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Teen ‘sexual cult’ in Ontario foster home known to Children’s Aid Society, victim says

ABOVE: Stories from an eastern Ontario foster home show that teens were being taken advantage of and, allegedly, nothing was being done to stop it.

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The 15-year-old girl was seeking refuge when she came to Janet and Joe Holm’s house in the mid-2000s. The couple lived in a big white farmhouse on a sprawling property just minutes outside Bloomfield, Ont., a village in Prince Edward County dotted with well-manicured homes from the 1800s.

M.K. had been previously sexually abused when she arrived at the Holms’ as a foster child, hoping to find a safe, stable home. Instead, her stay turned into a nightmare. The couple groomed her under the guise of trying to heal her. They dressed her up, made her watch porn, and eventually she was sexually assaulted by Joe.

M.K’s story is not unique. The Holms would eventually be convicted of treating the wards in their care as sexual playthings. Joe pleaded guilty to the sexual assaults of three foster girls in the home, and Janet pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation, one count of permitting a person under 18 to engage in sexual activity in her home and one count of possession of child pornography in relation to three foster children in the home. Both were sentenced to jail in 2011.

A Global News investigation shows what happened at the Holm house was not an isolated case, but one of several foster homes chosen by the now-defunct Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society where foster parents were convicted of abusing children between 2002 and 2010.

Some say the abuse discovered in foster homes across the county went undetected for so long due to systemic failures at the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society. The judge who presided over the Holms’ criminal case called the abuse so outrageous that he hoped a public inquiry would be launched.

In April 2018, three years after the last conviction in the Prince Edward County abuse cases, OPP charged the former executive director of Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society, Bill Sweet, with 10 counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and 10 counts failing to provide the necessities of life.

Sgt. Carolle Dionne, provincial media relations coordinator, said when Sweet was charged, he never fostered any children of his own, but oversaw a Children’s Aid Society where several foster children were abused.

His preliminary hearing begins next month.

“‎Mr. Sweet intends to vigorously defend these charges. It would be inappropriate for him to comment further,” said his lawyer William MacDowell.

Meanwhile, the situation begs the question: has Children’s Aid done enough to ensure something like this never happens again?

What happened at the Holms’ house?

Two years before M.K. arrived, another girl, M.R., was also placed in Janet and Joe’s home at the age of 15. She said she was only meant to stay for a weekend after becoming violent towards her mother. Police were called, and Children’s Aid became involved.

Despite claiming to come from a fairly stable family, she stayed with the Holms for about five years. M.R. said she chose to live with the couple rather than her mother, who fought the whole time to get her back, because the Holms made her believe she was better off with them. M.R. also claims the Children’s Aid Society never made an effort to reconnect her with her family.

According to court documents from their sentencing hearing, between 2001 to 2010, Joe and Janet had 25 teens come through their home. The teens were allowed to drink, talk openly about sex and have sex with each other, but were still encouraged to have strong academics and participate in family activities.

As M.K. described it, sexuality was deliberately woven into the fabric of the family.

In the early days, Janet would set up photo shoots for her, dressing her in bathing suits and having her pose suggestively on the pool table, M.K. says

M.K. and M.R. described how the foster family would regularly watch porn together. For Christmas, along with regular teen stuff, the girls say they would receive sexual paraphernalia.

“I, for Christmas, received a penis straw, penis candy, a belly button ring of people having sex, sex lube oil [and] a silk nightie,” M.R. said.

M.K., M.R. and three other complainants, whom Global News has not identified, filed a civil suit against the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society in 2013. Children’s Aid settled with each of the women in the civil suits, who signed non-disclosure agreements, forbidding them from discussing the amount they received from the child welfare agency.

According to the statement of claim, Janet seemed to favour M.K.

“If I had a relationship with a boy from my high school, Janet would want me to take pictures of them while we were being intimate and show them to her,” M.K. told Global News.

M.K. says Janet would watch porn alone with her and also hand out her contact information to men in the area.

“She thought that was hilarious. I was at that point 16, 17 years old and there were people in the community that were messaging me and talking about very inappropriate sexual things with me.”

Joe was allegedly more overt in his pursuit of the girls. He was seemingly obsessed with M.R.’s breasts, according to the statement of claim. The document alleges that he repeatedly complimented her breasts and took photos of her chest while she was clothed. The document also details how Joe would brush up against her, so that he could fondle her.

But Joe had his sights on M.K. The court documents describe how he forced her to watch a sex tape of him and Janet, allegedly assuring her the couple had previously had sex with other foster children.

The same document claims that Joe would grab M.K.’s “buttocks and breasts at parties with pornographic material being viewed on the TV in the presence of many other people.”

This would have happened at one of Janet and Joe’s many “sex parties.”

In court documents from Janet and Joe’s sentencing hearing in 2011, Assistant Crown Attorney Jodi Whyte described the parties where foster children would entertain Janet and Joe’s friends through a game of pool.

It wasn’t normal pool.

“The loser would have a penalty,” according to the documents. “The penalties would be kissing someone or flashing someone, doing a lap dance or strip tease and ultimately sometimes resulted in one of the girls performing fellatio on someone.”

Who knew about the abuse?

When Bill Sweet was charged last year, OPP didn’t say much about why the charges were laid, other than “he ought to have known better.”

Sweet’s preliminary hearing begins July 8, and his lawyer, William MacDowell, said Sweet declined to be interviewed.

Both M.K. and M.R. said it was clear someone knew something was going on at the Holms’ house.

M.K. alleges Sweet was more interested in “making face with the Ministry” than he was believing reports of the foster children in his care.

“So, Bill Sweet was very much aware of these things, they weren’t necessarily taken seriously. He felt like children weren’t necessarily credible,” M.K. said.

Even Justice Geoffrey Griffin, in his decision in the Holms case, said repeatedly that he could not see how the Children’s Aid Society was unaware of the abuse.

“The idea that the Children’s Aid Society didn’t know or, or shouldn’t have been aware that something was going on, is hard for me to accept.”

M.R. said because Bloomfield was such a small village — 2016 Census data has the population at just over 500 people — the Holms’ sexual tendencies were no secret.

