Árný Aurangasri Hinriksson was among those who received the Order of the Eagle, as it is usually called, from the President of Iceland in Bessastadir on June 17.

She received a Knight's Cross for her work on behalf of adopted children and has helped around 35 Icelanders who have searched for their origins in Sri Lanka.

She moved from Sri Lanka to Ísafjörður in 1983, and there she is often called Auri. She then moved to Iceland with her husband Þóri Hinriksson, but he died in 2017. 

"It was not a conscious decision on my part to pour myself into looking for parents of adopted children in Iceland. Thirty years ago, people came to me and asked me for help in finding the parents of their daughter they had adopted from Sri Lanka. Little by little, this started to happen and there were more issues that I came to. To begin with, I was asked about this by people who had adopted the children, but later, when the adopted children grew up, they themselves started asking me for help when they wanted to know more about their origins," says Auri in an interview with Sunndagsblaðir Morgunblaðinn adding that over time the inquiries she received came from more countries. 

"I have not been able to attend to everyone who has come to me. On the one hand, this takes a lot of time, and on the other hand, it is costly. I tried to handle a few cases a year, but when I stopped working, and had finished my studies, I took on more cases. It also played a role in the fact that I began to spend more time in Sri Lanka and being there, more results were also achieved. I have done all this at my own expense, and of course you have to think about how much time and money you spend on this."

The Bombay High Court on Friday expressed apprehension that parents may abandon children, especially girl children, in order to get reservation benefits if at all any such reservation is created for abandoned children.

A division bench of Justices GS Patel and Neela Gokhale was hearing a plea by the NEST foundation, an NGO which urged the Court to direct the government to create reservation benefits for abandoned children at par with orphaned children. 

Opposing the proposition, Advocate General Dr Birendra Saraf argued that the if the State government grants such reservation to abandoned children, it may create a situation where children are deliberately abandoned to be included under the fold of reservation. 

“Orphanage is a matter of fact but abandonment can be created. It happens. This is the sad truth. The government does not want to create such a situation,” the Advocate General said. 

“This is our anxiety too. It will encourage abandonment, especially of girl children. We need to find a balance,” the bench replied. 

Where exactly does the law stand when it comes to adoptions by trans persons?

It was a petition by Mumbai-based transgender activist Gauri Sawant – better known for being featured in a 2017 Vicks ad – and others that led to the historic NALSA judgment of 2014, in which the Supreme Court recognised trans people as a 'third gender'.

In a shocking incident reported from India’s eastern state of West Bengal, a couple sold their eight-month-old baby for 200,000 Indian rupees or $2,400. The bizarre development is said to be from the state’s North 24 Parganas district.

A police investigation is going on, and the child’s mother, named Sathi, has already been arrested. However, the father of the baby, named Jaydev, is absconding.

How did they get caught?

Interestingly, it was the couple’s neighbours who sounded the alarm. Their neighbours in the Panihati Gandhinagar area grew suspicious after they noted the child’s absence and the sudden change in the couple’s behaviour.

The Bombay High Court on Friday expressed the need to train officials of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), displeased over the manner in which the committee declared a child free for adoption despite the biological father’s pleas for the child’s custody.The court said it would order records of the present case to be placed before the appropriate department for consideration. “Whether...

Deborah was brought to the Netherlands from Sri Lanka together with her twin brother. At least, that was the story. At the age of fifteen, she discovers that her alleged twin brother is not related to her at all. The real twin sister was too sick to fly, so two very young children were hastily swapped.

Deborah's fight to put this right appears to finally be coming to an end this summer. 

By Jeroen Pen

Deborah Hageman was adopted in 1985 and left Sri Lanka for the Netherlands. She is one of many: thousands of fellow sufferers travel the same route. The demand for adopted children rose to a record high at the end of the last century. There is a lot of money to be made from Sri Lankan babies and toddlers, so the supply should not lag behind. In a short time, an industry is created in which shrewd and malicious intermediaries call the shots. There is widespread tampering and fraud with birth data and adoption documents. Blinded by their desire to have children, Dutch adoptive parents turn a blind eye, or worse.

