Clad in black and bursting with happiness, Jamila Qadir tightly hugs a baby girl wrapped in a white sheet. The child is bright pink and her head appears large in proportion to her scrawny little arms and legs that jerk back and forth. Qadir gently rocks her with one hand and tries to feed her from a bottle with the other.

Together, they made the perfect picture of mother and daughter.

Qadir seems unsure of how to express how much joy the child has filled her with; it is the first time her house has been transformed into a family home. She had been desperately wanting a child for more than 15 years, and her dream has finally come true through her new adopted daughter. In the space of a single minute, she kisses her baby girl more than ten times.

Over a decade of built-up anger and distress have now melted away with the child’s arrival, she says, remarking that she would otherwise by dead.

Their bond seems as strong as that between any parent and their biological child.

For decades, Americans largely regarded East Asians as unassimilable aliens unfit for American citizenship. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first American bill banning immigration of a racial or ethnic group. Thirty years later, a Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was instilled, followed by a treaty between America and Japan agreeing to deny passports to Japanese seeking employment in the US. Hatred toward Japanese during World War II resulted in the internment of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans.

In 1955, however, a special act of Congress allowed a white couple, Bertha and Harry Holt, to adopt eight Korean War orphans. Evangelical Christian farmers based in Oregon, the Holts ultimately inspired thousands of American families to adopt children from East Asia. Oregon Senator Richard Neuberger even hailed them as incarnations of the “Biblical Good Samaritan.” Within several decades, white Americans went from perceiving Asians as “pig-tailed coolies” to endearing children in need of American help. Christians played a pivotal role in promoting this wave of pro-adoption sentiment.

World Vision and Everett Swanson Evangelistic Association

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea. Korea was under Japanese occupation until Japan surrendered to the Allied forces in 1945. Soon after Korean gained its independence, two opposing governments split the country in two, the south supported by the United States, and the north by the Soviet Union. In 1951, North Korea invaded South Korea and war broke out. By the end of 1950, American and Chinese troops had escalated the civil war into a global conflict.

The war devastated Korea. Casualties exceeded 2.5 million people—many of them civilians, and more than 10 million people were displaced which created countless widows and orphans. By the time the war halted with an armistice in 1953, Korea was one of the most destitute nations in the world.

You don't have to be brother and sister, you can also become one - as the book As brothers and sisters shows. It also allows a forgotten group to speak: the biological children in adoptive or foster families, who have their own problems.

Language can sometimes be revealing. For example, for Jadrickson (16) Koen (17) is just his big brother. And for Koen, Jadrickson is just as naturally his brother. But Koen's older sister, who has already left home, he calls his foster sister again. While Jadrickson is actually a foster brother too, but calling him that feels too distant. Koen: “We grew up together. Jadrickson came here every other weekend since I was five. I have a different kind of connection with him than with friends or with my foster sister; more familiar, more natural. I don't think it would feel any different if he were a biological brother. No, that would really be the same.”

Jelmar (17) and his adoptive sister Yulotte (15) also sometimes run into language issues. That's how people ask Jelmar: isn't that your 'real' sister? And when it comes to the other two Chinese adoptive girls in their family: are they all 'real' sisters? Jelmar: “That word 'real' feels judgmental and not so respectful – if I'm honest. Like having real and fake sisters. To me they feel like real sisters, but people don't mean it that way. We are not biologically related, no.” Yulotte adds: “That 'real thing' gives a certain distrustful feeling. Like it's not quite right. While: I've spent almost my entire life with this brother, what would be fake about that?"

When we think of a brother-sister relationship, we naturally think of two people who share the same parents and the same gene package. But you can also feel like brother and sister if you don't have that biological relationship, as the book Like brothers and sisters – growing up together in an adoptive or foster family shows.

Jelmar and Yulotte. Image Photo: Lilian van Rooij

The letter delivered to Måns Clausen brought startling news. It advised the Swedish actor that his biological mother in Ethiopia, long presumed dead, was alive and searching for him.

After a few months of correspondence and phone calls with newfound relatives, the actor flew from Stockholm to Addis Ababa to see his birth mother for the first time since his adoption as a baby by a Swedish couple.

“That was a surrealistic experience! It was wonderful, of course,” Clausen said of their reunion three years ago, starting at the airport in Addis Ababa. Now 46, he recalled his mother “was a stranger to me. But for her, I was, of course, her child. She had been looking for me for years.”

Headshot of Swedish actor Mans Clausen standing, hands in pockets, on a street.

