UPDATERTL and producer ITV have decided not to broadcast The Voice of Holland for the time being. The channel reports that allegations of sexually transgressive behavior and abuse of power have been received and wants to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on. Band leader Jeroen Rietbergen confesses his involvement and resigns immediately.

'On Wednesday, January 12, the editors of the BNNVARA program BOOS sent us an email with allegations of sexually transgressive behavior and abuse of power surrounding The Voice of Holland . The allegations are very serious and shocking and were not known to RTL," RTL said.

The channel has decided in joint consultation with the producer of the singing program to temporarily shut down The Voice of Holland . Rietbergen was extensively featured in the third episode, as could already be seen on Videoland. "On the basis of these allegations, producer ITV has been contacted and a mutual agreement has been reached that ITV will immediately initiate a diligent, independent investigation. We take this extremely seriously. Participants, employees, everyone must be able to work in complete safety. There is no room for interpretation in this. The priority now is to get the facts on the table.'

ITV said it was shocked by the allegations. “Our highest priority is to provide a safe and supportive environment for everyone who participates in – or works on – our shows and ITV Studios has a zero-tolerance policy towards the kind of behavior it is said to be. occurred."

Confession

Hundreds of additional children may have been sent overseas for adoption than originally thought.

Evidence that at least 356 previously unknown Irish children were sent to Northern Ireland, Great Britain and a range of other countries for adoption was given to the Department of Health over 20 years ago but never made public.

Up until now, the State has only ever acknowledged that 2,132 children were sent abroad to be adopted between the late 1940s and the early 1970s - and all but 51 to the USA.

The original figures were published in the seminal book, Banished Babies in 1997 by journalist Mike Milotte and were based on Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) passport data compiled after a large archive of records detailing the adoption of children to the USA was discovered in the National Archives in 1996.

However, explosive new evidence discovered in Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) records reveals that at least 356 additional children were sent to a minimum of 13 countries between 1921 and 1994.

A Japanese woman is giving up her child and suing her sperm donor after she learned he lied about his ethnicity and educational background.

The woman, a Tokyo resident in her 30s, shares a child with her husband and was seeking to have a second child. But after learning her partner had a hereditary disease, the woman decided to find a sperm donor on social media. The donor she chose claimed he was Japanese and a graduate from the prestigious Kyoto University, and they had sex 10 times to get pregnant, Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun reported.

But after getting pregnant in June 2019, the woman discovered that the donor was actually Chinese. He also went to a different university and hid the fact he was married. By the time she knew of his true identity, it was too late to abort the baby, and she has since given up the child for adoption. The woman filed a lawsuit against the sperm donor last month for 330 million yen ($2.86 million) for emotional distress.

In Japan, sperm donations are practically unregulated.

The entire country of 126 million has just one commercial sperm bank, which was only founded in June. Artificial insemination by donor—a procedure that involves inserting sperm into a person’s uterus—is limited to married couples, thereby excluding single women and LGBTQ couples. Even for those eligible, a mere 12 hospitals in the entire country conduct such fertility treatment.

A woman in Japan is giving up her baby and suing her sperm donor after discovering he lied about his ethnicity and educational background.

The woman, identified as a married 30-year-old from Tokyo, has sued the sperm donor after finding out he was Chinese, not Japanese. She has asked for 330 million yen ($2.86 million) in compensation for emotional distress, VICE reported.

The woman has also alleged that the man lied about his education and had not graduated from Kyoto University, and was married, not single as he claimed, according to Tokyo Shimbun.

The woman had decided to seek out a sperm donor after finding out that her husband carried a hereditary disorder that could be passed on to his offspring.

After hooking up with the donor via social media in March 2019, they had sex 10 times before the woman, who was not identified, successfully got pregnant three months later.

When Robert Joseph Taylor was a young child, he had a familial relationship with a child his aunt had taken in as her own. The child’s name was Pat. A friend had put Pat in the care of Taylor’s aunt because she wasn’t able to raise her herself.

Taylor grew up referring to Pat as his cousin, though they weren’t blood-related. And they shared all of the things families share together: vacations, meals, family ceremonies. It wasn’t until very recently that Taylor discovered the whole story.

“I [had] a cousin that I knew all my life was my cousin but turns out she’s really [wasn’t]. She was more of a play-cousin,” Taylor said.

