Four-member committee to conduct spot verification of family applying for adoption

KOCHI: In a move aimed at preventing fraudulent practices in the adoption process, Kerala government has brought in an additional layer of screening and approval process for childless couples to adopt children in the state. This process is in addition to the existing tight procedures put in place by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development through its statutory body Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) in 2017.

As per the new screening process, a four-member committee that includes a local anganwadi worker will conduct a detailed probe into the whereabouts of the family based on the home study report prepared by an approved adoption agency.

“Earlier, approval for adoption process was given based on the home study report prepared by the approved agency. Kerala government has introduced another level of verification process wherein a four-member committee has to conduct a detailed inquiry based on the home study report and approval is given only if they find the details mentioned in the report correct,” said a senior officer of state Social Justice Department.

District Child Protection Officer Shina said the additional level of verification was introduced by the state government to prevent fraud committed by a few unregulated orphanages under the cover of adoption.

The Supreme Head of the Adoption Agency was presented as everyone's father

Five years ago, a girl was born at the social welfare society's hospital in Gangnam, South Korea. Maria Fredriksson suddenly got her in her arms during a revolutionary visit when she just started searching for her roots.

The country where no one can take root.

In 1972, I was adopted from South Korea. For most of my life I have actively ignored my country of birth, but in 2014 I decided to visit it for me almost mythical country where I was born. I'm not the traveler, why I tried to find some sort of arranged group trip with the finished program.

I was happy when I was advised in an adoption forum to contact the Swedish adoption organization Adoptionscentrum, which was able to communicate with its Korean partner the adoption agency Social Welfare Society (SWS), which annually arranges a return trip for adults adopted. SWS has passed adoptions to Sweden since the Swedes began adopting from the country on a larger scale and in recent years have begun arranging lavish group trips under the name of "Welcome home - Motherland tour".

MUMBAI: The crime branch on Saturday rescued two more babies and arrested four more persons in a child trafficking racket it

had unearthed last week.

Among the four new arrests was a woman who was a go-between.

Last week unit 6 of the crime branch arrested a gang of four women, including a private hospital-coordinator-cum-owner of an

IVF consultancy, Bhagyashree Koli, for selling baby boys born to poor couples for as high as Rs 5 lakh.

The Union government will push for the passage of three crucial bills in this session of Parliament.

Re-introduction of three previously lapsed bills, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, the Anti-Trafficking Bill and POCSO Amendment Bill is high on the list of priorities of the government, sources said.

The Anti-trafficking Bill was passed in Lok Sabha but lapsed as it could not be introduced in the Rajya Sabha in the last session before the Lok Sabha elections. The bill faced much resistance from the opposition in the Rajya Sabha over certain provisions; the opposition wanted it to be first referred to a select committee of Parliament.

In July last year, the Ministry of Women and Child Development had introduced the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Bill 2018, under which the district magistrate was empowered to issue adoption orders instead of district courts. It was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 6, but could not be passed in either House.

As per the proposed amendments to the JJ Act, the district magistrate’s role will be widened to oversee and monitor implementation of the entire adoption process, effectively making it the appellate and monitoring authority of the district-wise adoptions carried out by the State Adoption Resource Agency (SARA).

When Josh* and his wife decided to adopt an orphan from China in 2010, they knew their limits. They felt they could adopt a child with some minor disabilities, but they didn’t think they could handle one who was blind. Then Josh remembers looking at an email from their adoption agency at work one day and finding a picture and description of a boy with severe visual impairment. “As soon as I opened up this photo, I knew that he was the one we wanted,” Josh told me.

Three years later, that little boy is a part of their family. He has had a number of surgeries to help his vision. Things that come easily for other children are difficult for him, but Josh and his wife have no regrets. Maybe it sounds superficial that these parents made such an important choice on the basis of a picture and a story. In his defense, Josh says: “People, in general, make decisions when it comes to family, love, and connection on an emotive basis. There is nothing wrong with that.”