Something continues to gnaw at them, they are still too young to put their finger on it, but many of them feel that their adoption story is not right. Once the adopted children become teenagers, adolescents and adults, they start exploring. With often drastic consequences.

The destruction of adoption files in 1983 and 1999 was not in line with the Archives Act. This is the conclusion of the Government Information and Heritage Inspectorate in a new report in response to questions from adoptees, parliamentary questions and a publication by the NOS .

This concerns thousands of destroyed files from the Child Protection Directorate of the Ministry of Justice and Security dating from the period from 1967 to 1979. The files contain data of people who had registered as adoptive parents.

This information was necessary for the so-called 'consent in principle', in which it was determined that people met the criteria to be allowed to adopt a child. The files also contained personal information about the adopted child, so that they could obtain a visa.

About a hundred files from that period have not been destroyed. It is not clear why they have been preserved.

Careless management

A six-year-old boy's life was permanently changed in a wonderful and emotional moment as he happily welcomed the news of his adoption. The poignant scenario portrayed the joy and pleasure of finding a permanent family. Finding a loving and permanent family remains a pipe dream for many foster children. However, that goal became a reality for one young kid, bringing joy and smiles to all who watched the poignant scene. 

This is the best reaction to being adopted you'll ever see. 

Harvey, six, of Smithfield, North Carolina, had been with his foster parents, Brian and Megan Raby, since he was two. Harvey's happiest place was, without a doubt, their home. However, like any foster child, he had an unspoken desire to know he had a permanent family. 

Fortunately, his foster parents shared his feelings towards Harvey. As a result, they secretly agreed to adopt him. They informed him of the wonderful news after it was official, and his reaction was amazing!

Humankind's Facebook page has shared the video, which is surely a watch for everyone. The clip is captioned by saying, 'When you come home, you come home. A foster child is overjoyed to learn that he has been adopted.'
 

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday took up an interesting question concerning Hindus: Would an illegitimate child born out of a void or voidable marriage be entitled to the property of parents or have coparcenary right over the properties belonging to a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF)?
As some of the contesting counsel veered towards a consensus that under Section 16(3) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1956 a child born to a void or voidable marriage would be entitled to an equal share with children born to the legitimate wife/husband from the parent’s property, some others propped a doubt as to whether that property would include the self-acquired property of the parent or the inherited ancestral property. Arguments plumbed the depths of existing jurisprudence and threw up several hitherto judicially unattended nuances emerging from Section 16, which provided a clarification to the property right of an illegitimate child and limited it to parental property. Only clarification given by Section 16(3) is that such a child would have no rights over properties of other members of a HUF.
 

This was explained by some counsel as a bar on the right of an illegitimate child over the properties held under HUF, where every child born to valid marriages within the undivided family is entitled to a share of jointly-owned property the moment he/she takes birth.
Even after day-long engrossing arguments, when a bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra intended to reserve the verdict, several counsels desired to place their submissions on this issue, forcing the court to schedule further hearing on Thursday. The genesis of the issue was from a trial court in Karnataka, which in 2005 ruled that children born of illegitimate marriage had no coparcenary rights over ancestral properties of parents. A district judge reversed the trial court’s view.

However, the Karnataka HC ruled that “Section 16(3) of the Hindu Marriage Act makes it clear that illegitimate children only had the right to the property of their parents and no one else. It said that once the HUF/ancestral property is divided on the death of the parent, the illegitimate child can have share in the portion of property that accrued to his/her parent, but with a caveat that such a right would emanate only if such parent died without a will”. When the Karnataka HC’s ruling was challenged before the SC, a two-judge bench had on March 31, 2011 referred it to a three-judge bench and framed the question—whether illegitimate children are entitled to a share in the coparcenary property or whether their share is limited only to the self-acquired property of their parents under Section 16(3) of the Hindu Marriage Act?
In 2011, the bench had said, “The court must remember that relationship between the parents may not be sanctioned by law but the birth of a child in such a relationship must be viewed independently of the relationship of the parents. A child born in such a relationship is is entitled to all the rights which are given to other children born in a valid marriage. This is the crux of the amendment in Section 16(3).”

