MUMBAI: Bombay high court refused to direct the Central Adoption Resource Agency (Cara) to approve the adoption of an American child by an Indian Muslim couple. It observed that neither the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act nor the Adoption Regulations allow the adoption of a child of foreign citizenship unless the child is ‘in need of care and protection' or ‘in conflict with law.'
"There is no fundamental right of the petitioners to adopt an American child, which child does not fall within the applicability of the JJ Act and the regulations thereunder even if he is born to Indian parents.
 

Neither is there any violation of any fundamental right of the child of American nationality to be adopted by an Indian citizen," said Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Gokhale on Wednesday.
They dismissed a petition by the childless couple from Pune who sought to adopt a child (now six years of age) from their California-based relatives. They brought him to India in Oct 2019.
As they are Muslims with no law for adoption, they approached the district court under Section 56 (2) for adoption from ‘a relative'. Cara, the regulator for in-country and inter-country adoption, refused to register them as prospective adoptive parents. They moved the high court, saying without valid adoption the child's stay in India may become illegal.
Their advocate, Shirin Merchant, argued that Section 56(2) provides for the adoption of a child from a relative. She said Cara is unnecessarily treating the adoption under AR 23 for NRI, OCI, and foreigners.

Cara's advocate, Y S Bhate, said the JJ Act and AR do not apply to the adoption of a child who is an American citizen by Indian parents.

The judges said the JJ Act applies to all matters concerning ‘child in need of care and protection' and ‘child in conflict with law'. Admittedly, the child does not fall within these definitions. "Hence, provisions of the Act… do not apply," Justice Gokhale wrote.

The judges said Section 56 (2) cannot operate independently of the Act. A relative must first relinquish the child for it to be a ‘child in need of care and protection'. Also, AR 23 provides for post-adoption procedures for bringing a foreign child adopted by Indian parents to India. The petitioners were "always at liberty to adopt this legal and regular procedure."

While Merchant insisted that the adoption be treated as in-country adoption provided under the AR, the judges said it has to follow the parent Act.

They said the petitioners' "predicament" can be resolved by Cara's suggestion to apply for Indian citizenship and following surrender by biological parents to follow the JJ Act or adopt the child in US.

The petitioners "were not inclined to accept the same".

The average delay for prospective parents to get an adoption referral in India has increased to over three years

For years now, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) — the country’s nodal adoption agency — has struggled to effectively manage adoptions. While a significant number of parents are willing to adopt, only a limited number of children are legally cleared for adoption. This imbalance has not gone unnoticed. In 2022, a Parliamentary panel called this imbalance a “paradoxical situation,” and in 2023, the Supreme Court “expressed displeasure” over the time-consuming adoption process.

Latest data obtained through a Right To Information application filed by The Hindu show that the asymmetry continues even in 2025, and the gap has widened further. In 2021, 26,734 prospective parents registered in the CARA portal, and 2,430 children were legally free for adoption. In other words, there were 11 prospective parents for every child free for adoption in 2021.

Shirley Chung was just 16 months old when an American family adopted her from South Korea in 1966.

She was raised by a Black family in Texas, went to a mostly white school and attended a mostly Black church. Growing up in a mixed-race family, she became accustomed to questions about her identity.

“'What are you? What are you?' I’ve heard that my whole life,” she said. “From when I was a little girl, and my mother would have to answer the question.”

But one thing she never questioned was her identity as an American.

That is, until she misplaced her Social Security card and tried to get a new one. She was 57 at the time.

Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler found a publicly accessible database online that contained highly personal information from an adoption agency.

Jeremiah, who specializes in locating exposed cloud storage, is used to finding sensitive information exposed. However, because of the nature of the information, this one immediately raised his concern and he hurried to find out who owned the data.

Research indicated that the database belonged to the Fort Worth (TX) based non-profit Gladney Center for Adoption. After notifying the agency, the database was secured the following day. Let’s hope nobody else found it before that time.

In total, the unencrypted and non-password-protected database contained 1,115,061 records including the names of children, birth parents, adoptive parents, and other potentially sensitive information like case notes.

The risks of leaking this type of data and it potentially falling in the hands of cybercriminals are huge. The sensitivity of adoption-related data makes these exposures particularly damaging, both for children and families, since adoption records often include highly personal details about children, birth parents, adoptive parents, and agency staff.