“So within town, everybody always was like, ‘Oh, there’s that foster family. I can’t believe they basically let them have kids,’” M.R. said.

But the family looked good on paper. The Holms’ foster children had excellent grades, and Janet and Joe were one of the few people that would accept teen foster children in the county.

Nevertheless, both women say Children’s Aid simply failed to act, despite several warning signs.

Both women recalled one instance involving another foster child who complained to Children’s Aid about Joe forcing her to cuddle on the couch.

“I witnessed this and she had repeatedly said, ‘I don’t want to cuddle on the couch with you.’ It wasn’t just like you and your dad cuddling, it was very, very inappropriate,” M.K. said.

When a Children’s Aid employee came to investigate, M.K. said they simply told Joe to stop cuddling the children. This, M.K. said, normalized the abuse even more.

“When you have those people telling you that then you go, ‘I guess it’s not that weird. It’s not that bizarre.’”

M.R. felt the workers did not do their due diligence when they came to the home for their checkups. But since the turnover for caseworkers was high, it was hard for them to keep a critical eye on the home.

When the workers did come to the home, about every three months according to M.R., they would often do a quick check and spend most of their time at the door talking to Joe.

“The foster parents would be there too. So even if there were any an issue you weren’t going to say anything,” M.R. said.

Janet refused to be interviewed for the story but sent Global a Facebook message, claiming Joe was responsible for what happened with the foster children, despite her conviction.

“I’ve had no contact with Joe. We have gone through the courts. We are divorced, after I found out things that had happened I divorced him. I paid the price for stuff I didn’t do.”

Janet has also written a series of books, the first of the three volumes was published in 2016, under the pen name Paisley Swindon. The series details her destructive relationship with Joe, whom she describes as a “narcissistic sociopath.”

Global News was not able to reach Joe for comment.

But M.K. and M.R. maintain that Janet was the puppeteer in the household. It was Janet who built the girls up and tore them down, pit them against each other and made them fight for her love, according to M.K. and M.R.

“She would begin to isolate you if she began to feel jealous of you,” M.K. said. “You were always trying to be there for Janet, to support Janet, that you were the favourite, and make sure you weren’t forgotten, because if you were forgotten about that was almost worse.”

According to both women, Janet ran a cliquey household. Some of the teens would even describe it as a sexual cult, a name that stuck with the Holms’ house through the criminal proceedings and afterward in the county’s memory of the events.

M.K. said it was hard to know where she stood. One moment, she said, Janet would be putting her down about her weight, or creating division between the foster children. The next, M.K. said Janet would be building her up, acting as a friend and a counsellor.

“It was all about me being empowered, that’s kind of how it was spun to me — ‘you’re a beautiful young girl, you’ve had all these awful things happen in your lifetime, we need to empower you,’” M.K. told Global News.

The sexual assault

It was M.K.’s sexual assault that brought the Holms down, an assault M.K. believes was orchestrated by Janet.

Due to an incident of past abuse, M.K. says she felt most vulnerable while showering. M.K. said Janet specifically focused on this fear, to get her to stop locking herself in the bathroom while she showered.

“She literally found everything about my past traumas from being a child, and when the abuse happened with me… it was almost literally set up to be that,” M.K. told Global News.

According to the civil suit, one day in 2010, Joe showed up in the bathroom while M.K. was showering.

“He approached the shower and opened the door and I remember getting out and reaching for a towel to cover myself,” M.K. told Global News.

The statement of claim described the sexual assault. When M.K. stepped out of the shower, he asked her to perform oral sex on him. She did but stopped before he ejaculated. He then came back to her later that day and forced her to do it again.

“Everything leading to that point, I’m uncomfortable. I don’t really want to watch porn with my foster parents, I don’t want him to grab my ass, I don’t want to have these pictures taken of me. Obviously, I didn’t want any of that, but you can kind of like brush some of that stuff off,” she said in recent interview.

M.K. said Joe kept coming back, demanding she perform oral sex on him. It became too much to bear.

In the late spring of 2010, M.K. says she reported the abuse to her case worker, who called Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society executive director Bill Sweet right away.

She said she could hear Sweet asking pointed questions: “How do you know she’s not making this up? How do you know she’s credible?”

“It was just crazy to me because even if I’m not a credible person, you still have to take those accusations seriously.”

M.K. says she can’t remember who called police, if it was her caseworker or Sweet, but her report of sexual abuse launched a police investigation.

The rest of the foster children were taken out of the home. Joe eventually pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting M.K., and two other girls in the home, and five women would end up filing a civil suit against the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society for abuse they claim they endured in the Holm’s house.

The first of many

The Holms would be the first domino to fall in the string of abuse cases discovered at foster homes in Prince Edward County.

Soon after, Roy Minister, a then-71-year-old Bloomfield man, was found guilty of molesting two girls in his foster care over several years.

Then 46-year-old Richard Fildey of Cameron, Ont., was sentenced to over two years in prison for sexually assaulting a female foster child.

His now ex-wife, Sherilee Slatter, was convicted next, of the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy and sexually assaulting a teenage girl, who was a foster child in her father’s residence.

Charges of sexual assault, interference and exploitation were laid against Ronald Slatter, Sherilee’s father, then 65, but those were stayed, because there were problems with the case.

While the criminal cases were unfolding, Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society was absorbed by Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society on a recommendation from the what was then called the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. The decision was made jointly by the board of directors of the Hastings, Northumberland and Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Societies in early 2011 and the amalgamation came into effect in 2013. After amalgamation, Bill Sweet did not continue on with the Children’s Aid Society.

According to Nicholas Bala, a Queen’s University Law professor and expert in issues related to children, youth and families in the justice system, what happened in Prince Edward County was deeply concerning.

“We know sometimes that children who are in foster care or in group homes are abused or exploited, and this certainly happened many other places in Canada at various points in time. But Hastings and Prince Edward does seem to be a bit of a hot spot,” Bala said.

He believes the string of abuses need to be properly investigated in order to tell if any systemic issues within the child welfare agency allowed them to happen.

“Clearly, those who did the acts are those who are appropriately most accountable, but there’s also a social and systemic responsibility to look into it to see who was not doing a good enough job in supervising, who was not accessible enough to children who had concerns,” Bala said.

