YEREVAN—The Armenian National Police Department has unveiled several more cases of potential illegal international adoptions following the launch of a National Security Service (NSS) investigation into the matter last week. In a video posted to the Police Department’s official YouTube channel on November 19, Lieutenant Colonel Vache Hovsepyan, who heads the police-dedicated organized crime unit, revealed that his team had uncovered cases dating as far back as 2009.

Elaborating on some of the investigation’s preliminary findings, Hovsepyan said orphanage staff members allegedly “provided signed and notarized documents releasing the infants from their biological parents’ custody and consenting to international adoption.” He continued, “However, when we contacted the parents in question, they revealed that they had never signed any such documents, nor had they consented to adoption.”

Hovsepyan also discussed the widespread use of intimidation tactics to receive written consent from parents. He recounted a particular case in which the director of an orphanage allegedly threatened the parents with cutting off access to their child and forging their signature if they refused to consent to international adoption.

The Armenian Weekly spoke with several adoptive families in the United States, under the condition of anonymity, who have largely corroborated these developments. Some of their adoption stories date all the way back to 2005. “My daughter’s birth parents were absolutely shocked when [we] reached out to them,” said one of the parents. “They had been told years ago by the hospital that their daughter had died,” she continued. According to her, the birth parents denied ever signing any adoption papers, despite signatures appearing on the notarized adoption documents which she shared with The Armenian Weekly.

International adoptions without the consent of the biological parents constitute a breach of the Criminal Code. The current law on adoptions prioritizes requests by adoptive parents who hold Armenian citizenship. Orphaned children are only eligible for international adoption if they are not claimed locally within a three-month period.

New Criminal Allegations Puts Spotlight on Orphanages

Allegations of illegal adoption of Armenian children are putting Armenia’s institutions for children in the global spotlight. In recent weeks, Armenian authorities said they opened several criminal investigations into the illegal adoption of over 30 children by foreign families. Several Armenian orphanage directors and other officials have been implicated in the alleged crimes, supposedly for financial gain.

It’s not the first time Armenia’s children’s institutions have drawn international attention. Here’s why. Many studies show that children, when separated from families and placed in institutions, have stunted physical, intellectual, emotional, and social development. In 2017, Human Rights Watch documented how, due to the lack of services to help families raise children at home, impoverished Armenian families find it difficult to care for children, especially those with disabilities, and may place them in institutions. Donors and the government have contributed to the problem by pouring money into institutions rather than community-based services.

Around 90 percent of children in residential care in Armenia have at least one living parent.

At the end of the day, Armenia should be investing less in institutions and investing more in community-based services for families. This would both curtail corruption and abuse at institutions, and help families care for their children at home.

No law requires members of Congress to have firsthand experience on the legislation they support. Some bills, however, have a personal flavor.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt serves as co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. He also has been a lead sponsor on legislation regarding this subject, including a resolution approved by the Senate last week designating Nov. 23 as National Adoption Day.

“As an adoptive dad myself, I know how much joy welcoming a child into your home can bring,” Blunt said this month in recognizing several Missouri families as Angels in Adoption.

In 2006, Blunt and his wife, Abigail, adopted a son from an orphanage in Russia. Charlie Blunt, now in his teens, has been a presence during the senator’s travels around Missouri, including in St. Joseph.

The Missouri Republican has worked for years with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesotan and presidential candidate, in leading the Adoption Coalition, which he calls the largest bipartisan and bicameral caucus in Congress.

Haïti: plus de 200.000 enfants exploités comme domestiques

Ce que l'on sait de la mort de deux Français venus adopter en Haïti

26/11/2019 à 08h10

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Les deux quarantenaires étaient sur l'île, en proie à une grave crise sociale et politique, pour adopter des enfants. "Ils ont fait tout ce qu'il fallait faire en termes de sécurité", assure l'Agence Française de l'Adoption, qui suivait leur dossier.

Port-au-Prince (AFP) - Two French citizens were shot dead in Port-au-Prince at the weekend shortly after flying into the Haitian capital to adopt a child, diplomatic and other sources told AFP Monday.

An official at the French embassy confirmed that a French couple had been killed, without giving further details of the exact circumstances of their deaths.

