Home  

Doctors convicted of Bogota baby trafficking

FRIDAY, 04 MARCH 2011 13:52 HANNAH ARONOWITZ
A doctor and a psychologist were sentenced to nine years and six months in prison for selling babies in Bogota, Colombia, newspaper El Tiempo reported Friday.
Doctor Erber Jose Ochoa and psychologist Elsy Marina de Guadalupe Perez accepted the charges of trafficking and conspiracy in a plea bargain with the prosecution. In addition to almost a decade of jail time they will pay a fine of 533 times an monthly minimum wage.
Adenis Delgado Aguirre, who was also involved in the criminal scheme, was sentenced to seven years and five months in prison and will pay 433 times the monthly minimum wage.
The three worked a Bogota health clinic called Ecomarly which apparently urged women to keep their babies instead of aborting them in order to sell the infants on. Investigations also concluded that they had told women that their babies had died in childbirth and then trafficked the newborns.
The trio were implicated in recordings of their conversations in which they offered babies for sale, and were arrested eight months ago.
In 2009 police captured two women and a man who were stealing babies with the intent to sell them in Bogota's Las Cruces neighborhood.
Colombia

Marine, Adopted From Belize At Birth Seeks His Biological Parents

Marine, Adopted From Belize At Birth Seeks His Biological Parents
posted (March 4, 2011)
 Email

 Print

In the past week, we've reported on multiple cases of human trafficking and adoptive abduction.

In all those cases, the parents have been left forelorn and forsaken, wondering where their children are. Tonight we have a different twist on that; it is the story of a US Marine who was adopted in Belize as a newborn and now he's back home trying to find his biological parents.

Lance Corporal Philip Tysinger was born in Southern Belize on December 6th., 1982 and adopted at birth, reportedly by a woman named Shelly Kellog who adopted him on behalf of the Tysingers, an American couple.

28 years later he's sailed into Belize aboard the visiting Navy Ship, the USS Gunston on regular duties, but it's also a homecoming, except he doesn't know where home is.

So, in addition to the Gunston's mission, Lance Corporal Tysinger says has his own personal mission, that is to locate his biological parents, who are from somewhere in the south.

He recruited the media to assist him in getting the word out - and we met him on the Gunston this morning. He told us he's always felt a void and now he wants to fill it - but with little or no information, he doesn't know where to start:…

Lance Corporal Philip Tysinger
"Nothing was told. They knew that they lady who came down to get me - her name was Shelly Kellog and that's all I know. I didn't have a surname or anything. Nothing more than that."

Reporter
"Did she say to you whether it was from one of the villages or Punta Gorda Town itself."

Lance Corporal Philip Tysinger
"I think it was from one of the villages west of PG and I was flown out of PG to Belize City and then to Miami Florida and came to Virginia in the states."

Jim McFadzean
"At what age did you realize that you were adopted?"

Lance Corporal Philip Tysinger
"When I started to realize is that my skin tone was different, my foster parents are both white Caucasian but we are close nit family, it was probably when I was 4-5 years old in the states."

Jim McFadzean
"You have not any connection with Belize until this visit to Belize?"

Lance Corporal Philip Tysinger
"That is correct, 28 years later. I have had no contact but I'll tell you what they've - the Belizeans have welcomed me with open arms, everybody is so friendly, it really feels like I am home. There has always been a void in my heart that I felt like I belong somewhere else or I came from somewhere else. And I have felt like I have fulfilled that void in coming back home for the first time."

Jim McFadzean
"At what age did your adoptive parents tell you that you were adopted and the reason or reasons why they adopted you and what were the circumstances which surrounded your adoption?"

Lance Corporal Philip Tysinger
"It's funny that you should ask that because it really never came up in conversations. Our family is very close; actually my brother and sister are adopted also. My mother was infertile so she couldn't have children so she adopted two more kids from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. So my brother and sister looks like me, they are Hispanic and little bit lighter but that's just how our family has been, the Tysinger's are a adopted family."

