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Social services bosses in Leicestershire defend forced adoption cases

leicester_mercury
Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Social services have forcibly adopted more than 200 children in Leicestershire in the past five years.

The figures, requested under the Freedom of Information Act by the Leicester Mercury, show the number of times that Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council have applied to the courts to have children adopted against their parents' will on welfare grounds.

Adoption by another family is the final and most drastic stage of the child protection process, and is only carried out if all other attempts to make a child's family home safe fail.

Cheriel O'Neill, the city council's head of service for children's resources, said: "Whenever a concern is raised about a child's welfare a council's ultimate aim is to keep a child with their parents, provided the environment they live in can be made safe."

Both councils say that alcohol and drug abuse are factors in many of the adoption cases, but physical, sexual or emotional abuse are also triggers for action.

Ms O'Neill said: "If a child is at risk of significant harm in their environment then a child protection conference is called."

This conference brings together agencies from across the city to put a plan in place with a child's parents to improve their welfare.

If this fails, councils can apply to take the children into care. If the council then reaches a stage at which all options for allowing the child to return home are exhausted, adoption is then looked at as a possibility.

Ms O'Neill said: "Local authorities deal with hundreds of cases every year, so it really is a tiny proportion which reach the adoption stage."

This year, 12 adoption orders have been made by the county council and a further 17 so far by the city council.

Ms O'Neill also pointed out that some parents choose to relinquish control of their children at birth. Two women have already chosen to give up their child in 2010 in the city. Parents go through counselling before making the decision, and have a period of several weeks in which to change their mind.

Surrogate twins in no-mans land

Surrogate twins in no-mans land
Sumitra Deb Roy, TNN, Jul 21, 2010, 03.43am IST
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MUMBAI: Two representatives from the Norwegian embassy in Delhi are making enquiries about Andras Bells surrogacy procedure in a Mumbai clinic. 

We provided all the relevant documents and two to three informed consent papers that she had signed, said medical director of Bandras Rotunda Clinic Dr Gautam Allahabadia. He added that the clinic had done nothing illegal or unethical. 

Embryo adoption is a well-accepted choice, and probably the only option for women who are unable to conceive naturally, said Allahabadia, one of the key members who helped frame the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) draft bill guidelines. But the guidelinesasking fertility clinics to ensure that international clients had the approval of their respective consulates to avoid visa problems for their offspringwere framed only this year, months after Bell commissioned the surrogacy. 

When TOI contacted the Norwegian embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday, they refused to comment on the issue. We are working on this case, was all an official was willing to say. Bell, too, who is in Mumbai with the babies refused to talk to TOI. The Norwegian delegates also visited L H Hiranandani Hospital at Powai where the twins were born. The hospital authorities chose not to comment on the issue on the grounds that that their role was restricted to delivering the twins. 

Bells children are virtually in no mans land, but the greater ethical debate is why she commissioned surrogacy when she could have just adopted a child. One reason could be that she wanted to avoid the stringent adoption laws and believed that surrogacy was an easier path, said an IVF expert. According to Allahabadia, as far as he can recall, this is the first time a Norwegian citizen has come under her countrys scanner. He said that a friend of Bell had also commissioned a surrogacy in India and returned to her country with the child, without a hitch. I always insist that my clients be updated on their countrys laws, said Allahabadia. While it is not banned in Norway, the laws limit the use of reproductive technologies in connection with surrogacy. 

The two Norwegian delegates, who said that the boys may not be given citizenship, mentioned that they were open to the idea of helping Bell adopt the twins provided the surrogate was named as their mother in the birth certificate. They wanted the surrogate to be named so that Bell could adopt them from her. But the ICMR guidelines clearly states that only the clients name be listed as a parent in the birth certificate, said Allahabadia. The Indian surrogate cannot be named on the certificate. 

The fate of the two boys is not known: the chances of them being listed for adoption are very high. There is no way the children can be granted citizenship as per the Indian laws. It will be difficult for Bell to prove that she is their mother in any court of law, said legal expert Amit Karkhanis. Worse, the children could end up for adoption. 

