Sellur police rescued a 10-month-old baby boy on Saturday after a complaint of illegal adoption between two families.

Police said the baby, born in last August, was handed over by the parents to a childless couple. Both parties had not followed the established procedures for adoption of children.

They just entered into a written agreement certified by a notary public.

After the issue came to light, Child Welfare Committee member B. Pandiarajan, lodged a complaint.

“The baby has been taken to a government home. Further enquiry is under way,” a police officer said.

The apex adoption body CARA has extended the timelines for in-country adoption process due to the prevailing situation of COVID-19

In a letter dated May 29 addressed to all state adoption resource agencies, district child protection units and specialised adoption agencies, the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) said in the wake of the pandemic and the prevailing travel restrictions in India, it has been decided to further extend the period of child matching with prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) till June 30

"Further, the timeline for filing of the petition in court for adoption cases, where the matching process has been completed, has also been extended up to June 30 or till the date the Registry of the Courts open, whichever is later," the letter said. The referral of children to the PAPs have also been suspended till further orders, the letter said.

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When Mugalu* was adopted, his birth family says they were told they would still be able to speak to him regularly and he would come back for visits. “They said we would be one big happy family,” says his mother, Sylvia, wiping away tears.

But Sylvia, 40, has not seen her son since he was adopted from Uganda almost seven years ago by an American couple. She is now fighting to get her son back, taking her case to the high court in Uganda and exploring her legal options in the US.

Mugalu’s adoption was arranged through an organisation called Amani Ya Zion, which claimed to be a non-profit that “raises orphans and disregarded Ugandans to be leaders through true self sustainability”, in Kampala.

Sylvia’s family say they were led to believe by Amani Ya Zion that Mugalu, who was five at the time, was going to the US to get a better education, and would be in the care of a couple from Louisiana.

“They [Amani Ya Zion] said we were blessed to have this chance,” adds Sylvia, who works for a telecoms company, and lives in Kampala with her husband, Alex, and their toddler, Lenz.

THOOTHUKUDI: District Child Protection Unit decided to hand over a toddler rescued in an illegal child adoption case here, to their counterparts in Nagapattinam after the father was arrested for being involved.

Earlier, Ashraf lodged a complaint with Madurai Collector TG Vinay against his friend Hassan Mohammed alleging that he sold his three-year-old girl illegally to a Thoothukudi-based couple.

Thoothukudi Child protection Unit rescued the toddler from the couple and shifted her to Muthukuviyal, a government authorised child home in the district.

Meanwhile, Nagore police investigated Ashraf, who spilled the beans. The investigation revealed that Ashraf was one of the mediators in the case, and that there was a brawl following the money share.

Sources said that there were two more mediators -- Fatima and Kamaru Nisha. It is also said that Ashraf has sold his another daughter to a couple in Kumbakonam.

Even before she was married, Kavita Baluni Kaktwan knew she wanted to be a mother to a baby girl. But this child would not be a biological one. She wanted to adopt and give her a home and all the joy in the world.

When four-year-old Veda Baluni Kaktwan’s parents got married in 2012, little did they know that she would change their lives, and make them “the happiest parents in the world”. In 2017, when she entered their lives at 16 months of age, Veda made them the first Indian couple to have adopted a baby with Down syndrome. Three years later, as the family celebrates the adoption anniversary on May 30, Kavita talks to indianexpress.com about the journey.

“Adoption was a dream of mine, ever since I was a teenager. I was not interested in having a biological child. This is something I had told my husband before marriage. He was always a feminist, and I knew it when I met him through an arranged marriage setup that we are not going to be an ordinary couple and there is a reason that we have met. When I told him of my plans, he asked for three days to process it. And then he said there is absolutely nothing wrong with the plan; he was game. He said when we do adopt a child in the future, it was going to be a baby girl,” recalls the Ghaziabad resident.

Ludhiana: A biological mother of a baby boy has filed a complaint against the family who “adopted” her child by “paying”

money, asking them to return it, district child welfare officer of Nawanshahar has maintained that it will be the court which will

take decision on the legality of adoption process.

Meanwhile, the baby remains with the adopted parents as the child welfare committee (CWC) has declared them fit to keep the

baby till the matter is decided.

As a national organization, how do you make the transition from providing assistance to sharing knowledge? And how do you ensure that the help to your target group is properly adopted? Fiom had to make this rigorous change and did so in collaboration with Movisie.

