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Police use DNA against human trafficking

Police use DNA against human trafficking

 
English.news.cn   2010-07-28 09:13:16  

Good comes from chaos in Haiti

Good comes from chaos in Haiti

Posted: 28 July, 2010

bcschild.jpg

(Bethany photo)

Haiti (MNN) ? Six months ago, few would have said that the Haiti earthquake could bring good. The quake, however, has brought awareness to one very important thing: adoption.

Bethany Christian Services reports a 26 percent increase in the interest of domestic and international adoptions in 2010 than over the same time period in 2009. John VanValkenburg says this is due in large part to the January disaster as people were struck by the incredible needs of Haitians, especially Haitian orphans.

"Currently, adoptions are still closed in Haiti, but what we were able to do [right after the quake] was capture a lot of people who were interested and send them some information," explains VanValkenburg. "Some of those people have decided to wait until they can adopt from Haiti, and other people looked at other options."

In a Bethany press release, the organization says Intercountry Adoption placements are up 66 percent since 2009, and over 5,000 more inquiries about Intercountry Adoption have been made. This brings the total of this type of inquiry up to 10,567 in just six months.

The unprecedented numbers had Bethany staff swirling for a while, but as the number of requests and inquiries has died down, the ministry has had time to catch up and enjoy the way God is using the church and His people to help the helpless. Still, there is much work to be done.

VanValkenburg says, "Globally, there's an estimated 163 million orphans. That was probably about 15 to 20 million less just a few years ago; so the number is increasing, which just goes to show that adoption alone isn't going to solve this problem."

Adoption and foster care certainly help, though. Even one adopted child into a Christian family is worth the process, especially if the child comes to know Jesus Christ.

If you feel God calling you to volunteer with Bethany, to be a foster parent, or to consider adoption, call Bethany at 1-800-BETHANY. For further contact information, click here.

 

 


About this Organization


Bethany Christian Services
Int'l Adoption Services

Phone: 616-224-7610
Alt. Phone: 800-652-7082
Fax: 616-224-7436
Web site
901 Eastern Avenue NE Grand Rapids, MI
49501-0294

About Haiti

  • Population: 10,157,000
  • People Groups: 9
  • Unreached Groups:
    1 (11%)
  • Primary Language: French
  • Primary Religion: Christianity
  • Evangelical: 22.2%
More News About Haiti
Info About Haiti
Data from the Joshua Project

Inflation rising, but PAPs can adopt kids with just Rs 3K salary

Inflation rising, but PAPs can adopt kids with just Rs 3K salary

RAJKOT: High rate of inflation is a matter of worry for officials of Kathiyawar Nirashrit Balashram, one of the most renowned orphanages for adoption in the state.

They have written to Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), an autonomous body under ministry of social justice and empowerment, Government of India, suggesting increase in the current monthly income for prospective adoptive parents (PAP) from Rs 3,000 to Rs 7,500 per month in view of the rising inflation.

According to CT Parikh, retired district and sessions judge and chairman of the adoption committee of this orphanage, at present orphanages across the country follow the guidelines laid down by the government.

According to the guidelines, PAPs should have regular source of income with a minimum average monthly income of at least Rs 3,000 per month. However, lower income will be considered taking into account other assets and support system like own house etc. This is one of the criteria which must be fulfilled.

"Looking at the current price rise, income of PAPs should be higher as it is in the interest of the orphan. We have to think of best placement of orphans through adoption in the country. Sound financial and educational background with good repute in the society is a must for PAPs, who want to adopt children from orphanages. The simple logic is, how can a couple, which earns Rs 3,000 per month, provide good education and medical attention to the child in these time?" asks Parikh.