All in all, Bala said it’s up to the Ministry to ensure sexual abuses like the ones that took place in Prince Edward County never happen again.

“Those who are victims have a right to know that things like that will not re-occur, to get a sense that everyone who was responsible has been held accountable in some way,” Bala said.

In fact, the province did conduct an operational review of the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society in December 2011, after some of the abuse allegations were brought forward. The review was not released to the public, but Global News has obtained a redacted copy of it.

The review detailed numerous shortcomings with the agency, including significant difficulty in meeting standards when screening foster parents.

In one home, 11 incidents, including claims of sexual molestation, were alleged. The report noted only two of the allegations were investigated, and neither were verified.

Reviewers made a point of noting they did not investigate management during the operational review.

Seven years after that review, in 2018, before Sweet was charged, M.K. and M.R. were notified that OPP would be bringing a criminal case against him. Both immediately consented to have their testimonials from the criminal and civil cases used in the case against Sweet.

After her abuse, M.K. said she felt alone, and especially abandoned by Sweet, who she says never once spoke to her after she came forward about her abuse. She says that Janet and Joe harassed her after she came forward. It took a lot of work and therapy to get herself to the place she is now.

M.K. actually volunteered with Highland Shores Children’s Aid as she got older, and still has faith that the system can help children.

But she can’t help but shake the feeling that Children’s Aid has never fully acknowledged what happened to her and to the other children over a decade ago in Prince Edward County.

“All I really wanted them to say was, ‘We’re really sorry this happened to you.’ And to this day that’s all I really want, and to this day that hasn’t happened.”

Countries: Canada

Inzage en roots - Steunpunt Adoptie

Insight and roots Adopted and looking?

Many adopted people are interested in their history, culture or country of origin or are curious about their biological family. Not every root question is by definition a request for help. Sometimes it can be busy with your origin and being adopted help to solve problems that you encounter. Do you live in Flanders, have you been adopted internationally and do you have questions about your history and origin? Then contact us. An aftercare employee will explore and record your question with you. We provide emotional support with root questions, but do not organize root trips ourselves. If you would like to talk to other adoptees about your search in a safe context, then this can be done in the aftercare process "Once upon a time ... Adult adopts looking". ISS (International Social Service) is a global organization that works for the protection and well-being of children. In the context of its operation, the organization is well placed to paint a picture of the joy, but also the challenges that adopters can face when looking for their roots. They made a brochure about this in English, French and Spanish.

Inspection adoption file You have the right to view your adoption file. If you have been adopted internationally, you can go to the VCA. You can view your adoption file (from the age of 12) and receive a copy. The service receives a copy of the approved adoption services from each adoption file (since 1/09/2005). If desired, an aftercare staff member from Steunpunt Adoptie can support you in viewing your adoption file. If you have been adopted nationally through an adoption service, you can view it at Adoptiehuis. You can also contact the VCA. If the adoption did not go through a recognized service, not all information is available. Both services help you in this search. Collaborate with partners When searching for information, we work closely with the VCA and other organizations in the adoption landscape. Partners in Flanders around roots are:

When guiding a request for information, we work within the framework of the ethics of care. Each individual question is handled separately and in the event of a conflict of interest, an independent weighing of interests takes place. There is respect for the adopted, adoptive parents and the distance parent. After the search A trip to your country of birth and any meeting with your birth parent / family can do more with you than you had previously expected. You may have questions instead of redeeming answers. It takes energy to place what you have found or not found. Are you stuck? Then you can go to Steunpunt Adoptie vzw for a conversation or for targeted referral in your region via mail or via tel 078 15 13 27.

Dutch:

Inzage en roots

Geadopteerd en op zoek?

Veel geadopteerden voelen belangstelling voor hun geschiedenis, de cultuur of hun land van herkomst of zijn nieuwsgierig naar hun biologische familie. Niet elke rootsvraag is per definitie een hulpvraag. Soms kan het bezig zijn met je herkomst en het geadopteerd zijn helpen om problemen op te lossen waar je tegenaan loopt.

Woon je in Vlaanderen, ben je interlandelijk geadopteerd en heb je vragen over je geschiedenis en afkomst? Neem dan contact op met ons. Een nazorgmedewerker zal samen met jou je vraag verkennen en opnemen.

We zorgen voor emotionele ondersteuning bij rootsvragen, maar organiseren zelf geen rootsreizen.

Als je graag met andere geadopteerden over je zoektocht wil praten in een veilige context, dan kan dit in het nazorgtraject ‘Er was eens…Volwassen geadopteerden op zoek’.

ISS (International Social Service) is een wereldwijde organisatie die ijvert voor de bescherming en het welzijn van kinderen. In het kader van haar werking, is de organisatie goed geplaatst om een beeld te schetsen van de vreugde, maar ook de uitdagingen waarmee geadopteerden kunnen worden geconfronteerd bij het zoeken naar hun roots. Zij maakten hier een brochure over in het Engels, Frans en Spaans.

Inzage adoptiedossier

Je hebt het recht om je adoptiedossier in te kijken.

Ben je interlandelijk geadopteerd, dan kan je terecht bij het VCA. Je kan er (vanaf 12 jaar) je adoptiedossier inkijken en een kopie krijgen. De dienst ontvangt van elk adoptiedossier een kopie van de erkende adoptiediensten (sinds 1/09/2005). Indien gewenst, kan een nazorgmedewerker van Steunpunt Adoptie je ondersteunen bij het inkijken van je adoptiedossier.

Ben je binnenlands geadopteerd via een adoptiedienst, dan kan je inzage krijgen bij Adoptiehuis. Je kan ook terecht bij het VCA. Is de adoptie niet via een erkende dienst verlopen, dan is niet alle informatie voor handen. Beide diensten helpen je in deze zoektocht.

Samenwerken met partners

Bij het zoeken naar informatie werken we nauw samen met het VCA en andere instanties in het adoptielandschap.
Partners in Vlaanderen rond roots zijn:

Bij het begeleiden van een vraag naar informatie, werken we vanuit het kader van de zorgethiek.
Elke individuele vraag wordt apart behandeld en bij belangenconflict gebeurt er een onafhankelijke belangenafweging. Er is respect voor de geadopteerde, de adoptieouders en de afstandsouder.

