Number of international adoptions historically low in Flanders

Last year, barely 32 foreign children found a new home with a Flemish family through adoption. In 2017 there were 59 and in 2012 even 122. This is according to figures that Flemish MP Katrien Schryvers (CD&V) requested from the Minister of Welfare Vandeurzen (CD&V).

The number of intercountry adoptions has been declining for years. In 2012, another 122 children from abroad were adopted in Flanders. Even then, there was a downward trend. After 2012 - the year in which the parliament approved a new decree on intercountry adoption - the number of intercountry adoptions fell even further. From 2013 there were never more than seventy and in 2018 there are barely 32 intercountry adoptions, a historically low figure.

The 32 children adopted internationally in 2018 come from twelve different countries (Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, China, Philippines, Haiti, India, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Thailand, United States, Vietnam, South Africa). Not only did far fewer adoptions occur in 2018, a number of channels also remained inactive or were stopped completely. Children were still adopted from Chile, Ethiopia, Guinea and Poland in 2017, but not in 2018 anymore.

"The number of intercountry adoptions has fallen sharply worldwide in recent years, and that may not increase spectacularly again in the coming years," says CD&V MP Katrien Schryvers. According to her, there are various causes for the relapse. For example, there is more focus on reception in the countries of origin. "The number of children adopted from the same channel is also very limited. New channels are being investigated, but that requires a lot of expertise and time. It is therefore appropriate that the three adoption services that are active in Flanders coordinate their operations better and investigate how close cooperation can be achieved. Only in this way can the necessary expertise be retained. "

11. The Convent of the House of Good Shepherd in St. Louis, Missouri, a Home for “Wayward Girls”

St. Louis was a booming river city at the onset of the 19th century. When industry encroached upon the privacy of the wealthy, they donated or sold off their estates and moved to the country. In 1851, a prominent family donated their land and built a home for the Sisters of the Good Shepherd to house “wayward young women.” The stone and brick complex was not heated, took up an entire city block, and was incased by a 12 foot brick wall. Within the walls of the house unwed mothers gave birth to illegitimate children who were forcibly removed from their birthmothers and adopted.

Young women arrested for sex offenses were sent to the Home and forced to live cloistered lives as seamstresses, lace makers, and laundry girls. Their names were changed and they were forbidden contact from the outside world. When family members did arrive to take home their sisters or daughters, the were often greeted by a young woman who showed signs of physical abuse, starvation, and in some instances even pregnant (although she was not pregnant upon entering the convent!). In 1900 the convent moved to the western reaches of the city limits. Urban renewal forced the closure of the House of Good Shepherd in 1969.

10. Farm Girl Inmates at Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, Australia

Samuel Moss traveled to Australia and made a fortune in gold mining. He donated money and land to construct the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne. The complex had many buildings as well as farmland. In the 1840s Irish sisters from the Order fo the Good Shepherd arrived to run the farm, orphanage, and reform and industrial schools. Any girl that was considered to be in “moral danger” was sent to the convent by family members, parish priests, or police as a way to protect their virtue.

170 children died in UP adoption homes in five years: Govt data

Over the past five years, UP witnessed death of 170 children in the state-run adoption centres. This figure, revealed as part of data furnished by the union ministry of women and child development in the ongoing Parliament session, is only marginally lower than Maharashtra’s 172 over the same period.

LUCKNOW Updated: Feb 20, 2019 12:27 IST

Saurabh Chauhan

Hindustan Times, Lucknow

Girl child preferred: As many as 33 girls and 10 boys adopted by couples from outside India, last year. Parents in India adopt 94 girls and 49 boys.

Inter-country adoption of children from Uttar Pradesh is on the rise. Records of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), a pan-India agency, show that more and more foreigners and non-resident Indians (NRI) are opening their arms to children from the state. Also, in both international and in-country adoptions, there is a marked preference for the girl child.

According to CARA, 43 children from UP were adopted by parents located outside India, in 2018. This is ten times more than the number of inter-country adoptions witnessed by the state in 2014-15 -- four.

