? Siamo sempre stati coerenti e rispettosi della legge per dare il buon esempio ai nostri figli e ora è la legge stessa che ci tiene separati dalla nostra piccola. Siamo colpevoli solo di volere una famiglia... E’ trascorso un anno e il diario conta ormai più di 100 pagine, il suo terzo compleanno è passato, festeggiato con una torta ma senza di lei; il suo sorriso non lo abbiamo ancora visto. Il dispiacere e’ ancora più acuto perché la nostra Aayesha non conoscerà mai né la sua bisnonna, morta lo scorso dicembre, né la sua nonna paterna, Alfreda, che ci ha lasciato il 9 Agosto 2010 e che fino all’ultimo si è aggrappata alla speranza di poter abbracciare almeno una volta la sua nipotina”.

Ora che anche noi abbiamo parlato, solo la voce dei piccoli del Preet Mandir è ancora inascoltata: un grido silenzioso al quale nessuno probabilmente presterà attenzione nelle aule affollate e rumorose dei tribunali, negli uffici dove ogni persona è un pezzo di carta, ma queste voci di notte dovrebbero giungere dentro le coscienze di tutti e impedirci di dormire.

I bambini del Preet Mandir sono vittime innocenti. I loro nomi forse non dicono nulla ma è sempre bene ricordarli:

Jayshree, 11 anni, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia italiana
Shivray, 8 anni, maschi, abbinato ad una famiglia italiana
Aaeysha, 3 anni, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia italiana
Durga, 5 anni, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia italiana
Sayali, 7 anni, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia italiana
Geeta, 2 anni, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia italiana
Soni, 8 anni, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia italiana
Suryakant, 8 anni, maschio abbinato ad una famiglia italiana
Chandrakant, 4 anni, maschio abbinato ad una famiglia italiana
Kayal, 1 anno, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia sudafricana
Amrapaly, 1 anno, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia sudafricana
Varad, 1 anno, maschio abbinato ad una famiglia sudafricana
Heena, 1 anno, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia sudafricana
Aditya, 9 anni, maschio abbinato ad una famiglia italiana
Kanchan, 1 anno, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia canadese
Aarti, 9 anni, femmina abbinata ad una famiglia italiana
Manasi, 2 anni, maschio abbinato ad una famiglia belga
Nupoor, 4 anni, maschio abbinato ad una famiglia tedesca
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Organizations: ACT CASE Preet Mandir

Persons: Sonia Rossi

Adoption irregularities: Preet Mandir denies charges; hearing on Sept 24

Expressindia » Story Adoption irregularities: Preet Mandir denies charges; hearing on Sept 24 Font Size -A +A Nisha Nambiar Posted: Sep 12, 2009 at 0134 hrs IST Print Email To Editor Post Comments Most Read Articles Related Articles Jet strike off, sacked pilots back on boardI am with Percept, IOS can do what it wants:...China objects to Dalai visit to Arunachal Pr...India run out of steam, lost top spotMamata flags off 2 new trains, takes a dig a...Get news on the go with Valley’s SMS network Pune The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) wants to re-investigate the case against Pune-based adoption agency Preet Mandir. Two years ago it gave a clean chit to the agency. Till now it has cleared the agency of irregularities in foreign adoptions twice. Preet Mandir authorities, however, maintain that the allegations are baseless and have said it will respond after the CBI files an affidavit for re-investigation. “We have been given the clean chit twice. We will wait for the affidavit to be filed by the CBI and we we will reply once we get a copy of the affidavit,” said spokesperson of Preet Mandir Y V Krishnamurthy. On Thursday, the CBI told the Bombay High Court that they would submit a fresh report after another probe as they felt that their earlier inquiries on the adoption agency were ‘incomplete.’ The next hearing is on September 24. The CBI gave a clean chit in October 2007 and in July last year the High Court gave a nod to foreign adoptions. Additional solicitor general Darius Khambatta said there was a need for further investigation. The division bench of Justice Bilal Nazki and Justice A R Joshi asked the CBI to file an affidavit stating that they require further investigation. The CBI admitted there were “defeats and lapses” in the earlier investigation reports. Anjali Pawar Kate, director of Sakhi, a Pune-based child rights organisation, and Advait Foundation, another NGO, had filed the writ petition against the adoption agency in 2007. In 2007, the court had issued a stay on foreign adoption activities and had demanded a CBI inquiry. The stay was lifted after the CBI gave a clean chit in October 2007. Kate said she was happy that the case has been taken up again. At present, the agency is engaged in both domestic and foreign adoptions as they have been issued fresh licences. The domestic licence was renewed in July 2007 and is valid till September 2010 while the licence for foreign adoptions was renewed last year and is valid till 2011.

