Fatima walks toward the microphone and stands in front of the judge.

It’s Oct. 30, 2020, and Fatima is in the U.S. District Court in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to testify at the sentencing hearing for Michael and Charlotte Taylor.

They are her parents. Or, they were. Fatima isn’t sure what to call them anymore.

She is 19 years old, and the Taylors raised her as their daughter after adopting her from Nicaragua. This is the story she’s been told since she was 5.

Now, Fatima knows this story is a lie.

Resume

We are regularly startled by reports of illegal admission of children with the aim of adopting them and offering them a safe home. Sometimes innocent, sometimes very calculated adults, circumvent the law. [1]

preface

In recent years we have been regularly startled in the newspapers by reports about illegal admission of children with the aim of adopting them and offering them a safe home. Sometimes innocent, sometimes very calculating adults circumvent the law.

The desire to raise a child is great. Having a child via the internet or other contacts is relatively easy. All means seem justified and… it doesn't really matter that much, does it? In the end, the child will be fine in the new family, right? Is that correct? What is the interest of the child? Does it matter if it is a baby or an older child? When is the best interests of the child served and what means are or are not permitted when there is an illegal admission to a family?

PRIA facilitated a five day training on Right(s) Way Forward – Communities for Sustainability for Open Learning Systems (OLS) from December 7-11, 2015 in Odisha. This learning programme was promoted by Forum Syd, a Swedish funding organization, and its Swedish partner, Adoptionscentrum.

The primary objective of the training was to capacitate OLS to work on environment and climate change issues in 2016. The training was organised in Nimapara block of Puri district. A total of 20 participants (five women and 15 men) attended the training. The group consisted of two ward members, one sarpanch, two SHG members, three community volunteers and 12 field staff (working on community based rehabilitation). In addition, one main field programme coordinator from OLS and an Adoptionscentrum representative also observed the training.

While setting the objectives at the start of the workshop, the participants listed down many issues such as building understanding and awareness on climate change and its effects, whether it is manmade or not, changing attitudes and utilisation of local resources, etc.

All these issues were addressed in their learning. The programme primarily focused on building understanding of communities on issues related to climate change, how it has contributed to degradation of the environment and has affected their livelihood options. It also helped build understanding on the linkages between environment–institutions–economy and the wellbeing of communities. It took into account how climate change impacts natural resource management and its repercussions on women and men within a given community. The training process helped participants understand the importance of inclusion, especially marginalized groups, when preparing Community Action Plans. At the end of the training-learning programme, the participants were able to prepare a Community Action Plan.

The participants appreciated the training and actively engaged in the group exercises facilitated by PRIA. The Adoptionscentrum representative opined that the active participation by all was a good indicator of the success of the programme. “In many trainings, people generally disappear during group exercises, and only one or two work on the task at hand,” she said. “This especially happens at the community level. In this training, everyone participated. ”

Whenever a new documentary once again peels back the layers of secrecy, shame and deception that were for decades a defining feature of life in Ireland, the biggest shock is that there is no shock. We all know that this is how things have always been done here: the truth quietly placed in a bottom drawer, terrible deeds waved through with a wink and a nudge. The faces change. The story is the same.

And so while the wrongdoings chronicled in RTÉ Investigates: Ireland’s Illegal Adoptions (RTÉ One, Wednesday, 9.35pm) are obviously heinous, the documentary ultimately lands with a predictable thud. Of course, religious institutions facilitated illegal adoptions. And yes, obviously, the State was complicit in what was essentially a child-laundering conspiracy on an industrial scale. Have the now grown-up victims received justice? What do you think?

The sheer scale of the scandal documented in Aoife Hegarty’s report is hard to take in over the span of a single sitting. Indeed, if this otherwise peerless film has a flaw, it is that it might have been better served by airing in instalments.

I’ve seen dogs that were purchased and the people selling the dogs being more concerned about how the dog was doing than the nuns were

There’s just too much. One case that stands out is that of Mary Dolan, who describes receiving sensitive information relating to her illegal adoption from a Tusla social worker in a hotel lobby. (In a statement, Tusla said it would “engage with” and “apologise to” the “small number” of people who received news about their birth parents in inappropriate settings.) Later she was told she had a birth sibling, living in the United States. They met over the internet and bonded. A DNA test subsequently revealed the initial information had been incorrect: they were not related at all.

Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin has described revelations about illegal adoptions as "shocking".

He said "what happened was wrong" and "completely unacceptable".

RTÉ Investigates has reported that for decades thousands of babies born to unmarried mothers were illegally adopted.

Many only recently found out they were adopted, believing until then that the mother and father they grew up with were their natural parents.

Some also discovered they had been celebrating their birthday on the wrong date for decades, because their birth certificates had been falsified.

Parliamentary question 2015Z22513

The message 'Free play for child traffickers' regarding illegal adoption from Nepal

Submitted November 25, 2015

Answered December 22, 2015 (after 27 days)

Submitter Khadija Arib ( Labor )

Breaking: Writ Of Habeas Corpus Not Maintainable Against Judicial Order Of Magistrate /CWC Sending Minor Victim To Children Protection Homes:Allahabad

A Full Bench of Allahabad High Court on Monday held that an order passed by a Judicial Magistrate

or Child Welfare Committee sending victim to women protection homes/child care homes cannot

be challenged or set aside in a writ of habeas corpus. Subsequently, the Bench also observed that

the detention of a corpus in such child care homes cannot be treated as an illegal detention.

During the last cabinet term, Minister Hugo de Jonge was 'system responsible' for youth care. A headache file, about which he barely informed the House for three years and in which the new decentralized health care system turned out to be indomitable. Silent and inglorious, De Jonge left the portfolio at the end of last year, on which he manifested himself as an alderman in Rotterdam. Youth care is in crisis. 'Thinking that it will all work out on its own, I just don't believe in that anymore.'

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Sweden was a driving force in creating the international adoption movement.

The political unity was total - adopting became a matter of course.

This is the story of how Swedish governments have acted to increase adoptions to the country.

Patrik Lundberg

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In several European countries, there is currently a lively discussion about international adoptions. The debate started when the Netherlands decided to stop all international adoptions for the time being, the half-finished adoption processes are of course completed.

However, the discussion has been going on for many years. For example, Denmark temporarily stopped international adoptions in 2019, investigating the operability and ethics of the adoption system, until 2020 when international adoptions resumed. Last year, practices in international adoption by third parties were also reviewed in Sweden and the current model was found to work.

The investigations are a result of concerns about the ethics of international adoptions, as individual adoptions have been shown to contain irregularities. The discussion and investigations have been useful. The Swedish Inquiry's final report contains recommendations on, for example, developing services after adoption and Nordic co-operation, and it pays to listen to these recommendations here in Finland as well.

Why does bureaucracy take so much time?

We wish that the ongoing discussion for practice in international adoption a few steps forward again and open up new perspectives. In the public discussion, bureaucracy and the long process of adoptions are often seen as a negative thing. Hopefully we will see a shift from the point of view of the parents and the expectants also to the perspective of the adopted children.