Vietnam is the top country for people from Ireland who are adopting a child from abroad.

There were 20 adoptions registered from Vietnam here last year, according to the annual report of the Adoption Authority.

This is followed by Thailand, from where eight children were adopted, and the United States, which accounted for seven adoptions to Ireland.

There were four children adopted here from China and one from Bulgaria.

Overall there were just 41 inter-country adoptions last year, which is down from 82 in 2015.

In the FIR filed on 13th July, Sakshi has accused Abhishek of writing a Facebook post alleging that he has indulged in her character assassination.

Filmmaker Vinod Kapri and his wife Sakshi Joshi have filed an FIR against the journalist Abhishek Upadhyay who had accused the couple of using tragedy of a new born child to promote himself and his movie.

In the FIR filed on 13th July, Sakshi has accused Abhishek of writing a Facebook post alleging that he has indulged in her character assassination.

In his post, without naming anyone, Abhishek had written a story about a lady who marries an old divorced man through manipulation. In her FIR, Sakshi has claimed that the above story refers to her.

As per the FIR, she deduced that the post was about her when someone commented on the Facebook post with her and her husband filmmaker Vinod Kapri’s name and Upadhyay ‘liked’ that comment. She even alleges in her FIR that Upadhyay not only wrote the above post to defame her and Kapri and asked people to share the above post via WhatsApp but also asked people to walk up to the couple and spit on them.

SOS: Infamous orphanages in Eastern Europe soon to be largely closed

Sofia / Munich (ots) - According to information from the SOS Children's Villages, Eastern Europe is closing its notorious orphanages. For a long time homes were the epitome of neglect and inhumane conditions. "In the meantime, all countries are closing state homes," says Maria Dantcheva, Program Development Manager for the SOS Children's Villages for Eastern Europe. For example, in Romania, nearly 100,000 boys and girls lived in orphanages in 2000, and today there are only about 6,600. In Bulgaria, too, the number of children in state homes has fallen from 7587 in 2009 to 979 in 2017. By 2025 all homes should be closed.

The SOS Children's Villages are decisively involved in the processes in 19 countries in Eastern and Central Europe, says Maria Dantcheva. "For many years, we have been the only ones offering family-oriented care for children in need in many places, and now we support governments with our know-how: we are involved in the development of laws and child protection systems and help build foster parent networks . " The organization is also active in Kazakhstan. The local SOS Children's Village Almaty will soon accommodate 30 to 40 boys and girls from a closing children's home. Under the name "Open Doors", SOS has partnered with four other aid agencies to promote the closure of orphanages by providing data, education and political work.\

Instead of being in state homes, the children will in future be raised by foster families, small groups or relatives. Also, families should be stabilized in crises so that as many children as possible can stay with their parents.

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When your life begins in a cot in the orphanage: "That somebody does not care, it stays that way"

She wrote hundreds of applications, had dozens of auditions: Acting is Luminita Arza's life. The job has helped her to understand her life. She started as an orphan in a Romanian hospital.

Luminita is Romanian and means something like "little light". But Luminita Arza spent the first years of her life in darkness: the two years after her birth she spent with other children in a barren room full of cots, which was only entered a few times a day by nurses to bring food. Luminita represents a whole generation of Romanian children left behind by their poor, often Roma-born families just after birth.

Because a German foster mother adopted her, Luminita Arza was able to start afresh in Germany. In her youth, she decided to become an actress. After training at a private school followed a job application marathon - with vocal exercises, countless letters of application and painful rejections.

She wants to live her dream - absolutely

Differences on which body should control adoption in the country has derailed the proposed bill on children to get to parliament.

It has now emerged that the proposed new law on children is still stuck at the Labour ministry, headed by Ukurr Yattani despite being complete and ready to be passed to Parliament.

The proposed law proposes a National Adoption Committee, which will be an independent body to review applications for adoptions.

This takes away the powers from the current regime which is headed by children’s welfare lobby Child Welfare Society of Kenya (CWSK). Among the proposals is to include CWSK in the law.

A top official in the Attorney General’s told The Standard that the draft bill, as currently is, factored all the views of Kenyans, but that the single issue delaying it is whether CWSK should manage adoption processes .

HUGER, South Carolina — The U.S. Department of Justice says a South Carolina couple tried to get around overseas adoption rules by telling immigration officials a baby they adopted in the Philippines was their biological child.

The State reports federal prosecutors indicted 24-year-old Stephanie Jean Locker and 46-year-old Gerald Vincent Locker Jr. on charges of conspiracy and making false statements in a passport application.

The two were living in Japan in 2014 while Gerald Locker served in the Marines.