Organizations: ACT CASE Preet Mandir, Preet Mandir

Countries: India

Unwrapping Red Tape to Find the Gift of Family

TARAZ JOURNAL

Unwrapping Red Tape to Find the Gift of Family

Maxim Marmur for The New York Times

For months, Rebecca Compton went daily to an orphanage in Taraz, Kazakhstan, to visit Noah.

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

Published: November 23, 2010

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TARAZ, Kazakhstan — He was first placed into their arms nearly a year ago, an underweight 9-month-old baby in a gray sweatshirt. They were at an orphanage behind a crumbling housing project here in Central Asia, unimaginably far from their home in suburban Philadelphia, but immediately, they knew that they did not want to let him go.

The New York Times

Taraz officials have grown more cautious on adoptions.

They decided to call him Noah.

“He seems like the right little guy for us,” Rebecca Compton, a college professor, wrote as she and her husband, Jeremy Meyer, a labor lawyer, began what they thought would be a standard adoption process.

But these days in Kazakhstan, Russia and other former Soviet republics, adoptions are often far from standard, especially in light of the highly publicized — and deeply embarrassing — return of a 7-year-old Russian boy to Moscow in April by his adoptive American mother.

Ms. Compton and Mr. Meyer assumed they would soon be flying back to the United States with Noah. Then the delays mounted. Kazakh officials refused to sign off on the adoption.

Yet, Ms. Compton and Mr. Meyer would not give up.

They took leaves from their jobs, remaining in Kazakhstan for months on end while engaging in a bewildering fight with the Kazakh bureaucracy. It was not until last week, after setting aside their lives to pursue a child whom they now deeply loved, that they finally learned whether they could adopt him — whether this Thanksgiving would be a day of joy or despair.

“This is one of the only times when I have ever had this experience of feeling so helpless about something that I care so much about,” Ms. Compton said. The obstacles that Ms. Compton and Mr. Meyer have faced reflect the rising complexity of foreign adoptions in the former Soviet Union, which since Communism’s fall two decades ago has been a popular destination for prospective parents. As these countries become more stable, they are growing increasingly resistant to the idea of sending future generations abroad.

But they still maintain large orphanage systems, so a debate periodically flares over what is in the best interests of the children. The authorities would like local parents to adopt, but there are not enough in countries like Kazakhstan and Russia.

The issue is not necessarily poor conditions in orphanages. The one in Taraz is clean and well run, and the children seem happy. But experts say children are more likely to thrive in a good family.

Ms. Compton has spent much of the last year in Taraz, a city on the old Silk Road where English is rarely heard and boiled horse meat is typical fare. For months, she went daily to the orphanage to see Noah.

Born premature, he had lagged developmentally, but with the constant attention he has started to catch up, turning into a spirited toddler before the Americans’ eyes. On a recent visit to the orphanage, he giggled and squirmed while Ms. Compton read him a book with purple dinosaurs and blue whales, as if they were any mother and child.

“When I am here, I have no doubt about what I am doing,” she said. “As soon I see him, I don’t think about the legal situation, or how long I have been in Taraz. I just want to hold him.”

But visiting hours soon ended. She had to leave the orphanage, and he stayed behind.

On many nights in recent months, she has retreated to her hotel room and not known whether to scream or cry or bang her head against the wall in frustration. She said she once dreamed that she was hugging Noah, but then he disappeared, though she could still feel his touch. Then she located him nearby, “looking up at me with his dark searching eyes,” she recalled, but he vanished again.

Foreign adoptions in Kazakhstan can go relatively smoothly, but Ms. Compton and Mr. Meyer had unfortunate timing.

In January, soon after they began the adoption process, Casey Johnson, the daughter of Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, died. Ms. Johnson, who had adopted a baby from Taraz in 2007, had led a troubled life, and her death raised questions in Kazakhstan about whether the adoption should have been allowed. Local officials became exceedingly cautious, and slowed down several adoptions.

Then in April, the 7-year-old boy was returned to Moscow on his own by his American mother, and the Kremlin demanded new adoption safeguards from the United States. That had a ripple effect across the countries of the former Soviet Union.

In May, a court rejected Ms. Compton’s and Mr. Meyer’s petition to adopt Noah, contending that the orphanage had not done enough to determine whether Kazakhs might want him. They appealed.

Ms. Compton, 40, who is the chairwoman of the psychology department at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and Mr. Meyer, 40, had little ability to deal with the Kazakh legal system, which often seemed highly dysfunctional. They do not know Kazakh or Russian, the languages here, and were dependent on interpreters, consultants and lawyers.