During the last 20 years, 300 such children have been adopted from this orphanage. Of these, 125 have been adopted by foreign nationals.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/Inflation-rising-but-PAPs-can-adopt-kids-with-just-Rs-3K-salary-/articleshow/6220717.cms

Spain Orders Judge to Return Salary Over Gay Adoption Trial

World|Wed, Jul. 28 2010 09:53 AM EDT

Spain Orders Judge to Return Salary Over Gay Adoption Trial

By Ethan Cole|Christian Post Reporter

A judge in Spain has been suspended for ten years and ordered to return his salary of about $127,000 to the government because he delayed a decision to allow a lesbian to adopt her partner’s child.

Judge Fernando Ferrin Calamita has to return the salary he received during his suspension while awaiting the decision of the Spanish Supreme Court as well as pay the couple $7,661 and pay another fine of $919.

Calamita was found guilty of obstructing the adoption process when he denied the lesbian’s request to adopt the child while waiting for a report on the impact of same-sex families on children. He was initially suspended for two years from the practice, but the Supreme Court in December 2009 increased the suspension to 10 years.

“[T]he powerful Spanish homosexual lobby, with the consent or passivity of all the institutions, decided to punish Ferrin and make him an example,” commented the conservative Spain-based Professionals for Ethics, according to the Catholic News Agency.

“This process has had as its purpose the expulsion of Fernando from the bench, after a career as a just judge with an impeccable record.”

Calamita plans to appeal the Supreme Court decision, but under Spanish law he needs to repay his salary first. If he wins the appeal, the money will be returned to him.

Spanish activist group HazteOir, which is helping Calamita to raise funds for the salary repayment, said it has about $39,000, according to Lifesitenews.com.

Calamita, a married father of seven, was serving as a family court judge when the Supreme Court suspended him for ruling against the gay adoption.

Of Mama, Kamuzu’s ‘son’ identity saga: Molehill develops into mountain

Of Mama, Kamuzu’s ‘son’ identity saga: Molehill develops into mountain

Tuesday, 27 July 2010

By Nyasa Times

Das EfA-FAMILIENTREFFEN am 24. Juli 2010

Das EfA-FAMILIENTREFFEN am 24. Juli 2010
es war wie immer regnerisch, nicht sehr warm und dunkel bewölkt.
Aber dies war nur äußerlich so , mit den Herzen gesehen, da sah die Welt sehr sonnig, wohlig warm und strahlend aus. Dies empfanden auch unsere Gäste aus Äthiopien genau so. Mit von der Partie waren unsere Heimleiterin ALEM TSEHAY und die Leiterin des Orphanage TIKURET Mrs.ASEYECH
Im Klostergelände verteilten sich die nunmehr doch so zahlreichen und auch „kinderreichen“ Familien ganz gut. Ein Zählen war jedenfalls nicht möglich.
Es ist schön für die Kinder, „alte Bekannte“ zu treffen, und auch schön für die Mütter und Väter sich auszutauschen. Damit das Austauschen etwas einfacher und ohne größeren Kilometeraufwand geschehen kann, wurden die regionalen EfA-Ansprecheltern genannt. Dies ist eine Sache , die ja schon ohne besonderen organisatorische Aufwand in einigen Regionen ganz gut funktioniert und sollte mit diesen Nennungen weiter unterstützt werden.
Wir Efa-Leute freuen uns sehr über diese Initiative, auch weil wir sehr gerne daran den Wert und die Wichtigkeit unserer immer weiter wachsenden Gemeinschaft ablesen.
Vielen Dank an all die wetterfesten ELTERN FÜR AFRIKA die uns mit ihrem Erscheinen bereichert haben.
Und auch vielen Dank für die Unterstützung des Africachild-Village- Projektes in Kenya. Es sind insgesamt 1246 Euro zusammen gekommen! (nachzulesen auch bei www.africachild.de)
Bitte halten Sie mit uns Kontakt auch jenseits der Veranstaltungen, wir möchten immer für Sie da sein.
- DAS EfA-TEAM Augsburg
 

Hewer on the highway: Mongol Rally, day 21

Hewer on the highway: Mongol Rally, day 21
On the latest leg of the Mongol Rally, Nick Hewer, Sir Alan Sugar's sidekick on The Apprentice, visits the Romanian children's charity for which he is raising funds and learns about the country's harrowing history.