According to two other sources, however, the couple were from the Ardeche region of southeastern France and had arrived in the Caribbean country to adopt a child.

One of the sources said they were killed in an armed robbery that turned deadly.

A spokeswoman for the Ardeche department confirmed to AFP that the couple, from the town of Saint-Martin-d'Ardeche, had been given a green light last year to adopt their first child.

HO CHI MINH CITY (Reuters) - They wondered about each other over the decades, the Vietnamese mother constantly and more acutely than the 3-year-old daughter she gave up in April 1975, just before Saigon fell to Communist North Vietnam.

As U.S. troops exited Vietnam after twenty years of conflict, thousands of South Vietnamese who had fought alongside them or otherwise opposed the North were terrified of what lay ahead. As some fled, more than 3,000 children were flown to new families overseas in what became known as ‘Operation Babylift’.

Among those infants was Leigh Mai Boughton Small - the daughter of a Vietnamese maid and a G.I. - who was airlifted out of the humid chaos of Vietnam for a new life and adopted middle-class family in New England.

Leigh Mai and her birth mother may have spent the rest of their lives wondering about each other - except for the mother’s persistence, the daughter’s decision to try a DNA website, and help from a Vietnamese Good Samaritan.

After years of trying to find each other, Leigh Mai, now 47, met her birth mother Nguyen thi Dep on Nov. 17 in Ho Chi Minh City, a reunion exclusively filmed by Reuters TV.

"Hello nice men. Whatever you ask, it never goes too far." That message may sound tempting to some. But if men want to date digital decoy public Lisa, they could be convicted.

With bait advertisements on sex sites, children's rights organization Terre des Hommes wants to find out how great the demand is for sex with minors. That is to say: young people under the age of 16.

Intent to make an appointment also punishable

The organization had already used a digital bait puber before, which did not lead to a conviction at the time. But, since March this year, the intention to make a sex date with a child under 16 has also been punishable. That is why Terre des Hommes uses the decoy puber again.

"We want the problem to become visible. In the Netherlands, minors are being exploited by human traffickers. We believe that action should be taken against this. The bait advertisement brings us into contact with men who can warn us and make it clear that what they do may be punishable. is ", explains director of Terre des Hommes Carel Kok.

Bhopal: A few days after the case of a special adoption agency (SAA) where a six-year-old boy was made legally free for

adoption even when his biological parents were alive, another similar case relating to the same SAA has come to light.

Two children, aged 4 and 6, from Betul were declared legally free for adoption and were about to undergo the process of preadoption when their biological mother, who lives in Bhopal, went to the office of the Child Welfare Committee, demanding her

children back. The Madhya Pradesh Protection of Child Rights Commission (MPPCRC) and CWC suspect a case of child

trafficking. The MPPCRC has taken cognizance of the matter and sent a letter to the District Child Protection Unit to inquire into

The annual event is meant to draw attention to thousands of foster kids awaiting forever families.

At 13, Nicole Avellaneda stood before Judge David Kurtz with her family. Friday was National Adoption Day in Snohomish County, and Nicole was there as three little girls in tutus and T-shirts officially became her sisters.

Yet before the Superior Court judge presided over Jen and Cid Avellaneda’s adoption of a trio of sisters — Mayah, 6, Alayna, 2, and 1-year-old Malaya — there was a special moment just for Nicole.

Everett attorney Deane Minor, who was handling the adoption case Friday, asked the judge if he remembered something: “On Nov. 14, 2008, the young lady with the big smile was adopted” in Kurtz’s courtroom, Minor said.

“Great to see you again,” said Kurtz, greeting Nicole — who like the rest of her multiracial clan wore a gray T-shirt with the slogan “Families Don’t Have to Match.”

Bosnians have taken to the streets to protest against the government after photos were published of special needs children chained to beds and radiators in an official facility.

Over 1,000 people called for action outside a government building in the capital Sarajevo after images from inside the Pazaric care home were released by opposition politician Sabina Cudic.

Parents of disabled children joined the protest, describing the care system as dysfunctional, one that had seen their offspring excluded from society.

Ms Cudic demanded a parliamentary debate on the matter but the government has rejected the request.

The current boss of the home has defended staff and says the claims of abuse are untrue.