For decades, Americans largely regarded East Asians as unassimilable aliens unfit for American citizenship. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first American bill banning immigration of a racial or ethnic group. Thirty years later, a Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was instilled, followed by a treaty between America and Japan agreeing to deny passports to Japanese seeking employment in the US. Hatred toward Japanese during World War II resulted in the internment of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans.

In 1955, however, a special act of Congress allowed a white couple, Bertha and Harry Holt, to adopt eight Korean War orphans. Evangelical Christian farmers based in Oregon, the Holts ultimately inspired thousands of American families to adopt children from East Asia. Oregon Senator Richard Neuberger even hailed them as incarnations of the “Biblical Good Samaritan.” Within several decades, white Americans went from perceiving Asians as “pig-tailed coolies” to endearing children in need of American help. Christians played a pivotal role in promoting this wave of pro-adoption sentiment.

World Vision and Everett Swanson Evangelistic Association

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea. Korea was under Japanese occupation until Japan surrendered to the Allied forces in 1945. Soon after Korean gained its independence, two opposing governments split the country in two, the south supported by the United States, and the north by the Soviet Union. In 1951, North Korea invaded South Korea and war broke out. By the end of 1950, American and Chinese troops had escalated the civil war into a global conflict.

The war devastated Korea. Casualties exceeded 2.5 million people—many of them civilians, and more than 10 million people were displaced which created countless widows and orphans. By the time the war halted with an armistice in 1953, Korea was one of the most destitute nations in the world.

Trish Maskew Leaves Office of Children's Issues

Trish Maskew Out from Office of Children’s Issues.

Today, October 9, 2019 we just received an email from the Department of State which said the following:

Shortly after the Symposium, I informed the Department that I have accepted a new position with another federal agency, and this week will be my last in the Office of Children’s Issues. LaTina Marsh has assumed acting as Adoption Division Chief. Being able to hold a Symposium that brought all voices from the adoption community together was a perfect way to mark the end of my tenure here. I have enjoyed working with all of you and wish you the very best as you continue your efforts on behalf of children and families.

Sincerely,

Today, October 9, 2019 we just received an email from the Department of State which said the following:

Shortly after the Symposium, I informed the Department that I have accepted a new position with another federal agency, and this week will be my last in the Office of Children’s Issues. LaTina Marsh has assumed acting as Adoption Division Chief.  Being able to hold a Symposium that brought all voices from the adoption community together was a perfect way to mark the end of my tenure here. I have enjoyed working with all of you and wish you the very best as you continue your efforts on behalf of children and families.

Sincerely,

Trish Maskew
The Office of Children’s Issues

Unlimited adoption

The growth of illegal adoption practices

Adoption of foreign children is booming in the 1960s and 1970s thanks to parents who fight for their own happiness and that of the world.

The government initially works against it alone, but later seems to push on to the other extreme. Research into her role in illegal adoption is ongoing.

"It has been repeatedly demonstrated that false medical declarations concerning birth and false birth certificates are readily available at Uwent." Ufford.

By Vanne Elaine Terrazola

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has signed the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the law which institutionalizes the national feeding program for schoolchildren and another which simplifies the process of child adoption.

fficials signed on Monday the IRR of RA No. 11037, the Masustansyang Pagkain Para sa Batang Pilipino Act, and Republic Act No. 11222, the Simulated Birth Rectification Act, during a ceremony held in the DSWD central office in Quezon City.

Senator Grace Poe, author of both laws, was also invited to witness the IRR signing. She lauded the development as this would green light the rollout of the two laws.

“I’m extremely glad the IRRs are done. Without them, the laws remain as dreams unfulfilled,” she said in her speech.

Children have given damning testimony in a new report into secure residential care.

Fifty-two children were interviewed for the report, released on Monday by the Office of the Children's Commissioner.

The study concluded that facilities for vulnerable youth are unhappy places which are not fit for purpose.

"I found this report extremely difficult to read, and I think most New Zealanders would too," said Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft.

"Children and young people have the right to have their views heard, considered and taken seriously. The voices of the children and young people contained in this report are insistent. They are distressing. We must take them seriously."

MANILA - Sen. Grace Poe on Monday appealed to Cabinet officials to urge President Rodrigo Duterte to certify as urgent a bill which would hasten the process of adoption in the Philippines.

Poe, who was adopted by movie stars Susan Roces and the late Fernando Poe Jr., recently filed Senate Bill 1070 or the Domestic Administrative Adoption Act which seeks to establish an administrative adoption system and eliminate the judicial phase of adoption.

