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From: ve_just.a.1-civil-justice(JUST)

Date: Tue 30. Mar 2021 at 16:33

Subject: Ares(2021)2200774 - [Re] Letter from SRJ regarding illegal adoptions - UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

To: DOHLE Arun

IN RECENT weeks, the political and security crisis in Haiti has escalated.  We sat down with Georgette Mulheir, a spokesperson for Defend Haiti’s Democracy, who explained the current crisis and outlined a roadmap to restore democracy.

Haiti has an unusual history.  In modern consciousness, it is most remembered for the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010, that killed an estimated 200,000 people and the outpouring of assistance intended to help the country recover.  The efficacy of the aid programme was repeatedly questioned, with allegations of corruption and inefficiency.  More devastating still was the Oxfam scandal, where the charity was found to have covered up serious sexual abuse of vulnerable women and children by senior members of its Haiti team.

In 2014, Georgette Mulheir started working in Haiti, to help the country build a new system of protection and support services for the most vulnerable children and families.  She discovered a new form of child-trafficking that had exploded in Haiti since the earthquake, where fake orphanages were established, coercing and deceiving poor families to give up their children, so the orphanages could rake in massive donations from well-meaning churches and volunteers in the USA.

But more recently, Mulheir has become concerned that development work – including fighting child-trafficking – is on hold in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, due to a political and security crisis that has been building for two years. “The world cannot stand by and watch”, says Mulheir, “while peaceful protesters are beaten off the streets, or shot dead by police, as the country slides into dictatorship”.

In the Netherlands, on 8 February 2021, the so-called Joustra report , prepared by the Committee for the Study of International Adoption for the Ministry of Legal Protection, was published . The report presents studies of adoptions to the Netherlands from 23 countries with emphasis on the period 1967-1998 and special focus on adoptions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Colombia and Indonesia.

The conclusions speak for themselves: In all countries, irregularities and systematic blackmail of mothers and child trafficking have been identified - even after the introduction of the Hague Convention in 1998 - a convention whose main purpose is otherwise to ensure that international adoptions are carried out on a legal and ethically sound basis. .

The report has led the Netherlands to impose a temporary ban on adoption applicants, and it has not yet been decided whether the country will definitively shut down the placement of foreign children into childless families.

The Swedish government has just decided to conduct a similar study of adoptions to the country from the 1960s to the 1990s. The study also aims to account for the responsibilities of Swedish intermediary organizations and the state in any illegalities.

The background for the government decision is, among other things, an ongoing investigation in Chile, which shows that thousands of adoptions of Chilean children to Sweden and other countries have been made on an illegal basis, with false papers and without parental consent. In addition, adult Swedish adoptees via the association chileadoption.se, among others, have worked for years through various media channels to inform the public about the systematic fraud within adoption.

It is worrying that more children are adopted away without consent, says the researcher. Lolland Municipality is responsible for most forced adoptions in the country.

Several children are adopted away against the will of their parents.

Last year, 30 children were forcibly adopted, according to figures from the National Board of Appeal.

That is 9 more than in 2019 and 20 more than in 2018. Back in 2016, one child was forcibly adopted.

And it is a worrying development because there is not enough knowledge about forced adoptions, says adjunct professor at Aalborg University Inge Bryderup, who researches child placements.

'We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...schools are not orphans to be adopted,' said the activists.

BENGALURU: As many as 17 academicians and activists in the education field have taken offence to the use of the word ‘adoption’ in the ongoing school adoption process after the state government constituted a committee to monitor school development programmes.

In a memorandum to the state government, academicians and activists led by Niranjanaradhya VP, Senior Fellow, Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School India University (NLSIU), have said that the term ‘school nurturing’ should be used instead of ‘adoption’, and have iterated that the Department of Public Instruction had already begun a programme called ‘Shalegagi Naavu Neevu’, to mobilise additional support for nurturing government schools through School Development and Management Committees (SDMCs).

“We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘monitoring committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...Government schools are not orphans to be adopted. The parents’ body, established through an Act of Parliament, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, is the parent of the school; hence no authority has a right to give away the school in adoption to anybody else,” they said.

