Parents who are willing to adopt these four kids with special needs can visit India only after the restrictions on international flights are lifted after December 31

Amid the COVID-19 situation, four orphans including three with special needs and another differently-abled between child aged between one-three years have found their foster parents abroad.

While three couples who have shown interest in adoption are from the US, one is from Italy. They have come forward to adopt after getting the Medical Examination Report (MER) and Child Study Report (CSR). The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) that comes under the Ministry of Women & Child Development has been working as a platform for the adoption centres and those who are keen on adopting children.

The Daya Kiran Adoption Centre at Bhaktharahalli near Kunigal has about 20 such children aged between four months to three years. "We are processing the passport for four children and those willing to adopt will visit only after the restrictions on international flights are lifted after December 31. At a time when people don't show interest in adopting healthy children, these couples from abroad have shown their interest to adopt children with special needs. It is very kind and a humane gesture," remarked district child protection officer Vasanthi Uppar.

She also informed that the process of adoption would have completed in the month of April and May. However, due to the pandemic, the process of adoption was stopped. It resumed in June following which the process of adoption of a ten-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old girl from 'Bala mandir' is in progress.

Tough report on adoptions from abroad: cabinet urged to stop

The adoption of children from abroad must be stopped completely for the time being. A committee led by former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra draws this conclusion in a report to be published, sources around the cabinet report. The outgoing government team is very upset with the recommendations.

Jan Hoedeman 05-02-21, 03:00

In a harsh judgment about the Dutch adoption culture and the role of the government in this, mention is made of 'serious abuses'. The committee identified child theft, child trafficking, corruption, forgery and theft of documents, unethical acts of civil servants and the transfer of children to the Netherlands under false pretenses.

The Joustra committee has mainly focused on adoptions of children from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Joustra researched the thirty years between 1967 and 1997, but encountered a permanent and structural problem that still persists. Because contemporary adoption practice is still not good enough, bringing children to the Netherlands should stop for the time being, the advice is.

Hollywood star Jane Russell’s adoption of an Irishwoman’s child in the 1950s nearly ended the actress’s career.

Russell had already adopted a girl with her husband, NFL quarterback and kicker Bob Waterfield, but wanted to expand their family, according to the Journal.ie. News of the star’s desire for another child reached Hannah McDermott, a Derrywoman then living in London with her husband and young son. Reportedly Hannah offered her custody of baby Thomas on condition that Jane and Bob provided him with a good home, love and education.

When the news made the papers the controversy rippled across the world and young Hannah suddenly found her home in London besieged by photographers.

Local historian Willie Deery told the Belfast Telegraph he believes Hannah was motivated out of love for her child, “Hannah came in for a lot of criticism, but I think what she did was out of love for her child.

“And the adoption caused Jane Russell all sorts of grief. Howard Hughes thought all the bad Press would finish her and he ordered her to return the boy, but she stood her ground and refused to give up the child.”

A High Court judge has criticised a nine-year delay by the Adoption Authority of Ireland in making adoption orders for four Indian children living here since 2011 with couples anxious to adopt them.

Mr Justice John Jordan said the Hague Convention on inter-country adoption requires the relevant authorities “shall act expeditiously in the process of adoption”.

In these cases, causing or allowing a delay between 2011 and 2020 “is not acting expeditiously – if that is not an understatement”, he said. Time and expedition "should be measured in weeks and months and not in years”.

He made the comments in a judgment granting applications by the Child and Family Agency and three couples authorising the Authority to make adoption orders concerning the four children, aged between 11 and 15, including two siblings.

The children were described as “orphans” in documents from the relevant Indian authority but other documents from the same authority said they had been “abandoned”.

Couples secured guardianship orders in India in 2011, with view to adopting the children in Ireland

A High Court judge has criticised a nine-year delay by the Adoption Authority of Ireland in making adoption orders for four Indian children living here since 2011 with couples anxious to adopt them.

Mr Justice John Jordan said the Hague Convention on inter-country adoption required the relevant authorities “shall act expeditiously in the process of adoption”.

In these cases, causing or allowing a delay between 2011 and 2020 “is not acting expeditiously – if that is not an understatement”, he said. Time and expedition “should be measured in weeks and months – and not in years”.

He made the comments in a judgment granting applications by the Child and Family Agency and three couples for orders authorising the authority to make adoption orders concerning the four children, aged 11-15, including two siblings.

