Police in Guatemala raided five regional offices of British aid agency Save the Children on Monday as part of an investigation into alleged child abuse.

Prosecutors requested information from US authorities in April about the alleged involvement of the organisation in smuggling children across the border, according to local media.

Save the Children said it was "aware of the activity" at their offices, and denied the prosecutors' allegations.

The prosecutor in charge of the case, Rafael Curruchiche, and the country's attorney general, Consuelo Porras, have previously been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for attacks on democracy.

Curruchiche said the searches were being carried out in different regions of the country as part of a "transnational investigation of great importance", in a video statement on X.

The GLP Thurgau has submitted a simple request to the government council to shed light on the illegal adoptions of Indian children between 1973 and 2002. Several cases are said to concern the canton of Thurgau.

The report "Mother Unknown", which was commissioned by the cantons of Zurich and Thurgau, "reveals serious misconduct", according to a statement from the Thurgau Green Liberals. Many adoptions were carried out without the consent of the biological mothers and on the basis of forged documents.

"The adoptions were not just acts of charity, but also a business model," the GLP states. Homes in India released children for adoption and received money from Switzerland. "Despite missing or incomplete documents, the relevant authorities in Thurgau approved the adoptions. This means that the canton shares responsibility."

Families who spent years in limbo have had their hopes dashed, and some analysts fear disabled children may never get to enjoy family life

China’s abrupt decision to ban international adoptions last month appears to have crushed the dreams of hundreds of foreign families and possibly ended the last chance many Chinese children would have had of a family life.

“You’re losing a kid even though you didn’t give birth to them and you haven’t even met them,” said Kathy Rice, one of the affected would-be parents. “But they’ve been part of our family all this time and all of a sudden we’re losing them.”

Rice had been waiting for five years to adopt Ruby, a teenager with Down’s syndrome, and bring her home to Michigan.

Updated 07 Oct. 2024 AT 1:26 PM

The black car slows down and stops in front of a low brick house.

The house's brown front doors are open, but Natalie Montaño (35) stays inside the car.

Right now, she is regretting the Facebook post she made three years ago. The post that has led her from Oslo to this house in Colombia.

The body feels numb. Disconnected, like a shell.

The Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court last week quashed an FIR against christian missionary Dr. Ajai Lall accused of trafficking two children, who were earlier living in an orphanage run by a society of which he was the office bearer, and who were subsequently adopted following a family court order in 2017. In doing so the High Court noted that the adoption of the children was...

South Korea adoptees endure emotional, sometimes devastating searches for their birth families

SEOUL — They began a pilgrimage that thousands before them have done. They boarded long flights to their motherland, South Korea, to undertake an emotional, often frustrating, sometimes devastating search for their birth families.

South Korea adoptees endure emotional, sometimes devastating searches for their birth families

These adoptees are among the 200,000 sent away from Korea to Western nations as children. Many have grown up, searched for their origin story and discovered that their adoption paperwork was inaccurate or fabricated. They have only breadcrumbs to go on: grainy baby photos, names of orphanages and adoption agencies, the towns where they were said to have been abandoned. They don’t speak the language. They’re unfamiliar with the culture. Some never learn their truth.

The Thurgau GLP has asked the government council for more information on adoptions of Indian children between 1973 and 2002. In a motion, the party is asking, among other things, what support the canton offers those affected.

The background to the GLP's request is a recently presented study on illegal adoptions in the cantons of Thurgau and Zurich. The study on the practice of adoptions from India revealed serious misconduct, as the GLP Thurgau wrote in a statement on the submitted request. Adoptions have also become a business model.

Adoptions approved despite missing documents

01 October 2024, 18:30 - 21:30

Auditorium A2, Maison de la paix, Geneva

International adoption is currently at the heart of an unprecedented scandal: of the hundreds of thousands of babies adopted since the early 1950s, tens of thousands were stolen. In this documentary, we will join major investigative journalists, activists and researchers in South Korea, Sweden, France, Chile, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. With Christine Tournadre, Sonia Gonzalez (France). Produced by Anne Labro for Tangerine Productions, in collaboration with ARTE France, the CNC, RTS, Telewizja Polska, PROCIREP, the Ile-de-France region and Java Films.

This one-night-only film screening "International Adoptions: A Global Scandal" - parallel to the 27th session of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) (23 Sep to 04 Oct 2024) and co-organized by our Geneva Human Rights Platform with the CED, will explore the ongoing unprecedented scandal surrounding international adoption. The event will be followed by a panel discussion and a Q&A session. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

EDITORIAL                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    2 

ACTORS IN INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION AND CROSS-BORDER CHILD PROTECTION                                                                                                       6 

ISS/IRC NEWS                                                                                                                                                                                                                              6 

BRIEFS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          8 

NEW DELHI: The government has set off the process to verify and include in the foster care and adoption pool of the Central Adoption Resources Authority children above six years living in child care institutions (CCIs) who have not been visited by anyone from their family for a stipulated period of time or whose guardians have been found to be unfit to take care of them due to any mental or terminal illness.
States are verifying and processing all these cases for inclusion in the pool. Speaking at the closing session of the national consultation organised under the aegis of the Supreme Court’s Juvenile Justice Committee and Unicef on the protection of the rights of children with disabilities, women and child development secretary Anil Malik shared that to include the identified children in the adoption pool two new categories are being added pertaining to cases involving “unfit guardians” and “no visitations”. These new categories have been added in addition to the existing categories of orphaned, abandoned, and surrendered (OAS) children in the adoption pool of the Central Adoption Resources Authority.
 

Nearly 15,000 children, across these categories, who can be moved to the adoption pool from CCIs have been identified across institutions in the country.
The Supreme Court had in Nov 2023 directed the government to identify and register all such children languishing in CCIs and those not reaching the care institutions without any delay.

The WCD secretary reiterated that the step to include these older children in CCIs in the adoption pool was in line with the view of integrating as many children with the mainstream by trying to see that they grow up in a family and have a social upbringing and not be left to grow in the confines of a children home.
“As far as children registered under the category of ‘no visitation’ and ‘unfit guardians’ are concerned, they will primarily be potential cases for foster care. Once such children are declared legally free, their permanent rehabilitation can be facilitated through adoption,” CARA had stated in its memorandum issued earlier this year to all state adoption resource authorities, district child protection units, specialised adoption agencies and child care institutions.

While emphasising the growing focus on foster care, Malik also emphasised that to step-up adoptions of children with disabilities the process has been streamlined which has given an impetus to the adoptions in this category not just by foreigners and NRIs but also prospective parents from within the country. Malik said they were noticing a positive change in attitudes. The WCD secretary shared that in 2022-23, 152 children with disabilities were adopted. This rose to 309 last year and so far this year, around 150 children have already found a family.