Last heard, with no alternative in sight, Bell has already begun the adoption procedure. 

sumitra.roy@timesgroup.com

Girl to visit a home she never knew

Girl to visit a home she never knew

Wednesday, July 21, 2010
By MIKE BOONE, The Gazette
 

Some wide-angle lenses are wider than others.

Montreal filmmaker Maureen Marovitch is making a documentary about adoption in China. And she's doing it while waking up every morning in Lachine.

Romanian NGOs searching for a common vision

Project : Romania 21 Jul 2010

Bucharest, Romania: Romanian and international NGOs in the social sphere are trying to identify ways of collaboration to address the problems of the most vulnerable rural families. Following Terre des hommes’ invitation, specialists from the Roma Agency for Community Development “Impreuna”, AIDRom Foundation, Pestalozzi Children Foundation Switzerland and Romania, World Vision, Ovidiu Rom Association, PACT Foundation and the National Federation of NGOs acting on Child Protection gathered in Bucharest for a one day Round Table (15th of July 2010).

Although not singular, this type of initiative raised interest among the NGOs invited, as it may become an alternative strategy for answering the difficulties created by the decrease of reforming interventions the state should have implemented into the Romanian social protection system.

In spite of the different funding opportunities, the lack of strong coordination and the dissolution of some significant National Authorities (including that on Child Protection) put the Romanian civil society in a challenging position. In this delicate context, Terre des hommes may bring a partial contribution to the improvement of the segmented picture of the interventions in favour of the disadvantaged families and children in the rural areas.

The complementary action carried on at the national level in Bucharest opens a dialogue based on a concrete proposal of Model of action elaborated by Terre des hommes and presented to some significant NGOs to build a cooperative way for its planning and implementation. Its main goals of empowering the existing social system and actors from the rural communities enhanced the importance of the common contribution coming from the NGOs different field experience and competences. The meeting outlined the basis of a future common proposal that should include actions linked to social and child protection policies, risk prevention, education, social inclusion of families (especially of the Roma ones), community development and training of trainers. The researched complementarity of domains becomes therefore not only a strategy of building a significant proposal for accessing future funds, but mostly that of including child protection issues in a holistic vision addressing different problems that lead to child abuse, school abandonment, risky migration or trafficking.

Fighting for the children

Fighting for the children
Iowa Native leaders protest child welfare practices
By Stephanie Woodard, Today correspondent
Story Published: Jul 20, 2010
Story Updated: Jul 16, 2010
SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Native American children swept up in the Iowa child welfare system face perils ranging from loss of culture to death, according to Vicky Apala-Cuevas, Oglala Lakota, a member of the Iowa Commission on Native American Affairs

The commission, a division of the state’s department of human rights, recently met with the state’s attorney general about several issues, including the disproportionately high rate at which Indian children are taken from their parents and doled out to non-Native foster and adoptive families.

The problem occurs throughout Iowa, but the disparities are worst in the county that includes Sioux City, according to another meeting attendee, Frank LaMere, Winnebago, director of the Four Directions Community Center, a local advocacy group.

“In Woodbury County, these policies have ravaged the Native community. Indian families have been torn apart, thanks to collusion among attorneys, adoption agencies, and others. Their actions are sinister at best, criminal at worst.”

LaMere, whose organization holds the annual Memorial March to Honor Our Lost Children, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the reaction of the attorney general, Tom Miller. “We built bridges in the meeting, and the dialogue will continue.”

Apala-Cuevas was less sanguine. “The attorney general said he was on our side but that there was not a great deal he could do at this time. Apparently the Iowa and federal Indian Child Welfare Act laws have no teeth. I was very disappointed. There are penalties for illegal parking, but nothing when it comes to separating Indian children from their families.

“Our children are not up for grabs.”