Counselling should be made available to prospective adoptive parents, adopted children and biological parents who surrender their child for adoption.

New Delhi: The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has written to its state counterparts asking that the counselling services for adoption be institutionalised.

The CARA has written to all SARAs asking that empanel qualified counsellors be hired at the district and state level. 

Counselling, the directive said, should be made available to prospective adoptive parents (PAPs), adopted children and biological parents who surrender their child for adoption. 

These counselling provisions, which are to be made available at the pre-adoption, adoption, and post-adoption stages, are prescribed under the Adoption Regulations, 2022. 

“The Adoption Regulations, 2022 contain specific provisions requiring the delivery of structured and

need-based counselling services at each stage of the adoption process. These include, but are not 

limited to, Regulation 10(7), Regulation 30(4)(c), Regulation 30(4)(e), Regulation 7(11), Regulation 30(2) (c), Regulation 14(4), Regulation 1 (6)(b), and Regulation 21(6) 

of Adoption regulation 2022 which collectively envisage a holistic support system for all relevant stakeholders,” a communication by CARA CEO Bhavna Saxena, dated July 7, states

Counselling, in the adoption process, is mandatory during the pre-adoption state to prospective adoptive parents, and is important to draft the Home Study Report without which adoptions cannot take place. 

The bench also refused to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to allow the adoption and said there is no "fundamental right" of the petitioners to adopt an American child.

Mumbai: An Indian does not have the fundamental right to adopt a child of American nationality even from among relatives when the child is neither "in need of care and protection" nor in "conflict with law", the Bombay High Court has said.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Gokhale on Wednesday refused an Indian couple's plea to adopt their relative's son, who is a US citizen by birth. The child in the present case does not fall within the definition of either 'child in need of care and protection' or a 'child in conflict with law' as per provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and Adoption Regulations, the HC said.

"There is no provision in the Juvenile Justice Act nor the Adoption Regulations providing for adoption of a child of foreign citizenship even between relatives unless the 'child is in need of care and protection' or a 'child is in conict with law'," it stated

The bench also refused to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to allow the adoption and said there is no "fundamental right" of the petitioners to adopt an American child. 

Neither is there any violation of any fundamental right of the child of American nationality to be adopted by an Indian citizen, it added. 

The couple will have to complete all necessary formalities of adopting the child from the US as per American laws and procedure, only after which they can go ahead with the post-adoption procedure in terms of bringing the foreign child adopted to India, the HC said. 

The couple sought to adopt their relatives' child, who is a citizen of the United States of America by birth.

Deux perquisitions dans le cadre de l'affaire Reynders

L'ex-commissaire européen et vice-Premier ministre belge Didier Reynders reste silencieux dans les médias depuis plus de six mois. ©BELGA

Bandung (ANTARA) - While investigating a child abduction case, the West Java Regional Police uncovered a child trafficking syndicate operating between Indonesia and Singapore and arrested 12 persons for trafficking babies for adoption.

“The suspects told us that they had taken as many as 24 infants,” the police’s director of general crime investigation, Grand Commissioner Surawan, informed in Bandung, West Java, on Tuesday.

According to Surawan, the West Java police busted the human trafficking ring while investigating a child abduction case in Bandung city.

He said that the traffickers took most of the infants from their biological parents in West Java. They were taken to Bandung, then Jakarta and West Kalimantan, from where the traffickers planned to fly them to Singapore.

The regional police, he added, managed to rescue five infants in Pontianak city, West Kalimantan, and one other in Tangerang, Banten. The infants are currently under the care of the police.

“This syndicate had been operating since 2023. We will entrust the babies to Sartika Asih Hospital in Bandung for health checks,” Surawan disclosed.

He informed that the infants were to be sold for Rp11 million (around US$676) to Rp16 million (US$983) to buyers for adoption in Singapore.

“The suspects said that the infants would be taken to Singapore for adoption by local citizens,” he added.

He said that the 12 nabbed syndicate members played different roles, acting as recruiters, caregivers, document counterfeiters, and transporters.

“The transactions began even before the babies were born,” he added.

Surawan further said that the West Java police intend to coordinate with Interpol to track down other victims who may have been sent abroad.

“We are still working to locate possible trafficked infants in Singapore. Our plan is to cooperate with Interpol,” he added.

