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The Egg: A Story of Adoption and Happiness with Two Mothers

Remote mothers, mothers in the Netherlands who have had to give up their child for adoption, will not receive compensation from the government, the court ruled earlier this year. The coercion to adopt did not come from Child Protection, but from their own environment. In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice and Security is conducting a second investigation into exactly that question: whether or not state coercion? An initial investigation was aborted following complaints of bias and privacy violations. If the state does indeed appear to have made a mistake, the cabinet wants to prevent proceedings by settling. Journalist Marco de Vries went to the setting of his own adoption together with his mother of waiver Mieke and wrote this personal story about it.

I have two mothers. Which one is the real one? One, Jantina, believes that everything is controlled from above. The other, Mieke, prefers to steer himself. She can't handle navigation systems, usually has a road map unfolded on the passenger seat where I am now. This trip was my idea, but she immediately said yes, does not get talked about it on the way and therefore misses the right exit.

Then we take the next one and drive around. Her van thunders over the back roads of the Veluwe. The meadows are yellow and swampy in the November sun, the woods bare and grim. I grew up here, she is strange. I'm still looking for the address on my phone. Turn left in six kilometers, Google says. Destination reached.

Henk and Ineke turn out to live right behind my old primary school. Would I have ever seen them at that time? I may have played soccer with one of their many children. They are slightly older than Mieke, but just as vital. Ineke wears her long, white hair in two pigtails. She leans back in her large chair and looks at me searchingly.

I tell about myself. How it went. Still got there reasonably well. That I would like to meet them. My voice sometimes gets hoarse when it comes to that. An egg filled with mucus and snot that belches when asked difficult questions. But those aren't your real parents, are they? But where do you really come from? Well, from here apparently. I hatched with these people. And now they expect a thank you? No, I don't get that impression.

Advisor Central Authority International Children's Affairs

Ministry of Justice and Security, Directorate-General for Punishments and Protection

Job description

The Advice, Management and Central Authority (ARC) directorate at the Directorate-General for Punishment and Protection (DGSenB) is looking for an enthusiastic and solid adviser who will carry out the activities within the Central Authority for International Children's Affairs (Ca IKA). area of ??the Hague Child Protection Convention and the Hague Child Abduction Convention. This concerns two temporary positions (one for 32 and one for 36 hours) for a period of one year.

Activities

In the role of advisor at the Ca IKA, the activities have a varied character.

Bengal prefers girls over boys when it comes to adoption

KOLKATA: Prospective parents in West Bengal have preferred adopting a girl child in the past four years. According to records available with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), childless couples, unmarried men or women, widows, divorcees and widowers are more interested in adopting a girl than a boy child. Sociologists have found the trend a positive sign as it indicates a societal change in terms of awareness.

“For adopting a child, applicants have to apply online on CARA. Applicants have to mention in their application whether they want to adopt a girl child or a boy. According to the CARA report, more than half of the applicants showed their interest in adopting a girl child in the past four years,” said an official of the state government’s women, child development and social welfare department.

According to records available with the state government, a total of 855 children were adopted since 2018-19 and among them, 512 are girl children. According to the rule book, anyone can apply to adopt a child. The district magistrates give final approval after representatives of the government visit the houses of the applicants, conduct counselling sessions, and arrange meetings between the applicants and the child to be adopted.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry initiates case against Russian ombudswoman for illegally adopting a Ukrainian child

According to the ministry, the ombudswoman also admitted to facilitating the illegal adoption in Russia of about 350 more children from the occupied regions of the Donbas.

“Transfer of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia and their subsequent adoption by Russian citizens grossly violate the legislation of Ukraine, as well as the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, which provides for the obligation of the occupying state not to change the civil status of children, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989,” the ministry said in a comment.

Ukrainian diplomats have called on the international community to “strongly condemn the ongoing crimes committed by Russia and its officials against children in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.”

“Ukraine will continue to make every effort to ensure that Ukrainian children who were illegally taken and adopted in Russia are returned to their parents or legal guardians,” reads the report.

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Children are being taken from Ukraine and adopted in Russia, US think tank says

Children are continuing to be taken from battle zones in Ukraine for adoption in Russia - that's according to the US Institute of War, which cites confirmations from Russian media.

