Guwahati, Aug 12 (PTI) Union minister Munjapara Mahendrabhai on Saturday said that amendments in the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, 2015, have been made for better protection of children in need of care or in conflict with law.
    He said these changes have also made it mandatory for states to deliver on all aspects of juvenile justice, including constituting child welfare committees and registration of child care institutions.
    The minister was speaking at the fifth one-day regional symposium on child protection, child safety and child welfare, organised here by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD).
    Representatives from all the eight northeastern states participated in the symposium, which was also attended by over 1,200 representatives from child welfare committees (CWCs), district child protection units, Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs), members of village child protection committee (VCPC) and Anganwadi workers.
    The programme is part of a series of regional symposiums to be held across the country to raise awareness about child protection, child safety and child welfare issues, a PIB release said.
    In his address, Mahendrabhai, Minister of State, MoWCD, highlighted the changes made in the JJ Act 2015, its rules and adoption regulations.
    "These changes will help in delivering better quality services to the children in need of care and protection and also children in conflict with law," he maintained.
    He said definitions of terms such as foster care, inter-country adoption, specialised adoption agencies and sponsorship have been duly amended.
    Similarly, it has been made mandatory for states to constitute Juvenile Justice Boards in every district, constitution of one or more child welfare committees in every district, mandatory reporting of a child found separated from guardian and registration of child care institutions, the minister added.
    Additional Secretary, MoWCD, Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, in his speech, appreciated the work being done by all the functionaries in different states for child welfare under the JJ Act.
    He highlighted the success of Child Helpline in various states and focused on the implementation of the principle of "no child is left out" to help them become responsible citizens of the country.
    National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairperson Priyank Kanoongo shared the changes made in the spheres of child trafficking, street children, child adoption and monitoring of children care institutions.
    Giving an example of how NCPCR has been spearheading child welfare, he mentioned the case of Kiphire district in Nagaland.
    "We travelled for 17 hours by road from Dimapur to reach Kiphire. It was the first time that child welfare functionaries were visiting the district. We received over 250 complaints from the residents. We noticed the 20-year-old Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya there was functioning without a building. The issues were subsequently addressed. JNV Kiphire now has a school building," Kanoongo said.
    The successful interventions under Mission Vatsalya were also disseminated during the symposium, the release said.
    Mission Vatsalya is a roadmap to achieve development and child protection priorities aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It lays emphasis on child rights, advocacy and awareness along with strengthening of the juvenile justice care and protection system with the motto to 'leave no child behind'.
    The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 provisions and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 form the basic framework for implementation of the Mission.

An organisation involved in reconnecting families devastated by the forced adoption era has called for compensation for mothers, fathers and children who were adopted out as babies in a strongly-worded submission to Western Australia's inquiry into the practice.

So far, Victoria has been the only state in the country to promise redress to thousands of mainly unwed mothers who were coerced into giving up their babies for adoption from the 1930s to the 1980s.

But now the head of the organisation Jigsaw WA, which has been supporting people traumatised by forced adoption since 1978, has called for all parties – mothers, fathers and adoptees — to receive redress which would be a national first.

In her submission to the ongoing WA inquiry, Jigsaw manager Isabel Andrews called for a base rate of redress for anyone involved in forced adoption, many of whom have had to deal with life-long consequences including PTSD, depression, grief and identity issues.

"It's important to acknowledge that some individuals experienced additional layers of trauma, such as adoptees who were abused by their adoptive parents," Ms Andrews said in the submission.

Today is International Youth Day — a day to celebrate the promise and power of young people all over the world. An important part of that celebration is reckoning with the unique hardships that youth so often have to overcome, and the wisdom they bring to the table as a result.

Particularly deserving of our attention this International Youth Day are those who live or used to live in residential care facilities, sometimes called orphanages or children’s homes. The statistics vary from country to country, but an overwhelming majority — 80% or more — of children in residential care actually have at least one living parent.

The reason children end up in residential care is often due to poverty combined with another factor, like lack of access to school. A poor family may experience a crisis that results in their child being placed in residential care where they hope their child’s basic needs will be met. In Guatemala, approximately 4,000 children live in the care of these types of facilities, many placed there by poverty-stricken families who think they are doing the right thing. Nearly half of Guatemalan families live below the poverty line.

However, a group of Guatemalan young people is coming together to improve future generations' outcomes.

