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Medlemsorganisationer

Member Organizations Member organizations in the Network for the Child Convention The following 47 organizations are members of the Network for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. If your organization wants to become a member, email your application to info@barnkonventionen.se. We would love to be more!

Swedish:

Medlemsorganisationer

Medlemsorganisationer i Nätverket för Barnkonventionen

Följande 47 organisationer är medlemmar i Nätverket för Barnkonventionen. Om din organisation vill bli medlem, mejla in din ansökan till info@barnkonventionen.se. Vi vill gärna bli fler!

Organizations: Nätverket för Barnkonventionen

Countries: Sweden

Hoe Paula (93) de situatie van kinderen van ongehuwde moeders voor altijd veranderde: 40 jaar arrest-Marckx

How Paula (93) changed the situation of children of unmarried mothers forever: 40 years Marckx judgment

40 years ago, the European Court of Human Rights handed down the 'Marckx' milestone judgment. As a result, children of unmarried mothers, and at the same time children from an adulterous relationship, received the same rights as children of a married couple. The judgment came after a complaint from Paula Marckx against the Belgian State. Anne Vanrenterghem Thu 13 Jun 5:36 13 June 1979. Paula Marckx is proved right in the case she brought against the Belgian State at the European Court of Human Rights. She herself was a unmarried mother, of baby Alexandra, and she did not understand why she had to acknowledge her daughter, while married mothers should not. Moreover, even then her child did not have the same rights as the children of a married mother, among other things in terms of inheritance and ties with the family of Paula. Paula wrote an angry letter about it, and it therefore had an effect. "After that letter we left," says Paula Marckx in the Podcast "Somebody" on Radio 1. "We arrived there, in an impressive hall with a large placard:" Paula and Alexandra Marckx contre la Belgique. I have to say something. "

I didn't save a person from a burning house, just written a letter in the kitchen Paula Marckx The European Court agreed with Paula on the whole line. According to the Court, everyone was entitled to an automatic bond with the mother, including children of unmarried mothers or so-called adulterous children. Paula Marckx was overwhelmed by the news. "I got a call from my cousin. Paula, we won, she said." She remains modest about her role in the history of family law. "If you think of it, it is something very simple, I am not going to save a person from a burning house, I have not climbed a mountain, I have just written a note in my kitchen." Delphine Boël can also thank Paula Marckx But the Marckx judgment was indeed a milestone. Not only for children of unmarried mothers, but also for children from an adulterous relationship. "A child who was adulterous on the father's side, think for example of Delphine Boël, who never had the possibility to establish paternity. Because that was adulterous and that was not allowed," says Professor Family Law Frederik Swennen. "So even if King Albert's paternity were confirmed with DNA, it was 'aunt pis' before the Marckx judgment. Then there was no way to deny Jaques Boël's paternity," says the professor. Even if mothers were adulterous, nothing was possible by the way. That child automatically had the husband as father, and that was undeniable. "Napoleon - who drafted the law book at the time - then said, he should have watched his wife," says Swennen.

But the judgment also had major consequences for our right to privacy. The Court stated in its judgment that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states the right to respect for private, family and family life, contained a positive obligation. This means that the state had to actively ensure that that right was protected. The recent European privacy legislation GDPR is also a spur of this. Family law on its head throughout Europe The judgment came as a real shock. In politics, the situation of so-called illegitimate children had never been in question until then. "Everyone in Europe thought it would lead nowhere. Because there was almost no country where it was different from Belgium," says Swennen. But it was nevertheless so. The judgment had to change the legislation in our country. "That happened for the first time in 1987, and the last adjustment was made in 2006," said Frederik Swennen. But that also had to happen in other European countries. "Many countries have had to adapt. They have done so step by step. Until the 2000s, countries were still convicted of inheritance law, such as France and Austria. It took a long time before all countries had adjusted," says Swennen.

Countries: Belgium

Sisters, Reunited ( Rekha )

Sisters, Reunited

Meet Rekha, Deborah and Christina — three Indian adoptees from different families with one very strong and powerful connection: their shared beginning.

Rekha, Deborah and Christina

If you see us in person or in a picture, we are three little Indians: petite, of Indian nationality, and a group of three. Our names are Deborah, Rekha and Christina. We are three different people with one very strong and powerful connection: our shared beginning. Together on December 11, 1988, we traveled on Pan Am Flight 067 as infants 20+ hours from Pune, Maharashtra, India, to New York City, New York, USA. There were five of us total, accompanied and cared for by our American travel chaperones, Barbara, her husband, Lee, and their 20-year-old son, Kip. What we share is not only a past, but since finding each other and then meeting again 30+ years later, a new beginning of friendship and sisterhood.

