Despite Chandigarh administration’s January notification to make child adoption easier, only 11 children adopted in 10 months

It’s been almost a year since the UT administration notified the Chandigarh Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Amendment Rules, 2023, to accelerate the adoption process. Yet, the list of people hoping to adopt a child remains long.

Recently, the Supreme Court had raised serious concerns over the “grave” delay in the process of adoption of children and asked the Centre why no steps were being taken to simplify the process. (HT File)

Through the January notification, the district magistrate was given the authority to issue adoption orders that were previously under the ambit of district courts, thereby speeding up the process in such cases, be it intra-country, inter-country, relative or step parent adoption.

But as of October end, only 11 of the 51 adoption hopefuls have been able to bring a child home. Meanwhile, the wait for remaining 40 applicants, which has already drawn out for over two years, continues to grow longer.

A TikTok user named Kalkidan is opening up about the dark side of international adoption in Ethiopia.

On July 27, Kalkidan, a native of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, took to TikTok to share her harrowing illegal adoption story. The young beauty claimed that she was “trafficked to the United States in 2008” and that her abductors “falsified” her adoption paperwork.

“On paper, I was six, but in real life, I was 7,” Kalkidan told her followers in a viral video that has garnered over 650,000 views.

@kalkidantems

I dont think enough ppl realize how many kids were kidnapped and brought to the US under false pretenses that they were “orphans” or had no family like myself…#ethiopian_tik_tok #habeshatiktok #adoption #ethiopian_tik_tok🇪🇹🇪🇹🇪🇹🇪🇹 #fyp #fypシ #viralvideo

♬ original sound - Kalkidan

Participants of the 2023 International Korean Adoptee Associations Gathering pose for a group photo during the opening ceremony at COEX in southern Seoul, July 11. The event will continue until July 16 and the participants will discuss ways to build communities and empower Korean adoptees worldwide. Yonhap

Companies are racing to accelerate and commercialize in-vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, which would make human eggs and sperm in the lab from any cell in the body containing anyone's DNA.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:

One of the most cutting-edge and controversial fields of biomedical research right now is the quest to create eggs and sperm in the lab for anyone with their own DNA. And now, private companies have jumped into the race to revolutionize the way humans reproduce. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein reports on what these startups are up to.

ROB STEIN, BYLINE: It's a cloudy day in Berkeley, Calif. I turn onto a gritty side street near the San Francisco Bay and ring the bell on a low concrete building with big frosted glass doors.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOORBELL RINGING)

SWIMMING. Parents of a beautiful, large family of 7 children, Trifluvians Joël Lapierre and Julie Joseph wish to adopt 5 Ukrainian children. To make their dream come true, the couple must raise a minimum amount of $80,000 and that is why the father decided to take on a major challenge: swim 40 kilometers in the St. Lawrence River.

Accompanied by swimmer Heidi Levasseur, Joël Lapierre left Thursday morning (July 10) from Saint-Quentin Island, in Trois-Rivières. He will swim to Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade during the day. He should arrive around 4:30 p.m.

The Lapierre family is made up of four biological daughters, a son adopted at birth in Quebec and siblings of two boys adopted in Ukraine in 2012. In September, the couple will fly to Ukraine to go pick up 4 to 5 children.

“We do it because we care about children, particularly children in Ukraine,” says the father. We are committed to providing parents to children who do not have a favorable environment. We don't know our future children. We will be paired with them on site, so we have to spend a few weeks in Ukraine. We're very excited and nervous at the same time, but we know what to expect since we've done it before."

Lara van Barneveld (48) from Enschede always found great comfort in a fairytale story about her adoption. That was based on what the orphanage had said about it. But a few years ago Lara discovered that things were very different. Now she does everything she can to find her biological mother. Her hopes are pinned on an advertisement in the newspaper.

"My adoptive parents were told that the orphanage staff in India opened the door in the morning and saw a box on the sidewalk. In the box was me, a cute baby barely a day old," says Lara. “And when I was little I imagined that I was the daughter of an Indian princess who for some reason couldn't keep me.”

But when Lara speaks to other people from the same orphanage, she finds out that they have all been told the same story. "That story is not correct, because we could never have all been found in a box in front of the orphanage." Since then, Lara has been searching with all her might for her biological parents in India.

Mistakes are often made when adopting from abroad because the system is susceptible to fraud. A well-known example of this is the story of the adoptive nun Gertrudis Kuijpers. She is accused of hundreds of illegal adoptions :

Lara van Barneveld (48) from Enschede always found great comfort in a fairytale story about her adoption. That was based on what the orphanage had said about it. But a few years ago Lara discovered that things were very different. Now she does everything she can to find her biological mother. Her hopes are pinned on an advertisement in the newspaper.

