Adoptees return to Nepal to find a society that no longer recognises them, legally or socially

Between the 1980s and 2000s, over 5,000 Nepali children were adopted abroad, primarily to the United States, France, and Spain. While international adoption was intended to provide vulnerable children with better opportunities, child trafficking and irregular practices prompted Nepal to suspend adoptions in 2007, and overhaul its policies.

By 2010, stricter regulations aligned with the Hague Adoption Convention drastically reduced adoption numbers. Today, many of these children, now adults, are returning to Nepal in search of their roots, only to encounter a society that no longer recognises them, legally or socially.

Behind the statistics lie the deeply personal and emotional journey of adoptees returning to reconnect with their past, seek family, and rediscover a sense of belonging. These stories reflect a broader struggle for identity and the complexities of bridging two worlds.

Switzerland is under scrutiny for fraudulently rehoming thousands of babies. The failures go back further than previously understood

When Paul Harwood, a founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency, relocated to Paris from Vietnam, he was keen to expand his family. It was 1961, the Berlin Wall was about to go up and Europe was embroiled in a Cold War crisis, keeping Harwood and his fellow agents on their toes. But besides his undercover work at the U.S. Embassy, Harwood was on a more personal mission: He and his wife, Mary Ellen, were trying to adopt a baby girl. 

They ended up using an agency run by a Swiss welfare worker named Alice Honegger. Harwood welcomed her assistant to his apartment on the top floor of an older house in central Paris. A staircase led up to a room ready for a child, reachable via a gallery and complete with its own bathroom. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Harwood are extremely likable people, kind, very calm, and I don’t see them as typical Americans at all,” reads the report she wrote for Honegger in St. Gallen, a canton in the country’s northeast near the blue-green waters of Lake Constance. “They are both of medium height, with brown eyes and brown hair.” The Harwoods wanted a girl to complement the little boy they had previously adopted in the United States. 

On Aug. 2, 1962, the couple received a letter from Honegger’s agency with the news they had spent years agonizingly waiting for: a “very handsome” little girl of Italian nationality who was a perfect match for them, with the same color of hair and eyes. She added that the child’s expatriation papers were still missing but assured the new parents she would urge the birth mother and the Italian authorities to send what was necessary. 

An 'unusually unpleasant and disgusting view of humanity', assesses expert.

"Nice little girl - not noticeably dark".

"This last one is ok because she is light".

That is the message in letters from the adoption agency AC Børnehjælp in the 1980s about children from Lebanon.

As per reports, resident of Gandhi Nagar area, Rahul’s wife died leaving a four-year-old daughter Riya behind.

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Police arrested a couple and rescued an abducted four-year-old girl after tracing their location in Byavara.

The child was abducted by the couple on Thursday and primary questioning from them suggested that they had abducted the child to adopt her, police officials said. As per reports, resident of Gandhi Nagar area, Rahul’s wife died leaving a four-year-old daughter Riya behind.

The child was taken care of by her grandparents who often used to leave her with their neighbours Pawan Verma and his wife Champa who were childless.

On Thursday, the child’s grandparents approached police and claimed that Riya was missing. They raised suspicion on Pawan and his wife for abducting the child as they often used to take her with them. Police called Pawan on his mobile phone but he claimed that he was in Indore with his wife.

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Beginnings

Mrs. Saroj Sood got interested in adoptions after hearing about her own family adoption. This type of family arrangement disturbed her and she thought that why deprive him/her of his/her very own family when there are so many children in the orphanages waiting for a family? Mrs. Sood managed to convince a very close family friend who was the next one who wanted to adopt his brother and sister-in-law’s child who was yet to be born. She counselled them and succeeded in persuading them not to deprive a child of his/her very own family. They adopted a three-year-old girl from one of the ashrams in Lucknow. Another friend’s sister was based in Lucknow and helped them in completing the legal formalities. That was the informal beginning in the year 1963.

Then a friend and her husband wished to adopt an Indian child and in 1966 the wish turned into reality in New Delhi. Thus, this was the first Inter Country adoption. She continued to freelance along with the Missionaries of Charity and worked with helping families adopt children. In 1972, Mrs. Sood met the late Smt. Ashoka Gupta who encouraged to start an organization for this specialized work.

Thus, seven like-minded people registered “The Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption” on the 16th of December 1975. Our Founding members were Mrs. Ashoka Gupta – President, Dr. (Mrs) Chinam Gopinath – Vice President, Mrs. Saroj Sood – Secretary, Mr. Raveen Arora – Treasurer, Mr. Indu Bhushan De – Legal Adviser, Mrs. Dhun D. Adenwalla – Member, Mrs. Perin S. Aibara – Member.

CWC members took custody of the child after an inquiry and handed her to a children’s home.

CHENNAI: Holding that mere submission of an application seeking adoption would not confer rights to take custody of an abandoned baby, a division bench comprising justices SM Subramaniam and M Jothiraman of the Madras High Court recently refused to order handing over custody of a baby who was found on a train and taken in by a couple. The baby is currently at a home for children.

The matter pertains to a habeas corpus petition filed by 47-year-old K Savithiri of Erode seeking custody of the baby girl whom she and her husband Ravi (54), claimed to have recovered from a running train on the way to Erode from Tirunelveli on February 20, 2023.

