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"It is not a child on order" but also "child trafficking will continue to exist": divided opinions about adoption pause

"Past abuses should not make adoption from abroad impossible." This is what prospective adoptive parents Marjolein and Kris say after the decision by Minister of Welfare Hilde Crevits (CD&V) to temporarily suspend intercountry adoption. Gitte, herself adopted from Guatemala, disagrees: "Child trafficking will always exist." What should happen next?


Kris and Marjolein are candidate adoptive parents. They are in the final stages of their adoption process. Because Kris himself was adopted from India, the couple chose India as their country of origin.

“We could probably have a baby of our own. But we consciously choose adoption. We believe it is important to welcome a child who has little or no chance of a quality life into our family. We made the specific choice for a child with special needs. Their future is even worse in their country of origin. We can provide minor medical procedures that are very expensive in India in Belgium.”

Many more rules

“A lot of things have changed for the better in the last 30 or 40 years. I am a living example of that,” says Kris. “Two years after my adoptive parents started their procedure, they had me. I was a perfectly healthy 8 month old baby. That situation could never arise again.”

12.6 million for investigation of the adoption area

The agreement on the SSA funds has been published on the website of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Housing and the Elderly .

It appears from the text of the agreement that 12.6 million will be set aside. DKK for investigation of the international adoption agency to Denmark:

"The world of adoption has changed over time, and not least in light of the requirements that have become more stringent over time, there is an ongoing focus on suspicions of illegal circumstances, especially in relation to adoptions carried out back in time. Funds are therefore set aside to map the historical development in international adoption mediation to Denmark in the form of an impartial study of the international adoption mediation from the ten countries from which most children were adopted to Denmark in the period 1964 to 2016. The purpose of the study will be to provide information that supports the adoptees' right to know their own history. The investigation is not carried out with the aim of concluding whether the specific adoptions took place on an illegal basis, and therefore the investigation will have the character of a historical investigation and not a legal assessment 2025-2027."

DIA drew attention to the need for an investigation in a request to Social Affairs and Housing Minister Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil in September.

 

Incentives 2023: how did the completed projects proceed?

Adoption Support Center believes it is important to support aftercare projects. That is why we launch an annual incentive call with which we want to give aftercare projects a substantive and financial boost. In October we launched the 2024 call. But how did the 2023 projects actually go? Earlier this year we provided an overview of the projects that emerged as winners during the previous round. As the end of the year approaches, it's time to take a look back at some of the completed projects! What did they organize and what motivated them to commit themselves to organizing it?

Diversity Beauty Wellbeing Day - by CAFE

 

CAFE is an interest group that brings together adult adoptees from all countries of origin, first parents and adoptive parents. People with a foster care background and donor children are also welcome with us. From a critical view of the enforcement of children's and human rights within the transnational adoption system, we stand up for the rights and well-being of our target group. We do this by thinking about policy regarding adoption, denouncing abuses, organizing informative events and contact with fellow sufferers.

With the help of the incentive from Support Center Adoption, we organized our annual Wellbeing Day, which this year had the theme "Diversity Beauty". Adoptees were informed about the care of all skin types and afterwards a make-up workshop was provided.

No action in adoption case; Anupama came to the Navakerala audience and filed a complaint...

Thiruvananthapuram ∙ Mother Anupama S. Chandran came to the Navakerala audience and filed a complaint against the adoption of the child by the Child Welfare Committee without her knowledge. Yesterday, Anupama and her husband Ajith came to the Navakerala Assembly in Vattiyoorkau and lodged a complaint demanding strict action to be taken against the culprits. 

Anupama protest was held at the Child Welfare Committee and the Secretariat to get the baby released. Anupama's baby was taken back from Andhra after it was found that the adoption procedure was not followed. The government promised to take action against the culprits when the strike ends. It was announced 2 years ago that the police will investigate the incident and take departmental action. However, the complaint states that the government has not fulfilled this promise so far

MOVERS & SHAKERS – POLITICO

Nancy Adams, the US Trade Representative’s (USTR), er, representative in Brussels, leaves for Geneva in July. She’ll become senior counsellor for technical assistance and market access at the USTR mission to the World Trade Organisation. Replacing her is Christopher Wilson, who arrives from the USTR’s Latin American office in August.

