Alexis Deswaef is the lawyer for Nicolas Ullens de Schooten, a former State Security agent. The latter accused Minister Didier Reynders, the new European commissioner, and Jean-Claude Fontinoy, his right-hand man, of corruption. He claims that he was muzzled from 2015. The lawyer explains why, in his eyes, the Ullens "case" is a state scandal.

Lawyer Alexis Deswaef surprised some of his colleagues, including in his very "human rights" Brussels firm, when he agreed to defend the man who accuses Didier Reynders and Jean-Claude Fontinoy: Nicolas Ullens de Schooten , a former State Security agent. Deswaef, “the lawyer for undocumented migrants”, has just been elected vice-president of the FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights Leagues), after having presided over the Belgian league. Why is he embarking on such an adventure? How to prove such allegations?

Quick reminder of the sequence: in April 2019, Nicolas Ullens balance what he has to the police. Indications, names – that of Reynders and Fontinoy – which recur in the files he follows from his position as an agent of the intelligence services. He then evokes the Kazakhgate, the affair of the “Libyan funds”, the move of the federal police to a building sold by the State to a private firm or even the construction of the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa. Faced with the police, agent Ullens claims to have been sidelined in August 2015, right when a member of the Reynders cabinet was appointed No. 3 of the Sûreté. Serious charges.

Reynders is a political heavyweight. The Belgian government chose him to represent our country at the European Commission. Is it for (all) that that the Brussels public prosecutor closes the file without duty of investigation, last September?

A "machination"

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From: Arun Dohle [mailto:arundohle@gmail.com]

Sent: Donnerstag, 28. November 2019 07:49

To: m.vnispen@tweedekamer.nl

Subject: FW: newsletter

Dear Michiel van Nispen,

Bombay high court

MUMBAI: In a case involving alleged trafficking of children for adoption, the Bombay high court to have daily visitation rights. They can meet the children

they had raised, but who since the past four months have been placed in the care of adoption agencies.

The HC bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and Sadhana Jadhav did not allow a plea made by the parents' lawyer, Randhir

Kale, to allow them interim custody of the children. The bench instead said that the adoption process of each of the children be

When children are unable to live safely at home with their parents, they may enter out-of-home care. Most of these children are in foster or kinship care and many are able safely to go home after a period of time.

But for more than 23,000 children in out-of-home care in Australia, the courts have determined they cannot ever safely return home.

Adoption is one way these children can be given permanency and avoid moving from placement to placement in foster care.

Read more: Explainer: how hard is it to adopt in Australia?

But the adoption of children from out-of-home care is extremely contentious. This is partly because adoption laws in all Australian states and territories require children to be legally severed from their birth family when they’re adopted. This is called “plenary adoption”.

YEREVAN—The Armenian National Police Department has unveiled several more cases of potential illegal international adoptions following the launch of a National Security Service (NSS) investigation into the matter last week. In a video posted to the Police Department’s official YouTube channel on November 19, Lieutenant Colonel Vache Hovsepyan, who heads the police-dedicated organized crime unit, revealed that his team had uncovered cases dating as far back as 2009.

Elaborating on some of the investigation’s preliminary findings, Hovsepyan said orphanage staff members allegedly “provided signed and notarized documents releasing the infants from their biological parents’ custody and consenting to international adoption.” He continued, “However, when we contacted the parents in question, they revealed that they had never signed any such documents, nor had they consented to adoption.”

Hovsepyan also discussed the widespread use of intimidation tactics to receive written consent from parents. He recounted a particular case in which the director of an orphanage allegedly threatened the parents with cutting off access to their child and forging their signature if they refused to consent to international adoption.

The Armenian Weekly spoke with several adoptive families in the United States, under the condition of anonymity, who have largely corroborated these developments. Some of their adoption stories date all the way back to 2005. “My daughter’s birth parents were absolutely shocked when [we] reached out to them,” said one of the parents. “They had been told years ago by the hospital that their daughter had died,” she continued. According to her, the birth parents denied ever signing any adoption papers, despite signatures appearing on the notarized adoption documents which she shared with The Armenian Weekly.

International adoptions without the consent of the biological parents constitute a breach of the Criminal Code. The current law on adoptions prioritizes requests by adoptive parents who hold Armenian citizenship. Orphaned children are only eligible for international adoption if they are not claimed locally within a three-month period.

New Criminal Allegations Puts Spotlight on Orphanages

Allegations of illegal adoption of Armenian children are putting Armenia’s institutions for children in the global spotlight. In recent weeks, Armenian authorities said they opened several criminal investigations into the illegal adoption of over 30 children by foreign families. Several Armenian orphanage directors and other officials have been implicated in the alleged crimes, supposedly for financial gain.

It’s not the first time Armenia’s children’s institutions have drawn international attention. Here’s why. Many studies show that children, when separated from families and placed in institutions, have stunted physical, intellectual, emotional, and social development. In 2017, Human Rights Watch documented how, due to the lack of services to help families raise children at home, impoverished Armenian families find it difficult to care for children, especially those with disabilities, and may place them in institutions. Donors and the government have contributed to the problem by pouring money into institutions rather than community-based services.

Around 90 percent of children in residential care in Armenia have at least one living parent.

At the end of the day, Armenia should be investing less in institutions and investing more in community-based services for families. This would both curtail corruption and abuse at institutions, and help families care for their children at home.

No law requires members of Congress to have firsthand experience on the legislation they support. Some bills, however, have a personal flavor.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt serves as co-chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. He also has been a lead sponsor on legislation regarding this subject, including a resolution approved by the Senate last week designating Nov. 23 as National Adoption Day.

“As an adoptive dad myself, I know how much joy welcoming a child into your home can bring,” Blunt said this month in recognizing several Missouri families as Angels in Adoption.

In 2006, Blunt and his wife, Abigail, adopted a son from an orphanage in Russia. Charlie Blunt, now in his teens, has been a presence during the senator’s travels around Missouri, including in St. Joseph.

The Missouri Republican has worked for years with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesotan and presidential candidate, in leading the Adoption Coalition, which he calls the largest bipartisan and bicameral caucus in Congress.

Haïti: plus de 200.000 enfants exploités comme domestiques

Ce que l'on sait de la mort de deux Français venus adopter en Haïti

26/11/2019 à 08h10

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Les deux quarantenaires étaient sur l'île, en proie à une grave crise sociale et politique, pour adopter des enfants. "Ils ont fait tout ce qu'il fallait faire en termes de sécurité", assure l'Agence Française de l'Adoption, qui suivait leur dossier.

Port-au-Prince (AFP) - Two French citizens were shot dead in Port-au-Prince at the weekend shortly after flying into the Haitian capital to adopt a child, diplomatic and other sources told AFP Monday.

An official at the French embassy confirmed that a French couple had been killed, without giving further details of the exact circumstances of their deaths.

According to two other sources, however, the couple were from the Ardeche region of southeastern France and had arrived in the Caribbean country to adopt a child.

One of the sources said they were killed in an armed robbery that turned deadly.

A spokeswoman for the Ardeche department confirmed to AFP that the couple, from the town of Saint-Martin-d'Ardeche, had been given a green light last year to adopt their first child.