Several Indian youngsters have died in foster care in recent years, with little notice in the media or among the public at large, said LaMere. In contrast, he said, the state “came unglued” in an equally tragic situation, when a white toddler was killed in a manner that social services agencies should have been able to prevent.

A pattern that an Iowa newspaper, the Quad-City Times, uncovered in a multi-article investigative report – with adoption attorneys shuttling pregnant women and then their newborns among several states to cover unethical and illegal practices – occurs within the state of Iowa as well, said LaMere. 

“It appears that Native kids are moved to rural counties, where the federal and state ICWA laws are not understood or perhaps not known. Judges in those places can be persuaded to hand over our children to adoptive or foster parents. That’s not all, though. Unscrupulous attorneys and officials find even more ways to do an end-run around Iowa’s department of human services, which is on our side. We need an investigation of these practices.”

Indian children fall prey to the system for various reasons, according to Apala-Cuevas. For one, non-Native people involved in their cases may not understand the extended family and larger tribal community to which an Indian child belongs, or may choose to ignore these relationships.

Money plays a part as well. Tens of thousands of dollars in fees may be at stake for attorneys and other facilitators when an adoption occurs, according to the Quad-City Times report. Native children appear to be especially prized by prospective parents, increasing the likelihood they’ll be snapped up by a corrupt adoption agency or attorney, said Apala-Cuevas.

Assistant Attorney General Charles Phillips, who works with the state’s social services department and multiple tribes (whether or not they are resident in Iowa), pointed to the need for more Native American families with whom Indian children can be housed.

“It’s essential to place a child quickly if he or she needs to be protected, and that can run up against the need for a culturally appropriate situation. There are parts of the state in which strides have been made toward shifting children to tribal courts and tribal placements more efficiently.”

Four Directions Community Center has held gatherings for survivors, including hours of testimony from children who had been reunited with their birth families, said Apala-Cuevas. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.”

On Aug. 16 and 17, the organization will hold public hearings on the issue. “We’ll talk about ICWA and the way it’s ignored in Iowa, we’ll discuss the possibility of strengthening our state law legislatively, and much more,” LaMere said. “Attorneys general in other states also need to know this is a problem. We have to protect our children, here and across the country.”

On Nov. 24, the center will hold its eighth memorial march to bring attention to the issue

Gordon Supports Bill to Aid Adopting Families

Gordon Supports Bill to Aid Adopting Families

July 20, 2010, WASHINGTON. – Today, Congressman Bart Gordon voted to simplify procedures for American families interested in adopting children from overseas.

“Many deserving American parents want to welcome an adopted child into their family but are held up by high costs and red tape,” Gordon said. “Bureaucratic headaches should never stand in the way of giving a child a loving home.”

The International Adoption Harmonization Act of 2010 would simplify the admissions vaccination documentation requirements for certain countries. The bill would also allow an adopted child to legally immigrate so long as the adoption is completed and the petition is filed before the child turns 18, rather than the current age limit of 16. Adoptions of international teenagers are not as common as adoptions of young children, but equally important, often arising from special circumstances such as when a family wishes to reunite a group of siblings.

“I’ve heard from so many Middle Tennessee families over the years who have provided loving homes to adopted children, both international and American-born,” Gordon said. “The least we can do for these families is ensure detrimental adoption policies don’t stand in their way.”
A member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, Gordon has worked throughout his time in Congress to make the adoption process easier for deserving parents. In 1994, Gordon travelled to Romania, where he visited children the country’s orphanages and met with Romanian officials in the wake of reports of inhumane conditions and restrictive regulations that prevented children from being adopted. 
“In my travels in Romania, I saw haunting images of physical and emotional neglect in the country’s orphanages. Many international families wanted to adopt these children, but cumbersome adoption laws stood in the way,” Gordon said. 
Gordon’s visits ultimately led Romania to ease restrictions on Americans wanting to adopt Romanian children. In 1997, Gordon also co-sponsored legislation to help foster children find their way into permanent adoption, which led to a steep increase in the number of adoptions from foster care, with 55,000 adopted in 2008 alone. Last year, Gordon sponsored the Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act to make permanent a $10,000 tax credit for expenses related to adoptions.

