Adopted as a baby, denied any information about her natural parents, Lohan has spent years fighting for the church and state to reveal what they know – about her and the thousands of others in the same position

A “destroyer of lives”. That is what a nun called adoption rights activist Susan Lohan when she sought answers from the religious order that brokered her adoption. Instead of being given the truth, Lohan was told not to ask questions. She was born in 1964 to one of thousands of unmarried mothers forcibly separated from their children – usually women who had no choice but adoption due to their circumstances. In the mid-60s in Ireland, up to 97% of all children born to unmarried mothers, like Lohan, were taken for adoption, mainly by the religious institutions and agencies that controlled social services and opposed reproductive choice.

On our drive to her home in Malahide, a coastal suburb of Dublin where she lives with her husband and son, Lohan reels off the heritage of her dog, Flynn, happily sprawled on the back seat. She laughs at the fact that her dog had documents to prove his ancestry but, as an adopted person, Lohan had to fight for decades to access her own birth information.

The married couple who adopted Lohan were loving parents, unlike some families in the past who took in children to use as free labour. A housewife and a shoe salesman, they were the rosary-reciting ideal of Catholic Ireland and their religious devotion would have been necessary to adopt a child. Couples needed a priest’s approval to adopt and sometimes even proof that they couldn’t have children biologically. Lohan’s adoptive parents were told that her mother had died in childbirth but they were sceptical. Lohan always had an image in her mind of her mother as an unmarried girl, too young to keep her. She later found out that her mother had been in her 30s at the time, a civil servant who became president of a trade union. “She was not a woman who was easily intimidated,” Lohan says. “And even she felt unable to resist.”

While studying at University College Dublin in the early 80s, Lohan’s “eyes were opened on a lot of issues”. Contraception was difficult to get in Ireland, for example, and the anti-choice eighth amendment, which made the foetus’s life of equal value to the mother’s, was introduced in 1983. But systemic abuse within the Catholic church in Ireland was also being exposed and many, like Lohan, were beginning to understand how religious-run agencies had used adoption “as a mechanism to separate families” who didn’t meet the Catholic ideal.

The term “collateral damage” is used in military contexts with reference to the immunity of non-combatants, in terms of the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets. The use of the term is a recognition that military action has effects, some intended and some not, for which the actors may be held morally and legal responsible. In its more common and more cynical usage, “collateral damage” has become euphemistic code for wanton destruction that is simply shrugged off by those who “can handle the truth”. Since at least the time of the Iraq war, the term no longer commonly refers to the consideration of “unintended damage” — such as in traditional Catholic moral reasoning — but rather to “intended damage” that is calculated and factored into the planning of a military mission. And everyone knows this, even if we don’t always say it out loud.

The international surrogacy industry too is calculated in the damage it inflicts to women’s lives. This is, in part, because the surrogacy system works on a franchise model — in other words, it doesn’t look like a part of global late-capitalism; it looks like the creation of happy families. And these “families” are not presented as what they are: part of the damage and exploitation of global capitalism. Instead, the pictures on surrogacy websites are of glossy people who are said to have taken a “journey”: a “surrogacy journey”.

These pretty pictures, and this pretty language, disguise — indeed, we claim, are intended to disguise — a dirty industry which traffics in women’s lives as well as the lives of newborn babies. It runs parallel to other industries that put a price on the bodies of persons, like the trade in bodily organs, parts, and fluids. But the organ trade is unlawful. The traffic in organs is one of the targets of the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, with the UN General Assembly’s most recent resolution to combat organ trafficking being adopted in 2018. Few people can be found to defend organ trading.

Not so with surrogacy. The surrogacy journey has a seemingly endless line of philosophers and public health exponents waiting to defend the industry and its practices. One of its most effective rhetorical defences is to refer to what is known as “altruistic surrogacy” as an exemplar of what surrogacy could be like if it were better organised and regulated. But it is just another pretty picture that serves as a screen for an industry based on the commodification of the person: a woman turned into a container for an embryo, whether for payment or expenses. All states and territories in Australia make a distinction in law between commercial and non-commercial surrogacy (except for the Northern Territory, which has no legislation on this question), with the former being unlawful in all states. In the case of New South Wales, Queensland, and the ACT, entering into international commercial agreements for surrogacy is also unlawful and is punishable by a heavy fine and/or gaol. The reality is that altruistic surrogacy — commonly defined as those arrangements in which no money but only the baby changes hands — is simply a wing of the main part of the surrogacy industry.

Women are the collateral damage of the surrogacy industry — not only its unintended damage, but its intended and calculated damage. For the industry and what it calls “clients”, the damage done to the woman who fills the role of “surrogate” is considered as entirely proportionate to the “happy ending” — a new healthy baby — that is the selling point of the industry.

The latest government data says approximately 60% of couples going for adoption in the Thane district have shown an inclination towards a girl child. We can see this as a big shift in the orthodox Indian mindset that preferred a male child to carry a family legacy. While international celebrities such as Mandira Bedi, Sushmita Sen, Raveena Tandon and Sunny Leone, have adopted girls, parents from the Thane district, too, are increasingly opting for adopting daughters.

Aditi Vinay who adopted two daughters said, “Becoming a parent is a lifelong assurance. If you don’t already have kids, be sure you are ready for all that is involved with adoption. If you do have kids, be sure you have the time and the space to care for another child. The number of homeless children will decrease to zero if each family adopts one child.”

