A day after actor Nayanthara and her husband director Vignesh Shivan shared pictures of their twin babies, Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian said that his department will seek an explanation. During a press meet, a journalist asked the Minister if the couple who got married four months ago can conceive through surrogacy and whether there was a time restriction. To this, the Minister replied that the Directorate of Medical Services will be directed to conduct an inquiry.

On October 9, Vignesh announced on social media, “Nayan & Me have become Amma & Appa. We are blessed with Twin Baby Boys. All Our prayers, our ancestors’ blessings combined with all the good manifestations made, have come 2gethr in the form Of 2 blessed babies for us. Need all ur blessings for our Uyir & Ulagam. Life looks brighter & more beautiful.”

Since their announcement, social media is rife with speculation about the babies and discussions about their names. While a friend of the couple said to TNM that the babies were conceived through surrogacy, Nayanthara and Vignesh are yet to make an official announcement.

In India, commercial surrogacy was allowed until a new law – The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021– came was passed in December 2021 and came into effect on January 25, 2022. It is plausible that Nayanthara, as a single woman, or Nayanthara and Vignesh, as partners, could have approached a medical clinic seeking surrogacy prior to December 2021, when commercial surrogacy was allowed and there were no laws governing the issue. However, since December 2021, only ‘altruistic surrogacy’ is allowed, meaning no remuneration or monetary incentive is provided to the surrogate mother, except the medical expenses. As per the new rules, a surrogate mother has to be genetically related to the couple.

The new rules also state, other than a couple, who have a ‘medical indication necessitating gestational surrogacy’, only an Indian woman who is a widow or divorcee between the age of 35 to 45 years can opt for surrogacy.

Being linked to the wrong biological family. It happened to Kristian and probably Barbara too. Kees van der Spek travels with them to Colombia and finds out that the Spoorloos program has made mistakes.

TV program Spoorloos linked at least two participants to the wrong family

Omroep KRO-NCRV acknowledges that at least two people who participated in the Spoorloos program were linked to the wrong biological family. The broadcaster makes this known in a press statement, in response to findings in the RTL program Scammers Tackled by journalist Kees van der Spek.

The upcoming episode of Scammers Tackled a Colombian intermediary, who for years carried out investigative work in Colombia for Spoorloos for a fee. The fixer, Edwin Vela, was involved in sixteen cases. It turns out that there are now at least two mismatches.

Kees van der Spek told this in the Jinek program:

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Feminist and capitalism-critical perspectives on egg cell transfer and "surrogacy"

Online series of events organized by the Genetic Ethical Network eV in cooperation with the fem*ini network against reproductive exploitation

The traffic light coalition plans to explore ways to legalize "egg donation" and allegedly altruistic "surrogacy," according to the coalition agreement. The liberalization of these reproductive medical practices has been the subject of controversial debate for years. It is always about throwing the Embryo Protection Act, which has been in force since 1990, overboard. Little is made of the fact that these practices are being established in a field of commercialized medicine. On the one hand there are the parents who wish to have children and on the other hand the women who provide these services with their respective interests. Above all, there are those who exploit bodily substances and bodily services economically. This difference in interests is made socially acceptable under the veiled terms "donation" or "gift" and popularized with reference to alternative family forms. Against this background, it is necessary to shed light on these positions in order to critically intervene in the upcoming debates. In the online event series, we want to talk to invited guests about different aspects of the topic.

To register, please send an email to eizellspende[at]gen-ethisches-netzwerk.de.

program

A Romanian woman testifies to the Council of Europe about the trauma experienced in communist orphanages/ Independent investigations are requested in all EU states regarding the violation of children's rights/ "We were naked, there was no heating, we only received a little food and we were left in the dark"

Sirmanca Fekete, a survivor of the Cighid home for disabled and mentally ill minors, testified today at the Council of Europe in support of a motion submitted by the Justice Initiative, the association announces in a press release.

This is a pan-European initiative that brings together 19 countries and aims to stop, recognize and prevent child abuse in Europe.

The Justice Initiative was initiated by the Swiss Guido Flori to investigate and find solutions for those affected by this phenomenon present throughout the continent.

The Council of Europe and the member states are asked to ensure an independent investigation of the violation of the rights of the child in each European country and the official recognition of the trauma of children who have suffered any kind of sexual, physical or psychological violence. The motion also calls for victims to receive some form of compensation, and for existing laws in member states to be geared towards protecting all children from abuse and maltreatment.