In another heartening development, the state, where the sex ratio is 913 females against 1,000 males, 49 boys and as many as 94 girls were adopted by domestic couples last year.

An official of the state women and child development department, Puneet Mishra, said, “Now, things are changing. Even in-country adoptions have a fair share of girl children.”

Parliament’s President Antonio Tajani has found himself facing the music for the second time in less than a week.

This time, the Italian member is under fire for reportedly accepting an invitation to attend the World Congress of Families conference in Italy.

Campaigners and MEPs say the event is organised by the International Organisation for the Family (IOF), saying this is an “umbrella organisation known for its anti-LGBTI agenda.”

A letter sent by a group of MEPs from the assembly’s Intergroup on LGBTI Rights asks Tajani not to attend the event or to support it.

The letter, seen by this website, says, “Until 13 February, Antonio Tajani was listed as one of the main speakers at the World Congress of Families in Verona (29-31 March).”

Related: 30 years later, this Korean adoptee finds ‘home’ again

This isn't unique to me. The US has used children to advance dominant racial, religious and political ideals at the expense of the oppressed and the poor for a long time. And it continues today. The heartwrenching family separation policy at the border that made headlines last year is just one example that has put children at risk for ending up in foster care or adoption, rather than reunification with their families.

Here is what I know: I am culturally American. I am racially Asian. I identify as a Korean adoptee. And while my ethnicity is Korean, I grapple with how Korean I actually feel. I came to the US when I was just over six months old, and a couple years later I was naturalized as an American citizen. I have no physical memory of this, only a faded and tattered photograph of me waving the American flag outside my house on the day of my naturalization ceremony.

While my identity has always been a complex personal journey, I became interested in the history of Korean adoption as a doctoral student. I fell in love with archival research and being transported back in time through historical documents. My personal and professional identities came together, and I wanted to know more about my own history as a Korean adoptee.

On 18 February, the EU announced the launch of a new initiative in Georgia aimed at reinforcing child welfare reform in the country and ensuring the provision of quality alternative care for children.

This support will be provided within a new three-year EU-funded project entitled “Reinforcing the Child Welfare and Protection System in Georgia”. It will bring together the expertise, best practices and aspirations of World Vision Georgia, which implements the project, and the Government of Georgia to address the needs of vulnerable children deprived of parental care, or at risk of being so, by ensuring appropriate and quality alternative care.

“This project follows up on this reform, with a focus on ensuring vulnerable children deprived of parental care receive appropriate and quality alternative care,” said Carl Hartzell, EU Ambassador to Georgia. “To obtain an effective and strong child-oriented system that can provide immediate and adequate responses to children in need all across the country, will only be possible if all key state and non-state actors, experts and professionals are involved. In this context, I very much welcome the interest displayed on the side of the Georgian Orthodox Church to actively participate in his project.”

”

Madras High Court

Julia Rollings vs The Union Of India on 18 February, 2019

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS

DATED : 18.02.2019

https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gYL4c_Rja_EC&oi=fnd&pg=PA55&dq=The+Leysin+1960+fundamental+principles+on+adoption&ots=jkwp48u1Yx&sig=uswhTfwjj_zXb_9R6XbUU32IJAE#v=onepage&q&f=false

Page 73: The Leysin 1960 fundamental principles on adoption

Published: 1991

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'Judge should have withdrawn from case because of private contact with Joris Demmink'

A judge from the Hague is under fire because of his role in an alleged abuse case in which former top official of justice Joris Demmink is also mentioned. A photo shows that the judge Jan Wolter Wabeke had a private contact with Demmink. According to professor Theo de Roos, the judge should therefore have withdrawn from the case.

Wabeke said to the radio program that he did not know Demmink at all. Later he changed that statement, when it turned out that Argos owns a private photo from the nineties in which Demmink can be seen at Wabeke's home.

In a reaction, Demmink's lawyer Harro Knijff confirms that Wabeke and Demmink met "a number of times, also privately, in the nineties."

According to professor of criminal and procedural law Theo de Roos, Wabeke had to change due to private contact. De Roos, himself a former counselor, says in Argos: "I would not worry about dealing with such a case. Absolutely not."