They see their daughter just twice a year. And she has never seen the two-story brick house in Annapolis that is supposed to be — according to all the documents they signed — her American home.

Bhagya, 12, is still in an orphanage in Nepal, where Aaron and Emma Skalka met her eight years ago. They fly there twice a year, Skype, call and email her as much as they can to talk about her hobbies, her friends, her grades.

They are stuck in an adoption limbo — a morass of paperwork and politics, fraught with the ethical weight of international adoptions and the fierce conviction of two people who don’t want a little girl to be abandoned a second time.

And they just sued the American government, essentially arguing to overturn a ban on adoptions from Nepal implemented when abuse and corruption in the system was uncovered 13 years ago. The Skalkas — who hired their own investigator to ensure everything was legit and unforced — are pressing the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to acknowledge the Nepalese approval of Bhagya’s adoption.

“The State Department doesn’t understand,” Aaron Skalka said. “From the moment we signed those papers, there was an emotional commitment to this child.”

When Ian and Darryl decided to adopt a child, they could never have known they would pick up a new set of grandparents along the way.

The Doncaster-based couple were initially nervous when they learned that Aspen, the child they had been matched with, would have an ongoing relationship with her birth grandparents. They worried that the mandated two visits a year could quickly spiral out of control and that boundaries would dissolve.

Thankfully, their fears turned out to be unfounded. Today, Aspen is a happy, playful three-year-old girl who has a beautiful, loving relationship with her two dads as well as her two grandmothers, Karen and Carol – a lesbian couple. All four play a vital role in Aspen’s life, and Ian and Darryl couldn’t be happier that their daughter has extra loving grandparents to fuss over her.

“Both me and Darryl were really nervous about it,” Ian tells PinkNews. “We did talk about it and said, is this the thing that’s going to stop us adopting Aspen?”

Despite their concerns, Ian and Darryl decided to push ahead with the adoption. The first time they met Karen and Carol they knew they had struck gold.

OPINION

Imagine this: You are a pre-schooler and through no fault of your own you cannot remain with your family.

You are placed into foster care and the carers are restricted from sharing images of you, including on social media or revealing any of your story. This is to protect your privacy, and to give you agency over your own story, including if, when and how you choose to tell it.

But what happens to those restrictions if, instead of remaining in care, you're adopted? They are no longer in place and your own story is now in the hands of your adopters. Can you see why this scenario could go badly?

Intern Lorianne looks back

In recent months, intern Lorianne has strengthened our team. Now that her internship at Adoption Support Center is behind her, she looks back on the past period and cautiously looks ahead to the future.

Hi there! I am Lorianne Deketelaere, an enthusiastic student of Applied Psychology at Howest in Bruges. With my teaching diploma already in hand, I decided last academic year to start the Applied Psychology course. Towards the end of my teacher training I did not feel completely satiated. It was during an elective course that focused on psychological well-being that my interest in psychology really started to grow. That subject stirred something in me that made me know that I wanted to continue with this.

For my second-year internship in Applied Psychology, I was given the opportunity to do an internship at Adoption Support Center. As an adoptee, this organization immediately captured my imagination and I was extremely curious about what I could learn there.

During my internship I gained a broad insight into what exactly adoption in Belgium entails. I had the opportunity to interview fascinating people and write articles about their experiences, operations and organizations. Furthermore, I was able to participate in numerous informative sessions, preparation meetings and training that enriched my knowledge about the adoption landscape and related themes (such as attachment and trauma).

A change in the law has contributed to more Danish children being forcibly adopted, writes Kristeligt Dagblad.

In 2022, the Danish Appeals Board released eight more children for forced adoption nationwide than the year before.
 

This is shown in an extract from the Danish Appeals Authority's case processing system according to Kristeligt Dagblad.

We see that there are recommendations for forced adoption, even if the parents of placed children comply with all agreements on contact and have good contact

BITTEN KJÆRSGAARD, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY

A total of 37 children were forcibly adopted in 2022 compared to 29 in 2021.

One of INEA's goals is to sustainably promote and strengthen connections, collaboration and knowledge sharing within the current adoption field. Interest groups for intercountry adoptees are valuable partners for INEA because of their expertise, experience and network in specific countries of origin. Particularly when it comes to support in carrying out searches in countries of origin, they have a wealth of knowledge and know-how. The Ministry of Justice and Security has made financial resources available for these organizations in the form of the subsidy scheme 'International Adoptee Interest Organizations' (hereinafter: the subsidy scheme). But how did this subsidy scheme come about and how do you apply for a subsidy?

