NB! This program has been canceled due to the storm.

The number of children born through artificial reproduction is increasing worldwide. IVF, artificial insemination, surrogacy and sperm and egg donation offer opportunities to prospective parents. At the same time, these techniques have now become part of a global reproductive market. How can children's rights be protected in this high-tech, international and economic context? Britta van Beers will deliver the 2023 Miek de Langen lecture.

Children's rights also deserve protection in the regulation of the international reproductive market. In her lecture, Van Beers will discuss two current developments: large-scale donation of sperm and eggs, as is currently being promoted by mass sperm donor Jonathan M.; and international surrogacy, which is on the current political agenda due to the recent surrogacy bill.

There is debate about what exactly protection of children's rights means in this context. Firstly, at the time of the reproductive choices there is not yet a born child, but a possible future child. This makes it difficult to determine what is owed to these children.

A second complicating factor is that the reproductive market and 'reproductive tourism' are cross-border phenomena. Internationally operating sperm banks, IVF clinics and surrogacy mediators offer various 'reproductive services and goods' to Dutch prospective parents for a fee, not all of which are in accordance with the principles of the Dutch legal order. This raises the question of how far the responsibility of the Dutch state, Dutch prospective parents and Dutch fertility doctors extends in protecting children's rights in this international setting.

[Finding the truth about 372 international adoptees] Problems of international adoption reported by an adoptee

The woman is angry at the fact that she was unable to contact her biological parents while growing up. In the past, the growth environment was considered important. Over time, it has emerged that genes are just as important as the environment in which one grows up. Genes include not only appearance but also personality inherited from biological parents.

The woman is upset that she inherited her biological mother's personality. If a woman had inherited her biological father's personality, her life might have been easier.

She is angry with herself because she thinks life might have been easier if she had inherited her father's personality.

She is angry with herself for thinking that if the girl had had contact with her biological parents growing up, she might have had an easier life.

She is angry with herself for thinking that she might have had an easier life if she had been raised by her biological parents.

She is angry that she was not raised by her biological parents. Her life as a woman would have been different if she had been raised by people who looked like her. Concrete people with whom women can reflect on themselves. She still remembers Astri's surprise when she saw the woman with her third sister. Astri, she said, looked very similar in the way the woman and her third sister walked.

She is upset that she has never lived with her biological parents. The woman still remembers the day she slept in her biological parents' house. The woman looked at her biological mother, who was sleeping on the floor, for a long time.

She is angry at herself for missing the woman who sleeps with her biological mother. Now that she's thirty, it's not unusual for her to miss sleeping on the same mattress as her mother. When her woman expressed her own longing, Laurent asked her if it was okay for her to feel at ease, whether it was common or not. He added that it was not normal for her newborn to be separated from her mother.

The woman is angry with herself for missing her mother's embrace. It is not normal for her to miss her mother's embrace at the age of thirty.

She is a woman and she is upset that she has turned thirty. She thinks she wishes she had a baby as she is a woman. If a woman were a newborn baby, it would be very natural for her to be held in her mother's arms.

She is upset that it is not natural for her to be held in her mother's arms. For her mother, it would not be natural to hold her 30-year-old daughter in her arms. If it were natural, her mother would have hugged her too.

The woman is angry with herself for not being able to reconcile with her past.

She is angry at herself for not being able to tell a woman to hug her mother.

She is upset that it is not natural for a woman to tell her mother to hug her.

She is upset that it is not natural for a woman to ask even her father to hug her.

She is angry at herself for not being able to tell a woman to hug her father.

The woman is angry at her father for not hugging her.

She is upset that she misses the feeling she had when she was held in her father's arms.

She is angry at herself for not being able to heal the anger welling up in her heart sooner. She said the woman's adoptive mother was something she had not known before and she could not help it. She added that even if she had met Thich Nhat Hanh a year ago, things would not have been different. Because it is now that a woman recognizes the resentment built up in her heart and opens her heart to heal it.

The woman is angry at herself for not opening up sooner to heal the resentment built up in her heart. To put it a little exaggeratedly, she was a woman whose accumulated resentment almost brought her to the brink of death before she decided to heal it. If she hadn't been Andrew she might have died because she was so upset. She is grateful to Andrew, who recommended that she read the book Anger: Wisdom to Quiet Flames. In the book, you can also find Thich Nhat Hanh's quote that there is something to be gained by embracing her anger and caring for her well.

The woman is angry with Andrew, who told her that it would be helpful for her to read the book Anger: Wisdom to Quiet Flames.
 

