12

Apr.

Interview with adoption permit holders

Conversation | Sander Dekker

Please note: this activity has already taken place

[Adoption under Juvenile Justice Act] Child born out of live-in relationship to be treated as child born to married couple: Kerala High Court

The Court held that a woman in a live-in-relationship, acknowledging the biological father of the child, out of such a relationship, will have to be treated as a married woman for the purpose of Juvenile Justice Act.

In a decision of seminal significance, the Kerala High Court has held that a child born out a live-in relationship and acknowledged so by the mother of the child, would have to be treated as a child born to a married couple for the purposes of surrendering a child for adoption under Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 [JJ Act).

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More than two months ago, the cabinet temporarily halted foreign adoptions due to abuses . In South Africa, one of the countries from which children were adopted, they do not identify with it.

The Campher family's wall is full of pictures of babies and toddlers. Over the past seven years, the couple Barbara and Thinus have cared for nearly a hundred children in their home. Three children were adopted by the Dutch. They are currently taking care of six children.

"We keep the shelter small so that it feels like a family," says Thinus Campher. "If we go on an outing, we can all go together, that is not possible if we would take care of more children. Six is ??our max."

To the Netherlands

Very soon there will be one child less. "A 6-year-old boy whom we have been taking care of for years is going to the Netherlands." For the time being he is the last of this reception family. The only reason his adoption goes ahead is that he was already in the adoption process when intercountry adoption was suspended.

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday supported a resolution in the provincial assembly to frame specific laws and procedures regarding the adoption of children in the province.

Member of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party Nighat Yasmin Orakzai moved the resolution seeking a legal mechanism and cover for the protection of adoptees, especially shelterless children.

The treasury and opposition benches supported the resolution in the session, which was presided over by Deputy Speaker Mahmood Jan.

Ms Orakzai complained that the province didn’t have any specific law for adoptions.

She said verbal agreements were made between adopters and hospitals or private child protection bodies, while the adopted children were handed over to the families without the checking of their financial and social backgrounds.

Assistant Minister for Children and Families, Michelle Landry, has today announced Relationships Australia South Australia (RASA) as the successful provider delivering the Morrison Government's $4.75 million redesigned Intercountry Adoptee and Family Support Service (ICAFSS).

RASA will be the lead agency delivering the ICAFSS over the next five years, from 1 July 2021, following last year's competitive grant round.

The intercountry adoption community will continue to benefit from the Government's investment to support the delivery of this important service.

Assistant Minister Landry said the redesigned ICAFSS, led by RASA, will provide the intercountry adoption community with access to free, nation-wide intercountry adoption-specific support, including therapeutic care, community capacity building and a new small grants program.

"As part of the redesigned service, people with lived experience of intercountry adoption will have an opportunity to have their say on how the program is designed, implemented and delivered, so it meets their needs."

His search took about eight months. In May, he embraced his biological mother and other relatives in India after 34 years. Danny van der Maas (36), who was given up for adoption at the age of 2: "I told my mother that she made a good decision in 1977."

With his story, Van der Maas would like to make it clear that a search for the origins of adopted children - contrary to what is sometimes claimed - can also turn out well. “Before it started to itch for me, I was already around 30 years old. Before that I had no need for it. ”

His parents have always fully supported Van der Maas in his quest. The main reason that Van der Maas wanted to track down his biological family was that he wanted to personally tell his parents that they made a good decision in 1977 to give him up for adoption. “I didn't want them to feel guilty. As a baby, I had an inexplicable growth retardation. My parents didn't have the options to take good care of me. ”

Van der Maas realized what he was getting into when he set out to investigate in September last year. “I too had heard stories of adopted youth whose search ended in great disappointment. I think it is important to start looking only when you yourself are stable, when you have developed your own identity. If you look for that identity in your origins, it can lead to disappointment. At the same time, you don't know in advance what it will do to you when you have found them. ”

In 1975 Van der Maas was born in central India. His biological parents give him up for adoption because they cannot take good care of their little one and because there are concerns about his health. Kees and Jannie van der Maas, who work in the neighborhood on behalf of Woord en Daad, take little Danny and another child, Sarita, into their family.

