The search of Chilean adoptees for their biological family threatens to become an impossible mission. Almost all files are missing or possibly destroyed. The woman who arranged many adoptions refused to provide information until her death in January.

More than two hundred Chilean children have been (illegally) adopted in the Netherlands since the early 1970s. The Dutch Truus Kuijpers, who ran the Las Palmas children's home in Santiago for more than 25 years, was involved in about a hundred adoptions.

Adoptees accuse her of child theft . Among other things, she is said to have taken babies from hospitals to Las Palmas for adoption without the knowledge and consent of the mothers. She was interrogated in 2019 by justice in Chile, who are investigating the illegal adoptions of 20,000 children in the 1970s and 1980s.

The search for the origins of adoptees now gives rise to a real business. Intermediaries offer their services for remuneration, even if it means inventing false parents.

Jessica was born in Sri Lanka in 1982. At the age of two, she was adopted in France by a loving family. She led a happy life until Christmas Eve in 2017. “I learned that adoption trafficking took place in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, right at the time of my adoption,” she explains. . " I also learned that the person who served as an intermediary for my adoption is involved in this traffic. It's a big shock. I feel the need to find my biological family.” People contacted via adoptee groups on Facebook give him the contact details of an intermediary who lives there. She contacts him to ask him to look for his biological mother.

A fake mother

The man demands 350 euros from him for food, accommodation and travel costs. “He says the search will not last more than four days. The time, he says, it took him to find other relatives.” Confident and full of hope, Jessica makes a transfer to him and sends him the information she has on his adoption. The result lived up to his expectations: “After three days, he told me that he found a woman who had information that matched my file.” According to him, it was his aunt.

Upset, Jessica decides to go meet her in Sri Lanka. “It’s a magical moment. We hug each other. We cry. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so many years!” , she remembers. Back in France, Jessica continues to talk with her aunt. But a few weeks later, her husband at the time, overcome with doubt, advised her to request a DNA test. It’s a blow: “The test is negative. She's not my aunt. I’m completely falling apart.”

Established on October 9, 2018, the International Social Service France (SSI France) is a system of the Fondation Droit d’Enfance.

Child protection foundation, founded in 1859, and recognized as being of public utility since 1866, it welcomes and supports several hundred children in Île-de-France placed under its protection by Child Welfare.

She places great importance on avoiding placement breakdowns and supporting families with the aim of avoiding placement or allowing links to be (re)created.

By developing various activities in the field of child protection, its desire is to think about the institutional journey of the child or adult as close as possible to their environment while allowing temporary removals if this proves necessary. .

In any situation, Droit d'Enfance strives to provide varied, shared and thought-out responses for each situation.

A vacation bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Manoj Misra of the Supreme Court passed an interim order staying the high court direction and issued notice on the appeal filed by Shahnaz Khanam which has now been posted for hearing on July 28

Weighing the child’s interest over that of her biological parents, the Supreme Court on Friday stayed an order passed by the Orissa high court directing the transfer of custody of a 12-year-old girl from her adoptive parents to her biological parents.

The Orissa high court order was passed on April 3 on a habeas corpus petition filed by the girl’s biological father – Nesar Ahmed Khan who accused his elder sister of kidnapping his daughter in 2015 from Rourkela, where he currently resides.

In its order, the high court had directed Ahmed Khan’s elder sister Shahnaz Khanam and her husband (the adoptive parents of the child) to hand over the custody by June 30 failing which a formal order will be passed to hand over the custody of the child to her biological parents.

Among the adopted, eight were boys and four were girls; except for two children aged one year and two years, the rest were just months old

Twelve children have been adopted in Ernakulam district in the nine months since the introduction of the amended adoption rules aimed at speedy completion of adoption procedures.

Under the new adoption rules, as per Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Amendment Act, District Magistrates are authorised to issue adoption orders. The amendment was aimed at avoiding the inordinate delay when adoption process was executed through courts. The amendments came into effect on September 1, 2022.