Despite Italy’s economic significance as the Eurozone’s third-largest economy and founding member of the G7 and NATO, the country has struggled to translate its economic power into political influence. Yet, with Giorgia Meloni’s ascent to power, Italy’s approach to foreign policy appears to be evolving. In fact, since the very beginning of her term, Meloni displayed a rather bold approach towards reshaping Italy’s international status.

As the President of the Council of Ministers – analogous to the post of Prime Minister in other countries – Meloni has adopted a distinct posture in addressing issues related to the Southern Mediterranean. Since taking office in October 2022, Meloni has made numerous visits to North Africa, engaging in a diplomatic offensive aimed at reinvigorating Italian policies. In January this year, following in the footsteps of former Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Meloni travelled to Algeria on her first bilateral visit abroad. Algeria is an instrumental country for Italy due to its vast hydrocarbon reserves and geographical proximity.[1] In 2022, Draghi paved the way for Algeria to become Italy’s top energy supplier, replacing Russia and thus allowing for a swift decoupling from Moscow as the Ukraine war rages on and energy prices continue to soar.

Meloni’s posture in Algeria seeks to evidence her willingness to move beyond a mere set of energy memorandums and broaden Italy’s foreign policy to include strategic diplomacy with long-term goals. She described Algeria as Italy’s “most stable, strategic and long-standing” partner in North Africa,[2] and reassured President Tebboune that Italy stands by Algeria. The country has recently felt cornered following Morocco’s joining of the Abraham Accords, a feeling few other countries aside from Italy had the courage to assuage and which had pushed Algeria further towards Russia and China as a result.

Meloni’s activism in North Africa did not end there. The prime minister and her cabinet promoted high-level missions and diplomatic efforts with Libyan government officials, allowing Italy to reap diplomatic wins in the energy field. In January, a few weeks after visiting Algeria, Meloni flew to Tripoli for a meeting with Libya’s UN-backed Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh. The visit led to the signing of an 8 billion US dollars gas deal between Italian energy company Eni and Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC).[3]

Then, in May, Meloni hosted Benghazi militia leader Khalifa Haftar in Rome to discuss the surge in migration;[4] and the following month, she met Dbeibeh to discuss the economy as well as energy and infrastructure projects, stressing the importance of Libyan stability for Italian interests. By discussing political and economic priorities with both Libyan leaders, Meloni seemingly went beyond the transactional approach that Italy (and Europe more broadly) has long adopted vis-à-vis North Africa promoting a more comprehensive framework which seemingly seeks to embrace the region’s own priorities as well.

Similarly, Meloni held several high-level meetings and signed strategic partnerships with Tunisia, a country that currently faces deep economic and political challenges. Since June, Meloni has met with Tunisia’s President Kais Saied three times. Initially aimed at unblocking International Monetary Fund (IMF) funds to help macroeconomic stability in the country, her later visits, which she undertook with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, underscored the need to find long-term solutions to stabilise Tunisian finances while improving migration cooperation. In Tunis, the leaders stressed European support and announced a package of assistance which includes 150 million euro in budgetary support for Tunisia to avert an economic default.[5]

Meloni has framed her Mediterranean diplomacy as part of a broader initiative termed the “Mattei Plan for Africa”.[6] Named after Eni’s founder Enrico Mattei, the initiative seems to be aimed to encourage a holistic approach to dealing with African countries of interest to Italy. It also aims to turn Italy into an energy hub between North Africa and Europe. Through the construction of new pipelines, Italy would become an exporter of both natural gas and hydrogen to countries such as Germany and Austria and the gateway linking North Africa to Central and Northern European countries.[7] Given Europe’s vital role for North African trade, these deals could become pivotal in securing long-term strategic gains for both sides of the Mediterranean.

