Between 2018 and April 2019 an alarming 3,041 young boys and girls were kidnapped.

HIGHLIGHTS

Between 2018 and April 2019 an alarming 3,041 young boys and girls were kidnapped

Out of these the count of young girls stood at 2,000 whereas the count of boys was at 1,041

Of the above 1,422 girls and 792 boys were found but a significant number remained untraceable

A United Nations watchdog is concerned that travel and certification documents issued by Irish authorities to couples who want to adopt children abroad “lack specificity and can be easily falsified.”

The observation is in a report on Ireland by special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Ms de Boer-Buquicchio was highlighting Ireland’s use of immigration clearance letters (ICLs), instead of a visa, to facilitate the entry into Ireland of a foreign-born child who is being adopted by an Irish couple.

Ireland is almost unique internationally in not requiring a visa for a child being taken in from abroad for the purpose of adoption. Instead, these children are brought into the country by means of ICLs, issued to prospective adoptive couples by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS).

In her report, published last March, Ms de Boer-Buquicchio said she was concerned that ICLs did not contain enough security features. She said that “travel and certification documents used for children adopted internationally lack specificity and can easily be falsified.”

Despite lifting the ban to allow foreigners or persons outside Rwanda to adopt children in the country two years ago, only two children have since been adopted and another eight could be handed over to their new families soon, The New Times has learned.

In 2010, the government temporarily suspended receiving new applications for international child adoption pending clear structures and mechanisms required under The Hague Adoption Convention on the protection of children.

The suspension was, however, lifted in September 2017 after the government put in place the required mechanisms, which outline the requirements that must be fulfilled before the child is placed with a permanent adoptive family.

Among the requirements a nation is required to fulfill is the establishment of an institution that is equivalent of National Children Commission (NCC), commitment through different laws, including the law relating to the rights and the protection of the child, law governing persons and family, and the ministerial order determining conditions for inter-country adoption.

By 2016, 103 countries had signed the Hague Convention with the aim of making adoption a safer and less complicated process by establishing an international standard of practice.

District Judge Girish Kathpalia said it would be in the best interest of the child that she be given in adoption to the woman, who has been taking care of her for more than a decade as her appointed guardian.

EW DELHI: A minor, who was abandoned by her parents in 2004 at the age of two, has seen a ray of hope as a Delhi court has allowed her 60-year-old guardian to adopt the child despite "procedural deficiencies" as the two nurtured a strong mother-daughter bond.

District Judge Girish Kathpalia said it would be in the best interest of the child that she be given in adoption to the woman, who has been taking care of her for more than a decade as her appointed guardian.

The strong bond shared by the girl, now 16, and the woman who was made her guardian by an adoption society, which was taking care of the child, convinced the court to allow the elderly's plea for adoption.

The court noted that since the woman and the child have cultivated and nurtured a strong mother-daughter bond for about a decade and a half, directing her now to move the adoption application before the society, followed by the home and child study report, would be a "meaningless exercise".

Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). which deals with all matters

concerning Child Adoption in India/ Abroad, urgently requires the post of

Assistant Director (Admin Legal) on deputation basis on Foreign service terms'

(including short term contract), initially for three years extendable up to five

years.

The matter came to light after the victim approached police to lodge a rape complaint against her uncle

In a bid to avoid social harassment, parents of a 19-year-old rape victim gave away her newborn son to a sanitary worker at civil hospital here, said police on Saturday.

The matter came to light after the victim approached the police to lodge an FIR against the sexual assault. In her complaint, she alleged that her uncle (father’s younger brother) had raped her on multiple occasions.

ACCUSED?HAD?BEEN?

THREATENING?HER

When she was growing up in Downingtown, Leslie Bernand (name changed)wondered whether she might someday locate a blood relative in India, from where she was adopted as a baby.

BENGALURU: When she was growing up in Downingtown, Leslie Bernand (name changed) wondered whether she might someday locate a blood relative in India, from where she was adopted as a baby.

But she never expected that her journey towards finding would confront her to hundreds of ‘DNA search angels’ on social media who would work like ‘detectives’ to reunite her with her family which is supposedly in India.

“These are volunteers on Facebook who are helping people from many countries including the USA, The Netherlands, China, France etc to find their roots in India through genetic genealogy. Though I am yet to trace my family in India I have found many ‘angels’ who are helping me towards this,” Leslie explained.

Speaking to TNIE, the administrator of one such group ‘DNA India Adoptees’ Mirjam Bina said, “In our site on Facebook we are for and by Indian adoptees who are forever connected with India because of their DNA. Here we share our stories and then it is taken forward by the ‘angels’ who are part of this group and many such groups and work towards finding clues to hunt for

A couple from Germany is planning to knock the doors of the courts to know the roots of their adoptee Indian children.They say that they realised only later that possibly not all was above-board in the adoption process and they believe knowing some answers about the past will help their children's future.

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For most of my life, I’ve said I am fine without knowing my birth/first mother. That is untrue.

The reality is somewhere in the middle. Pondering my roots is not keeping me awake at night, but I do wonder about my beginnings more often than I’ve previously admitted.

I am curious to know anything about my biological family. But I’m unwilling to sacrifice the enormous amount of time, energy, and emotional labor to find them.

As a speaker and writer in the adoption space for nearly a decade, the birthmother quest is one of the triumvirates of the international adoption arena. The other ones are: Have you returned to your birth country? And how was adoption discussed in your house growing up?

People consistently ask if I’ve met my birthmother, or hope to find her. I’m 38 years old and terrified to search.

BENGALURU: At 237, Karnataka recorded the second highest number of children being given away for in-country adoption

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/adoption) during 2018-19. Maharashtra

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/maharashtra) leads the list with 695 children.

The national trend of girl children outnumbering boys was reflected in Karnataka too: 130 girls as against 107 boys. Of the 3,374

children adopted across the country, 1,977 were girls and 1,397 boys.