“Pat passed away recently in her late 70s,” he said, “and it’s only a few years ago [that I asked] Pat how we are related. And then she explained it.”

Taylor is the Harold R. Johnson Endowed Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan, and for years he’s studied informal social support networks among African Americans. According to data Taylor reviewed from the National Survey of American Life, the vast majority of African Americans reported having at least one fictive kin relationship — that is, a relationship with at least one individual who was unrelated by blood or marriage but was regarded as a relative. Taylor said fictive kinship networks have been shown to be key sources of social and economic capital for many African Americans.

New legislation guarantees adopted people the right to obtain their birth certificates

Joan McDermott, who grew up in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, fought for 16 years to track down her firstborn son, to whom she had given birth at the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork when she was just 17.

The two finally met in 2015 when he was 47 years old.

“I will never forget it. Within an hour of meeting him he said: ‘How old am I really?’” McDermott, who now lives in Midleton, told The Irish Times.

Expressing “elation” at the legislation to guarantee adopted people the right to their birth certificates, she said her son had told her that he had spent a decade unsuccessfully trying to track her down.

President Rodrigo Duterte has signed the law on Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care, Malacañang announced Thursday.

The new law, numbered Republic Act 11642, creates the National Authority for Child Care, which will have original and exclusive jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to alternative child care, including declaring a child legally available for adoption; domestic administrative adoption; adult adoption; foster care under Republic Act No. 10165 or the Foster Care Act of 2012; adoptions under Republic Act No. 11222 or Simulated Birth Rectification Act; and inter-country adoption under Republic Act No. 8043 or the Inter­ Country Adoption Act of 1995.

Likewise, the NACC, which will be under the jurisdiction of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, will also have the authority to impose penalties in case of any violation of the new law.

"The NACC should ensure that the petitions, and all other matters involving alternative child care, including the issuance of Certification Declaring a Child Legally Available for Adoption (CDCLAA) and the process of domestic and inter-country adoption, foster care, kinship care, family-like care, or residential care are simple, expeditious, and inexpensive, and will redound to the best interest of the child involved," the law, signed by the President last January 6 but only released on January 13, stated.

"Towards this end, the NACC Council will act as the policy-making body and when convened as such, as an en banc appeals committee for contested denials of petitions issued by the Executive Director or the Deputy Director for Services," it added.

The newly created National Authority for Child Care (NACC) will soon take over the handling of all government matters related to childcare and adoption.

This after Duterte finally signed Republic Act (RA) 11642, or the Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act last week, which created the new quasi-judicial agency.

In the House of Representatives, Northern Samar Rep. Paul R. Daza, principal author of the bill, said about 1.8 million Filipino children, who are waiting for loving homes, will benefit from the signing of the new law. The new legislation, he added, finally resolves the problem on abandoned and neglected children who are waiting to be adopted.

“I’m calling on prospective adoptive parents; I enjoin you to give a life-changing chance for children who have long been waiting for the fulfillment of their dreams to have families!” Daza said.

The NACC will take over the previous function of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Inter-Country Adoption Board (ICAB) relating to alternative childcare and adoption.

The High Court has formally approved the adoption of a non-national teenager to the woman who had cared for the child for many years after the teen’s birth mother died.

The adoption approval was granted by Mr Justice Max Barrett who in a written judgement said while case arose from sad and tragic beginning it was “one of those life-affirming cases” which sometimes crop before the courts that suggest that goodness and happiness were still abundant in the world.

The judge said he was making the order without the child’s father having being consulted about the proposed adoption. This was because the despite extensive efforts the identity of the teen’s father remains unknown, and was therefore not possible to contact them.

The child cannot be identified for legal purposes.

The court heard that the teen, when very young, came to Ireland with the child’s non-national mother over a decade ago. However shortly after their arrival in Ireland, the minor’s mother died after giving birth to another child. Tragically, the newborn infant also died, the court also noted.

Wang Chen-wei and Chen Chun-ju sign papers after ruling allows Chen to register as parent alongside Wang

Helen Davidson in Taipei

@heldavidson

Thu 13 Jan 2022 13.17 GMT

A married same-sex couple have become the first in Taiwan to legally adopt a child neither of them are related to, after they challenged local laws in court.