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.

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.

“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.

“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.

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]

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.

In America, popular narratives about adoption tend to focus on happy endings. Poor mothers who were predestined to give their children away for a “better life”; unwanted kids turned into chosen ones; made-for-television reunions years later. Since childhood, these story lines about the industry of infant adoptions had gradually seeped into my subconscious from movies, books, and the news.

Then, following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the tropes proliferated. Photos of smiling white couples holding signs that read we will adopt your baby went viral this summer, quickly inspiring online mockery. Many U.S. adoption agencies prepared for a potential increase in adoption in states that have made abortion illegal, despite limited evidence that a need for these services will increase.

As I found while researching a book on identical twins raised in radically different circumstances, the reality of adoption is far more complicated than some might think—and, as many adoptees and scholars have argued, deserving of a more clear-eyed appraisal across American culture. I began reporting Somewhere Sisters in 2016. The identical twins Isabella and Hà were born in Vietnam in 1998, and their mother struggled to care for them. Isabella (born Loan) was adopted by a wealthy, white American family that gave her a new name and raised her in the suburbs of Chicago. Hà was adopted by a biological aunt and her partner, and grew up in a rural village in Vietnam with sporadic electricity and frequent monsoons.

Over several years, I interviewed the sisters, their first family, and their adoptive families. I also followed the twins’ anticipated yet fraught reunion at age 13 and the time that followed. Meanwhile, I delved into the archives of adoption history and scholarship. And I interviewed other adoptees from around the world. This all made clear to me that when reunions with birth families do happen, they aren’t always happy; they can be painful, confusing, or traumatic.

I also saw how scores of adoptees who are parents, lawyers, educators, or activists have been challenging the rosy image of adoption that stubbornly persists in our culture. One of them is Victoria DiMartile, a biracial Black and white adoptee raised by a white family, who is working toward her Ph.D. in anthropology at Indiana University at Bloomington. She studies the social and economic effects of the adoption business and is the founder of Wreckage and Wonder, which provides adoption education. Children are not offered up for adoption in a vacuum, she told me. Many of them “are available because of certain, very strategic political policies.”

Finding Home For 30 Million Abandoned Children: How Can India Attain High Adoption Level?

Vidyadhar Prabhudesai

Writer: Vidyadhar Prabhudesai (Guest Author)

India, 25 Oct 2022 7:48 AM GMT

Creatives : Shiva Chaudhary

NAGPUR: The Nagpur bench of Bombay high court has directed the Chandrapur Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to decide whether to hand over a two-year-old child’s custody to her birth mother, or a couple who raised the baby since soon after birth. The girl is currently placed in a home for destitutes.

The girl was born out of a live-in relationship in December 2019, and in March 2020 handed over to a childless couple after the petitioner was unable to take care of her. Even the girl’s father refused to look after her, and none of the relatives supported the petitioner as she was an unwed mother. The HC had ordered DNA tests of the petitioner and the child on September 19, to confirm she was her biological mother.

“The DNA profiling of the child and the petitioner has been done. The report is that she is the biological mother of the girl. In this view of the matter, we dispose of the petition by requesting the CWC to take an appropriate decision, consistent with the DNA profiling report, and of course keeping in mind the interest and welfare of the child,” a division bench comprising justices Rohit Deo and Urmila Phalke Joshi said, while allowing the petitioner to interact with her daughter subject to administrative convenience.

The backdrop of their order was a complaint lodged by the petitioner alleging that the foster parents had induced her to deliver the custody of the child, and prepared a false and fabricated document purporting to be an adoption deed which was notarized. “We are not delving deeper in the rest of the allegations in her complaint since we are informed the foster parents have instituted civil suit seeking to establish rights as adoptive parents,” the judges said, while directing the CWC to admit the kid into the remand home for destitutes.

According to the petitioner, when she found that the couple lacked financial resources, she demanded they hand over the child’s custody back to her. After the couple declined, she approached the district child protection officer.

Ukrainian children say they were taken against their will by Russian forces and placed up for adoption in Russia, where the process has been expedited

Ukrainian officials said thousands of children were taken by Russian forces from occupied areas of Ukraine and forcibly deported to Russian-occupied territories or Russia itself, where adoption of the children has been fast-tracked.

One child, a 14-year-old girl identified only as Anya, told The New York Times she was taken against her will and is still stuck in Russia, living with a foster family. She said she was on track to become a Russian citizen, even though she wants to return to her friends and family in Ukraine.

"I didn't want to go," she told the Times, who interviewed her via instant messages and voice memos. "But nobody asked me."

Anya is just one example among recent reports on Russia's efforts to adopt Ukrainian children and raise them as Russian. Ukrainian officials as early as April said Russian forces were "forcibly deporting" kids and fast-tracking adoptions. An official count tracked by the Ukrainian government says more than 8,700 have been deported, but the figure is difficult to track.