Overseas adoptees report dereliction of duty and breach of trust,
"Knew about duplicate payment of labor costs but failed to take action"

The police have begun an investigation into the case of the Child Rights Protection Agency, an organization under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, improperly paying labor costs to a specific company. The company in question is the one suspected of “blank paper scanning,” in which they scanned blank sheets of paper instead of adoption documents and received project costs while working on a Child Rights Protection Agency contract project (computerizing adoption records) for nine

consecutive years. According to the police on the 10th, the Jongno Police Station in Seoul received a case on the 2nd in which the Solidarity for Children’s Rights filed a complaint against the Director of the Child Rights Protection Agency, Jeong Ik-joong, and two executive-level employees on charges of dereliction of duty and breach of trust on behalf of adoptees from 11 countries on the 20th of last month. The allegation is that the Child Rights Protection Agency mismanaged the project by making duplicate payments to a specific company for labor costs in the process of computerizing adoption records, etc., and did not take any action to recover the duplicate payments despite being aware of the duplicate payments.

Jongro has been investigating the corruption in the 'Adoption Records Computerization Project (worth 2.03965 billion won)' that the company was in charge of for 9 years, including the suspicion of blank paper scanning, and has started a full-scale investigation into the 'improper payment of labor costs' suspicion by grouping the cases together. A Jongro official said, "We received the case because it has similarities in the overall context with the contents we are currently investigating," and "We are organizing the details of the accusation as we have begun the investigation."

According to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea and Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Nam-hee, the company received a contract for the 'Adoption and Missing Person (Child Card) Record Computerization Project' from the Child Rights Protection Institute for three consecutive years from 2019 to 2021, and submitted a list of people who did not participate in the project and received about 50 million won in labor costs. The list contained the names of employees who participated in another project, the 'Adoption Records Computerization Project', which was carried out during the same period.

However, it was also confirmed that the Child Rights Protection Agency, which was supposed to supervise and manage the progress of the project, was aware of this fact but did not take any action to recover it.

Cho Min-ho, head of the Child Rights Solidarity who filed the complaint, explained, "For many adoptees who are living in pain because they cannot find their biological families, the adoption records and child cards that the Child Rights Protection Center computerized are very precious." He added, "Not only the company that paid the duplicate labor costs, but also the Child Rights Protection Center that ran this project poorly is responsible, and I decided to file the complaint because I judged that an investigation was necessary."

 

The internal document of the Child Rights Protection Agency, “2020, 2021 Adoption/Missing (Children’s Card) Records Computerization Project Investigation Results,” states that five employees of service providers received duplicate payroll expenses in two projects. Provided by the office of Rep. Kim Nam-hee of the Democratic Party of Korea

Meanwhile, the Child Rights Protection Center belatedly filed a civil suit against the company in question after the state audit and the Ministry of Health and Welfare audit last year, claiming that the company had conducted the project poorly and seeking to recover 58 million won for the blank scans.

However, the company in question recently stated in a phone call with the Hankook Ilbo, "We submitted the company's data management guidelines, which included a statement that even the backs of documents (where there is no content) were scanned, as evidence to the court," and "The Child Rights Protection Center knew for years that the company worked based on the guidelines but did not raise any issues." They also added, "The Child Rights Protection Center employees in charge of the project signed 'no issues' on the inspection results submitted by the company after the project was completed, so we believe that it cannot be the subject of a civil suit in the first place."

 

CONCORD, N.H. —

A woman who claims her adoptive parents kept her in a basement dungeon in New Boston shared her story in court Tuesday. In her lawsuit, Olivia Griffin asked for nearly $30 million to help rebuild her life. After hearing Griffin's testimony, the judge approved the damages.

When News 9 first broke the story of the case in 2018, her name was Olivia Atkocaitis, but the first thing she clarified for the judge Tuesday was that she now uses the last name "Griffin." She spoke about the pain her old name carries.

"Being told for 15 years that your life is not worth living, and any time you do something wrong, you were told 110 ways you should kill yourself. I don't think I'm ever going to recover from that," she said. "I was conditioned to not think that I was worth anything."

Griffin was adopted from China at 14 months old. She said that for 15 years, she was kept in a room in the basement by Denise and Thomas Atkocaitis. Neither were in the courtroom Tuesday, but they have both pleaded guilty to criminal charges connected to the case.