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Madonna abandons her plans to build school in Malawi

Madonna abandons her plans to build school in Malawi
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AboutAstro.com
By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi
Saturday March 26 2011
Madonna has abandoned plans to build a boarding school for 400 girls in Malawi despite having spent $3.8m (€2.7m) on the project.

The singer and her co-founder, the charity Raising Malawi, cancelled plans to complete the school amid reports of mismanagement.

The charity has high-profile supporters including the actors Tom Cruise and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as Kabbalah Centre International, the Jewish mystical organisation to which Madonna belongs.

"A thoughtful decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls," Michael Berg, a co-founder of Raising Malawi, said. Madonna said she was intent on continuing the charity, which is now being run by a caretaker board that includes the singer and her manager.

Crisis

"There's a real education crisis in Malawi, 67pc of girls don't go to secondary school," she said.

Troubles with the school surfaced in October, when Philippe van den Bossche, the boyfriend of Madonna's former personal trainer, departed as executive director.

Madonna commissioned a report by the Global Philanthropy Group, which, according to its chairman Trevor Neilson, found a "startling lack of accountability" on the part of the management in Malawi and America.

Both Mr Van den Bossche, and Anjimile Oponyo, a former UN Development Programme worker who led the project in Malawi, were heavily criticised.

It was alleged that there was no land title for the intended site of the school in Lilongwe and that building work had not begun, despite Madonna's attendance at a "ground-breaking" ceremony.

Mr Neilson said he had advised the performer that starting a school from scratch was not the best use of her funds. He recommended providing money to existing educational schemes run by non-government organisations with expertise in the field.

Madonna's connection with Malawi began when she adopted a child from there in 2006, and then another in 2009. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

- Mike Pflanz in Nairobi

Trafficking of women and children is an organised crime: DGP

Trafficking of women and children is an organised crime: DGP

PTI | 07:03 PM,Mar 26,2011

Bhubaneswar, Mar 26 (PTI) Identifying trafficking of women and children for the purpose of commercial and sexual exploitation as an organised crime, DGP Manmohan Praharaj today opened up an Integrated Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (IAHTU) at the crime branch headquarters in Cuttack."Trafficking in persons, particularly women and children for various purposes such as commercial sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced marriage, domestic servitude, adoption and begging is an organised crime," Praharaj said. Trafficking as such violates basic human rights of a person."I am determined that Orissa police will combat human trafficking of all types," the DGP said adding that the IAHTU at Cuttack would have jurisdiction over whole of the state.Abhay, IG of Police explained the role of IAHTU. He informed that all five IAHTU have been opened by redistribution of manpower and sanction of posts is still awaited from the state government.Besides timely collection, dissemination and utilization of intelligence about human trafficking, the IAHTU would help in rescue of maximum number of trafficked persons, attend to post rescue care and attention of survivors, carry out professional investigation to bring all offenders to book, Abhay said.IAHTU would also ensure effective prosecution and strive for maximum and expeditious conviction of offenders and undertake all post-prosecution/conviction activities as per the law, he said.A Nodal NGO will be identified to support each IAHTU, he said.

New Life Adoption Agency closing

New Life Adoption Agency closing

VideoImages

Print Story Published: 3/25 5:31 pm Share Updated: 3/25 6:37 pm

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - For two weeks, hopeful parents to-be have been left wondering what will happen after learning by email that the new life adoption agency in Syracuse plans to close. Some have invested money in the agency and waited months for a child.

Friday afternoon, the agency sent families a second email, informing them that adoption files will soon be transferred to another agency. The message doesn't specify which agency, when, or if the closure will delay their adoptions. It's the most information the agency has released since the closing was initially and unexpectedly announced.

African adoptions drop as economic crisis bites

African adoptions drop as economic crisis bites

International adoptions by Americans have decreased sharply due to the economic crisis and increased regulation imposed after high-profile celebrity cases, agency officials said.

Angelina Jolie and her adopted daughter Zahara, who was originally from Ethiopia Photo: GETTY

By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi 9:00PM GMT 25 Mar 2011

In 2004, American families adopted almost 23,000 children from around the world, but by 2010 that figure had more than halved to 11,058, according to US State Department figures.

New Life Adoption Agency in Syracuse closing

Published: Friday, March 25, 2011, 9:33 AM Updated: Friday, March 25, 2011, 9:44 AM

By Charley Hannagan / The Post-Standard

Syracuse, NY -- The board of directors of the New Life Adoption Agency has notified families that the agency is closing.

The Syracuse agency was founded in 1991 and has arranged adoptions of children from China. The agency sent an email March 12 that it was closing. The email says the board of directors is working on a plan to close the agency and will email families once the plan is finalized.

“Due to the reduction in staff, we no longer have the ability to respond to emails or phone calls in a timely manner as we did in the past,” the email said.

Want to Adopt a Japanese Orphan? You May Be Out of Luck

Want to Adopt a Japanese Orphan? You May Be Out of Luck

Japanese Adoption

 

REUTERS/Kyodo

You may mean well, but Japan doesn't need your adoption help. Haiti, however, still does. And that's a major difference between developed and undeveloped countries.

Tazuru Ogaway, director of the Japanese adoption agency Across Japan, tells FoxNews.com that people from the United States suddenly looking to Japan for adoptions doesn't sit well there. Japan says it can take care of its own just fine, a sharp contrast to the response—and needs—experienced after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. A State Department report says the U.S. fast-tracked over 1,000 adoptions in Haiti after the earthquake. We won't see the same trend from Japan.

