The 16, including children, senior citizens, disabled children and adults, were separated from their families and went missing over the years with some of them going missing as far as over a decade. They were rehabilitated by NGOs or adopted by new families.

APPLICATIONS FOR the Aadhar card helped to reunite 16 missing people from Nagpur with their families. Files of the 16 others are being processed by Nagpur’s Aadhar Kendra to reunite them with their families as well.

The 16, including children, senior citizens, disabled children and adults, were separated from their families and went missing over the years with some of them going missing as far as over a decade. They were rehabilitated by NGOs or adopted by new families.

When these individuals applied for Aadhar, their applications were rejected multiple times. Officials from the Aadhar Seva Kendra (ASK) at Nagpur guessed that this could happen because their biometric information was already linked to an existing Aadhar identity, dug up the information, and reached out to the original families.

Honorary Captain Anil Marathe, centre manager of the ASK at Mankapur in Nagpur, who had been driving the initiative, said, “These people come to the centre to get an Aadhar card. However, their applications got rejected multiple times after which they approached us with doubts, enlisting our help. When I examined their case, it came to my attention that there has to be a reason their application gets rejected, possibly because their biometric information is already linked to an account. I referred such cases to the regional Aadhar centre in Mumbai and the technology centre in Bengaluru. Detailed information received from such escalations revealed their original identities that were registered with us. We have then contacted their families and reunited the missing persons.”

For years, Celin Fässler believed she knew who her biological mother was. Until she discovers irregularities in her documents. The story of an officially made impossible search for identity.

Celin Fässler's adoption story begins three weeks too early. She was not yet three weeks old when she was brought to her new family in a neighboring community of St.Gallen in 1982 by the adoption agent Alice Honegger and the Sri Lankan lawyer Rukmani Thavanesan. According to the law, the child must be at least six weeks old. It's not the only inconsistency in Fässler's adoption story.

She grows up sheltered, but realizes early on that she is different from most children. And yet she is not the only exotic creature on the playground. Three other children from Sri Lanka are growing up in her family. Other families in the community are also taking in Sri Lankan children. Fässler remembers common occasions. She can no longer say whether the adoptive parents met for friendship or for other reasons. Did they also talk about Alice Honegger's machinations at the time and about the fact that the canton had meanwhile withdrawn her license to broker adoptions? Or about the fact that Celin Fässler's adoption happened at the time when Honegger didn't have permission?

When she is 17, her parents give her the adoption papers. "I asked so many questions back then, I needed that," says Celin Fässler. It contains an address just outside of Negombo, a coastal town north of Colombo that is characterized by fishing and tourism. It is the address of the woman who is listed as the mother on her birth certificate. Back then, in 1999, Fässler knew nothing about baby farms, about the acting mothers who posed as the mothers of these babies to the authorities for money and signed declarations of consent, and about the fact that children were also snatched from their birth mothers from childbirth. To this day she does not know the circumstances under which her birth mother gave her away - voluntarily or involuntarily.

Celin Fässler's Sri Lankan passport

The US annually conducts the largest number of domestic and in-bound intercountry adoptions of any country in the world. In 2008, approximately 150,000 children were adopted in, or to, the US. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption) However, there are 129,000 children with no permanent solutions languishing in our public child welfare system, and 24,000 children age out of care annually. (Youth Aging Out of Foster Care: Identifying Strategies and Best Practices: NACO, February 2008) It is essential that we take a hard look at our domestic and intercountry adoption practices to ensure that everything is being done to promote solutions that protect the permanency, safety, and well-being of all children. This requires that the principle of subsidiarity be at the center of all discussions about best practices in child welfare.

The principle of subsidiarity, as applied to child welfare, states that it is in the best interest of children to be raised by family or kin. If immediate family/kin is unable, or unavailable, domestic placement with a foster or adoptive family is the next best option. Finally, if neither of these alternatives is viable, then permanent placement with an appropriate family in another country through intercountry adoption is best.

This article describes the origin of the principle of subsidiarity, discusses the two multilateral treaties that include language about the principle, and explores what subsidiarity means for the practice of child welfare in America.

The principle of subsidiarity was the result of a landmark judgment: Laxmikant Pandey v. Union of India in 1984. The Supreme Court of India found that preference must be given to finding homes in India for orphaned children before considering intercountry adoption. Supreme Court lawyer Laxmikant Pandey initiated this case. Pandey wanted to alert the judiciary to alleged fraudulent practices and illegalities involving intercountry adoptions. He petitioned the government to investigate current practices and develop standards for when it is appropriate for Indian children to be adopted by foreigners. The decision reflected a revolutionary approach to intercountry adoptions. It would be another five years before the principle was present in multilateral treaties. (http://csa.org.in/SC1984Feb06.htm).

The principle of subsidiarity was introduced in 1986, in the UN “Declaration on Social and Legal Principles Relating to the Protection and Welfare of Children with Special Reference to Foster Placement Nationally and Internationally.” Article 17 states: “If a child cannot be placed in a foster or an adoptive family or cannot in any suitable manner be cared for in the country of origin, intercountry adoption may be considered as an alternative means of providing the child with a family.” In 1989, Article 21(b) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stated, “Intercountry adoption may be considered as an alternative means of child’s care, if the child cannot be placed in a foster or an adoptive family or cannot in any suitable manner be cared for in the child’s country of origin.” The US has signed, but not ratified, this treaty.

