Girl adopted by Australian couple 15 years back now searches for her biological mother in Odisha It was way back in 2007 when Mamata, who was only a three-year-old kid, was rescued from near Puri Sighadwara. Later, she was handed over to Basundhara Childcare Centre in Cuttack.

“Knowing that she is afflicted with leprosy, she took a harsh decision and let me go. She is a great mother as she did it for me so that I can lead a decent life.” These lines from a daughter for her mother are enough to melt one's heart.

These excerpts are from a letter written by Mamata, who was adopted by an Australian couple some 15 years back in Odisha, to Puri Childline Director.

Last October, 35-year-old Mia Lee found out that everything she had been told so far about her adoption was a lie. She was lied dead to her biological parents in South Korea and adopted away. In December, she traveled to South Korea and met her parents for the first time. Now she hopes that someone will be held accountable for the lie.

Mia Lee hasn't cried yet. She even had to fight back a tear when she met her biological parents for the first time because she thought it seemed cold if she didn't show a reaction. But she thinks it's due to the shock, which she hasn't had time to process yet. It has all gone so fast.

- I really have a hard time taking it in and understanding it. I think I'm still in this shock phase. I cut myself off a little from feeling it, because it is simply so extreme, says Mia Lee.

In October last year, she found out that everything she had been told so far about her adoption was a lie. She had not been given away voluntarily by her South Korean family, but had been lied to dead and adopted.

- I have always thought that I knew a lot compared to others who are adopted. In my adoption papers there are a lot of things. My Korean name, where I was born, my date of birth and the reason for adoption. Now I know that not much of it is true, she says, leafing through the adoption papers on the table.

The latest official Sri Lankan data come from 2017. Norway plans to set up an independent inquiry. In the 1970s, baby farms were popular, selling Sri Lankan babies with false papers to European couples. Some Sri Lankans remember younger siblings going missing this way.

Colombo (AsiaNews) – The Norwegian government plans to investigate adoptions from Sri Lanka going as far back as the 1980s after discovering that possibly 11,000 Sri Lankan babies were illegally adopted.

Norway’s Children and Family Minister Kjersti Toppe told the Verdens Gang (VG) newspaper that the government is setting up an independent commission of inquiry to look into the matter.

In the 1970s, Sri Lanka had several "baby farms" that sold minors to European couples providing them with false papers. In 2017, Sri Lankan authorities admitted that 11,000 children may have been adopted illegally.

Sources in Sri Lanka's Ministry of Women, Child Affairs and Social Empowerment told AsiaNews that in 2021, Romanticized Immigration, an organisation led by Priyangika Samanthie, a Norwegian adopted as a child from Sri Lanka, had called for an investigation into international adoptions.

Last year, 22 Czech children found a new home with a foreign adoptive family.

Roman Suda witnessed one of the stories about the adoption. He is the head of the children's home in Nepomuk, West Bohemia. In the domestic broadcasts of Czech Radio, he tells about two preschool-aged siblings. After nine months in the children's home, they found a new home in Italy. The foreign language was not an obstacle.

Illustration photo: Mabel Amber, Pixabay, Pixabay License Illustration photo: Mabel Amber, Pixabay, Pixabay License

“The children have an impressive ability to learn very quickly. They showed us that too. After just a few weeks in the Czech Republic, they understood Italian relatively well. An interpreter also helped. In the beginning she mediated between the two languages.”

According to Zden?k Kapitán, the story of the boy and the girl is a great success:

During the committee debate that took place in the House of Representatives last week, Minister for Legal Protection Franc Weerwind said that he wanted to 'ideally reduce the number of intercountry adoptions to zero'. Despite pressure from the COC, prospective adoptive parents and several MPs, he also insisted on phasing out intercountry adoptions from the US. Although Defense for Children believes that intercountry adoption should end as soon as possible, we are pleased that the minister spoke out loud and clear during the debate and emphatically put the best interests of the child (and no other interests) first.

US adoptions

The minister agrees with the Central Authority that the adoption relationship with the US should be terminated. He emphasizes the strict application of the principle of subsidiarity from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Adoption Convention. The core of this principle is that it is in the best interests of the child to be cared for and raised as much as possible in its own country and culture. This means, says the minister, that a child is only eligible for intercountry adoption if the country of origin does not see any possibilities to safely take the child in itself.