(More on TIME.com: See how you can help the quake victims, other than adopting them)

Not only do the Japanese feel Americans just want to take what they want from the disaster—the kids—but also their cultural makeup generally provides for displaced children. “I don't believe there's going to be a true orphan situation in Japan in the wake of this disaster,” says Martha Osborne, spokeswoman for the adoption advocacy website RainbowKids.com. “That extended family system is going to consider that child their child.”

Even outside of crisis situations, adoptions in Japan are rare in a country where bloodlines have great significance. Only about 30 international adoptions took place from Japan last year. “Japan is very capable, unlike many undeveloped nations, of caring for its own,” Osborne says.

And even if Japan was open to adoption, as rescue workers still sort out the missing from the found, the hope to reconnect children with their families remains. Maybe the best idea for those interested in helping is to instead donate to organizations providing emergency relief. (via Fox News)



Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/23/want-to-adopt-a-japanese-orphan-you-may-be-out-of-luck/#ixzz1HW9VNMMT

Madonna’s Charity Fails in Bid to Finance School

Madonna’s Charity Fails in Bid to Finance School

Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Madonna during a visit to Malawi in 2007.

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: March 24, 2011

UNICEF Concern Prompts Cambodian Investigation of Orphanages

UNICEF Concern Prompts Cambodian Investigation of Orphanages

Cambodian orphans play together as they wait for adoption at Kien Klaing orphanage center in Phnom Penh, (File)
Photo: AFP

Cambodian orphans play together as they wait for adoption at Kien Klaing orphanage center in Phnom Penh, (File)

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The Cambodian government has begun investigating the country’s orphanages; just days after the United Nations Children's Fund expressed its concerns that nearly three out of four children in the country's orphanages have at least one living parent.  

Earlier this week, UNICEF said most of the 12,000 children in Cambodia’s orphanages are, in fact, not orphans.   Nearly three-quarters of them have one living parent, yet the number of children in care has more than doubled in five years.

UNICEF said the number of orphanage centers has nearly doubled, to 269 facilities in the same period.

Just 21 of those are run by the government.  The rest are funded and run by foreign donors and faith-based organizations.

Tourism 

UNICEF country head, Richard Bridle, told VOA he is concerned many centers have turned to tourism to attract funding and that, by doing so, they put children at risk.

Bridle says even the best-intentioned tourists and volunteers are funding a system that is helping to separate children from their families.

International studies have shown that children are better off in a family or community setting. 
That also happens to be a much cheaper way of caring for them, says Sebastien Marot, the founder of Phnom Penh’s respected street kids organization called Friends International, which was established 17 years ago.

Money-making venture 


Marot says the figures from UNICEF indicate a serious problem:  Either there is a misconception about stability in Cambodia in the 21st century, or "unscrupulous people" are engaging in a charity business and using children to make money.

"We have been working 17 years and we haven’t placed kids in an orphanage.  And, we are working with the most marginalized kids that have the most difficult families.  We haven’t placed any in an orphanage in eight years, except for heavily disabled or very, very sick, because the families are really in no capacity for taking care of them.  And, that is the real situation," Marot said.

Marot acknowledges that most tourists going to orphanages are acting out of pure motives when they visit the children and give money.

But he says there is little doubt that some Cambodian orphanages have been set up to make money from foreign tourists.

Visitors to Cambodia’s tourist centers of Phnom Penh, the temple city, Siem Reap and the beach resort, Sihanoukville, are regularly bombarded with pleas to visit orphanages.

Marot’s advice is that tourists should behave as they would at home. 

"The real question is:  Would you do this in your own country?  No.  Have you ever visited an orphanage in your own country?  No.  Why?  Because an orphanage is a safe place for kids and has to have a child protection system - it is to protect those children," Marot noted. “They are already totally vulnerable.  Having people coming from outside is just not acceptable."

A spokesman for the Social Affairs Ministry, which is carrying out the inspections, admitted this week that the government does not know whether the thousands of children in care are being treated well or badly.

The spokesman says it is unclear how long it will take to inspect all 269 orphanages, but promises that those found to be sub-standard or in contravention of the law will be closed.   

Foreigners Looking to Adopt Japanese Earthquake Orphans Need Not Apply

Foreigners Looking to Adopt Japanese Earthquake Orphans Need Not Apply

By Diane Macedo

Published March 22, 2011

| FoxNews.com

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315 arrested for human trafficking offences

315 arrested for human trafficking offences
Husna Yusop

newsdesk@thesundaily.com

KUALA LUMPUR (March 21, 2011): From Feb 28, 2008 until Feb 13 this year, 315 arrests have been made under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Lee Chee Leong said.

During this period, 1,949 people have been rescued and placed under Interim Protection Order under the same law and subsequently, 735 victims have been given Protection Order.

“So far, 132 people have been charged in court under the act and of this, 31 cases have been convicted,” he told Datuk Baharum Mohamed (BN-Sekijang) who asked for the number of offenders prosecuted and convicted.

He said amendments to the act, to include smuggling of migrants, have been gazetted on Sept 30 last year and the amended act took full effect from Nov 15.

To his supplementary question, Lee told Baharum the government viewed seriously baby-selling syndicates which most of them were related to illegitimate newborns.

There were also cases of childless couples willing to spend a huge amount to get a child from the biological parents and later registering the baby as belonging to them, he said.

Lee said every birth in this country must be registered with the National Registration Department including those of foreigners and born out of wedlock, adding failure to do this is an offence under the law.

“Also, those who seek to adopt a child are advised to liaise with the Woman, Family and Community Development Ministry and register the baby as a legally adopted child.

“This is to avoid facing problems later such as with regards to issues relating to citizenship and religion,” he added.


Updated: 04:18PM Mon, 21 Mar 2011
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