The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has informed the Delhi High Court that

it shall consider permitting advocates to appear as 'authorized representatives' to

coordinate and facilitate various formalities that are required to be undertaken in the

process of inter-country adoptions.

It also said that if virtual meetings are required by either biological or adoptive parents,

The Committee for Welfare, Public Health and Family of the Flemish Parliament is once again organizing hearings on intercountry adoption. This time, the final report of the expert panel on intercountry adoption gave the starting signal. This final report examines whether and how malpractice in intercountry adoption can be prevented. The panel of experts gave twenty recommendations to fundamentally reform intercountry adoption and accommodate victims of malpractice.

The Children's Rights Commissioner participated in the expert panel. We endorse all recommendations of the final report. Nevertheless, with our advice we will go deeper into some recommendations that touch on children's rights or complaints and reports that came to us:

States that allow or recognize adoption must ensure that the best interests of the child are the primary consideration. But simply referring to the best interests of the child as the primary consideration in adoption is not enough. It is especially relevant to describe and assess that importance in terms of content. What is in the best interests of the child cannot be determined or described in advance and can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the situation, the personal context, one's own needs and requirements. There are various sources of inspiration to fulfill that interest of the child.

The principle of subsidiarity makes intercountry adoption the exception rather than the rule. From a children's rights perspective, adoption only comes into play when all other appropriate care options in the country of origin have been exhausted. Although it is not clear from a legal point of view what exactly appropriate internal solutions are and how subsidiary intercountry adoption is compared to other care solutions, no generally unanimous answer is needed here. Every situation is different. In the interest of each child, the different care solutions must be weighed up against each other.

Informed consent from children from 12 years and from the first parents is required. The Children's Rights Commissioner finds the age limit of 12 years to give permission arbitrary. By analogy with the decree on the legal position of minors in Integrated Youth Care, we argue for a presumption of competence from the age of 12, but with the option of deviating if the minor who is younger is indeed sufficiently mature and competent to make certain decisions. to take. Whether the law in the country of origin expressly requires the consent of the first parents must be decisive in deciding whether or not to cooperate with a country of origin.

The Committee for Welfare, Public Health and Family of the Flemish Parliament is once again organizing hearings on intercountry adoption. This time, the final report of the expert panel on intercountry adoption gave the starting signal. This final report examines whether and how malpractice in intercountry adoption can be prevented. The panel of experts gave twenty recommendations to fundamentally reform intercountry adoption and accommodate victims of malpractice.

The Children's Rights Commissioner participated in the expert panel. We endorse all recommendations of the final report. Nevertheless, with our advice we will go deeper into some recommendations that touch on children's rights or complaints and reports that came to us:

States that allow or recognize adoption must ensure that the best interests of the child are the primary consideration. But simply referring to the best interests of the child as the primary consideration in adoption is not enough. It is especially relevant to describe and assess that importance in terms of content. What is in the best interests of the child cannot be determined or described in advance and can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the situation, the personal context, one's own needs and requirements. There are various sources of inspiration to fulfill that interest of the child.

The principle of subsidiarity makes intercountry adoption the exception rather than the rule. From a children's rights perspective, adoption only comes into play when all other appropriate care options in the country of origin have been exhausted. Although it is not clear from a legal point of view what exactly appropriate internal solutions are and how subsidiary intercountry adoption is compared to other care solutions, no generally unanimous answer is needed here. Every situation is different. In the interest of each child, the different care solutions must be weighed up against each other.

Informed consent from children from 12 years and from the first parents is required. The Children's Rights Commissioner finds the age limit of 12 years to give permission arbitrary. By analogy with the decree on the legal position of minors in Integrated Youth Care, we argue for a presumption of competence from the age of 12, but with the option of deviating if the minor who is younger is indeed sufficiently mature and competent to make certain decisions. to take. Whether the law in the country of origin expressly requires the consent of the first parents must be decisive in deciding whether or not to cooperate with a country of origin.

Mariela Sr Coline Fanon

Author - Book "Mom, I am not dead" Kennes Editions

1w

The Lost Roots Foundation - Raíces Perdidas submitted its request to

Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) to become an Observer. This will be accepted or refused after the vote of the signatory states of the #LaHaye convention

Hartini van Rijssel and MayaSari van Rijswijk, both adopted, searched in vain for relatives in Indonesia. After forty years, the two half-sisters find each other in the Netherlands. “A Christmas miracle.”

Hartini (40) cannot believe her eyes at the beginning of this month when she reads the results of the DNA test. After years of searching, she has a close family match. What? With her? I've known her for a long time, but I never expected this.

There was one woman who thought she was my mother, but a DNA test showed that we are not related at all.

Hartini of Lille

Alone on the world

A French forty-year-old from Fréjus (Var) was sentenced by the Draguignan prosecutor's office to 10 months suspended imprisonment on Thursday, December 17 for neglect of a minor. She had abandoned an orphan child after adopting him in the Congo.