Also, Larry Wohlers, the EU Mission’s long-time public affairs counsellor, leaves in July for a Moscow posting. He’ll spend a year in Washington first, brushing up his Russian. Taking over from him will be Anne Barbaro, currently at the US embassy in Madrid. Press officer Ed Kemp assumed most of the day-to-day spokesman duties from Wohlers and will continue in that role.

And finally, ‘institutional officer’ Rob Faucher, who’s usually seen spying around the press bar at Councils and summits, is headed for Suriname at the end of June. “I refuse to serve in any country that doesn’t border France,” he joked. Suriname borders French Guiana in South America.

Replacing him is Rick Holzapple, a former National Security Council aide from Washington who’s spent the last year at the European Commission, working in DGs Relex and Enlargement.

Robert Hull has been appointed director of consultative work at the European Economic and Social Committee. He takes over from Diarmid McLaughlin, who is retiring.

President Mádl of Hungary celebrating HCCH's 110th Anniversary

On the 31st of October 2003 the Hague Conference on Private International Law celebrated its 110th Anniversary at 4.30 p.m. in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace in The Hague. President Ferenc Mádl of Hungary, a former delegate to the Hague Conference, marked the occasion by giving a speech on “Milestones on the Road of Private International Law Developments”. Significant among those milestones are the many “Hague” Conventions negotiated at the Peace Palace. The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, now Secretary General of NATO, Mr Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, introduced him.

This celebration gathered Ambassadors from more than 50 countries, representatives of other international organisations based in The Hague and high-ranking officials of the Netherlands. Also present were delegates from more than 40 States from all over the world, who have now come together to confront the challenge of operating three of the existing Hague Conventions in a globalising and increasingly electronic environment.
Full programme of the celebration | Speech delivered by President Mádl

 

Harvard Hosts Debate on Transnational Adoption

Harvard Hosts Debate on Transnational Adoption
Published On Wednesday, November 02, 2005  2:02 AM
CRIMSON/ EUGENE B. CONE
Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law Elizabeth Bartholet advocates international adoption at a debate in the Barker Center yesterday.
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Greedy lawyers in the private transnational adoptions sector are creating unnecessary family separations, Rosa M. Ortiz, a member of the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child, said in a debate at Harvard last night.

Arguing against her was Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law, who said that the global community should promote international adoption because the children affected generally grow up in loving, healthy families, which otherwise might not be possible.

Bartholet and Ortiz made their assertions as part of a debate on the topic of transnational adoptions hosted by the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies last night in the Barker Center.

“We should promote international adoption and work simultaneously to promote global justice,” said Bartholet, an adoptive parent of two Peruvian children. “We are not going to deal with the wrong of injustice and poverty by eliminating the benefit to children who do well by adoption.”

Ortiz, who worked for a variety of non-governmental organizations on children’s rights before joining the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, said that the current problems facing transnational adoption outweigh the benefits that children may receive.

She cited unnecessary separations due to monetary incentives, lack of government oversight, and a lack of cooperation between international and domestic adoption agencies as the main flaws in the present system. Ortiz suggested that a system which involved increased government oversight and fewer separations between parents and children, such as the one in place in Paraguay, would reduce these problems.

While Bartholet also agreed that poverty is a driving factor behind women’s choices to put their children up for adoption, she said she did not believe that the adoption fee motivates women to give up their children.

“Money given to biological parents by adoptive parents rarely makes the difference in the choice whether or not to give up their child,” Bartholet said.

Ortiz said that a dearth of social services in poor countries is a major factor contributing to the transnational adoption rate. She said that the number of transnational adoptions of Paraguayan children dropped from over 600 to 50 annually after Paraguay instituted initiatives to help poor mothers and began to monitor and restrict the adoptions.

Bartholet cited other benefits of transnational adoption, namely that the system exposes the world to injustices and detrimental situations in other countries, such as gender discrimination in China.

“Adoption is an amazingly mind-opening experience for the parents. It makes them less racist, more globalist, and more willing to adopt even older children,” she said.

The two also discussed issues such as the age of adopted children, the importance of cultural heritage, and public versus private adoption agencies.

The debate drew a sizeable crowd, mainly of graduate students and faculty.

“I think [the debate] brought to the forefront the gravity of human rights issues related to transnational adoption. In that sense, it was very educational,” said Jane Chen, a first-year Kennedy School of Government student.

Roelie Post to President-elect Von der Leyen

 

Tue, 30 Jul 2019

to Bjoern.SEIBERT

Dear Mr. Seibert,

Please find attached my plea to President-elect Von der Leyen.