“This bill mirrors our belief that an administrative proceeding will hasten the process, minimize the cost, declog our courts, and prod more people to embark on the legal fasttrack to adopting a child,” Poe said in a speech during the ceremonial signing of the implementing rules of Republic Act 11222 or the Simulated Birth Rectification Act at the central office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

“So I would like to appeal to the Cabinet officials here today, to convince the President to certify this measure as urgent so it could fasttrack its way through Congress.”

Poe said that as of 2018, some 6,500 Filipino children were in need of a permanent home. Of this number, 3,973 have already been made legally available for adoption since 2009.

Baltimore, Maryland, Mon. October 7, 2019 — In August 2019 the Lumos Foundation USA renewed funding for International Social Service, USA (ISS-USA) to serve up to 50 returning children to Guatemala using their cross-border case management model and best practices outlined in International Social Service’s Children on the Move Guidelines. ISS-USA first received funding from Lumos in December 2018 for a six-month pilot program to provide services for up to 15 children returning to Guatemala after a separation at the US border. After an initial extension, the program is currently serving 26 families, which includes approximately 130 individuals.

Families in the ISS-USA Reunification and Reintegration Program receive comprehensive support services for six months after the child’s return home. A social worker visits each family prior to the child’s return, works with the family to understand their individual needs, and develops a comprehensive reintegration plan. The social worker accompanies the child’s reception in Guatemala and makes sure the child arrives safely home. Over the next six months, the social worker helps the child and his or her siblings to enroll in school, access medical and mental health services, support the parent’s access to vocational or skill-building programs, coordinate with local protection officials, and provide other basic household items to help stabilize the family situation.

“We are grateful to our partners in the US and Guatemala for the hard work on the Guatemala Reunification and Reintegration program,” said Julie Rosicky, Executive Director of ISS-USA. “With this additional investment we expect to support 130 more individuals affected by a traumatic family separation.”

Billy DiMichele, Chairman of Lumos USA’s Board of Directors, said “the Reunification and Reintegration Program is providing vital holistic services to support children, and strengthen families. We are delighted to renew our partnership with ISS-USA and appreciate their commitment to this valuable work.”

ISS-USA, Lumos and their Guatemalan partners are able to serve children up to age 18 throughout Guatemala. If you are working with children who have experienced a family separation, please contact eweisman@iss-usa.org for more information on how this program can help prepare for a safe and stable return to family.

IT doesn’t matter what your church allegiance is, or even if you have none; most people think that the Missionaries of Charity, the religious order founded by Mother Teresa, is a good thing.

The order, with 4,500 nuns, is dedicated to ‘wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor’. The nuns care for refugees, former prostitutes, the mentally ill, sick and abandoned children, lepers, those with Aids, the aged, the convalescent. They run schools staffed by volunteers to educate street children. They run soup kitchens to feed the destitute. All this is provided free of charge and open to anyone regardless of religion, race or caste.

The Missionaries of Charity have a pretty impressive résumé, one probably unmatched anywhere in the world. But then there is poverty in India probably unmatched in any other country with its own space programme.

India has one of the fastest growing economies in the world and a growing middle class, but poverty, although dropping, is widespread. In 2014, the Rangarajan Committee, heading by a former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, said the population below the poverty line in 2009-2010 numbered 454million (38.2 per cent of the population) and in 2011-2012 had dropped to 363million (29.5 per cent of the population). In India poverty means poverty. According to the government’s own figures, rural poverty in 2011 meant having less than 816 rupees, or £9.33 a month, or 31p a day.

There is still ample need for the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity.

In-depth afternoon for adult adoptees a great success

Last Saturday Plan Kiskeya organized an information meeting & in-depth afternoon with the theme "Haiti & Identity". In the Nieuwe Poort in Rotterdam a group of more than 30 Haitian adult adopted people came together to delve into their Haitian background and the different identities from their Haitian origin, Dutch context and, of course, African heritage.

Hostess Iris van Lunenburg, also adopted from Haiti and known from, among other things, the television program "Iris investigates", opened the afternoon and connected the parts that followed.

Marcel Catsburg, writer of the recently published book "Land without rest - fault lines in Haitian soil", presented a cultural and historical perspective to better understand today's Haiti.

Clinical chemist Jos van der Stappen shared his DNA expertise, the possibilities but also the limitations of kinship research that are important for those who want to find their family through DNA research.