Fiom has been a specialist in unwanted pregnancy and parentage questions since 1930. When it comes to women who are unplanned pregnant, the organization is all about ensuring that women can make informed choices about their future. 'We guide these women through decision aids. Regardless of whether they ultimately choose to terminate the pregnancy, raise the child themselves, give it up for adoption or foster placement. The point is that they can make a choice that will allow them to move on in their lives, 'says Ellen Giepmans, director of Fiom.

Cut back on subsidy

In 2013, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport made significant cuts to the subsidy to Fiom. 'We have gone from a subsidy of 5 million euros to 2 million euros,' says Giepmans. 'The decentralization of aid was the main reason for this. Every year, we coached about two thousand women in their selection process. This aid had to be turned over to local contractors. At the same time, Fiom was also commissioned by VWS to develop primarily as a knowledge organization. As a result, the emphasis was mainly on sharing expertise with professionals by making information available in databases, providing training and advice. Fiom was able to make this change in the following three years. The organization asked Movisie to collaborate in this process. 'Especially because Movisie has a lot of knowledge of the local social domain. We wanted to set up training courses to guarantee Fiom's knowledge to ensure that this specialist care provision runs smoothly locally. Something Movisie has a lot of experience in, 'says Giepmans.

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Standing in the lobby of London's Savoy hotel, pregnant and with a crying bundle in her tattered shawl, Dublin woman Florrie Kavanagh must have attracted some disdainful looks.

A combination of desperate poverty and daring had brought her here. While she waited to hear whether she would be seen, she would have cried a little herself and tried to quieten the child. And, most of all, she would have reasoned with herself: this was the Fifties and babies were abandoned all the time. Better to be left in the plush suite of a Hollywood film star than in some dire orphanage or at a railway station.

Florrie, like everyone else in London, had heard the news. Jane Russell, the "moody, mean and magnificent" Queen of Hollywood had swept into town and was looking for a young addition to her family. On the front page of the paper that morning there had been just two huge photos. One showed a smiling Winston Churchill, who had just been re-elected Prime Minister. The other showed the bejewelled screen goddess with the caption: "Miss Russell in London to adopt baby boy."

Years before, Florrie had moved to England in search of a better life, but things had not been easy. She already had three small children and was living in a shabby, tiny house in south London with no working toilet inside. She and her husband Michael, also from Ireland, were struggling to make ends meet. This latest baby, Tommy, left her young family on the brink, and with one more on the way she had few other options. She had heard of rich Americans adopting children back home and had read that Jane Russell was devoutly religious. Florrie told herself she was securing her little boy "a place in heaven".

In ordinary circumstances, of course, an Irish church mouse with a crying baby would have had no chance of getting in the orbit of an imperious film deity such as Russell. The actress had starred alongside Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and, together with Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth, embodied the sensuously contoured "sweater girl" look. With her topaz-coloured eyes and perfect figure, she represented what one publicist described as "lust, desire and everything that good boys are not supposed to think about". She was one of the biggest stars in the world.

Latvia’s Welfare Ministry has decided not to support Saeima’s Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee’s proposal to ban child adoption by foreigners. Instead the ministry proposes discussing improving existing regulations, as reported by minister Ramona Petravi?a’s advisor for communication J?nis Zari?š.

«Although the ban is planned only temporary until stricter regulations have been developed, experts are concerned preparation of amendments and approval may take a long time and many children may be denied the opportunity to be adopted,» says Zari?š.

Welfare Minister Ramona Petravi?a says that already every adoption case by foreigners is carefully evaluated, and in order to adopt children from Latvia, all applicants have to undergo an evaluation process: «In majority of cases this is the only option for these children to get a family, especially for teenagers and children with disabilities or other major health problems. Without a doubt the focus is always put on our country’s adopting parents, but if we cannot ensure this here, children should not stay in an institution for life. We cannot take away children’s rights to rewrite their lives.»

Welfare Minister’s advisor for disability policy affairs Jolanta Kalni?a-Levina stresses that the number of children adopted by foreigners is not high. Additionally, the most often teenagers are adopted abroad, as finding a family for them in Latvia is very difficult.

Teenagers also remain in the state system – institutions, without chances of ending up in a family, says Kalni?a-Levina: «We cannot claim every child in Latvia has the opportunity to live in a family in Latvia!»

The wait for adopting a child could get longer with more than 29,000 prospective parents registered with Central Adoption

Resources Authority (Cara) and just 2,317 children available for adoption, according to latest data.

Among the orphan children, 1,401 are with special needs. There are just 89 normal children below 2 years, the most sought

after age group for adoption while there are 649 normal children who are over two years. There are 178 children in the

‘siblings’ category. As per rules, siblings have to be adopted together by the prospective parents.