But that’s not the view of the U.S. State Department, which late last year decided that agencies should no longer be able to offer “soft referrals” to families. This means that until families have completed their home studies and children have been deemed officially available for adoption, no family can receive information about or pictures of any specific child. The problem is that seeing a picture and hearing a child’s story is often the very thing that motivates a family to begin to pursue the lengthy and expensive process of international adoption.

In November, the National Council for Adoption, which represents more than 100 adoption agencies, filed suit against the State Department, arguing that the ban is illegal because they the agency didn’t follow the federally-mandated “notice and comment” process. Moreover, they noted that the policy has had the unfortunate effect of significantly reducing the number of children with special needs who can be adopted by American families. International adoption reached an all-time low last year, but it is special-needs kids who need access to the kind of medical treatment available in the U.S., who, without the intervention of American families, will languish in foreign orphanages. Earlier this year, the NCFA filed for summary judgment.

But what motivated this policy change in the first place? Lawyers for the State Department claim that this is not a new policy so much as a reinterpretation of an older policy, which was not in the “best interests of the child,” as defined by the Hague Adoption Convention. Policymakers seem to be concerned that children are being trafficked and that agencies’ use of these children’s pictures and stories is somehow going to exacerbate the problem.

Summary

In recent years we have been in the newspapers with some regularity

startled by news about illegal admission of children with

as a goal to adopt them and offer a safe home. Sometimes unsuspecting,

sometimes very calculated adults, circumvent the law. [1, 2]

New Delhi, Jul 7 All child care homes run by the Mother Teresa-founded Missionaries of Charity (MoC), except those in Maharashtra and West Bengal, have filed for recognition of their institutions under the Juvenile Justice Act, officials said.

In 2015, an ideological row had erupted between the ministry and the charity over issues such as the latter''s denial to give children to separated or divorced parents.

Following this, the Missionaries of Charity decided to stop putting children up for adoption under the government''s Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) system.

But in October last year, former Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi had urged them to come back into the government''s system of adoption services.

Officials told that at a meeting, the officials of the WCD ministry asked the MoC to either take authorisation of the child care institutions or shut down, following which the MoC applied for recognition of all 79 child care institutions across the country, barring West Bengal and Maharashtra, where there are around 12 institutions.

Sisters, Reunited

Meet Rekha, Deborah and Christina — three Indian adoptees from different families with one very strong and powerful connection: their shared beginning.

Rekha, Deborah and Christina

If you see us in person or in a picture, we are three little Indians: petite, of Indian nationality, and a group of three. Our names are Deborah, Rekha and Christina. We are three different people with one very strong and powerful connection: our shared beginning. Together on December 11, 1988, we traveled on Pan Am Flight 067 as infants 20+ hours from Pune, Maharashtra, India, to New York City, New York, USA. There were five of us total, accompanied and cared for by our American travel chaperones, Barbara, her husband, Lee, and their 20-year-old son, Kip. What we share is not only a past, but since finding each other and then meeting again 30+ years later, a new beginning of friendship and sisterhood.

While we are a group of three in this story told to you today, we are actually a group of five. We are hopeful that one day all five of us can reunite and be together once again.

Adoption only hurdle to passage of new law

Kamau Muthoni 08th Jul 2019 00:15:00 GMT +0300

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.

Romania is pressured to reopen adoptions for foreign citizens, Romania libera reads following a decision of Romanian authorities in 2005 to block the process. President Basescu gave plenty of assurances that the situation will not change in his mandate.

Meanwhile, Romania is under a lot of pressure from US and EU officials to reopen the adoptions program for foreign citizens. In an interview for the newspaper US General Consul James Gray talks about the issues that stand between cooperation of the two countries in this sector.

Gray said that things have changed since 2005 and now authorities have tougher measures that imply real responsibilities to satisfy the state of origin of the children. In his opinion, Romania needs to change legislation and there was a proposal for a limited reopening of adoptions but the incumbent PM Emil Boc refused it.