Na de zoektocht

Een reis naar je geboorteland en eventuele ontmoeting met je geboorteouder/ familie kan meer met je doen dan je vooraf had verwacht. Je kan, in plaats van verlossende antwoorden, misschien nog vragen hebben. Het kost energie om wat je gevonden of niet gevonden hebt een plaats te geven.

Zit je vast? Dan kun je terecht bij Steunpunt Adoptie vzw voor een gesprek of voor gerichte doorverwijzing in jouw regio via mail of via tel 078 15 13 27.

Countries: Belgium

Organizations: Steunpunt Adoptie

Pune: Adopted 30 years ago, woman meets biological mother for first time

Raised by a Swedish couple after she was adopted 30 years ago, Vibha had never expected to meet her biological mother until she started facing medical complications while she was expecting her fourth child.

US, Texas, Texas adoption bill, LGBT rights, LGBT rights US, world news, US news — Raised by a Swedish couple after she was adopted 30 years ago, Vibha had never expected to meet her biological mother. (Representational)

It was a medley of nervousness and excitement at Pune’s Shreevatsa Child Care Centre on Monday as Vibha Sofie Medin met her biological mother for the first time. Raised by a Swedish couple after she was adopted 30 years ago, Vibha had never expected to meet her biological mother until she started facing medical complications while she was expecting her fourth child.

For the first few moments, Vibha stood in silence, allowing the reality of meeting her biological mother (who preferred anonymity) to sink in. Pointing out the similarities in their appearances, it was her biological mother who spoke first: “Can I touch her? Can I give her a hug?”

While neither speaks a common language, the feeling of not being able to express themselves slowly faded away. Her biological mother watched in awe, as Jonas Olsson, Vibha’s husband, showed her pictures of their house back in Sweden.

Vibha works as a nurse at an old-age home and Jonas works as a business manager. They have been living together for 10 years and married for five. The couple has four children – Liam (9), Leo (7), Hedwig (3) and seven-month-old Helge.

Sharmila Sayed, administrative in-charge at Shreevatsa, said Vibha’s biological mother was just 15 years old and unmarried when she had conceived the child. Her mother had then handed over her daughter to the child care centre. Later, the woman married and had more children. It was on Vibha’s request that the centre contacted her mother.

“My wife went through a lot of pain during the fourth delivery and it was then that she felt the need to know what her biological mother must have gone through at such a tender age. That’s when she felt like meeting her and now here we are,” Jonas said.

Countries: India, Sweden

Voice Recording Gideon

Shareable Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1v2eC-6ssYre0jHc3e5Xyvy_-eodQOh3Y

Countries: Bangladesh

Organizations: Terre des Hommes Netherlands

2 get life term for trafficking 2 newborn babies

A Dhaka tribunal today sentenced two people including a woman to life term imprisonment in a case filed for trafficking two newborn babies in Dhaka in 2006.

The convicts are Jharna Begum of Sirajganj and Manik of Naryanganj. The court also fined the duo Tk 50,000 each.

Judge Jayasri Samaddar of the Third Special Tribunal for Prevention of Women & Children Repression handed down the verdict after examining nine prosecution witnesses and other documents.

According to the prosecution, a team of Khilgaon Police Station arrested Jharna along with a baby (eight or 10-day-old) from Dhaka’s Khilgaon area on January 6, 2006.

Getting information given by Jharna during interrogation, police also recovered a baby boy from another accused Manik.

Countries: Bangladesh

Court Denies Bail to Woman Accused of Trafficking Children

Tbilisi City Court has denied Yulia Suslyak, a Ukrainian woman accused of trafficking children, bail.

Yulia Suslyak was arrested in Kutaisi in April with 10 children under her care four of whom were born in the same year, sparking suspicion of human trafficking.

Tests showed that Suslyak was the biological mother of four of the children, whilst her husband was the father of all 10 children.

Georgian and Ukrainian authorities have said that they need to study obscurities in the case. It is unknown why the family was traveling and what happened to an eleventh child, who is thought to have died in Russia.

Suslyak’s lawyer has maintained that she is innocent and “there is no evidence confirming her fault.” They claim that for of the children were born via a surrogate.

Countries: Georgia (country), Ukraine

Yes, We Adopted More Girls Than Boys – But What About the Missing?

“…She has become the centre of our small and confined world; she is our bundle of joy at present and a big hope for the future. Now that she has become part of our lives and is 14 months old and we have named her as KUHU, only regret we have is - why we were not able to decide for adoption a bit earlier?...”

“…I brought my little daughter home when she was 2.5 years old and now she is 8. Ever since she came to my life, my journey has been more worthy than ever….”

“…Baby looked at my wife with a deep sharp look without much blinking. She kept on looking. Tears of joy filled our eyes….”

“…Like all parents, I also have questions about what kind of a person my daughter will grow up to be. Her personality is very different from mine, and we already have our share of skirmishes but that just makes the relationship seem even more natural….”

All of the parent reviews posted on the ‘Success Stories’ page of Central Adoption Resource Authority’s (CARA) website are written by couples/single women who adopted girl children. That also seems in line with the findings of CARA’s own survey; data released by India’s nodal authority on adoption revealed that more girls were adopted than boys this year.

Incidentally, this is also the highest number of adoptions registered in the country since 2015.

There’s also data to show that of the total number of 4,027 adoptions, the majority were adopted within the country (3,347) while 653 went to parent/s outside India.

First, the Good News

So, in a utopian world, that should mean more people wanting to adopt girl children over boys, right? In fact, this isn’t even a new 2019 trend – a reply to an RTI filed by the news agency PTI last year revealed heartening stats: Nearly 60 per cent of children adopted in the last six years were girls across states in India. The state that led the pack was Maharashtra, closely followed by Karnataka.

In fact, this followed trends from the year before (2016-2017), when once again, Maharashtra and Karnataka recorded the highest numbers of girl adoptions, followed by West Bengal.

In an interview to PTI at the time, CARA CEO Deepak Kumar stated that, “This reflects that things are changing now. Moreover, people feel that it is easier to manage a girl child than a boy, and that’s another big plus point for the girl child to be considered for adoption”.

