On 12 April, the EU Delegation organised a public online conference to mark the recent adoption of the new EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, map out synergies with the upcoming Council of Europe respective Strategy in this field and grasp the importance of international standards for the protection of the rights of children across Europe.

The conference brought together key speakers from the EU and the Council of Europe, engaged in the definition of strategies, policies and recommendations on the rights of the child: Ms Valeria Setti, European Commission Coordinator for the Rights of the Child and Ms Regina Jensdottir, Head of the Children’s Rights Division and Coordinator for the Rights of the Child at the Council of Europe.

The conference provided a very good opportunity to highlight the coherence and convergence between the EU and the Council of Europe’s respective standards of protection for the rights of the child, as well as the great willingness of both organisations to strengthen their cooperation and synergies in this field. The speakers made clear that the newly adopted EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child and the upcoming respective Council of Europe Strategy are in very close alignment and will complement each other along the way, building on their respective strengths.

You can find a recording of our conference on the Commission’s streaming platform or on our Facebook channel(link is external)

Two European-level Strategies for the Rights of the Child: What Added Value for us?

The Constitutional Court has ruled that a trust created by a donor for the benefit of his children and their descendants unfairly discriminated against children adopted by one of his daughters as it did not include them.

Louis John Druiff executed a deed of trust as well as a will “for the benefit of his children and their descendants”.

The deed of trust said any income should be for his four children and their children.

At the time of execution of the deed‚ Druiff had four children‚ three of whom already had children of their own.

One of his daughters‚ Dulcie Helena Harper‚ was married but did not have any children. She later adopted two children.

New Delhi: Ahead of next month’s proposed India-European Union summit in Portugal, European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee has called for both sides to work closely but also expressed concern over the “deteriorating human rights situation in India”.

On April 13, the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament adopted a report which has a set of recommendations on strengthening the bilateral relationship. The report, adopted with 61 votes in favour and six votes against, will be made public after the European Parliament approves it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to travel to Portugal to attend the India-EU summit on May 8.

According to a press release, the report calls on the EU and India to work together to “promote a shared vision of a rules-based world order in multilateral settings, reinforcing international security, fostering connectivity, fighting climate change and enhancing global economic stability”.

Quoting the committee’s rapporteur, Finnish member of European Parliament(MEP) Alviina Alametsä, the press release stated that India and EU “as the world’s largest democracies have all the possibilities to build a better planet”.

“To fulfil our potential, we need to be more ambitious in our cooperation on preventing climate crises, promoting human rights, building connectivity, sustainable trade and defending a multilateral international order,” she said.

A woman who spent almost five years battling to adopt a boy in Uganda said it was "surreal" to now be living in the UK.

Emilie Larter, 29, from Worcestershire, was volunteering for a children's charity in 2014 when she took care of baby Adam, whose mother had died.

She raised thousands of pounds to adopt him, and the pair have been back in the UK since January.

Adam has now started school and is making friends, she said.

Emilie Larter

Managing board

Ellen Giepmans Managing Director

Ellen Giepmans

Managing Director

Mirte Grauss

Adoption of child by single parents: “If a woman feels she is nothing without the support of a man that is the failure of the system” The Kerala High Court quoted during the hearing of a case in regard to surrendering a child for adoption.

Justices A Muhamed Mustaque and Dr Kauser Edappagath of the bench were faced with a petition by an unmarried couple who lived together, reclaiming their child who was surrendered for adoption previously. The court granted its’s decision in favour of the couple and handed them their child back. The decision was ruled against the Child Welfare Committee that inquired into their marriage status.

“Once it is found that the child is born to a couple, for all practical purposes of JJ Act, inquiry must be initiated as though the child belonged to a married couple” The Kerala HC said.

What was the case?

Anitha and John (names changed to preserve privacy) were in a live-in relationship when she got pregnant. Anitha claimed John to be the biological father. Their relationship was not accepted by their parents as they belonged to separate religions.

Teleza is Nicole van Elteren's daughter. She runs a children's home and development projects in Malawi. Teleza was pressed into her arms when she was a few days old. The biological mother was dead, the father unknown and Teleza herself turned out to be critically ill. She had four holes in the heart that would kill her without surgery.

Adoption

Because the life-saving operations were not carried out in Africa, but in the Netherlands, Nicole decided to adopt the child. That's how Teleza would become Dutch. But where Malawi recognized the adoption in June 2020, the Netherlands did not. Malawi was seen as a weak adoption country, because Malawi's law states that adopted children in principle keep the right to an inheritance from their biological parents.

Although Teleza has no biological parents, the Netherlands stuck to that rule. Teleza was denied a passport, so she was not entitled to health insurance. Because the baby was getting sicker and was in danger of dying in the meantime, Nicole decided to travel to the Netherlands in September to have Teleza operated on uninsured. Almost 110,000 euros was raised through crowdfunding to finance the very expensive interventions.

Judge

They don't cheer. But that adoptions from abroad have been stopped is the only right decision, say Kim, Sophie, Niranka and Kumar. They still have doubts about who they really are. "For years I had a picture on my nightstand of an unknown woman who is not my real mother."

I should be grateful?

Kumar (36): ,, I find some things incomprehensible. Then I hear people say that it is only a problem for a small number of people. And then I think: there are so many Sri Lankan children who have problems because of the adoption. The same people say: we must stop boats with refugees, but bring children from distant lands, that must continue?

“I had to look for my family for 32 years, but I found them. In the end I never met my mother. She passed away in 2010. That is a hard blow. I would have loved to take care of her. “I experienced a lot of racism in my youth, in Zevenaar. On the football field, but also during job interviews.

“There are so many things that you start to doubt. When I was 16, I heard that my date of birth was a completely different one. I suddenly had a different day for my birthday.

John Erik Aarsheim is contacted by many who doubt his adoption history. The organization Adopted demands a full investigation of adoptions carried out in the 80s from Colombia.

- I have received around 20 inquiries from people who feel that they are in the same situation, says John Erik Aarsheim.

Before Christmas, Aarsheim discovered that he was kidnapped in the 80s before he was adopted in Norway. This month he got to meet the biological family after 32 years.

- But with the knowledge I gained after being in Colombia now, I am not surprised by the number of inquiries. This is a huge problem there, and it should just be missing that there are no more cases like mine in Norway, says Aarsheim.

In 2019, Dagsavisen wrote about another boy who was kidnapped and adopted to Norway in the 80s.

Trafficking in Human Beings is not a faded, historical memory: it is a

social issue in today’s Albania, and it bears the seeds of a potential

threat to security. RS, a 20-year-old woman from Tirana, gave birth

in prison, following an arrest for theft. RS first reached authorities’

attention as a serial thief at 16. However, her story is not simply one of juvenile