While we are a group of three in this story told to you today, we are actually a group of five. We are hopeful that one day all five of us can reunite and be together once again.

Countries: India

Organizations: Society of Friends of Sassoon Hospitals - SOFOSH, Holt International Children's Services Inc.

Commissie Geweld Jeugdzorg | Eindrapport

Final report In the final report Insufficient protection. Violence in Dutch youth care from 1945 to the present are the results of the large-scale study by the Commission for Research into Violence in Youth Care, which it conducted between 2016 and 2019. Three parts You can view the research results on three levels, which go one step deeper: Part 1: The final report: this describes the findings of the study as a whole and contains recommendations. Part 2: The sector and theme studies: the results of all sub-studies (seven sector studies and eight theme studies) can be found under this heading. Part 3: The source studies: all studies that have been carried out to produce the reports of part 2 can be found under this heading. You can read the details in thirteen PDF files: from interviews to archive material. Cabinet response On 12 June 2019, Ministers Hugo de Jonge (Health, Welfare and Sport) and Sander Dekker (Legal Protection) gave their response to the final report of the Committee for the Investigation of Violence in Youth Care to the Lower House. Read the reaction here: ( see attachments )

Part 1: Final report In the final report "Insufficient protection. Violence in Dutch youth care from 1945 to the present "you will find the results of the large-scale study by the Commission for Violence in Youth Care, which it conducted between 2016 and 2019. Below is a brief summary of the findings Violence In the entire period from 1945 to the present, physical, psychological and sexual violence occurred in youth care. Victims reported physical and psychological violence over the years before 1970, mainly exercised by group leaders and foster parents. After 1970 this shifts to more physical violence among pupils. Psychological violence also remains present during that period. Based on representative research, the Committee estimates that 1 in 10 people who have ever been in youth care often experienced violence very often. Almost a quarter of those surveyed have never experienced violence. Participants in the study also reported good experiences. Effects For former pupils, psychological violence, such as persistent harassment, humiliation and isolation, is a major influence on their later lives. Commonly mentioned consequences are psychosocial health problems, relationship problems and problems with raising own children.

How could this happen? In youth care, various factors contributed to the occurrence and persistence of violence. For a long time, the negative view of the child who was placed out of the home in society encouraged violence. Youth care had insufficient financial resources to find suitable staff and to retain them for a longer period of time. For a long time, there was a lack of sufficient training and methodologies, protective laws and regulations and government supervision. Supervisors often did not intervene in situations where violence occurred. The juveniles placed out of the home could not or did not dare to talk about violence and could turn to virtually no one. Recognition and prevention The committee makes various recommendations to offer victims recognition and to prevent violence in youth care in the future. Offering recognition to victims of violence in youth care is an important part of this.

Part 2: Sector and theme studies In part 2 of the publications of the Youth Violence Care Commission you will find seven sector studies and eight thematic studies. These have formed the basis for the analysis, the conclusions and recommendations as they can be read in part 1 of the final report of the committee. Sector studies The sector studies describe the seven sectors of youth care on which the committee's research has focused. Three questions were always central: what happened, how could it happen and what has been the impact on the lives of the victims in the short and long term. Thematic studies A number of overarching or more specific topics have been further elucidated and investigated in the thematic studies.

Part 2 - Sector and theme studies Sector study Violence in residential youth care Sector study Violence in foster care Sector study Violence in closed (Judicial) youth institutions Sector study Violence in the residential LVB youth sector Sector study Violence in deaf and blind boarding homes Sector study Violence in child and adolescent psychiatry Sector study Violence in the reception of unaccompanied minor aliens (1990 - 2018) Archive study Traces of violence in youth care after 1945 Perpetrators of violence against juveniles in institutions and foster families in the context of social, pedagogical, situational and individual factors Analysis of reports at the hotline of the Commission for Research into Violence in Youth Care Analyzes of the Kantar Public population panel. Violence in youth care Youth experiences and current health of participants in sector surveys. Analysis of their answers to the ACE and EQ5d3l questionnaires Prevalence estimation of child abuse in mainstream Dutch youth care The offer of assistance for adults with a history of violence in youth care: an exploration Research into violence in youth care by committees in other countries Underlying source studies The research teams based the sector and theme reports in part 2 on their own source studies: archive research, interviews, standardized questionnaires, media and literature research. These source studies can be downloaded on the Part 3: Source studies page.

