Sunny Ridge Family Center, a long-standing child services organization in Illinois, merged with Holt International and became Holt-Sunny Ridge in April 2014. In June 2019, Holt-Sunny Ridge became licensed in Wisconsin and took over Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan (LSS)’s private domestic adoption services in Wisconsin.

“With this name change, we hope to convey that the mission and work being done in Illinois and Wisconsin is the same as Holt International’s mission and work around the world — to strengthen families at risk of separation and to find loving, permanent homes for children,” says Amy Trotter, director of Holt’s Illinois and Wisconsin branch.

Including the U.S., Holt International currently works in 14 countries around the world. In Illinois and Wisconsin, Holt provides options counseling for women experiencing unplanned pregnancy; empowers single mothers to reach their goals and independently care for their children; trains adoptive families and ensures safe and permanent adoption placements for infants; provides adoption-competent counseling to adoptees and their families; offers adoption-related trainings to professionals; and more. These services will not be impacted or changed by the branch’s name change.

About Holt International

Holt International, (https://www.holtinternational.org) seeks a world where every child has a loving and secure home. Since Holt’s founding in 1956, the organization has worked towards its vision through programs that strengthen and preserve families that are at risk of separation; by providing critical care and support to orphaned and vulnerable children; and by leading the global community in finding families for children who need them and providing the pre-and post-adoption support and resources they need to thrive. Always, Holt focuses on each child’s unique needs —keeping the child’s best interest at the forefront of every decision.

On Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies decisively adopted the draft amending and supplementing the Law on the adoption procedure, in the sense that the procedure for evaluating adopters and the post-adoption monitoring stage is made more flexible, as well as debureaucratizing procedures, including: elimination from the procedure the identification of relatives up to the fourth degree in cases where the individualized child protection plan aims at adoption; making the adoption procedure more flexible for children who have reached the age of 14, as well as groups of siblings who cannot be separated.

Among the changes proposed by the two deputies is the elimination of the double search for relatives up to the fourth degree - both for establishing the protection measure and for approving the adoption. Relatives will be searched only once and only up to the third degree, thus shortening the periods in which children remain trapped in the protection system, shows, in a press release, the deputy Oana Bizgan who submitted amendments to the project by law.

Also, for the first time, children declared adoptable will be able to benefit from the chance at a family, even after reaching the age of 14, remaining adoptable until adulthood.

For adoptive parents, the measures are extremely beneficial: the period of validity of the adopter certificate is extended from 2 to 5 years, the accommodation leave and the allowances they receive are aligned with the benefits enjoyed by any biological parent, and the bureaucracy excessive is considerably reduced, precisely to emphasize the quality of the act of adoption and to humanize the whole process which, we must remember, serves human lives and not files with rail.

"If the adopter or the adoptive family belongs to the national minorities, the evaluation and preparation can be done, upon request, in the language of the respective national minorities", the legislative proposal adopted by the deputies also shows.

For several weeks in early March, my 5-year-old carried a picture in the front pocket of his backpack. Every so often, he’d take it out and look at the toddler in the brown sweater and then with his finger trace the lips that matched his own. His teacher told me he talked about “baby brother” during circle time at kindergarten, unable to contain his excitement over news that I hadn’t shared widely yet in my own circle.

His backpack has been hanging by the door of our Chicago house since March 13, the last day my son and his older brother, who is 8, went to school, the last day life didn’t feel suspended. The suitcase I had packed for my trip to Morocco to meet the boy in the picture stayed on my bedroom floor for a few weeks until I finally put it in a closet, unable to deal with the reminder of what almost was.

Days before I was scheduled to travel to meet my son and start the process to bring him home, Morocco closed its borders. It is under a quarantine until at least the end of May. We had planned to travel as a family to Morocco this summer to complete the adoption. I now hope I can get to him sometime this fall, which feels optimistic, particularly with increasing rates of infection in the United States and the rush to return to an elusive normal before the virus is contained.

Our family is healthy for now, even the little one in Morocco, according to the orphanage director, who sends me pictures through WhatsApp. I am grateful for our health, and for the pictures. But a devastating uncertainty to the global pandemic has caught me by surprise, even though I am familiar with the unpredictability of international adoption. Both of my older sons were adopted from Morocco when they were infants, and I’ve often told people adopting is like being in the first trimester of pregnancy the entire time. Laws change. Countries open and close. In Morocco, I need a judge to grant custody and then the U.S. Consulate to grant the child an immigrant visa, both processes that can be delayed, or not happen at all.

