Amsterdam - The swimming pool intern suspected of raping eleven young children came to the Netherlands from Haiti as a child, where his adoptive parents raised him. He was involved with numerous organizations and regularly excelled.

According to the Public Prosecution Service, twenty-year-old JL abused fourteen children between the ages of 4 and 6 during swimming lessons between the end of August and the beginning of December last year in Zelhem, Gelderland.

According to the indictment, eleven victims were raped, as emerged on Tuesday during an initial preliminary hearing in the Zutphen court.

L. turns out to be an athletic young man. He was involved with several clubs in his region, such as the Achilles gymnastics club in Hengelo. He was already a great talent as a young teenager. A local media outlet wrote about the athletic young man after a competition: "J. was in top form that day; it was as if he could perform magic. Everything just worked out."

MUMBAI: Bombay high court refused to direct the Central Adoption Resource Agency (Cara) to approve the adoption of an American child by an Indian Muslim couple. It observed that neither the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act nor the Adoption Regulations allow the adoption of a child of foreign citizenship unless the child is ‘in need of care and protection' or ‘in conflict with law.'
"There is no fundamental right of the petitioners to adopt an American child, which child does not fall within the applicability of the JJ Act and the regulations thereunder even if he is born to Indian parents.
 

Neither is there any violation of any fundamental right of the child of American nationality to be adopted by an Indian citizen," said Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Gokhale on Wednesday.
They dismissed a petition by the childless couple from Pune who sought to adopt a child (now six years of age) from their California-based relatives. They brought him to India in Oct 2019.
As they are Muslims with no law for adoption, they approached the district court under Section 56 (2) for adoption from ‘a relative'. Cara, the regulator for in-country and inter-country adoption, refused to register them as prospective adoptive parents. They moved the high court, saying without valid adoption the child's stay in India may become illegal.
Their advocate, Shirin Merchant, argued that Section 56(2) provides for the adoption of a child from a relative. She said Cara is unnecessarily treating the adoption under AR 23 for NRI, OCI, and foreigners.

Cara's advocate, Y S Bhate, said the JJ Act and AR do not apply to the adoption of a child who is an American citizen by Indian parents.

The judges said the JJ Act applies to all matters concerning ‘child in need of care and protection' and ‘child in conflict with law'. Admittedly, the child does not fall within these definitions. "Hence, provisions of the Act… do not apply," Justice Gokhale wrote.

The judges said Section 56 (2) cannot operate independently of the Act. A relative must first relinquish the child for it to be a ‘child in need of care and protection'. Also, AR 23 provides for post-adoption procedures for bringing a foreign child adopted by Indian parents to India. The petitioners were "always at liberty to adopt this legal and regular procedure."

While Merchant insisted that the adoption be treated as in-country adoption provided under the AR, the judges said it has to follow the parent Act.

They said the petitioners' "predicament" can be resolved by Cara's suggestion to apply for Indian citizenship and following surrender by biological parents to follow the JJ Act or adopt the child in US.

The petitioners "were not inclined to accept the same".

The average delay for prospective parents to get an adoption referral in India has increased to over three years

For years now, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) — the country’s nodal adoption agency — has struggled to effectively manage adoptions. While a significant number of parents are willing to adopt, only a limited number of children are legally cleared for adoption. This imbalance has not gone unnoticed. In 2022, a Parliamentary panel called this imbalance a “paradoxical situation,” and in 2023, the Supreme Court “expressed displeasure” over the time-consuming adoption process.

Latest data obtained through a Right To Information application filed by The Hindu show that the asymmetry continues even in 2025, and the gap has widened further. In 2021, 26,734 prospective parents registered in the CARA portal, and 2,430 children were legally free for adoption. In other words, there were 11 prospective parents for every child free for adoption in 2021.

Shirley Chung was just 16 months old when an American family adopted her from South Korea in 1966.

She was raised by a Black family in Texas, went to a mostly white school and attended a mostly Black church. Growing up in a mixed-race family, she became accustomed to questions about her identity.

“'What are you? What are you?' I’ve heard that my whole life,” she said. “From when I was a little girl, and my mother would have to answer the question.”

But one thing she never questioned was her identity as an American.

That is, until she misplaced her Social Security card and tried to get a new one. She was 57 at the time.

Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler found a publicly accessible database online that contained highly personal information from an adoption agency.

Jeremiah, who specializes in locating exposed cloud storage, is used to finding sensitive information exposed. However, because of the nature of the information, this one immediately raised his concern and he hurried to find out who owned the data.

Research indicated that the database belonged to the Fort Worth (TX) based non-profit Gladney Center for Adoption. After notifying the agency, the database was secured the following day. Let’s hope nobody else found it before that time.

