PIKE COUNTY (KMOV) -- A Missouri family claims the federal government mishandled and wrongly blocked their son’s adoption, and now they’re suing in what’s become an international adoption nightmare.

Jill and Adam Trower live in Pike County with their 9-year-old daughter. For more than four years ,they’ve been forced to watch through pictures and videos as Luke, the child they’re adopting, grows up in an orphanage thousands of miles away.

“It definitely feels like a betrayal for us, we have tried to do everything correct and it doesn’t matter,” Jill said.

The Trowers wanted to grow their family through adoption and started working with an international adoption agency. The family says in 2018 the agency connected them with Luke, an infant who was abandoned in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Luke was found when he was a few months old, he was just abandoned in a trash heap,” Jill explained.

How I tracked down the mother who left me in a Romanian orphanage...by a TV actress who was brought to safety by a British couple and educated privately here. So what happened when she confronted her past?

Surveying the derelict building, once a notorious Romanian orphanage where hundreds of infants were left starving in bare metal cots, actress Ionica Adriana was moved to tears.

With her northern British accent and her private education, you'd never guess that this orphanage was part of her own heart-breaking history.

But it was here, in a fly-infested room closely packed with other unnaturally silent, nappy-less and filthy infants, that Ionica spent the first two and a half years of her life.

She was one of the lucky ones. In the grimmest of life's lotteries, Ionica was picked for adoption by a couple who each ran a business in rural North Yorkshire and were struggling to have children of their own. As an uncomprehending toddler, she went from the harshest deprivation — even of food and water — to wanting for nothing.

A new Family Planning scandal is erupting in China, this one taking place in Quanzhou, Guangxi Province.

In September 1989, a boy was born to a couple with six previous children, father Deng Zhen Sheng and mother Tang Yue Ying. Soon after the boy was born, Family Planning paid a visit to the family and assessed a fine of 6,000 yuan, and the family was given 15 days to pay the fine. The family put together and paid 1,380 yuan, all they had. Family Planning then confiscated some furniture and other possessions of the family.

Nearly a year later, in August 1990, Ms. Gao Li Jun, head of the Quanzhou Family Planning office, tricked the family into bringing the boy to the her office, even sending a driver to the family’s village to pick them up. While in the Family Planning office, the boy garnered the attention of the Family Planning leader. Ms. Gao invited the family to her house for dinner. While eating, she tried to talk them into allowing her to find a rich family to adopt their son, since they were poor. “No,” the husband angrily replied, “who wants to adopt my son? I won’t give my son to anyone.” The subject was dropped.

After dinner, Ms. Gao arranged for a room for the family at a hostel across the street from the Family Planning office. Ms. Gao told them to not leave the room. Less than an hour later, five “comrades” from Family Planning broke into the room where the mother, daughter, and the son were (the father had gone to the market). They took the boy.

The family attempted for years to retrieve the boy, asking for information about their son. Ms. Gao repeatedly told them that when he turned 30 he would return to them.

We asked readers to channel their inner Carolyn Hax and answer this question. Some of the best responses are below.

Dear Carolyn: Hi Carolyn, I am 45 and recently found the daughter whom I gave up for adoption when I was 16. My childhood was very traumatic and dysfunctional, therefore I knew that I couldn’t raise her properly or provide the best for her.

Since reconnecting we have established a great friendship and she fully understands and even appreciates that I gave her up for adoption. I am recently married and have a 2-year-old baby and step kids whom I adore. All have met her and are very supportive.

The problem is social media. I am very active and post often about my life and our family's adventures. I would like to start including my bio-daughter (with her permission) in these posts. But before I do I feel that I should at least offer up an explanation or part of the story so people I am connected to understand. I am not seeking validation but I feel it would be awkward or strange to just pop up with a new family member who looks like me that no one has ever seen or heard of.

My husband and friends think otherwise. They say it's no one’s business and that I don’t need to say a thing. But I think it would be weird not to, so I am torn.

A woman went viral for recalling her trauma as an adopted child as discussions around adoption became more prevalent with the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The woman, known as @alyxstone33, posted the TikTok on Saturday where it received more than 410,000 views and 2,300 comments.

"Adoption is a scam," the on-screen text read over a duet with another creator's video. In the original video, user @debtcollective asked: "what's a scam that's become so normalized that we don't even realize it's a scam anymore?"

Adoptions by the Numbers

According to the Adoption Network, no more than 2 percent of Americans have adopted, meaning only 1 in 50 children are adopted. Data from 2020 estimated that more than 407,000 children were in foster care.

Adoption laws need to be overhauled to stop M?ori tamariki being “severed” from their birth family and culture, experts say.

