A court in Zambia has decided that eight Croatian nationals, arrested on suspicion of human trafficking and falsifying adoption papers in order to adopt children from the Republic of Congo, can be released after posting bail of one thousand dollars and handing over their passports.

The next hearing in the process for alleged human trafficking against the eight Croatian citizens, whose intentions Croatian Foreign Affairs Minister Gordan Grli? Radman assessed as noble, will be held in Zambia on January 23rd. The court had previously allowed them to be released from prison if they posted bail and travel documents. In addition, they will have to report to the police regularly. The eight Croatians, who have been detained for a month in Zambia’s third largest city, Ndola, appeared before a judge for the first time two days ago. They are accused of attempted human trafficking and the falsification of documents.

The four married couples were arrested at the beginning of December at the airport in Ndola on suspicion of human trafficking, specifically that their documents for the adoption of children from the Congo were falsified. Their lawyer Kelvin Silwimba filed a request two days ago to release the accused on bail, however, state prosecutor Francis Mulenga objected to this, arguing that there was clear flight risk. On Thursday, after the court heard from three witnesses, the court decided to release the eight suspects once they meet the required conditions.

An official of the Croatian embassy in South Africa, which also covers Zambia, visited the detained Croatians several times. He also tried to visit the children, who now have Croatian documents and have been transferred to local social welfare services, but his visit was prevented.

Currently there are eight couples in Croatia that are in the process of adopting children from Congo. Since 2012, 131 children from the Congo have been adopted in Croatia. Authorities say the adoption decisions will not be re-evaluated. The head of the Department for Child and Family Protection at the Family and Social Policy Ministry, Melita ?usek: "In question are children who are Croatian citizens, who have integrated into Croatian society, who are attending school in Croatia, know our language, know these people as their parents, and I truly don't see any sense in re-examining those decisions."

Pforzheim/Enz district. It was an intense interrogation: a former EU official who describes herself as a whistleblower sat on the witness stand in the Pforzheim district court for four hours. In the appeal process, a 50-year-old defendant from the Enzkreis district is accused of defamation. As the PZ reported, she is said to have described the Pforzheim city councilor Oana Krichbaum as a "child trafficker" in four Facebook posts.

The witness worked until 2005 in the Commission for EU enlargement and, according to her testimony, dealt with the issue of child protection in Romania. At that time, adoption agencies from Romania are said to have worked together with agencies from other EU countries to place children from Romania with parents abroad.

A system that the EU official did not seem to be comfortable with. "It was legal back then. But history shows us that not everything that was legal is always good," said the woman, who had traveled to Pforzheim from Belgium.

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Two adopted girls will travel to the US, a boy to be with new family in Italy

Thane: The new year has brought blessings in the form of legal parents for 16 orphaned children from Thane. At an informal event on Tuesday, Thane District Collector Ashok Shingare handed over the children to their new families. Among these were 11 girls, with two of them finding parents in the US. Of the five boys, one will relocate to Italy.

Mr Shingare said, “As per the order of the Children Welfare Committee, orphaned, abandoned and neglected children are admitted to the Children of the Word India Trust in Nerul and Janani Ashish Charitable Trust in Dombivli. Prospective parents have to register themselves on the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) website and make an application to the District Collector.

Mr Shingare said that according to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, the Adoption Rules 2022 were framed. Also included in this are inter-relationship and step adoptions

The adoptions announced by Mr Shingare came before the Bombay Court stayed the amendment of the Act pertaining to transfer of jurisdiction to District Magistrates, who are officials of the rank of Collector. “As per the Act, the cases were heard to me,” he said during his speech.

A WITNESS has told the Ndola magistrate court that four couples who attempted to traffic four children from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had them checked into a guest house they were living in two days later.

Estelle Banda, a General Manager at Spree guest house in Ndola narrated to the court that the eight Croatians who were booked at the guest house did not have children when they booked, but that two days later, staff at the guest house found them all with African black children.

This is a matter in which eight people of Croatian descent are charged with suspected human trafficking and were arrested from Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe Airport with children aged between one-year-six months and three years old.

When the matter came up for trial before chief resident Magistrate Dominic Makalicha, Ms Banda told court that after the four couples checked, it was discovered that each had a black child.

She told court that the couples stayed at the lodge for five days and when going to the Airport, they each had an African black child.

They actually only wanted one daughter, but then they ended up with two...The Herrmann family reports on the adoption of their two daughters from Romania.

