BREDA - During the interview, policewoman Ilse Boomaars suddenly can't keep her eyes off her mobile phone. The WhatsApp vibrates continuously. "Sorry, but I have to intervene now." An underage girl she knows as a victim of illegal prostitution no longer feels safe.

And gone is the enthusiastic specialist of the Aliens, Identity and Human Trafficking Department (Avim) in the Zeeland-West-Brabant region. There is not a second to lose after such a cry for help. Criminal pimps often listen in with their victims, the detective knows from experience. They have all the power over the vulnerable girls who have to work for them and can use merciless violence.

Ten minutes later Boomaars (38) steps back into the room with relief. ,, Arranged!", she says with a slightly triumphant sigh, "We will immediately get her back from the perpetrator. Our people are already on their way."

We have an investigation underway in our region in which two girls aged 14 and 15 are victims.

Ilse Boomaars

When Pune-based school teacher Jyothika Sawant* and her college professor husband Shirish*, both in their mid-30s, decided to adopt a daughter, their family was taken aback. This was because Jyothika and Shirish were already parents to a healthy son; also, age and health were on their side to give birth to a second child if they wanted to. But as Jyothika tells us, “I have always wanted to adopt, right from my college days, and when I met Shirish, one of the reasons why I decided to take our relationship ahead was because he shared my wish. We planned to have two children, and after our son was born, we decided to extend our family by bringing our daughter home.”

Jyothika and Shirish are among a growing tribe of parents and families, wherein couples with biological children are deciding to extend their families via adoption. They see adoption as “just another way of bringing a child in their lives”. Bengaluru-based mental health counsellor Gayatri Abraham admits, “In the last few years, many families are coming forward to adopt and hybrid families are growing. New family formations are generally on the rise, which is heartening.”

Adoption second child

‘Giving birth is not the only way of making a family’

“We always wanted to adopt as we feel, and propagate, that giving birth is not the only way of making a family,” says Gurgaon resident Shruti Haksar, who is a mother of two daughters, nine-year-old Zara and three-year-old Zoya. Shruti and her husband had adopted their younger daughter.

NEW DELHI: Civil society organisation Save the Children expressed its concern about the growing number of children who lost their parents to Covid-19 in the country. The growing number of pleas to adopt orphaned children circulating on social media which have left them vulnerable to trafficking and abuse, it pointed out.

While some children who lost their parents are taken in by relatives or guardians, others were left to fend for themselves, putting them at risk of child trafficking. Save the Children urged people not to share details about orphaned children online, and instead to contact 1098- helpline to protect children from falling prey to child traffickers.

In order to prevent illegal adoptions, hospitals have reportedly been told to take declarations from sick parents, to confirm who their children should go to in case of their deaths, the civil society organisation pointed out. The organisation has been receiving around 80 distress calls from children in Rajasthan alone where it runs a helpline with the state commission. The helplines provide psychosocial support and redirect cases of children who need protection to the concerned authorities.

“Children who lose their caregivers and left to fend for themselves are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and we’re doing everything we can to protect them from falling victim to illegal adoption or trafficking,” said Sanjay Sharma, deputy programmes director, Save the Children.

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International Social Service and Network

Joint Submission to UN Committee on the Rights of the

Child DGD 2014: Digital Media and Children’s Rights

Jean-Noël Raoult is originally from Mali and was adopted in Nord-Finistère. He discovers, as an adult, that his story is riddled with lies, causing harm to his adoptive family as well as his biological family.

Mirjam and Doriet Begemann were adopted as biological sisters, but that turned out to be wrong. They are happy with the government's apologies for abuses in adoption practice, but believe that not enough is still happening. "We're banging on the door of a government that won't answer."

The birth certificates of Mirjam and Doriet Begemann contain the same names: mother Rasami and father Slamet. When Mirjam (43) and Doriet (41) were adopted together from Indonesia in 1979, no one had any doubts that they were sisters. Yet the names were forged in at least one of the two statements.

