Around the world, over 80 percent of children in orphanages have at least one living parent. So how do these children end up in orphanages rather than with their families? Unfortunately, there are countless families across the globe who face circumstances like the death of a parent, the loss of a job, or conflict that that threaten to separate them.

People like Gladys know that firsthand. When Gladys suddenly lost both her husband and brother in a short period of time, she found herself caring for seven children; alone, with no income.

Many parents who find themselves without support from family or friends are faced with a series of impossible choices. Out of desperation, some families believe they have no alternative but to place their children in the care of an orphanage where they will have food and shelter. But institutions like orphanages are not equipped to provide the individual love, care, and sense of belonging that only a family can offer. The parents and children experience significant loss from family separation in addition to the grief and trauma they have already experienced.

At a time when her children and her brother’s children were already suffering the loss of their fathers, Gladys did not want them to suffer again or risk losing them forever by placing them in the care of an orphanage. A local district government referred her to the family preservation and empowerment program run by Bethany Christian Services in Ghana, aimed at helping families stay together and keeping children out of institutions.

Through the program, social workers walked alongside Gladys and the children, offering connections to direct services as well as mental health support while they continued to cope with the death of their loved ones. Gladys initially received financial support and access to services to meet the family’s immediate, critical needs including food, medical care, and payment of school fees. Next, the program helped her become financially self-sufficient through business training opportunities that she could access while caring for the children.

One woman's story of not wanting to have a relationship with her biological daughter sparked a conversation on social media about the challenges that arise with adoptions.

Shared in Reddit's "Am I the A**hole" forum by the anonymous user u/unwantedchoice_78, the post amassed over 6,000 upvotes and 1,200 comments at the time of writing.

Specifically, u/unwantedchoice_78 wrote about her experience with a "closed" adoption—one where "the adoptive family and the birth parents will never have to see each other again," and the child has no contact with their biological parents. Today, closed adoptions are relatively rare, consisting of only about five percent of all modern adoptions.

In her post, the self-identified 38-year-old woman explains that at the age of 15, she had a baby who she gave up in a closed adoption. "I don't want children and was made to birth her after becoming pregnant," she wrote.

But recently, her biological daughter, now 23, has attempted to contact her. "I've ... began receiving numerous messages via social media and letters from my bio daughter," wrote the woman.

NEW DELHI (CNS) — The Missionaries of Charity congregation has been forced to shut Nirmala Shishu Bhawan, a home for orphaned, destitute and abandoned children in Uttar Pradesh state, after its lease expired. The Defence Estates Office demanded $250,000 from the nuns for trespassing.

The closure came on the heels of the federal government’s refusal to renew the congregation’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act registration for foreign donations to carry out its charitable works across the country.

Ucanews.com reported India’s defense establishment claimed the Uttar Pradesh home was built on its land, for which the lease had expired in 2019. It claimed the Missionaries of Charity were trespassers and would have to pay penalty charges or face eviction.

Sister Prema Pierick, the congregation’s superior general, felt it prudent to surrender to army authorities and handed over peaceful possession of the home to the Defence Estates Office Jan. 3, Ucanews.com reported.

The 11 remaining children, most of whom were severely handicapped, were relocated to other Shishu Bhawan homes, said Chhotebhai, convener of the Indian Catholic Forum who has been closely associated with the orphanage since its inception.

After the blocking of funds from abroad, the Missionaries of Charity in India have once again been hit by bureaucratic red tape: the renewal of a state concession for the land on which a home that welcomes those abandoned by all has been denied. The Bishop of Lucknow: "A dangerous road has been taken against Mother Teresa's sisters. They attack Christians because they are a community that loves peace".

Lucknow (AsiaNews) - The Missionaries of Charity in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,have been forced to close one of their homes for orphaned children because of an eviction ordered by the Indian Ministry of Defence. The New Year, which had already begun for the Sisters of Mother Teresa with the revocation of their license to receive donations from abroad, thus continues with another serious obstacle to their activity advanced by bureaucratic means in one of the more than 240 centers for orphans managed by the religiousin India.

