Disabled children are being abused and neglected in institutions across Ukraine, UN experts have warned.

The human rights officials said the war had made their situation even worse and called on the Ukrainian government to right its "historic wrongs".

Their statement comes after a BBC News investigation uncovered widespread abuse in the country's orphanages.

There were more than 100,000 children and young people living in institutions before the war.

When Russia invaded in February, thousands of disabled people were removed from the institutions and sent back to their families.

The effervescence that surrounds us at the start of the school year only revives painful memories for Julienne Mpemba. On several occasions, she was expelled from the public school where she was enrolled in the Congo: her mother did not have enough to pay the school fees. The financial situation of the DRC having further deteriorated, there are thousands of children, not attending school, who hang around in the streets today. In 2008, with other people aware of the plight of the Congolese, she launched the non-profit organization Tumaini. Tumaini means "to hope" in Swahili. By paying 125 € per year, the price of a sponsorship, a child is guaranteed to go to school for a whole year. In October, Julienne Mpemba will leave Namur where she lives for a few months for the Congo. She is going to settle in Kinshasa, a relay office with the association. On September 11, the non-profit association Tumaini is organizing a dinner in Belgrade. This is also about raising funds to help children.

Julienne Mpemba has been living in Namur for several years now. There are memories that she is not ready to erase from her memory. Fatherless when she was still a child, she experienced the harsh reality of life. She says: "Until the death of dad, I was enrolled in a posh school where I learned a lot of things. The teaching there was excellent, that's how I had a very good foundation in French as in mathematics." A paying school of course. When the mother finds herself alone with her children, it is no longer possible for Julienne to follow her schooling in such a privileged establishment.“I was enrolled in a less famous but still good quality public school. We were more than 40 children in a class. Several times I was expelled from school because mum had not paid school fees. functioning. I would come home and the next day I would go back to school with the money. I have classmates who have never been able to return to school for lack of means and today they had in primary school. It's revolting. In my time, at the end of the 1980s, children in my situation had five or six in a class. Now it's much worse: it's the half of a class that is affected."A class where 60 children attend classes. There are so many of them that some school children take lessons from 7:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and others from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The following week, we reverse.

Buy your bench

"Not to continue your studies for lack of financial means, it's horrible, says Julienne Mpemba. I had a friend who was a hit during the preparation for university but he was so poor that his parents could not pay the school fees. He would have been a perfect lawyer, his case still haunts me today."But it is well before the university that the door of the school is difficult to cross. Thus, a child can only be registered, in kindergarten, in private and it is of course paying. Many therefore only enter school at the age of 6 without having learned the basics.

We still come to situations that could be laughable if behind there was not such disarray. So that her daughter can follow her schooling, Julienne's mother will go to a carpenter whom she will ask to build a bench. The school accepted Julienne but there was no more seating! She went to school with her bench stuck it in front of the teacher's desk and she took her lessons.

Eight years ago, Oldenburg bus driver Jasbir Singh Dhot and his wife adopted a baby in India. To this day, the authorities do not recognize this adoption and the family has to live apart.

A fully furnished children's room has been waiting for eight-year-old Anoopjot in Wahnbek for eight years. For eight years, Jasbir Singh Dhot has only seen his wife twice a year. And for eight years, the 59-year-old has not given up hope that his family can still live together.

He himself came to Germany 31 years ago. Many people in Oldenburg know him – Jasbir Singh Dhot has been a driver in the VWG city bus fleet for over ten years. His wife Charanjit has lived with him since 2003. "We always wanted children, but it didn't work out," he says. The couple was all the happier in 2014 when the chance arose to have a baby. “My nephew and his wife were unable to provide for another child and wanted to put him up for adoption. We wanted to accept it.” They adopted Anoopjot as soon as he was born, and since then the boy has been living with Dhot's wife and family in north-west India, 80 kilometers from the Pakistani border.

All requests denied

Contrary to what was planned, the couple has not yet been able to bring their son to Germany. In 2015, the youth welfare office had already inspected the apartment and the surrounding area in Wahnbek and classified it as suitable and forwarded the so-called home study report to the authorities in India and Germany. The Joint Central Adoption Office (GZA) in Hamburg nevertheless refused to recognize the adoption in 2017. Another application was rejected at the end of last year. The family court in Oldenburg and the higher regional court also rejected the recognition of the adoption. A court in India has already confirmed the adoption twice, in 2015 and again in 2017. However, the procedure there is not internationally recognized.

The history of the war must be dealt with and Russia must be given a hand again, says ex-EU Commissioner Verheugen.

"An understanding will only be possible if both sides observe the principle that has existed since Helsinki 1975 that everyone has to respect the legitimate security interests of the other," said Günter Verheugen on April 3 in an interview on the left-wing platform "nd" (formerly New Germany). As EU Commissioner, Verheugen was in charge of the eastward enlargement of the EU. Until 2010, the former SPD member of the Bundestag was Deputy President of the European Commission.

"EU eastward expansion was right, but..."