Tysinger says he harbors no ill will against his biological parents; he simply would like the pleasure of meeting them:…

Lance Corporal Tysinger
"Meeting my real parents, i have never had any contact with them; my foster parents have never told me anything about them. I have no idea how to get in touch with anybody so i have a great desire to see why I have no grudges against them or what not. America's giving me a lot. So i would like thank them for giving me the opportunity that they have given me. I don't know if they were poor or what not, but regardless, I would like to shake their hand and give them a hug."

Jim McFadzean
"Will you have some time during this trip to visit Punta Gorda or at least spend some time in trying to determine whether your biological parents are indeed from Punta Gorda?"

Lance Corporal Tysinger
"No, unfortunately, we are leaving here soon in a few days, to head back to the Americas, to the states but I would really like to spend some more time on my own accord, because my first mission is the United States Marine Corp. Can't do too much on a tax payer's dime, but i would like to when I come back on maybe vacation, or I've got a lot of phone numbers and connections since I've been here. It's amazing how welcoming everybody's been."

Tysinger says he hopes to return someday and eventually make Belize home.

Belize

Kenya: US Department of State Adoption Alert – March 2, 2011

Kenya: US Department of State Adoption Alert – March 2, 2011

March 3, 2011

From the US Department of State:

Kenya Adoption Alert

Adoption Alert

United States of America, Kenya

In Sierra Leone, Investigation on ‘Missing Children’ Begins

NEWS : LOCAL NEWS

In Sierra Leone, Investigation on ‘Missing Children’ Begins

By Aruna Turay

Mar 3, 2011, 18:38 Email this article

Printer friendly page

MAPS (Maine Adoption Placement Services), Help a Needy Child International (HANCI)
Sierra Leone

Recalling the pain of forced adoption

Recalling the pain of forced adoption
Gillard reflects on the past
Image Caption: Gillard reflects on the past (swissinfo)
Related Stories
by Clare O'Dea, swissinfo.ch
They came for her one day in the café where she worked – two policemen and a woman from the authorities. “It’s a nice day,” they said, “we’re going for a drive”.
For the next 16 months Michèle Gillard would be in “administrative care”, her rights as a free citizen temporarily suspended.
 
Until 1981, young people who stepped out of line could be deprived of their freedom without trial or any means of appeal. A recommendation from the guardianship authorities was often enough to seal their fate.
 
On the grounds of “depraved lifestyle”, “licentiousness” or “alcoholism”, victims were often placed in prisons alongside genuine criminal offenders. Others ended up in residential institutions. The Swiss justice minister apologised last year to all those imprisoned under this legal provision.
 
National figures have not yet been compiled as the legal procedure was implemented independently by each canton but Bern, for example, recorded 2,700 cases in the four decades the law was in place.
 
Many cases involved young girls who got pregnant, were then shunned by their families and ended up being forced to give up their babies for adoption.
 
Confinement
So it was in the winter of 1970 for 21-year-old Gillard. She cried all the way on the drive from Delémont in French-speaking western Switzerland to the “social home” in Walzenhausen in the German-speaking east.
 
“It was terrifying, arriving in this building in a forest and seeing the girls’  faces, like a horror film. ‘How long are you in for?’, they asked me but I had no idea, all I could do was cry.”
 
The home in canton St Gallen was notorious among interned girls as a stepping stone to the country’s main women’s prison, Hindelbank in Bern, according to Gina Rubeli-Eigenmann of the victims support group Administrativ Versorgte 1942-1981.
 
“For  the slightest thing that happened in Walzenhausen, you would end up in Hindelbank and many mothers signed adoption papers under fear of being transferred there,” explained Rubeli-Eigenmann, who herself spent time at Hindelbank under the same “administrative care” legal provision.
 
For the remaining months of her pregnancy Gillard walked to work every day at a nearby factory in Wolfhalden where she embroidered handkerchiefs. She was not entitled to keep her earnings. In the evenings the girls watched correctional films or knitted.
 
Unhappy memories
It was not the first time that Gillard had lived in an institution. After her parents’ marriage broke up, she was sent to an orphanage in Epagny, Fribourg run by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Ingenbohl.
 
In December 2010, the Sisters appointed a committee of outside experts to investigate allegations of abuse and cruelty in the past in the homes and schools run by the order.
 