On January 3, in the district of Kanpur, the Missionaries of Charity were in fact forced to suspend the activities of the local Shishu Bhawan, one of the homes where they welcome abandoned children in a gesture that everyone immediately associates with the memory of Mother Teresa.The eviction was ordered by the Indian State Property Office: the structure rises, in fact, on land that had been sold to a private individual with a 90-year concession that expires in 2019. It would then have been this private individual to cede it to the Sisters of Mother Teresa in 1968 to open the orphanage. Now, however, the office of the Ministry of Defense that manages state property does not want to renew the concession; and in addition, it also asks the sisters to pay a fine of 20 million rupees (about 240 thousand euros) for using the structure in the last two years. An economic threat that - together with the uncertainties caused by the blocking of donations from abroad - would have led the Missionaries of Charity to choose not to take legal action to resist the decision, handing over the structure to the State.

"In the last 53 years - recalls the Indian Catholic Forum - the Shishu Bhawan of Kanpur has welcomed and helped secure adoption for 1,500 children according to the rules of the law. It has also offered help to thousands of other poor people such as lepers, abandoned mothers, children of migrants working on construction sites. The State Office seems unwilling to see the selfless service offered by the sisters to anyone in need, regardless of caste or creed. The last 11 children who remained in the facility were transferred to the Shishu Bhawan in the cities of Allahabad, Varanasi, Bareilly and Meerut. But what will happen to the 1,500 families who adopted children from this center? For them this structure was like a Nanihal (grandmother's house), while for the orphans who grew up there and are now married, the Shishu Bhawan was the family home".

The bishop of Lucknow Msgr. Gerald Mathias commented to AsiaNews: "I am deeply saddened by this news. Had it been desired, the concession could certainly have been renewed since the sisters took care of orphans and abandoned, serving the poorest of the poor. Despite Mother Teresa's international fame, neither the government nor the army showed any understanding or support for this facility and were happy to evict her. The Missionaries of Charity in recent times have been targeted in Gujarat and Jharkhand; then came the revocation of the license for donations from abroad: these are all episodes that point to a dangerous path. They attack Christians because they are a peace-loving community. We can only hope that common sense will prevail and the situation will improve.

Pope Francis said Wednesday that people who adopt pets instead of children were exhibiting “a form of selfishness” as he presided over his first general audience of the new year.

“How many children in the world are waiting for someone to take care of them,” the pontiff said in a speech at the Vatican. “And how many spouses wish to be fathers and mothers but are unable to do so for biological reasons; or, although they already have children, they want to share their family’s affection with those who have been left without.”

Francis’ catechism lesson focused on the figure of Joseph, who Francis said was the “foster father” of Jesus.

Repeating his call for couples to have more children to address the “demographic winter” in much of the West, he said those who can’t have children should be open to adoption.

Today “we see a form of selfishness ... We see that people do not want to have children,” he said.

If biological babies are not on the cards – sometimes it’s a choice one makes – adoption could be. But, taking on a child not biologically yours can prove challenging. We asked the experts about things to consider before making that commitment. Here’s what they had to say.

1. Why do you want a child? Lavina Ahuja, clinical psychologist at the German Neuroscience Center, says both partners need to think about this. Why do you want to adopt? Is it because you want a child or because you want to be parent? Or is it because you feel it will change your dynamics or relationship with the world?

2. Mourning: Asma Geitany, Clinical Psychologist at Openminds center, says: “In case of infertility, have you and your partner, grieved the chance of having a biological child?” Finding closure isn’t easy, but it is important when it comes to de-clogging your mind and heart and making space for a new person.

3. Biological hang-ups: she adds, “Can you share your love with a kid who is not biologically yours?”

4. Consider past traumas: Can you provide a safe and stable environment? Ask yourself, says Geitany, “How are you as a person, psychologically? Do you have any trauma from your past which have a huge negative impact on your life? Is your relationship with your partner stable? You have a welcoming family-oriented relationship?”

Opaque international adoption procedures have led to a family drama: children separated from their parents, siblings scattered all over the world and lives wrecked. Corrupt networks facilitate these illegal adoptions. Today, the law has been revised to better protect children and families, and separated children are trying to reunite with their families.

By Nadia Raonimanalina and Elise Nandrasanela

2017-014 Law of 6 July 2017 defines the procedures, general terms, conditions, financial contributions related to adoption. The rationale for this law states that “Adoption is a measure of child protection when a child cannot grow up in his or her family of origin or cannot be entrusted to a member of his or her extended family or to a substitute family, such as a foster family.”

In the child’s best interests and with respect for his or her fundamental rights, adoption provides a child deprived of family and parental care with a permanent and definitive solution for growing up in a family environment. However, the response to the child’s right must be first and foremost a national solution so that the break with the child’s environment of origin is limited as much as possible.

