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Efforts are under way in Oklahoma to find a home for Liberian-born sisters

Efforts are under way in Oklahoma to find a home for Liberian-born sisters

At least three people have expressed an interest in adopting the four girls adopted by Ardee and Penny Tyler from a Liberian orphanage in 2005. The Tylers relinquished custody of the girls after a lengthy court battle and felony convictions for child abuse.

BY ANN KELLEY 0

Published: January 31, 2011

FAIRVIEW — Four sisters adopted from a Liberian orphanage are orphans again, but not for long.

A quest to reunite Nepal's lost children with their families

A quest to reunite Nepal's lost children with their families

By MEGHAN MITCHELL, QMI AGENCY

Last Updated: January 31, 2011 12:00am

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Conor Grennan is pictured with some of the children from the Little Princes Children’s Home. (Supplied Photo)

Adoptions of foreign children by Americans drop to lowest level since 1995

Adoptions of foreign children by Americans drop to lowest level since 1995

David Crary, The Associated Press 
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The number of foreign children adopted by Americans fell by 13 per cent last year, reaching the lowest level since 1995 due in large part to a virtual halt to adoptions from Guatemala because of corruption problems.

China remained America's No. 1 source of adopted children, accounting for 3,401, according to figures released by the State Department on Monday for the 2010 fiscal year. Ethiopia was second, at 2,513, followed by Russia at 1,082 and South Korea at 863.

 

Guatemala was the No. 1 source country in 2008, with 4,123 adoptions by Americans. But the number sank to 756 for 2009 and to only 51 last year as the Central American country's fraud-riddled adoption industry was shut down while authorities drafted reforms.

The overall figures for 2010 showed 11,059 adoptions from abroad, down from 12,753 in 2009 and down more than 50 per cent from the all-time peak of 22,884 in 2004.

The last time there were fewer foreign adoptions to the U.S. was in 1995, when there were 9,679.

The latest figures did not include the more than 1,100 children airlifted from Haiti to the United States after the earthquake in January 2010. Most of those children were in the U.S. adoption pipeline, but the adoptions were not finalized by the end of the fiscal year.

The adoptions from Ethiopia were up by more than 200 from 2009, but adoptions from Russia fell by about 500.

Some pending adoptions from Russia were slowed after a Tennessee adoptive mother put a 7-year-old boy on a plane back to Moscow, unaccompanied by an adult, in April. As a result, U.S. officials agreed to a Russian demand to negotiate a new, binding agreement to cover adoptions between the two countries.

Organizations representing U.S. adoption agencies have called on the U.S. government to be more active in trying to reverse the decline in international adoptions. However, the State Department says any such efforts must be accompanied by initiatives to provide better options for orphans in their home countries, including support for birth parents and foster care.

"Not every child is going to be eligible for international adoption," said Susan Jacobs, the State Department's special adviser on children's issues. "The first thing we need to do is protect children in their own countries."

The State Department also reported that 43 American children were adopted by residents of foreign countries last year - 19 of them went to Canada and 18 to the Netherlands.

Poinsette: Adopting Third World children is voluntary colonization

Poinsette: Adopting Third World children is voluntary colonization

Freelance commentary

Bruce Poinsette | Freelance columnist

Published: Monday, January 31, 2011

Updated: Monday, January 31, 2011 01:01

Half a life: Abandoned, adopted, abandoned

Manisha (name changed) is 15 and brighteyed . She might be the regular teenager . The adults in contact with her say she is

polite and disciplined and is always ready to help anyone in trouble. But Manisha is not a regular teenager and hers is no

ordinary story. She lives in a home run by an NGO in Gurgaon for abandoned or abused children or those with special needs.

She is the helpless victim of inter-country adoption gone terribly wrong.

Six years ago, Manisha was adopted by an American family from a centre in Mumbai. But soon enough, they were unwilling to

