Luca Trapanese is a single gay man living in conservative southern Italy. Not the most ideal circumstances to adopt a child. Yet he has been the father of Alba, a girl who has Down syndrome, for almost four years. A video of the two together recently went viral.

“When I first saw Alba, I knew she was my daughter and I was her father.” After more than three years, Luca (44) can still be moved by it. “I knew we belonged together.”

ALBA

Alba was just thirty days old when Luca first held her in her arms. She was left in the hospital by her mother. Alba's birth mother didn't think she could handle caring for a child with a disability. She chose to give up the girl. “A brave choice that is regulated by law,” says Luca on the phone. “I have nothing to say about that. She has the right to choose. Most importantly, she left Alba in a protected environment.”

Luca is a lot less positive about the sixteen families that did not want to adopt Alba. “There is still too much fear of children with disabilities. It's a taboo.” The fact that the Italian government often leaves parents of disabled children to their own devices does not help either.

A woman is being investigated over allegations of medical child abuse for falsely ascribing illnesses to her 6-year-old adopted daughter, Q13 Fox Seattle reports.

Sophie Hartman adopted her daughter from Africa as an infant and over the last four years, the child has had over 500 “unnecessary” medical appointments and procedures, including a surgically implanted feeding tube and well as a cecostomy tube, to help flush the intestines, according to court documents.

"This situation is a case of medical child abuse,” a report from the child’s care team reads. "It is not necessary to know the possible motivation of a caregiver, only the outcome of the behavior. It is my concern that this pattern has resulted in unnecessary medical testing, medication, procedures, surgeries and debility of this child."

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ADOPTION - In July 2020, after having thought about the issue of parenthood, I decided to participate in the first information meeting in order to start the process to obtain approval .

Absolutely aware of the difficulties that await me (44 years old, single) I also like to believe that my job (school teacher) can help to counterbalance.

This first meeting is done by video, about fifteen families are present and the person from social services is straightforward: it's complicated, but not impossible.

She tells us about the large number of families with regard to the very small number of children to be adopted , adoption in France vs. adoption abroad (at least 10,000 euros, gulp's).

She tells us that single people or same-sex couples are not discriminated against, that income is not discriminatory either.

The husband of the Florentine couple, who was stranded for days in India, is serious for Covid. Another couple faced an odyssey to return. While LIAN's appeal to vaccinate the few hundred adoptive couples already matched with a child remained unheard

For a few days, the news of the couple of adoptive parents blocked in India with their daughter, who fell ill with Covid, had filled the pages of all the newspapers. Then, as always happens, other priorities have made the issue a little forgotten, also thanks to the fact that we finally managed to return to Italy.

The husband of the adoptive couple blocked for days in India is serious for Covid

But the question is far from closed, indeed: it is news these days that the couple's husband is hospitalized in serious conditions at the Careggi Hospital. If in India, in fact, it was the wife who caused the greatest concern, once they returned to Italy it was the husband who worsened. “My daughter tested positive for Meyer - said her adoptive mother Simonetta Filippi to la Repubblica - but she has always been asymptomatic. She's fine, the Meyer's staff have been wonderful with her ”. The husband, on the other hand, causes concern. Al Careggi arrived in respiratory block and is now undergoing various therapies to try to improve the situation. “Fortunately - continues Simonetta - we returned to Italy just in time".

Waits, bans and special permits to go home as a new family

Fiom has been assisting women who have unwanted pregnancy for a long time and are considering choosing distance for adoption. During this guidance, women regularly ask about the experiences of other women in this situation. They have a specific need for recent experiences of peers. That is why we will have a closed online environment for experience stories from May 1, 2021.

Unwanted pregnant women who are considering distance for adoption regularly encounter misunderstanding and disbelief. For example, they are told: 'Did you really not realize you were pregnant?' or 'you're not giving up your child, are you?'. These comments can hurt and can influence a woman's choice.

That is why we have consciously opted for a closed online environment. The women only share their experience story with women who go through the same thing and who understand each other.

For the online environment, we asked women who recently considered choosing distance for adoption if we could interview them. These interviews have been elaborated into extensive stories, which can be read in the online environment. In the area you can read stories of women who chose distance for adoption, but also of women who considered renunciation for adoption but ultimately chose foster placement or raising their child themselves.