“We are certainly in the midst of an unprecedented time, and the impacts to adoption – both domestic and international – are real,” said Kim Perez, president and chief executive of The Cradle, an Illinois adoption agency.

Ukrainian police have raided a private reproductive clinic that has been allegedly “selling babies” to China. While the suspects are accused of “human trafficking,” surrogate motherhood is a legal gray area in Ukraine.

The scandalous case was brought to light by the country’s interior ministry late on Saturday. The police broke up a “human-trafficking” ring that was centered at a private reproductive clinic in Kiev.

Further details on the case were shared by the Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashenko on his Facebook page. The ring involved the head of the clinic, her son, as well as two other Ukrainian and three Chinese nationals. They were charged with human trafficking that may lead to 12 years in prison with property confiscation.

The majority of the clinic’s clients were single Chinese males of “certain orientation,” as Gerashenko put it. While the exact number of trafficked babies remains unknown, at least 140 more Chinese nationals are under investigation, the official added.

The price tag for a single baby was about $50,000. The hefty sum covered artificial insemination of a surrogate mom, legal support and organization of fictive marriages needed to facilitate smuggling children abroad. It’s unclear if the babies’ fathers were the ones who then adopted them.

New Delhi: For Georgia residents Whitney and Mike Saville, their trip to India in March was a realisation of a long-time dream of adopting a child. They came to India on March 6, after a two year wait.

The paperwork for a passport and a US visa for their adopted daughter was pending when India announced a three-week lockdown starting March 25. The Savilles were stuck in India.

The couple’s three sons, all between the ages of 4 and 7, were back home in Atlanta. Mike tried to fly back while Whitney stayed in India but the plan, early in the lockdown, went nowhere. The couple then made a video, asking for help.

“We are grateful that we have Grace (the name they have given their daughter) in our care now. We are grateful we came, we just wish the circumstances were a little bite different,” Whitney said in the video.

The Savilles weren’t alone. Foreign nationals who came to India to adopt children from countries such as the US, Italy and Malta were stranded.

NOIDA: No one knows how long she lay there. A few might have spotted the pink towel by the roadside but not the tiny frame of the baby its folds hid. It was only when the baby bawled that some people crossing the traffic and noise-free Parthala roundabout on Tuesday evening stopped to check.

They called the police when they realised the baby had been abandoned there.

A girl, she is just four days old. A Dial 112 police response vehicle rescued the baby

A woman constable was part of the team that took her for a checkup to Kailash hospital. Police said they had learnt from doctors who examined the baby that she was healthy and delivery appeared to have taken place at a healthcare facility.

Phase III SHO Amit Singh said police were inquiring at nearby hospitals about deliveries over the last few days to trace the baby’s parents. “Since the child’s delivery has been an institutional delivery, it will not be difficult to know who the parents are. They will be booked under relevant sections of the IPC when traced,” Singh said.

Ethica is a non-profit education, assistance and advocacy group, which seeks to be an impartial voice for ethical adoption practices worldwide. In order to maintain our impartiality, Ethica does not accept monetary donations from agencies or other child placing entities, nor are any of our managing Board of Directors currently affiliated with adoption agencies. Ethica strives to develop organizational policy and recommendations based solely on the basic ethical principles that underscore best practices in adoption and speak to the best interest of children. Ethica believes that all children deserve permanent loving homes, preferably within their family of birth. When remaining with their birth families is not possible, and children cannot be adopted by families within their country of birth, intercountry adoption may be in the child's best interest.

Ethica supports the ideals embodied in the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. It is imperative that countries take measures to ensure that decisions about a child's future are made in their best interests and that adoptions take place in an environment that provides adequate safeguards to the children, and their families. It is equally vital that adoption professionals, both in the United States and abroad, continue to evaluate current adoption processes and identify areas where protections to children can improve.

On November 26, 2002 Guatemala ratified the Hague Convention, and the Convention is due to enter into force in Guatemala on March 1, 2003. In recent years, much attention has been focused on problems within the intercountry adoption process in Guatemala, and Ethica commends the Guatemalan government for the interest it has shown in improving its process. The process of bringing a country's adoption program into compliance with the Hague Convention can be quite daunting, as witnessed by the years-long implementation process undertaken by the United States. Crafting a system which simultaneously balances the pressing needs of children and creates a central adoption authority that conforms to international standards is difficult at best. It is, therefore, imperative that consideration be given to allowing adoptions to continue in the interim, provided that additional protections can be added to strengthen the current process.