CIA to UNICEF, big aid has a very dirty secret

CIA to UNICEF, big aid has a very dirty secret
By Thomas C. Mountain
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Jul 20, 2010, 00:21
ASMARA, Eritrea -- Former national security advisor in the Clinton White House and failed nominee to head the CIA, Anthony “Tony” Lake is now executive director of the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF.
Having a background in Western intelligence is a requirement to run a Big Aid “familia.” Every head of any of the major international aid agencies comes vetted by years of loyal service up to and including being a “made man” (or woman in today’s equal opportunity offender circles) like Tony Lake.
What are Tony Lake’s qualifications to run the number one children’s relief works in the world? Maybe his silence during the Rwandan genocide, when as national security advisor to President Clinton he admitted knowing about and “regretted” not doing something when hundreds of thousands of women and children were hacked to death in central Africa. Then there were the million and a half women and children in Eritrea who had to flee for their lives in the face of the Ethiopian invasion in 2000, something Tony Lake was intimately involved in helping instigate and direct.
Tony Lake was nominated to be the director of the CIA as a parting gift for his loyal role as consigliere in the Clinton White House, a gift taken from him when reports of corruption derailed his nomination.
War crimes, crimes against humanity and, least of all, just plain corruption, Tony Lake has done it all, even admitting to going on the payroll after leaving the White House as an agent for the Ethiopian government, they of ethnic cleansing and genocide infamy.
Tony Lake was an officer of the Obama for President campaign and resumed his role as consigliere pre-election to the president to be. He was listed as senior foreign policy advisor to Obama and was one of the last of the inner circle to be rewarded for his foresight.
From CIA to UNICEF? The charge that every person who has headed a major Western aid agency has an intelligence background has been proven time and time again. It may have taken some serious digging, some dogged investigation, but the fact remains that everyone of those supposed humanitarians that has been investigated has turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 
BIg Aid was created as a nefarious tool for dirty doings in the Third World by the powers that be in the West and only trusted capos from the inner circle are allowed to plan and implement their crimes. Of course, some good works have to be done or no one would allow them into their countries. It’s only from the inside that they can be really effective in buying off or if that doesn’t work, “neutralizing” those in power.
Whether it’s the World Health Organization suppressing news of the breakthrough in malaria mortality prevention, to the World Food Program trying to destroy food security/self-sufficiency, to Tony Lake taking over UNICEF, the word to the wise is beware enemies bearing gifts. Big Aid has a very dirty secret and the whole world needs to know about it.
Stay tuned to the Online Journal for more news that the so-called free press in the West refused to cover.
Thomas C. Mountain was, in a former life, an educator, activist and alternative medicine practitioner in the USA. Email thomascmountain at yahoo.com. 

Couple defrauded but not deterred

July 19, 2010

Couple defrauded but not deterred

Attempted adoption from Uganda went bad, but parents now have three kids

JOHN HULT
jhult@argusleader.com

A Sioux Falls couple who waited patiently for more than a year to bring their adopted children home say they got scammed, and are looking to the courts to help salve their broken hearts.

Cori and Chris Schmaus said they contracted with an Indianapolis company, Americans For African Adoptions, in early 2008 to adopt two Ugandan children whose mother supposedly gave them up after giving birth to them as part of quintuplets.

The Schmauses received photos, birth records and letters about the children, named Sowali and Fatina Bangi. Having paid $11,500 in initial fees, the couple began sending the agency $400 a month for the children's care.

Each month, they were assured the adoption paperwork was near completion. It wasn't. The Schmauses said there never was any legitimate paperwork.

Last October, they found out from a New Mexico couple trying to adopt the other two surviving quints that the Bangi children had lived with their mother since birth. The New Mexico couple flew to Kampala, Uganda, met the mother and learned that she never had agreed to give up her children.

