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Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud University, 6500 HC Nijmegen, The Netherlands

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Independent Researcher, 2023 SK Haarlem, The Netherlands

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SALT LAKE CITY — As she looks back on her experience traveling to Utah to place her child for an adoption, an Arkansas woman says she feels like “giving birth to my baby was a transaction.”

“I was told, ‘You’ve got to have the baby or you’re going to have all these doctor bills and you’re going to have pay this and you’re going to have to pay that,’” Lakaiya, who introduced herself only by her first name, said before the state Legislature’s Judiciary Interim Committee last month.

During her time in Utah earlier this year, documents the group Utah Adoption Rights shared with FOX 13 News show she received more than $18,000 for housing, telephone and utilities; nearly $9,000 for food, household supplies, clothing and entertainment; and $6,000 in postpartum expenses.

“Money, money, money was the stronghold,” she told lawmakers shortly before bursting into tears and rushing out of the room. “Care, support and stability was the illusion.”

Lakaiya's story highlights concerns raised recently by adoption reform advocates, who are seeking changes to laws they say have led the state to become a destination for so-called adoption tourism. Utah’s loose regulations around payments to birth mothers and agencies’ prolific online recruitment practices have led some to deem the state the “wild west for adoption.”

25.4415The Council of States' Committee on Legal Affairs (RK-S) unanimously adopted a committee motion (25.4415) instructing the Federal Council to develop appropriate adjustments to the legal basis for the enforcement of sanctions.

The Commission also conducted a preliminary review of two parliamentary initiatives from its sister commission, which address various aspects of the enforcement of sanctions. These include a ban on unaccompanied leave for detainees24,464ffenders undergoing closed inpatient therapeutic measures (24,464), as well as adjustments to ensure that the benefits and costs of in25,435t measures under Article 59 of the Swiss Criminal Code are proportionate (25,435). The Commission acknowledges the fundamental need for action in both initiatives. However, it considers a revision of the enforcement of sanctions to be a project requiring a comprehensive overview and close involvement of the cantons. Against this background, it believes that a motion and a legislative25,435ect led by the Federal Council are the more effective approach. The Commission has acted on initiative 25.435, "Inpatient measures (Art. 59 of the Swiss Criminal Code) only with good prospects of success," assuming that its sister commission will24,464end its work until the Federal Council's message is available. However, by a vote of 5 to 6, it rejected initiative 24,464, “Measures in the enforcement of sanctions”.

Various transactions concerning the right to a parent-child relationship

The Motion Nantermod 19,3597The motion, "Criminal Code. Offenses against the family. Penalty for denying the right to personal contact," was adopted by the National Council and then suspended by both chambers pending the submission of the Federal Council's report, "Family Courts and Family Proceedings: Inventory and Reform Proposals," in response to various parliamentary motions. After the Federal Council submitted its report on June 6, 2025, the committee revisited the motion. It concluded that already fragile family situations would become even more complicated with the introduction of criminal sanctions and that mediation or other civil measures would be appropriate in such cases. Therefore, the committee recommends that the Council reject the motion by a vote of 8 to 2, with 2 abstentions. The minority recommends its adoption. The Council of States will decide during the winter session. Furthermore, the committee has begun the preliminary review of the parliamentary initiative Nantermod.25,425The initiative, entitled "Consequences of an unlawful change of the child's place of residence," has been included in the list. The commission will continue its preliminary review of the initiative at one of its next meetings.

Ban on international adoptions

Claudia was 17 years old when the Armero avalanche swept away her family. Since then, she has been searching for her son, whom she claims to have seen on television days after the disaster.

The 40th anniversary of the Armero tragedy, following the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, serves as a reminder of one of the most devastating natural disasters Colombia has ever suffered . At 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 13, 1985, the volcano engulfed the town of Armero in the department of Tolima. A massive avalanche, composed of 350 million cubic meters of mud and rock, buried approximately 25,000 people, plunging the country into profound grief.

Among the devastated families was that of Claudia Ramírez. She lived in Armero with her parents and her son, Andrés Felipe Cubides, who was not yet six years old. The tragedy took her loved ones. Her parents, her friends, her neighbors—all were buried under the mud.

Claudia, who is now a dentist, wife, teacher, but above all a mother who never gives up , was not in Armero that fateful night. She had said goodbye to her parents and Andrés Felipe two days earlier. At that time, she was very young and studying dentistry at San Martín University in Bogotá. Her son was living with his parents while she pursued her professional dreams.
 

