TAMPA | Florida detectives have launched a criminal investigation into the death of a 17-month-old boy in foster care who was about to be placed with adoptive parents.

The Tampa Bay Times reported Saturday that Aedyn Agminalis died last Sunday after being taken off life support. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has opened a criminal investigation. The boy suffered from bleeding on the brain, cardiac arrest and acute respiratory failure. The state Department of Children and Families is launching its own inquiry.

“The loss of this child is absolutely devastating,” DCF Secretary Mike Carroll told the newspaper in an email.

The boy was living in a foster home licensed by A Door of Hope, a subcontractor for Eckerd Kids, a non-profit contracted by the county. Details about the foster home have not been released.

KOLKATA: The last one week has left US-based nurse Danae Hischke feeling “sick in the stomach”. That was after news of Bengal’s baby-trafficking racket reached her in the US. Thirty years back, Hischke had adopted a boy – Jordan Arun - from this city. Four years ago, Jordan had succumbed to brain cancer. The wounds of bereavement will never heal but now the pain of confusion over whether or not Jordan was trafficked to her has only devastated her further.
What’s worse is the news of the trafficking reached Hischke on November 26 – the same day 30 years back when Jordan had arrived in the US. Back then, she didn’t know that two months later she would be pregnant with her first biological child. Over the years, she loved Jordan in the same “infinite way” she loved her biological sons. Speaking from her Wisconsin residence in the US, Hischke said that many might wonder why Bengal’s baby-trafficking is bothering her since Jordan is no longer alive. “But fact is, it still does,” she said.
 

Hischke and her husband had initiated Jordan’s adoption in the States. “Our agency did all of the paperwork and communication with the Indian government and International Mission of Hope (IMH). Our payment (5000 USD) was said to be the cost of caring for the baby while he was in the orphanage. We were told that his mother was probably very poor and unmarried and wanted a better life for her child,” she recounted.
Today, she feels “naïve”, “cheated” and “betrayed” after learning that two people arrested in baby-trafficking case were previously employed at IMH. According to Hischke, many adoptive parents in the US had travelled to IMH and found nothing suspicious there. But her doubts only increased after she read the TOI report of Michelle’s Harrison’s account of how the DNA test of her adopted daughter from IMH who was born at Shree Krishna Nursing Home didn’t match with that of the so-called biological parents.

In the past one week, Hischke started digging up old records. “I definitely feel very bad for Jordan’s mom/parents. I have thought of her many times through the years, always on his birthday. I had thought about how hard it must have been for her to give him up. Now I just think that possibly she thought he died or that he was stolen from her. I feel like we both lost him. Her grief is like mine,” she said.
When Jordan arrived in the US, he was malnourished. Two years later, he was diagnosed with autism. From the US, paying 5000 USD seemed reasonable for his cost of caring in the Indian orphanage. “But now I feel that perhaps very little of what we sent was utilised for his upkeep because then he wouldn’t have been malnourished. We actually had to take a loan and pay for 10 years to have Jordan in our lives,” she said.

Rummaging through her old files, Hishcke found an interesting certificate. “It had a set format where the name of the baby had to be filled. The format is such that all babies given this certificate required to be an ‘abandoned child’ born to ‘young and unmarried woman’. Back then, we weren’t told the name of Jordan’s mother. But today, in another paper on him, I found a name written in the section saying b/o Arati Mondal. The age segment dubiously mentions 1/365. Was it referring to Jordan being one day old? If that’s true, why is ‘F’ written in the gender segment? While there is no space to mention religion, the letter ‘H’ is written in the space for caste.”

Today, everything seems “diabolical”. “For the first two years, we even had to send professional photos of Jordan every three months as proof that we were not abusing or trafficking him. All this seem so absurd now! I hate the people who were and are involved.”

Adoption Alert

December 16, 2016

European Adoption Consultants, Inc. Temporarily Debarred.

The Department of State temporarily debarred adoption service provider, European Adoption Consultants, Inc. (EAC) from accreditation on December16, 2016, for a period of three years. As a result of this temporary debarment, EAC’s accreditation has been cancelled and it must immediately cease to provide all adoption services in connection with intercountry adoptions. The Department’s decision was made pursuant to the debarment authority in the adoption accreditation regulations (22 CFR Part 96), which implement the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 and the Universal Accreditation Act of 2012. The Department found substantial evidence that the agency is out of compliance with the standards in subpart F of the accreditation regulations, and evidence of a pattern of serious, willful, or grossly negligent failure to comply with the standards and of aggravating circumstances indicating that continued accreditation of EAC would not be in the best interests of the children and families concerned.

According to its website, EAC operates intercountry adoption programs in Bulgaria, China, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Honduras, India, Panama, Poland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ukraine. Please note that this temporary debarment prohibits EAC from providing intercountry adoption services in both Hague Convention and non-Convention countries. Families working with EAC who have intercountry adoption cases in progress may wish to contact the Council on Accreditation (COA) for information about case transfer and information about other accredited adoption service providers who may be able to assume handling of adoption cases. Updated information will be posted to this web site as it becomes available. Questions may be submitted to Jayne Schmidt at COA at haguesupport@coanet.org (subject line: EAC) and to the Office of Children’s Issues at adoption@state.gov.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, Terre des hommes has been protecting displaced children in a Damascus suburb. They receive psychological support as well as material and financial aid.

