Press release of January 26, 2024

A first in the world of international adoption in France: a judicial investigation opens for adults born in Romania.

Subject : Opening of a preliminary judicial investigation for the following offenses:

• Arrests,
• Kidnappings,
• Sequestration or arbitrary detention of minors under 15 years of age,
• Assistance with the entry, movement or illegal stay of a foreign minor in the territory of a state other than that of origin
• Distance from the family environment

The Racine&dignité group officially announces the opening of a preliminary judicial investigation decided by the Paris Prosecutor concerning illicit trafficking in the context of international adoptions and the arrival on French territory of Romanian children with short-term visas for medical care.

A Chinese-born Swedish woman finally reunited with her biological parents in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, on March 2 after an arduous seven-year search for them, local media Dushikuaibao reported.

Ye Xiaofeng, 23, was abandoned at the Hangzhou Children's Welfare Institute on July 27, 2001, three days after her birth.

She was adopted by a couple from Umea, Sweden, in 2003.

In 2017, the 16-year-old Ye traveled alone to Hangzhou in search of her biological parents.

With the help of a TV program and local police, she returned to the Hangzhou Child Welfare Institute and found the nursery governess and several witnesses from that time, but not her parents.

Laura Williams of the Garden Court Family Law Team represented the local authority.

This is the first reported decision where the court dispensed with parental consent in an adoption case with a surrogacy background.

The child, ‘N’, was born as a result of a surrogacy arrangement in 2005. The child’s biological father (but not legal father) and his wife wanted to adopt N, as it was not possible to obtain a parental order with no consent forthcoming for this.

N, now 18 years old, had been brought up by the applicants since he was 18 months old. N considered the applicants to be his parents in all senses of the word, although in law they had no status as his parents. N supported the application. The respondent parents; the surrogate mother and her husband, opposed the application for adoption.

The local authority, who provided an adoption report into the suitability of the applicants to adopt, also supported the application. The court dispensed with the respondent parents’ consent on welfare grounds. This meant that the court decided N's welfare needs require an adoption order to be made, even if his legal parents did not agree.

What you need to know:

• Justice John Eudes Keitirima of the Family Division in Makindye said the official fees for filing an adoption case in the court is Shs6,000 but many people engage lawyers to help them in the entire process.

Child rights activists and adoptive parents have asked the government to put up an adoption centre for children.

The revelation was made yesterday during an adoption awareness conference in Kampala under the theme “Bringing hope to a generation through adoption’’.
Adoption refers to the action of legally taking another person’s child and bringing him or her up as one’s own.

AONLY A FEW MINUTES AFTER I enter the door, Louise Stenstrup shows me into the bright children's room in the apartment in the middle of Copenhagen. Or, it is probably more accurate to say the room that might become a children's room. It resonates a little when we talk, because right now there is only a light blue chest of drawers and on top of it a framed picture of a four-year-old boy with a nice smile and a gray sweatshirt.

" He is the one I am matched with," she says.

Louise knows from a thick case file that the boy in the picture loves watermelon and doesn't like scary movies, and that he is caring towards small children. And that he lives in an orphanage in South Africa, where he was born out of wedlock to a woman who gave him up at birth. Louise also knows that the biological mother later confirmed at the court in South Africa that she does not want him.

Since August 30, 2023, 43-year-old Louise Stenstrup has known that she and the four-year-old boy had been matched, as it is called, and that she was to be his mother. He was supposed to be her son. She has seen videos of him and feels a strong bond with him already. “ It was overwhelming to see him for the first time. I think you can compare it to when you see the scan image for the first time. And here you could really form an impression of who he is. Is he happy? Now I have tried both things, both seeing a scan image and then this. After all, it's a completely different idea when you don't just see a fetus, but a very small human being.”

Since August last year, she has been waiting for the South African authorities to issue a release certificate for her son, a so-called section 17c, so that she can travel to South Africa and meet him and, after a month there, take him to Denmark. Now she has no idea if that will ever happen. " It is extremely difficult that you suddenly do not know whether the ideas you have had will become real. It is the same fear that you have as a pregnant woman, that you will lose the child, which I think most people who have been through it can nod in recognition of.”

According to her passport she is 51 years old. The question is whether that is correct. So little is known about the background of Kim ten Hagen, who was adopted from South Korea in 1975. A 'media offensive' must change that.

MARGAO:

The Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (GSCPCR) has called for urgent and decisive action against the troubling rise in illegal adoption and human trafficking in Goa. The commission's plea is directed towards law enforcement agencies, government officials, and the public to unite in combating these illicit activities.

GSCPCR has further urged that there be an immediate formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to thoroughly investigate these cases, bring perpetrators to justice, and prevent future exploitation.

To back their demand, GSCPCR pointed out that in recent years, they have identified multiple cases that reveal a disturbing pattern of illegal adoptions and potential connections to human trafficking networks.

The Supreme Court (on March 15), while hearing a PIL to simplify adoption procedures, observed that the States are prima facie in breach of the previous directions to expedite the adoption process. In view of this, the Court gave the States one last opportunity to comply with the directions, failing which the Court may resort to coercive proceedings. The bench, led by Chief Justice of...

Taipei, March 16 (CNA) Local governments will be required to be involved in the care and evaluation processes when a child goes through the adoption process in their locality, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Friday, in response to the death of a 1-year-old boy allegedly due to abuse by his foster caregiver.

Local governments need to play a greater role in the foster care system, the ministry said during a meeting with the Taipei and New Taipei city governments and the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) -- which were all involved in the recent case.

Current rules around the adoption process differ among local governments and the law lacks a clear explanation of who is responsible for each element, explained Chang Mei-mei (張美美), deputy director of the ministry's Social and Family Affairs Administration.

Therefore, before any amendments are made to the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act, local governments need to be consulted, Chang said.

Chang said the ministry will also ensure that all children under the age of 3 going through the adoption process are assigned a holistic physician -- doctors who provide catered individual medical care and health management -- regardless of parental consent.

A woman from Dublin, born into a mother and baby home in Northern Ireland, has said she feels "abandoned again" because she is excluded from a new compensation scheme.

Sinead Buckley was born in 1972 to an unmarried woman from the Republic of Ireland.

At that time her mother, Eileen, was living in Marianvale in Newry.

A midwife in Dublin, Eileen came north because of the fear and stigma associated with being a single mother.

Marianvale was one of a network of institutions across the island of Ireland which housed unmarried women and their babies at a time when pregnancy outside marriage was viewed as scandalous.