Gather as many of the approximately 4,000 Belgians adopted from South Korea as possible, and then look together at recently surfaced reportage images from more than forty years ago. That is what Yung Fierens wants to achieve. “These images show that people already knew what suffering was being done to us. It's time we finally get recognition for that."

The interest group Critical Adoptees Front Europe (CAFE) is demanding official apologies from the government after images have surfaced of South Korean children arriving in our country completely upset, to be handed over to their adoptive parents. CAFE also wants a committee to be established. That message 'Het Nieuwsblad' Tuesday.

The images date from 1981. According to Yung Fierens (45), chairwoman of the interest group Critical Adoptees Front Europe (CAFE), these images show that even then it was already known what malpractice was happening. For example, children were sold and false birth certificates were also drawn up.

“We request an official apology from the government,” said Fierens. “In addition, we want a truth commission that investigates what went wrong with the intercountry adoptions. And finally, we want support in the search for our parents.”

“As the Flemish Minister of Welfare, Public Health and Family, I understand the questions and concerns about abuses in the past,” responds Hilde Crevits (CD&V). “Flanders has been co-authorized for intercountry adoption since 2012. Previously, this was exclusively a federal competence. There is now a federal debate about how to deal with these abuses.” The minister also points out that at the beginning of June the House unanimously asked the government to start an investigation into illegal adoptions in our country.

Crevits adds that last year, on the basis of a report by an expert panel, the Flemish government laid down the guidelines within which international adoption is still possible in the future. “We try to exclude abuses and abuses as much as possible,” says Crevits.

Becoming a mother without being married was often considered a sin in the 50s, 60s and 70s. That is why thousands of women at that time had to give up their babies for adoption immediately after birth, against their will. One of those 'remote mothers' is Trudy Scheele-Gertsen (75), who, together with women's rights organization Bureau Clara Wichmann, filed a lawsuit against the Dutch State because of these abuses.

32-year-old Iresha was born in India and adopted as a baby by Dutch adoptive parents. Iresha is 12 years old when she dares to confide in someone and tells about how things really go at her home. At the age of 15 she is removed from home. She spends her teenage years in various youth care institutions.

Years later she has her own life on track. She lives in Antwerp where she is educated at the art academy and works on her artworks with great passion. This is her story.

Where I come from

I grew up in a family with Dutch parents. After my arrival in the Netherlands, my parents adopted my sister from Colombia. My mother got pregnant twice more. She interrupted one pregnancy and when I was 7 years old they had another son. I've always felt different. I looked different from the people around me.

When I was 5 years old, I traveled to India with my adoptive parents to meet my biological mother. This was a traumatic experience. I was too young to be confronted with my background; the different culture in India and the poverty I saw. When I got off the plane and was confronted by the people living on the streets, I threw up.

The High Court of Kerala has decided to examine the legal issue whether an order can be

passed to conduct the DNA test of a child in a case of paternity dispute.

The Court will examine if passing such a direction will infringe a child's right to privacy,

which has been declared as a fundamental right under Article 21 by the Supreme Court in

the KS Puttaswamy case. The impact of Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872,

INDORE: A woman allegedly inflicted burns on the private parts of her nine-year-old adopted daughter as a punishment for bedwetting in Madhya Pradesh's Indore, police said on Monday.

An offence has been registered against the 40-year-old woman under sections 294 (abusing), 323 (manhandling) and 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 506 (threatening) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), MIG police station in-charge Ajay Verma said.

The accused woman is a close relative of the victim and had adopted her, he said.

The woman had inflicted burns on the child's private parts as a punishment for wetting her bed at night, the official said, adding that no arrest has been made so far in the case.

Meanwhile, Child Welfare Committee (CWC) president Pallavi Porwal said the girl had sustained serious burn injuries on her private parts, some hair on her head had been uprooted and there were nail injury marks on her body.

To some, adoption may seem like a no-brainer solution.

They assume that, for every childless, barren couple there is an "unwanted" baby "available" to fill their home with the pitter-patter that would-be parents crave.

But adoption is a complex beast and rarely as simple as pairing an orphaned child with a barren couple (nor should it be).

The reality in South Africa is that nuclear families are the exception and not the rule. According to Statistics South Africa, this is largely due to legacy issues, labour migration and low marital rates.

And, while there are many other factors that play a role in diverse family arrangements, what it means is that one-fifth (21.3%) of the 19.7-million children in South Africa do not live with their parents.

PIKE COUNTY, Mo. (KMOV) -- A Missouri family trying to adopt a little boy in what’s become an international adoption nightmare is suing the federal government and seeing their case get traction in court.

Adam and Jill Trower’s struggle to adopt now 4-year-old Luke from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been going on for years.

The Pike County family started working with an international adoption agency, and in 2018 they were connected with Luke. At the time, Luke was a couple of months old, the Trowers SAID he was found abandoned in a trash pile on a busy road.

“We have tried to do everything correct and it doesn’t matter,” Jill Trower cried.

The Trowers claim the U.S. government wrongly blocked Luke’s adoption. A recent News 4 Investigation looked at how the Trowers are suing the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with an agency under them, and the U.S. embassy in the DRC. The Trowers told News 4 what happened during their adoption process doesn’t add up.

INDORE: A woman allegedly inflicted burns on the private parts of her nine-year-old adopted daughter as a punishment for bedwetting in Madhya Pradesh's Indore, police said on Monday.

An offence has been registered against the 40-year-old woman under sections 294 (abusing), 323 (manhandling) and 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 506 (threatening) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), MIG police station in-charge Ajay Verma said.

The accused woman is a close relative of the victim and had adopted her, he said.

The woman had inflicted burns on the child's private parts as a punishment for wetting her bed at night, the official said, adding that no arrest has been made so far in the case.

Meanwhile, Child Welfare Committee (CWC) president Pallavi Porwal said the girl had sustained serious burn injuries on her private parts, some hair on her head had been uprooted and there were nail injury marks on her body.

Poet Lemn Sissay, with the help of London’s Foundling Museum, has gathered 59 athletes, artists, CEOs and others who, like him, spent part of their childhoods in care. The result is an inspiring photograph for young people in care today

Introduction by Claire Armitstead. Interviews by Killian Fox

Sun 24 Jul 2022 08.00 BST

“Ionce was Christopher Goldsmith,” reads a poem, neatly typed out on one side of a piece of A4 paper. On the back another poem is handwritten, composed on the train into London this morning, fresh on the page. They’re part of a poem-a-day project by their author Paul Cookson, who was born in the north of England and adopted shortly afterwards by a family in Essex. “Christopher Goldsmith lived for a month,” he writes, “then quietly died, slipped away/ Almost never existed… Christopher died so that I might have life/ and have it more abundantly.”

Cookson is one of the success stories of the UK’s care system. He was the eldest of three adopted siblings, all from different families. They were happy, he says. “None of us have ever gone back to look for our birth families.” But his writing tells a subtly different story: “And so, nearly half a century later/ nearer to the end of the journey/ than the beginning,/ those questions arise/ and may remain unanswered/ but arise anyway.”