Nieuwsuur

Published on Jun 2, 2019

Een commissie onderzoekt illegale adopties van kinderen uit vijf landen. Maar naar adopties in Haïti wordt vooralsnog niet gekeken. Terwijl ook daar gesjoemeld werd met adopties. Sterker nog: ook vandaag de dag leidt het er tot kinderhandel. Kinderen worden soms onder valse voorwendselen bij hun ouders weggehaald en verdwijnen met valse geboorteaktes naar het buitenland.

Dit is een reportage van Ellen Brans en Machteld Veen.

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Adoptie kinderen uit Haïti via Flash gestaakt

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Van onze verslaggeefster– 28 september 2002

AMSTERDAM - Het adoptiebureau Flash mag geen Haïtiaanse kinderen meer naar Nederland halen. De gegevens van het bureau over de kinderen kloppen niet, zegt Justitie. Adoptie-ouders zouden verkeerd geïnformeerd worden over de leeftijd en achtergronden van de kinderen.

U krijgt 5 artikelen van Trouw cadeau. Dit is nummer 4 .

Adoptieouders doen het ook nooit goed

Adoptieouders worden vaak met wantrouwen bejegend. Ze zijn óf te idealistisch, óf te kritisch en berekenend. `We doen het ook nooit goed.'

Esther Rosenberg

19 april 2003

Leestijd 3 minuten

Twijfels bij rol stichting in adoptie uit Haïti

De Gelderlander: 15 augustus 2002.

Advocaat P. Baur heeft het ministerie van Justitie gevraagd een onderzoek in te stellen naar het optreden van de Nijmeegse stichting Flash, erkend bemiddelaar in adoptie. Volgens Baur gaat Justitie bekijken of het bureau bij de afwikkeling van de adoptie van kinderen uit Haïti alle zorgvuldigheid in acht neemt.

Aanleiding is de adoptie van twee Haïtiaanse jongetjes door een Nijmeegs gezin. De jongens blijken nooit te hebben gewoond in het kindertehuis waar zij geacht werden vandaan te komen. Ze zouden gewoon bij hun ouders hebben geleefd en door hun vader via het kindertehuis ter adoptie zijn aangeboden.

Volgens de adoptie-ouders vertonen de kinderen grote gedragsproblemen omdat ze graag terug willen naar hun moeder.

Malappuram: Over the past two weeks, Childline in Malappuram rescued a 40-day-old infant and a three-year-old boy, who were illegally adopted by couples in Pulikkal and Veliyancode, respectively. The children, who were produced before the child welfare committee were then shifted to shelter homes. After a preliminary investigation, CWC will hand over the cases to police for detailed investigation. These children were rescued after Childline received anonymous calls with a tip that the adoption process was illegal and hence it suspects that there could be more such cases, controlled by rackets. The infant’s case came up before authorities on Wednesday, the Childline coordinator Anwar Karakkadan said that the statement given by the couple from Pulikkal indicated that the infant (daughter of a Malayali couple) was adopted illegally with the help of a mediator.

Meanwhile, the couple from Veliyancode said that they had adopted the boy illegally from his parents in Tamil Nadu by paying Rs 2.5 lakh three years ago. So, Childline has some ground to suspect that groups or rackets in Tamil Nadu may be involved in the crime. “We need to meet the biological parents of the children to know why they sold their kids. As we cannot rule out the possibility of abduction, people should not encourage illegal adoptions,” he said. Chairman Shajesh Bhaskar said CWC has sought a detailed social investigation report (SIR) from district child protection unit (DCPU) in both cases and further action will be taken after receiving the same.

It is being argued that childless couples were convinced to choose the illegal adoption route as the legal route involves stringent, time-consuming

procedures. Last year, central adoption resource authority (CARA), a statutory body of the Union ministry of women and child development, had issued new guideless for adoption, making existing laws more stringent. Parents must register for adoption through legal adoption centres and it will conduct a ‘home study’ to analyse the social status and family background of applicants. The allotment of children is a centralized process and adoption is done on priority basis after perusing applicants.

Govt bodies find that guardians misuse the 60-day grace period for reclaiming children from adoption agencies, and put many of the kids up for independent and illegal adoption later. In the last 6 months,

30 such restoration cases were noted.

With the revelation of a rise in cases of parents or guardians reclaiming children from registered adoption agencies and often selling them off independently — and illegally — the bodies monitoring the welfare of these kids are now in a ferment, scrutinising existing processes to make changes.

Over the last five or six months, several eye-opening cases of children being put up for adoption illegally for monetary gains by their own parents or guardians have come to the attention of the women and child development (WCD) officials in the state.

Shockingly, the pattern is that these kids were taken home from official agencies by their mother, father or guardian, who were taking advantage of the 60-day ‘restoration’ period as per the law. Relevant authorities wish to close up any gaps that may lead to child trafficking, in view of the recent developments.

