12 April 2011 Last updated at 13:40 GMT 

SCardiff After Adoption conference on child identity

Adopted children find piecing together their past a struggle as they get older

Adopted children often struggle with their cultural identity as teenagers, according to a charity providing adoption support.

After Adoption aims to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by adoptees at a conference in Cardiff on Tuesday.

Lisa Rutledge, Times Staff|Apr 11, 2011 - 5:07 PM| 0 |Report a Typo or Correction
Adoption employees arrested

Former officials at Imagine Adoption face fraud charges


Adoption employees arrested. The Cambridge-based adoption agency made headlines around the world after news broke of the organization’s bankruptcy and fraud investigation.
TIMES FILE PHOTO
Two former employees of the Cambridge not-for-profit international adoption agency Imagine Adoption Inc., were arrested and charged Friday with breach of trust and fraud in connection with $420,000 in allegedly misused funds.

The agency’s former general manager Rick Hayhow, 46, was arrested in Cambridge and founder and former executive director Susan Hayhow, 45, was arrested in Whitby. Both have been charged with one count of breach of trust, six counts of fraud over $5,000, three counts of fraud under $5,000, as well as an additional and separate count of fraud over $5,000.

Both were released on a promise to appear in a Cambridge court on May 26.

Waterloo Regional Police Fraud Branch detectives, in partnership with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, began looking into complaints about inappropriate use of agency funds in July 2009. The business had declared bankruptcy, citing a $363,000 shortfall.

Investigators launched an extensive investigation, examining “a large volume of documents relating to financial transactions” and interviewing clients of the agency.

At the centre of the investigation is $420,000 in agency funds alleged to have been used for personal use, including vacations, clothing and renovations to a personal residence in Cambridge.

Hundreds of families across Canada were shocked when news of the agency’s financial issues, especially when many paid money upfront in hopes of helping secure adoption of children from orphanages in places like Ghana.

The Cambridge-based agency later got a second chance thanks to new leadership.

Creditors voted to revive the agency operated by Kids Link International Adoption Agency and families paid up to $6,000 each to help keep the agency running.

Police are still investigating and ask that anyone with information contact the fraud branch at 519-650-8500, ext. 8370 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

The scandal of orphanages in tourist resorts and disaster zones that rent children to fleece gullible Westerners

By IAN BIRRELL

10th April 2011

As a child welfare expert who has worked amid bullets and bombs in some of the world’s toughest war zones, Jennifer Morgan is not someone easily shaken. But even she admits she was shocked by some of the orphanages she visited recently in Haiti.

‘Outside it is a sunny day. Then you step inside the walls of an orphanage and realise that the children there have been exposed to rapes, severe beatings, emotional and mental trauma,’ she said. It was even more disturbing, she added, than the damaged children she came across amid the deadly mayhem of Darfur.

One of PEAR’s members, Pamela Veazie, wrote an independent analysis of the Against Child Trafficking (ACT) Fruits of Ethiopia Report. In it she highlights various orphanages in Ethiopia named in the report, potential problems and agencies affiliated with those orphanages. This in-depth analysis can be found here: http://reformtalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/fruits-of-ethiopia-part-2-cases.html

Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/

People for Ethical Adoption Reform
www.pear-now.org

Baby girl may be stuck in Vietnam

Sat, Apr 09, 2011

By Desmond Ng

HE WANTED a baby with his Vietnamese wife.

But the 55-year-old Singaporean thought he was old and didn't want any "medical issues".

I was the Gatwick baby

Steve Hydes was abandoned at Gatwick airport in 1986, a few days after he was born. He talks about his quest to discover his heritage – and find his mother

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Joanna Moorhead

The Guardian, Saturday 9 April 2011

Two charged in adoption agency fraud investigation

CTV News Video

Nadia Matos on the adoption agency charges

Two people are facing numerous fraud charges in connection with an investigation at Cambridge-based Imagine Adoption Inc.

Date: Friday Apr. 8, 2011 11:13 AM ET

Vorwurf Kinderhandel

Verzweifelter Kampf um Pflegekind Kristin/Nicoletta

Ralph Bauer/UIrich Kraetzer, aktualisiert am 08.04.2011 um 00:10 Uhr

Bild 1 von 3

Uwe und Korinna Biemueller mit ihrem Sohn Nico (l.) und Pflegekind Nicoleta/Kristin – die Kleine soll zurück in ihre fremde Heimat. Foto: dapd

Directors charged with defrauding adoption agency of $420,000

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

Friday, Apr. 08, 2011

The founder and general manager of an international adoption agency are accused of defrauding the agency of hundreds of thousands of dollars almost two years after trustees first found “questionable” spending in its records.

Cambridge, Ont.-based Imagine Adoption, which matched up Canadians with orphans from Ghana and Ethiopia, declared bankruptcy in July, 2009, leaving hundreds of families in adoption limbo.