Since then, the Schmauses learned that a Ugandan named Joseph Kagimu reportedly staged photos, forged documents and collected money for dozens of children such as the Bangis, then used the information to collect money from unsuspecting Western parents through the Indianapolis agency.

As of last October, the Schmauses had paid $16,800 to Americans for African Adoptions. Two weeks ago, they sued the agency in Minnehaha County, alleging that its director, Cheryl Carter-Shotts, was negligent because she failed to catch on to the scheme. A handful of others, including the New Mexico couple and another in Michigan, have filed or plan to file similar lawsuits as well.

Carter-Shotts claims Kagimu scammed her as well as the families.

"The most upsetting part for me was that I was emotionally attached to these children," Chris Schmaus said. "These were our children. It was like losing a child when we found out what was going on over there."

New opportunities

The Schmauses always had wanted to adopt. Cori Schmaus' family had adopted kids, and Chris Schmaus had worked with foster children at McCrossan Boys Ranch.

After hearing about Africa from missionaries at their Sioux Falls church, they decided to try for an international adoption. But international adoptions can be expensive. The average cost to adopt one child from most agencies is more than $20,000, Cori Schmaus said.

Still, when she came across Americans for African Adoptions and spoke with Carter-Shotts about the smaller upfront costs, she was sold. Carter-Shotts has a strong reputation. Her agency, founded in 1986, is widely credited as the first to facilitate adoptions from Ethiopia.

According to an Indiana court records search, the agency never has been successfully sued.

Carter-Shotts said Kagimu sent her a newspaper article about a woman in a Ugandan village who had given birth to quintuplets, four who survived. Carter-Shotts had met Kagimu 18 years ago, and said the children needed homes.

Uganda's strict rules for international adoptions had been loosened, she was told, and Kagimu wanted to begin working with her. He sent her documents that supposedly proved that the mother had relinquished her parental rights and sent photos from what supposedly was an orphanage.

Even on four visits to Uganda in 18 months, Carter-Shotts said everything seemed to be in order, though each time she went, she was told Kagimu needed more time.

Even so, Carter-Shotts was sure the children were being cared for. The Schmauses were sending money, other families were sending money for the other children in Kagimu's Kampala orphanage, and Carter-Shotts would pass on the money to him.

Growing suspicions

Back in Sioux Falls, things seemed to be taking too long, Cori Schmaus said. She wasn't the only one who felt that way, either. Don and Angie Guest of Michigan were working with Carter-Shotts on a Ugandan adoption, too, and met the Schmauses through an Internet message board.

The Guests were trying to adopt a 5-year-old girl named Michelle. About five months after signing their contract, they got a letter from a woman purporting to be Michelle's mother. The letter thanked them for sending payments to help her daughter but she asked the Guests to send money to her.

"We had a lot of trust in our adoption agency, so we didn't know what to think," Don Guest said.

Carter-Shotts told the Guests it probably was a hoax, perhaps an aunt who took the photos and sent the letter to scam them.

As the months passed, the Guests became more suspicious. "We were making our foster care payments, but we weren't getting any updates on how our case was progressing," Don Guest said.

Scam revealed

The New Mexico couple trying to adopt the other half of the surviving quintuplets flew to Uganda in October to confront Kagimu. They told the Schmauses and Guests the quintuplets still were living with their mother. When the New Mexico couple showed up unannounced at Kagimu's orphanage, the children weren't there.

They found the woman who wrote the letter to the Guests. She was telling the truth, too. They'd corroborated the stories with other couples who had flown to Uganda out of frustration.

Carter-Shotts looked into Kagimu's activities as families began to demand their money back. She hired lawyers in Kampala and learned the same thing the families did - Kagimu had been passing along fake birth and death certificates, and the children weren't staying where she thought they were.

"Through another family friend, we learned that there were foster homes, but they were being moved around," Carter-Shotts said. "It seemed they were being moved in when I was coming and moved out when I left."