“One reason might be cultural acceptance. You no longer feel like you need a son to carry on the vansha – or perhaps, you already have a son. Another reason could definitely be greater gender sensitisation since information is being disseminated on ground against female foeticide and sex determination tests. However, yet another possible reason could be that more girls are being adopted because there are no girls available due to said tests.”

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The Abandoned Girls
However, the heartening girl adoption statistic also throws up an obvious question – are more girls being abandoned and sent to adoption centres, thus leading to the surge in adoption numbers?

These facts were provided by an SOS Children’s Villages report. In the same year, UNICEF reported that India was home to a total of 26.9 million abandoned and orphaned children.
The situation only went downhill from there. In 2017, a Childline India Foundation (CIF) study – supported by the Ministry of Women and Child Development – found that of the 26.9 million abandoned and orphaned kids, only 4,70,000 children were in some kind of institutional care. How many of these kids actually make it to families through institutionalised adoption then, since CARA figures show that there have been a total of 4,027 adoptions?
Also, it’s possible the 26.9 million itself is an under-reported number.

The Missing Girls
Here’s another number to ruminate upon: in 2015, a hard-hitting, data-driven interactive published by Tania Boa, Gerhard Bliedung and Benjamin Wiederkehr – called ‘Unwanted’ – found that 6,29,000 girls are missing in India every year.
The interactive claimed – “Every 50 seconds, a parent in India kills their daughter.”
The researchers credited their computation and final numbers to ‘Trends in Selective abortion of girls in India’ (a study conducted by the Centre for Global Health Research) and the 2001 and 2011 census.
Also Read : How to Kill a Girl Child and (Almost) Get Away With It
Which brings us to the question of…
...The Girls Killed at Birth
An IndiaSpend report published in May 2018 found that “fewer girls are being born in north and west India, and fewer girls are being born in richer states that poorer states”. According to the Sample Registration System (SRS) 2013-2015 – the latest available data – Haryana has the worst sex ratio with 831 girls per 1,000 boys – but other states with low sex ratio are Gujarat, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, among others.
Yet, interestingly, Maharashtra has the highest number of girl adoptions from the state. The latest available data for the state – from 2017-2018 – shows that, of a total of 642 adoptions in the state, 353 were girls (reported by PTI).
Why the disparity between its sex ratio and adopted girl children?

Not Enough Children in Adoption Centres

A report in LiveMint found – “As of May 2017, there were 15,200 prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) while child care institutions (CCIs) have only 1,766 children in their care across the country”.
The very next year – 2018 – a reply to an RTI filed threw up statistics that had only worsened: 1,991 children (that included 1,322 girls) were available for adoption. Yet the number of prospective parents had increased to 20,000.
Clearly, more girls were indeed put up for adoption in the past year. And yet, if the numbers of abandoned and orphaned children are anything to go by, not all kids even find their way to adoption centres. So clearly, there must be hundreds of ‘missing’ children out in the country – and not enough adoption centres to house them.

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Also Read : It Starts Early: How a Girl Child is Told to Mind ‘Ghar Ki Izzat’
Inter-Country Adoption Isn’t Always a Boon
2019’s figures revealed by CARA reveal that 653 adoptions out of 4,027 were inter-country – aka 653 children were adopted by prospective parents outside India.

While CARA’s numbers might be officially recorded, above-the-board data (in late 2015, India had changed its adoption rules to allow CARA to monitor all intra- and inter- country adoptions through its online database, thus making the process shorter and more transparent), not all numbers get reported. The numbers don’t account for the many babies trafficked from hospitals and traded on the black market.
In February 2017, 19 people were chargesheeted from West Bengal’s Baduria, North 24 Parganas district in connection with a newborn trafficking case. The racket was allegedly carried out by two private clinics, with the help of an NGO.

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Parents were often told they had given birth to stillborns – even as their crying, very-much-alive babies were whisked away.
“West Bengal, with its porous border with Bangladesh and Nepal, records the highest number of women and children trafficked compared to other states across the country. Last year, government data indicate, 19,223 women and children were trafficked, compared with 15,448 in 2015. But the real number is unknown.” – reported News Deeply, investigating the West Bengal baby trafficking racket.

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In 2017, Firstpost too profiled various men and women of Indian origin across the world who had been trafficked and were now hunting for their biological parents. It raised pertinent questions about the 2017 West Bengal baby trading racket, the 2011 child trafficking racket in Pune and the 2005 child trafficking racket in Chennai where professional kidnappers lifted children and sold them overseas for thousands of dollars. Significantly, in both the latter cases, adoption agencies were the linchpin of the rackets.
Geeta Menon tells The Quint:
“When trafficking takes place, it is safe to say that it’s largely intra-country. Children are trafficked from India to foreign nations. One reason is the huge amount of money involved; the other, being that other countries may not have the same girl child-boy child prejudice that India has. So, they’re far more open to the idea of adopting girls.”

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Thus, while official records report heartening increases in the number of girl children adopted across the country, who’s counting the heads of baby girls and infants who go “missing” in the swathes of baby trading marketeers?
A Sliver of Promise
… might come in the form of CARA’s transparency of adoption guidelines.
The system matches prospective parents directly with children who live at registered adoption agencies and orphanages to make the process simpler. Deepak Kumar even claims that parents have been able to exhibit their keenness to adopt a girl because of this system –
Kumar, in the PTI interview, claimed: “It is not that availability of the girl child is higher but that parents are opting more for a girl child. We give them three choices - one can either opt for a girl or a boy or can give no preference...The percentage of those opting specifically for girls to boys would be 55:45”.
Perhaps that choice, marked in ink, by a prospective parent on an adoption paper, is a promise of hope.

Organizations: Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), Unicef New York

Countries: India

European Commission - Press release New rules and guarantees in criminal proceedings now apply across the EU

Brussels, 11 June 2019

Today, the directive on special safeguards for children starts to apply. It is the last in a set of six EU directives guaranteeing procedural rights for people across the EU, completing the full set of rights.

In addition to these new rights for children, the directiveguaranteeing access to legal aid started to apply on 5 May. This package of EU rules ensures that EU citizens' fundamental rights of fair and equal treatment are respected in criminal proceedings and that they are applied in a similar way in all Member States.