It says children have been transported from the devastated city of Mariupol to be processed by the office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights. The end goal is to be adopted into Russian families.

Its head, Maria Lvova-Belova, has herself taken in a teenager according to one of her posts on the Telegram messaging service. Meanwhile, in Kherson, people continue to be evacuated and moved into Russia proper, which Ukraine advised its citizens to resist.

According to an investigation by AP, Russia is conducting an open effort to adopt Ukrainian children and bring them up as Russian.

Moscow claims that these children don't have parents or guardians to look after them, or that they can't be reached. But AP alleges that officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent and lied to them that they weren't wanted by their parents.

With the Surrogacy Act, the judiciary has the chance to expand scope of reproductive rights

The Surrogacy Act and the Assisted Reproduction Technology Act miss out on addressing some crucial aspects. The SC and Delhi HC now have the opportunity to assess the Acts through the framework of reproductive rights and justice, and extend recent constitutional jurisprudence on the right to privacy, reproductive autonomy, and recognition of non-traditional families

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021 and the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021 (ART Act) came into force early this year. The Acts aim to regulate the multimillion-dollar industry of reproductive medicine, stipulate who can access assisted reproductive technologies and procedures such as in vitro fertilisation and surrogacy, the conditions under which gamete donation and surrogacy can take place, and specify requirements for clinics to operate.

The Acts allow only married infertile couples and certain categories of women to avail of ARTs and surrogacy. Sale of gametes and any payment to the surrogate mother, other than insurance coverage and medical expenses, has been prohibited. Clinics and banks offering ART procedures have to be registered.

Reproductive technologies allow people who are unable to conceive or achieve pregnancy, for medical and non-medical reasons, to have biological children. Inequities in access to healthcare, including infertility care, are pervasive and disproportionately impact persons from marginalised contexts. Equitable access to infertility care, including reproductive technologies, is part of the full spectrum of reproductive rights, including the right to make decisions about one’s reproductive life, to health, and to equality and non-discrimination. In India, ARTs are offered by an expensive privatised medical industry that was unregulated for decades. The technologies can be used to transform traditional notions of family and strengthen the status of same-sex and other queer couples by expanding the ability to reproduce beyond heterosexual marital unions. Use of ARTs can also entrench notions of genetic parenthood as the “true” form of parenthood. ARTs provoke complex legal, ethical and social dilemmas, and their regulation requires consideration and balancing of conflicting interests and values.

Petitions against the Acts have now been filed before the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court by an IVF specialist and persons desiring to become parents, respectively. Both petitions challenge the Acts as being discriminatory and violative of reproductive autonomy and choice by denying access to ARTs to single persons and people in live-in and same-sex relationships. The petitions also oppose the ban on commercial surrogacy, arguing that it is unreasonable and deprives surrogate mothers of reproductive agency.

Secret Identities

“I don’t know who I am…

if you’ve ever made a jigsaw and you’ve got one piece missing, that’s how I feel.”

John Tuthill never knew his biological parents and the circumstances of his birth in Dublin 44 years ago remain a mystery.

John

Adopted as a baby in 1979, he has little idea about his original identity, despite a frustrating 13-year search.

For Sale: Uzbek Babies, Never Parented.

“Shame” culture and poverty are forcing some Uzbek women to sell their newborns for pennies and purity.

Although trafficking in person has decreased in Uzbekistan due to a number of government efforts, the sale of children has taken off in recent years. While financial difficulties force many young families to sell their newborns, unmarried girls are opting to do so primarily because of “purity” culture.

Uzbekistan adopted its first law against human trafficking in 2008 and updated it in 2020. Reportedly, nearly 100 non-governmental organizations also work in the country to eliminate it. The number of registered crimes related to human trafficking decreased from 574 in 2012 to just 74 in 2020. However, the trafficking of children has seen a relative increase compared to other types of human trafficking – in 2018, 38 percent of crimes related to human trafficking involved child trafficking; by 2019 that proportion was 43 percent. In 2017-2020, 185 crimes related to selling and buying children were registered. Often, the crime mostly involves women. In 2019, for example, 86 percent of people charged with a child sale were women.

