In a recent flurry of articles, the National Council for Adoption asserts that the State Department is responsible for the plummeting number of intercountry adoptions. They are wrong. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

There are a multitude of reasons international adoptions to the United States and all other receiving countries have declined. Foreign governments have moved, in many cases, to bolster their own child welfare programs. But as they make progress they have also become concerned about what they increasingly view as lax practices by U.S. adoption service providers (ASPs) and inadequate regulation by federal and state child welfare agencies.

The unfortunate practice of unregulated custody transfer, more commonly referred to as “rehoming,” has become the focus of major concern for sending countries, as well as the State Department. Guatemala, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nepal have all closed their intercountry adoption programs due to concerns about child trafficking as well as rehoming and other questionable practices by ASPs. The U.S. Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted more than one ASP for criminal activity, but concerns remain.

Russian adoption is a particularly troublesome issue. Russian children have been overrepresented in child fatality and abuse statistics. In one notorious rehoming case, an American adoptive mother put her Russian adopted son on a flight back to Moscow with a one-way ticket.

Ultimately, Russia’s closure was out of the State Department’s hands when Russia chose to close intercountry adoptions in retaliation to U.S. Congress’ passage of the Magnitsky Act.

Ireland has an extensive history of systemic human rights abuses of women and children, encompassing multiple institutional settings and spanning most of the 20th century: Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, industrial schools and the non-consensual practice of symphysiotomy in hospitals.

The legal responses of the state have been fragmented, generally narrow in approach, and often the subject of censure from various UN Treaty Bodies (see Concluding Observations on Ireland by CAT 2011, 2017, HRC 2014, CESCR 2015, CEDAW 2017), with consistent recommendations to the effect that there must be independent and thorough investigations, prosecution of perpetrators, and adequate redress – i.e. access to justice. However, while Ireland has been increasingly criticised regarding historical abuses of women, the specific issue of historical practices of illegal adoption has not been scrutinised to the same extent.

Therefore, the recent Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children regarding her visit to Ireland is noteworthy due to the detailed concerns expressed by the Special Rapporteur regarding historical practices of illegal adoption (in Mother and Baby Homes and related institutional settings).

The Special Rapporteur stated that not enough has been done “to provide information, accountability and redress” to those who suffered abuse in such institutions (Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries) and “to those who were adopted in a manner that would amount to sale of children under international law”.

In this manner, the Report draws much needed attention to the issue of historical practices of illegal adoption, while also offering a further indictment of Ireland’s poor legal responses to its history of systemic abuses of women and girls, building on the repeated recommendations of UN Treaty Bodies.

Ireland has an extensive history of systemic human rights abuses of women and children, encompassing multiple institutional settings and spanning most of the 20th century: Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, industrial schools and the non-consensual practice of symphysiotomy in hospitals.

The legal responses of the state have been fragmented, generally narrow in approach, and often the subject of censure from various UN Treaty Bodies (see Concluding Observations on Ireland by CAT 2011, 2017, HRC 2014, CESCR 2015, CEDAW 2017), with consistent recommendations to the effect that there must be independent and thorough investigations, prosecution of perpetrators, and adequate redress – i.e. access to justice. However, while Ireland has been increasingly criticised regarding historical abuses of women, the specific issue of historical practices of illegal adoption has not been scrutinised to the same extent.

Therefore, the recent Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children regarding her visit to Ireland is noteworthy due to the detailed concerns expressed by the Special Rapporteur regarding historical practices of illegal adoption (in Mother and Baby Homes and related institutional settings).

The Special Rapporteur stated that not enough has been done “to provide information, accountability and redress” to those who suffered abuse in such institutions (Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries) and “to those who were adopted in a manner that would amount to sale of children under international law”.

In this manner, the Report draws much needed attention to the issue of historical practices of illegal adoption, while also offering a further indictment of Ireland’s poor legal responses to its history of systemic abuses of women and girls, building on the repeated recommendations of UN Treaty Bodies.

Ukrainian surrogate mother is legal mother of the child

A Ukrainian carries a child out for a couple from NRW. The registry office in Kiev registers the Germans as parents, genetically they are. The BGH decides differently.

According to German law, a woman can not register as a mother of her child, who has been delivered by a Ukrainian surrogate mother, to the registry office. Only one adoption is possible, as emerges from a published resolution of the Karlsruhe Federal Court of Justice (BGH). (Az. XII ZB 530/17)

A German couple from North Rhine-Westphalia, whose child had been delivered by a Ukrainian surrogate mother, had filed a suit. Surrogacy is prohibited in Germany.

The BGH referred in this connection to a provision in the Civil Code. Thus, the mother of a child is "the woman who gave birth". The Karlsruhe judges confirmed with their decision a decision of the Higher Regional Court Hamm.

On Thursday, April 25, there will be an opportunity to experience an experienced aid worker in Brovsat.

At a senior gathering at Brovst Baptist Church, Jessie Rosenmeier from Aalborg will talk about her long life as a relief worker in several different places around the world. She will do so at 2 p.m. in the Baptist church.

