Police hand over 26 boxes of secret files as Kincora abuse investigation opens

Panel told they will have to consider claims of State-sponsored child prostitution

By Lesley-Anne McKeown

PUBLISHED

01/06/2016SHARE

Adopciones ILEGALES en el PERÚ (años oscuros en las adopciones peruanas)

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Hace 26 años en el Perú, se realizaron más de 4.000 adopciones internacionales en tan solo 4 años, de las cuales se sospechan que más de la mitad fueron ilegales. Entre los años 1989 y 1991 se pusieron al descubierto una de las redes más oscuras de la trama de tráfico de menores en el Perú. 30 Jueces cómplices con abogados de reconocidos bufetes de Lima capital, realizaron más de 800 adopciones internacionales, en la que se ofrecían niños de 0 a 3 años por 10.000 dólares, según la demanda de las familias extranjeras que venían atraídos como moscas a la miel desde los EEUU, Canadá, Italia, Francia, etc. para acceder a uno de estos menores, los niños se ofrecían por catálogo en los salones de uno de los lujoso hoteles de la época el “Apart Hotel Suite Service”. Esta mafia contaba con la complicidad de clínicas privadas, albergues infantiles de ONG americanas y europeas. Donde captaban a mujeres jóvenes embarazadas con problemas económicos para luego hacerse con sus recién nacidos, niños robados a sus madres en las inmediaciones de los mercados de la capital peruana, como en el interior del país.

Luego en el año 1992 el abogado norteamericano James Patrick Hamel Gagel, fue detenido como presunto cabecilla de una red especializada en la compraventa de 600 niños peruanos para adopción internacional en la que cobran entre 15.000 y 20.000 dólares, dicho abogado fue puesto en libertad como el resto de sus cómplices.

Abstract:

For the full published version, please see: International Journal of Children's Rights, Volume 24, Issue 2, 2016, pp 378-407

There are an estimated eight million children residing in orphanages, or residential care facilities, globally and it is estimated that four out of five of these children are not orphans. It is well documented that many of these children are taken from their families by recruiters and sold into orphanages for the purpose of profit. These children are known as 'paper orphans'. There is no formal legal academic research available on how international law regards this displacement from family and construction as an orphan. This article provides a legal account of the movement of the children from the family to the orphanage, and considers whether this movement can be categorised as child trafficking under international law. The major point of contention as to whether paper orphans are considered trafficked is whether they experience a form of exploitation that is included in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. This article examines the forms of exploitation that have been documented as being experienced by paper orphans and argues that the process of paper orphaning meets the current interpretation of the definition of trafficking.

NB This is a pre-peer reviewed version of this paper as submitted to the International Journal of Children's Rights. For the full published version, please see: International Journal of Children's Rights, Volume 24, Issue 2, 2016, pp378-407

Research Interests: Human Trafficking, Intercountry Adoption, Child Trafficking, and Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Our oldest son, Samuel (10), was five weeks old when we picked him up from Chicago. Last summer we went back to his hometown for the first time. Very exciting, how would it go? There was a meeting with his birth mother and a goodbye. It went well, it turned out to be a dream trip.

More than ten years ago, we were preparing for an open adoption, where we would keep in touch with the biological mother of our child. Every year we sent photos and letters to Samuel's birth mother in the US. No response, unfortunately. When we asked about it, Samuel replied that he would like to meet her.

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We have told Samuel from infancy that he was born of different parents, and that through adoption he became our child forever. Samuel is brown. My husband, our two youngest children and I are light pink-beige. People often ask, “Are those your kids?” “Yes”, I smile pityingly. “All three?” “Yes, all three.”

We tried to teach Samuel about African-American culture, but we didn't know his birth mother. In the summer of 2010 we found her on Facebook. We asked through the adoption agency if she wanted to contact us. She replied, "I think about you daily, I love you, I will think about it, thank you, you are a blessing in disguise . " After a few months, Samuel said disappointed: "She must think very long."

DOUBLE SUBSIDIARITY PRINCIPLE AND THE RIGHT TO IDENTITY

Our Position Paper ‘Double Subsidiarity Principle and the Right to Identity’ is essential to our Research Paper ‘Raising Awareness about False Birth Registration Practices, known as The Brazil Baby Affair’. Originally it was a textbox part of our contribution to ISS’ handbook ‘Responding to Illegal Adoptions’.

