Business & Finance | 02/03/2018 1:24:09 PM

Donaldson Law

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AFOOT OVER UK CHILD MIGRANT ABUSE

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AFOOT OVER UK CHILD MIGRANT ABUSE

An Australian law firm who specialises in historic child sex abuse claims has confirmed that it is already representing a number of child migrants who were sent to Australia from the UK.

Inquiry urges payouts for victims of postwar UK child migration scheme

Government called on to offer redress to people sent as children to countries such as Australia and Canada

Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent

@owenbowcott

Thu 1 Mar 2018 16.05 GMT First published on Thu 1 Mar 2018 12.03 GMT

9 mei 2018

Grenzen aan je kinderwens (1) In de jaren zeventig adopteerde je buitenlandse kinderen uit idealisme, maar die gedachte is reeds lang verlaten. Wat zijn de vele haken en ogen rondom adoptie? Rita Horst schreef en regisseerde de NPO-dramaserie Exportbaby en stelt het fenomeen ter discussie. Anouk Eigenraam, geadopteerd vanuit Zuid-Korea, schreef het boek 'Welkom in adoptieland' (2017). Ze deelt haar persoonlijke ervaring en schetst een beeld van hoe het er in de 'adoptiewereld' aan toe gaat. Beiden zijn in de studio van Hello Radio Podcast en praten ook over internationaal draagmoederschap naar aanleiding van de podcastserie Wensvaders. Presentatie: Peter de Ruiter.?

?

mumbai, bombay high court, adoption rules, adoption of a child, embargo, bombay high court lifts two years embargo, absurd and impossible

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently took a note of the rise of ‘competitiveness’ in human life and especially in the field of education. The HC said that education of a child has reached to an ‘absurd and impossible’ level wherein the future of children is often ‘imperilled’ because of this competitiveness.

A single-judge bench of Justice Gautam Patel removed the embargo of two years for the adoption of a child. The bench was responding to a petition filed by a couple seeking to adopt a six-year-old boy. The couple, however, could not adopt the child as a nearly two-decade-old ruling of the HC obstructed their dreams.

“The factual scenario today is very different from what it was merely two decades ago. The question of identity and proof of identity for every living person and citizen has assumed a certain criticality. From the child’s earliest days, parents must now have ready at hand for a multitude of purposes documentation establishing the child’s birth, identity and parentage. One of the most crucial areas is the question of admission to educational institutions,” Justice Patel said noted.

Also Read: Mumbai: Adopted child’s & parents’ secrecy will be maintained

CHENNAI: Adoption is the most beautiful solution for childless couples, single people and also homeless children as it enables a parent-child relationship to be established between persons who are not biologically related. But it would be totally different and would shatter a woman if she is forced to part with her child, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has held.

“To part a woman from her child in a violent manner is a most dangerous step to take. It will so unstabilise her that she may emerge from the shattering experience as an entirely different personality,” a Division Bench of Justices S Vimala and T Krishnavalli observed, while ordering the restoration of a 15-year-old girl with her biological mother and a 25-year-old man with his biological father in two separate cases.

The Bench was disposing of two habeas corpus writ petitions – one from a woman seeking her daughter and the other from a man praying for the return of his son. They contended that their consent was not taken for the surrender of the children and that the implication of the surrender was not explained to them. They reclaimed their daughter and son from the respective Child Welfare Committees (CWCs).

The CWCs submitted that counselling was given before the surrender regarding its implication.

However, the mother said she gave the child to the committee only with a view of taking back her once the problems are settled. She never intended to give the child in adoption.“The anxiety in the eyes of the mother with incessant tears and the longing cannot be answered in the negative,” the Bench said.

SHARE ARTICLE 9 PRINT A A A

Cyberabad police busted a child trafficking racket and apprehended seven people, besides rescuing a 15-day-old baby. The prime accused has allegedly been involved in the sale of 12 infants, the police informed.

The racket came apart after the police arrested 22-year-old Sarikonda Manga, on Monday. The police was on the lookout for Manga, who managed to escape last week when she was seen with the infant. The cops, however, managed to free the infant from her clutches.

On Monday, police arrested Manga, who led them to the prime accused, Vakapally Gangadhar Reddy. According to the police, Reddy, a native of East Godavarin in A.P., worked in Hyderabad as a mediator for fertility centres and women who sought to become surrogates, besides buying and selling infants.

The police said the rescued infant has been sent to a State home and efforts were on to find its parents.

Under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, only a Hindu can adopt a child and only a Hindu child can be adopted. Under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, only a Hindu can adopt a child and only a Hindu child can be adopted. (IE)

Tahir Mehmood

Supreme Court has spoken of prospective parents, but remains silent on adoptees.