The specifics of the Mattei Plan remain undisclosed. Very little is known about the plan, and some fear that its true nature is simply linked to the goal of curbing irregular migration to Italy. In fact, Meloni’s stance on migration has long been a controversial topic of discussion in Italy, one that has awarded her criticism from state authorities and segments of the public at large.

It is through this lens that the international community should view Meloni’s proactive diplomacy in North Africa. Alongside the energy and economic priorities, the issue of irregular migration has always managed to creep onto the agenda through the back door. On Libya, Meloni discussed the issue at length with both Haftar and Dbeibeh, and Italy has recently donated five vessels to the Libyan coastguard in Tripoli to enhance security operations in the Mediterranean.[8] In Tunisia, Meloni shied away from making any public statements on President Kais Saied’s reversals of the country’s fragile democratic transition.[9] Instead, during her visit with von der Leyen and Rutte to Tunisia, the three European leaders announced the immediate release of 105 million euro to assist the Tunisian coastguard and border police.[10]

Whether Giorgia Meloni’s Mattei Plan truly seeks to help alleviate poverty and exploitation in Africa through comprehensive and holistic approaches remains to be seen, and Tunisia might hold the keys to this verdict.

Indeed, the real litmus test for Meloni’s Mattei Plan for Africa is the developing situation in Tunisia, once considered the only successful case of democracy emanated from the so-called Arab Spring. Post-revolution elites in Tunisia did not operate successfully in managing the economy or the social development of the country and actually brought it to the verge of collapse by the end of 2018. The delegitimisation of the political class became evident in the 2021 presidential elections, when the vast majority voted for the outsider and relatively unknown constitutional law professor, Kais Saied, and his programme of state renewal and anticorruption.

Saied took the wishes of his electorate to the extreme and by December 2022 centralised most powers around his person, becoming a de facto authoritarian ruler. Meanwhile, as conditions worsened in the country and the Tunisian president himself increasingly scapegoated black African migrants in Tunisia, many opted for the solution of last resort: emigration to Europe. The number of illegal migrants, mostly of non-Tunisian origin, reaching Italian shores rose almost threefold by July 2023.[11] Tunisia, meanwhile, gradually replaced Libya as the major departure point for migrants seeking to reach Europe via Italy.[12]

As a consequence, the Meloni government ultimately replicated past attempts to address illegal migration: it revived the classical transactional approach of providing resources to North African authorities in exchange for cracking down on smugglers who facilitated illegal crossings.

Yet, Italy’s previous policies, such as those adopted in Libya since 2017, have proven ineffective. Ultimately, they have empowered smugglers and their associates within North African security forces, while not resolving the issue of migrant crossings and severely damaging Italian and European moral credibility in the process.[13] The lack of effective governance in Libya allowed smugglers to exploit the situation and continue their activities by extorting the government for financial gain. Moreover, migrants who were returned to Libya often endured harsh conditions, including detention, exploitation and abuse in Libyan facilities. These conditions, consequently, drove migrants to reattempt the perilous journey again, perpetuating a cycle of smuggling and irregular migration.

For Giorgia Meloni’s vision of a “virtuous model of collaboration and growth” between the EU and African countries[14] to succeed, Tunisia’s fate will be decisive. Tackling the migration issue requires comprehensive solutions that address the root causes of migration: poverty, conflict and lack of opportunities. Failing to do so may result in a serious migration crisis, which no amount of coastguard financing can avert.