Måns Clausen, a Swedish actor, reconnected with his Ethiopian birth mother and brother via the search program Beteseb Felega. (Photo by Mikael Melanson)

Expressing concerns about the illegal adoption of children orphaned by COVID-19, the Supreme

Court has directed State Governments and Union Territories to act against NGOs which are

indulging in illegal adoption."No adoption of affected children should be permitted contrary to

the provisions of the JJ Act, 2015.Invitation to persons for adoption of orphans...

Hindu couple seek no-objection certificate to adopt child born to Christian parents

The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) on a plea by a Hindu couple, living in the U.S., seeking a no-objection certificate (NOC) to adopt a child born to Christian parents.

“The present petition raises an issue of enormous importance as it relates to a legal vacuum in respect of adoptions carried out prior to the coming into force of the Juvenile Justice [Care and Protection of children] Model Rules, 2016... in respect of a child born to Christian parents, as in the present case,” Justice Prathiba M. Singh remarked in a March 15 order.

As per the couple, they adopted a minor child, who was born on December 11, 2014, from Ferozepur, Punjab. The biological parents of the child got the legal formalities done for completion of adoption of the child with them by preparing an adoption deed which was signed and executed between the biological and the adoptive parents of the child.

The adoption deed was duly witnessed by the village sarpanch as well as the relative – social worker and was also registered on December 18, 2014 under the provisions of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (HAMA), 1956, the couple said.

A Scottish mother forced to give her baby up for adoption in the 1970s says an apology for the cruel practice would "lift women out of shame".

The Scottish government is facing calls to issue an official apology to Scottish mothers who were pressured into giving up their children.

It is estimated 60,000 women had babies adopted simply because they were unmarried.

MSPs debated the issue of a government apology at Holyrood on Wednesday.

In the 50s, 60s and 70s, many women were coerced into handing over their babies. Many were denied access to housing and social benefits which may have allowed them to have kept them.

A group of children from the island of La Réunion off the coast of East Africa demand an apology from the French government. They were 'taken' by the French authorities in the 1960s and 1970s and moved to the French countryside. Parents were often made false promises. After their arrival in France, the children were sometimes declared orphans or given a new identity.

"We are now 50 years later. Not one government has done anything for us. It is high time for an apology," says Inel Annette. He is a member of an interest group founded by the children of the time.

They have engaged the National Ombudsman in France. It is too late for legal proceedings: the facts are time-barred. But apologies and possible compensation should take away some of the suffering.

An investigation has shown that between 1962 and 1984 the French authorities collected a total of more than 2000 children from La Réunion, which is part of France as an overseas department. The children were almost all under 15; there were also babies and toddlers.

Inel Annette, one of the children of La Réunion FRANK RENOUT/NOS

Treating the most vulnerable young people as a money-making opportunity is wrong. The care review must lead to change

It is impossible, even for an appointee regarded by critics as too close to government and with overly restricted terms of reference, to look at children’s homes without being appalled by what is going on. That is the conclusion to be drawn from remarks this week by Josh MacAlister, who is several months into a long-awaited review of children’s social care. He warned that the sector is broken and that operators must cut “indefensible” levels of profit and improve young people’s experiences.

Recent years have seen numerous reports and complaints by official bodies about a dysfunctional system, in which councils on the verge of bankruptcy pay ever increasing prices (up 40% since 2013, to about £200,000 a year per child) while profits soar. The top 20 private providers are making £250m profit annually from the provision of children’s residential care in England, Wales and Scotland and the delivery of fostering services.

Opaque ownership structures make the money hard to track. Research earlier this year found some providers recording profits of more than 20% of income, while four of the seven largest provider groups had debt and liability levels that exceeded their assets, leading to concerns about future stability. Private operators now control around three-quarters of all children’s home places in England and Wales. Councils frequently have no other option than to pay whatever they ask.

Even if the children in these homes were thriving, excess profits would be a problem, particularly given the dire state of local government finances. But far worse than the waste of financial resources is the attitude to human lives and relationships that goes with it. While most children’s homes, along with most private fostering agencies, get a good or outstanding rating, Ofsted – which oversees them – believes that the current regulatory regime is unfit for purpose, casting doubt on these reports’ reliability. On its own, the fact that 60% of children are moved out of their local area when placed in a home, with all the disruption to social life and education that this entails, shows that something has gone terribly wrong.

As part of a push to activate multiple child support mechanisms, the State Child Protection Society has opened up applications for families to foster children.

The Delhi Woman and Child Development department has released guidelines for the sponsorship programme that will provide financial assistance of Rs. 2000 monthly to children who are either orphaned and living with extended family, or who have a lone parent incapable of providing for them.

Now, child protection agencies are also inviting applications from families which would like to foster children in child care institutions, orphaned children or those separated from their families.

The eligibility conditions for families to apply to foster a child are:

Delhi News