There are three main explanations of this practice. One is “purity” culture, which dictates girls should not have premarital sex. The Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan says that in many child trafficking cases, girls become pregnant before marriage and hide it from their families and neighbors. They give birth in other regions of the country, away from their home. The people who help them with delivery also arrange the sale of the baby.

The shame of being a non-virgin, especially giving birth without a husband, is detrimental for girls in Uzbekistan. “Non-virgin” girls have to settle for previously married or widowed men who are usually around a decade older or they become second wives. To avoid such a fate, girls either terminate their pregnancy or sell the newborns and restore their hymen.

Bernard Arnault: Captain of the flagship of the bourgeoisie

Do you also want to be broke, have so much dough that writing a super badass check to save Notre-Dame de Paris sounds like a small gift (almost 4 times the amount of the Telethon on its own )? To achieve this degree of excellence, Bernard Arnault's luck did not happen by itself, nor in a day. Back to the cascade of events where Bernard Arnault using trickery was able to ransack the Boussac group.

To go back to the origins of Bernard Arnault's fortune, we have to go much further back. One name: Marcel Boussac (1889-1980). Fallen into oblivion in history, he was the richest man in Europe 1 , like B. Arnault today. Big boss of French textiles, nicknamed the " king of cotton “, supplier of the French army during the war, collaborator when necessary, but also an ally of circumstance with the Resistance. Marcel Boussac is a boss as his time knew how to produce. Top hat, owning castles, stud farms and racehorses. The Boussac empire had at its peak up to 21,000 employees throughout France after the Second World War, including a small nugget named Christian Dior, who caused a stir in haute couture circles in 1947...

Reactionary, nationalist, fierce opponent of decolonization, owner of several media ( l'Aurore , Paris-Turf ), proud paternalist, autocratic, Boussac did not see the upheavals of the sixties coming and persisted in old-fashioned management. of his group. In 1962, Crédit Lyonnais asked Boussac for his personal guarantee. In short, his personal assets are at stake for any credit application or to cover losses. Over time, the losses increased: 50 million in 1976, 100 in 1977 and 160 announced for 1978.

Ruined, cornered by debt, Boussac was forced to sell his empire in 1978 to the Willot brothers. He dies two years later.

Here Come the Daltons [1978-1981]

Niels | Sex, drugs & rock 'n roll

That's how you could describe a large part of my life in Amsterdam. From 1999 to 2018 I was allowed to live in Amsterdam. A life that I describe in retrospect as sex, drugs and rock and roll, especially the first ten years.

I was 27 years old when I moved from Deventer to Amsterdam, a wish I've had for a long time. Growing up as a homosexual in the Noordoostpolder was not for me. And I also noticed that I did not dare to be completely free in Deventer. After I 'come out' to my adoptive parents, everything made me feel like I had to move to the capital quickly because that's where it all happened, or so I thought at the time. And when the time came that I had found a place to live in Amsterdam, I couldn't believe my luck.

I came to live in the E-neighbourhood of Amsterdam Zuidoost, and found a job at KPN's call center. I combined that with an internship at the PAAZ in Zaandam. Working during the week and doing internships, going out on weekends. The latter in particular was a real revelation to me. Surrounded by other gay men for three days in a row, I loved it.

I soon found out that this life also had a downside. I also quickly spent the money I earned. Going to the Thermos sauna twice a week, and dancing every Friday and Saturday evening in the EXIT, is financially difficult. Going out every week also meant, for me at least, that I needed a lot of new clothes. And although I bought my clothes at H&M at the time, it went pretty fast. I thought it was also important to look good if you wanted to fit in.

Because my salary went through quickly, and my thoughts of 'new clothes and stuff count' became the only truth, I was short of money. It also didn't help that I bought a so-called comfort card and started buying things on installment. That only made the problem worse. In order to quickly get extra money, I decided to do escort work on the advice of an acquaintance. This turned out to be lucrative, there were many men who were willing to have sex with me, and who were willing to pay for it. In order to keep up with all this, I looked for help, which I found in the use of drugs. Taking ecstasy and snorting cocaine became part of my life over the weekend.