In total, the unencrypted and non-password-protected database contained 1,115,061 records including the names of children, birth parents, adoptive parents, and other potentially sensitive information like case notes.

The risks of leaking this type of data and it potentially falling in the hands of cybercriminals are huge. The sensitivity of adoption-related data makes these exposures particularly damaging, both for children and families, since adoption records often include highly personal details about children, birth parents, adoptive parents, and agency staff.

Counselling should be made available to prospective adoptive parents, adopted children and biological parents who surrender their child for adoption.

New Delhi: The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has written to its state counterparts asking that the counselling services for adoption be institutionalised.

The CARA has written to all SARAs asking that empanel qualified counsellors be hired at the district and state level. 

Counselling, the directive said, should be made available to prospective adoptive parents (PAPs), adopted children and biological parents who surrender their child for adoption. 

These counselling provisions, which are to be made available at the pre-adoption, adoption, and post-adoption stages, are prescribed under the Adoption Regulations, 2022. 

“The Adoption Regulations, 2022 contain specific provisions requiring the delivery of structured and

need-based counselling services at each stage of the adoption process. These include, but are not 

limited to, Regulation 10(7), Regulation 30(4)(c), Regulation 30(4)(e), Regulation 7(11), Regulation 30(2) (c), Regulation 14(4), Regulation 1 (6)(b), and Regulation 21(6) 

of Adoption regulation 2022 which collectively envisage a holistic support system for all relevant stakeholders,” a communication by CARA CEO Bhavna Saxena, dated July 7, states

Counselling, in the adoption process, is mandatory during the pre-adoption state to prospective adoptive parents, and is important to draft the Home Study Report without which adoptions cannot take place. 

The bench also refused to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to allow the adoption and said there is no "fundamental right" of the petitioners to adopt an American child.

Mumbai: An Indian does not have the fundamental right to adopt a child of American nationality even from among relatives when the child is neither "in need of care and protection" nor in "conflict with law", the Bombay High Court has said.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Gokhale on Wednesday refused an Indian couple's plea to adopt their relative's son, who is a US citizen by birth. The child in the present case does not fall within the definition of either 'child in need of care and protection' or a 'child in conflict with law' as per provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and Adoption Regulations, the HC said.

"There is no provision in the Juvenile Justice Act nor the Adoption Regulations providing for adoption of a child of foreign citizenship even between relatives unless the 'child is in need of care and protection' or a 'child is in conict with law'," it stated

The bench also refused to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to allow the adoption and said there is no "fundamental right" of the petitioners to adopt an American child. 

Neither is there any violation of any fundamental right of the child of American nationality to be adopted by an Indian citizen, it added. 

The couple will have to complete all necessary formalities of adopting the child from the US as per American laws and procedure, only after which they can go ahead with the post-adoption procedure in terms of bringing the foreign child adopted to India, the HC said. 

The couple sought to adopt their relatives' child, who is a citizen of the United States of America by birth.

Deux perquisitions dans le cadre de l'affaire Reynders

L'ex-commissaire européen et vice-Premier ministre belge Didier Reynders reste silencieux dans les médias depuis plus de six mois. ©BELGA

Bandung (ANTARA) - While investigating a child abduction case, the West Java Regional Police uncovered a child trafficking syndicate operating between Indonesia and Singapore and arrested 12 persons for trafficking babies for adoption.

“The suspects told us that they had taken as many as 24 infants,” the police’s director of general crime investigation, Grand Commissioner Surawan, informed in Bandung, West Java, on Tuesday.

According to Surawan, the West Java police busted the human trafficking ring while investigating a child abduction case in Bandung city.

He said that the traffickers took most of the infants from their biological parents in West Java. They were taken to Bandung, then Jakarta and West Kalimantan, from where the traffickers planned to fly them to Singapore.

The regional police, he added, managed to rescue five infants in Pontianak city, West Kalimantan, and one other in Tangerang, Banten. The infants are currently under the care of the police.

“This syndicate had been operating since 2023. We will entrust the babies to Sartika Asih Hospital in Bandung for health checks,” Surawan disclosed.

He informed that the infants were to be sold for Rp11 million (around US$676) to Rp16 million (US$983) to buyers for adoption in Singapore.

“The suspects said that the infants would be taken to Singapore for adoption by local citizens,” he added.

He said that the 12 nabbed syndicate members played different roles, acting as recruiters, caregivers, document counterfeiters, and transporters.

“The transactions began even before the babies were born,” he added.

Surawan further said that the West Java police intend to coordinate with Interpol to track down other victims who may have been sent abroad.

“We are still working to locate possible trafficked infants in Singapore. Our plan is to cooperate with Interpol,” he added.

The Secretary-General has the honour to transmit to the General Assembly the report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem, in accordance with Assembly resolution 79/152.