Frans Timmermans, First-Vice President in charge of the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, said: "Every year, 9 million people are involved in criminal proceedings in Europe. A well-functioning rule of law must ensure that every European can depend on getting a fair and equal treatment before the law. We need to continue to defend and nourish our rule of law so as to foster unwavering faith in our justice systems and their ability to protect all our citizens and our societies.”

V?ra Jourová, Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, added: “Children deserve special protection in criminal proceedings. With the new rules, we ensure that their privacy is respected or they are detained separately from adults. In addition, everyone in the EU can now be sure to have access to legal aid if they need it. While justice must be done, we must also ensure it is being done in full respect of our fundamental rights and values."

The following rights now apply:

Special safeguards for children -Every year in the EU, over 1 million children face criminal justice proceedings. Children are vulnerable and need special protection at all stages of the proceedings. With the new rules applying as of today, children should be assisted by a lawyer and detained separately from adults if sent to prison. Privacy must be respected and questioning should be audio-visually recorded or recorded in another appropriate manner.
The right to legal aid-If suspected or accused, people have the right to legal aid, that is, financial support for example if they do not have the resources to cover the costs of the proceedings.

The EU rules define clear criteria to grant legal aid. Decisions concerning legal aid must be taken timely and diligently, and people must be informed in writing if their application is rejected in full or in part.

These rights complement the other rights that already apply in the EU:

The right to be presumed innocent and to be present at trial-The concept of presumption of innocence exists in all EU Member States, but the EU rules ensure that this right is applied equally across the EU. The rules clarify that the burden of proof for establishing guilt is on the prosecution, rather than on the person accused to prove that they are not guilty.
The right to have a lawyer - If suspected or accused, no matter where the person is in the EU, they have the right to be advised by a lawyer. A right of access to a lawyer applies also in European Arrest Warrant proceedings, both in the Member State that executes it and in the Member State where it has been issued.
The right to information -People must be promptly informed about the criminal act they are suspected or accused of. They also must be promptly informed of their rights in criminal proceedings, either orally or in writing. They must be given access to the materials of the case.
The right to interpretation and translation - Interpretation must be provided free of charge during any questioning, including by police, all court hearings and any necessary interim hearings, as well as during essential meetings between you and your lawyer.

Next steps

Member States that have not yet implemented the rules must do so as soon as possible. The European Commission will continue to work closely with Member States to ensure the rules are applied correctly for the benefit of citizens. This can be done including through workshops and expert meetings.

Background

Articles 47-49 of the EU Charter of fundamental rights protect the following rights:

The European Commission proposed the most recent three of these directives on procedural rights for suspects and accused persons in November 2013.

The two directives on the right to interpretation and translation and on the right to information apply to all Member States, except Denmark. The other four directives (access to lawyer, presumption of innocence, right to legal aid, and safeguards for children) apply to all Member States, except Ireland, the United Kingdom and Denmark.

For More Information

Factsheet – your rights if accused or suspected of criminal offences in the EU

IP/19/2910

Press contacts:

Christian WIGAND (+32 2 296 22 53)
Sophie DUPIN DE SAINT-CYR (+32 2 295 61 69)

Organizations: European Commission

Unsere Adoptivkinder aus Bangladesch sind eine riesige Belastung und Enttäuschung

Our adopted children from Bangladesh are a huge burden and disappointment

Anyone who adopts wishes to help children and to provide a good family. But what if the kids refuse, like Ingrid and her husband?

Dear Mrs. Peirano, My husband and I adopted two children (siblings) from chaotic conditions in Bangladesh. The two are already grown up: 23 (boy) and 21 (girl). The children were at adoption 3 and 1. Both children are incredibly problematic. Our son was diagnosed with ADHD, had a lot of conflicts with his teachers and classmates at school, did not abide by the rules and ended up finishing his high school diploma with great difficulty. He takes drugs. Marijuana regularly, harder drugs too, but how much accurate, I can not guess. It always came back to thefts and even smaller burglaries. He did not teach after school. He now works at the gas station, as a courier, bouncer etc.

It was an extremely hard time with him, we were always worried and had problems with him. Nothing was really relaxed. After all, our daughter has graduated from secondary school. But she is mentally ill since the age of 14, suffering from pain all over her body and depression. She has already made a suicide attempt, which has taken us a lot. She then spent three months in psychiatry. She has done her hairdressing and has been taken over. But her boyfriend does not like my husband and me at all. He is very aggressive and goes for thick trousers, is tattooed all over and treats our daughter condescendingly.

I do not like to say it, but my husband and I often wonder if it was the right decision to adopt children and some from abroad. We had the hope to become a real family. But actually our children are alien to us and they burden us. We are constantly on the verge of burnout, I often only wish that I am finally berentet and find peace. I have often been to the cure because of the burden with the children. When I look at the children of our friends, sadness and sometimes envy grabs me. The children of our friends have decent jobs (most academic), have a stable life with nice partners, some have children of their own, and they get along well with their parents. My husband and I have a very burdened relationship with our children and are happy when they do not report for a while and do not get us in trouble. Of course, I also understand our children and I see the difficulties that they got in the cradle. But I also see our disappointed expectations and burst dreams and can not help feeling sorry. And if I take a look into the future, it also looks quite grim, because the grandchildren of our children will certainly bring many problems. So we will be challenged for a lifetime and get back very little for it. I wanted to communicate this so that other parents would not be too naive to adopt. But I also wanted to ask how we can handle our disappointment.

Best regards, Ingrid P.

Dear Ingrid P.,

It has certainly taken a lot of courage and effort to admit that your dream of having a healthy family with children who happily go their own way and with whom you get along well has burst.

They have children who were born into a difficult situation and probably have hard first years of life behind them. They are severely strained, and these burdens are expressed in many symptoms: drug abuse, depression, suicides, difficulties at school, ADHD, and much, much more. So you have to say, that probably your children also burst a lot of dreams, because they did not have much of the basics what they needed, above all, the feeling of being welcome and having parents who lovingly take care of their own needs , You know that this is incredibly important, especially in the first three years of life. Their children have been born into a family in which it was chaotic and in which, for whatever reason, the parents did not want or managed to raise and protect them. This knowledge of not wanting to have parents who do not master their lives is a major blow to children's self-esteem. Even if it only acts subliminally or unconsciously, it has a strong effect on one's own position in life. Because your children can not be proud of their own origins because their own parents were not firmly in the life.

