Goa Chronicle brings you the story of Priyangika Samanthie who is originally a Sri Lankan but was adopted by a Norwegian couple and was taken to Oslo. She helps individuals get reunited with their biological parents who were made victims of a sinister ‘adoption lobby’ running in Sri Lanka. And her own story of reuniting with her biological mother is worth giving a read.

Priyangika was three when she stumbled upon the fact of her being an adopted child. When asked about how she got to know the reality, she revealed, “Before I answer this, I would like to tell you that some of the articles that are online are misleading; some of the information is not correct. I tried to make them change it but it is poor journalism. So, when I was three, I got to know about my adoption because I started having questions when my family and I went to the stores or anywhere else. I could tell that everyone has a relationship with their biological parents because they looked alike. And I could sense that something was odd about our situation. And it got me thinking after which my adoptive parents started speaking to me about I having a second mom; which they did from an early age”.

She continued, “They always used to talk about me having three parents because they knew only about my biological mother and not my father. I specifically remember one instance when we went to the store, and I was lost because I went away from my adoptive mother. Then the cashier came over to me and asked me whether I needed some help. I had then asked her to help me find my mother. But after she took me back to my adoptive mother, I had started asking for my real mother. And I had stated that I felt like I had been kidnapped. I used to shout on the streets saying that my adoptive parents stole me and this was something I used to say all through the years I grew up in. And I felt I wasn’t supposed to be in Norway and that I wanted to go back home.”

Priyangika continued to narrate her tale, “We found mom in 2013, and then I had gone to Sri Lanka on Independence Day in 2014. But I had been searching for her since I was 7. So, I searched for over 12 years before I could meet her. The adoption law in Europe is that the adoptive parents are not allowed to assist the adoptees to reunite with their biological parents. And hence the adoptees have to find their families on their own. They can only give the adoptees the documents from the time they were adopted. But they may not reveal any kind of information about the whereabouts of the biological families or any tip-off which could help the adoptees to reunite with their actual parents. I am trying to get this changed now. By the age of 5, my adoptive parents used to tell me about my adoption in detail because I always had a lot of questions on my mind regarding the documents and my situation. We used to sit and talk about my family in Sri Lanka and the legal process required to be followed.”

“Listening to my follow-up questions, my parents fathomed I was keener to know about my adoption as compared to my adoptive brother. Both of us are not biologically related; we were adopted from Sri Lanka. Then my adoptive parents showed me the documents like birth certificates and films from the time they spent in Sri Lanka. But it wasn’t enough information about my biological mother. So, at 7, I went to my adoptive father’s office, and I asked him to help me write to the government to get access to my documents. My father could only help me write a letter to the reunification program authorities but my application was declined, and I was told that one has to be at least 16 to begin looking out for biological parents. And the government told me that I could not look into their files until I was 18. This was a huge problem,” mentioned Priyangika.

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday supported a resolution in the provincial assembly to frame specific laws and procedures regarding the adoption of children in the province.

Member of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party Nighat Yasmin Orakzai moved the resolution seeking a legal mechanism and cover for the protection of adoptees, especially shelterless children.

The treasury and opposition benches supported the resolution in the session, which was presided over by Deputy Speaker Mahmood Jan.

Ms Orakzai complained that the province didn’t have any specific law for adoptions.

She said verbal agreements were made between adopters and hospitals or private child protection bodies, while the adopted children were handed over to the families without the checking of their financial and social backgrounds.

More than two months ago, the cabinet temporarily halted foreign adoptions due to abuses . In South Africa, one of the countries from which children were adopted, they do not identify with it.

The Campher family's wall is full of pictures of babies and toddlers. Over the past seven years, the couple Barbara and Thinus have cared for nearly a hundred children in their home. Three children were adopted by the Dutch. They are currently taking care of six children.

"We keep the shelter small so that it feels like a family," says Thinus Campher. "If we go on an outing, we can all go together, that is not possible if we would take care of more children. Six is ??our max."

To the Netherlands

Very soon there will be one child less. "A 6-year-old boy whom we have been taking care of for years is going to the Netherlands." For the time being he is the last of this reception family. The only reason his adoption goes ahead is that he was already in the adoption process when intercountry adoption was suspended.

[Adoption under Juvenile Justice Act] Child born out of live-in relationship to be treated as child born to married couple: Kerala High Court

The Court held that a woman in a live-in-relationship, acknowledging the biological father of the child, out of such a relationship, will have to be treated as a married woman for the purpose of Juvenile Justice Act.

