A lawyer and an orphanage proprietress have been sentenced to three years each by the Accra Circuit Court, for deceiving a married couple, to release their one-year old child for adoption.

Additionally, the lawyer, David Opare Asiedu, and the proprietress, Elizabeth Arthur Adjei, alias Maa Lizy, were ordered by the court on Wednesday to pay GH¢12,000 and GH¢6,000 respectively as fines.

Elizabeth, was charged with defrauding by false pretence while Asiedu was charged with abetment.

This was after they had presented an electrician, Benjamin Kofi Okyere, with an opportunity to travel abroad, but ended up giving his one-year old son for adoption to a white man, at his blind side.

A driver, Prince Armah, also known as Paa Kwasi, son of Elizabeth, and an alleged accomplice is on the run.

They actually only wanted one daughter, but then they ended up with two...The Herrmann family reports on the adoption of their two daughters from Romania.

First encounter at 50 degrees in the sun

Mother holding child hand iStock isitsharp

Photo: © iStockphoto.com/ isitsharp

"Aurelia hugged me right away and called me daddy," Peter Herrmann recalls when he first met his daughter. At that time it was more than 50 degrees hot under the blazing sun on the Black Sea. It was there that the Herrmann family met their adopted child for the first time . "Because time was short in Romania, we had to sign the declaration of consent for the adoption without having met Aurelia," says Aurelia's current father, Peter. "We had only seen a photo of her before."

A WITNESS has told the Ndola magistrate court that four couples who attempted to traffic four children from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had them checked into a guest house they were living in two days later.

Estelle Banda, a General Manager at Spree guest house in Ndola narrated to the court that the eight Croatians who were booked at the guest house did not have children when they booked, but that two days later, staff at the guest house found them all with African black children.

This is a matter in which eight people of Croatian descent are charged with suspected human trafficking and were arrested from Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe Airport with children aged between one-year-six months and three years old.

When the matter came up for trial before chief resident Magistrate Dominic Makalicha, Ms Banda told court that after the four couples checked, it was discovered that each had a black child.

She told court that the couples stayed at the lodge for five days and when going to the Airport, they each had an African black child.

Two adopted girls will travel to the US, a boy to be with new family in Italy

Thane: The new year has brought blessings in the form of legal parents for 16 orphaned children from Thane. At an informal event on Tuesday, Thane District Collector Ashok Shingare handed over the children to their new families. Among these were 11 girls, with two of them finding parents in the US. Of the five boys, one will relocate to Italy.

Mr Shingare said, “As per the order of the Children Welfare Committee, orphaned, abandoned and neglected children are admitted to the Children of the Word India Trust in Nerul and Janani Ashish Charitable Trust in Dombivli. Prospective parents have to register themselves on the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) website and make an application to the District Collector.

Mr Shingare said that according to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, the Adoption Rules 2022 were framed. Also included in this are inter-relationship and step adoptions

The adoptions announced by Mr Shingare came before the Bombay Court stayed the amendment of the Act pertaining to transfer of jurisdiction to District Magistrates, who are officials of the rank of Collector. “As per the Act, the cases were heard to me,” he said during his speech.

Pforzheim/Enz district. It was an intense interrogation: a former EU official who describes herself as a whistleblower sat on the witness stand in the Pforzheim district court for four hours. In the appeal process, a 50-year-old defendant from the Enzkreis district is accused of defamation. As the PZ reported, she is said to have described the Pforzheim city councilor Oana Krichbaum as a "child trafficker" in four Facebook posts.

The witness worked until 2005 in the Commission for EU enlargement and, according to her testimony, dealt with the issue of child protection in Romania. At that time, adoption agencies from Romania are said to have worked together with agencies from other EU countries to place children from Romania with parents abroad.

A system that the EU official did not seem to be comfortable with. "It was legal back then. But history shows us that not everything that was legal is always good," said the woman, who had traveled to Pforzheim from Belgium.

760_0900_149894_.jpg

REGION+

Sam Bettens (50) has many stories to tell. That much is clear after his episode of 'Het huis'. One of the most poignant is that of a failed adoption, just before Sam and his partner Stef had their first child Charlie. “Suddenly the hospital door opened again and the car seat came out. Without a baby.”