Five-year data compiled by the Thane district women and child welfare department and accessed by Times of India shows that of the 213 child adoptions registered and executed since 2016, around 122, or roughly 60%, were for a girl child. Social workers engaged in counselling prospective adoptive parents said a majority of couples, including those who are childless or already have boys in their families, preferred a daughter believing that girls are more likely to settle in easily with the family and look after them when they’re old. Officials also said there were almost negligible cases of adopted girls being returned over not being able to bond with their foster families.

CARA CEO, Lt. Col. Deepak Kumar, said Indian couples desired girls for adoption. If 10,000 people want to adopt boys, there are 15,000 who want to adopt girls”.

Child rights activists claim that more girls are available for adoption, and subsequently, more girls are being adopted. Nothing much has changed in society.

The Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs,

Considering the international convention on the rights of the child of November 20, 1989;

Having regard to the Hague Convention of 29 May 1993 on the protection of children and cooperation in respect of international adoption;

Considering the code of social action and families , in particular its article R. 148-10,

Stops:

Specialist support and counselling is to be set up to help families affected by historical forced adoption.

The Scottish Government has pledged funding of around £145,000 to help women who were forced to give up their children, as well as the fathers and children involved in the distressing practice.

Peer support groups will also be established and research commissioned to look at how existing support can be improved.

The move comes as a fresh appeal is made for those affected by the process to share their experiences on a dedicated government webpage and questionnaire.

Children’s minister Clare Haughey said: “Tragically, in the past there were practices which resulted in some women feeling forced to give up their children. I offer my sincere sympathies to all those whose lives were profoundly changed as a result.

Ahmedabad: In November 2019, city police found a child abandoned on the streets. Two-and-a-half years later, he got the love of parents with a couple from Malta adopting him. The adoption ceremony of Sagar, christened ‘Jack’ by his parents, was held at the Shishu Gruh in Paldi on Saturday.

Some of those at the event were Pradip Parmar, state social justice and empowerment minister, Jagruti Pandya, chairperson of the Commission for Protection of Child Rights, and R S Patel, secretary of Sardar Patel Memorial.

Speaking to TOI, the emotional parents said this was a dream come true for them. The couple – Canmelo and Chanlene Abdilla, a businessman and teacher, respectively – were waiting for the adoption process to end for nearly two years. “It was the experience of some of our relatives that motivated us to adopt a child from India. We were in touch with the authorities and were talking to Jack regularly through video calls,” said Chanlene. “We have prepared a special room for him and have also started preparations for his admission in the September intake.”

Ritesh Dave, superintendent of Shishu Gruh, said the child had hearing issues, which were treated during his stay at the facility. “This is our fourth international adoption this year. We get 35-odd children every year of whom the majority get adopted,” he said.

.

Adopted children are at greater risk of developmental and attachment disorders than unadopted children. This is the result of a new study by the German Youth Institute in Munich. In addition, there are too few counseling services for affected families.

Fewer and fewer people in Germany are adopting a child. The numbers have halved in recent years. In 2020, for example, 3,600 children were adopted, two thirds of them are stepchildren or children further away, only one third are strangers' children.

Nobody knows exactly why the numbers are declining. It is assumed that it is due to the ever-improving reproductive medicine that couples are still able to fulfill their desire to have children. In addition, there are high hurdles for couples who would like to adopt a child. So far there has been little research on the subject of adoptive families in Germany.

About the article: "'Become a foster parent!': The very special bread bag"

Largest survey of German adoptive families to date

CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (KUSA) – A Colorado family had nearly completed adopting three Ukrainian sisters. But then Russia invaded the country, bringing the process to a halt.

Now, the family doesn’t know when they’ll be able to bring the girls home.

Amy Martin said the adoption paperwork can be overwhelming.

“These are the initial applications, the immigrant forms, all the dossier documents, the home study documents,” she said. “It’s just a lot.”

But Martin said it’s all worth it to adopt the three girls from Ukraine. Her family hosted them at their home in Castle Rock, Colorado, during Christmas.

The Prime Minister invites to an event on the occasion of an apology to the six survivors of the 22 Greenlandic children who were sent to Denmark in 1951

On 8 December 2020, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen gave a written apology to the six surviving children of the 22 Greenlandic children who were sent to Denmark in 1951. The children became part of an experiment that had major human consequences.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is now inviting the six survivors to an official apology event together with Greenland's two members of the Folketing as well as representatives from the Danish Red Cross and Save the Children.

Chairman of the Naalakkersuisut Múte B. Egede also participates in the event.

The event will take place at the National Museum on Wednesday 9 March 2022 at 14-16.

ST. LOUIS — Serge Zevlever was often known as a protector.

He took on the role when he fled with his family to the St. Louis area from the Soviet Union some 30 years ago to become a U.S. citizen. He did it again when he worked long hours as a taxi driver and pizza delivery man here to bring even more relatives to the U.S.

Zevlever would protect even more in his decadeslong work as a central figure in adoptions of the neediest Ukrainian children to U.S. families. He would split his time between the St. Louis area and Ukraine, helping hundreds of children with medical needs out of orphanages and into welcoming homes.

Serge Zevlever

Serge Zevlever. Photo courtesy of Nicole Zevlever