Children need and have a right to be cared for by their parents and to grow up in a family environment. This has been recognized through years of experience and research as well as formally recognized under national and international laws, including the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Yet millions of children live in residential institutions; no one knows just how many. Around the world, over one million children have been orphaned or separated due to armed conflict, and 15 million children under the age of 15 years of age have lost one or both parents to AIDS. In many countries, institutions remain a major response to poverty or family breakdown. In many more, few or no mechanisms exist to ensure the most appropriate placements, encourage and support guardianship and adoption arrangements, and to provide support and monitoring for foster families. Much needs to be done to prevent unnecessary family separation by supporting families and communities and to develop better care alternatives when separation is inevitable.

Recognizing the urgent need for concerted action, the Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF) and the Africa Bureau for Sustainable Development of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and Save the Children UK, came together to form the Better Care Network (BCN) in 2003. Initially, BCN functioned as a loose affiliation of organizations and individuals exchanging information through a newsletter. As the listserv grew, and more information was exchanged via the Network, it became clear that BCN served a vital role and a more formal, full-time structure was required.

In response, in 2005, the organizations mentioned above, together with Cooperative Relief and Assistance Everywhere (CARE USA), agreed to form and serve on the BCN Steering Committee and establish BCN Secretariat, housed at the UNICEF Headquarters office in New York.

In June 2006 BCN launched the Better Care Network website, in partnership with the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN).

Since 2014, BCN has been implementing key changes to its governance, management and administration to reflect its maturity as a network, in line with its strategic plan (2014-2017). Its fiscal and hosting arrangements have evolved to better enable BCN to operate as an independent network organization. In November 2014, BCN moved to its own office space located opposite the UN Headquarters in New York and in September 2015 it launched a brand new independent Website. Since July 2016 BCN is fiscally sponsored by the Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Help us fulfill the last wish of Argentine grandmothers

The 'Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo' in Argentina have been looking for their children and grandchildren for years. Children who disappeared during the years of the dictatorship, were robbed and (usually illegally) appropriated in families, whether or not through adoption. Time is running out for these grandmothers. Their greatest wish is to hold these children and grandchildren in their arms.

Silly mothers

Background

During the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983), many children were born in captivity. In most cases, the parents of these children have been killed or have disappeared. It is not clear where the children ended up. In many cases they have been adopted illegally. It is suspected that a number of these also ended up in the Netherlands. In collaboration with HIJOS Netherlands, Fiom tries to trace these children. Everyone has the right to know where he/she comes from.

Rishi Singh, winner of Indian Idol 13, said he accepted the life-changing news to continue living the same life with his adoptive parents.

On Sunday, Rishi Singh was crowned as the winner of the 13th edition of the reality show Indian Idol. The young singer hails from Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Rishi, who is not formally trained, did not expect that he would go on to win the competition. Besides being named winner, the singer also learnt some life-changing news during the course of the show, when he found out that he was adopted. He spoke about accepting his truth and learning to live with it.

There were a few people who wondered about the news being shared on air with Rishi, and questioned if it was a ploy to gain votes in the competition. The singer revealed that he tried to shut out any kind of negativity and just focuses on what he had to sing each week. He also added that if he and his family, especially his parents, were aware of the truth, that's what was really important to him.

Rishi told the Indian Express, “Of course, it was big news for me and I was taken aback. I think what was most important was that I accepted the truth. That was the only way I could lead a harmonious life with my parents. Also, I think everyone has seen the bond that we share. They related to me and our story. And I think so many other families like us will get the courage to accept their truth through us.”

Kolkata's Debosmita Roy became the first runner-up, while Jammu and Kashmir's Chirag Kotwal was named the second runner-up. Besides the trophy, Rishi also received a brand new car and prize money worth ?25 lakh. The other finalists on the show were Bidipta Chakraborty, Shivam Singh and Sonakshi Kar.

Introduce…

Fiom is the center of expertise in the field of unwanted pregnancy, distance & adoption and related questions. The starting point of working at Fiom is the right of self-determination of unwanted pregnant women and the right of a child to know where he or she comes from and to grow up while retaining its own identity. Fiom offers information and help with unwanted pregnancies, aftercare in the field of adoption and guides people in their search for biological family in the Netherlands and abroad. We also manage the KID-DNA Database, which enables a match between a donor child and an anonymous donor. We do all this with approximately 80 passionate employees from our offices in 's-Hertogenbosch and Houten and from our home workplaces.

We are immediately looking for a seasoned:

Policy advisor Program Relationship questions

24-28 hours a week

Last October, 35-year-old Mia Lee found out that everything she had been told so far about her adoption was a lie. She was lied dead to her biological parents in South Korea and adopted away. In December, she traveled to South Korea and met her parents for the first time. Now she hopes that someone will be held accountable for the lie.

Mia Lee hasn't cried yet. She even had to fight back a tear when she met her biological parents for the first time because she thought it seemed cold if she didn't show a reaction. But she thinks it's due to the shock, which she hasn't had time to process yet. It has all gone so fast.

- I really have a hard time taking it in and understanding it. I think I'm still in this shock phase. I cut myself off a little from feeling it, because it is simply so extreme, says Mia Lee.

In October last year, she found out that everything she had been told so far about her adoption was a lie. She had not been given away voluntarily by her South Korean family, but had been lied to dead and adopted.

- I have always thought that I knew a lot compared to others who are adopted. In my adoption papers there are a lot of things. My Korean name, where I was born, my date of birth and the reason for adoption. Now I know that not much of it is true, she says, leafing through the adoption papers on the table.

