In this weekly column, people talk about something they 'never want to' experience again, never want to do or never want to do again. This week: Sam van den Haak (40) was born in Sri Lanka and adopted as a toddler by a Dutch couple. She later found out that her adoption had been fraudulently committed. For example, the date of birth on her passport appears to be incorrect, something she is often confronted with.

"In my adoption file there is not a single signature for approval. Not from my biological mother, and not from the Dutch or Sri Lankan government. I often wondered to what extent there was permission to take me with me. And yet I was picked up my adoptive parents in Colombo and took them to their home in Hoorn.

According to my passport I was three years old then, but in fact I was six months younger. I only remember fragments of that time. I remember having to learn to eat with cutlery. In Sri Lanka I was used to making a ball of the food with my hand and then eating it. The Netherlands must have been a big culture shock for me."

"My adoption was never a secret at home. That makes sense, because of course I had a different skin color than my parents and three brothers. It was a complex family, because two of my brothers were disabled and needed a lot of care. A lot of attention was paid to my background I didn't know anything about Sri Lanka, it wasn't talked about much and we never went there as a family again.

It wasn't warm or cozy at home, and I didn't feel like I belonged in the family. I was different, even at school. Because although we lived in a big house and there was a lot of money, I wore old clothes of my brothers. I was bullied for that, I was met by other children and beaten up. I was not safe anywhere: not at school, but also not at home. That's because I was abused by my adoptive father from a young age. As a child I sought safety by crawling into bed with my parents. As soon as my adoptive mother got out of bed, my adoptive father sat on me. The secret of that abuse weighed more heavily on me then than my adoption. I was trying to survive."

Minor Allegedly Forced To Convert Religion In Child Care Institution, Mother Challenges Provisions Of JJ Act, Seeks ?5Cr Compensation, Delhi HC Issues Notice

The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice on a petition challenging various provisions

of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Juvenile

Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016, pertaining to power,

functions and composition of Child Welfare Committees.The plea has been filed by the

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - An Alabama organization called Bridges of Faith is racing against war to help children in Ukraine. Volunteers are on the ground, working through chaos and mounting tension to give a group of orphans a better life.

Dr. Tom Benz, president of the Bridges of Faith exchange program based in Chilton County, has been involved in Ukraine for the past 25 years. He knows all too well that orphans are often left behind in dire times and said his team is committed to rescuing as many kids as possible.

Bridges of Faith has its roots in the late 1990s when Benz first began going to eastern Europe. He was a regional director for the International Bible Society and placed in a Ukrainian orphanage.

“The children have never let go of my heart,” Benz said. “In two years I had spun off from the bible society and formed the roots of what is now Bridges of Faith. I’ve spent chunks of my life in Ukraine with kids, working to bring them here. For me, I feel like it’s an outworking of my faith.”

In 2007, Bridges of Faith acquired a 140-acre retreat center in Chilton County for Ukrainian orphans. About 500 orphans have come to Alabama through the program and nearly 200 have been adopted.

In their article Put an end to adoption (15/2), Pien Bos and Will van Sebille call on the temporary stop of intercountry adoption of children to be converted into a permanent one. Based on research among distance parents (usually mothers), legally correct adoptions should also stop, they argued. By signing a legal document, a mother does not become the ex-mother.

I was shocked by this, because drawing a definitive line under adoption has a significant impact. For example, for gay and straight couples who cannot have children and who really want to. The temporary stop on adoption is understandable in order to reconsider: how can we ensure that adoption is always done carefully in the future? Of course, taking into account the mother and the child itself.

I therefore think that adoption should be possible again in the future, but only from so-called safe countries, I am thinking of the OECD countries. The OECD now has 38 countries that subscribe to the principles of the market economy, the rule of law and (not unimportant in this regard) respect for human rights. In this way we can hopefully meet the justified concerns and the fervent wish for an adopted child.

Eddie Altenburg-Collin

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A state parliamentary inquiry will consider whether a government donor conception register should be established to give Queenslanders conceived through donated sperm, eggs or embryos access to information about their donors.

Key points:

Attorney-General says a register could help donor-conceived people better understand their origins and manage their health

Queensland advocate argues for a retrospective scheme

IVF doctor says the more complex and bureaucratic the system is, the more there could be growth in underground unregulated sperm donations

Eurochild launches second phase of its DataCare project in four countries – France, Ireland, Portugal and Romania

With the beginning of 2022, so too begins a new chapter in Eurochild’s DataCare project, with continued funding and support from UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO). Together, we are working to influence how Member States and the EU will monitor the new European Child Guarantee - utilising our final findings from the project.

Despite differing national definitions and categorisations of alternative care across the region, enough data are being published at national level that can be used at an aggregate level to establish comparable indicators on children in residential care and three other relevant and interlinked indicators:

The proportion of children placed in residential care compared to those placed in formal family-based care provides a useful indicator to monitor progress towards a shared goal: to ensure that children in alternative care receive high quality, inclusive, family and community-based care.

If implemented across the EU, this indicator can shed light on the effectiveness of the deinstitutionalisation reforms that are taking place in many European countries, including under the European Child Guarantee.

We are the happy parents of two happy intercountry adopted children (Columbia, 1971 and Brazil, 1973). Two more families with excellent intercountry adoptions (Brazil and Sri Lanka) live in our neighborhood. Our objection to the opinion article End Adoption(15/2) is twofold. First of all, it radiates an overvaluation of the blood ties. The lack of these does not in any way stand in the way of a happy life together (marriage between two strangers, successful adoption and foster family situations). What's even more disturbing is that in all the publications devoted to this topic, only the negative results have received attention. To our knowledge, no proper research into successful adoptions has been done. As long as that doesn't happen: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and keep the option of (intercountry) adoption.

Octa and Ernst Raaymakers

Amsterdam

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MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine population was expected to reach

109,991,095 at the end of 2021. Among these were children, who were

abandoned and still looking for their forever families.

According to data from the Philippines Orphanage Foundation, out of the

over 109 million population in the country, there were at least 2 million

https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/idc_report_intercountry_adoption.docx

US authorities have dismantled a vast network between Uganda and the United States, specializing in the adoption of fake Ugandan orphans.

“Young children were taken from their Ugandan families against the promise of special education programs and studies in the United States, before being offered for adoption to American families”. In a statement released Monday, August 17, the US Treasury said US authorities had uncovered a "corrupt" network offering fake Ugandan orphans for adoption by US parents.

Some children were removed from "vulnerable families in remote Ugandan villages" by intermediaries ensuring that they would be entrusted to missionaries in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, during their schooling. American families awaiting adoption, unaware of these methods, then had to bring the children back to their country.

The Treasury , responsible for promoting economic prosperity and ensuring the financial security of the United States, announced financial sanctions against two Ugandan judges as well as a Ugandan lawyer and her husband, at the head of the network. They are henceforth undesirable on American territory, their possible economic resources in the United States will be blocked and access to the American financial system will be denied to them.

For its part, the American justice announced the indictment of the Ugandan lawyer but also of an American resident in the State of Texas, both presented as the brains of the network, whose members have pocketed more than 900,000 dollars, according to investigators.