A study of all adoptions to Denmark will be a completely insurmountable task, both practically and financially, and we doubt whether such a general and all-encompassing study is the best way to use resources within the adoption area. If a study is to be carried out, one must define in advance specifically and concretely what is to be examined, e.g. in relation to “adoptions from X countries in the period xx-xx”, just as is the custom when Danish authorities have carried out investigations so far.

Adoption & Society has both a historical and contemporary interest in the field of adoption, and in certain circumstances an independent study may be a relevant option. However, before launching the investigation, it is absolutely crucial that you clearly define:

What is the purpose of the study? What do you want to achieve?

What period will one investigate?

Which countries will be examined?

European politicians and organisations have raised heavy critic against the close relationship between lawmakers and the tobacco industry and the secrecy surrounding the controversial deals signed with tobacco companies. Now they call on the EU Commission not to prolong the deal with Philip Morris International which is about to expire.

As previously reported by Euranet Plus, the smuggling of cigarettes hasn’t declined in the EU despite the deals made with the tobacco industry. Nor does the money received by the companies match the enormous losses of tax and duties due to illicit trade.

Nevertheless, the lack of results in the fight against smuggling is not even the main source of critique against the European agreements. It is what is described as a close relationship between European lawmakers and the tobacco industry and lack of transparency.

Ingeborg Grässle, chair of the Budgetary Control Committee in the European Parliament, says she and others have been fighting for years to have access to documents related to the agreements.

“You know when somebody pays a billion euros you wonder why should somebody do that? What are their interests? But these letters, where the tobacco industry lays down their interest, are not public. The minutes of the annual meetings between the tobacco industry and OLAF and the members states and law enforcements authorities in the member states are not public,” Grässle said in a interview with Euranet Plus.

An Ethiopian-born New Zealand citizen can adopt three of her missing sister’s children, but the decision will separate them from their older sibling, the Court of Appeal says.

The adoption process started three years ago and the oldest child is now 20 – too old for adoption.

But her brother, 17, and two sisters, aged 15 and 19, can be adopted, the court has said.

The family cannot be identified for legal reasons.

The court said separating the siblings gave it the greatest pause in reaching its decision.

Mumbai: Bombay high court on Thursday rejected a couple’s petition to restore to them custody of their adopted 2-year-old

daughter from the state’s child welfare committee’s (CWC) custody. The HC rejected the couple’s contention that the toddler

was taken away illegally and said it was in the “best interest of the child” that she continue to be in custody of CWC which has

placed in care of a trust that runs an adoption agency.

The childless couple said they had adopted a newborn from a single woman under provision of Hindu Adoption and

I have two children, a son and a daughter. Due to circumstances I gave my daughter up for adoption immediately after her birth. This daughter has tracked me down and I have had very good contact with her for many years. I want to inherit both my children. Is this possible and how exactly does this work? Do I need a will for this?

Your daughter is no longer legally your 'own' child due to the adoption. By law, children who have a family relationship with the parents inherit; so your son but not your daughter. Because of adoption, the family-law ties with the biological family are broken. As a result, your daughter has legally become the child of her adoptive parents. If you want her to be inherited, you will therefore have to have a will drawn up in which you designate your daughter as heir as well as your son.

This also affects the inheritance tax. Because she is no longer your 'own' child, according to the Inheritance Act, the limited exemption applies to her as standard (2021: € 2,244) and she will also have to pay the high rate of 30% from third parties on the taxed part of the inheritance.

However, there is experience with a comparable situation in which, applying the hardship clause, the State Secretary of Finance still treats an adopted child as the 'own' child of the mother who gave up the child. In that case, the normal exemption for children applies (€ 21,282 in 2021) and the rate of 10%. In this case, incidentally, there is still talk of inheritance tax; nowadays this is called inheritance tax. If you do indeed appoint your daughter as heir, it is therefore worth trying for her to invoke the hardship clause in the inheritance tax return after your death.

NB The said decision of the State Secretary is not legally binding. However, according to the principle of equality, equal cases must be treated equally. In other words: if the situation is the same / comparable to the stated situation, the State Secretary is obliged to do so.

The manager of international adoptions of the Italian organization will hold the European position for the next three years and said he was "honored to be able to cover this important role within EurAdopt for the next three years, to test myself in what is expected to be the most difficult but also the most stimulating period for international adoption in the post Covid-19 "

Italy and Ai.Bi. - Amici dei Bambini , with its head of the International Adoptions sector, Dr. Michele Torri, join the Executive Board of EurAdopt, the network of 25 organizations of European importance operating in the international adoption sector, representing 13 states, which supervises the European guidelines on adoptive policies.

