KARACHI:

Zia Ahmed Awan, a human rights activist and founder of Madadgaar National Helpline 1098 and Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), have highlighted the issues surrounding child adoption in Pakistan.

While addressing a news conference on Thursday, Awan, who is also a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, underlined the state’s failure due to the lack of legislation, insufficient rules, and procedures, and the absence of proper monitoring mechanisms, which create opportunities for child traffickers under the guise of false adoptions.

Awan said that NGOs play a crucial role in filling the gaps left by the government in caring for street and orphan children. He pointed to the alarming linkage between adoption and child trafficking and called for necessary reforms to address these issues effectively.

Awan said that without comprehensive laws and specialised adoption and post-adoption child welfare agencies, many children are denied the chance for a positive adoption experience, making the process challenging in Pakistan.

Coimbatore: The Karumathampatti all-woman police on Wednesday evening arrested a 54-year-old man in Andhra Pradesh for ‘buying’ a seven-day-old baby boy from a child trafficking racket operating out of Bihar. With this, the number of arrested people in connection with the case has gone up to six.

An investigation officer identified the arrested person as S Srirama Chandra Murthy Devarasetti, a truck driver from Indiramma Colony at Devarapalli in Godavari in Andhra Pradesh.

On Thursday, he was produced before a judicial magistrate, who remanded him in judicial custody. He was later lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison.

The officer said the truck driver had bought the baby boy from a Bihar-based couple, who were running a hotel in Coimbatore, for 2.5 lakh.

According to the officer, H Neha Kumari and her mother H Poonam Devi, of Darbhanga district in Bihar, had kidnapped a baby girl and a baby boy from their state and handed them over to M Maheshkumar, 34, and his wife Anjalikumari, 24, a couple from Bihar who were running a hotel at Appanaickenpatti near Sulur.

Police in Thanh Hoa Province, north-central Vietnam on Wednesday announced the arrest of a 38-year-old woman for allegedly trafficking an infant, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Pham Thi Hang, a 38-year-old from Tung Lam Commune in Nghi Son Town, is currently in police custody for 'transferring and trafficking individuals under the age of 16,' according to the public security division of Thanh Hoa City, which is the provincial capital.

On Tuesday afternoon, police officers caught Hang arranging to sell a five-day-old infant at a motel on To Vinh Dien Street in Dien Bien Ward, Thanh Hoa City. 

Hang had planned to sell the newborn daughter of a woman from Vo Nhai District, Thai Nguyen Province, northern Vietnam to a family in Hoa Quy Commune, located in Thanh Hoa Province’s Nhu Xuan District, for VND45 million (US$1,768). 

Prior to this incident, local authorities had discovered a social media group founded to help infertile families adopt children.

The High Court has approved the adoption of a teenage girl with complex physical and intellectual needs by her foster parents.

The birth mother of the girl, who is nearing adulthood but who will not be capable of independent living as an adult, had objected to the adoption.

The girl had spent a considerable portion of her childhood in the care of the foster parents who had sought the adoption order.

Ms Justice Nuala Jackson decided it was in the child’s best interests that the adoption order should be made. The judge said that as a six month old, the girl was placed in voluntary care having previously been admitted to hospital on three occasions for what were considered “social admissions”.

There was evidence that her birth mother was finding it difficult to cope and “needed a break”.

A couple from Bihar were arrested on charges of selling off an infant in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore district. Three others, including a farmer, were also arrested in connection with the incident.

A couple from Bihar living in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore district were arrested for selling off an infant for Rs 2.50 lakh to a farmer, police said.

Based on a complaint, child rights officials initiated an investigation to find out whether the accused, Mahesh Kumar and Anjali, were involved in selling the infant. The accused were living in Appanayakanpatti in Sulur and running an eatery.

The officials filed a formal complaint with Karumathampatti Police, who then arrested the couple on June 3 and discovered that the baby was sold off to a farmer identified as Vijayan.

Mahesh and Anjali had sold a 15 day old child to Vijayan for Rs 2.50 lakh, and they had also sold a baby girl to a couple in Andhra Pradesh last month.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/06/11/ma-bill-would-allow-women-to-sell-their-unborn-children/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3BF8qMv70qvZ3jEMjS-BJTXWCsvRyMZ43Kjnfsut8NxIExHZW2DLEQBPE_aem_AUuy3SNLcZBN_6YcmJp8mOtiCaSokVcb9TnodoAaJD10ckbUZ0NnwjnB8-zeAW1Gt3kCkTCCO798LgOYFBoKOvGA

Massachusetts’ proposed bill seeks to redefine parenthood and legalize the practice of baby-selling in the name of ‘parentage equality.’

