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After my partner Eleonora and I attended a funeral three years ago at Agioi Anargyroi, one of the northwestern suburbs of Athens, she suggested we visit the Mitera Center for the protection of children. It is located within walking distance from the local cemetery, a solemn reminder of the closeness of life and death. But for the many persons who passed through there as infants, it is a reminder of the place they were adopted and started a new life.

Little did I know at the time about how many of those infants in the 1950s would be headed for adoption in the United States. I remembered sporadic articles about illegal adoptions through a network of intermediaries that included prominent Greek Americans who had begun their involvement as members of the American Hellenic Progressive Association (AHEPA) whose involvement in the early 1950s was also not above reproach. The full extent of the adoption phenomenon would become known only recently.

The Mitera (not to be confused with the Maternity and Children’s hospital with the same name which is also in Athens) is one of the leading institutions in Greece for housing children that have been given up by their biological parents or must live away from them.

Mitera’s mission is to find homes for these children by placing them into either adoption or foster care programs. It started operating in 1953 and opened officially two years later, on publicly owned property with thirteen separate picturesque pavilions with stone walls and red roofs spaced out around the main building. Within a few years it would accommodate a total of one hundred children and a number of expectant mothers.

As 17 year olds, Ernst and Tonny Fickweiler (68) gave their baby up for adoption after an unplanned pregnancy. They would never see him again. Or so they thought. "There is a hole somewhere and every time you think about it it makes it very emotional, it is just tangible."

It should be a few A4 pages, briefly describing the family history of the prodigal son. To catch up with him, to make up for the lost years. But it turned into a project that took four years and resulted in a book that turned out to be much more than a family chronicle.

Bomb

Anyone who reads their book feels how the bomb hit the lives of two 17-year-olds. It was a beautiful evening in September 1970. And as so often there was reason for a party, this time with a mutual friend in the attic in their Waddinxveen, where they grew up. Ernst writes about it as a happy memory. And then the song Albatros from Fleetwood Mac was played. ... When I brought Tonny home that evening, we were both happy and deeply in love with each other. Only from that moment on everything would be different, everything would be different. The world upside down. Our young life would change forever.

What followed was a succession of impressive events. As soon as her pregnant belly became visible, Tonny left for a foster home, so that she would not get the scandals in the village. In all loneliness and homesickness she carried her pregnancy there, in order to give birth to her son in the presence of strangers in a clinic. She would never see him, only hear him cry from behind a held up towel: a sound she wouldn't forget for the rest of her life.

The adoptive parents of a girl child have moved the Supreme Court challenging a Kerala High Court judgment of April 9, which had set aside the adoption of the child on the ground that a deed of surrender had not been executed by both the biological parents.

A Bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheswhari stayed the judgment of the Kerala High Court after the petitioners pointed out that the High Court had passed its verdict without hearing them.

“Considering the facts and circumstances of this case, in the meanwhile, the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed,” the Court ordered.

Advocates Liz Mathew, Manisha Singh and Sonali Jain appeared for the petitioners (adoptive parents).

Background

‘Social media posts on such children could be possible cases of trafficking’

Social media posts appealing for adoption of children orphaned during COVID-19 are illegal, warn experts. They appeal that citizens must dial helpline 1098 to pass on information about children in need of care and protection.

With deaths due to the COVID-19 on the rise, Twitter and Whatsapp have been flooded with citizens sharing details of children who have lost either both their parents or the only living parent to the disease and pleading for them to be adopted. On Monday, Chairperson Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Anurag Kundu, wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner S N Shrivastava flagging such posts as possible cases of trafficking and requesting for a probe in each of these instances.

Activists warn that such posts are illegal under Section 80 and 81 of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, 2015, which prohibit offering or receiving children outside the processes laid down under the Act as well as their sale and purchase. Such acts are punishable with three to five years in jail or ?1 lakh in fine.

“There is a process as per the JJ Act which needs to be followed with children who have been orphaned. If someone has information about a child in need of care, then they must contact one of the four agencies: Childline 1098, or the district Child Welfare Committee (CWC), District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) or the helpline of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights,” says Vaidehi Subramani, Chairperson of CWC, South Delhi District.

New Delhi: With messages on social media floating of people having adopted and willing to adopt children who have lost parents to Covid-19, chairman of Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) Anurag Kundu has asked Delhi Police to intervene in these matters and increase their vigilance on social media.

This red flag from Kundu follows the fear that some may use this opportunity for trafficking or selling children.

In a letter to Delhi Police commissioner SN Srivastava, Kundu said, “I want to bring to your attention my concern about social media being currently filled with adoption information of acceptance and offer of children who have turned orphan during the pandemic. The child rights commission has come across many instances on social media where people who have information about orphans are encouraging others to adopt them.”

