22 Flemish babies were given up for adoption last year

In 2018, 22 children in Flanders were ceded for adoption and adopted by other Flemish families. This is according to figures from Adoptiehuis, which mediates in all Flemish inland adoptions. Two of the children came from the foundling slider. In two cases, the mother finally returned to her steps. Het Nieuwsblad and Het Belang van Limburg report this today.

Adoptiehuis guides women who become unwantedly pregnant and seek a solution for their unborn baby. Last year, 73 women approached the organization. Seventeen of them decided after supervision and consultation to give their child up for adoption. The majority of the women had Belgian nationality, and for the majority it was a first pregnancy.

Of the 56 other women, the majority decided to keep the child, or they found a different solution. "We are not looking for adoptions," explains director Iris Vandeborre. “We are trying to find a solution. Adoption is the last link in youth care. In addition, Adoptiehuis was only called in by the hospital for five other children on the day of birth.

Two mothers eventually returned to their steps within two months - the legal reflection time.

A court in Berlin has sentenced two people, living in Greece and accused of trafficking minors, to almost two years on probation. The Asian couple, however, only played a small role in a major trafficking ring, the court found.

The couple reportedly started to illegally bring children into Germany in November 2018, using their eight-year-old son's identity documents to pass the trafficked children off as their own at passport control at Berlin's Tegel airport.

After four successful instances, Bangladeshi-born Kader A. and his Indonesian wife Helena S. failed and were arrested at Tegel Airport during their last attempt in January 2019.

They told the court on Wednesday that they had reportedly been recruited by a major human trafficking ring based in Athens after their tailoring business in Athens had tanked, leaving them in severe debt. They also revealed that they were offered €1,500 each time they trafficked a minor.

Small cogs in big wheel

Michel apologizes to the children of the colony

Prime Minister Michel apologizes tomorrow for the way our country has treated hundreds of metis. "The ultimate recognition of an injustice."

"Everything passes, except the past," says sociologist Luc Huyse. During a ceremony in the Chamber on Thursday, Prime Minister Charles Michel would like to apologize for the harrowing way in which the Belgian government has treated hundreds of metis. These are children who were born in the late 40s and 50s in Congo, Rwanda or Burundi from a relationship between a Belgian colonial and a native woman. On the eve of independence, the state systematically took those children away from the mother and sent them to Belgium to be raised in orphanages or with adoptive parents.

The stories are simply poignant. The children did not automatically acquire Belgian nationality - often they remained stateless - and were immediately separated from their mother and any brothers and sisters. A vast majority of fathers refused to acknowledge the children. Metissen is still looking for possible relatives in Africa. But mothers too have spent their entire lives searching for the children who had been taken from them.

Third-rate Belgian

Baby trade in Sri Lanka: Controversial broker has placed children in Aargau

The Confederation and the cantons have to investigate adoption practice in the 1980s.

Switzerland has to work up a dark chapter. The federal parliament has sent a postulate about a year ago, which asks to investigate the placement of children from Sri Lanka in the 1980s. The Federal Office of Justice now has one more year to fulfill the demands of the postulate. Because the cantons were responsible for the supervision of the adoption mediators in the 1980s, the federal government relies on their assistance to find out more about the adoption practice at that time.

Canton is waiting

In the canton of Aargau, the responsible Department of Economics and the Interior confirms that it has been informed by the Federal Government about the subject. "So far we have not received a specific order," says spokesman Samuel Helbling. "But we are in the process of scouring our dossiers so that we are ready when the federal government comes up with concrete questions."

Heather Franklin could spend at least seven years in prison for her role in conspiring with her husband, Ernest, to murder their 16-year-old adopted son, Jeffrey.

The couple tried to conceal the killing by setting fire to their Chenango County home.

On Tuesday, the day before her trial was set to begin, Heather Franklin pleaded guilty in Chenango County Court to felony counts of first-degree manslaughter, third-degree arson and tampering with physical evidence.

She's facing consecutive prison terms for all three charges, which could add up to 11 years behind bars.

