On 23 September 2019, Greek law enforcement authorities, supported by Europol, dismantled an organised crime group involved in the trafficking of human beings (selling ova), illegal adoption and money laundering.

€25 000 TO €28 000 PER ILLEGAL ADOPTION

Active since 2016, the criminal network recruited vulnerable pregnant women from Bulgaria. The group transported them to Thessaloniki, Greece where they were placed under medical observation and sent to private hospitals to deliver their children. The newborns were then illegally adopted for between €25 000 and €28 000 each. The fees included paying the biological mother, all legal expenses, hospitalisation, delivery itself and the members of the criminal group. Some of the mothers brought to Greece were also used as surrogates.

The same criminal group was also involved in ovum trafficking. The criminals recruited donors in Greece, mainly from Bulgaria, Georgia and Russia. The women were then transferred to Thessaloniki to undergo a series of fertility treatments to increase the number of ova.

AT LEAST HALF A MILLION EUROS IN PROFIT

Kenya has announced the immediate ban on child adoption by foreign nationals. The decision announced by Kenya’s government, follows a cabinet meeting chaired by President Uhuru Kenyatta, and has brought the subject of intercountry adoption back on the international stage.

Kenya’s ban follows an earlier one by Ethiopia last year and is part of a growing global trend towards either complete elimination or sharp restriction of trans-boundary child adoption.

Foreign child adoption in Africa is an emotive subject, with concerns raised over child-trafficking and abuse, cultural displacement, and unregulated adoption processes.

But with many children still in need of safe and secure environments to grow up in, domestic options alone face an uphill task in catering to the needs of children in need of family care. So what will be the fate of foreign child adoption in Africa?

There was a time when foreign adoptions from Africa were rare. In 2003 for example inter-country adoptions from Africa are reported to have accounted for only 5% of the world total. However, this figure rose to 25% by 2012, representing a staggering increase of almost 400%; making Africa the then new frontier for the adoption of children by foreign nationals.

Ambassador Susan S. Jacobs, Retired Advisor

Ambassador Susan S. Jacobs (Retired) was the Special Advisor for Children's Issues at the Department of State from 2010 until her retirement in 2017. During her tenure, she traveled to more than 40 countries to discuss International Parental Child Abduction and Intercountry Adoption. In addition, she led U.S. delegations to international conferences and commissions concerned with issues effecting children. A career diplomat, Ambassador Jacobs joined the Foreign Service in 1974 soon after married women were allowed to serve as officers. Throughout her career, she held various overseas postings including Israel, India and El Salvador. Prior to her appointment as Special Advisor, Ambassador Jacobs served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs and as Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Ambassador Jacobs received her Bachelor degree from the University of Michigan and did graduate studies at Georgetown University Law School and George Washington University. She is married to Barry Jacobs, also a retired diplomat and has three children and four grandchildren.

Peter Leppanen Advisor

Peter Leppanen is an advocate for the right of every child to grow up in a permanent loving family. He has consulted, served as a board member and collaborated with a number of organizations who share his conviction. Pete served as a Strategic Advisor to Both Ends Believing from 2013-15 and helped to create the organization’s current strategy. He continues to serve as an advisor to BEB. Previously, Pete served as President and CEO of Wide Horizons For Children for six years overseeing child permanency programs in a dozen countries around the globe, including the United States. These programs included family preservation, family empowerment, orphan support, community development focused on healthcare and education, adoption counseling, domestic and international adoption and post-adoption support. Prior to becoming President, he served as a board member and volunteer consultant to Wide Horizons. In his previous career, Pete worked in consulting for 25 years. As a Senior Partner at CSC Consulting, he directed a consulting practice focused on strategy, business process re-engineering, and systems integration.

THERE is a common misconception that children at community residents are orphans and easily adopted. They are not. Many have families and it is the priority of the Children’s Authority to reunite these children with their relatives.

So said chairman of the Board of Management of the Authority, Hanif Benjamin yesterday at a press conference at the Ministry of Attorney General and Legal Affairs, Port of Spain.

The press conference was called to clarify issues of adoption after president of the Rapidfire Kidz Foundation, attorney Kevin Ratiram appealed to the public to start adopting children in community homes at the Foundation’s Annual Gala Dinner on September 14.

Ratiram said, “Many of these children would never know what it feels like to sit on a father’s lap. They will never know what it feels like to fall asleep in their mother’s arms or wake up in their mother’s arms. They are destined to remain there (in orphanages) almost forever... Why is it they are not good enough to be part of us, part of our home, our families?”

Benjamin said, “It’s not that you can just walk in a community residence and say, ‘I like this one. Gimme this one. Or I like these two, put these two in a bag. It’s a process and it’s important to understand that process where a child must be freed.”

Why you should not read booklets about adoption

There are beautiful and less beautiful stories about adoption. But what are the stories of the people who have been adopted themselves? In the new podcast from 3FM Tussenuur (Human) Luc Sarneel talks to three guests who have been adopted about the positive and negative sides of adoption.