“We are never quite sure what is going on,” Mr. Meyer, who had to return to Pennsylvania over the summer for work, said last month. “We are in the dark about the most important thing in our life.”

Raisa Sher, the federal children’s ombudsman in Kazakhstan, said in an interview that Taraz officials were applying the law correctly. She said Kazakhstan was supporting efforts to keep babies in the country, so officials had to ensure that foreign adoptions were a last resort.

“It is very sad when a country cannot provide for its own children,” she said. “We consider these foreign adoptions only a temporary measure.”

Kazakh officials even suggested that Ms. Compton and Mr. Meyer seek another baby, as if Noah could be exchanged for someone else. They cringed at the thought that a child who had been given up by one set of parents would be abandoned by another.

But by September, there seemed to be an opening. With the government under intense lobbying by Ms. Compton and Mr. Meyer and their supporters, a local court indicated that it would reconsider their case if it could be shown that no Kazakhs wanted to adopt Noah.

The orphanage presented evidence. Then there were more sleepless nights while they waited in Taraz for the decision. This month, the court preliminarily endorsed the adoption. “We won. We won!!” they wrote on their private blog.

Last week, they received final approval, and on Friday they walked out of the orphanage with a new, by now 20-month-old member of their family. They are hopeful that other foreigners who have also had Taraz adoptions blocked will obtain similar relief.

Ms. Compton and Mr. Meyer have to remain in Kazakhstan for a few more weeks, but they said they were fine celebrating Thanksgiving in a foreign land, given how much they had to be thankful for.

They noted that the holiday reminded them of Noah’s Kazakh name, Aldanysh. Loosely translated, it means “survivor.”

A version of this article appeared in print on

Countries: Kazakhstan, United States of America

Vulunteering at Baby nursery and kindergarten in Morocco

Sitzecke, auf der 24 h Betreuer schlafen können

Baby nursery and kindergarten in Morocco

There are two organisations in Tangier/Morocco where we can offer volunteering options with small children.

At the Baby Nursery ("La Crèche de Tanger") there are 40 children between 0 and 11 years who are waiting to be adopted. 4 of them are autistic children, 2 are suffering from hydrocephalus and a few more have certain handicaps. Most of the children have been living at the Nursery since their birth. In most cases the reason is that they are children of unmarried mothers which is not acceptable in Moroccan society. Just a few of the children have joined La Crèche at a later moment because of social reasons.

There are sufficient families who want to adopt a child, however there are often long delays to deal with all the legal issues. Boys generally stay for a longer time at the centre as girls are more popular for adoptions. Handicapped children usually don't find anyone to adopt them. Most families who adopt the children are from Morocco or Spain. According to Moroccan law all adoptive parents have to be of Muslim religion.

The task for volunteers will be to give love and affection to the children; to bottle-feed and diaper the babies, to teach simple topics and to play and paint with the children.

The daily routine is usually as follows: The kids get up at 5 in the morning, they will then take a shower and get dressed. After breakfast, they will leave the centre to go to school at 7:30. The autistic children will be picked up by a special bus. The smaller children will stay at the centre and the volunteers will play with them. In the summertime (starting 15th of May) there will be daily swimming at the centre's swimming pool.

After swimming they will take another shower and will then have lunch. At around 2:40 p.m. they will do siesta until around 5 p.m. At around 3 p.m. the older kids return from school. They will then do their homework and the younger children will play again. For the 24 hours supervision of the autistic children, volunteers can sleep on a bench in the centre.

It is possible to stay for short durations of time (minimum 1 week), as the kids have to get accustomed that one day they will have to leave the centre and their caregivers.

There are 20 single mothers with babies and toddlers of 0 to 2 years staying at the Kindergarten and residential home for single mothers of the Gracious Sisters of Calcutta in the old city centre of Tangier.

In several rooms, the kids can play with their mothers and the nuns. Every day around 10 further single mothers who don't live at the centre are bringing their children. Additionally, every Wednesday, the centre is open to street children who will be washed and play some games.

Volunteers will spend time with the children, mothers and street children.

Info box:

Location: Tangier, Morocco

Duration: Minimum 4 weeks*

Special qualifications needed: no

Costs: none, the trouble-free package is optional

Accommodation: Not included

Meals: Not included

Included: Placement in the project; if you opt for the trouble-free package the whole range of services which is part of the trouble-free package is included

Not included: Travel to Morocco, health insurance

Book this placement now!

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*You can also book this activity as a 1-3 weeks "Voluntourism Hopper"!

Countries: Morocco