The women indicated that telling their story again led to further processing of the choice made. They also gave tips for women who have to make the choice now.

"The guy diverts resources meant for vulnerable children to his family."

Limbe First Grade Magistrates Court will on May next week Wednesday make its ruling on whether or not to discharge a case against former Finance Director at Timotheos Foundation, Wim Akster, a Dutch national, who was arrested over indecent assault charges.

According to a police statement in our possession, Akster was arrested in September 2020 on two counts - trafficking in persons and unlawfully and indecently assaulted Alice Mataya from Namikasi in Blantyre.

The statement, signed by sub-inspector FTK Dzimbiri, indicate that the offences were committed in 2019, but the victim only reported the matter in 2020.

Some insiders believe that the stories was fabricated to bring Akster down considering what has been between the suspect and officials from Timetheos Foundation, who are believed to have schemed the allegations.

In Hawaii, like much of the world during the COVID-19 Pandemic, people hoping to grow or start a family are finding themselves stunted.

For the longest time, solutions were found overseas, but people wanting to adopt are now waiting longer and looking locally for answers.

Each year, CEO Kristine Altwies says her adoption agency Hawaii International Child (now called A Family Tree) finds homes for about 75 children from countries like China, the Philippines and Japan. But during the pandemic, that number has fallen to 20.

"There's the issue of the orphans not being able to leave the orphanage to come home. There's the issue of American citizens not being able to travel abroad to pick up the children. And then there's the issue of the US immigration authority not issuing the travel visas for the orphans to come here to their families," Altwies said.

Some of the big challenges says Altwies are clients having to wait at least another year to be together, if not longer.

The movement for an adoption apology for women forced to give up their babies because they were unmarried is gathering pace.

Whenever a government is asked to apologise for historical injustice, there are sceptics. It was a different era; it was a long time ago; it won’t make any difference…The comments sections of last night’s news stories are full of views like this.

But listen to the words of Judy Baker, forced to give up her baby girl after she fell pregnant at 18: ‘It would be very good if somebody said: I’m sorry. It would be so powerful, to show people that what happened to us was wrong.’

When the Australian government apologised for similar practices in 2013, it was met with a standing ovation. In January this year the Irish Prime Minister apologised for a "…dark, difficult and shameful chapter" of Irish history, in which many babies died in homes for unmarried mothers, and others were forcibly adopted.

In this situation, a government apology is, simply, the right thing to do, for the women and for the children they lost.

This article is the first in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children it had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. ? ED.

By Lee Kyung-eun

If you are from South Korea and have had the opportunity to live and work in either the U.S. or in a Western European country, you may have come across a situation where someone says to you, "Oh, I have a friend whose brother/sister was adopted from Korea", or alternatively, "Do you know that our boss/friend has adopted a child from Korea?" Or you may have approached a person whom you thought was a native Korean, but after starting a conversation, discovered that this person has a very western family name and has said to you, "Oh, I am adopted.

In English-language literature, there are many books written on the subject of adoption, encompassing such diverse topics as: individual memoirs by adoptees or adoptive parents, investigative reports on unlawful and unethical adoption practices, birth family search stories, and so on. Many of the authors of such books are of Korean ethnicity.

In Western countries, there are many stories that connect Korea to the narrative of transnational adoption. Why? Because Korea is the country that has sent the largest number of children out of the country for adoption. The length of the period in which Korea has been involved in transnational adoption is more than 68 years and the total number of adoptees is estimated to be over 200,000. It is a singular record in the world history of adoption.

A UK-based adoption agency, Literacy Integration and Formal Education (LIFE) Foundation has reacted to the statement made by the UK Department for Education that banned child adoptions from Nigeria and other countries.

By virtue of the order, adoptions from Nigeria to the UK were suspended with effect from March 12, 2021.

President, Literacy Integration & Formal Education (LIFE) foundation, Elvira Salleras, in a statement insisted that the law is a gross abuse of adoption law.

Salleras currently operates an adoption agency with expertise and extensive experience in inter-country adoptions from Nigeria since 2006, working in partnership with Lagos and Anambra States.

“We feel constrained to address the issues raised in the said circular, using Lagos state, which has similar processes to those of Anambra State, as a reference point, to provide clarity and set the records straight,” Salleras said.