Dr. Aurangasri Hinriksson receiving the Order of the Golden Falcon at the President’s House in view of National Day of Iceland 

During most of my adult life I was interested in international affairs, violation of human rights and the harm caused by  racial and religious prejudices

All adopted children have the right to find their biological parents, but the parents do not have the same right as they have signed a document giving up 
that right

In my opinion, a mass DNA analysis of the mothers  who gave away their babies for adoption, is the only way to locate some of the adoptees´ 
biological parents

Over the years I have formed a network of  searchers and informers in various parts of Sri Lanka

I also got inolved in raising funds to build a music school in Isafirdi using my eastern cultural knowledge and also managed to raise funds to buy a life-saving boat for the Accident Prevention Society. In appreciation of the above charitable activities, I was awarded immediate citizenship. Today my son and I are dual citizens

Some of the cases that I investigated, demonstrated that newborns were stolen from hospital from unsuspecting mothers and whisked away to Colombo and kept in safe houses run by the above said lawyer in Kotahena and in Punchi Borella, till such time they were ready to be adopted by a prospective adoptee parent from Europe

Adoptions these days are very few and mainly from the Czech Republic and last year there were none. The Icelandic Adoption Society became a registered legal binding institution during the years 1999 to 2000. The Society follows strict rules and regulations set out by the 1993 Hague Convention on intercountry adoptions

Nowadays, when I find a mother, I use different tactics. I tell her something like that she has won the lottery because her son or daughter living abroad is looking for her and the best period of her life has dawned etc. I say that her lucky stars are shining before I determine whether I have found the correct person or not 

 

In early 1980s, Dr. Aurangasri Hinriksson decided to settle down in Isafirdi, Iceland with her husband and little son. Her interests to serve the community were such that she not only taught English and Mathematics to her community, but even went to the extent of reuniting adopted children from Sri Lanka with their families. Back in the ‘80s, Sri Lanka was infamous for its baby farms and baby smuggling rackets. According to Dr. Hinriksson, during the 1985/86 period, Sri Lanka not only had baby farms, but there had been active child abductors, child agents and sellers who fell into the illegal child trade. On June 17, Dr. Hinriksson was bestowed with the Order of the Golden Falcon, the highest honour awarded by the Icelandic government to appreciate individuals who have done an exemplary service to society. In a candid interview with the Daily Mirror, Dr. Hinriksson shed light on how 
Sri Lankan babies were smuggled to countries such as Iceland, her experiences dealing with baby rackets and reuniting these children with their families and living the greater part of her life in one of the happiest countries in the world. Excerpts :

Q : Tell us about yourself and how it has been to live in a country like Iceland?

Ben and Leoni van den brink, whose children have been unlawfully taken by the state and are also abused, fight with all their might to get their two daughters Demi and Nirvana back home. Here is a photo of the Brink family. http://martinvrijland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/fotofamilievandenbrink.jpg Here is a brief overview of the facts:

1. 2009. Ben van den Brink discovers that his 2 daughters Demi and Nirvana are being abused and mistreated by his father-in-law and his friends. Shortly afterwards his wife says that the same thing happened to her. Ben wants to seek redress from his father-in-law, who has now called the police, and is surrounded by 11 police cars.

2. September 15, 2009. Ben reports to the Alkmaar police station, is arrested there and imprisoned for 6 months for threatening his father-in-law. An influential man with many contacts.
http://www.argusoog.org/corrupte-rechtsgang-ben-van-den-brink/

3. September 24, 2009. While Ben is in prison, Nirvana and Demi are taken from their home and transferred to the OCK Het Spalier in Zandvoort . Ben and Leonie are shocked that their abused children are also taken from the family. There is hardly any contact with the children. The father-in-law is allowed to visit Demi and Nirvana.

4. During this period, when she is home alone, Lenonie is repeatedly raped by her father and a number of his friends, several times involving a police officer from Schoorl.

5. Early November 2009. Doctor from OCK Het Spalier examines both girls and determines possible sexual abuse.

Nigel Cantwell has worked with children's rights since 1974. Throughout the 80s, he contributed to the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and later the Hague Convention .

It is this that forms the basis for today's Norwegian adoption system.

Cantwell believes that the problems associated with international adoption have been swept under the rug, and that there is still a long way to go before foreign adoptions can be defended.

- Adoption must be about the individual child's needs. Not that a country has decided that they will export 50 children a year, says Cantwell to TV 2.

- Known the challenges for a long time
 

A Pākehā mother in a same-sex relationship sought the help of a Māori sperm donor so she could have what she described as a “half-caste” baby.

But the friendship between the mother and donor broke down, and now a court has appointed the man as a guardian and granted him three-weekly contact to ensure the child’s cultural needs are met.

The 5-year-old girl’s mother, now single, opposed guardianship, saying the man had little involvement in the child’s life and his intermittent visits were “confusing” to the young girl.

According to the decision published by the Family Court this month, the child, identified by the pseudonym Elle to protect her real identity, was born in 2018.

The other parties aren’t identified, although the man is described by the judge as having a “nationally important role in New Zealand’s cultural heritage”.