On June 12, the Massachusetts House is expected to vote on a bill that would allow mothers to exchange their children for money—that is, engage in baby-selling—under the name of “parentage equality.”

70 years of Korean adoption: Untold struggles of returning overseas adoptees

Simone Eun-mi (left) and Lee Chang-woo (alias), who were adopted to the Netherlands and returned. /Park Eun-joo© Provided by THE CHOSUNILBO

South Korea, in its impoverished state, sent children abroad for adoption, starting with four mixed-race infants to the United States in 1953. Officially estimated at 170,000 (equivalent to the population of Seogwipo City), unofficially at 250,000 (Geoje City), advanced countries believed it to be the “best alternative,” valuing children highly. However, an unexpected situation is unfolding. The babies sent away are returning to South Korea in middle age, asking, “Do I have the right to live as a Korean?”

Graphics by Lee Jin-young© Provided by THE CHOSUNILBO

Belagavi: The city police have busted a trafficking case involving a one-month-old child by taking five accused, including two women, into custody on Sunday. Mahadevi Bahubali Jain of Neginahal village in Bailhongal is the main accused. She is accused of buying children from needy families and selling them to affluent families.
Mahadevi had purchased the 30-day-old girl child from Abdulgafar Hussainsab Ladakhan of Hanchinal in Savadatti taluk, who currently resides in Kittur town, for Rs 60,000.

She was also in search of a buyer for the child. Based on a complaint by Rajkumar Rathod, coordinator of the government children's adoption centre in the Belagavi District Child Protection Unit, police traced the case. In a covert operation, police posed as buyers for the child. They contacted Mahadevi, and agreed on a deal for Rs 1.4 lakh.
Police took Mahadevi into custody when she came to sell the baby. Subsequently, the child was transferred to the child protection unit. The case has been registered against the accused under Sections 363 and 370 of the IPC and Sections 80 and 81 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 at the Malmaruti police station.
Police have also taken the child’s seller Abdulgafar Ladakhan, and three other accused - Chandan Girimallappa Subhedar and Pavitra Somappa Madiwalar from Turkar Shigihalli and Sampagaon, respectively, in Bailhongal taluk, and Praveen Manjunath Badiger of Hosatti in Dharwad taluk into custody.

Clara Chinwe Deborah Ogo, an 83-year-old woman and founder of the renowned Arrow of God Orphanage in Anambra State, has been remanded at a Correctional Centre in Onitsha, Anambra.

She was remanded after The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) arraigned her at the Federal High Court, Awka Judicial Division, for alleged buying and selling of human beings.

Ogo, a retired Nigerian Army Lt. Col, and a nurse, owns the orphanage located at Nkwelle-Ezunaka, Oyi L.G.A., Anambra State, with branches in Lagos State.

The Arrow of God Orphanage came under scrutiny in 2023 after Fisayo Soyombo, an investigative journalist exposed alleged illicit activities related to illegal adoption and sales of babies linked to the orphanage.

Soyombo bought a baby from Ogo for N2 million in July 2023, after 19 months of intense work to crack the investigation.

Julienne Mpemba, a Belgian-Congolese from Namur, is suspected of fraud in the adoption of Congolese children. Belgian families find themselves with a child who could have been stolen. Seven years after the opening of the case, it will be pleaded.
 

It is an old case but above all very emotionally heavy which will soon be pleaded before the Namur criminal court. Julienne Mpemba, a Belgian-Congolese from Namur, has been suspected since 2017 of adoption fraud, human trafficking, kidnapping of minors, hostage taking, fraud, corruption, forgery and use of forgeries.

Let's go back a few years. In 2017, the federal prosecutor's office discovered that the children, who arrived in Belgium in 2014, had been kidnapped. Other identities and dates of birth were allegedly given to them even though they were not intended for adoption.

At the time, reporters from the newspaper “Het Laatste Nieuws” even went looking for the biological parents. They had found them. They explained that they had the opportunity to send their children to camp through a youth organization. But the little ones never came back. These parents had no money to pay a lawyer. They had also been abandoned by the local authorities.