Painful affairs of child adoption in Nepal

Anil Giri – AHN News Correspondent
Feature Story, Nepal (AHN) – Last September, American couple Haydn Hilling and his wife Edvige desperately wanted to take home their adopted Nepali child, Kailash. Though the American couple that hails from Louisiana spent more than one-and-a-half years getting the necessary paperwork required for the adoption, the process has come to a standstill following the United States’ decision to halt adoptions of abandoned children from Nepal.
The U.S. administration halted the adoption of Nepali children due to growing allegations of child trafficking and falsification of documents, often in connivance with government authorities.
A joint statement issued by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the first week of August said the step was taken to protect the rights and interests of Nepali children and their families after field visits to orphanages and police departments showed that documents describing children up for adoption as abandoned were often unreliable.
Another 10 countries–Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom–have also halted inter-country adoptions from Nepal.
According to Nepal’s Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, new rules were put in place last December and some stern measures have been added to the process.
“The Hague Secretariat also wants the smooth resumption of child adoption here,” chief of the ministry’s legal section, Sher Jung Karki said. The new set of policies allows local placement agencies to charge US$5,000 to adopting parents, while the government charges US$3,000.
Any foreign placement agency must set up a liaison office in Nepal and pay the government US$10,000 that will be handed over to an organization working for the welfare of children. Subsequently, the process of inter-country adoption of street children is subject to widespread abuses, the government has banned the adoption effective from Jan. 5.
The new policy also allows Nobel laureates, heads of states/governments, foreign ministers, celebrities, or a couple with an annual income of over US$300,000 to become foster parents, while others cannot.
Largely, a vulnerable adoption process that had been taking place in Nepal since several years has compelled the US government more alerted and posed a ban. That was the reason that they could not adopted two – year – old Kailash which made them running from pillar to post that their call will be heard.
Now the list is long. As many as 56 American families are facing heartbreak due to the US Government decision to ban child adoption from Nepal until Nepal’s legal provision ensures that adopted children were not fraud and claim genuine.
These desperate 56 parents have instituted an alliance and had registered a petition in US Congress. “We respectfully request that the Right Honorable members of the US Senate and House petition the Department of State and USCIS within the Department of Homeland Security to assist the “Nepal Pipeline families” in obtaining visas to bring their children home immediately,” the petition reads.
In response to the petition, 14,398 letters and emails were sent far to support their campaign. Moreover they have internet campaign through blog, http://theywaitnepal.blogspot.com/. One can find the photos of to be adopted Nepali child and their US mother. “These families are struggling to bring home their legally adopted children who are stuck in Nepal awaiting visas that will allow them to enter the US,” they write in their blog.
Many anxious parents are waiting in the US also. Many are stranded since August, 2010.
It seems that child adoption in Nepal has been turned into a profitable business as dozens of websites and privately organizations have claimed that there were many advantages of adopting children from Nepal. “There are many advantages for adopting from Nepal. Even though Nepal is an economically poor country, children are cared for very well with few incidences of abuse or neglect. If you like the idea of adopting a baby or toddler, it would be an excellent country to consider,” claims, adoptionark.
Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

American to apologize for ill-treating Russian adopted son

American to apologize for ill-treating Russian adopted son
Tags: News, Society, child abuse, Jessica Bigley, child adoption, World,
Russia, Daniil Bukharov, Pavel Astakhov


Jan 29, 2011 18:01 Moscow Time
Pavel Astakhov. Photo: RIA Novosti

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American Jessica Bigley, who is accused of cruelty against her adopted
Russian son, intends to come to Russia with her husband and apologize
publically, Russian Children’s Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov says.

Last autumn, an American TV channel showed a video record where Jessica
makes the boy drink piquant sauce and pours cold water on him.

She explained that by this, she tried to make him obedient.

After this TV program, a criminal case was instituted against Jessica
Bigely.

Judith Kilshaw: Internet adoption scandal woman now wants IVF at 57!

Judith Kilshaw: Internet adoption scandal woman now wants IVF at 57!

Categories: Latest news

Judith KilshawWho could forget the Kilshaws? Solicitor husband Alan and his wife Judith, who, in 2001 BOUGHT mixed race twins from a 'baby broker' in the US for £8,200, and then went on the run from UK social services.

The babies were eventually returned to the US, where a judge branded the Kilshaws 'media obsessed' and with no interest in the children's welfare.

A decade on, and Judith Kilshaw is back in the news. Having divorced husband Alan, she has gone on to marry her toy-boy lover, Steven Sillett, 13 years her junior. And now she wants to 'cement' their relationship with a baby.

Speaking to the Daily Mail - and bizarrely pictured with her new husband AND her ex - Judith reveals she wants to go to Italy to undergo IVF.

Alan, Judith says is still very much part of her life. 'We're all here together. It's an absolutely unique situation', she says. Indeed - for it was Alan who gave her away at her wedding to Steve, and together they are claiming damages from Flintshire County Council over what they brand the 'unlawful' removal of their adopted daughters.