As a young girl, Doriet already sensed that the story was wrong. 'When I was seven years old, my adoptive mother said that it was so nice for me to be adopted together with Mirjam. That way I would always have a biological sister. "She's not my sister," I said at the time. I was just sure of that. '

Official confirmation came only 34 years later, after the sisters had taken a DNA test. 'It took me a long time to get emotion ...

For the greater part of the 20th century Ireland was marked by a culture of shame that separated thousands of women from their children, many of whom were forcibly given up for adoption. The trauma inflicted by these separations was compounded by legal barriers that prevented adopted people from accessing information about themselves.

However, on Tuesday May 12, the Irish government published a draft bill that would give those adopted the right to access their birth information. This comes in the wake of decades of activism by adopted people and their supporters, and has the potential to significantly reform an adoption system historically marked by secrecy, shame and the trauma arising from institutionalisation.

In modern Ireland, institutions such as mother and baby homes and the Magdalene Laundries were tasked by the state to deal with “fallen” women who had transgressed ideals of Irish femininity, especially by becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Their children were either boarded out to foster parents, institutionalised, or adopted by families of the same faith, some as far away as America, and – as survivors, advocates and researchers have long maintained – often under questionable circumstances.

Many searches by birth parents and children have been thwarted (as poignantly captured in the Oscar-nominated film Philomena), and adopted people in Ireland have been denied information about themselves – if it still exists – that is readily available in other jurisdictions. Although there have been media investigations and the government commissioned a 2019 review into a small sample of illegal adoptions, and published its mother and baby homes investigation in March, there has never been a fully fledged investigation into adoption practices in Ireland.

The information we do have, including testimony from adopted people and their birth parents, calls into question the legality and morality of such practices. A recent RTÉ Prime Time investigation showed how familial relationships were deliberately and systematically severed, with children taken and given away – all to enforce a particular moral code.

Principal Correspondent :

A hundred years ago, on May 8, 1921, a social organisation was started by women for providing obstetrics facilities in Nagpur city, the heart of India. The Matru Sewa Sangh, a voluntary organisation founded by ‘Padma Shri’ Kamalatai Hospet, bringing laurels to Maharashtra not only in India but all over the world. Dr Lata Deshmukh, Secretary of Matru Sewa Sangh, told ‘The Hitavada’, “Two child widows became a beacon for the society at a time when it was socially acceptable for widows and abandoned women to live a life full of grief, hardship and humiliation. At the age of 22 years after becoming a widow, she received nursing training from Dufferin Hospital (today’s Daga Hospital). It was a pre-independence period.

The chief superintendent of Daga Hospital was an English woman. Delivery/maternity facilities were common to all but special facilities were only for British women and specific women enslaving the Britishers. Once upon a time, a very poor, uneducated, weak, sick baby had no strength to go to the washroom. Kamalatai Hospet, who was training as a nurse, served and supported her.” A patriot at heart Kamalatai decided to live independently and decided to leave the Britisher's job. She expressed her determination to her friend. She went to the wealthy and well-educated women of that time for help. Mathurabai Dravid, Laxmibai Gadgil, Gangabai Gokhale, Laxmibai Kelkar, Dr Indirabai Niyogi, Dr Kamlakar Sitabai Gadgil, Parvatibai Karanjgaonkar and Dr Nanasaheb Krishna Mohani, Haribhau Krishna Mohani, Appasaheb Chitale, Dr N B Khare, Dr L V Paranjape, Dr Gayaprasad, Dr Hardas, Baburao Paturkar, Tapodhan Krishnarao Jajuji all these people stood behind her to help, guide and to work in the real field. And Matru Sewa Sangh Sitabuldi Maternity Home started.