“In some cases the post update informs the children have been adopted. I am sure some of these are out of ignorance of the law governing adoption, however, they may also be cases of trafficking and sale/purchase of the children. These need to probed to get to the depth of the matter,” the letter added.

Kundu said he will also be writing to the DCP, cyber crime, with specific instances requesting inquiry.

Earlier this week, DCPCR appealed to people on social media to call on their helpline number and report cases where children need essential supplies, have lost their parent(s), or are struggling to support themselves due to the illness.

Flooded by requests for adopting children who lost their parents to Covid-19, both online and offline, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has urged people not to fall for misinformation floating on social media, and advised interested families to follow the due legal process to initiate the adoption process.

Several children have lost their parents to the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic -- fourth wave, as per the Delhi government -- in the national capital. Earlier this week, DCPCR appealed to people on social media to call on their helpline number and report cases where children need essential supplies, have lost their parent(s), or are struggling to support themselves due to the illness. Following this, the child rights body said requests for adopting children orphaned amid the pandemic have also started pouring in.

Commission chairperson Anurag Kundu tweeted on Saturday evening: “Do not believe anyone who says he/she can give you the child for adoption. They are either lying or misleading or simply involved in illegal practices. Do reach out to your lawyer friends for advice.”

Kundu said he himself has received around 10 such requests in the last few days. “Besides, I see a lot of posts floating around about child adoption. People need to understand that they have to follow a legal process. Any adoption without it is illegal,” he said.

Antonin Maindron, who came to France at the age of three and a half, thought his biological parents were dead. He will meet them in Ethiopia, his country of origin. Testimony.

In his dining room, seated on a chair, he firmly holds his Christmas present. A photo album retracing his childhood given to him by his mother Nelly. These memories of youth will soon travel to Africa in the house where the young man was born in the mid-90s.

He puts the book down and starts. He has the impression of "reciting" his story, of appearing detached in the eyes of his interlocutors. The fire is inside. He hesitates and recovers: "It's a crazy thing, it's unimaginable. »Adopted in France at the age of three and a half, Antonin Maindron will be reunited with his biological parents , whom he believed to be dead, in Ethiopia in a few days.

From La Gaubretière , a town nestled in the Vendée bocage where he has lived for 22 years, he delivers a poignant testimony . A rare word that he also wants full of hope for uprooted children.

Read also

At least 5,678 children and adolescents are in different reception centers in the country waiting for a family

The President of the State, Luis Arce Catacora, promulgated this Thursday the modifying law of procedural abbreviation to facilitate the adoption of at least 5,678 children and adolescents who are in different reception centers in Bolivia and that guarantees the restitution of the human right to have a family.

"Our Government supports and executes public policies with priority for the benefit of our children , this is one of them and we are happy to enact this law that will bring institutionalized children closer to the right to have a family," said Arce.

The norm that modifies articles of Law N ° 548 of the Child and Adolescent Girl Code was prepared by the Ministry of Justice and Institutional Transparency to allow fast and safe adoption processes.

The president added that before the new rule an adoption process lasted up to more than four years ; however, with this modification it should only take three months.

When Xueli was a baby her parents left her on the ground outside an orphanage. In China, albinism is seen by some as a curse.

The rare genetic condition causes a lack of pigment which makes Xueli's skin and hair very pale and also makes her extremely sensitive to sunlight.

But looking different led Xueli to her modelling career. Now aged 16, she has graced the pages of Vogue and fronted campaigns for top designers.

This is her story as told to Jennifer Meierhans.

Xueli

When Agnes (56) was seven, she learned that she had been adopted. She always kept quiet about that. Only last year did she bring it out.

“I grew up in an ordinary middle class family. My parents worked hard and were busy, but they loved my little brother and me very much. I was seven when my mom said, 'I need to tell you something. You and your brother have been adopted. ' Strangely enough, that didn't shock me at all. Somehow I had always known. I felt different, like I didn't belong anywhere. And those freckles of mine, nobody in our family had them, that was crazy, wasn't it? ”

"My mother didn't know much about my origins, only that I had been in the Mother Health Monastery in Breda until I was five months old and that my young biological mother had given me up because she couldn't take care of me."

Adopted

The next day I told my neighbor. She didn't believe me. I just left it that way; actually I was ashamed of my adoption. I didn't want to be seen as 'different' from now on. And I was just a cheese head, so no one would guess. If I was somewhere with my dad and they said, 'Gosh, you don't look like your dad at all', I would quickly say, 'No, I look like my mother, she's at home.' ”