The Adoption Authority cannot lawfully refuse to register the separate Mexican adoptions of two young children whose lives here involve "a legal limbo", the Supreme Court has ruled.

The adoptions of 15 other Mexican-born children in a similar position to the two children, including a sibling of one of them, have been registered by the Authority in the register of intercountry adoptions, Mr Justice Donal O'Donnell noted.

It would be a failure to hold these two children equal before the law “in such an important feature of their human personality” if the law were to permit a different outcome for them, he said.

He was giving the five-judge court's judgment today dismissing an appeal by the Authority over the High Court's answers to legal questions raised in the Authority’s proceedings concerning the status of the two children.

Both have lived in "a legal limbo" here because their separate adoption processes began under the Adoption Act 1991, but were not complete before the coming into force on November 1, 2010, of the Adoption Act 2010, when the 1991 Act was repealed.

With Covid claiming many lives, people are trying to get foster parents for children who have lost parents to the pandemic. Experts warn child trafficking rackets can take advantage of such a situation

KOCHI: Have you received a WhatsApp forward like this: “If anyone wants to adopt a baby girl, please contact 0971******* (Priyanka). Three-day-old and six-month-old girls available. They lost their parents recently to Covid. Please help these kids get a new life, spread the word.” Many similar broadcast messages are making rounds, where ‘good Samaritans seem to be seeking help to arrange adoption of children, especially girls, orphaned during the pandemic. Experts claim that even though some of these efforts are genuine, they may trigger child trafficking.

Dhananjay Tingal, executive director of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, said the messages spreading on social media calling for prospective foster parents could be an attempt to traffic children and misuse the intention of those genuinely trying to help children. “Ideally, anyone willing to help should be calling government helplines to report on orphaned children,” he said.

“When a child is orphaned, he/she becomes vulnerable. Many kids are suffering because they lost their parents to the pandemic and their caregivers are hospitalised. There is no one to take care of them. Their neighbours or extended families keep away out of fear of contracting the virus,” he said. Dhananjay added that there are no relaxations in the adoption procedure due to the pandemic.

“People can’t just go and buy/take these children because their parents are dead. We have been receiving so many calls regarding adoptions related to Covid deaths of parents/caretakers. Prospective foster parents still need to register with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to become eligible for adoption. Though no cases of Covid death-related trafficking have been reported so far, we fear these types of forwarded messages are an indication, and even educated people are not aware of adoption laws,” he said.

Justin D’Silva

Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (EP)

Udupi, May 21: A case is registered at Kota police station against a couple that illegally gave away a child for adoption and the doctor couple who adopted the child. The case is registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by the legal observer of the district child protection cell, Prabhakar Achar. Brahmavar child welfare project officer, Kumar, Anganwadi supervisor Laxmi, Kota police station sub-inspector Santhosh BP and assistant sub-inspector Muktha were behind the operation.

The female child that was born a year ago at a private hospital in Karkala. She was illegally handed over for adoption by the child’s parents Suresh and Sukanya to Hangarkatte resident Fayaz Shahista through Udupi resident Hussain. The birth certificate of the child was made to look like from it was from government taluk hospital, Koppa. It was obtained from Dr Balakrishna, the medical officer at the hospital. A case under the Child Justice Act is registered against six people. The year and two-month-old child was rescued and rehabilitated at Krishnanugraha adoption centre, Santhekatte.

“Do not be cheated over advertisements in the media offering children for adoption. Those who want to adopt children can contact district children protection unit Rajatadri, Manipal or children’s welfare committee Udupi or contact www.cara.nic.in,” requested legal observer Prabhakar Achary with people.

U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Co-Chairs of the Congressional Adoption Caucus, announced that they have reintroduced legislation to improve the intercountry adoption process.

“There are millions of children around the world without a safe, stable home,” said Blunt. “We can help connect these children with the families they deserve by making sure intercountry adoption remains a viable option. This bipartisan bill will give the Secretary of State a valuable resource to develop and implement policies that promote intercountry adoption. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and join us in our efforts to make it easier for loving families to adopt a child.”

“Around the world, there are so many children who need loving homes – but too often, the process of intercountry adoption is filled with challenges,” said Klobuchar. “Creating an Intercountry Adoption Advisory Committee will promote the development of best practices to support those looking to adopt. I’m proud to introduce this bill to help American families and children worldwide.”

The bipartisan Intercountry Adoption Advisory Committee Act provides the Secretary of State the authority to establish an Intercountry Adoption Advisory Committee within the Bureau of Consular Affairs to focus on coordinating the development, refinement, and implementation of policy and programs on intercountry adoption. The Advisory Committee will develop recommendations to enhance the intercountry adoption process and to ensure that the diverse voices within the adoption community are considered in advance of new policies being developed and programs being implemented. The legislation is also co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Bob Casey (Pa.), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), John Boozman (Ark.), and Roger Wicker (Miss.).

For years, Blunt and Klobuchar have worked to improve the adoption process for Americans.

KALYAN: A former social worker has been arrested in connection with an

illegal adoption racket along with the parents of a seven-month-old child.

The Thane police, with help from the child protection officer of Thane

district, arrested 28-year-old Manshi Jadhav, who worked with a child care

centre in Dombivli, where she would conduct surveys of parents wanting

SALEM: Tamil Nadu Commission for Protection of Child Rights (TNCPCR) member V Ramaraj has appealed to the public not to forward fake social media messages about child adoption.

Pointing out one such fake message asking the people to adopt a two-year-old girl and a two-month-old baby whose parents died of Covid-19, he said, "The particular message has a fake mobile number.” He also said that no one could easily adopt a child or children without the government's consent.

Ramaraj said people who were forwarding such messages did not do it purposely. “At the same time, they have forwarded the message with an intention to help the deprived children,” he said.