One of those young people is 21-year-old Rebeca. Rebeca grew up in residential care and wants more for herself and her country. She understands firsthand the challenges of living in residential care and being separated from her family. As she was nearing 18 years old, the age when she would need to leave residential care, Rebeca recalls lying awake at night wondering how she would forge a path forward in the overwhelming, sometimes frightening world waiting for her outside the orphanage. Where would she work? Who would support her if she needed help? Would opportunities come her way? Would she struggle to care for herself? 

In 2019, ZEIT ONLINE reported on a Greek clinic where couples from Germany had children born. Now the police have arrested the doctors.

Greek police have closed a surrogacy clinic on the island of Crete and arrested eight employees, including the facility's two senior doctors. The police in Athens said it was a "criminal organization whose members are said to be guilty of human trafficking and illegal child adoptions," the police in Athens said in response to the case , which is currently causing a stir across the country . ZEIT ONLINE had already reported on the same clinic in the city of Chania in an investigative research in 2019 and uncovered a number of inconsistencies back then. Some media in Greece also accuse the investigators of thisthat they should have intervened sooner. Surrogacy is permitted in Greece under strict legal requirements, but even back then research showed that these were not being adhered to in the now closed clinic.

As the police further announced, in the far-reaching investigations since last December alone, at least "182 cases of exploitation of women in the area of ​​egg retrieval and surrogacy have been registered", and there have been a further 400 cases of fraud in the area of ​​artificial insemination. According to the police, the 73-year-old director and founder of the clinic, whom the ZEIT ONLINE reporters spoke to during their undercover research, together with other employees, set up an international network of "brokers" to bring "vulnerable foreign women" to Greece and "exploit them there as egg donors or surrogate mothers".

The Greek police continue to say that the aim was to meet the “wishes of the organization’s customers from all over the world”. These were childless couples, as well as single or same-sex men who wanted to have children. In 2019, the two reporters from ZEIT ONLINE posed as a childless couple from Germany at the clinic under a false identity and met one of the surrogate mothers. The head of the clinic confirmed at the time that he had already worked “with many couples from Germany”. In Greece, however, surrogacy is only permitted on condition that there is no commercial purpose associated with it. For example, a friend or relative may carry a baby for a childless couple. A prerequisite is also judicial permission for such surrogacy. According to the police, the clinic often forged these.
 

Women housed in 14 controlled apartments

The police said they have registered a case of conspiracy and illegal trafficking of a human being but have not arrested anyone in the case so far.

The Bhoiwada police on Wednesday registered a case against a Bhiwandi-based couple for illegally adopting a seven-day-old child from an Uttar Pradesh-based woman. The police said the child was born to a woman through an illicit relationship and as she did not want to keep the child, the infant was handed over to the childless couple.

According to the police officials, the three persons who have been booked have been identified as Irshad Rangrez, his wife Tahira and a woman named Rubina Bano.

The police said that Irshad, who is a vegetable vendor, stays with his wife in Bhiwandi while Bano was their neighbour there till four years ago. In 2019, Bano left her Bhiwandi residence and shifted to Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh with her family and she was aware that the couple were not able to conceive a child and were undergoing treatment.

“So on July 18, she allegedly called the couple and informed them that one of her relatives had delivered a child and they wanted to give him away. Bano further asked them to come to UP and take custody of the child immediately,” said an officer.

For years, Bibi Hasenaar felt rejected because she was adopted aged four. Then she saw a photo that described her as missing – and began to uncover an astonishing dark history

Bibi Hasenaar has had two lives. One began in November 1976, when she was about four, arriving in the Netherlands to meet her adoptive parents. “I remember it vividly. There’s a photo of us at the airport with other children arriving from Bangladesh – it was published in a Dutch paper.” Her older brother Babu was there, too.

Her other life appears only in fragments. She remembers being in a children’s home with another older brother and having her food stolen by older children. “It was not a nice place to be,” Hasenaar says. Her only memory of their mother is her long black hair. But of the flight out of Bangladesh, she remembers every detail. At her kitchen table in the village of Muiderberg, 30 minutes’ drive east of Amsterdam, sipping hot water and fresh ginger, the 51-year-old slowly recounts the long journey that changed her life.

