Some ask me about the adoption process, some are curious about bonding, and others wonder how to reveal the adoption to their extended family.

Personally what warms my heart is when people discuss special needs adoption or older child adoption with me.

As an adoption counsellor, I have the humble privilege of talking to a wide spectrum of adoptive families both before and after the adoption. Some ask me about the adoption process, some are curious about bonding, and others wonder how to reveal the adoption to their extended family. Personally what warms my heart is when people discuss special needs adoption or older child adoption with me. Not too long ago, a couple who have biological sons talked to me about adopting a daughter with special needs. The line between personal and professional blurred as I counselled them and also shared stories of my own daughters’ adoptions (one with a special need).

A few weeks after the counselling session, the couple went ahead and adopted a five-year old girl who was in the special needs category due to an amputated leg. When this beautiful girl was a baby, the cruel inhumanity that millions of girls face in our country had caused her to lose one of her legs. After that, she was raised in a children’s shelter who took care of her and put her in the legal adoption pool.

This is no small feat.

n order to implement the UN Child Rights Charter, the existing child law has been repealed

Laws aimed at enacting a new law

Since the United Nations has been included in the Bangladesh Child Rights Sanctions; And

Since it is expedient and necessary to formulate a new law to repeal and integrate existing child laws for the implementation of the provisions of that charter;

It is hereby enacted as follows: -

By Abiud Ochieng

Adoption in the country has, for a long time, remained an emotive issue.

It has often been steeped in suspicion and matters have not been helped by a moratorium on inter-country adoptions (adoption of a Kenyan child by foreigners who live outside the country) placed by the government.

The objective of the moratorium effected on November 26, 2014, was to enable the government to intervene and conduct a comprehensive audit of the policy and legal frameworks, processes, procedures and players involved in the practice of adoption.

WEAK LAWS

Baby trade in Sri Lanka: Controversial broker has placed children in Aargau

The Confederation and the cantons have to investigate adoption practice in the 1980s.

Switzerland has to work up a dark chapter. The federal parliament has sent a postulate about a year ago, which asks to investigate the placement of children from Sri Lanka in the 1980s. The Federal Office of Justice now has one more year to fulfill the demands of the postulate. Because the cantons were responsible for the supervision of the adoption mediators in the 1980s, the federal government relies on their assistance to find out more about the adoption practice at that time.

Canton is waiting

In the canton of Aargau, the responsible Department of Economics and the Interior confirms that it has been informed by the Federal Government about the subject. "So far we have not received a specific order," says spokesman Samuel Helbling. "But we are in the process of scouring our dossiers so that we are ready when the federal government comes up with concrete questions."

22 Flemish babies were given up for adoption last year

In 2018, 22 children in Flanders were ceded for adoption and adopted by other Flemish families. This is according to figures from Adoptiehuis, which mediates in all Flemish inland adoptions. Two of the children came from the foundling slider. In two cases, the mother finally returned to her steps. Het Nieuwsblad and Het Belang van Limburg report this today.

Adoptiehuis guides women who become unwantedly pregnant and seek a solution for their unborn baby. Last year, 73 women approached the organization. Seventeen of them decided after supervision and consultation to give their child up for adoption. The majority of the women had Belgian nationality, and for the majority it was a first pregnancy.

Of the 56 other women, the majority decided to keep the child, or they found a different solution. "We are not looking for adoptions," explains director Iris Vandeborre. “We are trying to find a solution. Adoption is the last link in youth care. In addition, Adoptiehuis was only called in by the hospital for five other children on the day of birth.

Two mothers eventually returned to their steps within two months - the legal reflection time.

Lions Clubs International has decorated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with the “Medal of Distinction” in recognition of her service to the needy and distressed, particularly the forcibly displaced Rohingya people from Myanmar.

Visiting Lions Clubs International President Naresh Agarwal handed over the medal to the prime minister when he paid her a courtesy call at her official residence Ganabhaban on Wednesday, the prime minister’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim told reporters.

Agarwal strongly praised Sheikh Hasina for her humanitarian qualities, particularly for giving shelter to over a million Rohingya people in Bangladesh.

He said the international community had already recognized the prime minister as a “Mother of Humanity.”

In response, Hasina said it was her responsibility to serve the distressed group. "You (Lions) have been working to serve the common people. Similarly, we politicians are also working to ensure the basic needs of people," she said.

Michel apologizes to the children of the colony

Prime Minister Michel apologizes tomorrow for the way our country has treated hundreds of metis. "The ultimate recognition of an injustice."