Link to this video
By Nick Hewer 4:15PM BST 23 Jul 2008 Comments


Nick Hewer is raising money for the charity Hopes and Homes for Children - see www.justgiving.com/nickhewer
Having arranged to meet Stefan Darabus, the country director of Hope and Homes for Children at the Baia Mare branch of McDonalds the following day, I cross into Romania and stay overnight in Satu Mare.

We are beginning to travel into a different, more exotic part of the world, but there is always a McDonalds nowadays, and increasingly it is the top place to rendezvous; I met Daniel at the Gorlitz McDonalds all that time ago. It always used to be the railway station. Why, with all the wonderful fresh food that Europe has to offer, we pour into these burger joints beats me. Kids like sweet meat, I’m told.

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Baia Mare means Big Mine in Romanian, and it was a European centre for lead, copper and gold mining, some say from Roman times. Mining has more or less disappeared now, but the city skyline is still dominated by a towering chimney, as high as the Eiffel Tower, they boast. When it was belching at full bore, at the time when Baia Mare was the third most polluted city in Europe, a dark cloud engulfed the area. There was a terrible price to pay in health terms; the pollution was so toxic, I was told, that women’s tights would simply melt away.

When the mines closed, unemployment soared and real poverty followed fast behind. This poverty, and Romania’s childcare policies, developed to a terrifying degree under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, prompted Hope and Homes for Children (HHC), a British charity dedicated to building a world where every child is loved in a family environment, to start operations.

Adi, the HHC secretary and IT manager meets me and we set off to the HHC office. Housed in a back street of this city, the Romanian headquarters of this British charity, started just 10 years ago, now employs thirty young and enthusiastic Romanians.

When Stefan Darabus, the energetic and clearly impassioned country director, joined HHC as a 23 year-old, there were 480 institutions in Romania, housing 80,000 children.

Explaining the background to Romania’s childcare policies, Stefan says:

“Under the communists, the child became the property of the state, and it became quite normal for families, struggling to survive economically, and with abortion outlawed, to pass their children over to the local government, which would promptly put them into an institution.

“So poverty, lack of local educational facilities, overcrowded housing and child disabilities became the main drivers to creating a massive problem in childcare. It was a problem that was hidden away and our prime objective at that time was to close down these terrible places in our province of Maramures”.

On the face of it, surely every government should care for its country’s needy children, but in Romania, that concept was terribly abused, the result being that perfectly normal children, often just babies, were tossed into these huge “child warehouses” and became hopelessly institutionalised in a very short time.

It should come as no surprise that a childcare system with no money to support it, no training to speak of and a staff ratio of one to 30 children, overlaid with a brutish government and an uncaring community, should be such a massive failure.

Stefan continues: “We wanted to shut down one particular institution and reunite the children with their biological or extended families – remember, these are not orphans, most of them have parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts and so on.

“Other options included national adoption, foster care or placing them with couples or building our own small family-like units with maybe ten or twelve children living together in a small community supervised by motivated and trained staff with a ratio of no more than one to four. Our over-riding concern was to do what is best for the child with the belief that every child has the right to grow up in a family or in an environment as close as possible to the family environment.

“Our absolute determination to change our country’s childcare system was renewed and strengthened every time we saw a young child, institutionalised almost from birth, come into the outside world for the first time.

“I remember seeing a young girl cry with pleasure as she washed her hands in warm water for the first time or the young boy cry with fear as he felt the wind on his face for the first time. It was all ‘first times’ – the first time to see grass, to see an animal, to see the sun go down.

“But don’t think that when an institution is closed down, the children come running into the sunshine as normal children. The terrible damage is done, for example with the self harming little girl who had her ankles and hands tied together behind her head in her cot for year after year so that when they cut the rope, she was U-shaped and could not walk or sit, just rock on her back.

