BRUSSELS — A coalition of six child rights NGOs met the European Union’s new leadership this week, aiming to cement child protection and participation as priorities for the bloc in the next five years and beyond.

“Egos and logos stay outside the room. When we are going here to the commissioners … there is no competition”

— Richard Pichler, special representative for external affairs and resources, SOS Children’s Villages International

The NGO leaders from Joining Forces — uniting ChildFund Alliance, Plan International, Save the Children International, SOS Children’s Villages International, Terre des Hommes International Federation, and World Vision International — were in Brussels to meet with the European Commission, European Parliament, and European External Action Service.

Richard Pichler, special representative for external affairs and resources at SOS Children’s Villages International, told Devex that International Partnerships Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen is seeking the group’s input on a number of issues.

Historical decision of the Romanian High Court: Family-based foster care can no longer be restricted!

February 6, 20200 Comments

The Romania Without Orphans Alliance (ARFO), represented by the Law Firm of Ra?iu & Ra?iu, obtained a definitive judgment of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ) that cancelled certain restrictive provisions in the law governing the placement of children in family based foster care within the child protection system.

Back in 2015, the Ministry of Labor and Social Justice in Romania limited the chances of children in the system of having a foster care placement family through Ordinance 1733. As a result of its issuance, many orphanages used the existence of this regulation to prohibit children from having a chance to be in family care.

“After the issuance of Ordinance 1733, we received word from all over the country that requests for family based foster care for children from residential care centers were being refused because on this very ordinance. Unfortunately, there are many children who could have had a family but are still in orphanages due to these provisions which have been proven to be illegal,” said Liviu Mih?ileanu, President of the Romania Without Orphans Alliance.

EurAdopt Conference 2020.

As you know, there isthese days a particular awareness with the international adoption system.

We are a larger group of adult adopted, who have a particular interest in participating and following in the field.

As the high cost of participation keeps the adoptees from participating, we hereby request you / the National Board of Appeal to cover the cost of registration fees, accommodation and travel costs for approximately 5 adopted.

Bébés volés au Guatemala : la maman de Coline réagit

mer, 05/02/2020 - 07:00 Télépro

Coline Fanon, en 1987 et aujourd'hui

Coline Fanon, en 1987 et aujourd'hui

© RTBF

Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

In Bangladesh Adoption is only approved for Hindus as it follows the principal of traditional Hindu Law

On February 21st, 2017, a group of Bangladesh Chhatra League activists found a newborn in a drain. They rushed the infant they named Ekush to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.

After 14 families applied for his guardianship, on March 29th that year Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge of Chittagong Jannatul Ferdous, also judge of the Children’s Court of Chittagong, granted custody of Ekush to Dr Jakirul Islam and his wife Shakila Akhter.

Since the family law in Bangladesh is dictated by religion, Muslims cannot legally adopt but be granted guardianship under the Children Act, 2013.

The police handed over all the abandoned newborns to the Society of Friends of the Sassoon Hospitals (Sofosh), a voluntary charitable trust, working for such abandoned children

On January 14, when twin newborns wrapped in a blanket were spotted near the Pashan lake by morning walkers, police swung into action and arrested the parents who abandoned the infants on January 22.

While the police were able to locate the parents in this case, there are 35 other cases registered at various police stations where no progress has been made.

According to statistics provided by Pune police, 14 newborns were found in 2017; six in 2018 and 15 during 2019.

The police handed over all the abandoned newborns to the Society of Friends of the Sassoon Hospitals (Sofosh), a voluntary charitable trust, working for such abandoned children.

Rupa to publish Jennifer by NANDITA PURI

03/02/2020

Despite all manner of hardship that she has had to endure, Jennifer has survived. What she deserves now is to live with dignity.

ABOUT THE BOOK (INR 295, 240 PP)

Seattle, Washington, 1990. It was a cold February day when eight-year-old Jennifer ‘Pinky’ Francis stepped on the American soil for the first time, little knowing that her life was to change forever. Her Indian passport contained no last name. Unbeknown to her poor and illiterate parents, she had been illegally trafficked into the US under the garb of adoption by the very people who had been entrusted with her care.

Don’t cry for Commission’s HR chief

Staff didn’t think of Irène Souka as their defender — they saw her as the president’s enforcer.

By TIM KING 1/29/20, 5:23 PM CET Updated 2/3/20, 4:53 AM CET

Irène Souka’s chief complaint is that she was left hanging | Etienne Ansotte/European Union

It would be an extraordinary achievement if Irène Souka, who in her 11 years as head of the European Commission’s human resources department built a reputation for the merciless execution of her political masters’ wishes, were to garner sympathy for the brutality of her own departure.