Michele Torri

Michele Torri ( in the photo ) was also elected for the next three years as a member of the Board of EurAdopt , a position already held from 2016 to 2018. The Board, currently composed of 14 members indicated by the associated realities, is the governing body of the organization and it is always the Council that appoints the two members of the Executive Board who go to support the president, elected instead by the General Assembly . The task of the Executive Board, in coordination with the Council, is to supervise the achievement of the organization's objectives indicated by the General Assembly.

This year, due to the Coronavirus emergency, the General Assembly as well as the EurAdopt Conference scheduled in Copenhagen were not held. They will be held in April 2021, also in Copenhagen. The directors, the Executive Board and the president of EurAdopt will remain in office until the next General Assembly, which will be held in 2023.

Arizona Official Adoption Fraud FILE - In this Nov. 5, 2019, file photo, then-Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen, right, and his attorney, Kurt Altman, leave a court hearing in Phoenix. Petersen, a former Phoenix politician already in prison on a six-year sentence for operating an illegal adoption scheme involving women from the Marshall Islands, was ordered Friday, March 19, 2021, to serve another five years behind bars for defrauding Arizona’s Medicaid system in a scam to get taxpayer-funded health coverage for the birth mothers, even though he knew they didn’t live in the state. (AP Photo/Jacques Billeaud, File) (Jacques Billeaud)

PHOENIX — (AP) — A former Phoenix politician already in prison on a six-year sentence for operating an illegal adoption scheme involving women from the Marshall Islands was ordered to serve another five years behind bars for defrauding Arizona’s Medicaid system in a scam to get taxpayer-funded health coverage for the birth mothers, even though he knew they didn’t live in the state.

Paul Petersen, a Republican who was Maricopa County’s elected assessor for six years and worked as an adoption attorney, on Friday received the second of three sentences stemming from the adoption scheme. His five-year Arizona punishment is to be served after he completes his six-year federal sentence for conspiring to smuggle people in Arkansas.

Petersen was dressed in an orange prison suit in the Phoenix courtroom where he offered apologies and cried as he described hurting his clients, former co-workers and his own family through his practices. “I have no one to blame but myself,” Petersen said.

Authorities have said Petersen illegally paid women from the Pacific island nation to give up their babies in at least 70 adoption cases in Arizona, Arkansas and Utah. Citizens of the Marshall Islands have been prohibited from traveling to the United States for adoption purposes since 2003.

The federal government wants to align adoption and foster parental leave for statutory officials with contract officials and the private sector. The proposal is on the agenda of the Council of Ministers on Friday, Minister of Civil Service Petra De Sutter (Groen) reports.

Tenured officials adopting a child under the age of 10 have so far been entitled to six weeks of adoption leave per parent. The maximum age of the adopted child has now been raised to 18 years, and those who adopt multiple children will receive an extra two weeks' leave.

Statutory officials who take in a foster child for a long time have not yet been entitled to foster parent leave. From this year, they will be given six weeks leave per parent for every minor foster child that they take care of for more than six months.

Finally, this year there will be an extra two weeks for both adoption and foster parent leave, to be divided among the parents. That extra leave will be progressively increased until 2027 to five extra weeks of leave.

The foster parent and adoption leave of permanently appointed civil servants is thus equated with the leave of contract workers in the federal public services and of employees in the private sector. In addition, the reform is also important for the work-life balance of civil servants, says Minister De Sutter. “Creating a home for a child, some of whom come from problematic backgrounds, requires attention and commitment from the new parents and it takes time,” she says. "We want to give that to the parents and the child too."

The Delhi High Court has granted protection to a US-based Indian Christian couple,

apprehending legal action for adopting a child in India in the year 2014, under the Hindu

Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956.

A Single Bench of Justice Pratibha M. Singh noted that prior to coming into effect of the

Juvenile Justice Model Rules in 2016, there was no law enabling/ governing adoption of a child

DEORIA: Three children from the shelter home in UP’s Deoria, where

inmates were allegedly abused and trafficked, were adopted and sent to

Spain and France in February this year. A special investigation team (SIT)

of the UP police made these disclosure in the chargesheet submitted to

the Allahabad HC last week.