Can we still talk about the best interests of the child and the respect of his or her rights if the latter has been taken away from his or her biological parents with a view to adoption and the related procedures have been ambiguous? Between national or international involuntary adoption and child trafficking, there are only narrow boundaries.

Over four decades, he worked as a celebrity faith healer in Abadiânia, a small town in central Brazil.

It was there - conducting bizarre and unproven medical procedures - that João Teixeira de Faria became known as John of God, building a legion of believers across the world, including a band of loyal followers in Australia who were happy to open their wallets for his supposed miracle-giving touch and ethereal blessings.

Each week, people from all corners of the globe flocked in their thousands to John of God's compound, Casa de Dom Inacio, 130km south-west of Brasilia.

There, dressed in all white, many hoped to find a cure for cancer, blindness or to stand and rise from their wheelchairs.

Faria's rising fame was elevated to a new trajectory, courtesy of some Hollywood star dust, when Oprah Winfrey came calling in 2010 for a series titled "Do You Believe in Miracles?"

We were noticed. We were ignored. We were stared at. We were talked about. We were asked questions. We asked questions. We were welcomed. We became involved and participated. We became friends. We learned about India, its diversity, its people, its traditions, its culture, and its religions. We traveled around India. We celebrated being an Indian American family. We were two white American parents with one, then two, then three kids from Calcutta, and eventually with one through birth and one from China (which then made us an Indian-Chinese-American family). We were a transracial, transcultural family and we were unlike the majority of families that we saw every day. That was an important piece of our familial identity, one we could not and chose not to ignore.

From the day my then-husband and I decided to adopt from India, I was excited and began reading and researching everything I could about this country I’d only heard about through television and a few stories I’d read as a young girl. I had never met anyone from India, but when we decided that our first child would be from there, I started noticing every family in which the children did not look like the parents (i.e., white parents with non-white kids), and I especially was on the alert for anyone who might be from India: people with darker skin than me, women with that little dot on their forehead and wearing a lot of fabric wrapped around them like a dress, men who maybe wore a tunic top. Whether I was at the grocery store or on the university campus or at an art show, or anywhere in public, I was watching. I wanted to run up to each person I thought might be from India and ask them if they were and share with them my excitement that we were adopting a child from “their” country. But I didn’t. I stayed quiet, just observing, listening, and reading.

Honor Their Country of Birth

I especially focused on books, magazines, and newspaper articles having anything to do with India. Record albums and cassette tapes of musicians from India (mainly ragas and Ravi Shankar at first) found their way into my music collection. At that time, there were no Indian restaurants within 90 minutes of our home, and I was not even aware of Indian food, anyway. However, the orphanage staff in Calcutta did their best to educate us about the city our kids would be coming from. One of the most important pieces of advice we received from the adoption agency in Oregon and the orphanage in India was that we owed it to our children to honor their country of birth and to learn as much as we could about their country of origin. I took that to heart, but I wasn’t sure at first what else we needed to do. The orphanage staff also sent waiting adoptive parents a list of Indian names with their meanings and asked that we consider giving our children either a first or middle name from India.

After our first child, Dana Tarun, joined our family, I got busy figuring out, along with another adoptive mom whose child came the week before mine, what other things we had to start doing. Thus began an amazing journey as a mom and as a young woman, a journey that created, and continues to create, immense joy in my life.

Improving the adoption process and long-term outcomes for everyone impacted by adoption will require legislative action by Congress to address key issues. In the January 2022 issue of the Adoption Advocate, we break down NCFA’s legislative priorities for the year to explain four pending and future bills that can make adoption better and how advocates can take action to understand the issues and engage with their members of Congress.

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In any given session of Congress, thousands of bills are proposed, and of those, hundreds are reviewed, marked up, and voted on. While these bills address a variety of critical issues, we believe that Congress should prioritize the expedient passage of laws that cultivate a society that affirms the human right of every child to thrive in a permanent, loving family and removes unnecessary barriers to adoption. For hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S. and around the world, adoption is the only pathway to the family they deserve. As a longstanding national adoption advocacy organization, the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) has identified four critical pieces of legislation that we believe Congress should pass in 2022 to effect positive changes in the adoption system and move more children to permanency in a timely manner.

None of these bills on their own will create the type of reforms and policy changes that are needed to address the full scope of the problem. But taken together, with bold Congressional leadership, engaged grassroots advocates, and actionable commitment from policymakers and regulators to removing the barriers to adoption, we can make significant progress for the children and youth who are counting on us.

Restore Integrity to America’s Promise of a Permanent Home