ICAFSS meets only the tip of the iceberg of needs in the intercountry adoption community. I can only speak for intercountry adoptees like myself but we have spoken up for years about the need for ongoing counselling. The budgeted 10 sessions of therapy a year is simply not enough for most adoptees. As an idea, personally I spent over $25k in ongoing therapy across 5-10 years for the traumas involved in my reliniquishment and adoption. The current budgeted amount of $900,000 per year, if all the budget was spent on counselling alone, only equates to $90 per adoptee given we have over 10,000 intercountry adoptees recorded in our AIHW statistics. That’s not including those who are here as expatriate adoptions or the private adoptions that were done prior to the statistics being captured which only began in 1979. Many of us Vietnamese adoptees arrived prior to this, approx 500 of us. So the hugest change I recommend would be a substantial uplift to the budget so that counselling can be unlimited and the service adequately resourced to administer it, and provide ongoing education and training to the community and professionals providing the service, and to best utilise the resources trained up in this area.

There needs to be more than 1 administrator of the service at head office. If training of those counsellors is to be done properly, the budget needs to also include accessing the experts from other countries to upskill our therapists and create an Adoption Competency Training which includes speciality components on Race, Culture, Return to Birthland, Searching/Reunion, as these are aspects not covered adequately from a local adoption perspective because our situations are so much more complex covering other countries, languages, races, customs, values, expectations.

The service needs to be provided so that there are more face to face points in major areas of Australia not just 1 – Melbourne. The current advertising of ICAFSS makes it falsely appear to be a Melbourne only service. I have had many adoptees who tell me they didn’t make contact because as soon as they saw the flyer, they thought they would not be serviced as they were not located in Melbourne.

The service needs to be provided by a broader range of therapist. Currently it appears there are 1-3 counsellors per state who are providers of the service. That is not enough as there is a wait list to speak to one. Also, there is not enough diversity represented in those counsellors – most are white females who, to many adult intercountry adoptees, feel they are sitting there facing their adoptive mother. We want to see people who understand our racial and cultural issues. We want people of colour, people of diversity (LGBQTi), we want more males for the male adoptees. We also want different modes of therapy not just talking cognitive therapy. Eg constellation, emdr, psychosomatic, gestalt, etc.

The advertising of the service needs to connect into the first ports of call of other major services eg. Lifeline, Suicide hotlines, mental health services, GPs, schools. Many adoptees share how they had no clue about there being a service so that means, so far, the service is hugely under utilised because people don’t know it exists. Unless they contact ICAV, adult intercountry adoptees don’t know. More needs to be done to become visible on Social media platforms and advertise to targeted groups eg adolescents, young adults.

ICAFSS meets only the tip of the iceberg of needs in the intercountry adoption community. I can only speak for intercountry adoptees like myself but we have spoken up for years about the need for ongoing counselling. The budgeted 10 sessions of therapy a year is simply not enough for most adoptees. As an idea, personally I spent over $25k in ongoing therapy across 5-10 years for the traumas involved in my reliniquishment and adoption. The current budgeted amount of $900,000 per year, if all the budget was spent on counselling alone, only equates to $90 per adoptee given we have over 10,000 intercountry adoptees recorded in our AIHW statistics. That’s not including those who are here as expatriate adoptions or the private adoptions that were done prior to the statistics being captured which only began in 1979. Many of us Vietnamese adoptees arrived prior to this, approx 500 of us. So the hugest change I recommend would be a substantial uplift to the budget so that counselling can be unlimited and the service adequately resourced to administer it, and provide ongoing education and training to the community and professionals providing the service, and to best utilise the resources trained up in this area.

There needs to be more than 1 administrator of the service at head office. If training of those counsellors is to be done properly, the budget needs to also include accessing the experts from other countries to upskill our therapists and create an Adoption Competency Training which includes speciality components on Race, Culture, Return to Birthland, Searching/Reunion, as these are aspects not covered adequately from a local adoption perspective because our situations are so much more complex covering other countries, languages, races, customs, values, expectations.

The service needs to be provided so that there are more face to face points in major areas of Australia not just 1 – Melbourne. The current advertising of ICAFSS makes it falsely appear to be a Melbourne only service. I have had many adoptees who tell me they didn’t make contact because as soon as they saw the flyer, they thought they would not be serviced as they were not located in Melbourne.

The service needs to be provided by a broader range of therapist. Currently it appears there are 1-3 counsellors per state who are providers of the service. That is not enough as there is a wait list to speak to one. Also, there is not enough diversity represented in those counsellors – most are white females who, to many adult intercountry adoptees, feel they are sitting there facing their adoptive mother. We want to see people who understand our racial and cultural issues. We want people of colour, people of diversity (LGBQTi), we want more males for the male adoptees. We also want different modes of therapy not just talking cognitive therapy. Eg constellation, emdr, psychosomatic, gestalt, etc.

The advertising of the service needs to connect into the first ports of call of other major services eg. Lifeline, Suicide hotlines, mental health services, GPs, schools. Many adoptees share how they had no clue about there being a service so that means, so far, the service is hugely under utilised because people don’t know it exists. Unless they contact ICAV, adult intercountry adoptees don’t know. More needs to be done to become visible on Social media platforms and advertise to targeted groups eg adolescents, young adults.