The Chenango County District Attorney's Office argued Ernest and Heather Franklin hatched a plot to kill their 16-year-old disabled son after watching the Oscar-winning film "Manchester by the Sea" the night of Feb. 28, 2017. The film tells the story of a man who accidentally sets a fire that kills his children. He wasn’t prosecuted.

Press release

Are officials in the process of abolishing international adoption in Denmark?

The association Adoption & Samfund fears that this is happening!

In a recently published terms of reference for a study of an economically viable model in the adoption area, it appears that officials from the National Board of Appeal (AST) and the Ministry of Children and Social Affairs must draft proposals for a new model for international adoption.

The proposal must be formulated without any form of involvement of adopters and adopters and according to the terms of reference of the commission only with a very limited involvement of other stakeholders. The officials from AST, who primarily take decisions in appeals and in addition conduct financial and legal oversight of the Danish intermediary organization, DIA, Danish International Adoption, have absolutely no practical experience with the extremely important adoption work. This work takes place with great integrity in a close collaboration and in trusting and respectful dialogue with the countries, authorities and organizations from which the adopted children come, including with the deepest understanding of the child's origin, biological genus, etc.

The industry's overregulation is making it increasingly difficult for willing families to take the plunge and attempt international adoption.

Rachel Garber always knew she wanted to adopt a child. Besides having grown up with five adopted siblings, in 2007 she made a memorable trip to the Chinese city of Xi’an, where she spent a month volunteering at a home for abandoned babies. “During this trip my feelings on adoption were solidified,” she says. “I met my husband Ryan in 2010, and he knew right away that if we got married, we would end up going to China for a child.”

While those plans were temporarily put on hold after their son Nixon was born with special needs, in 2017 the Garbers were finally matched with a little boy in China. After committing to his file, they learned that he was from the very city where Rachel had previously volunteered: Xi’an. “It was meant to be,” she says.

Rachel and Ryan brought their second son, Nolan, home from China to Wyoming last year. Today he is 3 1/2 years old and thriving. His mom describes him as “very loving and yet very strong-willed!” A nearby doctor happens to be the foremost authority in Nolan’s area of medical need. “From the moment we met our son, he has been a joy,” Rachel says. “We have had many hard days, or days where I question my ability, but I can’t imagine our life without him.”

In a nation where tens of thousands of families have adopted children from overseas, the Garbers’ story may sound familiar. But it is a story that is growing increasingly rare. International adoptions to America have been falling dramatically for the past 15 years, and a recent report shows that the decline hasn’t slowed.

First day, at

03:13:20 Nigel about adoptees/roots searches

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BOSTON - Millions of children are in need and there are thousands of willing families, but international adoptions fell again in 2018.

This is an issue we first uncovered with our reporting on State of Adoption, and the situation is only getting worse.

The number of children from other countries adopted by U.S. families dropped 13 percent to an historic low of 4,000 children.

Adoption advocates blame the U.S. State Department.

"They've put new, very restrictive policies in place that make it more difficult to advocate for children, more difficult for families, more expensive for families, and now the amount of time it takes to adopt and the children available for adoption is making it such that fewer and fewer children are finding families," Ryan Hanlon, a representative from the National Council for Adoption, said.

In: The Hague Central - April 2019

www.denhaagcentraal.net

It is good that abuses are now being denounced, but we must not break through by advocating just one type of care for children in developing countries. That does not work here either, says expert Philip Veerman.

Abuses For some orphanages in Uganda, recruiters set out to convince poor single mothers in the villages that children are better off in an orphanage. There are also orphanages that run on volunteers from abroad (hence the term "orphanage tourism"). If children attach themselves to volunteers, they return after a while and children have to face another disappointment. For some rogue "entrepreneurs", children are a source of income. Anthropologist Kristen Cheney of the Institute for Social Studies in The Hague called this the "orphan industrial complex". By sending volunteers you maintain everything. The road to wrongdoing is paved with good intentions.