International adoptions

Authorized bodies

Authorized adoption bodies have the task of following the path of the couple who want to start an international adoption. They are bodies called, after agreement with the Commission for International Adoptions, to act as intermediaries with foreign authorities and with the Italian court. They have a central role because they are the ones who guide the couple in the adoption procedures, in the organization of the trip to meet the child in the foreign country and in the management of the whole adoption process.

GVS is authorized to carry out adoptions by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in agreement with the Ministry of Grace and Justice with the Decree of 29 September 1994.

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MUMBAI: Granting bail to a Worli businesswoman accused of running a child trafficking racket, a sessions court said the charge of "trafficking for exploitation" does not appear to be applicable as the child was sold for adoption. Instead, a case can be made out for the child's sale.

The FIR says there is trafficking of a newborn child and its purpose is mentioned as "giving in adoption". Section 370(4) of IPC is about trafficking of a person for exploitation. "Therefore, prima facie offence under Section 370(4)... does not appear to have been committed," said the court in its detailed order granting bail to 35-year-old Julia Fernandes and her aide, Shabana Shaikh, 40.

Section 370(4) prescribes rigorous imprisonment for a minimum of 10 years up to a life term. However, the court pointed out that another charge under the juvenile justice Act, punishable with up to five years imprisonment, is applicable.

"If Section 81 of the Juvenile Justice Act is seen, it is about sale and procurement of a child for any purpose. In view of the allegations, applicants along with other accused sold the child for adoption... I am of the opinion that if the case of prosecution is taken into consideration, it is about sale for the purpose of adoption," said the court.

Since the child was in safe custody and the money involved had been seized, further custodial interrogation of the two women was not required. "Taking into consideration the previous crime registered against applicants, they may be released on heavy bail by imposing conditions," said the court.

President Joseph R. Biden 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award Presented to Anna Belle Illien, An “Angel in Adoption” Congressional Award Recipient in 2012

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The United States President Joseph R. Biden 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award, along with the Presidential Volunteer Service Award, is being presented to Anna Belle Illien, Founder and Director of Illien Adoptions International, Inc. and the Founder and Director of Foundation for Our Children, Inc. both 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations serving vulnerable children worldwide, at a ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, August 26th, 2022.

“I am very grateful to President Biden for conferring this prestigious award upon me. I am also grateful to President Biden for standing with Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in defense of the children and people of Ukraine”

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Anna Belle Illien received the Angel in Adoption Award in 2012 from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute in Washington. DC. She received the Global Achievement Award in 2021 from the Johns Hopkins Hospital Alumni Association.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday emphasised that the child adoption process in India needs to be streamlined as there are three-to-four years waiting period under the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to adopt a single child while there are "lakhs and lakhs of orphan children waiting to be adopted".

The top court had earlier also termed the process as "very tedious" and said that there is an urgent need for the procedures to be "streamlined".

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, AS Bopanna, and JB Pardiwala told Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for the Centre, "There are a lot of young couples waiting to adopt the child but the process is so tedious that it takes three to four years to get a single child to be adopted through the CARA. Can you imagine a three to four years period to adopt a child in India? It should be made simpler. There are lakhs and lakhs of orphan children waiting to be adopted".

Nataraj said that the government is seized of the issue and sought six weeks to come up with a reply to a plea filed by an NGO seeking to simplify the process of child adoption in the country.

The bench asked Nataraj to ask someone responsible from the Ministry of Child Development to hold a meeting and look into the suggestions of the NGO 'The Temple of Healing' and prepare a report to be filed in the top court.

Carisa Lee

A management member at the Children’s Authority is urging people to consider adoption as an option.

Her appeal comes as the country has seen two incidents recently in which children suffered as a result of the circumstances in which their parents found themselves.

In the last week, little McKenzie Hope Rechier was strangled to death while a days-old baby was abandoned in a garbage bag at the San Fernando General Hospital.

Despite this, acting Adoption Manager at the Children’s Authority, Renee Neptune, said as of yesterday, there were no children waiting to be adopted.

A spokesman for Canada's foreign affairs minister says new sanctions against a Russian official will make her a "global pariah."

Adrien Blanchard says the economic penalties against Maria Lvova-Belova are meant to "isolate her and hold her accountable for her crimes."

Lvova-Belova is Russia's children's rights commissioner.

But Global Affairs alleges she is also the architect of a scheme to abduct Ukrainian children and facilitate their adoption into Russian homes.

Thousands of kids have been transported to Russia from the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the months since the war began.

Senior Resident Magistrate Wanangwa Nyirenda has reserved his ruling to 1 September 2022 on the application to discharge Dutch national Wim Akster on charges of being found in possession of firearms.

Akster was arrested in November 2021 after police found that the firearms did not have any legal documentation.

State Prosecutor Levison Mangani told the court that Akster’s discharge application is baselessly aimed at delaying the case.

However, the defence lawyer, Gimeon Nyanda, insisted the case dates back to 2020, hence applying for discharge.

Meanwhile Child Rights Activist, Memory Chisenga, asked the court to deport Akster arguing he is a total threat to children and national security.