The gang, over five years, sold 28 infants for amounts ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. The babies were aged anywhere between 10 days to three months.

The follow-up investigations into the kidnapping of a newborn child from a Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) hospital last year has led to the busting of a large network that was allegedly involved in selling infants in southern India. The Bengaluru police have, so far, rescued 15 children and arrested five members of the network.

The sources said that the gang, over five years, sold 28 infants for amounts ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. The babies were aged anywhere between 10 days to three months. The gang had networks in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala.

The arrested are identified as Devi Shanmugham, Ranjana Devi Das, Mahesh Kumar, Dhanalakshmi and Janardhanan, all living in Bengaluru. Rathna, a resident of Vijayanagar and the alleged kingpin of the gang, died of Covid-19 and that has affected the investigation, said the police.

According to the police sources, the network identified those couples who were in need of children and those who were ready to sell them. In some cases, they also stole newborn babies from hospitals to sell them.

A parliamentary commission of inquiry is needed!

The dossier of this issue, exceptional for its scope and the variety of contributions, intends to review international adoption, by examining the evolution of international and national regulations and by pointing out abuses and shortcomings, sometimes of a criminal nature, that these procedures have known.

He also largely gives the floor to people who were adopted as children, to show how these shortcomings had long hidden, minimized, ignored consequences on their life, their development, the construction of their personality and their personal journey. . One of the most striking aspects is the construction of identity, in a context where most of the time, important components of this notion are non-existent, have disappeared, have been deliberately destroyed.

Hence, obviously, the focus on the search for origins which sometimes leads to the discovery of illegalities and criminal behavior. This research is therefore of capital, even vital, importance for adopted children, and requires support and accompaniment. We will see that this is also where the shoe pinches cruelly.

We cannot ignore the role of the actors involved in intercountry adoption. We thus explain the structures set up in Belgium and their missions (including the Higher Adoption Council, the COSA), evoke the local actors in the countries of origin of the children, and analyze more particularly the role of the intermediaries of the intercountry adoption, including accredited bodies, which had, and some of them still have, crushing responsibilities in criminal actions. We will not ignore the financial dimension that makes international adoption a lucrative business, which some consider more lucrative than drug trafficking!

A very mischievous duo is currently playing in the musical 'The Bodyguard'. Twin brothers Bekema and Sahladin (10) were born in Ethiopia, but after their adoption ended up in two different families. Bekema lives with his parents in Lokeren, his brother found a home in Lede. “Later we will live in villas next to each other. If we have enough money. With a large garage for our two cars: Teslas and Range Rovers”, says Sahladin enthusiastically. My brother agrees completely, except that he prefers Jeeps anyway.

Long before Angelina Jolie, Mia Farrow and Madonna made headlines with their adoptive families, 1920s star Josephine Baker tried to combat racism by adopting 12 children of various ethnic backgrounds from around the world. Today the members of her "rainbow tribe" are still searching for their identity.

He is trying to describe what it was like to grow up here, to trace the vestiges of his childhood, but not much of that remains in this chateau that was once his home.

Today Akio Bouillon, a slight, affable man of Japanese origin, can only serve as a guide through an exhibit that pays tribute to his dead mother. In the former living room, a dozen of her robes are now displayed on headless mannequins, and in the study lies a semi-nude wax figure of Bouillon's mother, with a string of flowers draped around the neck. The "banana skirt" that made her famous hangs in a glass case; strips of gold material in the shape of bananas are attached to a narrow belt. His mother was the singer and entertainer Josephine Baker.

Bouillon, her oldest adopted son, turned 57 in July. He walks across creaking floorboards and into Baker's bathroom, with its black tiles and Dior bottles, and then into a series of rooms filled with photos, posters and her jewelry. Somewhere in this labyrinth is the small room where Bouillon slept as a child. Today, the bed is cordoned off from the hallway with a velvet rope, and a sign admonishes visitors not to touch anything.

He stands in front of the bed, smiles faintly and says that it was a nice childhood, for him and his 11 siblings.

The incident came to light when agency coordinator Chandra Shekhar Singh noticed injuries on hands and legs of the girl, who was then admitted at sadar hospital on Friday.

A female warden of a child adoption agency at Bhabua in Bihar’s Kaimur district, accused of burning a three-year-old orphan girl with a hot tong for defecating on bed, has been booked by the police and dismissed from her job, officials said.