Thousands of children born to victims of rape during Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 were adopted by foreign families. Now, many want to discover their roots

Jane Radika was searching for answers. Approaching 50, she had become reflective about life and yearned to know more about the circumstances of her adoption, from an orphanage in Bangladesh to a small Cornish town in England.

“I was only five weeks old when I came to the UK, so I have no recollection of it. From what I have learned, my mum gave birth to me in the Mother Teresa orphanage in Dhaka. Unfortunately, I have conflicting information – her name may be on my Bangladeshi birth certificate or it may not. It has been lost, which is heartbreaking, but apparently the orphanage has a copy.”

Jane knew almost nothing of Bangladesh growing up and online searches got her only so far. She felt drawn to visit, but the pandemic and personal circumstance had made the prospect seem distant. One morning, she decided to write a letter to the Guardian:

“Dear Thaslima, I came across some of your articles and wondered if you could help. I was adopted into the UK from Bangladesh in 1972 by a British family. I grew up not knowing anything about my past, except that I was a ‘war baby’ and that my birth mother was a Birangona. I want to know if there are others out there like me. Who are they? Where did they go? Can you help?”

Shai Blum, 55, suspected of taking Omri, 23, to woods outside their Maccabim home and shooting him nine times, stabbing him twice; police reject claim of self-defense

Prosecutors filed a murder indictment Thursday against a man accused of shooting and stabbing his adult son, who was on the autism spectrum.

Shay Blum, 55, was charged at the Central District Court with the premeditated murder of his  adopted son Omri, 23.

According to the indictment, on July 14 this year Blum shot Omri nine times with a pistol and then stabbed him in the chest twice, piercing his heart.

Hyderabad: An Italian couple has adopted a 10-year-old orphan from Karimnagar. The couple from Casarsa della Delizia, Italy, was handed over the child after completing formalities as per the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) guidelines.

“I interacted with the child. He was comfortable with the Italian couple, who came to adopt him. I have also advised him to maintain contact with us and keep us informed about his well-being in Italy,” district collector B Gopi told TOI on Wednesday.

The boy was taken care by Sishu Vihar till he was six years. Thereafter, he was in the care of the authorities at a different place. The Italian couple spoke only Italian and an English interpreter accompanied them as the child was formally handed over in adoption to them.

As per CARA rules, prospective parents seeking to adopt a child, whether, they are from within the country or abroad, should fulfil certain criteria. They will not be given a choice on whether they will be given a boy or a girl in adoption. However, an attempt will be made to accommodate their request. The profile of a child is first sent to the prospective parents, who register as per CARA norms. The child will formally be given in adoption to them once they respond within 96 hours.

Are you an adopter? Have the recent media stories about crime in the adoption system made you unsure of what really went on? Unsure whether you can trust your adoption papers?

For a long time, many adoptees have called for an investigation into the international adoption system, but I think it is time for us adopters to come forward. Our children have a right to know their history. And we have a right to know what kind of foundation our families are built on. 

Minister of Social Affairs and Housing Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil is not averse to an investigation into the adoption system. But partly she has not yet acted on it, and partly she proposes that the Danish Appeals Board be responsible for the investigation. The Danish Appeals Board is the supervisory authority in the area of ​​adoption and thus cannot be regarded as impartial.

Therefore, I hope that you will help sign the following petition:

Dear Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil

As adopters, we are pleased that you are showing an interest in the field of adoption and are considering an investigation into international adoption. Recent media cases clearly emphasize the need for such an investigation.

An impartial investigation
However, it is important for us to point out that the Danish Appeals Board is not an impartial party. The Danish Appeals Board is the supervisory authority, and it therefore does not make sense for them to investigate their own work. It is absolutely essential that both adoptees, original families and adopters can have confidence in the outcome of an investigation, and therefore we would like to call for it to be carried out by a completely impartial commission. One could, for example, be inspired by the commission of inquiry which is currently investigating international adoption in Norway.

A comprehensive investigation
Furthermore, we hope for a thorough, ambitious and comprehensive investigation of all international adoption mediation to Denmark from the 1960s until today. Several smaller studies of individual countries and periods have been carried out over time, but there is a need for an overall picture.

Quick initiation
Last but not least, we would like to encourage the investigation to be initiated as soon as possible. The uncertainty affects many, both adoptees, original families and adopters, and action is needed.

On behalf of the following adopters and co-signatories,

Trine Rahbek
adoptanttanker.dk