The relevance of the Hague Children’s Conventions in the African context will be under the spotlight this week and key to discussions will be the Child Abduction Convention and the Inter-country Adoption Convention.

International mobility and the opening up of borders linked to increasing globalisation have given rise to serious risks for children caught up in cross-border situations. On one hand, there is the risk of cross-border trafficking of children for economic, sexual or other exploitation. On the other, there are children caught up in fractured relationships within transnational families, with disputes over custody and relocation, the hazards of international child abduction, and the problems of maintaining contact and enforcing claims for child support across international borders.

Then there is the phenomenon of inter-country adoption. This expanded slowly after World War II until the 1970s, when the numbers increased considerably. By the 1980s, this phenomenon was causing complex social and legal problems in the absence of existing domestic and international regulatory legal instruments. In more recent years, Africa has become the new frontier for inter-country adoption, with the much publicised inter-country adoptions by the likes of Madonna and Angelina Jolie being only the tip of the iceberg.

The general norms that should apply to the protection of children in these cross-border situations in Africa are to be found in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (CRC) and in the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 1990 (African Charter). All African countries have ratified the CRC, while the African Charter has been ratified by 47 African states, including South Africa.

These norms consist of the general principles of the child’s best interest, non-discrimination, and the child’s right to be heard. In addition, there are the more specific principles applicable to cross-border situations, such as the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, and the principles governing inter-country adoption.

CHILD SNATCHERS Inside the ‘abduction to order’ rings ‘blamed for snatching’ Maddie McCann where ‘attractive British children can fetch more than £10,000’

Around 1.2 million children are trafficked globally every year

NEW Netflix documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann has suggested the missing girl - who would now be 15 - may still be alive.

It's been suggested by the McCanns' private investigator, Julian Peribanez, that Maddie - who was just three when she vanished on holiday in Portugal - could have been 'abducted to order' by a child trafficking gang.

It may sound far-fetched, but if Peribanez's claims are accurate, Maddie could be a victim of a sick global trade known as ‘child laundering’ - in which children are sold into the sex trade, illegally adopted or even killed for their organs.

Hyderabad, Dec 26: A 17-year-old girl who was fraudulently given away in adoption when she was eight met her mother after nearly nine years. The meeting was initiated by her adoptive parents, Americans from Alabama in the United States. In 1996 Ms Lakshmi, a resident of Jogipet in Medak district, sent her two daughters Manjula and Bhagya to Action for Social Development at Gandhi Nagar in Hyderabad.

Hyderabad, Dec 26: A 17-year-old girl who was fraudulently given away in adoption when she was eight met her mother after nearly nine years. The meeting was initiated by her adoptive parents, Americans from Alabama in the United States. In 1996 Ms Lakshmi, a resident of Jogipet in Medak district, sent her two daughters Manjula and Bhagya to Action for Social Development at Gandhi Nagar in Hyderabad.

A year later, Ms Lakshmi went to the hostel to meet them but was reportedly shown her children from a distance. That was the last time that Ms Lakshmi saw her daughters. When she went to the hostel a few months later, she was reportedly told that her children had been sent abroad for higher education.

Ms Lakshmi was waiting for word from her daughters ever since. In November, suddenly, things started happening. Social activist Gita Ramaswamy, who has campaigned against inter-country adoptions got a letter from one Mr David Smolin and Ms Desiree Smolin of Alabama in the US ad-dressed to Ms Lakshmi. She traced Ms Lakshmi to Erraram village in Jogipet and gave her the letter.

The Smolins wrote that they were given Manjula and Bhagya for adoption on November 18, 1998, by John Abraham Memorial Bethany Home in Tandur. “We adopted Manjula and Bhagya, because we were told that they needed a home and a family,” Mr Smolin wrote to Ms Lakshmi. They also had to pay $5,000 for the adoption.

I was stolen from my mother at birth

Did you know that we Swedish Chile children, who left the country of birth and adopted in Sweden, still exist in the Chilean population register?

We were completely left out to others' business activities and acceptances. Why is there no Swedish investigation of our adoptions? writes Maria Diemar.

DEBATE. Social Minister Lena Hallengren, adoption is a lifelong perspective for us adopted - but is it a completed business for the adoption agency and the Swedish state?

I was stolen from my mother at birth and my adopted brother was declared dead because we could leave Chile and be sent to Sweden. We were then adopted in the Stockholm District Court. Our cases are just two Swedish cases of just over 600, which so far are part of the Chilean crime investigation 1044–2018 in the Appeal Court in Santiago. Tens of thousands of cases have to be examined, where children have been illegally sent abroad for adoption. Lena Hallengren, why is there no Swedish investigation of our Swedish adoptions?