Jessie Rosenmeier has sometimes been compared to Mother Teresa, whom she also met as a young woman in India.

The focus has always been on street children and children without parents in India, but also in other places around the world.

The last chapter of Saroo Brierley’s life is perhaps the only portion that the general public aren’t yet privy to. After all, the first 31 years went out for public consumption when he penned his tell-all memoir A Long Way Home in 2013, and when British actor Dev Patel took his story not only to the big screen, but to the Academy Awards, too.

But what of everything that came after the happy ending? Well, that thirst to know what has become of Brierley – the Indian child who got lost so far from home that he wound up rehoused in Tasmania, only to go in search of his real mother two decades later with only a faint memory and Google Earth as guidance – can now be satiated. “I’m writing another book,” he tells The National. “It will be the sequel, and Mum’s writing the prequel.”

The sentence is rattled off, just like that, as if each of its components aren’t huge, lifelong achievements for most people. Oh, and there’s one more thing: his story is also being developed into a stage show.

Brierley, now 37, is in the capital this week for the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, alongside other renowned authors flocking in from across the globe, such as Ben Okri and Ziauddin Yousafzai, the father of Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai. The guest of honour this year is India, which is particularly poignant for Brierley. The impending additions to his oeuvre have not yet been officially announced, so he is understandably coy with the finer details.

What he is certain of, however, is how his story will end. “It will finish off with finding my father. I know where he is, but I just haven’t had the strength to finalise that point. It’s an individual thing that you do by yourself, there’s a lot of soul searching.”

Shareable link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Llart9WMkFCy_QpwjAvqRc1lIM9dQiRY

EASTERLOG: A NEW BEGIN

I didn't have to think long about the date of my last weeklog: it had to be Easter Sunday. Not only because the SP has always allowed me to write a purely personal blog twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, where the inspiration that I get from faith was allowed to resound. But certainly also because Easter is the ultimate celebration, which is also a new beginning.

In this month's Tribune, Jobien van de Rijt-van Keulen is speaking in the Left Front section, SP member since 2013 and she said it very nicely: "I live from the basic principle: for each other, for each other, with each other. I recognize that social both in my faith and in the SP ". It is the same for me: through the progressive movements in Christianity I became a socialist, and as an SP man I want to focus not only on the vertical axis of the cross, the worship of God, but also on the horizontal , the conscious life for, by and with others. And struggle together to tackle the negative forces in society, the ikke-ikke-ikke and the holy belief in the "market".

An organization wherever this comes together is the Salvation Army. I am mainly involved as a donor, but in addition to the work for the SP that will continue to come my way in the future, I think it would be wonderful to have time to actively start volunteering, for example. for an organization like the Salvation Army. It is nice to build a different world from far Brussels, it is just as nice to help people in concrete terms through local SP campaigns, but also through other voluntary work.

Through the Salvation Army, I also received the announcement that you could go to the Passion in Concert with a discount (yes, I will remain economical). And so I was in Ahoy yesterday, together with partner Kees, for an overwhelming evening. How well everything came together was clear from the opening and closing number: The World is Van Everyone. We have often sung it at SP meetings, together with the late Thé Lau. Because that's how it is: the world belongs to everyone, everyone belongs to the world. And that is why I will soon have to leave part of that world in July, and in particular the indestructible and always inspiring and challenging SP-Brussels team, but the world is bigger than Brussels. And there will be many new, beautiful encounters in and around Rotterdam. Think of it as a small resurrection, thanks to all the SP people who have made so special in recent years and who I hope to continue to see in the future.

Bavarian beauty with Indian roots

The Kissinger actress Sushila Sara Mai was adopted from an orphanage in Calcutta. On many television appearances, she benefits from her dialect.

Admits is the actress Sushila Sara Mai from the ZDF series "Marie catches fire" or "She seeks him" with Thekla Carola Wied. The Kissingerin was also in front of the camera for the "Kluftingerkrimis" "heart blood" and patron saint ". "I was very proud that I was allowed to play in two Klufting Crimes," says Sushila Sara Mai, who looks refreshingly normal with her jeans and yellow T-shirt. She is also proud that she made it to third place in the competition for the White Sausage Queen title in 2018 (we reported back then).

The 40-year-old with dark eyes is German - but her Indian roots are not to be missed. She lived until the age of three in an orphanage in Calcutta, which was headed by Mother Theresa. The Kissingerin even has some concrete memories of the nun, such as in her very Spartan decorated room.

How Sushila Mai came to Kissing

The Tsipras government on Thursday launched an online platform for child adoption and fostering.

The annoucement was made by Labour Minister Effie Achtsioglou and Alternate Social Solidarity Minister Theano Fotiou who said the new platform will handle applications for adoption and fostering, through which members of the public can apply to adopt or foster a child.

“Today we have put into action a law that was ‘born’ in order to serve children, which it will do since it is, in reality, the implementation of a law that was ground-breaking by the standards of social welfare in the country,” Achtsioglou said.

The ministers made the announcement while visiting the Attica Child Protection Services Section ‘The Mother’.

Achtsioglou said that citizens could also go in person to the social welfare centres in their area.