Dutch:

Eindrapport

In het eindrapport Onvoldoende beschermd. Geweld in de Nederlandse jeugdzorg van 1945 tot heden staan de resultaten van het grootschalige onderzoek van de Commissie Onderzoek naar Geweld in de Jeugdzorg, dat zij tussen 2016 en 2019 uitvoerde.

Drie delen

De onderzoeksresultaten kunt u op drie niveaus bekijken, die steeds een stapje dieper gaan:

Deel 1: Het eindrapport: hierin zijn de bevindingen van het onderzoek als geheel beschreven en staan aanbevelingen.
Deel 2: De sector- en themastudies: de resultaten van alle deelonderzoeken (zeven sectorstudies en acht themastudies) zijn onder dit kopje te vinden.
Deel 3: De bronstudies: alle studies die zijn uitgevoerd om tot de rapportages van deel 2 te komen, vindt u onder dit kopje. In dertien pdf-bestanden leest u de details: van interviews tot archiefmateriaal.

Kabinetsreactie

Op 12 juni 2019 gaven ministers Hugo de Jonge (Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport) en Sander Dekker (Rechtsbescherming) hun reactie op het eindrapport van de Commissie Onderzoek naar Geweld in de Jeugdzorg aan de Tweede Kamer. Lees de reactie hier:

Deel 1: Eindrapport

In het eindrapport ‘Onvoldoende beschermd. Geweld in de Nederlandse jeugdzorg van 1945 tot heden’ vindt u de resultaten van het grootschalige onderzoek van de Commissie Onderzoek naar Geweld in de Jeugdzorg, dat zij tussen 2016 en 2019 uitvoerde. Hieronder vindt u een korte samenvatting van de bevindingen

Geweld

In de gehele periode 1945 tot heden kwam fysiek, psychisch en seksueel geweld in de jeugdzorg voor. Slachtoffers meldden over de jaren voor 1970 fysiek en psychisch geweld dat vooral uitgeoefend werd door groepsleiding en pleegouders. Na 1970 verschuift dit naar meer fysiek geweld van pupillen onderling. Het psychisch geweld blijft ook in die periode aanwezig.

De commissie schat op basis van representatief onderzoek dat 1 op de 10 personen die ooit in jeugdzorg verbleven, vaak tot zeer vaak geweld meemaakte. Bijna een kwart van de ondervraagden heeft nooit geweld meegemaakt. Deelnemers aan het onderzoek rapporteerden ook goede ervaringen.

Gevolgen

Voor ex-pupillen blijkt psychisch geweld, zoals aanhoudend treiteren, vernederen en isoleren van grote invloed op hun latere leven. Veel genoemde gevolgen zijn psychosociale gezondheidsklachten, relatieproblemen en problemen met het opvoeden van eigen kinderen.

Hoe kon dit gebeuren?

In de jeugdzorg droegen verschillende factoren bij aan het ontstaan en voortduren van geweld. De in de samenleving heersende negatieve kijk op het uit huis geplaatste kind werkte lange tijd geweld in de hand. Jeugdzorg had onvoldoende financiële middelen om geschikt personeel te vinden en voor langere tijd aan zich te binden. Het ontbrak lang aan voldoende opleidingen en methodieken, aan beschermende wet- en regelgeving en aan overheidstoezicht. Toezichthouders grepen vaak niet in in situaties waarin geweld voorkwam. De uit huis geplaatste jeugdigen konden of durfden niet over geweld te praten en konden bij vrijwel niemand terecht.

Erkenning en preventie

De commissie doet verschillende aanbevelingen om slachtoffers erkenning te bieden en geweld in jeugdzorg in de toekomst te voorkomen. Het bieden van erkenning aan slachtoffers van geweld in jeugdzorg is hiervan een belangrijk onderdeel.

Deel 2: Sector- en themastudies

In deel 2 van de publicaties van de Commissie Geweld Jeugdzorg vindt u zeven sectorstudies en acht thematische studies. Deze hebben de basis gevormd voor de analyse, de conclusies en aanbevelingen zoals die in deel 1 van het eindrapport van de commissie te lezen zijn.

Sectorstudies

De sectorstudies beschrijven de zeven sectoren van jeugdzorg waarop het onderzoek van de commissie zich heeft gericht. Daarbij stonden steeds drie vragen centraal: wat is er gebeurd, hoe heeft het kunnen gebeuren en wat is de invloed geweest op het leven van de slachtoffers op korte en lange termijn.