Sam and Stef have two adopted children, Charlie and Jett. Charlie almost hadn't been their first child. “Before Charlie arrived, we had parents change their minds,” says Sam. “We were about to leave the hospital with a baby. We had just talked to the pediatrician, he had given us a bag of baby food and an explanation for the next few days. And we had already fitted our seat in the car.”

Suddenly the door of the hospital room where the parents were, closed. Sam and Stef were in the hallway. “The door opened again and the car seat came out. Without a baby.” With private adoption, a kind of surrogacy, parents can only sign away their rights after birth. They are given a few days to change their mind. In this case, it was the father who opposed the adoption. “The father refused to give the baby to a lesbian couple,” explains Sam. “He said no way. That's heavy."

Sam and Stef went back to the hotel, where the clothes for their baby were ready and the bed was already set up. “We cried all night. We flew home without a baby.”

Indescribable

Sam Bettens is a guest in 'Het Huis' this week. He tells Eric Goens about his two coming outs, but also about the very difficult adoption process.

We know Sam Bettens better as the frontman of K's Choice. The singer has been living in the United States for years with his wife Stef Kramer. The couple has four children. Two children from Stef's previous relationship and two adopted children: Jett and Charlie. Sam now tells in ' Het Huis ' that the adoption process was very tough.

“What was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives became the deepest thing there is,” he admits frankly. For example, Sam says that they had already fitted the child seat in the car and that they were about to leave the hospital. “The car seat comes out, with no baby, and then the door closes again,” says Sam.

Goens wonders if the mother changed her mind at the last minute, but that was not the reason. “The father refused to give the child to a lesbian couple,” explains Sam. “The father finally said: 'No way!'”

”

Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic confirmed on Friday that the children from the Congo, who were adopted in Zambia by four Croatian couples subsequently arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, had Croatian documents.

“An investigation is being conducted. The children have Croatian documents that were issued based on appropriate decisions by Croatian institutions,” said Bozinovic at the Police Academy.

He added that at the moment several Croatian departments are cooperating and exchanging information in coordination with the Foreign and European Affairs Ministry (MVEP), which is in charge of taking care of Croatian citizens outside the Republic of Croatia.

Eight Croatian citizens have been detained in Zambia for more than three weeks due to suspicion about the validity of documents for adopting minor Congolese children, MVEP confirmed last Saturday.

Four couples from Croatia were arrested in Zambia on 7 December on suspicion of human trafficking, Croatian media reported last week, adding that the couples intended to adopt children from the Congo.

At the beginning of December, seven Croatian citizens were arrested in Zambia, due to doubts about the validity of the documents for the adoption of minor children from the DR Congo. The investigation is still ongoing, and the Croatian institutions are transferring responsibility for the adoption process, Croatian reports. Index.

The investigation involving several competent authorities will determine what really happened, whether someone forged Congolese documents or failed in the adoption process of Congolese children who received Croatian documents. Currently there are various theories about this and various information and misinformation is being spread.

On Wednesday, there was also a misunderstanding when the President of the Supreme Court of Croatia, Radovan Dobroni?, stated that the Croatian courts made a mistake and that the procedure on the basis of which Congolese children received Croatian documents was not valid, because Congo is a signatory to the Convention on the Protection of Children. therefore the procedure should be different.

But Dobronic later admitted that he had made a mistake and confused the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Namely, DR Congo is not a signatory to the Convention and the adoption procedure is under the jurisdiction of the courts, not the Ministry of Family and Social Policy.

He announced that the Supreme Court will rule on the adoption on Thursday.

A Zambian court has granted bail to eight Croatian nationals charged with child trafficking

NDOLA, Zambia -- A magistrate in Zambia on Thursday granted bail to eight Croatian nationals charged with child trafficking.

Magistrate David Makalicha in Ndola, in the mineral-rich Copperbelt province, said the eight should each pay 20,000 Kwacha (about $1,000) bail and surrender their passports to the court.

The eight were named as Damir Magic, 44, Nadica Magic, 45, Zoran Subosic, 52, Azra Imamovic Subosic, 41, Ladislav Persic, 42, Aleksandra Persic, 40, Noah Kraljevic, 45, and Ivona Kraljevic, 46, when they first appeared in court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to charges of child trafficking.

They are defended by a legal aid lawyer, Kelvin Silwimba. In the charges brought before the court, the Croatians are accused of attempting to traffic four named children late last year into Zambia “for the purpose of exploitation.”