This focus on adoption is due to a web series that can be seen on the YouTube channel of NPO3: Ik Kom Niet Van Sri Lanka. In this series, Dinja Pannebakker from FunX, who was adopted from Sri Lanka shortly after her birth, investigates why she actually feels absolutely no need to look for her biological parents.

In fact, she almost developed an aversion to Sri Lanka, mainly due to the roots journey she made with her adoptive parents when she was around 13 years old. Pannebakker feels 100 percent Dutch. In the series, she therefore investigates to what extent origin determines your identity.

Dutch:

The Department of W&CD and Mission Shakti (MS) have issued letters to all District Collectors in this regard.

he Department of Women and Child Development and Mission Shakti have decided to conduct mapping of orphan and children of single-parent throughout Odisha to bring them to the protective network of the society.

"The survey will be conducted with an aim to get an exact number of orphan children and children of single-parent living in the state and to bring them to the protective network of the society through the intervention of the government where ever required," the Women and Child Development department (W&CD) said in a statement.

The Department of W&CD and Mission Shakti (MS) have issued letters to all District Collectors in this regard.

The survey has to be made district-wise across the state by the Anganwadi workers engaged in the Anganwadi centres, the district functionaries like District Social Welfare Officer (DSWO) and District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) are to be entrusted to supervise the survey process.

EMPOWERYOU - Strengthen children and adolescents in care and adoptive families and prevent re-victimization

Violence, neglect, mistreatment and abuse in childhood and adolescence have dramatic consequences for those affected, and most of them suffer for a lifetime. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research supports research networks that develop evidence-based concepts for prevention, detection and therapy and test them in practice.

The majority of foster and adoptive children have experienced violence, neglect and / or abuse in their source family. With the help of third-party care, the danger of becoming a victim of violence again is not banished. On the contrary, foster and adoptive children have a significantly higher risk of becoming victims of mobbing and violence throughout their lives

The overall objective of the EMPOWERYOU association is to support care and adoption families, as well as children and adolescents in foreign placement, in coping with previous traumatic experiences and to counteract the risk of future harassment and violence experiences. The examined children and adolescents can be both perpetrators and victims of bullying, eg. B. at school or in the circle of friends and acquaintances. Bullying also includes the so-called cyber-bullying through new media and social networks. Based on the results obtained, tailor-made internet-based prevention programs will be developed and tested for their effectiveness. If these prove effective, they can be easily and inexpensively disseminated and used.

SUBPROJECTS

The registration of a Specialised Adoption Agency (SAA) in Dimapur was revoked for allegedly not complying with central government guidelines with respect to Child Care Institutions (CCI) in India.

According to a press statement from Secretary, Department of Social Welfare, the license for Mother’s Hope (SAA), 7th mile, Model Village, Dimapur Nagaland was revoked and shut down for repeated default, failure to comply to the instruction and direction of State Government and Child Protection Services and failure to adhere to the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015.

It also stated that Mother’s Hope was given enough time and consideration since the year 2015 to rectify their shortcomings and adhere to the rules and regulations, however, the home failed repeatedly to respond and comply with the notices issued.

An official from the social welfare department informed that on September 19 a Joint Action Committee took custody of 13 children under the care of the SAA while informing that its registration stands revoked.

“It was part of a country-wide exercise to examine Child Care Institutions taken up in the backdrop of the Muzaffarpur (Bihar) child abuse case in 2018,” the official said.

--------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Arun Dohle

Date: Fri 20. Sep 2019 at 18:07

Subject: PFAD Bundesverband der Pflege- und Adoptivfamilien e.V. - PFAD gratuliert Carmen Thiele zum Doktortitel!

To:

A Swabian from India

The Bietigheim chef Krishna Bruhn comes from a children's home in India. German parents adopted him at the age of seven.

November 1981: Krishna Bruhn is born in Calcutta, India, in one of Mother Teresa's children's homes. He is seven months old when his German parents adopt him. With them he grows up in Freudental, today he lives in Bietigheim. He hardly remembers the time in India, it has only been a small part of his life. He is aware of his origins: "My parents played with open cards from the start, so there would have been nothing to hide." He knew nothing about his birth parents. It is difficult to get information from the children's homes in India. He has never tried.

At the age of 15, the 33-year-old began training as a cook in a Bietigheimer restaurant. Since then, he has been drawn to the city again and again. At the local "Lama Bar," Bruhn was a chef for over ten years. There he also met his life partner Kathrin Neubauer, "a true Bietigheimerin," as he proudly tells. With Neubauer he leads since December last year, the restaurant "Henry's" in the Bietigheim city center, Hauptstraße 54. The place they have named after Bruhn's middle name, which still comes from the children's home in Calcutta.

He has not been to India since those days. Although he is interested in a trip to his country of birth, but so far he had lacked the means and the energy that brought a reappraisal of his past with it. In addition Neubauer and Bruhn are expecting their first child, a son. "Of course he will be born in Bietigheim," he says with a smile.