Hello everyone. Will briefly tell you about my trip to Bangladesh. I have visited the orphanage in Chittagong where I lived before I came to DK. I was very surprised when I had not expected to get information about my biological mother. The orphanage had the names of my mother and father. My father died before I was handed over to the orphanage. From the surname, my family is Hindu. There was also an address, but it does not exist. The orphanage told that it is not unusual to write a false address. I met a lovely family who is very well known in the Christian environment and has helped with adoptions for many years. They want to help, so the search is still ongoing. Unfortunately, we have no more time for this time in Bangladesh. We hope the next trip will yield results. As my husband says, now knows where my talkability and stubbornness come from

Danish:

Hej Alle. Vil kort fortælle om min tur til Bangladesh. Jeg har besøgt børnehjemmet i Chittagong, hvor jeg boede inden jeg kom til DK. Jeg blev meget overrasket, da jeg ikke havde forventet at få information om min biologiske mor. Børnehjemmet havde navnene på min mor og far. Min far døde inden jeg blev overdraget til børnehjemmet. Ud fra efternavnet er min familie hindu. Der var også en adresse, men den eksisterer ikke. Børnehjemmet fortalte, at det ikke er unormalt at man skriver en falsk adresse. Jeg mødte en dejlig familie, som er meget kendt i det kristne miljø og har hjulpet med adoptioner igennem mange år. De vil gerne hjælpe, så eftersøgningen er stadig i gang. Vi har desværre ikke mere tid for denne gang i Bangladesh. Vi håber næste tur giver resultat. Som min mand siger, nu ved hvor min snaksaglighed og stædighed kommer fra????????????

?

Special Advisor for Children’s Issues Suzanne Lawrence hails ‘good relationship’ with Argentine authorities during visit to Buenos Aires.

Last year, in the 2018 Annual Report on International Child Abduction, pub l i s h e d b y U S S t a t e Depar tment’s Office of Children’s Issues, Argentina was listed as a country demonstrating a pattern of noncompliance with international protocol.

According to the study, Argentina failed to adhere to the International Parental Child Abduction (IPCA) Convention, a treaty that falls under The Hague Convention, a private international law instrument. Both the United States and Argentina are signatories to it, as well as 100 other countries worldwide.

The topic was on the agenda for Suzanne Lawrence, the Special Advisor for Children’s Issues for the US State Department, as she visited Argentina this week. The US official met with national authorities in Buenos Aires to discuss issues relating to international child abduction, as well as to intercountry adoption.

According to the2018 report, published last April by Lawrence’s department, there were five child abduction cases in total, involving six children, between the two nations in 2017. Three were continuations of incidents from the year prior. By the end of the year, two cases were resolved and none were closed.

The relevance of the Hague Children’s Conventions in the African context will be under the spotlight this week and key to discussions will be the Child Abduction Convention and the Inter-country Adoption Convention.

International mobility and the opening up of borders linked to increasing globalisation have given rise to serious risks for children caught up in cross-border situations. On one hand, there is the risk of cross-border trafficking of children for economic, sexual or other exploitation. On the other, there are children caught up in fractured relationships within transnational families, with disputes over custody and relocation, the hazards of international child abduction, and the problems of maintaining contact and enforcing claims for child support across international borders.

Then there is the phenomenon of inter-country adoption. This expanded slowly after World War II until the 1970s, when the numbers increased considerably. By the 1980s, this phenomenon was causing complex social and legal problems in the absence of existing domestic and international regulatory legal instruments. In more recent years, Africa has become the new frontier for inter-country adoption, with the much publicised inter-country adoptions by the likes of Madonna and Angelina Jolie being only the tip of the iceberg.

The general norms that should apply to the protection of children in these cross-border situations in Africa are to be found in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (CRC) and in the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 1990 (African Charter). All African countries have ratified the CRC, while the African Charter has been ratified by 47 African states, including South Africa.

These norms consist of the general principles of the child’s best interest, non-discrimination, and the child’s right to be heard. In addition, there are the more specific principles applicable to cross-border situations, such as the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, and the principles governing inter-country adoption.

Tourists and volunteers have always been deeply touched by the plight of orphans in Nepal. The orphanage business has experienced exponential growth since the 2015 earthquake, which devastated Nepal. However, recent findings point to illegal trade in some of the orphanages in which many Australians unknowingly fund. Australia has now launched an enquiry with an aim to establish a Modern Slavery Act. Jessica Cortis reports.

“We never spoke about how much we missed our parents with people from the orphanage. They [the carers] scolded us and threatened to beat us so we were afraid to ask about them,” says Alisha, 12.

