JANET OGUNDEPO writes about the cartels trafficking in babies

After 31-year-old Chineye Odoh allegedly agreed to sell her newborn twins for about N3m, sadly Odoh was allegedly killed by some women collaborators who purportedly facilitated the process.

The Enugu State Police Command said that the suspects, after selling the twins, gave the mother an amount lesser than what was agreed. They were said to have later poisoned Odoh’s food when she resisted their action.

Upon the arrest of the suspected women by the police in Enugu in August, the women were arraigned in court and the case was adjourned to October 5 for trial.

The Lagos State Police Command on the same day, August 26, reportedly arrested a man for allegedly conspiring with his doctor and a nurse to sell his three-month-old baby for N400,000.

Kenya has adopted new synchronised rules and policies to help in children's adoption and, at the same time, address cases of child trafficking in the country.

According to the Court of Appeal judge Imaana Laibuta, the new laws allow the country to track every process involved in adoption.

Speaking on Thursday, September 15, on Spice FM, Justice Laibuta explained that under the new system, children placed on adoption can be traced to where they are being taken. The process also involves regularly monitoring their progress in their adopted parents' hands.

The new rules contained in the Children Act 2022 are also anchored on cultural backgrounds where the child's background is considered before the process is initiated.

"We have made it in such a way that if it is inter-country adoption which is a measure of last resort, we have made sure that we are able to track where that child goes, the conditions under which the child will live till adulthood," he explained.

DES MOINES, Iowa - An Iowa teenage sex trafficking victim who stabbed her rapist to death was sentenced by a judge on Tuesday to five years of closely supervised probation and must pay $150,000 restitution to her abuser's family.

Pieper Lewis, 17, stabbed her abuser, 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, more than 30 times in June 2020. She was initially charged with first-degree murder.

Last year, Lewis pleaded to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury, both of which were punishable by up to 10 years in prison. However, Polk County District Judge David Porter deferred those prison sentences on Tuesday, meaning Lewis could serve 20 years if she violates her probation.

Porter said he ordered Lewis to pay restitution to Brooks' family because the court was "presented with no other option." He explained that the restitution is mandatory under Iowa law.

Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment. Officials have said Lewis was a runaway who was seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother and was sleeping in the hallways of a Des Moines apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in before forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex.

JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on human rights violations in the context of the forced deportation of Ukrainian civilians to and the forced adoption of Ukrainian children in Russia

pursuant to Rules 144(5) and 132(4) of the Rules of Procedure

replacing the following motions:

B9?0388/2022 (Verts/ALE)

B9?0390/2022 (S&D)

A farm labourer couple from Firozpur in Punjab gave away their newborn daughter in the hope that she would find a loving home away from poverty. Instead, she ended up in the hands of child traffickers and was almost sold for Rs 25 lakh in Gujarat. The girl, now 17-days-old, is fighting for her life with multiple health complications in hospital.

Gujarat police on Monday traced and brought to Vadodara the couple believed to be the biological parents of the newborn girl rescued by the SHE Team before she could be sold at the railway station in that city on September 4. The alleged birth parents, Mithun Singh and Shimla Rani, were named in the birth record found by the police.

Police said that the parents had ‘opted’ to give away the child for ‘adoption’ as she was their fifth daughter. The couple could not afford to raise one more child, especially a daughter. They have also allegedly given off another daughter, their fourth, to their relatives without going through the legal process since they are illiterate and appear to be unaware of the adoption laws.

Vadodara police had dispatched two teams to Delhi last week to apprehend the masterminds of the racket. One team visited Firozpur in Ludhiana and located the alleged biological parents.

An officer told Mirror, “The couple was brought to Vadodara on September 12. The wife was sent to SSG Hospital to be with the child. We have submitted blood samples of the couple and child for DNA testing and expect to get the results shortly.” However, police officials are confident that the couple are indeed the child’s parents.

A farm labourer couple from Firozpur in Punjab gave away their newborn daughter in the hope that she would find a loving home away from poverty. Instead, she ended up in the hands of child traffickers and was almost sold for Rs 25 lakh in Gujarat. The girl, now 17-days-old, is fighting for her life with multiple health complications in hospital.

