International law firm Clifford Chance announces its pro bono partnership with the Human Rights Campaign ("HRC") to bring strategic impact litigation in support of LGBT+ rights and equality worldwide. The Firm will serve as international legal partner in this initiative, working jointly with Washington-based HRC to advocate for change and hold organisations and governments that discriminate against the LGBT+ community accountable. HRC is the world's largest LGBT+ civil rights organisation, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters.

The Firm will advise and help HRC staff attorneys write and analyse legislation and regulations, direct and draft amicus briefs, and advise legislators at all levels of government on a wide variety of legal issues related to LGBTQ equality.

Managing Partner Matthew Layton said, "As signatories of the UN's Standard of Conduct for Business for Tackling Discrimination against lesbian, Bi, Trans and Intersex people, Clifford Chance shares HRC's commitment to equality and campaigning. We are uniquely prepared to use the knowledge and skills of our preeminent global Firm to take on these issues, fight for justice and live our values."

“We are proud to collaborate with Clifford Chance as we expand our existing legal work both in the United States and around the globe," said HRC President Alphonso David. "Adding domestic and international impact litigation to our approach gives us a critical tool to fight against oppressive legislative and policy measures, and better advocate for LGBTQ rights. This is a natural extension of the legal advocacy the Human Rights Campaign has been doing for nearly four decades."

Tiernan Brady, Global Head of Inclusion added: “At Clifford Chance we are committed to ensuring that LGBT+ people enjoy the same status and standing as everyone else. And when you believe in a set of values then you have to go out and fight for them every day, and that's exactly what we intend to do. We are delighted to be partnering with the HRC in this shared mission."

If one was to dive into Indian English literature, one would probably come across Bhisham Sahni’s renowned short story – Pali. Set against the backdrop of the partition of India, Pali narrates the story of a young boy (the titular character) who gets accidentally separated from his family as they leave from the then newly formed Pakistan and make their way to India.

Stranded and scared, Pali desperately tries to find his parents at the railway station and hopes to return to the safety of his family. He is soon found by a man who sells chinaware for a living. The man takes pity on the boy and brings him home to his wife. The kind couple then decide to adopt him and raise him as their own. Though this story touches on the many political aspects of the partition like religion, love, loss, and family, it also explores the emotion of belonginess in adopted children.

In India, there is a taboo around the concept of adoption. Firstly, our society puts immense importance on the idea of a woman conceiving and giving birth to a child. Since times immemorial women are repeatedly conditioned to believe that one of the most important purposes of their being is to give birth to a child.

Women are taught that failing to comply with this expectation will put a stain on their “femininity” because motherhood is positioned as the ultimate role that “completes” a woman. The inability to bear a child is considered to be a ‘curse‘ and often renders the lady socially ostracized, as well as branded ‘inauspicious‘. The reinforcement of this idea puts enormous pressure on women who face difficulty in conceiving.

All these beliefs and perceptions are something families who have adopted kids have to deal with all the time. But it is paramount to recognise that these choices are entirely personal, and nobody is allowed to dictate what type of family is a “true” or “real” family. A family is made of similarities and differences. It is composed of arguments and agreements

Last week, the Flemish Government concluded a political agreement that should lay the foundation for an ambitious reform of the Flemish legislation on intercountry adoption. The Flemish Government has decided today that it will accept the expert panel's proposal to draw up a concrete action plan to guarantee that future intercountry adoptions take place correctly and ethically. Minister responsible Wouter Beke: 'This plan will be drawn up in close consultation with the stakeholders. The Growing Up Agency has already made the first contacts for this. Hearings in parliament will also start next week. I'm looking forward to the debate.'

The action plan will contain the following guidelines:

There is still a future for intercountry adoption in Flanders , always in the interest of the child;

' Multi-parenting ' is an important basic idea in adoption, which means, among other things, that 'first parents' remain involved as much as possible;

We are strengthening cooperation with the countries of origin ;

From the director of acclaimed independent films "Gook" and "Ms. Purple," "Blue Bayou," tells the story of a uniquely American family, faced with a devastating dilemma. Justin Chon directs, wrote and stars in the project, set in a vibrant and diverse Louisiana community.

Chon portrays Antonio LeBlanc, a Korean American man who was adopted and came to the U.S. at age 3, and has lived a life of struggle and tragedy. He finds purpose and joy in his family, including his pregnant wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander), and his young stepdaughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske). But Antonio stands to lose everything when an incident with a racist local cop leads to his detainment by ICE, which threatens to deport Antonio over a complex loophole in immigration policy despite the U.S. being the only country he's ever known.

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Through the many challenges and heartbreaking moments of "Blue Bayou," Antonio's loving relationship with stepdaughter Jessie, and his deep connection with a local Vietnamese woman named Parker (Linh Dan Pham), who is struggling to come to terms with her own fate, radiate comfort and warmth. Antonio's is a fundamentally human story, shining light on the real families that suffer from rigid and dehumanizing immigration policies, on the vibrant and expansive Asian communities in the South, and the diverse faces and stories of adoptees.