“The children that cannot talk, cannot walk, cannot relate, often cannot eat – for their whole universe in the institution was their cot and their bottle, and the bottle went on for years, maybe until they were nine years old.

Today, ten years after Stefan and his staff started work, the 450 institutions with 80,000 “inmates” has been reduced to 184, housing 17,000 children, mainly with disabilities or special needs. Hope and Homes for Children directly closed 14 institutions in Transylvania, but has been instrumental in the closure of all the others, through lobbying the Romanian government, helping to change radically entrenched attitudes in the old childcare regime.

As Stefan says, “The old guard knew nothing and cared less about the psychological needs of a child; they just cared about putting a roof over their head, feeding them after a fashion, and keeping them quiet. They treated the children like merchandise, to be stored.

“It’s not easy to tell the staff of a large institution that you are going to close them down; that they’ll be out of a job.

"Diplomacy and persuasion are key weapons in our armoury.”

Nowadays, while bureaucracy and time-serving management still are a big problem, HHC is working hand in hand with the government and Stefan plans to halve the number of institutions still operating by 2013.

I spend the rest of the day with Otto Sestak, HHC’s training manager and Gabriela Rosus, a leader/translator, visiting some local projects. In Signet we enter what used to be a baby institution, housing 120 children, since reunited with families or fostered.

Now it has three new functions: a mother and baby unit designed to help mothers with children who are abused at home, or do not have a home or have been thrown out of their home; an emergency reception area where young children in danger can be taken; and a day care centre.

The irony is that in the past, when both parents worked to support the family, there would be nobody to look after the children, so they would be packed away in an institution. Now, this “crèche” exists for 24 young local children and their parents.

Otto takes me next to a HHC “family home”, a house bought with money donated by an English family, where 13 children are supervised by a staff of three motherly women. It is wonderful to hear that three sets of siblings have been reunited here. The remarkable thing to learn is that they did not know they had brothers and sisters beforehand.

But the damage that has been done to these children is clear to see. One little boy aged around nine (they are all so small as a result of poor diet and no exercise) has never spoken. Generally speaking, they are all quiet, but they are smiling now and when I show them how to make a perfect circle with a forefinger and pencil, they set to it with a will. Otto tells me they are making progress but there is no permanent solution and they will stay here until they have finished school.

We now go to an HHC home for moderately to severely disabled children, 12 in all, located in a house in a smart residential street. These children, from maybe five to fifteen, have really no discernable abilities; they were always disabled, but being institutionalised has exacerbated their condition. Now they are part of a small and homely community and the strides made by some are remarkable.

One little nine-year-old boy, who could not walk at all two years ago, is able to do so today with a little walking frame. They had to teach him to eat for he had never chewed food until he came to this HHC home. It was always just mush in a bucket. He still relentlessly chews his hand, for stimulation I am told.

Our final destination is an institution, still run by the government, for typical school-aged children. The 84 boys and girls are here through poverty and differing family circumstances. Otto wants it closed in 12 to 24 months and to have the children reunited with their families, or rehoused in one of HHC’s small family units. It’s easy to see why.

Without a vestige of warmth or sense of community, the mainly teenage children hang around on the bare stairs, or lounge on their beds. There is a yard of broken concrete and the sense of fear among the neighbours is understandable. Pimps still gather in groups at the corner of the street, hoping to lure another girl away to the bright lights and locked doors of Berlin, the Costa del Sol or maybe Cardiff.

I thank Otto and return to bid farewell to Stefan.

He shows me to Hortense, I start the engine. It’s been an intense two days.

Thanks for coming, he says. “The children around us need us to believe in them and to be there for them. Because we believe in miracles and transformations, we will continue to offer them the attention and affection they need, with the help of those who support our charity in England.”

You can find Nick Hewer's donation page for Hopes and Homes for Children at www.justgiving.com/nickhewer

Congo e adozione internazionale: alla ricerca di una regolamentazione

Congo e adozione internazionale: alla ricerca di una regolamentazione

Bambini africaniUn segnale positivo per l’infanzia abbandonata nella Repubblica Democratica del Congo, dopo le numerose difficoltà riscontrata nel Paese nella gestione delle pratiche adottive.