Gujarat police on Monday traced and brought to Vadodara the couple believed to be the biological parents of the newborn girl rescued by the SHE Team before she could be sold at the railway station in that city on September 4. The alleged birth parents, Mithun Singh and Shimla Rani, were named in the birth record found by the police.

Police said that the parents had ‘opted’ to give away the child for ‘adoption’ as she was their fifth daughter. The couple could not afford to raise one more child, especially a daughter. They have also allegedly given off another daughter, their fourth, to their relatives without going through the legal process since they are illiterate and appear to be unaware of the adoption laws.

Vadodara police had dispatched two teams to Delhi last week to apprehend the masterminds of the racket. One team visited Firozpur in Ludhiana and located the alleged biological parents.

An officer told Mirror, “The couple was brought to Vadodara on September 12. The wife was sent to SSG Hospital to be with the child. We have submitted blood samples of the couple and child for DNA testing and expect to get the results shortly.” However, police officials are confident that the couple are indeed the child’s parents.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, it not only upended the lives of many people, but it wreaked havoc on children in institutional care. With 105,000 children under its care -- over 1 percent of the country's child population -- Kyiv is struggling to locate nearly 26,000 children that were moved outside of its system.

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Tanya, 12, who is autistic and does not speak, watches other children play at a facility for people with special needs in Odesa on June 7. Tanya, like nine in 10 of the children under Ukraine's care, is a "social orphan," a child whose parents are unable to care for them or who are denied parental rights under Ukrainian law.

Tanya, seen here interacting with a carer, first entered the Odesa orphanage in 2018 at age 8, after her parents divorced and her mother had a second child. Citing their inability to look after her, Tanya's parents signed away their parental rights.   Poverty is the main reason children are put into institutions. Since 1990, Ukraine's rate of children in institutions has increased almost fourfold, while it was flat or fell in neighboring EU countries.

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parliament

Canton of Zurich investigates illegal adoptions in Sri Lanka

The canton of Zurich will historically prosecute illegal adoptions from Sri Lanka since the 1970s. The cantonal council on Monday approved a candidacy of the SP, GLP, Greens, Center and EPP for government with 92 votes to 67.

Many adoptions from the 1970s were illegal, especially those from Sri Lanka. The canton of Zürich will now handle complaints historically, as many of these children were taken in by parents in the canton of Zürich.

Theme image: Sandra Ardizzone / LUW

Laura (center) gave up her daughter for adoption three years ago. On the left Mariëlle Kappert, on the right Nicolette Sprenger, rescuers from the Fiom. Statue Maikel Samuels

On average, about 20 women a year give up their child for adoption. One of them tells why she chose this.

Petra VissersSeptember 13, 2022 , 09:45

Anyway, her daughter had to grow up 'safe, stable and steady'. “That is the most important thing for a child's development,” says Laura (24) firmly. So three years ago she gave her girl up for adoption. “I immediately knew: we will not be able to raise her.”

Laura, a tall slender twenties with brown curls, was living with her anti-squat boyfriend four years ago when she turned out to be pregnant. “We had already been told that we had to get out of that house,” she says. “Our lives were restless, we both struggled with our own traumas.”

A sentencing hearing for Pieper Lewis, the teenage sex trafficking victim from Des Moines convicted of killing her alleged rapist, will resume Tuesday morning at the Polk County Courthouse.

Pieper Lewis, now 17, stabbed Zachary Brooks to death in the early hours of June 1, 2020. Brooks, 37, of Des Moines raped Lewis, then 15, five times in the weeks before Lewis killed him after another alleged sexual assault, according to a plea agreement.

A sentencing hearing on Sept. 7 ended before Lewis could give her statement of allocution and before witnesses called by prosecutors finished testifying.

More:A homeless Des Moines teen who killed her alleged rapist faces 20 years in prison. She's a victim, too, her attorneys say.

Polk County Judge David M. Porter presided over the hearing and will determine Lewis' sentence. He could rule from the bench or issue his ruling before her 18th birthday on Sept. 28.