Following the case, Alan - then a solicitor - was struck off by The Law Society. The couple claim the furore led to the breakdown of their marriage and had a detrimental affect on their health.

'I want £1million for me and the same for Alan,' Judith tells the Mail, also revealing she does not 'miss' the twin girls she had to give up, saying simply 'time has moved on' and 'there's no point in missing them'.

Of her IVF plans Judith says: 'It's getting later and later. I think it would be nice to cement our relationship.'

Court ruling could mean equal adoption rights for gay couples

Photo: DPA

Court ruling could mean equal adoption rights for gay couples

Published: 28 Jan 11 11:38 CET

Gay couples in Germany are not allowed to adopt children together – only one partner goes on the papers. But a higher regional court ruling that deemed the law unconstitutional this week may change this.

While homosexual couples are allowed to adopt their partner’s own biological children thanks to a Constitutional Court ruling in the summer of 2009, the same rule does not apply to non-biological adopted children. 

But the Hamburg upper regional court (OLG) called this “unequal treatment of marriage and civil unions in current adoption law” that is neither constitutional nor in the child’s best interest, broadcaster NDR reported. 

Straight couples face no restrictions when it comes to adopting non-biological children together.

The ruling, published this week after it was decided on December 22, 2010, found that the inheritance and maintenance claim rights gained through adoption by both parents provide additional safeguards for children, the broadcaster said. 

The issue has been sent off to the country’s high court for review, but so far no date has been set, a court spokesperson said. 

Meanwhile politicians from the environmentalist Green party called for the government to quickly write a new draft law to ensure equal adoption rights for gay couples.

Parliamentarian and Green party spokesperson for human rights issues Volker Beck told NDR that Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger must “finally” make a change that “ends the discrimination of homosexual parents and their children.”

The failure to do this puts children from such families at a disadvantage, he said.

“The adoption ban for gay and lesbian couples endangers child welfare and must therefore be ended,” said Beck, who is also the party’s chief whip. 

The Local/ka

 

What do you think? Leave your comment below.

“We don’t know all cases of Russian child abuse abroad” - Ombudsman

“We don’t know all cases of Russian child abuse abroad” - Ombudsman

 
Jan 28, 2011 15:14 Moscow Time
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Pavel Astakhov. Photo: RIA Novosti
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Russia's Children's Rights Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov has called for a halt to adoptions of this country's children by foreign families until bilateral agreements to regulate adoptions are signed.

Without such bilateral agreements Russia is unable to lok after the Russian children adopted by foreigners and protect them from abuse.

Russia and the US have a 16-year history of international adoption and during this time more than 600,000 Russian children have found a new family in the US.  However the cases of abuse and mistreatment of Russian children in the US adoptive families has become a regular thing. 

The last scandal, which added fuel to the legal disputes, was the case of 7-year old Daniil Boukharov. Adopted by Gary and Jessica Bigley, the boy was forced to drink Tabasco sauce as a disciplinary measure. And this is not the most terrifying story, Astakhov says.

In the US 17 children have been killed by their adoptive parents. The law of large numbers can’t be applied here with 600,000 being adopted and only several killed. No! The US ambassador in Russia John Beyrle said that even one case is more than enough for Russia to act the way it is acting now. I agree with him. We do not have such problems with other countries, only with the US.  Moreover, we do not know about all the cases. We have learned there is a ranch where adopted Russian children rejected by their US parents are sent to. And nobody tells us about it. That’s a fact – we do not know what is going on with more than 400 children because the primary adoption was cancelled and after that the child “got lost”.

As at now, only Ireland has officially refused to sign a bilateral agreement on child adoption with Russia and adopt Russian children. France, Great Britain, Finland and Spain are ready to sign such agreements.  But until the agreements are signed, it is necessary to halt the adoption and make the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, introduce amendments to the Russian Family Code, Pavel Astakhov says.

Today it is necessary to add new provisions to the Family Code to stipulate that only children who were not adopted in Russia may be put up for international adoption. But this should be predicated on the relevant bilateral agreement being in place.

The Children’s rights ombudsman admits that it is impossible to now ban the international adoption of Russian children. Though the law provides  for such an option there is a powerful international lobby, making big money on protecting international adoption, which is a very profitable business. For example in the US, the services for finding an adopted child in Russia costs between $ 50,000 and $70,000.

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