There seem to be two divergent points of view regarding the current situation in Guatemala. In 2000, UNICEF commissioned the Latin American Institute for Education and Communication (ILPEC) to conduct a study of Adoption and the Rights of the Child in Guatemala. The report was reportedly designed to "help provide support for the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala by identifying those elements most essential to the formulation of a law on adoption." This report coupled with a report by the UNICEF Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Ms. Ofelia Calcetas-Santos, has been the source of many of the concerns regarding Guatemalan adoptions. In the conclusion of the ILPEC report, it states, "Until such time that an adoption law becomes a reality, it is recommended that all direct and private adoptions be suspended so as to favor the large number of institutionalized children."

On the opposite end of the spectrum are many attorneys and agencies that currently work within Guatemala to place children through direct and private adoptions. These entities emphatically disagree with much of the information in the ILPEC and UNICEF reports, and protest, quite convincingly, that the private adoption system provides much needed services to the children of Guatemala and that they undertake many of the social service functions that the State fails to provide. They also express understandable concern over the difficulties in realistically implementing a central adoption system within a country which lacks the infrastructure and resources needed to function adequately. It is also noted that DNA testing, which is required by the US Government, serves to ensure that one of the most serious allegations, that children are being kidnapped for adoption, is no longer a concern. Most adoption service providers involved in Guatemala favor a continuation of private and direct adoptions, and assert that the current system already contains protective mechanisms.

The former head of Adoption by Choice, an Alberta adoption agency that closed suddenly in May, is facing a criminal fraud charge, CBC News has learned.

Documents filed in Calgary provincial court show Ramone Kindrat, 55, was charged last December with fraud. It is alleged that Kindrat used an ABC employee's name and master's degree with the intent to gain advantage for herself in the form of more clients.

The charge against Kindrat is the latest development to surface in the troubles of the Calgary-based agency, which had clients across the province.

ABC shut its doors in May, announcing it would close permanently at the end of July. In a statement, the agency cited a decline in the number of birth parents seeking adoptions.

Clients waiting to adopt babies said they were devastated.

Potential adopters must have "good mental health, a healthy harmonious personality, a good marriage, a nuanced environment", wrote county social director and later chairman of the youth commission Lars Lundgaard in 1982 about the adoption of foreign children and continued:

“It’s not just superhumans who meet these conditions. But there must be profit and harmony. It is also there in the ordinary Danish family. "

Approximately 15 years before, the market for illegal adoptions had been brought under control by issuing permits to the persons and organizations that for years had provided Afro-German children to Danish couples in direct violation of the law.

What had not changed, however, from the illegal 'child import' of the 1950s to the regulated adoption industry of the 1980s, was the belief in "profit and harmony" in the "ordinary Danish family". A view that has now for 60 years legitimized adoptions from abroad to Denmark. Whether it's 'illegitimate' children of white German women and African American soldiers, children of single mothers in Korea or of AIDS-stricken Ethiopian parents, the argument for picking up these children, transporting them across borders and installing them in new homes in Denmark been that they would get better here. Because there is profit and harmony in the ordinary Danish family.

Child imports

Chinese parents finally dare to look for daughters they gave away long ago. The one-child policy has been abolished for a few years now, so they no longer get a fine. Behind the shame that remains is the deep need to know how their child is doing.

Eefje Rammeloo2 July 2020 , 10:57 AM

Ye Yunfeng has a face full of laughter lines, the face of someone who likes to get up to mischief and can laugh happily. He must be a nice father to his son and daughter. There are two of them, the third was an accident. The laugh lines suddenly disappear. "Had it been a son, I might have fled into the mountains with him." It was the heyday of the one-child policy, and Farmer Ye couldn't pay another fine.

His parents still knew someone who could make the baby disappear. The girl was a few days old when her parents gave her to a crippled man in the morning. “The sun wasn't up yet,” Ye recalls. When he regretted it a few years later, he went after the man, but he turned out to be dead. He would give something to see his now 34-year-old daughter. The great thing is: nobody can fix it anymore, because the one-child policy is history.

A few hundred parents spend their Saturday afternoon on a square in the town of Shouning. They walk restlessly from one side of the square to the other. Maybe their daughter will also register just today. On a table in the semicircular gazebo lie sterile-wrapped cotton swabs and needles. The ladies who manage the table are sure to prick the fingers of the seekers. They drip some blood onto a card that they staple to a form in a brown envelope. Those who cannot write can leave it to them.