Years of conflict have left many children traumatised and suffering from stress. “The younger children have never known a life without bombings, violence and suffering. In the bigger cities, hiding in the cellar has become a way of life”, reports Catherine Hallé, desk officer for Syria.

Our activities are designed to protect children and contribute to their well-being. In groups or individually, we let the children express what they have experienced in games or by playing with puppets. With professional support, they develop the strength they need to deal better with the emotional and social challenges they face. Some children with severe difficulties are referred to specialists, e.g. psychiatrists or language therapists.

The Tdh team in Syria also provides food, hygiene articles and financial support to pay the rent or purchase urgently needed medicine. Particularly vulnerable children and their families receive additional support in winter.

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, Terre des hommes has been providing humanitarian aid to thousands of children who have fled to Lebanon and Jordan, as well as to those who have risked their lives trying to reach Europe.

Sent: Mittwoch, 14. Dezember 2016 19:19

To: frans.timmermans@ec.europa.eu

Subject: RE: Open Letter

Dear Mr. Timmermans,

I have spoken today with Mrs. Post.

Kidnapped from his village in India and sold to a Christian orphanage. Adopted and raised in Utah by a loving LDS couple who was told his parents were dead. Taj Rowland’s incredible journey is filled with twists and turns that would rival a blockbuster movie. And just when he had given up hope of ever seeing his birth family again, the Lord led him down a path that would defy all odds and guide him back home.

On a snowy night in December 1979, a young boy from India shivered from the cold and trembled with fear as he exited an airplane in Salt Lake City, Utah. Surrounded by white people speaking a language he didn’t understand, he clung in terror to the legs of the orphanage owner who was delivering him to his new adoptive parents. The boy kicked and screamed as he was wrapped in a warm blanket and put in the back of a car, sobbing himself to sleep on the way to his new home.

“The most frightening part was being taken away from everything that was familiar and being thrown into something that was completely different. I didn’t know exactly what was happening to me,” Taj Rowland recalls.

New Family, New Life

Fred and Linda Rowland had been searching for another child to adopt, but almost everything about their new son would come as a surprise.

“We are making strict verification in adoption procedures”-Shashi Panja

The child trafficking story beginning from Baduria seems to get denser with ever passing day. Addressing the issue Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi asked the state government’s health department to submit a detailed report to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Ms. Gandhi has also instructed the NCPCR to look into the case with due sincerity and bring out all possible information .

In this regard , State Minister of Women Development & Social Welfare, Child Development Shashi Panja said that the state is doing everything to keep an eye on these

CUTTING THE LINE–A ROMANIAN JOURNALIST’S STORY OF LOVE, SURVIVAL, AND IMMIGRATION offers unique insight into the female immigrant experience in America: the small cruelties, the unexpected kindnesses, the many obstacles, and the occasional victories. From big-city Romania to small-town New England, this memoir explores what it means to leave the life you know behind—and what it takes to create a new one in the face of overwhelming odds.

Before I moved to the United States, I was well on my way to an illustrious career in journalism in Romania. At thirty-three, I had a published book, a TV show, and a number of investigative print pieces to my name, and my star was still rising. Then I met Lyman Dezotell in Romania— an American man with a wide smile and a huge heart, the sole father of five girls. He came to visit Romania, but I gave up everything to marry him and move to America.

In Bucharest, I was a successful career woman with my own apartment and a tight circle of loved ones; in Coventry, Vermont, I was disconnected, with a limited grasp of English and only Lyman to lean on. Then, just months after the move, Lyman died in a freak accident on his way to work, leaving me penniless and pregnant with our child. With a plane ticket in my pocket, and the unexpected tragedy, I had to make a choice: leave the country or stay and find a way to survive on my own.

I am a former writer for the newspaper the National Daily in Bucharest, Romania. I am recognized as one of the country’s best post-revolution reporters; some of my press campaigns are now taught in courses at the University of Journalism in Romania. In 2001 I moved to Vermont, where I worked as a science teacher (the 2014 Vermont Outstanding Science Teacher of the Year) and am the co-editor of a Romanian language magazine, New York Magazin.

“Dana Dezotell’s memoir Pasiflora drops you into a world you will never forget, from a magical childhood in Romania to a love story that unfolds in America.”

BFMTV Société Famille

La France refuse de délivrer des visas à 54 enfants de RDC adoptés par des familles françaises

09/12/2016 à 15h08

Des enfants jouent au football à Butembo, en République démocratique du Congo

Des enfants jouent au football à Butembo, en République démocratique du Congo - Eduardo Soteras-AFP

“It’s probably the thing of which I am most proud”: J K Rowling in conversation with Eddie Redmayne

The Harry Potter creator talks to the star of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them about her work with the Lumos charity and the urgent need to end the institutionalisation of children.

BY NEW STATESMAN

EDDIE REDMAYNE: Good evening, good evening ladies and gentlemen.

I am so excited that you are excited! Welcome to Carnegie Hall and – thank you! – Welcome to a very what I hope is a very special evening. More than 25 years ago, an author put pen to paper and created one of the most extraordinary stories that the world has ever seen. Her astounding imagination continues to thrill us, it captivates us, it enthrals us, it moves us, and it leaves us wanting more. And tonight ladies and gentlemen. . . there will be more.