The premonition of the Armero tragedy

The Danish sperm bank ESB has also supplied donor sperm to private individuals in Belgium, even though this is not permitted under Belgian law. In Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health (FAMHP) stated that it is aware of "a limited number" of private individuals receiving donor sperm directly from the Danish sperm bank. The bank came under fire after it emerged that a single donor had fathered more than 50 children with 39 women in Belgium.

The donor scandal broke in May. It then emerged that 53 children in Belgium, born to 39 women involved, were born with sperm from a Danish woman carrying a cancer-causing gene. Furthermore, the rule that only six women can be treated with sperm from a single donor was violated. 

On Tuesday afternoon, the House Health Committee heard from representatives of the FAMHP and the Federal Internal Audit Service (FIA). The agenda included the inspection reports prepared by the FAMHP on fertility centers, as well as the FIA's report on the FAMHP itself. 

For two and a half hours, officials at the FAMHP answered a long series of questions from members of parliament in detail. Open VLD wanted to know whether the Danish sperm bank in question had also delivered sperm directly to Belgian prospective parents at home. "The FAMHP is indeed aware of a limited number of private individuals receiving donor sperm directly from the Danish sperm bank in the past," said Ethel Mertens, Director General of the FAMHP's DG Inspection, who emphasized that this practice is illegal in Belgium. 

Mertens also said that the identities of the individuals could not be determined, despite requests to the Danish sperm bank and the Danish authorities. "Therefore, it cannot be determined whether the individuals were informed of the problems with the donor."

Evaluation of partner organizations in the context of investigation of adoption files

Issued by: Growing Up (Flemish Government Agency)
In collaboration with: International Social Service (ISS)

Go quickly to...

• Context and Objective
• Scope of the Partnership
• Screening & Evaluation Process
• Eligibility Criteria
• How to Apply

Context and Objective

Fiom must limit the search for family for non-adopted children

Fiom offers help and advice on various topics to people looking for information about their ancestry. The message below concerns the section Searching for Family, not the section Donor Conception. Please note: services related to the KID DNA database and the CDKB will continue to be provided.

For years, Fiom has been committed to helping everyone discover their biological family through its "Searching for Family" program . We carefully guide people in their search for biological family, paying attention to everyone involved. We do this for adoptees, birth parents, donor children, foundlings, foster children, and adults who have never known who their biological parent is.

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) has informed us that the subsidy for supporting non-adopted people who want to search for their biological family is ending. This is separate from the KID DNA database or the CDKB.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: 10 children from the Child Welfare Committee have been placed under the care of single parents. A total of 80 children up for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee this year. Of these, 10 were placed under the care of only a mother or father. 22 children, includi individuals with disabilities, were adopted abroad. 

Parents with up to three children of their own are also coming to adopt. Adoption is granted to a single parent through the Central Adoption Resource Authority(CARA) guidelines of the central government. 

Single paren register with the central digital database, CARA, to adopt children. Female guardians are granted adoptions of both sexes. Male guardians are give 

There are currently 186 children in the Child Welfare Committee. Child returned The child who was adopted by a single parent was returned to the Child Welfare Committee after months. 

The woman, a native of Thiruvanantha registered to adopt the child with her husband, but her husband died in the meantime. The woman adopted the child still. However, as she could reconcile, the child was returned to the committee within months. 

The alleged Belgian kingpin in a large-scale adoption fraud involving stolen "orphans" from Guatemala will finally have to answer before a criminal court after all these years. The court in Tournai has ruled this .

Pieter Huyberechts

Were numerous babies and young children taken from Guatemala against their parents' will in the 1980s? It certainly seems that way. A story that began with a complaint from Sandra S. from Vilvoorde. In August 2014, the woman read in our newspaper the story of Dolores Praet, who was adopted by a Belgian couple in 1985. In 2011, she traveled to Guatemala to find her biological mother, Rosario Colop, in the village of Santa Maria de Jesus, the name she found in her adoption file. Colop no longer lived there. A villager told her that a girl had disappeared in the 1980s. She wasn't Colop's daughter, but the daughter of another couple. DNA analysis confirmed it: they were the biological parents. Colop was arrested for allegedly arranging fraudulent adoptions.