However, International Social Services (ISS) has rejected the textbox, declined it for publication and thereby de facto censored our Position Paper ‘Double Subsidiarity Principle and the Right to Identity’.

Before publication, ISS refused to provide any written explanation on this matter. Subsequently, the original reference to our Position Paper, which was left after ISS’ censorship, was removed from our Research Paper, without authorization, and banned to a footnote.

After publication, ISS has been informed that we have publicly shared our concerns regarding their controversial institutional stance – forming the reason for their censoring – disregarding the subsidiarity principle of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in Intercountry Adoption (ICA) cases.

Reporting from Manila — The Manila North Cemetery, where Michelle Sambalilo was abandoned as a young child, is a sprawling, trash-strewn squatter camp where thousands of people eat, sleep and play among acres of colorful crypts.

Rescued from life among the dead, Sambalilo then lived for years among the Philippine capital’s notoriously negligent state-run shelters.

Throughout, she dreamed of someday belonging to a family of her own. But in the end, all it took was one document — one blow from the country’s adoption authorities — to send her dreams crashing down to earth.

The Philippines has an abandoned children problem. About 1.8 million children in the country, more than 1% of its entire population, are “abandoned or neglected,” according to the United Nations’ Children’s Rights & Emergency Relief Organization. Some are victims of extreme poverty; others of natural disasters and armed conflicts in the country’s riven south.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development is responsible for ensuring that many of these children find homes. (Some end up overseas — American families adopted 1,350 Filipino children between 2009 and 2015, according to the U.S. State Department).

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OPINION | ELIZABETH BARTHOLET AND PAULO BARROZO

US can save children by upholding international adoption rights

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0COMMENTSPRINTTO GO WITH AFP STORY BY XAVIER BOURGOIS A young girl holds a baby as she stands with other children at the "ONO" orphanage in the Mali-Maka district in the 5th arrondissement of Bangui on January 6, 2014. Pierrette, the director of the small orphanage in Bangui, welcomes children of all ages, collateral victims of the conflict in the Central African Republic. AFP PHOTO / MIGUEL MEDINA (Photo credit should read MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/ FILE 2014

Ghana

May 23, 2016

Notice: Update on Intercountry Adoptions from Ghana and Important Cautionary Notes

The Department of State (Department) and the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) wish to advise U.S. prospective adoptive parents (PAPs), adoptive parents, and adoption service providers (ASPs) of information recently provided by the Ghanaian Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (Ministry). The Ministry confirmed that its moratorium on intercountry adoption processing continues to be in effect in Ghana. However, the Ministry strives to ensure vulnerable children in need are placed in permanent homes and has established four categories of exceptions to the moratorium.

According to the Ministry, Ghanaian children in need of permanent homes who meet the following criteria may be considered by the Ministry for possible adoption by a foreign family:

The Belgians have paid money for the child

2016-05-22

In the first half of April 2016, 7-year-old Micha?ek, whose fate moved many people in Poland, was helped by the Polish judge Ma?gorzata Franczak abducted by the Belgians, who under the pretext of family care create a private orphanage, buying children from abroad, and then on them earn.

The offenses of child abduction and child abuse, abuse of functions and failure to perform duties were committed by Belgian and Polish citizens: Anna B?o?ska with employees of the Warsaw adoption center, employees of the District Court in Opole Lubelskie, Rados?aw Pomorski, Chairman of the Family Department of this court, Ma?gorzata Franczak, Judge of the Family Department, Ewa Giza, head of the Family Department secretariat, and policemen of the District Police Headquarters in Opole Lubelskie, commandant Krzysztof Oszust, Edyta ?ur, Piotr Solis, Józef Ko?acz, and others acting deliberately and in collusion to the detriment of the abducted minor Micha?ek W. to achieve personal and non-property benefits.

In the first half of March 2016, the Free Society Association notified the police, the prosecutor's office, the minister of justice and the minister of internal affairs and administration about the prepared abduction of Micha?ek. The authorities of the Polish state predictably refused all help, deliberately leading to the abduction of the child.