The Strategic Partnership with Russia followed the 2002 strategy of creating a "ring of friends" around the EU. Russia, on the other hand, wanted a prominent status in this ring that corresponded to its importance. This partnership with Russia also worked very well for a while, until a new East-West confrontation broke out. According to Verheugen, this was due to the fact that “the EU was following the US line more and more”. Washington has set itself the goal of weakening Russia in the long term so that it can never become a rival again.

In his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 , Putin made it clear that he would not accept a course that disregarded Russian security interests. Putin saw the main problem in the eastward expansion of NATO, but the eastern partnership of the EU after 2007 without Russia's participation also irritated him: "In 2010 Russia still wanted to implement trilateral projects - EU, Russia, countries of the eastern partnership. So there were clearly opportunities for Russia to be constructively involved in a partnership, but unfortunately these were not used." Neither side seriously considered Russia's EU membership. It was always about cooperation and partnership, under the keyword "from Lisbon to Vladivostok".

We launched an investigation into allegations of possible criminality involving Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses on 6th October 2021. Since then, we have received reports from a number of people including mothers who gave birth in these institutions, those who were adopted from different named institutions, people who worked there, and residents. We are pleased that people are having the confidence after all these years to come forward, however we believe there are still people out there who have suffered and not yet made a report.

Help and support available

If you come forward, you will speak with a specialist detective from our Historic Child Abuse Unit within our Public Protection Branch, and will be offered the opportunity to have your account recorded so that a criminal investigation can take place. You will also be offered to be signposted to other services for help and support.

How do I make a report to Police?

If you have been the victim of non-recent abuse or any criminal act arising out of these institutions, or have any information likely to assist an investigation into a criminal act committed, please come forward and report this to us. We care about what you have to say, will listen and support you, and will act to keep you and others safe

District magistrates need to be given training to give decisions on adoption, it added.

NEW DELHI: It is not appropriate for an administrative authority, instead of a judicial body, to issue adoption orders, a Parliamentary panel has noted. The Standing Committee’s views are at variance with the Juvenile Justice Amendment Act, 2021, which was amended to empower district magistrates (DMs) to issue adoption orders. Before this, the power to issue adoption orders was vested in the judiciary.

It was in July last year that the Parliament passed the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Bill, 2021. The amendment also entrusts the DM to ensure that childcare institutions comply with the provisions of the Act.

However, the Standing Committee, which tabled its recommendations recently on ‘Guardianship and Adoption Laws’ felt that judges have competence and experience to determine whether adoption is in the best interest of the child.

The panel, headed by BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, said since the new system is yet to be tried and tested, the Committee recommends that training should be imparted to DMs, ADMs and divisional commissioners in this regard. It also told the Ministry of Women and Child Development to review the functioning of the new system and present a report to the Committee.

Experts say need to look beyond custodial needs of children and focus on nurturing families

In a country with millions of orphans, there are only 2,430 children available for adoption while the number of parents desiring to bring home a child is growing rapidly. To address this paradox, a Parliamentary panel has recommended district-level surveys to proactively identify orphaned and abandoned children.

A report recently tabled on “Review of Guardianship and Adoption Laws” in Parliament by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice has said, “it is important to get a true picture of number of children who are orphaned/abandoned through a district-level survey and the data needs to be updated on a regular basis.”

It has suggested that a monthly meeting chaired by the District Magistrate should be held in every district to “ensure that orphan and abandoned children found begging in streets are produced before the Child Welfare Committee and are made available for adoption at the earliest.”

According to the report, there were 27,939 prospective parents registered with the Child Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) as on December 2021, up from nearly 18,000 in 2017. In comparison, though there were a total 6,996 orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children residing in childcare institutions considered adoptable, only 2,430 were declared “legally free” for adoption by Child Welfare Committees. The waiting time for adoption too has increased to three years from one year in the past five years. The total number of children adopted in 2021-2022 was only 3,175.

Some parents were also selling their biological children due to their financial condition, and awareness should be created against such practices, he said.

VIJAYAWADA: The process for adopting children should be made easier to check child trafficking, senior advocate and amicus curiae P Sri Raghuram submitted before the High Court of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.

Raghuram, appointed as amicus curiae to assist the court in a case related to the sale of infants and human trafficking, also noted the cumbersome adoption procedure in the country. Childless couples, wishing to adopt, have been seeking alternatives to avoid the tedious process.

Some parents were also selling their biological children due to their financial condition, and awareness should be created against such practices, he said. The amicus curiae also opined that child trafficking could be prevented if the police acted swiftly on any complaint related to missing of child.

The high court has taken suo motu cognisance of two separate media on child trafficking as public interest litigations. When the PILs came up for hearing on Tuesday, the amicus curiae opined that ASHA and anganwadi workers should track the expectant mother right from her pregnancy to deliver better results. Raghuram sought more time to seek the views of stakeholders and NGOs concerned to get more details on sale of infants and human trafficking.

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27.06.2022

Armenia's adoption fraud: foreigners pay up to 25 thousand euros for a kid