In September 2022, 283 overseas adoptees submitted an investigation request to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to determine whether human rights were violated at the time of adoption. The number increased to 372 as additional applications were submitted twice on November 15th and December 9th. They requested an investigation into whether human rights were violated in the adoption process of overseas adoptees adopted from Korea to Denmark and around the world during the authoritarian period from the 1970s to the early 1990s, and whether there was any intervention by the government in that process. Fortunately, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission announced on December 8 that it had decided to open an investigation into 'human rights violations during the overseas adoption process', and on June 8, it announced the opening of an investigation into an additional 237 people. This is the first government-level investigation decision in 68 years since Korea began overseas adoption. <Pressian> plans to continue publishing articles written by overseas adoptees who have requested an investigation by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. editor
 

Maya Lee Langbad International Adoptee

At present the Central Government has established the Central Adoption Regulation Authority regarding the Adoption Law
 

Adoption process will be implemented under the District Child Protection Cell in Mumbai Suburban District. The period from November 14 to 21 is Adoption Month and couples who want to adopt a child will have to register on the website cara.wcd.gov.in. All the process is done online. District Women and Child Development Officer BH Nagargoje has appealed that for more information about this, contact the District Women and Child Development Officer of Mumbai Suburban District.

At present the Central Government has established the Central Adoption Regulation Authority regarding the Adoption Law. This organisation is working under the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare. Also, the system working in this regard in every district is functioning as District Child Protection Cell. Couples who want to adopt a child will have to register on the website cara.wcd.gov.in. 

For more information in this regard, contact office of the District Women and Child Development Officer for Mumbai Suburban District, Mumbai Suburban Administrative Building, 1st Floor, 2nd Phase, R. C Chemburkar, Mumbai-400071 or contact on phone number 022-25232308.

Princess Beatrix attended part of the theme day of the expert group of youth judges on Friday afternoon in the Academy Building at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

Beatrix attended two lectures celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a subject close to her heart. Five years ago she also attended the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the UN Treaty.

The princess also used her visit to talk to a number of juvenile judges and scientists about the challenges in their work and in putting the child first. Shortly before, Beatrix had heard in an argument from Leiden professor Ton Liefaard that making the rights agreed in 1989 more sustainable was not easy.

Lock out

In the Netherlands, he advocated a Ministry of Youth & Family, adapting children's rights to the 21st century and better involving children in decisions and measures. No child should be left out ('leave no one behind') and children should also have access to the courts.

Children whose names have been mentioned in the forged adoption letters found with accused Shakti Devi and Archana were being traced.

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The doctor and four other accused arrested on charges of child abduction and human trafficking have made a startling revelation to police. The crime branch officials said that on Wednesday during interrogation, accused Shakti Devi, doctor and Archana said they used to forge adoption certificates of kids and would hand them over to other couples for money. The doctor was arrested by crime branch police from Delhi.

DCP (crime) Shrutkirti Somwanshi revealed the name of Ashok, an accomplice of doctor and Shakti Devi, and said no FIR has been registered against him. He is being questioned.

Meanwhile, police have found biological parents of child named Angel (2). Her parents belong to Delhi and have been called to Bhopal for questioning. As per police’s claims, their DNA test will be conducted to ascertain whether they are Angel’s biological parents.

Kotwali police station house officer (SHO) Kashiram Kushwaha said that the children whose names have been mentioned in the forged adoption letters found with Shakti Devi and Archana were being traced. Police cyber cell has been engaged to expedite investigation.

A father who took away his child from the custody of the mother cannot be booked for kidnapping under the Indian Penal Code, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court recently held [Ashish Anilkumar Mule vs State of Maharashtra].

In the absence of any prohibition by the order of a competent court, the applicant-father cannot be booked for taking away his own minor child from the custody of his mother, the Court ruled.

A division bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Valmiki SA Menezes quashed a case registered against a man under Section 363 (kidnapping) of IPC for allegedly taking away his three-year-old son who was under his estranged wife's custody. 

In a judgment delivered on October 6, the Court said that no biological father could be booked for kidnapping his own child merely because he took away the kid from his wife.

"The effect of natural father taking away the child from custody of the mother in real sense amounts to taking a child from the lawful guardianship of the mother to the another lawful guardianship of the father. Natural father of the minor child is also a lawful guardian along with the mother, and therefore, father of the minor cannot be said to have committed the offence of kidnapping," the Court held. 

A US couple has been fined ($28,000; £23,000) by a Ugandan court after they pleaded guilty to child cruelty and "inhumane treatment" of their 10-year-old foster child.