Among the adopted, eight were boys and four were girls. Except for two children aged one year and two years, the rest were just months old. Five other adoptions are being processed by the district magistrate.

“Adoption is lot quicker now since District Magistrates are required to issue orders within two months of submission of files by the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU). There was no such time frame when the adoption process was carried out through courts,” said Sini K.S., District Child Protection Officer, Ernakulam.

In Vietnam, a remarkable woman has adopted 346 children after overcoming a life of incredible hardship which started when her parents left her on a doorstep as a foundling.

Huynh Tieu Huong, whom national media has dubbed “Mother Theresa of Vietnam” runs a non-profit organization dedicated to the adoption, support, and free offering of loving kindness to foundlings, orphans, and homeless children. Thanks to support given by donors and volunteers, these 346 children are all able to receive education, safe places to sleep and play, and the proper medical care to ensure they reach adulthood healthy.

Huong herself doesn’t really know when she was born. An ID found on her didn’t include a surname, but did say 1968. In the years following the war, An old homeless woman dedicated what was left of her life’s energies toward trying to help Huong find a home—which she did in the hands of a young couple from the city of Vinh Phu.

These turned out to be sexual predators, and it took the neighbors to help her escape a permanent fate of sexual exploitation. Her life then became year after year of vagabondry, until she found a baby girl left on her doorstep when she was about 19 years old.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has said that after the amendment to Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act 2015, as many as 2,250 Child adoption orders have been issued by the District Magistrates across the country.
 
The official in the Ministry said when the amendment was introduced in Parliament, there were 997 adoption orders pending with the courts all over the country. He added that after the amendment a total of 858 orders of adoptions were given immediately and as of the 16th of June 2023 the figure stands at 2250.
 
The Amended Juvenile Justice Act came into force in September last year. 
 
Under the amended Act, the District Magistrates, instead of courts have the power to issue adoption orders under Section 61 of the JJ Act. With the Act, the district magistrates have also been empowered to ensure the completion of the adoption process and support children in distress. As per the amended provisions of the Act, any childcare institution will be registered only after considering the recommendations of the District Magistrate.
 
The official said that constant efforts are being made by the Ministry to reduce the pendency of adoption orders, keeping in mind the welfare of the children.

Lesbian mothers raising families in Italy risk being erased from official records and ordered to change the surnames of their children as Giorgia Meloni’s government continues its crackdown on same-sex families.

A magistrate in the northern city of Padua has sent a court a list of 33 lesbian couples registered as parents at the town hall since 2017 and asked judges to strike from birth records the name of the partner who did not give birth. If that partner’s surname has been taken by her child or children, it must be dropped, Valeria Sanzari, the magistrate, said.

The request, which will be ruled on by a court in November, is Sanzari’s response to an Italian government circular in March that ordered town halls to stop

This Select Committee was established on 21 June 2023 to inquire into and report on birth trauma.

Submissions

The committee has received over 4000 submissions.

Out of the 997 adoption cases that had been pending before courts as on September 12, 2022, a total of 858 adoption orders have now been issued by DMs.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development on Tuesday revealed that the highest pendency in adoption cases in the country is in Maharashtra with as many as 329 cases pending till date. There are 174 cases awaiting adoption orders as of September 2022, and another 35 fresh cases which are pending with District Magistrates in the state.

However 329 cases are pending at either Specialised Adoption Agency (SAA) or District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) level, ministry sources have said.

Ministry sources have indicated that the pendency is due to the uncertainty created by the Bombay High Court’s January order, granting an interim stay on the transfer of pending adoption cases from courts to DMs.

On January 11, the Bombay HC directed the state governments not to transfer pending adoption proceedings to DMs, as mandated under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act, 2021. The directive came during the hearing of a writ petition filed by advocates and Kandivli residents Nisha Pandya and Pradeep Pandya that challenged the constitutional validity of the 2021 amendment.