Nine year old Marinela forced to sexual services for one dollar a time by

her 18 year old girl pimp outside the Bucharest railway station is but one

example of thousands of children exploited in the world today, said EU

Commissioner Anita Gradin when taking part in the opening of the UN world

Congress against sexual exploitation of children in Stockholm, August 27.

Aid director found dead

The Irish Times

The Irish Times

November 24, 1995

An article in the QLD Sunday Mail dated Aug 27 1995 alleges that baby selling was being carried out in Queensland.

In the article two women one a natural mother and the other other an adoptive mother tell their stories of how the matron of St Marys Home at Towoong deliberately broke the laws of the time and sold babies to adoptive parents for the sum of fifty pounds or in todays equivalent $100.

The matron Ivy McGregor forced mothers to sign adoption papers before the birth of their babies and then arranged adoptions of newborns to adoptive parents outside Australia.

One 16 year said that she was sent home from the hospital after the birth without seeing her baby. She only saw the baby when she was taken back to the hospital to hand the baby over to the adoptive parents. She recalls the look of compassion at her distress from the adoptive mother when she handed over the child.

The matron then told her to look out the window and watch the adoptive parents take the child away.

UNDER SUSPICION

John Davies is a hero to some adoptive parents, a baby-selling profiteer to many governments

BRUCE WALLACE

At the very least, John Davies doesn’t look like the baby seller so many people make him out to be. People who traffic in children are supposed to be shadowy figures with suspicious eyes, living by furtive movements that make them difficult for police and journalists to track down. John Davies is a warm, welcoming bear of a man. He opens his home to visitors. He answers every question asked about his activities in an articulate, soft-spoken manner. He has an address on the Internet.

To those people who have adopted children out of eastern Europe with Davies’ help, the British-born Anabaptist minister is even a hero. “While governments conspire to make the eye of the needle even smaller for international adoptions, Davies thumbs his nose at bureaucrats and tries to break their cartel,” says one New York City businessman who adopted a Romanian child through Davies. “It has made him enemies in high places, but I think he is sort of like Indiana Jones, an entrepreneur.” Davies, who has lived in Romania since 1991, says that he is simply an advocate of children’s rights and a sworn opponent of government-controlled adoptions. That process, he maintains, is too slow and follows national political interests (such as China’s tendency to put mostly girls up for foreign adoptions) rather than the interests of children.

Arguments of Amsterdam Court of Appeal of Adopting Child to Single Mother 'Selective' Court set aside law for non-existent right to adoption

The First Multiple Family Room of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal has lightly set aside the law. In fact, the chamber composed of the masters Willems-Morsink, De Vreeze-Oostvogel and Streefkerk has allowed the adoption by a single person to sabotage the law and manipulate it with human rights ....

From our reporter

Victor Lebesque

AMSTERDAM

I. INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION PROCESS IN SPAIN

REQUIREMENTS TO PROSPECTIVE ADOPTIVE PARENTS

According to regulations in Spain (Article 175 of ?21/1987) the candidate-adopter must be at least 25 years old. When married couples apply to adopt, it is enough for one of the parents to be at least 25 years old.

In any case, the adoptive parent must be at least 14 years older than the adopted child.

The recommended age difference is into account in the time of home study preparing which is no more than 40 years difference between the candidate-adopter and adopted child. Exceptions can be allowed in case of adoption of children with special needs.

Amigoe

09-05-1995

5

Paedophiles `exploiting turmoil in Romania'

DANNY PENMAN MONDAY 03 APRIL 1995

i

Caretaker Austin Kelly jailed over child abuse

Sarah's Law reveals identities of 160 sex offenders with access to children

Trouw

23-01-1995

5

To Romania With Love: Four Years Coming Home

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The train leaves Bucharest in the evening, and as night falls the last views of modern Romania fade from view. We are carried through the night, across the Transylvanian Alps, and fifty years into the past. As dawn comes to Transylvania, farmers are seen riding high atop horse and ox-drawn wagons piled with straw and firewood. The wagons are stopped at rail crossings by manually operated gates, rigged with extensive cables and pulleys so that a solitary man can close the gates on both sides of the track from one spot. The smell of smoke from fireplaces and wood stoves is carried in the air. As the train slowly pulls to its last stop on the long journey, I listen intently, wondering whether the modern diesel engine which pulled us out of Bucharest had been transformed into a coal-fired steam locomotive during the night. Within a few hours I am greeting the director of the Camin Spital pentru Minori Deficient (literally, the Home for Deficient Children) in Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania. After a cool welcome, I a m given permission to see the children.

A few moments later, as I climbed the stairs to the second floor, I remembered the pledge Anne had made four years ago to Alex and Costica, and which I had repeated to them two years ago: "we will come back for you." I wondered whether Alex and Costica would even remember me after this time, and whether they would believe I was really going to take them with me this time. I slowly opened the door and stepped in. As with any outsider, my entrance immediately commanded the attention of all the children in the room. Whatever activities had been going on ceased, and an aura of excitement spread through the room. Children began running in from adjacent rooms to see who was here, and in a very short time I saw Costica's face appear for the briefest of moments. As he disappeared back into the other room, I heard his overpowering screams of "Alex! Alex! Alex!"