Thematische studies

In de thematische studies is een aantal overkoepelende of meer specifieke onderwerpen nader belicht en onderzocht.

Deel 2 – Sector- en themastudies

Sectorstudie Geweld in de residentiële jeugdzorg
Sectorstudie Geweld in de pleegzorg
Sectorstudie Geweld in gesloten (Justitiële) Jeugdinrichtingen
Sectorstudie Geweld in de residentiële LVB-jeugdsector
Sectorstudie Geweld in doven- en blindeninternaten
Sectorstudie Geweld in de kinder- en jeugdpsychiatrie
Sectorstudie Geweld in de opvang van alleenstaande minderjarige vreemdelingen (1990 – 2018)
Archiefstudie Sporen van geweld in de jeugdzorg na 1945
Geweldplegers tegen jeugdigen in instellingen en pleeggezinnen in de context van maatschappelijke, pedagogische, situationele en individuele factoren
Analyse van meldingen bij het meldpunt van de Commissie Onderzoek naar Geweld in de Jeugdzorg
Analyses data bevolkingspanel Kantar Public. Geweld in de jeugdzorg
Jeugdervaringen en huidige gezondheid van deelnemers sectoronderzoeken. Analyse van hun antwoorden op de vragenlijsten ACE en EQ5d3l
Prevalentieschatting van kindermishandeling in de reguliere Nederlandse jeugdzorg
Het hulpaanbod voor volwassenen met een verleden van geweld in de jeugdzorg: een verkenning
Onderzoek naar geweld in jeugdzorg door commissies in andere landen

Onderliggende bronstudies

De onderzoeksteams hebben de sector- en themarapportages in deel 2 gebaseerd op eigen bronnenonderzoeken: archiefonderzoek, interviews, gestandaardiseerde vragenlijsten, media- en literatuuronderzoek. Deze bronstudies zijn te downloaden op de pagina Deel 3: Bronstudies.

Organizations: The Dutch Ministry of Justice

Countries: Netherlands

Lynelle Beveridge – ICASN Founder (Archive)

I think it’s fantastic that we adoptees are becoming more aware of how important it is to explore our histories in order for us to become more integrated and well balanced…

Name:

Lynelle Beveridge – Vong Ung Thanh

History:

Left Vietnam in 1973 and was adopted into an Australian family. Resides in Sydney, Australia and is currently 30 years old. Returned to visit Vietnam in 2000 for the first time.

Occupation:

Service Delivery Manager – IBM Global Services. Founder & Director, Vision for Life and The Inter-country Adopte Support Network – www.icasn.org

On Being Vietnamese:

I love the fact that I look younger than I am! I love having a small nose so that when I kiss it doesn’t get in the way. I love having a small petite figure as I never have to worry about being overweight. I love these things that I’ve inherited no doubt from my Vietnamese parents. I love being a part of two cultures – Australian and Vietnamese.

I think it’s fantastic that we adoptees are becoming more aware of how important it is to explore our histories in order for us to become more integrated and well balanced. I can’t wait for the day when adoption is by and large a mostly positive experience for all – this will occur as society becomes more aware of what it means to be inter-racially adopted and how we can best provide support and understanding to those involved.

Happy To Have Achieved:

Inventor of a Patent; Contributor of book “The Color of Difference”; Founder of “Vision for Life” and “ICASN; success in overcoming the personal issues in my life that once hindered me; to have travelled the world and taken some amazing photos; to have financial stability & educational success.

Dreams:

My hopes are to make a positive difference in the lives of as many as possible. My dreams are to live a fulfilling life with people I love around me. My hope is one day I will go back to Vietnam and make a positive contribution to the lives of the Vietnamese people, especially the kids.

Vietnamese Mentors/Inspirations?

My favourite Vietnamese people are the many adoptees from Vietnam who I am now good close friends with. These people are part of my extended family for we all have survived and turned our lives into a positive experience.

Countries: Vietnam

Organizations: Intercountry Adoptee Voices ( ICAV )

New adoption rules coming into effect

Quebec’s lifting the confidentiality seal on more than 300,000 adoption cases on June 16. Alyssia Rubertucci has more on how this will help adoptees find their birth parents.

Countries: Canada

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.

A A

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.

Organizations: Steunpunt Adoptie

Countries: Belgium

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: Sweden, India

Voice Recording Gideon

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

Organizations: Terre des Hommes Netherlands

Countries: Bangladesh