“The notion of ‘adopting’ a school creates a sense of helplessness, charity, lack of resourcing and abdication by the constitutionally mandated responsibility of the state which is delegated to the SDMC, as well as by its trustee, the state government,” they said. “Today, we are in the era of ‘Rights-based development’ and not ‘Charity-based approach’ of erstwhile monarchies. We request the CM and the Education Minister to set right this mistake,” they added.

'We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...schools are not orphans to be adopted,' said the activists.

BENGALURU: As many as 17 academicians and activists in the education field have taken offence to the use of the word ‘adoption’ in the ongoing school adoption process after the state government constituted a committee to monitor school development programmes.

In a memorandum to the state government, academicians and activists led by Niranjanaradhya VP, Senior Fellow, Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School India University (NLSIU), have said that the term ‘school nurturing’ should be used instead of ‘adoption’, and have iterated that the Department of Public Instruction had already begun a programme called ‘Shalegagi Naavu Neevu’, to mobilise additional support for nurturing government schools through School Development and Management Committees (SDMCs).

“We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘monitoring committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...Government schools are not orphans to be adopted. The parents’ body, established through an Act of Parliament, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, is the parent of the school; hence no authority has a right to give away the school in adoption to anybody else,” they said.

“The notion of ‘adopting’ a school creates a sense of helplessness, charity, lack of resourcing and abdication by the constitutionally mandated responsibility of the state which is delegated to the SDMC, as well as by its trustee, the state government,” they said. “Today, we are in the era of ‘Rights-based development’ and not ‘Charity-based approach’ of erstwhile monarchies. We request the CM and the Education Minister to set right this mistake,” they added.

From 1956 onwards, ten thousand women gave up their children. They were often young, disgraced their families and the new adoption law made it easier to give up a child. But by no means always this was voluntary for the women. Many mothers never saw their children again.

Distance mothers program

Did you give up your child for adoption in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s of the last century? Have you been walking around for years with the question: Where is my child? The program Where is my child? from 3CTV would like to help you with your search. In this series, the program makers go in search of their child with Dutch, biological mothers. They support and guide the mothers. The goal is to find the child, but just as important is the way there. In Where is my child? the makers follow the mothers, they listen to your story and the taboo that still exists on your story in the Netherlands is broken. With this program, attention is finally being paid to mothers who lost their child to adoption.

On March 29, 2021, Time for MAX will also pay attention to this topic.

Sign up for Where is my child?

Young women and men who have been adopted from abroad are increasingly demanding information about their origins, proving abuses and taking legal action. This has now led to a ban on adoptions in the Netherlands.

By: Sabine Bitter, Elsbeth Gugger , Moderation: Monika Schärer , Editor: Sabine Bitter, Production: Michael Sennhauser

29.03.2021, 21:28

Listen to the showListen to the show

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In the beginning, anonymous sperm donation was the standard. Since 1993, some clinics have worked with two types of donors: completely anonymous (A donor) or a donor that can be traced to the child in the long run (B donor). Information about these B donors appears to be only allowed after the donor's consent has been given. This means that they can also choose to remain anonymous. What are their considerations? Talking to a donor and moving from anonymity to contact.

Call

Anonymity is a complicated concept, according to Jeroen's (pseudonym) story. That story starts in 1995. “My wife was pregnant with our third child. Unfortunately, she miscarried after three months. That meant that a new pregnancy was no longer realistic, given our age. ”

"We could imagine that the children wanted to know who I was later on."

About a year later, he reads a call from a clinic to register sperm donors. In consultation with his wife, he decides to start the conversation. “We considered ourselves happy with our children, and we wish others that too. Together we decided that I would donate as a B donor. We could imagine that the children later wanted to know who I was. ”

The Taoiseach's State apology on mother and baby homes will mean nothing unless a full investigation is immediately launched into thousands of incomplete adoption files, campaigners say.

The €11.5m which was left unspent by the mother and baby homes commission must now be used to fully investigate what happened to thousands of children with incomplete adoption files.

State adoption agencies cannot say what happened to thousands of children for whom files were opened but an adoption order was not granted.

'No excuse for delaying full review'

The Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL), Aitheantas, and the Clann Project have all said a lack of funding or resources cannot be used as an excuse to delay a full review and say a forensic investigation into incomplete adoption files is now required.