"I wanted to do justice to the adoptee community and their experience," Chon told Salon. His movie is dedicated to them, and with the guidance of real adoptees, it's meant to shatter myths and honor their struggles and experiences.

The man at the centre of an illegal adoption scheme involving Marshall Islands babies is facing even more time in American prison after sentencing by an Arizona court.

Paul Petersen was an adoption lawyer and county assessor in the US state of Arizona, who was already serving a six year federal sentence for conspiring to smuggle Marshall Islands women and babies in the state of Arkansas.

Petersen will now spend at least 11 years in jail after being hit with an additional five year sentence for running a similar scheme in Arizona.

His crimes included fraudulently enrolling Marshallese birth mothers in Arizona's Medicaid system and cheating the state out of USD $800,000 as part of his adoption business.

One of the US-based adoptive mothers told the court that Petersen's crimes had caused great damage to her family.

The public outcry about the adoption break, which has since been discontinued, diverts attention from what the discussion should really be about. So says Sophie Withaeckx, who was part of the expert panel on intercountry adoption for two years. "The experience of adoptees who have been victims of systematic malpractice is real."

BI was part of the expert panel on intercountry adoption for almost two years. In this I contributed to a thorough reflection on the question of whether and how it is possible to prevent malpractice in intercountry adoption. The final report was drawn up on the basis of intensive research from various scientific disciplines.

The report includes 20 recommendations. On the one hand, they are aimed at a thorough reform of the adoption landscape, and on the other hand, they aim to do justice to adoptees who have become victims of malpractice. The latter can be done, among other things, by expanding aftercare, providing remedial measures and offering public apologies to victims.

The adoption break is necessary for a thoroughly reformed adoption practice that must be free from malpractice.

After the report was published, there was immediate outrage. Unfortunately not because intercountry adoption can still be accompanied by malpractice, but because of the recommendation to take an adoption break pending the reform of the system. That pause is, however, necessary for a thoroughly reformed adoption practice that must be free from malpractice.

325Kamra plans to gather DNA from Korean women and biological relatives who have relinquished children to international adoption.

Sarah Savidakis, 55, lived in South Korea until she was nine years old, at which time she was adopted by a Connecticut family.

For Savidakis, who says she has grappled with the effects of early childhood trauma, memories of her life in Korea — including those of her birth mother — vanished around the time she arrived in the United States in 1970.

“I have some flashbacks here and there,” Savidakis, who lives in Tarpon Springs, Florida, told NBC News. “But to this day, my mother is [like] a ghost or a silhouette.”

Savidakis is among the thousands of mixed-race children born in the aftermath of the Korean War to American or U.N. soldier fathers and Korean mothers — many of whom were adopted into American families.

When Viktor Adolfsson was very young, he and a sister were adopted from Romania, and they grew up together in a family in Örebro.

But many more siblings remained in Romania, and in 2009 Viktor received help from the TV program Spårlöst to find them.

Not a day goes by without Viktor thinking about how grateful he is that he was adopted, and how much he wants to help his siblings to a better life.

Anna Björndahl

anna.bjorndahl@sverigesradio.se

Six Congolese orphans who were adopted by Belgian families arrived in Brussels today after months of being held in limbo in Kinshasa. The Congolese authorities kept the children in the country’s capital since November following a Congolese moratorium on adoptions, according to Foreign Minister Didier Reynders.

“Several diplomatic efforts with the Congolese government have paid off,” said Reynders, who has said that he understands that the local authorities want to make sure the adoptions are in the best interest of the children, but reiterates that Belgium follows stringent and strict procedures when it comes to adoption. The children left Kinshasa yesterday aboard a Brussels Airlines flight, and arrived this morning in Zaventem.

The Congolese government established the moratorium on international adoptions in November because of suspicion of fraud and human trafficking. Unable to take their children home, seven adoptive parents were temporarily stuck in the Congolese capital, despite favourable court rulings in Belgium and the DRC. A Belgian woman who ended up in jail after trying to flee the country with her adoptive child is still detained, reports VRT.

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The Democratic Republic of Congo has agreed to lift its suspension on international adoptions for "about 70" families, including all 11 cases in Belgium, the Belgian foreign affairs minister told local media on Tuesday.

Belgian public broadcaster RTBF reports that Belgian families have been waiting two years to be united with the Congolese orphans they adopted, after the central African nation's president Joseph Kabila ordered in September 2013 that exit permits for adopted children should be suspended.

Belgian foreign affairs minister Didier Reynders told RTBF: "We have received confirmation from the Congolese justice ministry that the children can come to Belgium."

He said that "about 70" cases involving adoptive families from several countries had been resolved. Some of the 11 children due to head to Belgium will arrive in Brussels later this week.

Reynders said the Belgian embassy in Congo was in the process of organizing the children's journey to Brussels and he would be meeting the parents on Nov. 4.