Nine years ago, social activist Shabnam Hashmi had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court, seeking a direction to the Central government to enact a general law of adoption that would be applicable to all. After a long delay, the court disposed the matter on February 19, 2014. No such direction was issued, but the court emphasised that the provisions relating to adoption under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, can be availed by any person, notwithstanding the position of adoption under a personal law.

There is no general adoption law in India. Successive governments have been reluctant to enact such a law in view of the opposition from certain sections of society on religious grounds. The enactment of a general adoption law has been vehemently opposed by Muslims and Parsis. While the latters’ religion prohibits the assimilation of an “outsider” into a Zoroastrian family, the former believe that their religious law totally prohibits adoption. This belief has not been dislodged in any of those Muslim countries that have reformed and codified Islamic family law — the only two exceptions are Turkey and Tunisia, where adoption has been permitted by law, subject to certain restrictions meant to accommodate clear provisions from the Quran. I have always held that opposition to a secular adoption law is irrational because such a law would only be an enabling legislation. It would not force anyone to adopt against the dictates of their religion. In the early 1970s, when a secular adoption bill was being considered, I had publicly favoured it and also registered my views with the parliamentary select committee working on the bill. This had met stiff resistance from Muslim religious circles.

Adopted children by virtue of being adopted, have a biological background – which holds their identity and “Roots” is the journey in search of that identity, to find the missing link of their lives prior to being adopted.

It is an important journey for both – the adoptees as well as the adoptive parents for the sole reason that it is the adopted child’s need & right to know where he/she came from. Who were their birth parents and what were the reasons for them to be in Bal Anand. This issue is more pronounced in foreign adoption than Indian adoption. To find out, they make the long journey to India and to the childrens’ home from where they were adopted.

In my experience, there have been a vast variety of reasons to make this journey – ranging from the simple reasons like a visit to their birth country, to see the childrens’ home from where adopted, to find out who took care of them – to thank them for giving them a future with their adoptive parents to know about their birth mother, or who gave them their name, etc. to the more extreme reasons like being besieged with feelings of insecurity over why they were abandoned or relinquished despite being happy with their adoptive families. It is obvious that the adoptees and even their adoptive parents wish to know to help their child. It is also their right to know. Yet how much do we tell? In our concern for the adoptees quest, we cannot forget the young girl who had given up her child in secrecy and who does not want to be contacted again. If we tell, it amounts to breach of trust. In such a scenario, we have to respect the trust vested in us by the birth mother just as we respect the child’s right to know.

It is at this point in the search that the adoption agency in the absence of the birth mother plays a key role in helping the adoptees generally adolescents or young adults to find answers. From the documents maintained, we give all the information except identifying information of name & address. If handled with understanding and sensitivity, they accept and are content to see how the children are cared for, to know that their names figure in our records and that they were not really abandoned. They were given up for their better future by way of adoption. Infact seeing the children, being with them takes care of many of their questions.

These following lines from an adoptee sums up the importance of the visit to the childrens’ home “ I am happy that I have seen with my own eyes what life is like in Bal Anand. I can now feel good about the first months of my life, when I was living in Bal Anand myself.”

TAMBARAM, APRIL 2. More than 25 years after being adopted by a Belgian couple, a girl of Tamil origin has come to Chennai in search of her mother.

Nirmala Alexandre (26) was adopted by Sacres, a Belgian couple in 1980 from the Madras Social Service Guild at Nedunkundram village, about six km from Tambaram. In her first visit to India, she has come along with her husband, Alexandre, hoping to see mother, Vasanthi.

Vasanthi left her daughter at the care of the voluntary organisation. "All we know of Ms. Nirmala's mother is her name and that she belonged to Guindy," according to Balaji Thangavel, administrative officer at the guild. They do not have any other information about Vasanthi.

The couple and volunteers hope that media reports may help find Vasanthi.

Nevertheless, they would strain every nerve to find the woman so that Ms. Nirmala can meet her natural mother. Ms. Nirmala and Mr. Alexandre, a management engineer with the Belgian Government, married a few months ago and wanted to visit India. She is a higher secondary teacher and knows only French.

Left-Right: Chris Huth, Miles, Wyatt and Jack Eblen.

Photo courtesy: Wyatt Eblen

Earlier this year, the journey of Saroo Brierley – was released in the form of a film titled Lion featuring Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel. Saroo, who was born in India, was only five when he was separated from his family, but he finally found his hometown and his family after almost two decades of living in Australia as he was living there with his adoptive parents. Here, is the journey of yet another boy who returned to his hometown, Bhiwandi, in search of his family.

On August 4, 2017, at 7.56 pm, I walked into a backpackers hostel in Kurla to meet four guys - Chris Huth, Wyatt, Miles and Jack Eblen.

I met them for the first time about ten days ago – the very day when Chris and Miles got into an autorickshaw accident that left Chris with hand injuries enough to be drugged out the entire time I was there.