In a decision of seminal significance, the Kerala High Court has held that a child born out a live-in relationship and acknowledged so by the mother of the child, would have to be treated as a child born to a married couple for the purposes of surrendering a child for adoption under Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 [JJ Act).

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NEW DELHI: The Centre has told the Delhi HC that foreigners registered

as OCI (overseas citizens of India) cardholders because of their marriage

to Indian nationals cease to enjoy that status after their divorce.

Defending one such decision, the MHA informed the HC that the move of

the Indian embassy in Brussels, Belgium, asking a Belgian woman to

Adoption of child by single parents: “If a woman feels she is nothing without the support of a man that is the failure of the system” The Kerala High Court quoted during the hearing of a case in regard to surrendering a child for adoption.

Justices A Muhamed Mustaque and Dr Kauser Edappagath of the bench were faced with a petition by an unmarried couple who lived together, reclaiming their child who was surrendered for adoption previously. The court granted its’s decision in favour of the couple and handed them their child back. The decision was ruled against the Child Welfare Committee that inquired into their marriage status.

“Once it is found that the child is born to a couple, for all practical purposes of JJ Act, inquiry must be initiated as though the child belonged to a married couple” The Kerala HC said.

What was the case?

Anitha and John (names changed to preserve privacy) were in a live-in relationship when she got pregnant. Anitha claimed John to be the biological father. Their relationship was not accepted by their parents as they belonged to separate religions.

New Delhi: Five people, including a couple, were in

connection with the alleged kidnapping of a three-year-old

girl in outer Delhi’s Raj Park, police said on Friday. Ravi (26), his

wife Santosh (25), Mahesh (25), Guddan (26) and Ram Prasad

(36) were arrested and the child was safely and

Teleza is Nicole van Elteren's daughter. She runs a children's home and development projects in Malawi. Teleza was pressed into her arms when she was a few days old. The biological mother was dead, the father unknown and Teleza herself turned out to be critically ill. She had four holes in the heart that would kill her without surgery.

Adoption

Because the life-saving operations were not carried out in Africa, but in the Netherlands, Nicole decided to adopt the child. That's how Teleza would become Dutch. But where Malawi recognized the adoption in June 2020, the Netherlands did not. Malawi was seen as a weak adoption country, because Malawi's law states that adopted children in principle keep the right to an inheritance from their biological parents.

Although Teleza has no biological parents, the Netherlands stuck to that rule. Teleza was denied a passport, so she was not entitled to health insurance. Because the baby was getting sicker and was in danger of dying in the meantime, Nicole decided to travel to the Netherlands in September to have Teleza operated on uninsured. Almost 110,000 euros was raised through crowdfunding to finance the very expensive interventions.

Judge

Assistant Minister for Children and Families, Michelle Landry, has today announced Relationships Australia South Australia (RASA) as the successful provider delivering the Morrison Government's $4.75 million redesigned Intercountry Adoptee and Family Support Service (ICAFSS).

RASA will be the lead agency delivering the ICAFSS over the next five years, from 1 July 2021, following last year's competitive grant round.

The intercountry adoption community will continue to benefit from the Government's investment to support the delivery of this important service.

Assistant Minister Landry said the redesigned ICAFSS, led by RASA, will provide the intercountry adoption community with access to free, nation-wide intercountry adoption-specific support, including therapeutic care, community capacity building and a new small grants program.

"As part of the redesigned service, people with lived experience of intercountry adoption will have an opportunity to have their say on how the program is designed, implemented and delivered, so it meets their needs."

Student Danai Deblaere is the daughter of an Indian adopted child. She knows well how difficult it is to grow up in a white world where no one looks like you. The problems that arise as a result can be avoided by banning intercountry adoption, she writes.

22November 1976, Daisy, a two year old Indian girl arrives at Zaventem. She was adopted by a Belgian family with a great desire to have children, which unfortunately cannot be fulfilled in a natural way. Daisy's adoptive parents already have one biological daughter but they want to expand their family.

Daisy comes from a Missionaries for Charity orphanage in Mumbai. Daisy's adoptive parents search for their adopted child among the arrived children. They don't find her immediately. The child in the photo that they received from adoption agency De Joyzaaiers is nowhere to be found.

In the end, only one child remained of all adopted children: Daisy. She was not the girl in the photo, but she turned out to be the adopted child of the family in question. Daisy was two years old, but she looked much younger. Besides, she was not healthy. An extra day in India could have killed her.

Fortunately, Daisy didn't die, otherwise I wouldn't be able to write this opinion piece. Because I am her daughter.