Another factor is that children who are adopted from a different culture and look different from their own will find it harder to identify with the host parents. The contact with one's own parents would certainly be helpful in order to integrate both sides in themselves (the first parents, the origin, the genetics) and the second parents (the family in which one grows up). It helps many adopted children, at least to travel to the country of origin and get to know. But of course this is not without its risks, because people in Bangladesh may not recognize you because you do not speak the language and you do not know the culture, while people in Germany regard you as someone from Bangladesh. It really is not easy, the whole thing. Your children then came into a completely different environment relatively young. Often adopted children come to privileged parents, be it in terms of financial situation, education or success. It sounds like it's the case with you too. The claims made on adoptive children (though not always openly voiced) can generate great pressure and sometimes guilt. Your children will surely have felt that they could not keep up with the children of their friends - this also reinforces the feelings of their own worthlessness. And with your son, that's more in an aggressive direction (even against yourself) while your daughter has become depressed. Overall, your children, like many adopted children, seem to have a serious identity problem. They feel torn.

It is tragic that you apparently could not save your children from this fate, even though you made such an effort. But keep in mind: not only adoptive parents but also biological parents often do not have the children they want. Sometimes a child is the problem child, sometimes several, be it addictive, mental or physical illness, political views, school failure or aggression. It is difficult for parents to accept that, despite all their efforts, they do not always have the power to protect their children and take them on the "right" path. How about you consciously relive this bereavement process and, for example, process your disappointment in a therapy? Maybe talking to other parents whose children did not develop as they wanted? And of course talking to your husband, who probably feels similar. One thing is to allow those feelings and process them. Another thing is to think about realistic limits that you can or should have about your children so you do not waste yourself. I hope that over time you will be able to approach your children and find peace with the situation. Best regards, Julia Peirano

German:

Unsere Adoptivkinder aus Bangladesch sind eine riesige Belastung und Enttäuschung

Wer adoptiert, wünscht sich, Kindern zu helfen und eine gute Familie zu bieten. Doch was, wenn die Kinder das wie bei Ingrid und ihrem Mann verweigern?

Liebe Frau Peirano,

Mein Mann und ich haben zwei Kinder (Geschwister) aus chaotischen Verhältnissen in Bangladesch adoptiert. Die beiden sind jetzt schon erwachsen: 23 (Junge) und 21 (Mädchen). Die Kinder waren bei der Adoption 3 und 1. Beide Kinder sind irre problematisch. Bei unserem Sohn wurde ADHS festgestellt, er hat in der Schule für viele Konflikte mit den Lehrern und Mitschülern gesorgt, sich nicht an die Regeln gehalten und am Ende mit Mühe und Not seinen Hauptschulabschluss geschafft.

Er nimmt Drogen. Marihuana regelmäßig, härtere Drogen auch, aber wie viel genau, kann ich nicht abschätzen. Es kam immer wieder zu Diebstählen und sogar kleineren Einbrüchen. Nach der Schule hat er keine Lehre durchgehalten. Er jobbt jetzt an der Tankstelle, als Kurierfahrer, Türsteher etc.

Es war eine extrem harte Zeit mit ihm, ständig hatten wir Sorgen und Probleme mit ihm. Es lief eigentlich nichts entspannt.

Unsere Tochter hat immerhin einen Realschulabschluss geschafft. Aber sie ist seit dem 14. Lebensjahr psychisch krank, leidet unter Schmerzen am ganzen Körper und Depressionen. Einen Suizidversuch hat sie auch schon hinter sich, was uns sehr mitgenommen hat. Sie war daraufhin drei Monate in der Psychiatrie. Ihre Friseurlehre hat sie geschafft und ist übernommen worden. Aber ihr Freund gefällt meinem Mann und mir überhaupt nicht. Er ist sehr aggressiv und macht auf dicke Hose, ist am ganzen Körper tätowiert und behandelt unsere Tochter herablassend.

Ich sage es nicht gerne, aber mein Mann und ich fragen uns oft, ob es die richtige Entscheidung war, Kinder zu adoptieren, und noch dazu welche aus dem Ausland. Wir hatten die Hoffnung, eine richtige Familie zu werden. Aber eigentlich sind unsere Kinder uns fremd und sie belasten uns. Wir sind ständig am Rande des Burn-Outs, ich wünsche mir oft nur, dass ich endlich berentet bin und meine Ruhe finde. Ich war wegen der Belastung mit den Kindern schon öfter zur Kur. Wenn ich die Kinder unserer Freunde betrachte, packt mich Wehmut und manchmal auch Neid. Die Kinder unserer Freunde haben anständige Berufe (die meisten akademische), haben ein stabiles Leben mit netten Partnern, teils schon eigenen Kindern, und sie verstehen sich gut mit ihren Eltern. Mein Mann und ich haben ein sehr belastetes Verhältnis mit unseren Kindern und sind froh, wenn sie sich mal eine Weile nicht melden und uns nicht in Schwierigkeiten bringen.

Natürlich habe ich auch Verständnis für unsere Kinder und ich sehe die Schwierigkeiten, die sie in die Wiege gelegt bekommen haben. Aber ich sehe auch unsere enttäuschten Erwartungen und geplatzten Träume und kann nicht umhin, mir leid zu tun.

Und wenn ich einen Blick in die Zukunft werfe, sieht es auch recht düster aus, denn die Enkelkinder von unseren Kindern werden mit Sicherheit auch viele Probleme mitbringen. Wir werden also ein Leben lang gefordert werden und bekommen dafür recht wenig zurück.

Ich wollte das mitteilen, damit andere Eltern nicht zu blauäugig an eine Adoption herangehen. Aber ich wollte auch fragen, wie wir mit unserer Enttäuschung umgehen können.

Viele Grüße, Ingrid P.