The coming trip of Meloni to Washington DC carries important significance in the sense that it can help reiterate the strategic importance of North Africa to the US and its vital significance for the EU. Meloni has the chance of convincing US President Joe Biden to invert trends of US retrenchment from the Mediterranean and recognising the important role allies like Italy can play in the region as Washington contends with other competing priorities. A wider involvement of the US administration may also help to ensure that any new European-led approach to the Mediterranean carries within it a strong commitment to human rights and the rule of law. Such elements will prove indispensable for the success of Meloni’s new activism in the Mediterranean – including the much-awaited Mattei Plan for Africa – and in improving EU policies and credibility in the area as well.


Karim Mezran is Director of the North Africa Initiative and Resident Senior Fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. Alissa Pavia is Associate Director at the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program.

[1] Benjamin Dodman, “Italy Plays on Historic Heartstrings with Algeria to Boost Critical Energy Ties”, in France 24, 23 January 2023, https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20230123-italy-plays-on-historic-heartstrings-with-algeria-to-boost-critical-energy-ties.

[2] Colleen Barry and Andrea Rosa, “Algeria, Italy Look to Broaden Ties Beyond Coveted Energy”, in AP News, 23 January 2023, https://apnews.com/cc5bd14001637f121ecc46e9b0a700dc.

[3] Gavin Jones, “Italy’s Eni Signs $8 Billion Libya Gas Deal as PM Meloni Visits Tripoli”, in Reuters, 29 January 2023, http://reut.rs/3wCNEnq.

[4] “Meloni and Haftar Talk Migrant Flows to Italy”, in Ansa, 4 May 2023, https://www.ansa.it/english/news/world/2023/05/04/meloni-and-haftar-talk-migrant-flows-to-italy_df89a23d-ecff-47e3-b20d-bd54ef6e461c.html.

[5] Jorge Liboreiro and Vincenzo Genovese, “The Contentious EU-Tunisia Deal Is Finally Here. But What Exactly Is in It?”, in Euronews, 17 July 2023, https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/07/17/the-contentious-eu-tunisia-deal-is-finally-here-but-what-exactly-is-in-it.

[6] Silvia Sciorilli Borrellin, “Italy Renews Its ‘Mattei Plan’ to Develop Energy Ties to Africa”, in Financial Times, 11 January 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/05d17d35-b0c3-47d2-b6b7-6f7d65d758fc.

[7] Francesca Landini, “Italy, Germany, Austria Sign Letter to Support Hydrogen Pipeline”, in Reuters, 9 May 2023, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/italy-germany-austria-sign-letter-support-hydrogen-pipeline-2023-05-09.

[8] Cesare Treccarichi, “Cos’è il Piano Mattei di cui parla tanto Giorgia Meloni”, in Today, 14 April 2023, https://www.today.it/economia/piano-mattei-governo-meloni-africa-gas-cosa-e.html.

[9] “Italy Calls Med Migration Conference on Tunisia Model”, in France 24, 23 July 2023, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230723-italy-calls-med-migration....

[10] Jorge Liboreiro and Vincenzo Genovese, “The Contentious EU-Tunisia Deal Is Finally Here. But What Exactly Is in It?”, cit.; European Commission, EU Comprehensive Partnership Package with Tunisia, 11 June 2023, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/FS_23_3205.

[11] Italian Ministry of the Interior, Cruscotto statistico giornaliero, last updated on 26 July 2023, http://www.interno.gov.it/it/node/8686.

[12] Monica Pinna, “Crisi migranti nel Mediterraneo: dalla Tunisia all’Italia, chi si imbarca verso l’Europa?”, in Euronews, 1 June 2023, https://it.euronews.com/2023/06/01/crisi-migranti-nel-mediterraneo-dalla-tunisia-allitalia-chi-si-imbarca-verso-leuropa.

[13] Alexander Bühler et al., “On the Trail of African Migrant Smugglers”, in Spiegel International, 26 September 2016, https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/migrant-smuggling-business-means-big-money-in-libya-a-1113654.html.

[14] Italian Government, President of the Council of Ministers Giorgia Meloni’s Parliamentary Address on the Government Programme, 25 October 2022, https://www.governo.it/en/node/21000.