Vietnam's hill tribe children "stolen" for adoption (Feature)

By Simon Parry Feb 23, 2010, 3:08 GMT

Hanoi - High among the jagged limestone peaks that mark Vietnam's border with Laos, Cao Thi Thu squats on the stone floor of her family's hut and pleads, 'Please help bring my daughters home.'

It is more than three years since officials came to Thu's village and offered her the chance to send her daughters - Cao Thi Lan, 3, and Cao Thi Luong, 8 - to be educated in the provincial capital. Instead, they were sold for adoption overseas.

Clutching the only photographs she has of the girls - shots ironically taken at the children's home to send out to prospective adoptive parents abroad - the pain of separation from her daughters is as sharp today as it was on the day she last saw them.

Monday, March 01, 2010

Bulgaria Closing All Orphanages

In radical attempt to fix its child-care system, the Bulgarian government has announced plans to shut down all of its orphanages and homes for disabled children.

Citing past failed attempts to create real change in the current system, the government has set a 15-year deadline for scrapping the old and starting anew.

"According to a new strategy paper approved by the cabinet on Wednesday, the country's 137 communist-era welfare homes for orphans and disabled children will be closed down," the Independent News & Media has reported. "The more than 7 500 children living in such homes will be placed in foster families or adopted to help better integrate them into society."

webmaster, 20 november 2009

Nederland , Arnhem

Adoptie in Haiti-deel 2

De adoptieprocedure in Haiti

Nadat een kind is voorgesteld aan de adoptieouder(s) (vrouwen alleen kunnen ook uit Haiti adopteren) gaat het dossier de Haitiaanse adoptiemolen in. Die bestaat uit vele fases en tussenfases en voorfases, maar de belangrijkste zijn:

6 maart

De dag dat we afscheid moeten nemen van het geboorteland van Lorgens. Het geeft ons een dubbel gevoel. We halen een kind weg uit zijn eigen land, cultuur, geur, kleur en gewoontes. Dat voelt wreed. Het andere gevoel is, gelukkig we halen Lorgens weg uit een omgeving waar hij relatief weinig kansen heeft om een bestaan op te bouwen die niet per definitie gepaard zal gaan met honger, strijd om te blijven bestaan, dreiging op straat en wantrouwen.

Om kort na 9.00 uur stond Franck al voor de deur. Veel te vroeg! Hij zal nog een vrachtje gecharterd hebben en had gehoopt dat wij al klaar zouden staan. Niets was minder waar. We moesten nog een deel inpakken en de rekeningen betalen. Dus uiteindelijk vertrokken we na afscheid te hebben genomen van Niels en Marianne, om kort na 9.30 uur naar het vliegveld. Het vliegtuig zou rond 13.00 vertrekken dus we hadden nog ruim de tijd om rond te hangen op dat vliegveld.

Een vlot vertrek naar Miami en een goede vlucht. Beide jongens waren van verveling in slaap gevallen gedurende de twee uur durende vlucht.

De planning was dat we ongeveer 4 uur wachttijd zouden hebben op vliegveld Miami voordat we verder konden. Die tijd hadden we ook wel nodig zeg! De douanecontrole was verschrikkelijk. Helaas geen voordeel omdat we kinderen bij ons hadden. Nee nu was het een nádeel dat we kinderen bij ons hadden. Hoe hou je dat volk een beetje in toom tijdens de file? Mijn God wat een drama. Aan alles komt een eind dus aan deze sessie ook. Eerst even een frisse neus gehaald en toen lekker eten op het vliegveld. Zo verstreek de tijd langzaam maar zeker naar het tijdstip van vertrek. Mooi het was 19.15 uur we mochten gaan boarden.

Caring for vulnerable children

Caring for very sick children

UK

£20,000

From refurbishing children’s bedrooms and a medical treatment room, to purchasing specialist equipment and supporting annual running costs, the Halcrow Foundation has helped St Martin’s children hospice in Yorkshire over a number of years.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2009

No Special Treatment

When we adopted Annalea in 2008, Armenian requirements for adoption stated that the adoptive family have some Armenian heritage on at least one side of the family. This was fair, I thought, considering how few children are available for adoption in this small country.

About a year ago, this rule went by the wayside. The claim is that Hague rules require this to prevent discrimination. Now anyone of any ethnicity can adopt here. I think that is a good change, with one exception. Armenians do not get preference.

I have some questions about this.

February 27, 2010

The single adoptive mum

Seven years ago, desperate for a baby, Jane Clarke went to India

Jane Clarke with her adopted daughter Maya

Penny Wark

Get a womb: Gay couples outsource Indian mothers

By Saritha Rai - GlobalPost

Published: February 26, 2010 09:55 ET

BANGALORE, India — In a building smack in the middle of chaotic Hyderabad, an hour’s flight from Bangalore, 29-year-old American Brad Fister recently got acquainted with the delirious joy of first-time parenthood.

Fister and his partner Michael Griebe, who own a computer business in Kentucky, contracted a womb from an Indian surrogate mother thousands of miles away in Hyderabad. Their daughter Ashton, conceived in a laboratory out of Fister’s sperm and an anonymous donor’s egg, was born in mid-February.

Messages In This Digest (2 Messages)

1.

Trafficking in Samoa/petition to sign From: Karen Moline

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Re: Digest Number 3298 - Teens/Tweens From: kgustafesq@aol.com

German twins' father makes desperate plea

27 Feb 2010, 1528 hrs IST

Time has almost run out for Jan Balaz to get his surrogate twin son Leonard and Nikolas Balaz back with him to Germany, with Balaz's visa expiring in a matter of days. Speaking to your channel Balaz says he's been told that he will not receive an extension.

Meanwhile, apparently unconcerned and notwithstanding the tense visa situation, the Indian judicial system continues to plod along at its usual pace, with the next hearing scheduled in the Supreme Court on March 16. Aggravating the situation is the snail's pace of Indian bureaucracy - although admittedly there is no legal guideline on the subject of citizenship (by birth) of surrogate children, the executive has been unwilling to resolve the matter of the twins by making a one-time exception on humanitarian grounds as it is reluctant to set a precedent.

The children were born in 2008 to a surrogate mother in Gujarat, but biologically descended from German parents. The Ministry of External Affairs, through the Regional Passport Office, initially granted a passport to the twins under the 'tatkal' scheme but later issued a notice withdrawing the passports.