Gillard lived in the orphanage in Epagny from the age of six to 13, a time of brutality, hunger and terror, as she remembers it.
 
There followed an unhappy period when Gillard and her younger sister tried to live with their father and his new wife. Her sister managed to challenge her father’s status as guardian in court and went to live with another family.
 
At 19, Gillard found lodgings with an old woman in Delémont and started work in a café. She began to enjoy a life of relative freedom after the restrictions and privations of her childhood. It wasn’t to last.
 
" Phone calls forbidden, visits forbidden, I had no-one. " 
Michèle Gillard
“Naive”
“I was having a good time, going out and meeting boyfriends. But I was ignorant, I was naive, I think I was stupid really. We had been told nothing. The only education I received was the ABC.”
 
On a night out with her brother, with whom she had been temporarily reunited, Gillard was not able to gain access to the house where she was staying, because she says, she had forgotten her key and the landlady was deaf.
 
So she and her brother decided to sleep outside nearby, only to be picked up by the police. In the conservative society of the time, far from being dismissed as a harmless teenage prank, this incident earned Gillard a charge of vagrancy and put her on the radar of the local authorities.
 
By the time she fell pregnant, wheels were already in motion to have her sent away to an institution.
 
Her family, such as it was, was not prepared or able to help. The father of the child, although he said he wanted to support her, was threatened with being cut off by his family and kept his distance.
 
And so it was that Gillard found herself in the summer of 1971 on the other side of the country in a maternity clinic cut off from anyone she knew.
 
“Phone calls forbidden, visits forbidden, I had no-one.”
 
" I was sent back to work and I only saw her for a half an hour per day " 
Michèle Gillard
Kindness of strangers
Gillard breaks down as she remembers the kindness of one midwife who asked other nurses to sit with her during visiting hours and brought presents.
 
“I stayed a few days there and then they came to collect me. I thought everything was fine but afterwards they put my daughter in a different section, I was sent back to work and I only saw her for a half an hour per day.”
 
Five months later Gillard’s father and step-mother, with the full support of the authorities, wanted to take custody of the baby girl and Gillard was unable to stop them.
 
After being released from Walzenhausen, she was barred from their home but refused to sign the adoption papers for years until she eventually gave in when the child was aged seven.
 
Shame
Deprived of her first child, Gillard felt great shame and unhappiness in the years that followed.
 
She had another child several years later while living independently who was also taken for adoption, after the authorities threatened to withdraw her social security payments. Taken, not given, she says.
 
Gillard did manage to meet with her two biological daughters when they reached adulthood but she said the gulf was too great to build proper relationships with them.
 
Now aged 62, Gillard lives with her husband in modest circumstances and does not talk about her past with friends and acquaintances. Out of shame and fear, she explains. Shame for herself after a lifetime of being judged and mistreated, fear of not being believed; of being thought a liar.
 
Clare O'Dea, swissinfo.ch
 
Switzerland

EP Written Questions - reply Reding

Parliamentary questions

2 March 2011

E-010783/10 E-010915/10

Joint answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

Written questions : E-010783/10 , E-010915/10

Falsified Report DG JUST - Frattini Report

Herausgabe des Mädchens verweigert

SCHWEINFURT

Herausgabe des Mädchens verweigert

Eilerlass im Prozess wegen Kinderhandels am Landgericht Schweinfurt

Sie kamen als Zeugen und um ihr Kind zu holen: Die rumänischen Eltern eines vierjährigen Mädchens (auf der Bank mit ihrer Rechtsanwältin in der Mitte), mit Journalisten und Dolmetscherin.Foto: Susanne Wahler-Göbel

vergrößern

Nicoleta Trif
Germany, Romania

10 000 US dollars for orphanage in Haiti

Haiti Adoption  

Hope Services has worked with families adopting from Haiti since receiving our license for Intercountry Adoption in November 1996.  Although most situations have gone smoothly, adopting from Haiti can be somewhat unpredictable due to their changing political scene.  Hope has had families successfully bring home beautiful children from several different orphanages.  Your family will choose which orphanage to work with based on your own research and discussion with families who have previously adopted.  We would be happy to assist you in this process. 

