By mid-September, the fate of two US-adopted Bulgarians who were removed from their family and protected by the Missouri Department of Children and Family Affairs must be decided. What will happen to the two girls will be decided by the US court, with the first hearing scheduled for September 6, 2019.

The case is a precedent for the Bulgarian institutions.

"She was dirty, not well dressed, she had no shoes. She ate two peanut butter sandwiches and a few packets of chips in a hurry and continued to ask for more food." Sheriff Darin Braulley's story from Shannon County, Missouri, about his first date with one of the two twins. She is found by a neighbor on a dirt road not far from the house of the McGregor family, with greasy hair, scarring and bleeding feet, thirsty and hungry. The girl and his sister live with the 8 children of 56-year-old Mark Magregor and his 40-year-old wife Melissa. The two Bulgarians are kept in a dark room for hours, they are allowed to use pillows only with good behavior, they eat mostly raw vegetables, they were hit with kitchen utensils in front of their biological children, they had to ask for permission to bathe and dress. There is no such attitude towards biological children. Two charges have been filed against Mark and Melissa McGregor, leading to a sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. The couple is currently under $ 100,000 bail. And Bulgarian girls aged 14 with initials R. and K. are placed in a home for children deprived of parental care.

"The children themselves have an appointed guardian from the state of Missouri, that is, a person who directly cares for their rights and interests," said our consul in Chicago, Ivan Anchev. He met with them and said that the children were calm and feeling well:

"The conversation was entirely in English. From the very beginning, I asked them how they wanted to talk - in Bulgarian or English, and they preferred English, so this testifies to the level of adaptation of the children in the local environment."

Cuttack: Dealing with the case of a mother who had allegedly given away her child to a couple but now wants it back, the

Orissa high court has said biological parents are the most fit to raise a child and ordered the handing over of the three-year-old

girl to the birth mother within a week.

“In our land, parents hold a preferred position for children below five years. For that, there is a presumption that the parents are

the most fit and proper person to raise the child,” a bench of justice S K Mishra and justice A K Mishra said in its August 19

According to the police, D Vijayalakshmi (30), who eked out a living by begging near the Secunderabad Railway Station, allegedly sold her son, Akhil, due to poverty

Hyderabad: A 10-month-old baby boy, who was sold by his own mother for Rs 60,000, was rescued by the LB Nagar police and shifted to Shishu Vihar. The mother, who cooked up a kidnap story and even staged an accident to mislead the police, was arrested along with the man who ‘purchased’ the baby.

According to the police, D Vijayalakshmi (30), who eked out a living by begging near the Secunderabad Railway Station, allegedly sold her son, Akhil, due to poverty. She then lodged a complaint with the police stating that an unidentified couple kidnapped Akhil at Gunti Jangaiah Colony in LB Nagar.

She said the couple, who came on a scooter, hit her. When she fell unconscious, they picked up Akhil and fled, she alleged. The police, who collected surveillance camera footage from the spot, identified the registration number of the scooter and tracked down the vehicle owner, Oraganti Mosha — a pushcart vendor from Chatanpally in Farooq Nagar of Ranga Reddy district.

The police arrested Mosha, and during questioning, he confessed that Vijayalakshmi actually sold the baby to him. He also said that the accident scene was staged. “He confessed to have purchased the infant from Vijayalakshmi for Rs 60,000 in Shadnagar recently. When we questioned the mother, she too confessed to selling the child due to poverty,” police said, adding that the woman approached other people in Shadnagar as well to sell the child. But, she struck a deal with Mosha.

Keep an eye on SBS' discussion program Insight some time in October, when the issue of adults who were adopted from foreign countries as children will be examined, including the story of Canberra man Rohan Samara.

Rohan first spoke to The Canberra Times about his life experience back in mid-2017. He was just three-month-old and malnourished when he was brought to Australia from Vietnam in a cardboard box in 1975 as part of Operation Babylift, in the dying days of the Vietnam war.

Rohan was adopted by an Australian couple, grew up in a loving family and thrived in Canberra, where he is a fire safety officer at The Canberra Hospital and a well-known community figure through his volunteer work with the rural fire service, Burns Club board and as chair of body corporate of the 355-unit Southport complex in Greenway.

Yet, Rohan still wanted to learn about his birth parents and is still searching for the answers. Insight gave him some pause to think, again, about his adoption story and how he was the same - and very different - to the other adoptees.

"When Insight made a call-out via their social media and my friend suggested I should make contact," Rohan said.