Nicholas and Mackenzie Spencer accepted the charges under a deal which saw far more serious charges dropped.

They had been charged with child trafficking and torture, for which they could have faced life in prison.

The pair made the boy sleep on a wooden platform and fed him cold food.

Their nanny reported the "repeated unbecoming inhumane treatment" of the boy, who has special needs, to local police last December.

A lawyer who grew up in Westchester is being remembered for his outgoing personality and ability to make a lasting impression on anyone he met.

Charles Michael Kunz, a native of Rye, died on Friday, April 21 at the age of 37, according to his obituary. 

Born in Rye in 1985, Kunz graduated from Rye High School in 2003 and went on to earn his undergraduate degree from Arizona State University in 2006. After stints of living in Nevada and Arizona, he eventually moved to North Carolina in 2011 to be closer to his family. 

There, he found his calling and graduated from North Carolina Central University Law School in 2016. Kunz then went on to begin his own law firm, Kunz Law LLC, in February 2017. 

He also met the love of his life during his time in North Carolina and married his life partner, Hope Alfaro, in 2021 in downtown Durham at the 21c Museum Hotel.

Given away

Christian Strand was adopted from Indonesia as a baby, and he has never looked back - until now. He fears the truth about his own background.

We meet a different and more vulnerable Christian Strand than the presenter we know him as. In this series, he enters his own adoption story for the very first time: Is what he has been told about himself true?

Digging into his own life story turns out to be a much tougher process than Christian had imagined. Over the course of the series, he goes through a major change.

- I go from joking about being adopted and thinking that it doesn't matter, to wanting to find out who I really am, says Christian.

Didn't want to ask about the adoption

The Council on General Affairs and Policy (CGAP) of the HCCH met from 7 to 10 March 2023. The meeting was attended by over 450 participants, representing 80 HCCH Members, 8 non-Member States, 7 intergovernmental organizations, 9 international non-governmental organizations, and members of the Permanent Bureau. The Conclusions & Decisions adopted by CGAP are now available in English and French.

In terms of work relating to possible new legislative instruments, CGAP mandated the establishment of a Working Group on private international law (PIL) matters related to legal parentage generally, including legal parentage resulting from an international surrogacy arrangement. Noting progress made by the Working Group on matters related to jurisdiction in transnational civil or commercial litigation in the development of provisions for a draft Convention, CGAP invited the convening of two further Working Group meetings. It also supported further exploratory work on the PIL implications of the digital economy, including, among other, by mandating the conduct of a study on the PIL implications of CBDCs and by endorsing the launch of the HCCH-UNIDROIT Project on Law Applicable to Cross-Border Holdings and Transfers of Digital Assets and Tokens. Across several projects, CGAP welcomed the cooperation with UNCITRAL, UNIDROIT, and WIPO, including with respect to work in the areas of digital economy, insolvency proceedings and intellectual property.

In relation to post-Convention work, CGAP approved the Toolkit to Prevent and Address Illicit Practices on Intercountry Adoption and the Model Forms for use under the 1993 Adoption Convention, mandated the development of a Template for Country Fact Sheets on available post-adoption services relating to search for origins, and mandated the establishment of a Working Group on financial aspects of intercountry adoption. CGAP also agreed upon the extension of the scope of the International Hague Network of Judges (IHNJ) to matters relating to the 2000 Protection of Adults Convention. CGAP endorsed the Conclusions & Recommendations of the recent meetings of the Special Commissions (SCs) on the practical operation of the 1993 Adoption, 2000 Protection of Adults, and 2007 Child Support Conventions, and welcomed the preparations for the upcoming meetings of the SCs on the practical operation of the 1980 Child Abduction and 1996 Child Protection Conventions, to be held in the second half of 2023, and on the practical operation of the 1965 Service, 1970 Evidence and 1980 Access to Justice Conventions. Finally, CGAP mandated the PB to continue work, in partnership with relevant subject-matter experts, and subject to available resources, to study the 2006 Securities Convention and digital developments in respect of securities markets; the interpretation of analogous institutions for the purpose of Article 2 of the 1985 Trusts Convention; and, in relation to the 2015 Choice of Law Principles, the feasibility, desirability and necessity of developing guidance on applicable law in international contracts providing protection to weaker parties.

From a good governance perspective, CGAP approved the HCCH Strategic Plan for 2023-2028. It also decided to adopt Spanish as an official language of the HCCH as of 1 July 2024. Finally, CGAP decided to recommend Dr Christophe Bernasconi to the Netherlands Standing Government Committee on Private International Law for the position of Secretary General of the HCCH for another five-year mandate.