The US, which has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, has a different adoption system and also interprets the principle of subsidiarity differently. There is no question of a last resort: the US has ample opportunities to safely care for children itself. This is evident from, among other things, the country analysis. The US has long waiting lists for prospective adoptive parents and young children are the most sought after domestically. That is why the country is adopting (more) children from abroad. At the same time, the US is giving (fewer) children, especially babies, up for adoption. This cannot be reconciled with the principle of subsidiarity and the difference in interpretation is, as the minister rightly points out, unbridgeable. In addition, according to international publications, abuses have been reported in the American adoption system.

Adoptions from Portugal and Bulgaria

L'Hybridé offers a series of six workshops including initiation and preparation activities related to the theme of returning to origins via the Zoom platform.

These workshops are intended for people adopted internationally who are thinking or who are in the process of returning to their country of origin in order to find out more about where they come from, or to go in search of of their biological family. The program is also relevant for anyone who has already had this experience and who wants to share it with others. The workshop can thus be used to reflect on what they have experienced and how they have felt since their return and/or the meeting with their biological families.

OBJECTIVE

Normalize the quest for origins and gain confidence

Better understand the concerns, questions and needs related to the desire to return to origins

STRATHAM—Rep. Jeb Bradley, in response to an article in today's Bucharest (Romania) Daily News, said that he's extremely disappointed with that government's failure to approve pending international adoptions.

He added, however, that he had not received official confirmation of the denial.

Several of the adoptions have involved New Hampshire families including Allyson Schaaf of Stratham, who in 2002 began the process to adopt Natasha, a Romanian orphan.

Bradley, Schaaf and others including members of the Windham, N.H.-based group Nobody's Children have lobbied Romania's president and other high-ranking officials to approve some 200 adoptions by American families.

Today the Bucharest newspaper says authorities will not approve the 1,100 international adoption requests received the past four years.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In a highly unusual ruling, a state court judge on Thursday voided a U.S. Marine’s adoption of an Afghan war orphan, more than a year after he took the little girl away from the Afghan couple raising her. But her future remains uncertain.

For now, the child will stay with Marine Maj. Joshua Mast and his wife, Stephanie, under a temporary custody order they obtained before the adoption. The Masts will have to re-prove to the court that they should be granted a permanent adoption.

Despite the uncertainty, the ruling was a welcome move for the Afghan couple, who had been identified by the Afghan government as the child's relatives in February 2020 and raised her for 18 months. They dropped to their knees in prayer outside the courthouse. As they held each other, the young man wiped the tears from both their eyes with his wife’s headscarf.

The Masts quickly left the courthouse after Thursday's hearing, flanked by their attorneys. The parties are forbidden from commenting by a gag order.

The dispute raised alarms at the highest levels of government, from the White House to the Taliban, after an Associated Press investigation in October revealed how Mast became determined to rescue the baby and bring her home as an act of Christian faith. But until now, the adoption order has remained in place.

In 1992, Honduras suspended its international adoption program when it was uncovered that babies were kidnapped, taken to "fattening centers" and then placed for adoption once they made weight. One such center was run in the home of a top aide to US-backed Pres. Rafael Callejas.

10:21 PM · Nov 16, 2021

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A report by two historians reveals dysfunctions that have occurred over the years in the process of adopting foreign children in France.

Marie Marre, born in Mali, was adopted at 19 months by a couple from Normandy. "I was told that my mother was very poor, and that she had given me up for adoption ," she said. Its adoption was organized in 1989 by an association approved by the French State. By going back to her past, she studied each piece of her file and noted "inconsistencies" .

At the time, his adoptive mother, Brigitte Marre, was not suspicious of the organization, authorized by the State. "It's hard to think that we took someone else's child ," she says. Along with eight other adopted children, Marie Marre filed a complaint against the association and its correspondent in Mali.

Many reports

In a report, two historians report numerous reports of this type, in dozens of countries. "When candidates for adoption from northern countries ask for children to adopt, that creates an offer in southern countries, with all sorts of possible deviations" , analyzes Yves Denichère, researcher at the University of Angers (Maine -et-Loire).