Ramaraj said people could adopt a child with government’s consent from another person who is willing to give his child for adoption. Otherwise, they could approach the government agencies and get adoption from the adoption centres. “People should register themselves with CARA and SARA before they adopt the baby or the child,” he added. Ramaraj said it would be a crime if people are involved in illegal adoption.

People who have doubts on child adoption could get details from the district child protection office in their concerned districts.

For the greater part of the 20th century Ireland was marked by a culture of shame that separated thousands of women from their children, many of whom were forcibly given up for adoption. The trauma inflicted by these separations was compounded by legal barriers that prevented adopted people from accessing information about themselves.

However, on Tuesday May 12, the Irish government published a draft bill that would give those adopted the right to access their birth information. This comes in the wake of decades of activism by adopted people and their supporters, and has the potential to significantly reform an adoption system historically marked by secrecy, shame and the trauma arising from institutionalisation.

In modern Ireland, institutions such as mother and baby homes and the Magdalene Laundries were tasked by the state to deal with “fallen” women who had transgressed ideals of Irish femininity, especially by becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Their children were either boarded out to foster parents, institutionalised, or adopted by families of the same faith, some as far away as America, and – as survivors, advocates and researchers have long maintained – often under questionable circumstances.

Many searches by birth parents and children have been thwarted (as poignantly captured in the Oscar-nominated film Philomena), and adopted people in Ireland have been denied information about themselves – if it still exists – that is readily available in other jurisdictions. Although there have been media investigations and the government commissioned a 2019 review into a small sample of illegal adoptions, and published its mother and baby homes investigation in March, there has never been a fully fledged investigation into adoption practices in Ireland.

The information we do have, including testimony from adopted people and their birth parents, calls into question the legality and morality of such practices. A recent RTÉ Prime Time investigation showed how familial relationships were deliberately and systematically severed, with children taken and given away – all to enforce a particular moral code.

Becoming a mother in corona time, these women went through it. There was no question of maternity parties or a procession of admirers. 'Window visit is very memorable.'

'The world became smaller, so we came together more'

Thessa Sepers (41) from Uithoorn has been the mother of adopted son Ian (almost 1) since July.

For eleven years, Thessa Sepers (41) has a great wish: to become a mother. Unfortunately, that does not happen automatically. “We soon ended up in the medical mill. We felt that hospital visits should not get the upper hand and we decided that we would like to adopt. ”

The adoption process also turns out to be complicated; several adoptions fail. "We have redesigned the nursery three times." A phone call in May last year changes everything: a baby was born in the United States in need of adoptive parents. The biological mother is given a choice from the files of three adoptive parents and chooses the couple from Uithoorn.

On 11 May 2021 the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has made its observations following consideration of the periodic report submitted by Switzerland. The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was ratified by Switzerland in 2016, and entered into force on January 1, 2017.

The Committee took up the file of irregular adoptions between Switzerland and Sri Lanka thanks to the association Back to the Roots which, according to my understanding of the information posted on its site , was invited to take a position during this session. It is gratifying to note that the representatives of adoptees have access to the highest bodies of the United Nations, and that their voice can be heard on issues that have been ignored for too long. However, the fact of having approached the Committee in charge of enforced disappearances again raises many questions, and, in my opinion, risks posing more problems than it will perhaps solve.

According to article 2 of the Convention, enforced disappearance means the arrest, detention, kidnapping or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by the denial of the recognition of the deprivation of liberty or the concealment of the fate of the disappeared person or of the place where he is found, removing him from the protection of the law ” [1]. This definition makes it possible to imagine the cases to which the Convention refers: a government or its representatives kidnap and make disappear people, in a context of political crisis, war or dictatorship for example. It is therefore a human rights instrument aimed at protecting citizens against this specific type of persecution.

In its observations , the Committee makes the following reasoning to justify its intervention in the field of irregular international adoptions: it underlines that the [Swiss] delegation recognized that, in certain cases, illegal adoptions could be the result of an enforced disappearance. or the removal of children subjected to enforced disappearance or whose father, mother or legal representative was subjected to enforced disappearance, or of children born during the captivity of their mother subjected to enforced disappearance. Let us recall that in the Sri Lankan context, the civil war which spread from 1983 to 2009, involved a significant number of enforced disappearances ( 20,000 people according to the highest estimates).). It is therefore indeed possible that among the victims, some had children who, in one way or another, were ultimately adopted.

However, and without wishing to be disrespectful to the Committee, this position is in my opinion worrying, not to say counterproductive, in more than one respect. First of all, I have the feeling that the case of intercountry adoptions hardly meets the conditions set by the conventional legal framework. While there is certainly a possibility that children were indirectly victims of disappearances, is it plausible to imagine that a State deliberately carried out the type of acts described above with the aim of adopting children for adoption? the international? In other words, is there a causal link between the disappearance of the adult and the adoption of the child? We can doubt it. That the political context of the time, the civil war, and the economic crisis have offered individuals opportunities for enrichment through the organization of abusive and illegal intercountry adoption procedures, no doubt. From there to considering the establishment of a real procedure organized by the State for this purpose, it seems unlikely. Admittedly, this type of action has indeed been implemented in Spain and Argentina, resulting in the kidnapping of the children of opponents of the regime and their subsequent adoption, but are these situations really comparable?

The widow and daughter of the Maltese man who died from Covid-19 in India arrived safely in Malta on Sunday evening.

Ivan Barbara, 47, was cremated on the couple’s 19th wedding anniversary after falling ill while in India to adopt their daughter.

He died on Friday after developing complications minutes before he was set to board the air ambulance sent to fly him back to Malta. Reportedly, Barbara’s ashes have been brought to Malta.

Two other Maltese couples who travelled to India to adopt were also flown in safely by Maltese authorities.

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