“During 1920-21, deliveries were done in the home only. Many mothers were dying during the deliveries if some complications arise. Starting with the confidence that our organisation will work hard for safe delivery when poverty, superstition and ignorance were noticed. During these 10 days stay at the maternity home Kamalatai and Venutai were personally serving the women delivering babies were providing with food for bathing for days. They were staying in the Maternity Home only. The dedicated service by Kamalatai and Venutai was motivation for the doctors involved in delivery and they were again working more enthusiastically,” elaborated Dr Deshmukh. During 1821 to 1959, Matru Sewa Sangh started 20 branches of maternity homes in Maharashtra and outside Maharashtra. Wardha, Bhandara, Arvi, Jabalpur, Hinganghat, Armori, Brahmapuri, Bilaspur, Warora, Narsinghpur, Sagar, Chandur Railway, Kurha, Amravati, Devrukh (Ratnagiri), Akola, Kareli, Sonavadhona, Sitabuldi, Nagpur and Mahal, Nagpur, Since 1921 to the present, many children born in Matru Sewa Sangh Maternity Homes are in every corner of India and abroad too. Matru Sewa Sangh is of the period when maternal care, medical profession was considered as only a service. Kamalatai, Venutai were dedicated nurses and Dr Kamlakar, Dr Indirabai Niyogi were dedicated doctors.

Matru Sewa Sangh is an example of supernatural sacrifice and service to the nation since hundred years and shall be serving for the next hundred years. The nurses gave their entire lives to the Matru Sewa Sangh. These include Indutai Paranjape, Krishnatai Bhave, Malinibai Mahabal, Shantabai Dubey, Gopikabai Patwardhan, Kamalatai Vidwans, Godutai Kothiwale, Shantabai Lonakar, Nirubai Bhujade, Shantabai Sahasrabuddhe, Savitribai Nagdavai, Savitribai Nagdavane, Dr Dwarkabai Kamlakar, Dr Indirabai Niyogi, Dr Padmavati Thergaonkar, Dr Kamal Tare, Dr Kumud Deshpande, Dr Sumati Khare, Dr Malati Kurve, Dr Kamalabai Naralkar, Dr Vanita Chorghade, Dr Vatsala Karjagaonkar, Dr Kusumatai Wankar, Dr Durgabai Vazhalwar, Dr Kamal Joshi, Dr Prameel Asolkar, Dr Padmaja Risbud, Dr Chhaya Chaurasia, Dr Ratna Shekhawat had the only religion of Sewadharma, pointed out Dr Deshmukh. To run maternity homes, to educate nurses and midwives, to examine patients and provide pediatric related services, to run children education centres, to perform all kinds of health and educational work for the mentally and physically disabled, elderly, patients, men and women, to run libraries, to run educational institutes for the women, to help people in disaster, to work for the development and rehabilitation through education and health services are the broader objectives of the Matru Sewa Sangh, informed Dr Deshmukh. To fulfill these objectives, 20 maternity homes and the other 15 projects are in operation today.

In the wake of experts warning that the possible third wave of pandemic will affect children, the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR) has recommended that the State government form task forces involving paediatricians at the district level.

In a letter addressed to the Chief Secretary, the commission has asked that infrastructure be put in place to treat children before the next wave strikes. This includes reservation of beds for children in both government and private hospitals.

The committee has also asked the State government to form supervisory committees to protect the rights of children who have lost both their parents owing to COVID-19.

“There are many cases of children losing both their parents in the State. Because of the lockdown it is becoming difficult to protect the rights of those children. There are chances of them becoming victims of human trafficking, illegal adoption, and others,” stated the commission in the letter, adding that hospitals should be established along the lines of those launched by the Maharashtra government to treat orphaned children.

It also underscored the need to form a supervisory committee at both the district and the State levels. Members of the supervisory committee should include officers from the Women and Child Development, the Education, the Social Welfare, the Health and Family Welfare Departments, the police, and others.

A sessions court on Tuesday rejected the bail application of a woman booked for child trafficking. As per the case, she had sold one child at VN Desai hospital, Santacruz to an accomplice who had sold the child to a Pune resident.

The woman identified as Nisha Ahire had claimed that at the most it is a case where proper adoption procedure was not followed and that there is no money transaction between the parties.

Additional Public Prosecutor Sumesh Panjwani had opposed her bail and stated that the offence is serious, that of trafficking a newborn. The court in its order said that the nature of offence, human trafficking, that too of a newborn child is serious.

It also noted that a year ago, she had indulged in the business of selling a child. It said this is not a simple case of adoption, but that taking assistance from hospital staff, the medical officer has sold the child with the help of co-accused. If released on bail, it said, that the possibility cannot be ruled out that she will sell children again.

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