Van der Spek brought the news last night that the TV program Spoorloos has linked adopted children to wrong biological parents. KRO-NCRV has since confirmed that there have been two mismatches and is investigating twelve more cases . In two other cases investigated, the match was correct.

In his RTL5 program Oplichters tackled , Van der Spek will tonight look for a fraudulent Colombian fixer who linked Dutch people to family members for Spoorloos . ,,Actually, I never realized that adoptive children and their search for their parents is such a huge thing. Coincidentally, my last broadcast is also about adoption, but with a completely different approach. It is about children who are adopted from India from a children's home in Mumbai. From there, 500 adoptions have been made. Children who knock on their door now have to pay to look in their file. That orphanage is a revenue model.”

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A table, pastel-coloured wallpaper, a play corner for children. Behind it, shelves full of archive folders. We are in an »lnternational Office for Childhood«, an invented place that the French-Vietnamese author and director Caroline Guiela Nguyen came up with after researching for many months in youth welfare offices, agencies for foreign adoption, and meeting people who work there or were adopted themselves. Different life paths cross at this place: a mother finally meets the boy who is to become her son after long years of waiting. He is seven years old and comes from Vietnam. A young teenage girl goes in search of her roots. A grandfather worries about her grandson’s future. They meet the stories of the women who keep this office alive, always aware of their own doubts and questions, their own great responsibility: How do you decide who deserves to be a parent? That it is really best to remove a child from their roots? Wanting to do the right thing does not mean that one cannot be wrong. From Cameroon to Vietnam, from Russia to Germany: Caroline Guiela Nguyen also questions a certain world view, our relationship to other cultures, other people, and the family.

For several years, international adoptions have been increasingly regulated due to abuses by several organizations around the world, but also due to the fact that adult adoptees have spoken out. The best interests of the child and the principle of subsidiarity must be at the centre of every decision. A child may only be placed for adoption abroad if no adoptive parents can be found in the child’s own country. But this precaution unfortunately does not solve all the other questions that adoptions from abroad raise: How is one supposed to grow up and develop an identity with two different first names, with different histories of origin? How does one manage to grow up without the feeling of having been mercifully saved, of having to pay off an eternal debt?

Caroline Guiela Nguyen and her company Les Hommes Approximatifs are developing a production with actresses from the Schaubu?hne ensemble for the first time.

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MOORE, Okla. (KFOR) – Imagine thinking you’ve finalized the adoption of your child abroad, and then learning you can’t take them home.

That’s exactly the situation that Moore couple Carrie and Ryan Pentecost found themselves in, following the adoption of their daughter Precious.

Their journey to adoption began not long after they were married but stalled while they attempted to walk through the process in another country.

Carrie said they met their match when they set their eyes and hearts on Nigeria.

In August of 2021 the couple matched with their daughter before officially adopting her in September of the same year.

Georgia Tann sold over 5,000 children over a period of 30 years

The lack of empathy in some people will never stop surprising humanity just how far they will cross any sort of boundaries just go gain something. One such person is Georgia Tann who is one of the most notorious child traffickers in modern history. From 1924 to 1950, Georgia kidnapped over 5,000 children and sold them to various people who would either use them as servants around the house or for hard labor. For that period of time, Georgia played a character that looked innocent and in love with children, the exact person who everyone would put at the end list of suspects for all the kidnapped children at the time.

How does a person end up doing something like this? Let’s go back and have a look at her younger self for an answer.

Taking children away from their parents from a young age

Georgia Tann was born in 1891 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in a loving and modest family. Her parents worked to offer her the best chance at a good life whilst offering her affection, so there is nothing within her childhood to explain her behavior later on in life.

It is a very charged place in Breda: the Mother Heil clinic. Young unmarried pregnant women stayed in the clinic until the 1980s. They were forced to give up their baby for adoption. This not only caused a lot of grief for the mothers, but also traumas for the children. The documentary about this loaded history can be seen on Omroep Brabant TV on Sunday.

Profile photo of Noël van Hooft

Written by

Noel van Hooft

'The secret of Mother Heil' is a documentary by Tom van den Oetelaar, Agnes van der Straaten and Bert Geeraets, commissioned by Omroep Brabant.