Sash Simpson now owns his own restaurant with a 'global' menu reflective of his upbringing

With crisp, white linen draping every table and a carefully curated menu, Sash is a new fine-dining restaurant located in the heart of Summerhill — a long way from Chennai, India, where owner and chef Sash Simpson spent his early years as a street kid abandoned by his birth family.

Simpson says being adopted felt like being given a second chance. (Sash Simpson)

"Being a street kid, a runaway, jumping on and jumping off trains, living on the streets, begging, stealing ... that's what life was for quite a bit of time," he told CBC's Our Toronto.

Around the age of seven, Simpson was cleaning up a movie theatre in exchange for a place to sleep. He stepped outside to get some air when workers at a local orphanage spotted him on his own, began questioning him and eventually took him in.

For more than a decade, private treatment homes were unregulated and unlicensed. It took only three weeks after a new state law went into effect for the state to crack down.

July 26, 2019, 1:04 AM GMT+2

By Alex Johnson

The removal of 27 children at a private facility for adopted children in Montana this week was the culmination of years of efforts to effectively regulate private youth treatment programs — and it "may just be the tip of the iceberg," the lawmaker who spearheaded the reform effort said Thursday.

The children were removed Tuesday from the Ranch for Kids in Rexford, in Lincoln County along the Canadian border, in response to what state officials called frequent and severe allegations of physical and psychological abuse. Some have already been reunited with their parents, state officials said.

Gangarampur, 25th July: District Magistrate, Nikhil Nirmal and Additional District Magistrate, Pranab Kumar Ghosh paid a visit to the adoption home, Nowpara Teor Samaj Kalyan Samiti (SAA Home) at Hilli under South Dinajpur district.

The duo inspected the overall infrastructure of the place and also looked into the procedural details conducted during an adoption of a child. As of now, 12 children are staying in the home. According to the information, three children were recently adopted by parents living outside India, namely Texas, Florida and Singapore.

The jeep runs along the winding road in the highlands of Guatemala. Carlos Haas is sitting in the back along with his wife, Juliane, and their two children, and during their tour they pass through the majestic mountains of the Cuchumatanes. Carlos, however, does not pay attention to the landscape. He is nauseated by curves. And for the emotion. Again and again he asks the driver how much is missing: "40 minutes," he replies. 40 minutes for Carlos to return to his homeland for the first time after more than 30 years.

Carlos Haas has German nationality, although he was born in Guatemala in 1985. He has very little information about his first months of life; Memories, it has none. The adoption was organized by Rosa Elena Calderón, a Guatemalan lawyer with many contacts in Germany. Carlos was only four months old when he was handed over to his adoptive parents in Germany. His relationship with them is very affectionate: "Every time someone tells me they are my adoptive parents, it irritates me," he says. "For me they are simply my parents." Carlos spent his childhood and youth in the quiet city of Niedernberg, in northern Bavaria. After graduating from high school, he decided to study History at the University of Heidelberg. He now lives with his wife and two children in Augsburg, an hour from Munich, where he works as a historian.

Carlos Haas when he was a baby and was adopted by his German parents. Carlos was born during the violent time of the civil war in Guatemala, in 1985.

When he was a teenager he began to become more interested in his native country and decided to learn Spanish. When he turned 20, he met a group of Guatemalan youth at World Youth Day, in Cologne. He created new ties with his native country. However, it took another ten years before he could travel to Guatemala for the first time. It was then that he realized that not all foreign adoptions were legal.

Stories of a violent Guatemala

Virudhunagar: Police arrested six people including a doctor couple here on Monday evening in connection with the illegal adoption of a baby by a couple three years ago apparently without the knowledge of its biological mother. The matter came out in the open after the woman’s mother who was also part of the crime spilled the beans to her recently.

According to sources, 20-year-old Selvi (name changed) is a resident of a village near Aruppukottai in the district. Selvi fell in love with a person called Narayanan (name changed) when she was a minor girl and became pregnant. When Selvi’s mother Muthulakshmi came to know about it, she admitted her to a private hospital at Kallorani.