A Justice Department release accuses Stephanie Locker of saying she’d learned she was pregnant while on vacation in the Philippines, five days before the baby’s birth.

Records allege the two tried to circumvent adoption processes by passing off the Filipino child as their biological baby.

Holt International Children's Services Invites Qualified Candidates to Apply for the Newly Appointed Role to Lead, Launch and Grow Its Adult Adoptee Community and Supporting Initiatives

Eugene, Oregon, July 16, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Holt International Children's Services, the nation's leading international adoption placement agency and not-for-profit child welfare organization, announced its intention to hire its first director of adult adoptee community outreach, beginning with a nationwide search starting today. Holt International first pioneered international adoption in 1956 and today remains the global leader with a long-standing commitment to holistically support adoptees for life – because adoption is a lifelong journey.

The director of adult adoptee community outreach will oversee the planning and implementation of outreach strategies to better understand and support the diversity and voices of within the adult adoptee community. This person will launch, grow and manage a thriving and interconnected community of adult adoptees spanning multiple locations, different lived experiences and many generations. The director will be responsible for building trusted networks and relationships, and informing how Holt can best support, magnify and celebrate a healthy and diverse adult adoptee community.

“The needs of adoptees evolve as they grow older and mature. We have a responsibility to understand this evolution in order to take appropriate action to serve and support them,” said Steve Kalb, LMSW, Holt International’s director of post-adoption services, and a Korean adoptee. “This new hire will allow us opportunities to connect with and support adult adoptees across the country. By engaging with established communities and elevating the voices of those who feel isolated, we can walk beside adoptees as they teach us the best ways to address their changing needs.”

Studies suggest that adoptees benefit from support services into adulthood. The director of adult adoptee community outreach will provide support and opportunities for adult adoptees by directing and managing heritage tours and regional activities and events, offering additional resources for mental and physical well-being support, and giving adult adoptees the opportunity to share their own experiences with younger adoptees. This person will also facilitate the organization’s adult adoptee advisory board, which will provide insight, feedback and recommendations from adult adoptees on how the organization can elevate its adoption services for children and their families.

Responding to a question in Lok Sabha, WCD Minister Smriti Irani gave data according to which the highest number of deaths of children have been reported from Uttar Pradesh. These deaths occurred across 19 specialised adoption agencies in the state.

As many as 776 children, including 124 in Uttar Pradesh, have died at specialised adoption agencies in the last three years, the Women and Child Development (WCD)Ministry said Friday.

Responding to a question in Lok Sabha, WCD Minister Smriti Irani gave data according to which the highest number of deaths of children have been reported from Uttar Pradesh. These deaths occurred across 19 specialised adoption agencies in the state.

Children legally free for adoption are provided residential care at specialised adoption agency(SAA), which are run by both state governments and NGOs.

"As per the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guideline System (CARINGS), 776 children have reported to have died in SAAs during the period from 2016-2017 to 2019-2020 (up to July 8, 2019)," Irani said.

Migrant children, left without a mother by accidents in the Mediterranean, have found a second chance thanks to two Sicilian families

They are called Noelia and Isabel and to unite them is a common past. Both are "orphans of the sea". Two girls, that is, who have lost their natural mothers in the crossing of the desperate in the Mediterranean, from Africa to Italy. Here, however, they found, both, an adoptive family. And, with this, that second opportunity that those who gave their lives did not, unfortunately, have.

Their moving story was told by their adoptive mothers. Both seem to come from Nigeria. Although little is known about their past. Noelia arrived in 2015, Isabel a year later. To take them on a sea journey to Italy, on a boat, on which they traveled with their respective parents. The one on which Noelia was traveling caught fire. She, survived only 23 days old, was rescued by a fishing boat. The 23, however, is a number that is also linked to the history of Isabel. 23 were, in fact, the people, including herself, who were saved among the 100 who undertook that damn trip. The mother protected her as much as she could from the burning sun, which took away her life. Protected by another woman, the child managed to reach Italy alive.

"Of their past - said Margherita and Sofia (the names are fancy), the adoptive mothers - we know practically nothing, we presume the nationality because they were mostly Nigerians on the barge. We don't know the day of birth, the real name, who their mother was, nothing. It was the Court, after medical examinations following the landing, to decide for them. Not even a birth certificate ".

But the documents do not serve when the miracle of adoption comes into play. " It was love at first sight. Yes, they changed our lives ", say the two women who made Noelia and Isabel again" daughters ". Both were placed in a family home for some time before the adoption.

Life Family Saturday 20 July 2019

Scenic: Vietnam is the number one country for people from Ireland to adopt a foreign child1

Eilish O'Regan

July 20 2019 2:30 AM

Vietnam is the top country for people from Ireland who are adopting a child from abroad.