Women are entitled to maternity leave for adoption, only if the child is below three months of age at that time. This has posed several challenges to women who chose to adopt.

Natasha Sikdar*, an assistant professor at a Kolkata-based engineering college adopted a six-month-old girl child in 2020. She presumed that she would be entitled to maternity leave by her institute but was denied one citing the law.

"Since I had some reproductive issues and had reached the age of 36 years, I decided to go for adoption. The adoption process itself took more than a year and I really needed time off to spend with the baby. But my workplace refused leave since it is legally not mandatory," she added.

The Maternity Benefits (Amendment) Act states that 26 weeks of paid maternity leave will be available to all working women for pregnancy and child-birth.

However, when it comes to adoption the law states provides only 12 weeks of maternity leave from the time the child is handed over to them. This too is applicable only if the child is below the age of three months. Women adopting children above three months are not legally entitled to any leave.

COIMBATORE: The city police on Saturday arrested four people, including two women, from Karumbukadai in connection with illegal adoption of two girl children and physical harassment of the youngest child.

The office of district child protection officer rescued the children – aged seven years and four years – and accommodated them in a children’s home.

“After separating from her husband, the biological mother of the children had started living with another man. Four months ago, she gave the children to a friend, who gave them to his two sisters. Within a month or so, the woman who was taking care of the four-year-old child, handed her over to another couple who was looking for adoption,” said an official. “The couple assaulted the child, causing scars on her body. Their neighbours alerted police.”

Podanur police officers and child protection officials visited the house on Friday and rescued the child. “We shifted the kids to a children’s home. We might send the elder girl with the family upon submitting legal adoption documents as she was taken good care of. The youngest child will be subjected to medical examination,” the official said.

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Differing procedures based on faith against the Constitution

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the government to respond to a plea seeking uniform, religious and gender neutral grounds for adoption and guardianship of children in the country.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde issued notice to the Centre on the plea by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay that people of different faiths continue to follow different statutes and personal laws in matters of adoption and guardianship.

“Even after years of Independence, adoption and guardianship procedures are very complex cumbersome and neither gender nor religion neutral,” the petition said.

It said Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains are dealt with Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act and Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act. Muslims, Christians and Parsis have their own personal laws. Couples belonging to different religions have to seek adoption under the JJ Act of 2000. NRIs, overseas citizens and foreign prospective adoptive parents, living in a country which is signatory to the Hague Adoption Convention and wish to adopt Indian child, need to approach an authorised foreign adoption agency or central authority subject to the Adoption Regulation of 2017.

Kim Ju-won (left) and Park Sun-min (right) say same-sex couples in South Korea are excluded from incentives to start families.

Lee Hyeon-ju and her husband Choi Kyu-ho have been helping out at her grandmother’s dried fish business on weekends.

The couple married in 2019, and live in Pohang on South Korea’s east coast. They’re already making plans to travel overseas once the pandemic is over.

Lee and Choi, both 29, have a secret that they are keeping from some members of their family — they don’t plan to have children. Lee said that revelation would be very disappointing to her husband's parents who expect her to produce a grandson for them.

South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, and in 2020, its population shrank. The government plans to increase financial incentives for married couples to have babies, but that excludes nontraditional families such as same-sex couples and single parents.

The investigation into the possible role of the Dutch government in illegal adoptions from abroad between 1967 and 1998 has been completed. The report of the Intercountry Adoption Research Committee will be published on Monday 8 February. On that day, the committee will hand over the investigation to Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker. He commissioned an investigation into possible wrongdoing in international adoptions.

The committee focuses on adoptions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Colombia. Illegal adoptions may have been made at that time involving Dutch government officials. Earlier, according to Dekker, it had already been shown that this may have been the case with illegal adoptions from Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s. That's why he set up the committee.

The researchers were given access to all information about the adoptions and were allowed to interrogate involved (former) officials. They also sent a questionnaire to a large number of Dutch adopted from abroad. The report was actually due on October 1, 2020, but due to the corona virus, the committee did not meet that deadline. For example, it was not possible to go abroad for research.

Tjibbe Joustra, former chairman of the Dutch Safety Board (OVV), is leading the investigation. Beatrice de Graaf and Bert-Jan Houtzagers are also on the committee. De Graaf is a terrorism expert and professor of the history of international relations at Utrecht University. Houtzagers works at the Council of State.

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