Sisters deny money for forced adoptions in Lommel's home

The Congregation of the Kindsheid Jesu Sisters was not the initiator of the non-profit organization Tamar in Lommel and did not derive any financial benefit from it. The sisters wish to clarify that today, after yesterday the Een magazine unpacked Koppen with a report about forced adoptions in the Lommel home in the 1970s and 1980s.

“Tamar was an autonomous association recognized by Child and Family. At the request of the non-profit organization, the congregation provided material support by opening up part of its buildings for assistance to pregnant women in need. She also made some sisters available for the care and guidance of those women, who often had to brave the judgmental attitude in society at the time, "the sisters report on Kerknet, the website of the Church in Flanders.

When the home was set up, there was also no legislation about giving up a child, the congregation believes. Only the legal procedure for adoption was arranged, the sisters say. The congregation strongly denies that it has taken any financial advantage from the service provided to the women who stayed in Tamar.

Today, based on victim testimonials, Het Belang van Limburg writes that the sisters sold the babies for big money (3,500 euros per baby) to well-to-do adoptive families.

Belgium stops Moroccan adoption

For the time being, Flanders is completely refraining from adopting adopted children from Morocco.

The reason for this is the lack of clarity about the legal aspects of children from Morocco. According to De Standaard there is a lot of uncertainty about the recognition of adopted children once they are in Belgium. The first adoption request from Flemish parents went completely wrong in Ghent. Approximately eighty children from Morocco have been adopted in Brussels and Wallonia, but parents still have to do a lot of work to get recognition.

The Flemish parents did everything according to the adoption procedures, which meant that the ties with the biological parents should not be broken. However, the public prosecutor decided to appeal, after which the adoption was rejected. In Morocco there is only the 'kafala', a foster guardianship system and not the adoption schemes that we know in the Netherlands and Belgium.

However, there is something to be said for refusing the adoption. The name of the biological father is on the birth certificate of the child and it is precisely that the father did not give permission for the adoption. The 4-year-old boy has been living in Belgium with his foster parents for two years now. Adoption officer Ariana van Den Berghe has indicated that no Moroccan children may be adopted for the time being.

Draft – to be agreed at the International Conference on Children's Participation in Decision-Making and Policy-Making at European Union level, on 6-7 May 2019, Bucharest

Children from all over the European Union have gathered in Bucharest to present their commitment and to call on the leaders of EU Member States and of the European Union to make child participation a priority and a reality.

We are dreaming of a European Community that enables and encourages the involvement of children in decision-making. Why? Because we want to be consulted on issues that influence our lives directly, both as citizens of our respective countries and as Europeans. Because we are a significant part of Europe’s population and we are writing our own story through marches, vocalization, and representation. Because our opinions, feelings and voices are forming now and we belong to the present just like the seed of the plant in the spring, before the flower blooms. We want to live in a Europe that requires and values our involvement in the decision-making process.

THE CONTEXT

Thirty years have passed since the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by all EU countries. Under Article 12, it stipulates the right of all children to be heard and have their views given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity.

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1TAV5GvIUl_JaIuceqyNpOzNtfjweQnaW?usp=drive_open

Marco Griffini confirmed to the presidency: "We leave behind the most difficult three-year period"

With new enthusiasm, with a strategic plan in three points and after the most difficult three-year period in its history, the activity of Ai.Bi. - Amici dei Bambini. Once the previous three-year mandate expired, the Governing Council of the organization was renewed, with its main institutional headquarters in San Giuliano Milanese. The shareholders' meeting resolved its composition in the past few days, electing the five members.

Marco Griffini was reconfirmed as president, Cristina Riccardi, former president of the AiBi Foundation, was elected vice president as general secretary Ermes Carretta, former president of the AIBC Social Cooperative, and further members were Giuseppe Salomoni and don Massimiliano Sabbadini , respectively the next president and spiritual adviser of "La Pietra Scartata", the Association of the faithful made up of adoptive and foster families of abandoned minors.

In addition, the constitution was approved, in view of the forthcoming revision of the statute, which must be approved within the deadlines set by the reform of the Third Sector Code, of a "National Council of Ai.Bi." composed of all the regional coordinators of the association .

"The assembly - explains the president Marco Griffini - wished to express heartfelt thanks to the outgoing Board of Directors, which had to face one of the most difficult, perhaps the most difficult, periods of the association's more than thirty-year life, culminating in the crazy attack of the former CAI vice president Silvia della Monica supported by the Renzi government and by the weekly L'Espresso against the very idea of ??international adoption. The tireless work and the tenacious resistance of the members of the Governing Council, the regional coordinators and all the collaborators of the association, as well as the unshakable trust and support of the hundreds of families have allowed Ai.Bi. not only to be able to overcome the numerous obstacles ... but above all to be able to trace the guidelines of a strategy, which the new leaders will have to implement, during their mandate, to relaunch the whole sector of the reception of those who are in family difficulties ”.