As the couple was childless, they grabbed the opportunity and had been taking care of the baby until the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) knocked their doors on August 19 for an inquiry following a complaint received by the Chief Minister’s Cell about a child racket.

CWC members took custody of the child after an inquiry and handed her to a children’s home.

Actor, singer and theatre maker Joy Wielkens has a father wound: she grew up without her father and only met him years later. That turned out differently than she had hoped. 

“In 2011 I made a performance about my father:  Papa was a rollin'… nobody. It was my third solo after  Negra in 2009 about the search for my black identity. They were all autobiographical performances, but the last one went a step further. It was about my fatherless youth, but there was also a kind of hope in it: that my father might be in the audience one day and come to me afterwards.”

No regrets

“That never happened, but I did find him and meet him a year later, in 2012. The first time I saw him, under the supervision of a social worker, was a disappointment. I don’t regret meeting my father, but it didn’t go as I had hoped and it certainly wasn’t the perfect picture. I thought he was a horrible man. He only talked about himself and the highlights of his life.”

The Karnataka High Court has held that in cases where a child is born as a result of an alleged rape, the biological mother can give the child up for adoption without the consent of the rape-accused biological father. The consent of the biological father in such circumstances is "both inconsequential and immaterial," the Court said.

The Court was hearing a Writ Petition seeking the quashment of the decision of the Sub Registrar rejecting the application for registration of the adoption deed on the ground that the application is incomplete as the biological father of the child to be adopted was not mentioned as an executing party. The issue before the Court was whether the consent of the biological father of a child born out of rape who is also the accused in the rape case is required, in addition to the consent already provided by the minor victim mother and her guardian, for the purpose of giving the child up for adoption.

A Single-Judge Bench of Justice Hemant Chandangoudar held, "[T]he consent of the rape-accused biological father of the child is both inconsequential and immaterial. The adoption of the subject child herein as per the Irrevocable Adoption Deed dated 11.11.2024 is in full compliance with the provisions of the JJ Act, 2015, the Rules, 2016, and the Regulations, 2017."

The lead Petitioner in the case was a Muslim minor, who is a victim of rape and the biological mother of the child. She was before the Court with her mother and a Muslim married couple, the prospective adoptive parents. The biological father of the child, who is the rape accused, is currently in judicial custody awaiting trial and was not impleaded as a party in the present petition.

The minor and her mother submitted that that they were in dire financial distress and unable to provide basic necessities or ensure the overall development of the child. The married couple, who have no children, expressed their willingness to adopt the child and consequently executed an Irrevocable Adoption Deed.

MUMBAI: Bombay HC approved an Italian couple's adoption of a one-year-old girl with heart disease, directing quick passport issuance for her move to Italy.

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court approved the adoption of a one-year-old child with congenital heart disease by an Italian couple. The court instructed authorities to speed up the process to issue her a passport so that the couple can take the child to her new home in Italy soon.

The girl child, born in July 2023, was surrendered by her mother when she was one-month-old. She was declared “legally free for adoption” by the Child Welfare Committee, Mumbai, under section 38 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act, 2021. The girl’s suffered from a congenital heart defect, and an Italian couple wanted to adopt her. After psychological evaluation and financial assessments of the Italian couple, they were found to be suitable for adoption by the “Mehala Families for Children”, Italy on May this year.

A petition was filed by the Maharashtra State Women’s Council Adoption Group (Asha Sadan Balgruh) under the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, and the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, 1993. 

William and Zachary Zulock have each been sentenced to 100 years in prison without parole.

A gay couple from Georgia will spend the rest of their lives in jail after they were convicted of sexually abusing their two adopted sons. The two accused, William and Zachary Zulock, have been sentenced to 100 years in prison each without the chance of parole, The New York Post reported, quoting the Walton County District Attorney's office.

William is 34 years old, while Zachary is 36. They earlier adopted the two brothers, who have now turned 12 and 10, from a Christian special-needs agency. The children were raised by the gay couple under the guise of a happy family in the affluent Atlanta suburb.

District Attorney Randy McGinley noted that William and Zachary "truly created a house of horrors and put their extremely dark desires above everything and everyone else".

McGinley added, "However, the depth of the Defendants' depravity, which is as deep as it gets, is not greater than the resolve of those that fought for justice and the strength of the victims in this case." 

The District Attorney noted the resolve he has seen from the two young boys during the last two years is "truly inspiring”.

While Zachary works in the banking sector, William is serving as a government employee. Despite being well settled in their lives, the two would force the young brothers to have sex with them on a regular basis, besides filming the abuse for making pedophilic pornography.

Not just that, they even used to brag about the alleged abuse to some of their friends in the community. Evidence found by police has confirmed this claim.

William and Zachary were arrested in 2022.

One of the couple's friends told police that Zachary once shared images of one of the boys being abused on Snapchat and wrote, "I'm going to f*** my son tonight. Stand by”.

The two accused even used social media platforms to pimp the two brothers to at least two men in the local paedophile sex ring, The New York Post report said.

They were arrested after police caught an alleged member of the ring downloading child porn.

The person later informed the investigators how William and Zachary used to make porn videos with their two young adopted sons living in their house.

In the court, the two accused pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated child molestation as well as sexual exploitation of children.