When we travelled to Romania to build an orphanage 30 years ago, none of us could have been

prepared for what we witnessed, writes Anneka Rice

Anneka and Monica McDaid in a therapy room at the orphanage

uring lockdown we’ve been turning in on ourselves. It’s been

quite the thing in TV-land to take a nostalgic look at past shows

JAKARTA - Until a few months ago, Ms Widya Astuti Boerma knew her biological mother only from glimpses of memory.

Some were pleasant: a moment of them both at the sultan's palace in Yogyakarta for example. But others were jarring, including one indelibly etched of the family's house ablaze. And then the final one: her mother's instructions at a Jakarta train station to "be a good girl" and go with a woman she barely knew.

When the health emergency was declared, the Secretariat for International Adoption of Quebec (SAI) suspended all its activities, delaying to an indefinite date the meeting of the adoptive parents with their child. "There are those who thought they would leave in March to pick him up, and now it is December and they have no promise of being able to find this child," testifies Dr Jean-François Chicoine, pediatrician at CHU Sainte-Justine , specialist in international adoption.

“When we have already lost a little time with a child who is proposed to us for adoption, with whom we have not been able to share the first months, even the first years of his life, when a year is added to that, it is extremely trying for the parents ”, shares Dr. Chicoine, who was able to speak with these parents within the framework of virtual meetings organized with the collaboration of the personnel of the clinic of adoption and international health of the CHU Sainte -Justine and the SAI.

Gathered in groups of around twenty people, the parents were able to share their concerns and experiences during virtual sessions lasting 2h30 supervised by Doctor Chicoine and his team.

“When we have already lost a little time with a child who is proposed to us for adoption, with whom we have not been able to share the first months, even the first years of his life, when a year is added to that, it is extremely trying for the parents ”, shares Dr. Chicoine.

“When we have already lost a little time with a child who is proposed to us for adoption, with whom we have not been able to share the first months, even the first years of his life, when a year is added to that, it is extremely trying for the parents ”, shares Dr. Chicoine.

-------- Forwarded message ---------

From: ACT

Date: Sat 12. Dec 2020 at 16:03

Subject: Re: Ares(2020)4528893: Subsidiarity Principle in adoptions in the European Union and externally

To:

Pandemic had impacted vulnerable sections of society, says Commission.

The National Human Rights Commission on Friday said it had issued an advisory to the government on measures to be taken to prevent human trafficking in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown has disproportionately impacted the vulnerable sections of the society,” the NHRC said in the advisory addressed to Union ministries concerned and State governments on Tuesday.

The NHRC said the vulnerable were falling prey to traffickers due to the “limited access to shelters and support structures for life and livelihood”. The Commission added that the Women and Child Development Ministry had reportedly received 27 lakh distress calls from March till August and had intervened in 1.92 lakh cases, of which at least 32,700 were related to trafficking, child marriage, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, forced begging and cyber crimes.

The NHRC recommended setting up of a 24/7 toll-free helpline for real-time reporting, tracking and monitoring of trafficking cases. The advisory also said special surveillance should be started at railway stations, bus depots and airports to trace children without adults. The NHRC recommended quick and up-to-date data sharing between States and districts about rescued and missing persons as well as those arrested in trafficking cases.

The stolen climate crisis babies: US politician jailed for selling children of mothers desperate to escape environmental catastrophe

A former politician has been sentenced to six years for running an illegal adoption racket which took advantage of impoverished women from the Marshall Islands, a low-lying nation in the Pacific Ocean, where more and more citizens are being forced to flee because of the climate crisis.

Paul Petersen, a onetime Republican county assessor who was also an adoption attorney, illegally paid women to come to the US to give up their babies to Americans. Petersen had at least 70 adoptions cases in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas over three years.

Petersen “manipulated birth mothers into consenting to adoptions they did not fully understand,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Fowlkes of the Western District of Arkansas.

Judge Timothy Brooks, who imposed the sentence from Fayetteville, Arkansas on Tuesday, said that Petersen abused his position as an attorney by misleading or instructing others to lie to courts in adoptions that wouldn’t have been approved had the truth been told to them.