There is a large and active group of adoptive parents in BC who form the “Afro-Canadian Adoption Network”(ACAN).  This group welcomes families who have adopted children of African heritage and provide support, information and events on an ongoing basis.  For more information on ACAN contact the Adoptive Families Association at 604 320-7330.

THIS PROGRAM IS CURRENTLY NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS


AS OF JULY 30, 2010 THE BC ADOPTION AUTHORITY HAS STATED:
POST EARTHQUAKE APPLICATIONS TO ADOPT FROM HAITI ARE OFFICIALLY SUSPENDED. In keeping with international protocol, the majority of child welfare resources in Haiti should continue to be focused on re-establishing the child welfare structure of the nation and targeted to reuniting children with family members.    The Director’s Office will continue to seek information from other international adoption authorities, the Canadian federal government and the Haitian government in regards to post earthquake adoption applications.  This decision to suspend post earthquake applications will continue to be reviewed at a 6 month and 1 year intervals.

The following information is pre-earthquake Jan 12, 2010:


Eligibility Requirements

  • Eligibility requirements have fluctuated considerably. Be sure to confirm current guidelines with the Intercountry Worker.
  • Applicants may be married or single (common-law or same sex relationships are not accepted).
  • Couples need to have been married for 7 - 10 years (subject to change).
  • Exception to the above rule may be made in cases of documented infertility.
  • One parent (including a single parent) must be at least 35 years of age.
  • Haitian Law states “Without the exemption of the President, adoption is only permitted in the absence of legal or natural descendants.” The existence of adoptive children does not preclude adoptions by the same adopter, if he/she can demonstrate that their ability to fulfill economic obligations. Cases are reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the IBESR.
  • Criteria for # of biological children are determined individually by Haitian orphanages. Please confirm the requirements for your chosen Haitian agency. We currently have 2 Haitian agencies that are able to accept families with up to 3 biological children.
  • Careful consideration should be made by prospective parents who do not fit the above guidelines. Historically, the Haitian process exhibits unpredictability and constant change. Keeping up to date on current requirements is essential.


Children Available
The children that are generally proposed are between 6 months and 5 years.  There are older children available.  All children are of black racial background.  Standard tests are HIV and Sickle Cell.


Waiting Period
Most children will be proposed to you within several months of your dossier arriving in Haiti.  Haiti is very unpredictable in terms of timeframes.  At this time families have been experiencing very long waits (over a year), however, improvements are beginning. Applicants are free to contact the orphanage directly and make arrangements with them.


Fees
Applicants will pay $6,900 to Hope Services.  This $6,900 includes the $3,000 fee for B.C. Approval & $3,900 for the Intercountry Fee.  In addition, there will be approximately $10 000 US per child required to be paid to the orphanage in Haiti. Hope Services will assemble, translate, copy, arrange for notarizing, and courier documents.  All travel costs and arrangements are the responsibility of the family.   Other costs incurred include:  Criminal Record Search, Medical Reports, Psychological Evaluation, Immigration fees, The Embassy of Haiti fee ($140).


Summary of Process
For detailed process information, please refer to separate form: “Overview of Steps for Haiti Adoption”.

  • Make application to Hope Services and fulfill BC requirements for legal adoption 
  • Choose Haitian orphanage that you wish to work with
  • Provide documents to Hope Intercountry Worker to fulfill Haitian requirements
  • Complete sponsorship application from Canadian Immigration.   
  • Your proposal will come from the orphanage you are dealing with in Haiti to our office.  We will contact you with the information.
  • In Haiti, the adoption is finalized in the country prior to you travelling to pick up your child.   There are no post placement reports required.

 
Some Partnering Orphanages

Listing of other approved Haitian orphanages available upon request.
Hope Adoption Services
Canada

Blog - Ahope/Kingdom vision

Tuesday, March 01, 2011Yes, ALL the donations were delivered!!!!

I had the privilege of delivering ALL the donations we collected to three orphanages in Ethiopia.