The Guests and Schmauses said they haven't been repaid the fees they sent to the agency. Carter-Shotts insisted she has paid back the Guests in part but can't refund all the money and that some initial fees were understood to be non-refundable. Besides, she said, the fraud destroyed her business.

"Joseph took all the money. We don't have any income coming in," she said.

Who is responsible?

The Schmauses said Carter-Shotts should have figured out the scam.

"I don't think she was very business-savvy," Cori Schmaus said.

Guest doubts he'll see a refund, either, suspecting Carter-Shotts used the money to pay for day-to-day operations.

"I felt like if I let it go, she would win," he said. "I think Cheryl has been in business too long not to have known what was going on."

Carter-Shotts hasn't responded to the lawsuit in Minnehaha County, but her lawyers sent Guest a letter claiming that Michigan isn't the proper venue for the dispute. Carter-Shotts she thinks Kagimu is in jail. Calls to the Ugandan Embassy in Kampala and in Washington, D.C., were not returned.

Happy ending

The Guests still hope to adopt one of the children they'd learned about through Carter-Shotts. Michelle's mother decided to keep her daughter, but the Guests plan to fly back to Uganda this week to plead for guardianship of an 8-year-old girl.

As for the Schmauses, a website called Rainbow Kids connected them to 6-year-old Amanuel, 4-year-old Capital and 1-year-old Eyrusalem - three siblings from Ethiopia.

Their mother died in November, so the Schmauses flew to Ethiopia a month ago to adopt all three. Family members lent them the adoption fees, they said.

"These kids saved us," Chris Schmaus said of the Ethiopian children. "I didn't think I could trust anybody else."

Reach reporter John Hult at 331-2301.

Bethany Reports Adoption Increases Up 26 Percent for 2010

Bethany Reports Adoption Increases Up 26 Percent for 2010

 
 

Attributes Increases to New Socio-Political and Theological Movements

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., July 19 /PRNewswire/ -- As a result of increased attention due to January's earthquake crisis in Haitiand other external factors, Bethany Christian Services (www.Bethany.org), the nation's largest adoption agency, is seeing significant growth and interest in the U.S. adoption market, with overall international and domestic adoption placements up 26 percent over the same time period in 2009.

The organization is reporting Intercountry Adoption placements up 66 percent and Intercountry Adoption inquiries ahead by more than 5,000 requests during the same six month time period of 2009, totaling an unprecedented 10,567 inquiries.  Bethany ascribes these increases in part to the Haiti crisis and the need to find safe homes for children who lost one or both parents during the earthquake.

Domestic Infant Adoption inquiries are also higher than in 2009 with 8,037 in the first half of 2010.  Additionally, Infant Adoption Home Studies have increased 15 percent and formal Infant Adoption applications have increased 23 percent over 2009.

In addition to the Haiti crisis, Bethany attributes the increase in adoption to new movements within Christian churches, which are creating new attitudes for young couples.  Bethany has been instrumental in bringing more families forward to adopt by partnering with organizations such as Catalyst, Saddleback Church, Q Conference, Southern Baptist Denomination, and Christian Alliance for Orphans.

"The figures Bethany released show strong improvement as we confront the global orphan crisis, but the need still remains as there are still an incredible number of orphaned children who wait for their 'forever family'," said Bill Blacquiere, president and CEO at Bethany Christian Services.  "It is our vision that every child has a loving family, so we are working to find new families and identify supportive local communities.  We all must contribute to take measurable and immediate action in order to find more families who can provide loving homes."

Bethany has been at the forefront of partnering with church leaders to support foster care, adoption, and orphan care programs within their ministries.  Most recently, the Southern Baptist Convention announced a new Adoption Fund, which subsidizes the cost of adoption for pastors by $2,000.  In addition, Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum focused heavily on orphans and adoption and other popular conferences, such as Catalyst, Together for Adoption, the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit and Adopting for Life, have put adoption at center stage.

 

SOURCE Bethany Christian Services