Even though Selvi gave birth to a baby boy, the doctor, Vino Dhamayandhi (49), and her husband Vadivelmurugan (51), who is also a doctor, convinced Muthulakshmi to give away the baby in adoption to a couple, Jeyaraj (39) and Shanmugapriya (31), residents of Aruppukottai. A hospital staffer, Kulandhai, was also involved in the incident. When Selvi asked about her baby, Muthulakshmi said it had died. Later, Selvi got married to Narayanan and she gave birth to a girl child in 2017. Recently, when Selvi was feeling depressed and crying over not having a male heir, Muthulakshmi revealed that she had given birth to a male baby in 2016 and that the doctors had given it away in adoption. Angered over this, Selvi and Narayanan went to the hospital and picked up a quarrel with the doctor couple who in turn asked them to inquire with her mother Muthulakshmi.

Work of the Investigative Commission on Irregular Adoptions of the Chamber of Deputies ends

The investigation covered the period from 1973 to 1990.

After almost five months of operation, the Investigative Commission on Irregular Adoptions of the Chamber of Deputies, an instance created to address the irregular adoptions of more than five thousand Chilean children between 1973 and 1990, finished its work.

The committee gave testimony to mothers victims of the theft of their children, and presented representatives of the Ministry of Health, Police Investigations, Civil Registry, among others.

Magellan deputy Sandra Amar, a member of the commission, said that “there is no doubt that the adoptions of thousands of Chilean children took place within the framework of illegality, mainly due to hospital shortages of the time, the lack of a optimal birth registration and the presence of groups that acted in coordination to snatch children, especially vulnerable women; single women, sometimes with many children and from rural sectors ”.

In a first, Amboli police register case of a child being sold under the guise of an illegal deed of adoption

The Amboli police recently registered a case of unlawful adoption after arresting the accused on June 26. Durgamiti Saha, 38, had allegedly sold her baby girl born at Cooper Hospital in Juhu on January 8 to 42-year-old Kirpal Singh. Against the Central Adoption and Registration Agency's (CARA) rules of adoption, Singh and Saha had filed a deed of adoption at the Andheri Metropolitan Court on January 22 with monetary compensation to the mother.

Two days after the child's birth, Saha's neighbour had alerted an NGO about the deal for Rs 1,50,000. Despite being warned by the NGO against doing so, Saha allegedly settled for a sum of Rs 20,000 and in February, handed her daughter over to Singh who took the infant to his wife in Punjab.

Also Read: Two minor girls sold off by parents for Rs 1,500 each; probe ordered

The matter was then brought to the notice of the Child Welfare Committee which filed a case with the Amboli police. The CWC took custody of the child after Singh's arrest on June 26. The seven-month-old is currently kept at Vatsalya Trust, an orphanage in Kanjurmarg, where she will stay until a legal conclusion in the case is drawn.

In her quest to trace her long lost biological mother, a German national has been travelling across Karnataka for a decade.

RAICHUR: In her quest to trace her long lost biological mother, a German national has been travelling across Karnataka for a decade. The fact that her foster parents adopted her illegally in 1981 has made her search difficult, as some official records have reportedly vanished, affecting the lady’s efforts to find out where she had been taken from, by her adoptive parents.

Mariya Chaya Schupp, a teacher by profession, was adopted when she was a four-year-old from a shelter called Nirmala Social Welfare (NSW) in Ullal in Mangaluru. Mariya learnt this from her foster mother Ingrid Schupp. “My foster mother, Ingrid, told me that I was an abandoned street kid from India. This led me to my search.”

Mariya, who has been searching for her mother for a decade, has now landed at Raichur based on information that her mother Girija Ganiga moved to Raichur from Mangaluru. “In the initial days, when I began the search, I was not even aware of her name. However, in Ullal, after I started searching, some neighbours revealed that her name is Girija Ganiga and she has relocated, probably to Raichur,” Mariya said. Now she has contacted the media and activists in Raichur seeking their help to find Girija.

Mariya squarely alleged that her adoption was illegal. Her foster mother adopted her through an adoption agency named Pro-Infant Adoption. However, this agency is currently facing a ban in Germany, according to her. The shelter, which Ingrid contacted through the agency flouted certain norms, Mariya alleged.

Karnataka

Search for biological mother leads German woman to Raichur

In her quest to trace her long lost biological mother, a German national has been travelling across Karnataka for a decade.

Mariya Chaya Schupp