"Everything passes, except the past," says sociologist Luc Huyse. During a ceremony in the Chamber on Thursday, Prime Minister Charles Michel would like to apologize for the harrowing way in which the Belgian government has treated hundreds of metis. These are children who were born in the late 40s and 50s in Congo, Rwanda or Burundi from a relationship between a Belgian colonial and a native woman. On the eve of independence, the state systematically took those children away from the mother and sent them to Belgium to be raised in orphanages or with adoptive parents.

The stories are simply poignant. The children did not automatically acquire Belgian nationality - often they remained stateless - and were immediately separated from their mother and any brothers and sisters. A vast majority of fathers refused to acknowledge the children. Metissen is still looking for possible relatives in Africa. But mothers too have spent their entire lives searching for the children who had been taken from them.

Third-rate Belgian

The industry's overregulation is making it increasingly difficult for willing families to take the plunge and attempt international adoption.

Rachel Garber always knew she wanted to adopt a child. Besides having grown up with five adopted siblings, in 2007 she made a memorable trip to the Chinese city of Xi’an, where she spent a month volunteering at a home for abandoned babies. “During this trip my feelings on adoption were solidified,” she says. “I met my husband Ryan in 2010, and he knew right away that if we got married, we would end up going to China for a child.”

While those plans were temporarily put on hold after their son Nixon was born with special needs, in 2017 the Garbers were finally matched with a little boy in China. After committing to his file, they learned that he was from the very city where Rachel had previously volunteered: Xi’an. “It was meant to be,” she says.

Rachel and Ryan brought their second son, Nolan, home from China to Wyoming last year. Today he is 3 1/2 years old and thriving. His mom describes him as “very loving and yet very strong-willed!” A nearby doctor happens to be the foremost authority in Nolan’s area of medical need. “From the moment we met our son, he has been a joy,” Rachel says. “We have had many hard days, or days where I question my ability, but I can’t imagine our life without him.”

In a nation where tens of thousands of families have adopted children from overseas, the Garbers’ story may sound familiar. But it is a story that is growing increasingly rare. International adoptions to America have been falling dramatically for the past 15 years, and a recent report shows that the decline hasn’t slowed.

Press release

Are officials in the process of abolishing international adoption in Denmark?

The association Adoption & Samfund fears that this is happening!

In a recently published terms of reference for a study of an economically viable model in the adoption area, it appears that officials from the National Board of Appeal (AST) and the Ministry of Children and Social Affairs must draft proposals for a new model for international adoption.

The proposal must be formulated without any form of involvement of adopters and adopters and according to the terms of reference of the commission only with a very limited involvement of other stakeholders. The officials from AST, who primarily take decisions in appeals and in addition conduct financial and legal oversight of the Danish intermediary organization, DIA, Danish International Adoption, have absolutely no practical experience with the extremely important adoption work. This work takes place with great integrity in a close collaboration and in trusting and respectful dialogue with the countries, authorities and organizations from which the adopted children come, including with the deepest understanding of the child's origin, biological genus, etc.

For the last decade foster care and adoption has been on the rise in Ukraine, as the need for caring for orphans and vulnerable children has been recognized by the Evangelical community. Evidence of this growth was seen at the recent 2018 Strengthening Families Conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, which hosted over 200 foster and adoptive parents for a weekend of teaching, refreshment and encouragement.

The parents who attended the gathering represent over 600 Ukrainian children who are now in loving families. In partnership with other local organizations, Orphan’s Promise has helped spearhead the efforts to see that this bi-annual gathering takes place since 2010, recognizing that foster and adoptive families need continual resources to help them on their often challenging journey.

As one adoptive mother shared, “it’s so healthy and important to see parents like us, foster parents who are standing in faith, even in difficult situations.”

Pam Parish, founder of Connected Homes in Atlanta, Georgia was one of the speakers at the conference this year. Pam’s book, Ready or Not: 30 Day Discovery for Battle Weary Parents, was translated into Russian and made available to all the families who were attending the conference. Pam was delighted to share at the gathering some of what she has learned on her own parenting journey. “Spending time with the wonderful families and team in Kyiv during the Strengthening Families conference was truly a highlight of my year,” shared Pam. “I will never forget the face of the adoptive mother (who had recently lost her husband) as she cried over a conflict with her teenage son. After talking with her and praying with her at length, she found me a day later to say that she had taken my advice and called her son and things were drastically better. There are no words to express the feeling of being used by God to touch a life experiencing such great sorrow, especially across the globe.”

Another important resource, The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis was translated into Russian and presented for the first time at the Strengthening Families Conference. Raya Shelashskaya, co-founder of the Institute of Child Developmental Trauma in Kyiv, helped oversee the translation and publishing of the book and is excited to see this recourse made available for Ukrainian families.