More adopted Russian kids at risk: Texas parents suspected of abuse

Published time: April 03, 2013 11:41

Two teenage Russian girls have been removed from their adoptive parents and placed in a foster family as Texan authorities begin a probe into suspected threats and possible sexual abuse.

The investigation was confirmed by the Texas Department for Family and Protective Services, Russian news services reported. According to officials the incident took place in the town of Silsbee.

Russia’s Investigative Committee - tasked with oversight in especially important and resonant cases – said on Wednesday that it was starting its own probe in connection with the reports of violence against adopted Russian kids.

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By BARBARA DAVIES

Madonna back in Malawi

CATEGORY: NATIONAL NEWS WRITTEN BY MABVUTO BANDA

Maddona

US pop star Madonna arrived in Malawi Monday morning amid accusations of abandoning construction of a multi-million dollar girls’ school.

Madonna has not been in Malawi for the last two years and now faces a new administration under President Joyce Banda.

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DOS Adoption Alert: Serbia Adoption

March 29, 2013

ALERT: SERBIA ADOPTION

U.S. Embassy Belgrade has received reports that one or more U.S. adoption agencies may be giving prospective adoptive parents misleading information about the process of adoption in Serbia.

Serbia places a priority on domestic adoption. The only children who are generally available for intercountry adoption are children with special needs. There are no adoption agencies authorized to offer adoption services in Serbia, and families should not seek to work with an intermediary. You are strongly encouraged to read the Serbia adoption country information, which outlines the only way to adopt children from Serbia.

Liberian actor sues UNICEF for child abuse

A Liberian actor has filed a $25 million lawsuit against UNICEF for alleged child abuse over his starring role aged 13 in a fundraising film as a murderous child soldier who tortures his victims.

Mike James, now 28, says he and other cast members have been "stigmatised as rebels, killers, cannibals and drug addicts" after being recruited for the 1997 film "Soldier Boy" and made to act out eating human body parts.

In a writ filed in a west African human rights court earlier this month, James says he was paid $300 by a Danish production team hired by UNICEF for the docu-drama and duped into believing it would get limited distribution when in fact it went worldwide.

The UN child protection agency's Liberian office provided "active support and collaboration" to the Danish crew which recruited children from schools and orphanages to act in the short film, the writ says.

Erin Siegal, Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, recently donated one bankers-size box of documents about US citizens’ adoptions of Guatemalan children and adoption fraud to the National Security Archive.

These documents are the result of over thirty FOIA requests Ms. Siegal filed with the Department of State, Customs and Border Patrol, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the CIA. The requests asked for information as far back as 1980 and cover a variety of topics, ranging from information on the Casa Quivira issue (in which 46 babies were seized from a Guatemalan adoption agency due to accusations of adoption fraud), to US embassy communications regarding Celebrate Children International (a US organization imputed to have acted in violation of conditions the Hague Convention set regarding the adoptability of children).

Of particular interest in the declassified documents is information on the extent of adoption fraud in Guatemala, what the United States knew about it, and the US’s attempts to combat the problem. According to Department of State cables dating back as far as 1987, adoption fraud in Guatemala had been a lucrative business for some time. Lawyers in the country turned huge profits arranging the international adoptions of kidnapped children, women were paid to masquerade as mothers abandoning their “children” so that the children could be put up for adoption, and by March 2010, 29,400 Guatemalan children had found their way into American homes. That meant that one in every one hundred babies born in Guatemala was growing up in the US, and the adoption industry in Guatemala had become a $100 million industry.

The documents also contain information on the involvement of US-based organizations in the problem. Certain US adoption agencies with operations or relationships in Guatemala became involved in the scandal, including International Adoption Resources, which was implicated in smuggling Guatemalan children out of the country, after three mothers came forward and attested to selling their children for 750 dollars apiece.

Some documents of note in the files include:

Russian teen 'flees US adopters'

From: AAP March 27, 2013 1:03AM

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Hoe adoptie haar onschuld verloor

AMSTERDAM - Adoptie van buitenlandse kinderen is uit. Het idealisme van de beginjaren is verdwenen door de dramatische verhalen over de mondiale adoptie-industrie.

De afgelopen zestig jaar zijn in Nederland ruim 37 duizend kinderen geadopteerd. En een veelvoud daarvan in veel andere westerse landen. Eerst kwamen ze uit eigen land, daarna uit Griekenland en Oostenrijk. Zodra het taboe op ongehuwd moederschap uit Europa verdween, kwamen de adoptiekinderen van heinde en verre: Zuid-Korea, Brazilië, Libanon, India, Sri Lanka en de laatste jaren vooral uit China.

In het naoorlogse Nederland tot diep in de eindjaren van de vorige eeuw domineert het enthousiasme over adoptie van een vondeling of weeskind uit een minder ontwikkeld land. Wat is er mooier dan een kind zonder ouders in een straatarm land een betere toekomst te geven in je eigen gezin in een welvarend land? In de loop der jaren gaat het idealisme er meer en meer van af en wordt adoptie een oplossing voor ongewenste kinderloosheid met een sympathiek randje.

hechting

Kids bought from smugglers: father

by: Ainsley Pavey

From: The Courier-Mail

March 26, 2013 1:00AM

TWO children embroiled in an international adoption scandal are being relocated to Australia amid allegations they are part of a child smuggling racket.