The girl was brought to the agency from Sasaram railway station on September 4.

The incident came to light when agency coordinator Chandra Shekhar Singh noticed injuries on hands and legs of the girl, who was then admitted at sadar hospital on Friday.

When asked about the injuries, the warden told the coordinator it could be of an insect bite, but doctors at the hospital confirmed they were burn injuries and informed the authorities.

Adoptees must be allowed to know their biological origin. That is the opinion of Maria Klingsholm, who today still does not know why she was adopted from India. The information about her adoption is extremely sparse.

For a long time she did not give it a thought. Just wondering why she was treated differently from the other kids in town, and just trying to fit in. Maria Klingsholm was adopted from India and came to Denmark just four months old. She therefore does not remember any other parents than the Danish couple who have taken care of her since they picked her up at the airport. Today she is 39 years old and still does not know why she grew up in Birkerød and not Bangalore.

“I have not been told anything other than that it says in my papers that I was with my mother until October, when I was admitted to an orphanage. It does not say anything about why, "she says.

It also says she was born on September 2, 1974. She's not sure she believes that. As she says, "you can not know that." Just like she can only guess at what happened up until the adoption.

"I have always been told by my adoptive parents that my biological mother was probably dead or could not afford a child, and then I ended up as a street child," she says.

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Jin Vilsgaard

Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 at 13:58

Subject: documents reg. closing of Terres Des Hommes adoption agency in dk

To: arundohle@gmail.com

NEW YORK, 1 October 2021 – “The Ethiopian Government’s decision to expel the UNICEF representative in the country – along with other members of the UN leadership team – is regrettable and alarming.

“UNICEF has been present in Ethiopia for more than 60 years, working to advance and protect the rights of the most vulnerable children. As the humanitarian situation in the country deteriorates – with children bearing its biggest brunt – our work is more urgent than ever. We have full confidence in the teams working on the ground to save children’s lives, guided – as always – by the principles of impartiality, humanity, neutrality and independence. Our programmes will continue. Our one and only priority is to support the children who urgently need our help, wherever they are.”

”

Today, white-coated professionals tell parents of children with gender dysphoria: affirm your child’s trans identity right away or prepare for suicide. Are those really the only two options? For a movement that decries the binary, its commitment to this false dichotomy is relentless.

I was sixteen the first time I heard my mother curse.

She was worn and weary—stretched beyond her maternal limits. From delirious dreams, I sat up, mumbling that I felt sick. From her own crumpled position in a bedside chair, Mom scrambled for the emesis bowl too late, triggering her exasperated expletive. Who could blame her, after our late-night trip to the ER and the projectile vomiting that began as soon as I walked through the hospital’s sliding doors?

I felt so bad about the mess I was making. I apologized profusely in between heaves, reaching out and cupping my hands to try to catch it, as if that would somehow help. Soon a thin tube was up my nose and down my throat, liquid charcoal slowly descending, making its way to my stomach to absorb the numerous prescriptions I consumed in my first major suicide attempt. Most of what had been in our downstairs bathroom medicine chest was now in me.

After sexual abuse at age ten, my subsequent years had been filled with suicidal ideation. I hated myself, and I hated my female body, scorning it as the source of my vulnerability and betrayal. As I developed, I sought an androgynous appearance, which for me was both a style and a shield. I could tie a man’s necktie as deftly and neatly as my father, I wore one so often.

It sounded sincere and promising when I was approached 1.5 years ago to work out the content of the ancestry center's application for recognition. In retrospect, I think the main reasons why I was recruited by some of the members of the core steering committee at the time was because:

I was the only one who had ever officially been part of Vandeurzen's working group on parentage information and therefore had a lot of information as knowledge > 1 of the recommendations that we put forward as a working group at the time was the establishment of a parentage center

the group of donor children needed to be represented and I have a large following, expertise and built-up credibility

Other members of the then core steering committee were Jacqui Goegebeur, Benoît Vermeerbergen, Miranda Ntirandekura Aerts and Atamhi Cawayu. Foster care was approached to submit the application together with us, as only an organization with a recognition or license within the policy area Welfare, Public Health and Family could compete for the recognition.

In May 2020, we started working diligently, we worked out the project proposal, and Foster Care submitted it. At the end of August 2020, we received the good news from Growing up that our file had scored best based on various criteria and was therefore awarded the recognition.