Softly spoken and shy in nature, Alisha says she thought about her parents all the time. She is among hundreds of orphans in Nepal who have been taken into the care of Forget Me Not.

Established in 2005, Forget Me Not is a non- government organisation in Australia that has helped fund and run an orphanage in Nepal. It was founded by Australian volunteer Andrea Nave, who realised through her own volunteering experience that raising orphans like Alisha with the help of volunteers was unethical. These orphans needed continuous care, leading her to employ local Nepalese carers who could ensure a culturally appropriate upbringing for the children. By 2011, the number of orphans in the care of Forget Me Not grew to 21.

Back home in Australia, people were excited to undertake the new responsibility of sponsoring Forget Me Not’s orphans. From paying educational expenses, living costs, the up keep of caregivers and medical care, Australian sponsors thought they were doing these orphans a world of good.

Address:

First Market Tower

525 Market Street, 33rd Floor

San Francisco, California 94105-2708

U.S.A.

A French couple's four-year wait to have children ended on Wednesday after they adopted two brothers, Vinayak (6) and Vignesh (5) from Shishu Gruh of Ahmedabad. The family flew to France on Wednesday night.

An adoption ceremony was held at the Shishu Gruh, located in Paldi, where Police Commissioner AK Singh and other officials of the orphanage were present. After the formalities of adoption were completed, the brothers were handed over to Jeremy and Madeline Platin, residents of Pont de L'arche in France.

Madeline's father was a traveller and had stayed in India for a considerable period. When the couple was planning to adopt a kid, her father suggested that they consider adopting a child from India. The couple started making the efforts four years ago.

As per officials, the brothers were found by locals the Sadarnagar police from near Kubernagar railway crossing on April 30, 2018. The cops, who collected the duo, later handed them over to Shishu Gruh. It was revealed during the investigation that the brothers lost both parents early in life and didn't have any relatives.

On August 16, 2018, after the legal formalities, the brothers were registered with the Central Adoption Resources Authorities (CARA) for adoption on the condition that both be adopted together. There were several couples who came forward to adopt but nothing materialised until Jeremy and Madeline agreed to the condition.

A report has found that right-wing non-profits in the US have ramped up spending on lobbying and campaigns in Europe. It comes amid fears that far-right parties could make big gains in European elections this May.

Right-wing Christian groups in the United States spent at least $50 million (€56 million) on supporting far-right activists and campaigns in Europe in recent years, according to an investigative report.

Publicly available financial filings showed 15 conservative non-profit organizations spent some $51 million in Europe from 2008 to 2017, the report by UK-based openDemocracy found.

The filings did not detail what the money was spent on, but openDemocracy said the groups used it to:

lobby European Union officials

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear after two weeks a fresh plea alleging that CBI tried to "shield the real perpetrators" in the

Muzaffarpur shelter home case by not conducting proper probe on "crucial leads" which are available on record. Several girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at an NGO-run shelter home at Muzaffarpur in Bihar and the issue had come to light following a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

The probe into the case was transferred to CBI and the agency has chargesheeted 21 people, including prime accused Brajesh Thakur. The fresh application was mentioned on Thursday for urgent hearing before a bench of justices S A Bobde and S A Nazeer which said the matter would be heard

after two weeks. The plea, filed through advocate Fauzia Shakil, has sought a direction to the CBI to carry out a thorough, proper and scientific probe into the case.

"It is evident from the statement of victims that a large scale prostitution racket was being run by prime accused Brajesh Thakur. "From the perusal of the charge sheet, it is apparent that CBI is trying to shield the real perpetrators and has intentionally avoided to investigate the leads given by the victims about the outsiders and alleged friends of Thakur who were involved in the offence," the plea said.

Georgiana Pascu ?i Bogdan Simion dezbat subiectul adop?iei copiilor

De ce nu ajung ace?ti copii în familii, afla?i de la Georgiana Pascu si Bogdan Simion Simion

n

AHMEDABAD: When Vinayak, 6 (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/6), started speaking in broken French at Shishu Gruh

on Wednesday, Jeremy and Madeline Platin, residents of Pont De L’Arche in northern France, had tears in their eyes. Their fouryear wait to adopt children from India ended with the formalities of adoption getting completed. The couple will fly to France

from Delhi on Wednesday night with Vinayak, 6, and Vignesh (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/and-Vignesh), 5

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/5).

The brothers, mention Shishu Gruh officials, were found from near Kubernagar railway crossing exactly a year ago in April 2018.