First encounter at 50 degrees in the sun

Mother holding child hand iStock isitsharp

Photo: © iStockphoto.com/ isitsharp

"Aurelia hugged me right away and called me daddy," Peter Herrmann recalls when he first met his daughter. At that time it was more than 50 degrees hot under the blazing sun on the Black Sea. It was there that the Herrmann family met their adopted child for the first time . "Because time was short in Romania, we had to sign the declaration of consent for the adoption without having met Aurelia," says Aurelia's current father, Peter. "We had only seen a photo of her before."

Croatian adoptive parents arrested in Zambia have proof that the biological mothers gave up their children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jutarnji List daily said on Thursday.

The families of the eight Croatians arrested in Zambia on 7 December on suspicion of child trafficking are waiting to hear if the four couples will be remanded in custody or released on bail. A decision is expected to be made today by a criminal court judge in Ndola, Zambia.

The couples arranged with their lawyers to submit evidence that the children they adopted in the DRC met the requirements for adoption and that their biological mothers gave up parental care, the daily said, adding that the evidence has been gathered.

At a hearing earlier this week, a court-appointed defence attorney requested that the Croatian couples be released on bail, to which the state prosecutor objected, citing flight risk.

A ray of hope that the court could grant bail came from the prosecutor’s claim that in that case, the Croatian nationals must regulate their residence in Zambia for the duration of the trial, Jutarnji List said but added that, according to Zambian journalists, the chances for that are slim.

The court says there is no harm if the existing system of courts handling adoption cases continues till the next day of hearing, February 14, and rejects the argument that the amendment was required to avoid delays in the disposal of the adoption matters.

The Bombay High Court has directed the central and state government not to transfer pending adoption proceedings to district magistrates, as mandated under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act 2021, till the next hearing on a challenge to the Act’s provisions allowing the DMs to issue adoption orders.

The high court said that till the plea is disposed of, the courts currently having such matters on their record and file should continue with the proceedings. “The safer and more prudent course of action would be to allow all the matters to be placed before a single-judge bench of the high court which is assigned to hear such matters… Those orders may continue to be passed until the challenge is finally decided,” it said Tuesday.

The court also stayed the effect and implementation of a September 30, 2022, letter issued by the commissioner of the Women and Child Department asking all courts to transfer adoption cases to district magistrates.

A bench of Justices G S Patel and S G Dige passed the interim order on a writ petition filed by advocates Nisha Pandya and Pradeep Pandya, residents of Kandivli, that challenged the constitutional validity of the 2021 amendment. The petitioners claimed that because of the amendment, which replaced “court” with “District Magistrate”, the adoption procedure would be overseen by the DM, who is an executive officer. The procedure had since 2006 been entrusted to the judiciary, they said, claiming that the amendment was made without any logical reason.

Kiyoshi Yu, a 52-year-old man from Winthrop, Massachusetts, is accused of sexually assaulting one of the three boys he adopted last summer in Bogota, Colombia

A Massachusetts man is accused of sexually assaulting one of the three boys he adopted last year in Colombia.

The office of Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden announced Thursday that 52-year-old Kiyoshi Yu of Winthrop had been charged with assault and battery on a child under 14.

Prosecutors say Yu traveled last summer to Bogota to adopt three boys aged 8, 9 and 13.

"One of the boys told investigators that Yu repeatedly abused the boys in a Bogota hotel shortly after the adoption," the district attorney's office wrote in a news release. "The abuse continued when Yu returned with the boys to the United States."

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted interim stay on transfer of pending adoption matters to the District Magistrates and directed the courts to continue with adjudication in such cases.

The division bench of Justice G. S. Patel and Justice S. G. Dige also issued notice to the Attorney General for India in a writ petition challenging the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act 2021 to the extent that the word ‘Court’ is replaced with ‘District Magistrates’.

The court listed the petition for final disposal on February 14, 2023, at 2.30 pm.

“While considering interim relief, we must bear in mind the primary objective which is the interest of the children and infants who are to be adopted whether these are domestic or foreign adoptions. The concerns of the adoptive parents are also involved," the court said.

The court further said that if the petition succeeds, any orders passed by the District Magistrates will immediately become vulnerable.

The case of the Croatian couples accused of trafficking children from DR Congo became a hot topic in the Croatian media, but the Municipal Court in Zlatar, which has a bizarre verdict in its archives, also brought it into focus.

Mrs. Nataly Anderson was left without her children, who were kidnapped by her ex-husband, also a former SOA employee, Zvonimir Marinović.

This trauma of Ms. Nataly and her children shows how rotten and corrupt the Croatian judicial and social system is.

Mrs. Nataly's family lived in Donja Stubica, Nataly was an employee of HT who fed the family, while Mr. Marinović found himself in customs, demoted, due to political puzzles. (Karamarko case, leaking of documents, UDBA)