MT — . One of the accusations levelled at gender-critical feminists, even those with decades-long track records of leftwing activism and gay rights campaigning, is that we are somehow in league with the Religious Right.

Trans-rights activists like to portray themselves as the vanguard of liberal progress, and use this to justify their

rejection of any public debate or scrutiny of their insistence that the legal and everyday definition of ‘woman’ is

changed, which feminists argue makes it harder for women to protect their boundaries and rights.

What the trans-rights activists are less willing to do is cast a critical eye over their own bedfellows, be they Big Pharma,

Tista' taqra bil- Malti.

Social policy minister Michael Falzon said that “the reality is that there are no local adoptions and there are several reasons for this despite the fact that we have changed the law”.

Appearing on Andrew Azzopardi’s talkshow on 103 Malta’s Heart, Falzon was quizzed about the recent case of of a family in Malta that returned three children adopted from India to the State, insisting they did not want to care for them any longer.

Falzon said the “exceptional” case was worrying, especially after the couple claimed that the behaviour of the children was “impossible”.

He added that when officials found out about the case, they did their utmost to find an alternative place for the children but Falzon admitted that there is much to be learnt from the case to ensure it doesn’t repeat itself.

Australian Federal Police are searching for women and children who may have been affected by the practice of forced adoption in Northern Ireland.

Northern Irish police are searching for women and children in Australia who may have been affected by institutional abuse between 1922 and 1990.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland launched an investigation in 2021 into allegations of abuse within Mother and Baby Institutions, Work Houses, and Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland.

On Sunday, the Australian Federal Police announced it will assisting the investigation in an effort to find victims and witnesses who may now live in Australia.

The Police Service are appealing for mothers who gave birth in, or anyone who was adopted from, institutions in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1990 to come forward.

The inmates and management of Keshav Bahety Surjudaya Children Home at Gangabari

near Makum in Tinsukia district have reason to rejoice as two couples from Malta

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TINSUKIA: The inmates and management of Keshav Bahety Surjudaya Children Home

at Gangabari near Makum in Tinsukia district have reason to rejoice as two couples from

Record Group 263: Records of the Central Intelligence Agency

Records of the Directorate of Operations

By Paul B. Brown

IWG Historical Research Staff

The CIA file on Wilhelm Krichbaum is a lengthy one consisting of one folder of redacted photocopies. The redactions are small and primarily involve deletions of names of CIA employees or sources, and some foreign government information (FGI) is redacted as well. Some documents with potentially useful data (i.e., photocopies of data cards citing MGLA messages) are poor copies, although they may be the best available from poor microfilm.

Mary wanted to raise her three children, but they were all taken from her. She died before she got justice.

A WOMAN PLANS to take legal action against the State over her mother’s exclusion from the planned redress scheme for survivors of mother and baby institutions.

Evelyn*, who was born into the system, has criticised the fact survivors who participated in the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes (COIMBH) but died before the State apology in January 2021, will be excluded from the scheme.

She is currently in discussions with solicitors and said she will “take whatever legal action is necessary”.

Evelyn told The Journal that many women like her mother, who were not allowed to keep their children, died before they ever got justice.

TRAFFICKING in persons, or human trafficking, thrives rapidly due to the growing usage of social media and desperation to increase financial stability in the post-pandemic age we live in.

This crime has been defined under Article 3 of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children 2000 (Trafficking Protocol 2000), which requires three main elements.

Firstly, an act by the traffickers is required. This can be seen through their method to bring vulnerable persons to their preferred location either by recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons.

Secondly, there must be a means to be trafficked. In this regard, the traffickers may use coercion, abduction, deception, giving or receiving of payments, or benefits, to achieve the consent of a person for bringing them to their preferred location.

Thirdly, the purpose of such an act must be for the exploitation of the person involved.

In September 2019, a weeks-old baby girl was found badly hurt but -- miraculously -- alive in the rubble of a raid by U.S. special operations forces. The military had targeted a home in central Afghanistan, looking to capture or kill suspected foreign fighters associated with al-Qaida.

The baby was left orphaned. Both of her parents were killed in the operation and she was placed under the temporary medical care of the U.S. military to recover from burns and physical trauma.

Today, the 3-and-a-half year old, known as Baby Doe, is an orphan no longer. She is claimed by two families who are fighting a complex legal battle over the right to raise her.

On one side are her paternal uncle and cousins in Afghanistan, with whom she was placed by the Afghan government in early 2020. Her uncle's son and his wife, referred to in court as John and Jane Doe, cared for her for 18 months.

On the other side is a U.S. Marine lawyer who was in Afghanistan at the time of the raid and who successfully petitioned a local Virginia court to grant him an adoption order. An attorney for the Marine, Maj. Joshua Mast, has contended in court filings that the girl had no surviving biological relatives, which the U.S. government says isn't true.

Since a few months you can again adopt a child from abroad in the Netherlands. That child will have a promising life here, but what does the adoption actually do to someone's identity? We ask influencer Lara Mallo (34), she was adopted as a baby from Brazil and made the YouTube series Looking for Lara in which she goes in search of where she comes from. “I couldn't find inner peace.”

At the age of one, Lara Mallo (34) from São Paulo was adopted by a Dutch family. She grew up in Het Gooi, where she was bullied as a child because she looked different from her classmates. Although she has actively searched for her biological parents, it has yielded little to this day.

Hey Lara, thank you for sharing your story. When did you find out you were adopted?

“I never really realized I was a different color because I always felt white. Just like my adoptive parents. But at the age of four, classmates already showed that they thought I was 'dirty' because I have a different skin color than them. As a child I didn't understand that. I thought: why am I brown and my parents are white? Then my parents explained to me that they adopted me because my biological parents could not take care of me. They said it honestly and directly, without making a fuss.”

What was it like growing up in your adoptive family?

Jyoti Weststrate and Regina Schipper have been looking for their biological parents in India for years. Correspondent Aletta André followed part of their search.

Aletta André18 January 2023, 01:00

A middle-aged woman is standing in Jyoti Weststrate's hotel room with some relatives. It is a cheap four-storey hotel in the town of Bettiah in the northern Indian state of Bihar. The music of a wedding in the courtyard can be heard through the window.

The woman looks awkward and confused, and after a while drops off. "It doesn't get through to them, but I'm not who they're looking for," says Weststrate, unsure how to deal with the situation. In her own search for her biological family, she is used to some disappointment. The fact that she also sees the other side of the coin in Bihar, with families of missing children, touches her, but does not take her any further.

'I don't want to die searching'