A Frenchwoman was given a 10-month suspended prison sentence for neglecting a minor by the Draguignan prosecutor's office. According to Var Matin , this forty-year-old from Fréjus (Var) had abandoned a child she had just adopted in the Congo.

After launching the process in 2015, Ingrid L. obtained the full adoption of Michel in 2017, taken in at only 8 months by an orphanage. He obtained French nationality in 2017. However, after meeting him in 2018, the Frenchwoman abandoned him in Brazzaville (Republic of Congo). The child, now 8 years old, was then found on the steps of a church.

"During the week I spent with him, he was unmanageable. He had to be watched constantly. All the time, every minute. I felt that he would finally be better at the orphanage than with me" , tried to justify herself Ingrid L. Arguments which did not convince the correctional court of Draguignan which also pronounced with regard to this social worker in an educational action service in an open environment, a ban on exercising a professional activity in contact with minors, thus depriving her of her job. La Fréjusienne also said that she did not realize that the adoption procedure she had launched was final.

“He experienced a trauma”

During a stay in her country of origin, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Julienne MPEMBA made a dramatic observation. In his neighborhood, many children do not go to school. And when she asks them why they stay at home, the answer is the same "I was expelled because my school fees have not yet been paid" or "this year, I will not go to school because we doesn't know how to pay my school fees".

Watching some children from her neighborhood wandering in the street, at a time when the others are at school, she said to herself that she was very lucky to finish her humanities in Congo and to be able to go to Belgium to undertake university studies.

The unfortunate and alarming observation is there. The lack of schooling in the DRC at the budgetary level obliges parents to finance the studies of their children, among other things by taking charge of the teachers' salaries and the various fees required by the school managers. This system is materialized by the payment a premium that varies according to the public Catholic, official, kimbaguist schools, etc.

If the parents are unable to pay the premium in question, the children are simply sent home, and this dramatic situation most often leads to dropping out of school. This situation particularly affects a large number of orphans who no longer have parents to pay the said premium. And when they are collected within a host family, the children of the host parents often have priority with regard to the payment of the premium.

In recent years, the Congolese state has made considerable efforts. But, despite significant government intervention in the education sector (representing 10% of the national budget for the schooling of 10 million children), the Congolese population is faced with major challenges: many infrastructures are dilapidated, the school materials are seriously lacking, the number of teachers is insufficient.

Hundreds of Chileans adopted abroad have learned that they were trafficked. Investigators believe thousands of children may have been taken from their parents during Chile’s dictatorship.

Growing up in Minnesota, Tyler Graf knew almost nothing about his birth mother. And what little he knew, he said, stung.

His adoption papers listed her name, Hilda del Carmen Quezada; her age, 26; the date, March 2, 1983; and the hospital where she gave birth to him in central Chile. The documents also included a judge’s note saying Ms. Quezada gave him up because she had little money and “other children to support.”

“I never thought that any excuse would be good enough,” said Mr. Graf, who is now a firefighter in Houston. “I carried that animosity, that chip on my shoulder, my whole life.”

The claim that his mother willingly gave him up hurt, Mr. Graf said, until he learned this year that he is one of hundreds — possibly thousands — of Chilean adoptees taken from their parents without their consent during the country’s military dictatorship.

Suddenly he appeared on the screen. Linn's brother, who had been in despair when she had been adopted 35 years earlier. And soon she would also be talking to her biological mother.

Linn spent much of her childhood thinking about where she really came from. She had several siblings who were also adopted, but the desire to seek out her roots she did not share with them.

- I have had a great need to know my background, and my adoptive parents have always supported me in that, says 37-year-old Linn Sjöbäck from Kållered in Sweden.

She was adopted from Sri Lanka in 1985 when she was just 14 months old. Her biological mother was involved in the transfer to the adoptive family.

- There were real documents and case files. When I got the chance to read them, I was relieved that everything had gone right. I was a little uneasy after all the writing about kidnapped children in the 80s.

ARNHEM - The 29-year-old Carlos Wiltink from Arnhem was severely mistreated in his first years of life, in his native Brazil, and was badly burned. After his adoption, he had to undergo about forty operations because of his mutilations. Now he is participating in an international study, in which his skin must be repaired in a more sustainable way. That can make a big difference to him.

Between zero and three years, I was burned and mutilated in Brazil," says Carlos in the Burn Center in Beverwijk, where the investigation is taking place. In files he has read, there are stories about what might have happened there. "That's pretty intense. Not human."

The large scars on his legs are caused by burns, according to research in Beverwijk. One arm is also longer than the other due to stabbings, Carlos points out. "I have injuries to my head, because knives have also come on it. I also suffered brain damage, which can give me epilepsy."

In the end, young Carlos was found by the side of the road by two children. "They sounded the alarm. Then I was in hospital for a year and a half. My life hung by a thread."

My mother gave me away to the wrong people. She herself did not have enough money