The Uniform Civil Code is back in the news again after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a strong push for it. If it comes into force, separate personal laws governing marriages, divorce, and inheritance of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, and other communities will be subsumed. India Today takes a deep dive into the complications and vast issues of UCC.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for the creation of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and criticised opposition parties for inciting minority communities against reform. Following this, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board said they would oppose the UCC, while political parties accused the BJP of trying to "distract" and "divert attention from real issues".

The UCC is the proposal to have one law for the entire country, which will apply to all religious communities in personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession, custody and adoption. The implementation of the UCC is likely to subsume personal laws in the country.

India Today takes a deep dive into the complications and questions that would be involved if UCC is implemented.

WHAT IS LIKELY TO BE COVERED UNDER UCC?

Bhopal: A sessions court here sentenced a woman to life imprisonment for killing a one-year-old child whom she & her husband had adopted from an orphanage in Ujjain.

According to the prosecution, the husband of the accused, Ramakant Sharma, had gone to JP hospital on December 12, 2017, with an infant who was declared dead by the doctors.

He told the doctors that the child is severely malnourished, and he was being treated at Hamidia hospital. Dr A K Agrawal informed Govindpura police over phone that a person had come with an infant, who was declared brought dead by Dr Sandeep Gupta after check-up. There were serious injuries on the head of the child. Govindpura police registered a case under section 302 of the IPC and section 23 of POCSO against unidentified accused and started investigation. During interrogation, the couple admitted that the child had fallen off the hands of the woman. It was also revealed that the child had developed severe malnourishment due to lack of proper care. Police had then arrested the accused and subsequently she was charged. tnn

a request for information to the institution of the JA Poch Dossier Committee

An inquest into the death of a baby murdered by his prospective adoptive mother will look at how his placement came about, a coroner has said.

Thirteen-month-old Leiland-James Corkill was killed by Laura Castle in Barrow, Cumbria, in January 2021.

Castle, 39, was convicted of murder and is serving at least 18 years in prison.

At a pre-inquest review, Cumbria assistant coroner Dr Nicholas Shaw said he would look at how Leiland-James's care was handled by local authorities.

Despite Castle's conviction, Dr Shaw said there was "sufficient reason" to hold an inquest to "inquire into events leading up to [the baby's] death" that were not covered by the court case.

Fiona Cahill

29 June 2023  ·

A new digital piece a BBC team put together this afternoon everyone wants to do everything they can

bbc.co.uk

Fiona Cahill

29 June 2023  ·

My beautiful brave mother

bbc.com

LONDON, United Kingdom — The past few decades have seen an upsurge in the phenomenon of “paper orphaning.” Children are taken illicitly from their birthparents and are falsely presented as orphans by means of fraudulent documentation, rendering the children “legally” adoptable to satisfy the demand for intercountry adoptions. This demand, mainly from couples in developed countries wanting to adopt from the Global South, combined with the adoption fees associated, results in recruiters in sending nations using illicit means to generate a sufficient supply of “adoptable” children, or illegal orphans. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, illegal intercountry adoption is a human rights issue as the act violates several human rights and has “devastating consequences on the lives and rights of victims.” Intercountry adoption processes must at all times consider the best interests of the child. The Borgen Project spoke to Professor David Smolin, director of Cumberland School of Law’s Center for Children, Law and Ethics on the topic of illegal intercountry adoptions.

False Promises and Financial Incentives

Through coercive tactics such as deception, bribery or even abduction, wily recruiters obtain children from impoverished, vulnerable families and sometimes even pregnant women, a research article by Griffith University law lecturer Kathryn E. van Doore discusses. These recruiters promise better opportunities for the children, such as a good education, and tell parents that they can see them during the holidays. There are further incentives such as financial or other rewards. Many parents, therefore, do not give consent freely but under psychological pressure and/or deception. Sometimes, recruiters take children by force and, in some cases, parents actually pay to relinquish their child.

These children are then legally “adoptable” through the falsification of identities and papers, including falsified birth certificates and death certificates of the parents, and they become “paper orphans.” These incidents have occurred in Nepal, Cambodia, Uganda and Ghana, among others, says Van Doore on a Griffiths University news page.

Paper Orphaning and Poverty

While exact number of cases is unknown, human rights groups believe at least 20,000 babies were taken between the 1960s and 1990s.

