Recently, two trafficking rackets were busted in West Bengal.

In the wake of the statewide child trafficking racket that was recently unearthed, a woman who was adopted as a child by a Swedish couple after being abandoned by her biological parents 28 years ago, now wants to find out if the process was legal and without any corruption.

Suya, now known as Julia Gärdefäldt was born on March 19, 1984 to a poor family from the south-western fringes of Kolkata. She contracted tuberculosis when she was four years old and her father, Babu Biswas, who was a mason was unable to pay for her treatment. He left the child at an orphanage Society For Indian Children’s Welfare, Ashirwad, in south Kolkata where she was kept for about two years before a Swedish couple adopted her.

Julia was the third of the four children of her parents. Her mother, Sandhya Biswas, now bedridden with a severe ailment spoke to DNA saying that if possible she would want to meet her daughter. “Her father had kept her at the orphanage by convincing me that she would be taken care of there and given proper medical attention. I had never thought that she would go away to a far away country. If she returns now, we would like to find out who was responsible for her adoption and whether it was done legally or not, given all the scams which are being unearthed now,” she said. After her husband's death, Sandhya now lives with her brother Sahadeb Bor. Her son and Julia’s brother Raju Biswas and his family too live with her. The two other daughters have been married off.

Julia, on the other hand, also spoke to DNA from Sweden and said that she was interested in returning and finding out the facts of her adoption. “Along with the legal aspect of my adoption, I would also want to meet my biological parents and family who had abandoned me owing to an ailment,” she said.

Madonna has taken my girls for ever? That can’t be true! Pictured for the first time, the twins' father says he didn’t realise their adoption was permanent

Adam Mwale, father of Esther and Stella, has revealed his shock over adoption

Mr Mwale first learnt of Madonna’s interest last May at their orphanage

He was told the pop star liked the twins, wanted to take them and educate them

The father says he was told they would be coming back to his village in Malawi

On February 9, a senior judge of the Bombay High Court, Justice Sadhana Jadhav, passed an order expunging the comments she herself had made last month while granting bail to a man accused of sexually abusing his minor adopted daughter. The order read:

“The last four lines of paragraph [4] of the order passed on January 16, 2017, which stand expunged with the above clarification are as follows:

She has admitted that she used to do all dirty things. It appears that she was inherently abnormal and had sexual instinct from her childhood, in all probabilities because of the environment and atmosphere in which she lived and because of the conduct of her mother.”

The matter was taken up for hearing on an urgent application made by the police to expunge the comments passed by the judge. Beneath this short order lies the history of humiliation a rape victim is constantly subjected to during court proceedings, despite the vibrant anti-rape movement in the country in the last three-and-a-half decades.

The accused was represented by a reputed criminal lawyer and it is quite obvious that documents – including a letter written by the child to the supervisor of her shelter home at the time of her adoption – that formed the chargesheet were brought to the notice of the judge by him. It is also likely that the additional public prosecutor did not strongly object that the document had no bearing on the case and was incriminatory. What is shocking is that the judge made her comments in an open court, which were then reported in newspapers.

ADOPTION AGENCY MEMBERS, KEM DOCTORS BOOKED

By Darshana Daga, Pune Mirror | Feb 18, 2017, 02.30 AM IST

MINOR’S RAPE AND PREGNANCY HIDDEN FROM THE POLICE

In the shocking case of a 17-year-old girl, who was raped and impregnated, delivered the baby, and gave it up for adoption — all kept secret from law enforcement agencies — city police have now booked three office-bearers of the Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK) adoption agency, as well as three doctors of the King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital. Cops are now on the lookout for the three agency members, who are on the run, even as the District’s Women and Child Development (WCD) department has asserted that it wants all trustees of the agency to be implicated, too.

A special court had earlier this month ordered Yerwada police to implicate the six accused for not divulging information to the authorities about the rape and delivery. The bail applications of the missing trio have also already been rejected by the District and Sessions Court.

FBI Raid Massive Pedo Ring At U.S. Adoption Agency

February 16, 2017 Sean Adl-Tabatabai News, US 5

FBI uncover huge pedophile ring at International adoption agency

The FBI has uncovered a massive pedophile ring after conducting a raid at an international adoption agency in Ohio.

The raid on a Strongsville international adoption agency took place on Tuesday morning just months after the State Department barred the adoption agency from providing intercountry adoption services following a previous investigation into abuse.

Adoptions italiennes au Congo : des irrégularités sur certains dossiers

Jeudi 16 Février 2017 - 17:02

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Des sommes d’argent auraient-elles été versées en sous-main pour obtenir l’adoption de certains enfants en Italie ? À Rome, l’affaire agite jusqu’au Parlement.

Families impacted by raid of International Adoption Agency in Strongsville speak out

Chris Tye, WKYC 11:14 PM. EST February 15, 2017

PINTEREST

Strongsville – On Tuesday FBI agents raided a Strongsville adoption agency, two months after operations were halted there by the United States Department of State.

Now, for the first time we’re hearing from families that used European Adoption Consultants and, in some cases, were just weeks away from meeting their new child.

Semi-Finalists Named in MacArthur Competition for $100 Million Grant

Published February 15, 2017 ShareThis

Eight bold solutions to critical social problems were named semi-finalists today in 100&Change, a global competition for a single $100 million grant from MacArthur. The proposals address challenges ranging from eliminating needless blindness to educating children displaced by conflict, in places from Nigeria to Nepal to the United States.

“These eight ambitious proposals exemplify the passion, range, and creativity of the hundreds of applications,” said MacArthur President Julia Stasch. “We hope that the competition inspires individuals and organizations to be bold and think big, because solutions are possible.”

View overview videos and project summaries for the eight semi-finalists.

People who are adopted as babies do not forget their native language. Recent research by Radboud University, among others, shows that Korean adoptees learn Korean more easily at a later age. Even if they were only a few months old at adoption.

Language learning begins in the womb. In the last term of pregnancy, when hearing is fully developed, the fetus already hears its mother talking endlessly. The baby is especially sensitive to the rhythm of his mother tongue and recognizes it immediately after birth. A child only really starts experimenting with sound sequences such as dadadada when he is six months old, in the so-called babbling phase. Until then, listening is key.

This knowledge that a baby gains in the first months of its life is never lost. Mirjam Broersma of the Center for Language Studies in Nijmegen discovered this when she introduced 29 Korean adoptees in the Netherlands to their mother tongue. Together with colleagues from Australia and Korea, she published her results in Royal Society Open Science.

Subtle sound differences

With the exception of the control group, the participants in Broersma's study were born in Korea. They were adopted at a very young age by Dutch-speaking parents. Half of them were younger than six months at the time of adoption, the other half were older than seventeen months (but younger than six years). During the study, the participants were between 23 and 41 years old. The people in the control group were born and raised Dutch people of about the same age as the people in the adoption group. They were also comparable in other respects, such as educational level and number of times they had visited Korea.

Photo: Raising Malawi

Madonna in Malawi (file photo).

COLUMN

By Carmel Rickard

Perhaps you are a bit uneasy about high profile adoptions of African children by international celebrities? Perhaps you’ve read about their generous donations to special causes that seem to smooth the way for adoptions and wonder whether the welfare of the children involved is a serious consideration.