E’ in corso in queste ore a Kinshasa la prima Tavola rotonda per le adozioni internazionali promossa dal Ministero della Famiglia in collaborazione con Ai.Bi. Un incontro fondamentale che è stato organizzato con un obiettivo specifico: dare una regolamentazione al sistema delle adozioni internazionali in un Paese in cui, secondo le stime di Unicef, sarebbero 4,5 milioni i bambini senza famiglia.

L’incontro mira, per la prima volta nella storia del Paese africano, a mettere insieme i rappresentanti dei Ministeri congolesi competenti in materia di adozioni (Ministero di Giustizia, Ministero Affari Sociali, Ministero per l’Infanzia, Ministero degli Interni, Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Ministero della Salute), i referenti delle Organizzazioni Non Governative che promuovono l’adozione internazionale e quelli delle associazioni locali di tutela dell’infanzia. Positiva la partecipazione dei rappresentanti degli Enti autorizzati italiani Ai.Bi e NOVA.

La tavola rotonda, che si è aperta martedì 20 luglio al Centro studi CERP di Kinshasa, intende gettare la basi per avere un quadro normativo completo e definito per la regolamentazione delle adozioni internazionali. Ad oggi infatti il Paese presenta un quadro normativo lacunoso per quanto riguarda la protezione dell’infanzia abbandonata e la disciplina delle adozioni internazionali. Il governo congolese inoltre non ha firmato la Convenzione de L’Aja del 1993, principale strumento di diritto internazionale per la tutela dei diritti dei minori adottabili e delle aspiranti famiglie adottive.

Gli enti autorizzati che operano nel Paese hanno sempre lavorato per garantire trasparenza e certezza delle condizioni di abbandono dei minori e un attento controllo delle procedure adottive; tuttavia finora è mancata una procedura formalmente riconosciuta dalle istituzioni locali e condivisa tra tutti gli attori coinvolti nelle adozioni internazionali.

Da qui l’importanza della tavola rotonda promossa a Kinshasa: promuovere un quadro normativo omogeneo e coerente per l’adozione internazionale. A chiusura dei lavori sarà elaborato un documento contenente una proposta di regolamentazione delle adozioni che sarà poi sottoposto all’Assemblea nazionale congolese.

“Ogni giorno che un bambino vive fuori dalla famiglia é un giorno di diritto violato”: questo lo spirito che ha animato i rappresentanti della Tavola Rotonda nei tre giorni di lavoro.

Adoption fees at private agencies hiked for first time in decade

Adoption fees at private agencies hiked for first time in decade

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MANITOBANS looking to adopt a child through a private agency will see their fees rise by more than 50 per cent.

On Wednesday, Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh approved the first increase in private adoption fees in more than a decade.

Fees for private adoptions within Manitoba will be allowed to rise to $8,500 from $5,500. Agency fees for international adoptions will soar to $8,800 from $5,800.

There are three private, not-for-profit adoption agencies in Manitoba. Adoption Options Manitoba assists with private adoptions of Manitoba kids, while Canadian Advocates for the Adoption of Children (CAFAC) and UAS Eastern European Adoption facilitate international adoptions. The three agencies have arranged a total of 488 adoptions since 1999.

Mackintosh said the higher fees will not apply to families who are already in the process of adopting a child.

Manitoba will still have the lowest fees in the country, he said. Private adoption fees in other provinces range from $10,000 in Alberta to $14,000 in Ontario.

Officials with CAFAC and Adoptions Options said Wednesday they need to increase their fees to survive.

Patti Sutherland, a board member Friends of Adoption Manitoba, which provides resources for people who are thinking about adopting or have already adopted, said the fee hike may look large on paper, but it is well justified considering the work involved.

"It was becoming formidable for private agencies to survive," Sutherland said. "So if the question they face is 'Do we close our doors or do we increase our fees?' we definitely support the increase."