Report on the conference "Searching for Origin in Biographical Work"

This year's 19th Annual Meeting of the BAG ADOPTION and INPFLEGE on the weekend in Frankfurt offered four interesting lectures on the topic "Searching for Origin in Biography Work":

Future grows from origin - The biographical appropriation of adoption history

Dr. Peter G. Kühn, www.adoptionsforschung.de

How do youth welfare offices and adoption agencies support the root searches of the children they have previously taught?

Investigations into the Namakkal child adoption racket have shown that the gang exploited gaps in health and registration services to provide an almost one-stop service for childless couples.

NAMAKKAL: The Namakkal child adoption racket that recently came to light has revealed how lapses in health and registration services could be exploited by unscrupulous individuals. It has also shown how brokers were able to target childless couples as well as poor families with too many children.

In fact, if investigators are to be believed, the accused were successful as they leveraged contacts to provide a virtually one-stop service for childless couples. Using contacts with health officials, they were able to target poor women and sell their eggs to fertility clinics in the region.

Through the connection built through sale of the eggs, they were able to allegedly find childless couples for whom fertility treatments hadn’t worked and offered to sell them babies instead. Through contacts with health officials, they were able to know which babies had been born at which government hospital to what kind of families and thereby narrow in on vulnerable families that they would allegedly convince to give up their babies. The racket, which has allegedly gone on for years, only came to light last week after an audio recording of a retired government nursing assistant offering to sell babies went viral.

After detaining the woman, Amuthavalli, for questioning, police arrested her and her husband Ravichandran, who worked at an urban cooperative bank, as well as one Sengarai who was an ambulance driver at the Kolli Hills primary health centre. So far eight people have been arrested under several sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015. As many as 14 children who had been sold into illegal adoption had been traced in Erode, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Kanniyakumari and Madurai districts.

Rani T’Kindt was abducted as a child for adoption: "My mother was panicking"

"Under the disguise of adoption, I was abducted as a baby in India in 1980," says Rani T'Kindt. The instructing party was De Vreugdezaaiers. In 2011 the adoption agency lost its recognition; half a year later, Ray of Hope, who had now been discredited, took over all the files.

"I have been illegally adopted and have therefore received residence papers in an illegal manner," said Rani T'Kindt (40), who won the Beijing Express TV program in 2003. "Yet nobody called on me to deport me, not even Vlaams Belang."

On July 5, 1980, the then one and a half year old Rani arrived by plane from India in Belgium. "My biological parents were among the lowest caste in the city of Puducherry," she says. "My mother gave birth to a girl, and my father wasn't happy with that. He abandoned her. Mama stood in the street with her newborn daughter and didn't know what to do. The nuns of the Catholic orphanage offered her a job as a cook. As a little baby, I grew up among the orphans. "

"At night mom had to sleep on the street; I got a bed between the other children. My Indian mother could not read or write, but like many other illiterates, she could put her name on paper. The nuns had her draw forms so that she gave me up without realizing it. One morning she arrived at the orphanage, and I was gone. "

Dimapur, May 3 (MExN): The Western Sümi Totimi Hoho (WSTH) held a seminar on the topic ‘Child Rights and Adoption of a Child’ on May 3 at Khekiho Village, Dhansiripar, Dimapur. This seminar was hosted by Khekiho village under Aqahuto Tokukujo Sümi Totimi Hoho (ATSTH).

Outlining the significance of the seminar, Holi Chophy, General Secretary, WSTH said that, at this juncture we are bound by different laws and orders but we don’t follow the laws many a times, including protection of child rights and rules regarding the adoption of a child.

The Indian constitution under Article 14 of the Fundamental Rights provides for the equal rights of every man, women and children and so each person should be treated equally, she stated.

There are various rules in place to protect children from sexual offences and child labour such as Child Labour Protection and Regulation Act 1986, The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act 1956, The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 and Victim Compensation Scheme 2012. Any person found guilty of violating such laws can be penalized.

On the issue of adoption, she maintained that every right should be given to adopted children and should be treated equally. She also emphasized on the need to follow proper channels in adoption so that every child’s right is protected.

A new online platform regulating and streamlining the adoption and fostering process in Greece received some 450 applications within just two weeks of going into operation, Alternate Social Solidarity Minister Theano Fotiou said on Friday.

Speaking in a radio interview, Fotiou hailed the platform's success, saying that of the 450 applications it received from its launch in April, 90 expressed an interest in fostering a child.

The new system aims to create a nationwide record of the children in state care and prospective parents by making it mandatory for all child protection institutions to submit a file for each of their wards who are being put up for adoption.

“The same is required of prospective parents, so that the system can know their needs and they don't have to apply to each institution individually,” Fotiou said.

Fotiou stressed that the new system aims to reduce the time prospective parents have to wait for their adoption applications to be processed to a maximum of 12 months from several years, as has been the case so far.