New Delhi: The 2016 Rafale deal between India and France also involved the payment of 1.1 million Euros by aviation major Dassault to an Indian middleman, French publication "Mediapart" has reported citing an investigation by the country's anti-corruption agency. Dassault claimed the money was paid for 50 replicas of Rafale fighter planes ordered from a Defence Company whose owner Sushen Gupta is being investigated in the Agusta-Westland helicopter scam.

"The company (Dassault) said the money was used to pay for the manufacture of 50 large replica models of Rafale jets, even though the inspectors were given no proof that these models were made," Mediapart reported.

One of these models can be seen outside the residence of the Air Chief. Sources say other models are installed at the Western Air Command, the IAF base in Gwalior; some are headed to the new Rafale squadron being set up in Hasimara and others lie in a warehouse waiting to be installed.

The allegations were first uncovered by the French anti-corruption agency Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA) during their audit of Dassault, according to the report.

But the AFA "against all apparent logic" decided not to refer the case to prosecutors, it said.

'The narrative about adoption should not be dominated by non-adoptees,' writes Renate Van Geel. 'If you as a society continue to opt for the system of intercountry adoption, you are actually saying: we are prepared to take the gigantic risks and we regard the human toll as collateral damage.'

Because I was adopted myself, I was very touched by the recently published report of the Joustra Commission in the Netherlands. As a result of the structurally proven abuses within intercountry adoption, the Netherlands immediately took an adoption pause. There was a lot of reaction to that decision. All together, these opinions form the existing narrative about adoption.

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'I recently celebrated my 40th anniversary at Terre des Hommes. I had not realized that time had passed so quickly. I once started working as a project assistant, when Terre des Hommes focused mainly on emergency aid. After a year or two, I visited a project for the first time, where I met the children we work with. That was when my work really took on meaning.

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I am now a director and I work a lot in the office again. I am involved in fundraising, lobbying and processes. Important, but I prefer to work with the children who are involved. Of course I sometimes get emotional. Especially when I visit one of the ten brothels in Bangladesh. Many young girls there have followed in their mother's footsteps. It touches me when I see how responsible they feel to help make money too.

For example, I once met a girl of about 8 years old, Rosy. Terre des Hommes has set up schools for these children, because society does not accept them in mainstream schools. After a while Rosy was allowed to go to a 'normal' school. I visited her and asked how she was doing. She said: “I was especially curious about the other girls, how they think and what they talk about. I was surprised to find that they are just like me: they just want to play and have fun. ”

The situation of children in the brothels is dire. I usually bottle up my emotions. But doing nothing is not an option. And if you have been educated yourself, you have a responsibility to help others who have not had that privilege. So I just try to do my job the best I can. It helps to see the great results. For example, I have seen the children in brothels grow into independent, proud women. Some were even able to free their mother from the brothel. Hence my mantra is: give all children a chance, regardless of origin, so that they can realize their potential.

Born on a baby farm , stolen from your mother, or traded by criminals. That is the past of many adopted children from abroad. The Dutch government knew about it, but there is no compensation to find out the truth. Some adoptees are fed up and go out of their way to find answers.

A group of adoptees has sent a statement in which they hold the Ministry of Justice and Security liable for damage caused by illegal adoption procedures of children from abroad. The adopted children hope for a financial compensation. Among other things, they want to pay for the searches for their biological families.

The Joustra Committee published a report in February which showed that the Dutch government was aware of abuses in adoptions from abroad between 1967 and 1998. The government then apologized - to the surprise of many adopted children. Lawyer Dewi Deijle, herself adopted from Indonesia, has been campaigning for the rights of adoptees in the Netherlands for years. "I did shed a tear that day," says Deijle.

But then came the next step. "If you apologize, you also have to take responsibility." And according to Deijle, that should be in the form of compensation for all adoptees. Minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection) wants to set up a knowledge center and has come up with a subsidy scheme for organizations that support adopted children, but financial support for all individual adoptees is not yet available.

Deijle talked to Dekker: 'He believes that the Dutch taxpayer should not have to pay for this. While I think that the Netherlands is all about solidarity. I don't know who my biological mother is, but I was most likely trafficked by criminals. We are solving crimes, why do we have to pay for it ourselves? '