Liebe Ingrid P.,

Es hat Sie bestimmt viel Mut und Überwindung gekostet, sich einzugestehen, dass Ihr Traum von einer heilen Familie mit Kindern, die glücklich ihren Weg gehen und mit denen Sie sich gut verstehen, geplatzt ist.

Sie haben Kinder, die in eine schwierige Situation hineingeboren wurden und wahrscheinlich harte erste Lebensjahre hinter sich haben. Sie sind davon stark belastet, und diese Belastungen drücken sich in vielerlei Symptomen aus: Drogenmissbrauch, Depressionen, Suizidhandlungen, Schwierigkeiten in der Schule, ADHS, und noch vieles andere.

Also muss man sagen, dass wahrscheinlich auch bei Ihren Kindern viele Träume geplatzt sind, da sie einiges an Basis nicht hatten, was sie gebraucht hätten, vor allen das Gefühl, willkommen zu sein und Eltern zu haben, die sich liebevoll um die eigenen Bedürfnisse kümmern. Sie wissen ja, dass dies insbesondere in den ersten drei Lebensjahren unglaublich wichtig ist.

Ihre Kinder sind in eine Familie hineingeboren worden, in der es chaotisch zuging und in der die Eltern, aus welchen Gründen auch immer, es nicht gewollt oder geschafft haben, sie großzuziehen und zu beschützen. Dieses Wissen, nicht gewollt zu sein, und dazu noch Eltern gehabt zu haben, die ihr Leben nicht meistern, ist ein harter Schlag für das Selbstwertgefühl von Kindern. Auch wenn es nur unterschwellig oder unbewusst wirkt, wirkt es sich stark auf die eigene Position im Leben aus. Denn Ihre Kinder können auf ihre eigene Herkunft nicht stolz sein, da ihre eigenen Eltern nicht fest im Leben standen.

Sicher ist ein weiterer Faktor, dass Kinder, die aus einer anderen Kultur adoptiert werden und anders aussehen als ihr Umfeld, es schwerer haben, sich mit den Gasteltern zu identifizieren. Der Kontakt zu den eigenen Eltern wäre da bestimmt hilfreich, um beide Seiten in sich (die ersten Eltern, die Herkunft, die Genetik) und die zweiten Eltern (die Familie, in der man aufwächst) zu integrieren. Vielen Adoptivkindern hilft es, zumindest das Herkunftsland zu bereisen und kennen zu lernen. Doch natürlich ist auch das nicht ohne Risiken, denn möglicherweise erkennen einen die Menschen in Bangladesch nicht an, weil man die Sprache nicht spricht und die Kultur nicht kennt, während die Menschen in Deutschland einen als jemanden aus Bangladesch ansehen. Es ist wirklich nicht einfach, das Ganze.

Ihre Kinder sind dann relativ jung in eine völlig andere Umgebung gekommen. Oft kommen Adoptivkinder zu privilegierten Eltern, sei es in Hinsicht auf die finanzielle Situation, die Bildung oder den Erfolg. Es klingt so, als wenn das auch bei Ihnen der Fall ist. Die Ansprüche, die an Adoptivkinder gestellt werden (wenn auch nicht immer offen geäußert) können großen Druck und mitunter auch Schuldgefühle erzeugen. Ihre Kinder werden sicher auch gespürt haben, dass sie mit den Kindern Ihrer Freunde nicht mithalten konnten - auch das verstärkt die Gefühle eigener Wertlosigkeit. Und bei Ihrem Sohn hat sich das eher in eine aggressive Richtung ausgedrückt (auch gegen sich selbst), während Ihre Tochter depressiv geworden ist. Insgesamt scheinen Ihre Kinder, wie viele Adoptivkinder, ein schwerwiegendes Identitätsproblem zu haben. Sie fühlen sich zerrissen.

Es ist tragisch, dass Sie anscheinend Ihre Kinder nicht vor diesem Schicksal bewahren konnten, obwohl Sie sich solche Mühe gegeben haben. Aber bedenken Sie: Nicht nur Adoptiveltern, sondern auch leibliche Eltern haben oft nicht die Kinder, die sie sich wünschen. Manchmal ist ein Kind das Sorgenkind, manchmal mehrere, sei es wegen Suchtverhalten, psychischen oder körperlichen Krankheiten, politischen Ansichten, Schulversagen oder Aggressionen. Es ist für Eltern schwer, zu akzeptieren, dass sie trotz aller Anstrengungen nicht immer die Macht haben, ihre Kinder zu schützen und auf den "richtigen" Weg zu bringen.

Wie wäre es, wenn Sie diesen Trauerprozess noch einmal bewusst durchleben und zum Beispiel in einer Therapie ihre Enttäuschung verarbeiten? Vielleicht helfen auch Gespräche mit anderen Eltern, deren Kinder sich nicht so entwickelt haben, wie sie es sich gewünscht haben? Und natürlich auch Gespräche mit Ihrem Mann, der sich wahrscheinlich ähnlich fühlt. Eine Sache ist es, sich diese Gefühle zu erlauben und sie zu verarbeiten. Eine andere Sache ist es, sich zu überlegen, wo realistische Grenzen liegen, die Sie gegenüber Ihren Kindern ziehen können oder sollten, damit Sie sich nicht verausgaben.

Ich hoffe, dass es Ihnen mit der Zeit gelingt, sich Ihren Kindern anzunähern und Ihren Frieden mit der Situation zu finden.

Herzliche Grüße, Julia Peirano

Countries: Bangladesh, Germany

Adopted by Swedish couple 30 years ago, woman meets her biological mother for first time

From 1974 to May 2019, the Shreevatsa child care centre has sent as many as 3,209 children for adoption. Of them 2,478 were sent for adoption to Indian couples, while 731 were sent for adoption to couples abroad, Sayed said.

While neither of them speaks a common language, the feeling of not being able to express themselves slowly faded away. Her biological mother watched in awe, as Jonas Olsson, Vibha’s husband, showed her pictures of their house back in Sweden.

Vibha works as a nurse at an old-age home and Jonas works as a business manager. They have been living together for 10 years and have been married for five. The couple has four children – Liam (9), Leo (7), Hedwig (3) and seven-month-old Helge.

Countries: India, Sweden