Kingdom Vision International (KVI) is the orphanage where Seth lived. KVI has three locations: Addis Ababa, Adama (Nazareth) and Wolaita. The picture on their homepage is the court yard of KVI Addis. I brought donations with me to KVI Adama, about 200 km south of Addis, when I met Seth.

Faya Orphanage (and Vulnerable Children Society) supports children with and without HIV. Faya is located in Adama and the orphanage is home to children abandoned due to poverty or relinquished by loving families who could not provide for their children, and is the permanent home of many children living with HIV/AIDS. Faya also supports a House 2 House community program, which provides care to children and families affected by AIDS/HIV in the community. My favor moment at Faya was when we were about to leave and two little twin boys, about 3-years-old, were playing in the van we came in and they refused to get out of the van - They were having so much fun pretending to drive. Finally, they had to be carried off in protest. They were so sweet - I wanted to let them play in there all afternoon.

AHOPE for Children is an orphanage located in Addis Ababa that serves children infected with HIV. Many of the children are adopted by families in the United States and some to Spain. I went with the other Imagine families I met and we were able to play and interact with the children for quite some time. We brought along candy for the children, which made us all BIG hits!!! My favor moment was when I showed the children pictures of Seth, Chad, and Sara - I was literally swarmed by children, all wanting to look at and hold the pictures. They would point to each picture and say "Chad-Canada. Sara-Canada. Biruk-Ethiopia." over and over as they examined each photo. It was a lot of fun! I have many pictures from AHOPE, but unfortunately I am unable to share them publicly; but I thought this one couldn't hurt - it was my favorite time with all the kids when we were looking at the pictures...

Canada, Spain
Imagine Adoption, Kingdom Vision International (KVI), AHOPE, Ethiopia

Albert Jaap van Santbrink vertrekt als directeur


17-12-2010 - Albert Jaap van Santbrink vertrekt als directeur

Na een korte periode als directeur/bestuurder zal Albert Jaap van Santbrink per 1 maart 2011 de Vereniging Wereldkinderen verlaten. Bij zijn aantreden was bekend dat Van Santbrink de functie tijdelijk zou vervullen. 

Van Santbrink heeft de organisatie weer in rustiger vaarwater gebracht na een hectisch 2009. In 2010 is gebouwd aan een nieuwe strategie en profiel. Daarbij was het noodzakelijk de geplande reorganisatie door te voeren en nieuwe activiteiten op te pakken. Net als iedere andere organisatie is de organisatie in ontwikkeling en lerend, maar de koers is duidelijk en er zijn al successen. Met onder andere de MFS II subsidietoekenning voor ondersteuning van kinderbeschermingsprogramma’s in Afrika. De identiteit is aangescherpt. Wereldkinderen wil verantwoorde adopties uitvoeren en programma's en projecten steunen die bijdrage aan het verbeteren van de positie van kinderen in ontwikkelingslanden. De zeer betrokken vrijwilligers vormen de belangrijke basis van de vereniging. Wereldkinderen maakt weer meer tijd en kennis vrij om de expert op het gebied van adoptie te blijven en vrijwilligers in het land te ondersteunen.

De Raad van Toezicht is gestart met de werving van een nieuwe directeur. De verwachting is dat deze begin 2011 kan worden benoemd.

Tot 1 maart of zoveel eerder als een nieuwe directeur is benoemd blijft Albert Jaap van Santbrink leidinggeven aan de organisatie en zal in nauw overleg met Martien Miedema, adjunct directeur, Taeke Meindertsma, hoofd programma’s en fondsenwerving en Ineke Osseman, hoofd financiën, uitvoering geven aan het beleid. 

Voor meer informatie:
Vereniging Wereldkinderen
Raad van Toezicht, de heer mr H. Drayer
t.a.v Ellen Kerkhoven 
Riouwstraat 191
2585HT Den Haag
t             + 31 70 3506699      
f + 31 70 3547867
kerkhoven@wereldkinderen.nl

Wereldkinderen aka NICWO, ACT CASE : Wereldkinderen RESEARCH ETHIOPIA
Albert-Jaap van Santbrink
« first ‹ previous805806807808809810811812813next › last »