For more than 50 years, enormous resources have been invested in finding and transporting adopted children to Sweden. It is beyond any doubt that irregularities have occurred.

To spend time and work on ensuring that the 60,000 individuals brought to Sweden have access to their fundamental rights is, on the other hand, considered unrealistic, write representatives of the Transnationally Adopted National Organization.

DEBATE. On Thursday 27 October at 08.00, a press conference was held where Minister of Social Affairs Lena Hallengren announced that a state inquiry would be appointed to "investigate the existence of any irregularities in relation to the countries of origin from which most adoptions to Sweden took place and the countries of origin where there are strong suspicions of that there have been irregularities ”. The investigation will last for two years, and aims in addition to the investigation of irregularities to clarify what responsibility different actors have had.

Put beyond all doubt

Hallengren's statement will be another disappointment for those who have hoped for redress. Over the past year, parents from several countries have testified in news reports as well as documentaries and police investigations that their children have been stolen from them, or that they have been pressured in various ways to leave their children. It is not about "possible irregularities". It is beyond any doubt that irregularities have occurred.

It was via Facebook the two fraternal Indonesian twins Emelie Falk and Lin Backlund found each other after being separated at birth. Both were adopted more than three decades ago from an orphanage in Semarang, Indonesia, by different Swedish parents.

In 2012, they made headlines all over the world, after they had finally reunited via social media. Three years later, they searched for their missing twin brothers, also on Facebook – and they found them, too! Now the amaxing story of the siblings who found each other on social media will be shown at the TLC documentary series “Separated at Birth”, which will air at both Swedish and British television.

It all began five years ago, when the adopted Emelie got married. Now she had started her own family, she was wondering about her own roots, especially because she was recently noticed about a woman, who had told to Emelie’s adoptive mother that her child might be the biological sister to Emelie.

Just like a blind date

Emelie needed to know her roots, and she took the matter into her own hands by searching for Lin on Facebook. Surprisingly, Lin, the girl claimed to be her sister, lived only few miles away from Emelie in Helsingborg. She contacted Lin, and both agreed to meet each other.

More effort will be made to help children adopted by foreign families explore their Chinese roots, a senior official said on Friday.

That includes easier access to their pre-adoption archives, and arranging meetings with their former caretakers in orphanages, said Ni Chunxia, deputy-director of the Department of Social Affairs of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

"Local authorities should continue the nonprofit nature of such assistance and try to offer assistance that is more humane, professional and tailored with the aim of helping foster children to grow healthily," she said.

Adoptees can find local civil affairs bureaus' contact information at cccwa.mca.gov.cn?the official website of the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption, Ni added.

The pledge came after the ministry released a regulation in November aiming to facilitate such endeavors. According to the new rules, which took effect this month, local authorities are not allowed to charge fees for such services.

Nearly a week after the Kalyan police arrested a doctor for allegedly running an adoption racket and rescued 71 kids, the cops have reunited 14 babies with their parents. The alleged crime came to light after a couple filed a complaint against Dr Ketan Soni accusing him of taking away their baby for Rs 1 lakh. The police are trying to trace the parents of the other rescued children.

As per a complaint filed by one Priya Ahire, she gave birth to a child on November 10 and she and her husband Santosh sold the baby to Dr Soni for Rs 1 lakh. However, after a few days the couple decided to take back their infant. When they approached Dr Soni with the money, he allegedly refused to hand them over the baby.

The Ahire couple alerted child care authorities and filed a complaint against Dr Soni at Ram Nagar police station in Dombivli. While the police then raided the premises of Nandadeep Foundation, Dr Soni could not produce any documents to back the alleged adoptions done through his shelter. The police also said that the foundation did not have the permission to facilitate the adoption of children.

The police sent all the 71 kids at the centre to ‘Balvikas’ facilities at Dombvli and Ulhasnagar.

“The doctor brought kids from poor parents across Maharashtra. He paid them some money promising to take care of the baby at his shelter. It is suspected that he sold the kids to childless couples for lakhs. Whenever the original parents came to meet their kids, he would tell them that the baby had been adopted.”

Adoption in Australia has dropped to its lowest level in three decades as services say pandemic family court delays and border closures have resulted in a backlog of cases amid a general downward trend.

There were 264 adoptions finalised in Australia in 2020–21, the fewest since national reporting began in 1990–91.

Adoptions from overseas in 2019-20 and 2020-21 were the lowest on record, although these have been in decline since the late 2000s.

In its report, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said COVID-19 travel restrictions and the pandemic’s impact on visa applications likely contributed to the low number of inter-country adoptions finalised in the past two years, and noted they may appear in next year’s data.

Renée Carter, chief executive of Adopt Change, said the drop in numbers was “concerning”.

A day after news of the illegal 'sale of Covid-19 orphans' surfaced in Kashmir valley, Police along with the Civil Administration Thursday sealed an office of an NGO in Pampore in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district for allegedly being involved in the sale of COVID orphans.

According to reports, Global Welfare Charitable Trust in Samboora Pampore was sealed after a team of police and Tehsil administration raided the office and seized some important documents.

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Useful links

Adoptees' organizations

Adopted People United

Organization in Limburg for adoptees

Adoptiepedia

Partners

. INTRAS Foundation

http://www.intras.es

ARSIS - Thessaloniki

http://arsis.gr/en/home/

Opposition members in Lok Sabha Wednesday attacked the government for excluding live-in couples, single men and the LGBTQ community from the ambit of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2021, attacking the legislation as “discriminatory” and “patriarchal”.

Congress member Karti P Chidambaram, who opened the debate on the Bill, said: “This law is not a Hindu law, it is actually a Victorian law.”

He invoked the Mahabharata and the Puranas several times, saying: “Our epics have so many instances of unconventional births.”

“This law has not come from the Hindu liberal traditions. This law has come from the completely regressive, Victorian, and colonial mindset. I will tell you why. This law excludes many people, rather than it includes. When I have given you so many instances of unconventional births and unconventional unions in our Hindu epics, this law only allows married people to have access to this technology. It does not allow LGBTQ people to have access to this technology. It does not allow single men to have access to this technology,” Karti Chidambaram said adding that the bill is “discriminatory”.

Karti said: “This law does not take into account the new realities of India. Of course, these new realities are not new realities. These were there in our ancient scriptures. Those unions which were always there, were suppressed by the colonial mentality. These unions must also be given access to this technology. The LGBTQ population, live-in couples, and single men must also have access to this technology if they want so.”

Hyun Sook Han never tired of her role as a matchmaker of sorts, connecting thousands of Korean children with American adoptive families over four decades in Minnesota.

Her work as a social worker and pioneer in international adoption fulfilled a promise she made to children she saw left behind in snowbanks as she fled her home on foot during the Korean War.

She vowed to one day come back to help them — and made building families through adoption her life's work.

Han, 83, died of kidney cancer Nov. 5 at her home in Shoreview.

Han was born in 1938 in Seoul and lived during the Japanese occupation of Korea and the Korean War.