BENGALURU: At 237, Karnataka recorded the second highest number of children being given away for in-country adoption

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/adoption) during 2018-19. Maharashtra

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/maharashtra) leads the list with 695 children.

The national trend of girl children outnumbering boys was reflected in Karnataka too: 130 girls as against 107 boys. Of the 3,374

children adopted across the country, 1,977 were girls and 1,397 boys.

The matter came to light after the victim approached police to lodge a rape complaint against her uncle

In a bid to avoid social harassment, parents of a 19-year-old rape victim gave away her newborn son to a sanitary worker at civil hospital here, said police on Saturday.

The matter came to light after the victim approached the police to lodge an FIR against the sexual assault. In her complaint, she alleged that her uncle (father’s younger brother) had raped her on multiple occasions.

ACCUSED?HAD?BEEN?

THREATENING?HER

On the run since July when the racket was busted, Pawan Kumar Sharma (42) was arrested from the national capital on Thursday, DCP Akbar Pathan said

A key accused in the inter-state child trafficking racket was arrested by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch from Delhi and brought to Mumbai on Friday.

On the run since July when the racket was busted, Pawan Kumar Sharma (42) was arrested from the national capital on Thursday, DCP Akbar Pathan said. He added that Sharma was sent to police custody till August 28 by a local court after he was brought to Mumbai on Friday.

According to police, Sharma ran fertility centres in Delhi and Bengaluru and had been at the centre of the racket, connecting other accused, including surrogate mothers, nurses, the biological parents who allegedly sold their children, and couples who allegedly purchased them.

“He was well acquainted with the supply and demand (for children) owing to the waiting period for adoption of children. Through other co-accused, Sharma managed to get in touch with women who had been surrogates and lured them into the racket. He also had access to childless couples,” a senior police officer probing the case said.

According to crime branch officials, Sharma’s name surfaced during the investigation. Since Sharma was into the fertility business.

Mumbai: Mumbai crime branch investigating inter-state baby selling racket has arrested a Delhi-based fertility centre owner. The accused has been identified as Pawan Kumar Sharma, 43, owner of Unique Fertility Centre in Delhi. On Friday, he was produced before the court, which remanded him in police custody till August 28.

According to crime branch officials, Sharma’s name surfaced during the investigation. Since Sharma was into the fertility business, he was constantly getting demands for children. Acting as a middleman, Sharma gave two boys to different couples in Delhi.

Delhi crime branch has already arrested Neha Gupta, 24, a Delhi resident, for selling two boys to her relatives. The babies were given to Abhinav Agrawal and Rahul Gupta.

The police have rescued the two kids from them. According to the police, Agrawal has a 17-year-old daughter, and wanted a son. Neha sold him a 15-day-old male child for Rs 2 lakh. Rahul Gupta's wife was unable to conceive so he contacted Neha and bought a 14-day-old boy for Rs 3.5 lakh.

Almost 70% unaware of after-care entitlements under the law: study

Nearly 40% of children who leave shelter homes after turning 18 are unable to complete schooling, 50% are unable to find paid work and almost 70% are unaware of their after-care entitlements under the law, finds a study conducted by an NGO across five States.

The study, released on Wednesday, is based on the testimonies of 435 “care leavers” and 100 other key stakeholders such as functionaries working on the ground for child protection. The age of the care leavers was between 17 years and 30 years.

While 48% of these young adults were from government-run institutions, 52% were from NGO-run institutions. Out of the total care leavers, 55% were male and the rest were female.

The study was conducted in Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan by the NGO Udayan Care and was supported by the TATA Trusts and UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund).

Jean-Philippe LEGAUT

Images of abused, malnourished children, deprived of access to care, crammed into unsanitary buildings: in 1989, international opinion discovered with horror the hell of the "Ceausescu orphanages", to the point that their dismantling was a condition sine qua non of Romania's accession to the European Union.

Beyond the sensationalist representations disseminated by the press and international organizations, the reality of this phenomenon is still largely unknown. One thing is certain: due to a cruel lack of means and qualified personnel, these "children of the State" have, by the tens of thousands, endured for years, without any possibility of escape, the harshness of the living conditions under the socialist regime and daily violence within the institutions supposed to support them.

Based on unexplored national and local sources, on numerous testimonies from former minors in care, but also on his twelve years of observation and social work in the field, Jean-Philippe Légaut shows us why and how these structures condemned those they should have protected.

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