Sutherland said families usually pay their fees over time throughout the adoption process, and that there are subsidies available for lower-income families.

The province says there have been 48 private adoptions in Manitoba over the past two years and 64 involving Child and Family Services.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

 

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 22, 2010 B3

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/adoption-fees-at-private-agencies-hiked-for-first-time-in-decade-98998559.html

 

Colombian visitors get teary adios

Colombian visitors get teary adios

News Staff Reporter

Published:July 22 2010, 08:11 AM

Updated: July 26, 2010, 2:34 PM

Love knows no language barriers -- or borders.

That was all too plain to see at Buffalo Niagara International Airport as tears streamed down the faces of members of two American families and the five children they hope to adopt, who were returning to their native Colombia.

The orphans, between the ages 8 and 14, have lived with the Buffalo-area families for the last three weeks on a trial basis. The stay is considered a key step on a six-to-10-month path leading to their adoption.

"It's the start of their having a family forever," said Elena Martinez, director of the FANA orphanage in Bogota, before boarding the plane with the children for the 2,650-mile flight to Colombia, where they will return to foster families.

The orphanage specializes in finding homes for older children without parents, said Judith O'Mara, director of adoptions and foster care for Baker Victory Services. The Lackawanna agency works with the orphanage to place children in Western New York.

Baker Victory Services also makes available picture dictionaries and computer-generated translation programs to help families and children who don't share the same language communicate and provides translators.

For Oscar, 14, Silvia, 10, and Cristian, 8, coming to Western New York meant living with a Pendleton family who wants them and can give them a stable life.

"We stressed to them from the beginning that we are adopting you, not might adopt you," said Paul Donahue, who welcomed the children, as did his wife, Clare, and their three children, Emily, 19, Matthew, 17, and Eileen, 15.

The Colombian children said they had two wishes -- to go swimming and ride a roller coaster.

"We taught them how to swim, and they were doing cannonballs in the deep end," Clare Donahue said.

The kids also rode the Silver Comet 21 times in a row at Martin's Fantasy Island on Grand Island, with Paul Donahue in tow every time.

The children had another first-time thrill -- riding in a car. "They fight over who gets to sit in the window seat, because the window goes up and it goes down, it goes up and it goes down," Clare Donahue said, chuckling.

A certain amount of creativity was used to foster communication, Clare Donahue said. With daughter Eileen, who has passed the Spanish Regents exam, interpreting, the family pantomimed a lot, she said.

The family turned to Colombia to adopt a child after efforts to do so in Mexico failed.

Clare Donahue said the time spent with the Colombian children was "fantastic" and added that she can't wait for them to return and officially become part of the family.

Patrick and Natalie Bubb of Williamsville, with their children Francesca, 12, and Dominic, 11, said they hope to be able to go to Colombia in late summer or early fall to bring back their adopted children, Isabel, 10, and David, 9.

Unable to have more children, they turned to adoption, seeking children closer to their own kids' ages. They considered adopting children from the United States but didn't want to do an open adoption, in which the birth parents are involved before and after the adoption.

The faster track for adopting older children appealed to them. Also, Natalie Bubb is a Spanish teacher.

Patrick Bubb declared the three-week visit "awesome," even with some squabbles that developed as the weeks went on, like the sibling rivalry that surfaced when Francesca shared her bedroom and clothes with Isabel.

The Colombian children were fascinated by the variety of food available in the United States and anxious to try new things besides their usual diet of beans, rice and pork, the Bubbs said.

"They like chicken wings and pizza," Paul Bubb said. "They also think Americans eat a lot of food."

An excited David had his first visit to a zoo, taking pictures of the animals to take back with him.

The Colombian children, including two others who stayed with another Buffalo-area family, didn't know each other before but bonded through FANA and during their visit here, the Bubbs said.

And they bonded with their new families.

"We're going to miss them. I just hope between the American and Colombian governments that the paperwork will go through as quickly as possible," Paul Bubb said.