Prayagraj: In an important judgment, the Allahabad high court has held that even if a married Hindu man has estranged wife, i.e., living apart but not divorced, even then he needs prior consent of his alienated wife for adoption of a child under Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act.

Dismissing a writ petition filed by one Bhanu Pratap Singh of Mau district, Justice JJ Munir observed, “The proviso makes it imperative for a Hindu male to secure his wife’s consent to an adoption that he makes, unless she has completely and finally renounced the world, or has ceased to be a Hindu, or has been declared by a court of competent jurisdiction to be of unsound mind.”

The petitioner, Bhanu Pratap Singh, had requested for appointment on compassionate grounds in the forest department of the state after the death of his uncle Rajendra Singh.

According to the petitioner, in the year 2001 he was adopted by his uncle, Rajendra Singh, who had alienated his wife Phulmati and had no child from the marriage. Therefore, he was entitled for job as per the provisions of ‘The Uttar Pradesh Recruitment of Dependants of Government Servants Dying-in-Harness Rules, 1974’ because he was sole heir and dependant of his adopter, who was an employee of the forest department at the time of his death.

Subsequently, on December 17, 2016, the forest department rejected the plea of the petitioner for appointment on compassionate grounds. Hence, this rejection was challenged in the present petition before the high court.

In November 2016, Aggarwal happened to see a photo of a nine-day old baby boy. “A relative of mine had planned to adopt the boy. But later they decided to have a baby by in vitro fertilisation (IVF),” said Aggarwal.

Seventeen months after Abhinav and Rekha Aggarwal lost custody of their son following allegations of illegal child trafficking, the family was reunited when a city civil court declared the Aggarwals legally adoptive parents of four-year-old Yatarth. On December 7, Yatarth was reunited with his parents after spending more than a year in a state-run orphanage. Even as they celebrate, the Aggarwals are keenly aware that Yatarth has borne the brunt of this case. “I accept I had committed a crime, and so did those who offered the baby to me. But the child was not at fault. He [Yatarth] became the victim in this case,” said Delhi-based businessman, Abhinav Aggarwal.

On July 5, 2019, the Aggarwals’ lives were turned upside down when Mumbai Police’s crime branch took their three-year-old adopted son Yatarth away and booked Aggarwal, 42, and his wife Rekha, 40, for illegal child trafficking. The shocked Aggarwals were among seven couples charged by Mumbai Police as part of its investigation into a child trafficking racket.

In November 2016, Aggarwal happened to see a photo of a nine-day old baby boy. “A relative of mine had planned to adopt the boy. But later they decided to have a baby by in vitro fertilisation (IVF),” said Aggarwal.

He and Rekha have a daughter, who was 15 years old at the time, and they decided to adopt the baby boy in the photo.

Six children had been staying at an adoption centre in Mumbai for over a year after they were rescued by the police last July. The rescued children were all boys and aged between 18 months and seven years.

Two months after a city civil court allowed five couples to adopt children allegedly purchased by them as part of an interstate child trafficking racket, the custody of the children was handed over to them late Monday.

Six children had been staying at an adoption centre in Mumbai for over a year after they were rescued by the police last July. The rescued children were all boys and aged between 18 months and seven years.

A Delhi-based couple, who took custody of the now four-year-old boy – separated from them last year – said they are delighted. “We are on our way to Delhi. He is too young to understand what has happened since last year. It may take some time for him to adapt but we are glad that his ordeal has finally ended,” the father said.

Since the past year, while the couples were allowed to meet the children for a limited period at the adoption centre, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, they were only allowed to speak with them through video calls.

24 children adopted till November this year

The pandemic seems to have had little bearing on adoption in the district, with 24 children having been adopted till November.

This was equal to the total number of adoptions last year. A majority of adopted children were in the 0-to-four age group, and one child was adopted by a single parent from outside the State.

The pandemic has, however, forced the District Adoption Committee to shift its meeting to Google Meet. “The window for document verification and meeting between adopting parents and the potential adoptee has been extended from the previous 20 to 30 days in view of the pandemic,” said M.K.P. Hafzeena, protection officer (non-institutional care) District Child Protection Unit.

It helped that the Ministry of Women and Child Development had shifted the adoption procedure online long before the pandemic, with applications having to be submitted over the portal of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).