Between the 1960s and 1990s in Chile, human rights groups believe that upwards of 20,000 babies were taken from mostly low-income mothers and adopted out to unsuspecting parents in foreign countries.

The practice amounted to an elaborate human-trafficking operation that involved a network of midwives, doctors, social workers, nuns, priests and judges, many of whom got rich off the scheme while fulfilling a key goal of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s regime to make Chile an economic success.

The practice came to light in 2014, when an investigative news agency called CIPER wrote about some cases involving a priest and a doctor. That’s also when the stolen babies, now adults, started learning that they weren’t voluntarily given up like they always believed.

Since 2014, nonprofits say they’ve helped reunite at least 650 people who were taken from their Chilean mothers and adopted to families in the U.S., Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Peru and Australia.

Reopening intercountry adoptions will put Cambodian children and their families at risk, a group of NGOs said in a statement Wednesday, urging the Cambodian government to stop the process.

Cambodia suspended intercountry adoption in 2009, following reports of unethical actions connected to adoptions. Multiple other countries also banned intercountry adoption from Cambodia during the 2000s. But in the last couple months, Italy and Cambodia have been taking steps to resume adoptions of Cambodian children. 

Cambodian rights groups Cambodian Center for Human Rights, ADHOC and Licadho, along with the international group Intercountry Adoptee Voices, released a joint statement asking Cambodia and Italy to immediately halt any actions leading to the resumption of intercountry adoptions.

A 2018 Licadho report states that thousands of Cambodian children were adopted overseas between the late 1980s and 2009, but many of the children were not orphans. Rather, their parents had placed them in orphanages due to poverty.

“The reopening of intercountry adoptions will only put Cambodian children and families at risk. Adoptions from Cambodia throughout the late 1990s and 2000s were defined by fraud, corruption and coercion,” Licadho outreach director Naly Pilorge said.

Dr. Aurangasri Hinriksson receiving the Order of the Golden Falcon at the President’s House in view of National Day of Iceland 

During most of my adult life I was interested in international affairs, violation of human rights and the harm caused by  racial and religious prejudices

All adopted children have the right to find their biological parents, but the parents do not have the same right as they have signed a document giving up 
that right

In my opinion, a mass DNA analysis of the mothers  who gave away their babies for adoption, is the only way to locate some of the adoptees´ 
biological parents

Over the years I have formed a network of  searchers and informers in various parts of Sri Lanka

I also got inolved in raising funds to build a music school in Isafirdi using my eastern cultural knowledge and also managed to raise funds to buy a life-saving boat for the Accident Prevention Society. In appreciation of the above charitable activities, I was awarded immediate citizenship. Today my son and I are dual citizens

Some of the cases that I investigated, demonstrated that newborns were stolen from hospital from unsuspecting mothers and whisked away to Colombo and kept in safe houses run by the above said lawyer in Kotahena and in Punchi Borella, till such time they were ready to be adopted by a prospective adoptee parent from Europe

Adoptions these days are very few and mainly from the Czech Republic and last year there were none. The Icelandic Adoption Society became a registered legal binding institution during the years 1999 to 2000. The Society follows strict rules and regulations set out by the 1993 Hague Convention on intercountry adoptions

Nowadays, when I find a mother, I use different tactics. I tell her something like that she has won the lottery because her son or daughter living abroad is looking for her and the best period of her life has dawned etc. I say that her lucky stars are shining before I determine whether I have found the correct person or not 

 

In early 1980s, Dr. Aurangasri Hinriksson decided to settle down in Isafirdi, Iceland with her husband and little son. Her interests to serve the community were such that she not only taught English and Mathematics to her community, but even went to the extent of reuniting adopted children from Sri Lanka with their families. Back in the ‘80s, Sri Lanka was infamous for its baby farms and baby smuggling rackets. According to Dr. Hinriksson, during the 1985/86 period, Sri Lanka not only had baby farms, but there had been active child abductors, child agents and sellers who fell into the illegal child trade. On June 17, Dr. Hinriksson was bestowed with the Order of the Golden Falcon, the highest honour awarded by the Icelandic government to appreciate individuals who have done an exemplary service to society. In a candid interview with the Daily Mirror, Dr. Hinriksson shed light on how 
Sri Lankan babies were smuggled to countries such as Iceland, her experiences dealing with baby rackets and reuniting these children with their families and living the greater part of her life in one of the happiest countries in the world. Excerpts :

Q : Tell us about yourself and how it has been to live in a country like Iceland?