Why a subsidy scheme?

A large group of international adoptees has been left out in the cold for a long time. Abuses came to light that made searches for and issues surrounding distance, adoption and identity complicated or impossible. In addition, adoptees have different questions and needs at different times in their lives. With the arrival of INEA, we want to ensure that intercountry adoptees and their families are seen and heard at all stages of life regarding questions about distance, adoption and identity.

The current support offering is fragmented; There are interest groups that differ in size, offering, approach and professionalism. The subsidy scheme was created to sustainably promote and strengthen the current support offered by interest groups. The ministry has consciously chosen not to pay individual compensation to adoptees in the Netherlands. One of the reasons is that general support and the creation of an improved infrastructure contributes more to assisting the broad target group of intercountry adoptees than providing uniform individual benefits to the entire group.

The subsidy scheme explained

KOCHI: Children born to victims of sexual assault, even after legal adoption should not be forced for DNA blood sample tests, said HCThe High Court Justice K Babu put an interim stay to the many lower court decisions allowing DNA samples to be taken from such children

Kerala State Legal Service Authority(KELSA) controlled Victims Rights Center project coordinator advocate Parvati Menon earlier made a report saying the procedure was an intrusion into the privacy of such children who will get strangled in thoughts if revealed their identity

“The child would have blended so well with the adopted family that a sudden revelation that he/she is an adopted child and that too of a rape victim can imbalance their emotional status and can result in them exhibiting behavioral disorders and aberrations,” said the report by the Victim Rights Centre

The report reached the court through the advocate general. Meanwhile, the single bench has asked for a response from Government and KELSA and scheduled the next hearing on July 21

The DNA samples can be collected from children only for cases including alimony and divorce

The Search Squad uses old-fashioned snooping skills to bring families together.

By Danielle Campoamor

One Facebook group is showing the true power of social media by helping people find the missing pieces of their lives.

A group named Search Squad uses old-fashioned snooping skills and connections on the social media app Facebook to help reunite family members around the world who have been separated by either adoption or other factors.

The group, which is volunteer-based and who call themselves 'Search Angels', say that everything they do is free of charge. To date, the group has helped thousands of people learn more about who they are, where they came from and — perhaps most importantly — complete their forever families.

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis recently promulgated a law increasing the duration of parental leave for parents who have adopted a child from one year, which is currently the case, to two years.

The project provides that the adopter or, optionally, either of the spouses of the adopting family who earn income subject to income tax, either from salary and related activities or from independent activities, copyright, or agricultural activities, may benefit from a so-called accommodation leave with a maximum duration of two years, as well as a monthly allowance.

The project's initiator, Liberal (PNL) deputy Alin Ignat, said after the parliamentary vote that the initiative is as simple as it is essential for people who decide to adopt a child in Romania, but especially for children who are given the chance of a life in a family through adoption.

"Today, these people benefit, upon request, from a paid leave with a maximum duration of one year. Unfortunately, reality shows us that many of the adopted children who have ended up in the social protection system following abandonment or the death of their parents have severe traumas to overcome, and the process of adapting to the new family is complex and full of challenges, a process that often involves psycho-emotional, medical, and behavioral recovery through integration into various specialized programs. We started from such cases when we devised and initiated the project that helps adoptive parents by granting the possibility of an accommodation leave of up to two years," Ignat said, cited by News.ro.

The Liberal deputy also stated that this project addresses the problem not only financially, but also addresses time, a resource that is often more precious. "In this case, it is about the time spent together by families where adoption truly creates parents and children, time translated into trust in each other, in oneself, and in the future, time translated into secure attachment, needs that receive responses, and steps towards emotional balance," he said.

Online it is teeming with self-proclaimed health gurus and life coaches, according to science journalist Adriaan ter Braack, known as quackery critic 'Sjamadriaan'. He competes with the opportunistic 'fake gurus', who promote products that, at best, do nothing.

very morning there was a glass of water on the table, with a piece of paper underneath. A grid of two by two boxes was drawn on this, in which random numbers were written. According to a naturopath, the energy of the numbers would radiate into the water, causing my father to recover.

AN OPPORTUNISTIC NATUROPATH DISRUPTED MY FATHER'S RECONCILIATION PROCESS WITH FATE