The Government is seeking feedback on proposed options for a reformation of the adoption system.

New Zealand’s adoption laws are 67 years old and were ratified in the Adoption Act 1955.

Options in the proposed system would include giving adopted people access to their adoption records at any age, legal recognition of wh?ngai (a traditional method of open adoption to relatives) and post-adoption contact agreements.

Canterbury University’s Dr Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll, a senior lecturer in M?ori health and wellbeing, said a reformed adoption system was important for M?ori.

A woman has received a jail sentence of three months for the manslaughter and neglect of a newborn baby that she put in a bin after giving birth.

Three years of the sentence were suspended for a period of three years by Justice Eugene O'Kelly who said it was a "sad and tragic" case with

the woman's "grave" actions meaning her baby girl was "left to die by the one and only person who knew of her birth".

However, when handing down the sentence, the judge said that the woman, now 23, had herself acknowledged that "she has to live with consequences of what she has done and what she has failed to do for the rest of her life", in a letter handed up to the court.

He said her actions went "so much against the natural instincts of any parent", but that there was little risk of her reoffending.

The history of the war must be dealt with and Russia must be given a hand again, says ex-EU Commissioner Verheugen.

"An understanding will only be possible if both sides observe the principle that has existed since Helsinki 1975 that everyone has to respect the legitimate security interests of the other," said Günter Verheugen on April 3 in an interview on the left-wing platform "nd" (formerly New Germany). As EU Commissioner, Verheugen was in charge of the eastward enlargement of the EU. Until 2010, the former SPD member of the Bundestag was Deputy President of the European Commission.

"EU eastward expansion was right, but..."

The Strategic Partnership with Russia followed the 2002 strategy of creating a "ring of friends" around the EU. Russia, on the other hand, wanted a prominent status in this ring that corresponded to its importance. This partnership with Russia also worked very well for a while, until a new East-West confrontation broke out. According to Verheugen, this was due to the fact that “the EU was following the US line more and more”. Washington has set itself the goal of weakening Russia in the long term so that it can never become a rival again.

In his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 , Putin made it clear that he would not accept a course that disregarded Russian security interests. Putin saw the main problem in the eastward expansion of NATO, but the eastern partnership of the EU after 2007 without Russia's participation also irritated him: "In 2010 Russia still wanted to implement trilateral projects - EU, Russia, countries of the eastern partnership. So there were clearly opportunities for Russia to be constructively involved in a partnership, but unfortunately these were not used." Neither side seriously considered Russia's EU membership. It was always about cooperation and partnership, under the keyword "from Lisbon to Vladivostok".

Report by Nigel Cantwell (UNICEF) on the rights of children and a practical guideline for the protection of intercountry adopted children.

“The Best Interests of the Child in Intercountry Adoption” is the starting point and conclusion of the jurisprudence on the rights of the child, and a pillar principle of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This book is translated by KoRoot and is a practical guideline for the protection of internationally adopted children.

Kim Do Hyun, the president of KoRoot, mentioned that, “Determining the best interests of children (BID) is the duty of the state.”. He claims that it is an issue that requires the attention to all those directly or indirectly involved in the practice of intercountry adoption like the government officials, family court judges, Family Liaison Officers (FLO), social workers in adoption agencies, legal and institutional frameworks for intercountry adoption, scholars and activists of civil society, overseas and domestic birth families and adoptees, and even domestic adoptive parents.

The book was translated and published as an e-book by the UNICEF Research Institute-Innocenti in 2014.This book thus provides insight into how to carefully and thoroughly do BID for intercountry adoption of children and a guideline to what conditions should be fully considered.

KoRoot is a NGO organization that publishes books about international adoption to introduce diverse perspectives on adoption for diversifying the adoption discourse in Korean society. Some of the books KoRoot published are; Comforting an Orphaned Nation (2008), Outsiders within (2012), Primal Wound (2013), Adoption Healing (2013), Mixed Korean (2020) , and The Global ‘Orphan’ Adoption System: South Korea’s Impact on Its Origin and Development (2021).

As of June 28, there are 3,596 children legally free for adoption, including 1,380 with special needs.

NEW DELHI: More than 16,000 prospective parents have been waiting for over three years to adopt a child, with officials attributing the slowdown to the availability of fewer children who are legally free for adoption.

According to data shared by officials of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) in response to an RTI filed by PTI, there are 28,501 prospective parents whose home study reports have been approved and are in queue for adopting a child.

Out of them, 16,155 prospective parents whose home study reports have been approved three years ago are still waiting in queue for adoption, according to the data.

As of June 28, there are 3,596 children legally free for adoption, including 1,380 with special needs.