Many decades ago, mainly between 1948 and 1975, orphanages and families that could not afford to raise them sent some 4,000 Greek children to the United States, the Netherlands and other countries for adoption. The children themselves were never asked if they wanted to leave, or if they agreed to lose their Greek citizenship. They knew nothing about the circumstances of their departure. Many were given to families that had no Greek roots, cutting them off not only from the land of their birth but also from their culture, their identity. It is only in recent years that these isolated “lost children” discovered that they were among thousands, protagonists in an unknown but heart-rending episode in the history of the Greeks after the Civil War and during the Cold War. Now, some of them wish to close the circle of their lives with the restoration of their Greek citizenship. One would expect Greece to offer the warm embrace that it denied them when they were born. And yet, it keeps putting up obstacles and dashing hopes.

There is much irony in the fact that services which are notorious for mishandling their records should deny people’s right to their files while demanding full sets of documents from them

“I’ve stopped trying. It hurts too much. It’s broken my heart too many times,” Alexa Maros said during a recent public discussion on the internet hosted by the East Mediterranean Business Culture Alliance (EMBCA). “Self-preservation dictates that I have to stop this quest. I can’t do this alone. But my fondest hope is that together we can get there.” Maros, co-host of the “Persisting” podcast, has been trying to regain her Greek citizenship since 2016, at great cost in terms of dollars and pain. “I have shed many tears in the process. It left me crying and feeling rejected again,” she added. “When I was 8 years old, I asked, ‘Was I that unlovable that I had to be exported?’ The sense of loss can be overwhelming. And the grieving… it’s always there.”

Robyn Bedell, a chef assistant at the University of Connecticut who discovered her Greek family in 2007, added: “I just want to be able to go [to Greece] without a return date if that’s what I want to do.” The discussion was moderated by Lou Katsos, EMBCA’s founder and president. Other participants were: Professor Gonda Van Steen, Koraes Chair, King’s College London, whose 2019 book “Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece: Kid pro Quo?” uncovered the breadth and depth of the adoptions; Mary Cardaras, academic and writer who has compiled an oral history of the “lost children,” of whom she is one; financial consultant Robert Lipsky; educator Maria Heckinger; and journalist Nikos Konstandaras, who has covered the story since 1995.

Some 700 of the thousands of children who were given up for adoption abroad have shown interest in learning more about themselves and in having their Greek citizenship restored. Of the 3,200 who were adopted in the United States and about 600 who were sent to the Netherlands, some have died; others are unaware of the networks of communication that have been established, while others still have been cut off entirely from their Greek past. The number of those who want to reconnect with Greece should not alarm the officials who are still blocking their access to their personal files, obstructing further research and not processing requests for Greek citizenship.

A report by two historians reveals dysfunctions that have occurred over the years in the process of adopting foreign children in France.

Marie Marre, born in Mali, was adopted at 19 months by a couple from Normandy. "I was told that my mother was very poor, and that she had given me up for adoption ," she said. Its adoption was organized in 1989 by an association approved by the French State. By going back to her past, she studied each piece of her file and noted "inconsistencies" .

At the time, his adoptive mother, Brigitte Marre, was not suspicious of the organization, authorized by the State. "It's hard to think that we took someone else's child ," she says. Along with eight other adopted children, Marie Marre filed a complaint against the association and its correspondent in Mali.

Many reports

In a report, two historians report numerous reports of this type, in dozens of countries. "When candidates for adoption from northern countries ask for children to adopt, that creates an offer in southern countries, with all sorts of possible deviations" , analyzes Yves Denichère, researcher at the University of Angers (Maine -et-Loire).

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains names and possibly images of people who have died. Readers are warned this story discusses issues that might be traumatic.

Harry Mills was taken from his family twice.

As a boy, he was removed from his parents on Yindjibarndi country in Western Australia's Pilbara region and placed in the Carnarvon Mission more than 700 kilometres away.

In the mid-1970s, as a young man with a wife and three children, he was working in the Gascoyne region when a senior elder connected to the Yindjibarndi mob told him he must return to the north to be with family and learn their culture.

Mr Mills refused, and says he cried for his wife and kids as he was bundled into the back of a Bedford truck.

Fatal Stabbing Ex Diplomats Daughter

FILE - This photo provided by the Montgomery County Police Dept. shows Sophia Negroponte. Negroponte, the daughter of former U.S. intelligence director John Negroponte, has been found guilty Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023, of fatally stabbing a 24-year-old man after a drunken argument inside a Maryland home. (Montgomery County Police Dept. via AP, File)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — The daughter of former U.S. intelligence director John Negroponte was sentenced Friday to 35 years in prison in the fatal stabbing of a friend after a drunken argument at a Maryland home, prosecutors announced.

Sophia Negroponte, 30, of Washington, D.C., was convicted in January of second-degree murder in the 2020 death of 24-year-old Yousuf Rasmussen. Guidelines called for a sentence of 15 to 25 years, but Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Terrence McGann went beyond those guidelines, citing a need for community protection and rehabilitation, and calling her a “struggling, anger-filled alcoholic,” news outlets reported.

L'Hybridé offers a series of six workshops including initiation and preparation activities related to the theme of returning to origins via the Zoom platform.

These workshops are intended for people adopted internationally who are thinking or who are in the process of returning to their country of origin in order to find out more about where they come from, or to go in search of of their biological family. The program is also relevant for anyone who has already had this experience and who wants to share it with others. The workshop can thus be used to reflect on what they have experienced and how they have felt since their return and/or the meeting with their biological families.

OBJECTIVE

Normalize the quest for origins and gain confidence

Better understand the concerns, questions and needs related to the desire to return to origins