Bartholet to testify before Inter-American Commission on Human Rights regarding international adoption policies

Professor Elizabeth Bartholet

November 05, 2009

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Bartholet ’65 will testify before the Inter-American Commission on Human rights on November 6 regarding the “Human Rights of Unparented Children and International Adoption Policies” in the Americas. The hearing comes after a request made by the HLS Child Advocacy Program (CAP) and the Center for Adoption Policy.

International adoption is the subject of a heated debate among those in the human rights field, and the hearing comes in the wake of policies that have virtually shut down international adoption in Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru.

“Much of the world…focuses on the bad things that happen when kids get placed in international adoption,” said Bartholet, faculty director of CAP. “When you shut down international adoptions in order to address bad things which occasionally happen, what you do is commit monumental human rights violations. We hope to change the debate.”

The hearing represents a major development in the human rights debate surrounding these issues, as the Commission will address human rights violations that to-date have been largely ignored, says Bartholet.

In her testimony, Bartholet argues that restrictions on ethical international adoption violate children’s basic human rights by condemning them to damaging institutions or to the streets. She adds that every child has a right to be placed in a nurturing permanent home, whether that home is in the country of birth or abroad. Adoption abuses should, Bartholet says, be addressed through enforcement and strengthening of laws prohibiting such abuses, not through closing down international adoption and thus denying homes to children.

Bartholet will testify alongside a delegation including: Paulo Barrozo S.J.D. ’09, assistant professor of law at Boston College Law School; and Karen Bos and Charles Nelson, child development experts affiliated with Children’s Hospital in Boston, the Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The delegation will urge the Commission to initiate an investigation to examine what effect closing international adoption opportunities in Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru has had on unparented children.

A recording of the testimony will be available after the hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

HANCI Refutes Allegations of Child Trafficking

Jeudi 5 novembre 2009

Communauté : Evénements actuels

Aide aux enfants du Congo

A tous les Congolaises,

A tous les Congolais,

 Wednesday, 4 November 2009

S Leone fury at 'forced adoption'
 
Thousands of children were forced to flee during the civil war
A group of parents in Sierra Leone has accused a charity of sending more than 30 children abroad for adoption without consent during the country's civil war.
The parents say they have no idea what happened to their children after they were handed over to Help a Needy Child International (Hanci).
But the charity says it has documents signed by the parents giving permission for overseas adoption.
Sierra Leone was devastated by a decade of civil war, which ended in 2002.
Children were frequently abducted and forced to fight in the brutal conflict.
'Convoluted issue'
The BBC's Umaru Fofana, in the capital Freetown, says the parents have been lobbying the government for years to find out what happened to their children.
He says they have become frustrated with what they see as a lack of action from ministers, so have taken their campaign to the media.
 So many years have elapsed so I have to take my time to look at it very carefully

Soccoh Kabbia
Minister of children's affairs
One parent told our correspondent how she agreed to let Hanci care for and educate her children at a local centre to save them from the war.
"We regularly visited our children at the centre until some time in 1998 when we stopped seeing them," she said.
"We went to Freetown to find out what had happened, and we were told they had sent our children overseas and they would be visiting us every five years.
"We want the government to intervene and let us have our children back."
The parents of more than 30 children make similar allegations.
But Hanci director Roland Kargbo denies the claims, saying the charity obtained written consent from the parents whose children were sent overseas.
"There were two agreements - one for children to be cared for and reintegrated into the community locally, and another for parents who wanted their children to be adopted," he told the BBC.
"The parents know that, we have documents to support that."
Minister of Children's Affairs Soccoh Kabbia says the government is still investigating the issue.
"It is a convoluted story because so many years have elapsed so I have to take my time to look at it very carefully," he said.
The children are believed to have been adopted by American families.

Jane Aronson: The Guardian Angel
 
She is a Woman of the Year because: “She has a heart the size of Texas and a drive like Tiger Woods, and she has made a huge difference to countless children and their families.” —Hugh Jackman, actor and longtime supporter of Worldwide Orphans Foundation
November 3, 2009
by Susan Dominus

Photographed by Brigitte Lacombe in Maplewood, New Jersey, surrounded by kids from families she has advised and supported through the adoption process; her sons, Ben and Des, are directly behind her.
More about Women of the Year 2009
Women of the Year 2009 [main]

The 2009 Woman of Your Year
Women of the Year Fund [main]
Michelle Obama: Your First Lady (Special Recognition)
VIDEO: Most Memorable Moments from the 2009 Glamour Women of the Year Awards
“What got to me most was the smell,” says pediatrician Jane Aronson of her years touring overseas orphanages in the nineties, “that terrible odor of filth and illness and neglect.” Once home, she couldn’t shake the sights she’d seen: famished, sore-covered babies in Romania; glassy-eyed AIDS-doomed kids in Vietnam. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” says Aronson. “There was no way I was going to continue practicing medicine without helping the kids left behind.” Her solution: Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO), which she started in 1997. Within a few years WWO was providing AIDS drugs for HIV positive children in Ethiopia and Vietnam—one of the first organizations of any type to do that; launching the “orphan rangers,” essentially a Peace Corps through which volunteers work in orphanages; and building a school in Ethiopia. Today Aronson is credited with bringing the plight of orphans and the importance of adoption to the world’s attention. “She shone a spotlight on what we should be doing,” says adoption expert Adam Pertman, head of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. “A lot of people give lip service to wanting to make the world better for children. She actually does it.”
As an advocate, Aronson has improved the lives of 20,000 kids; as a doctor, she saves them one at a time. From her small Manhattan office, wallpapered with photos of smiling children, the jeans-clad pediatrician works with adopting parents—including celebs like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt—giving them the medical and emotional support they need to ensure that their new family can work. “Dr. Aronson gave us courage,” says Meg D’Ariano, who adopted a now perfectly healthy girl from China after being told the baby had insurmountable health problems. “She said, ‘Go get her.’” A parent to two adopted children, Aronson is determined to show the world’s orphans that she will always look out for them. She notes that she’s learned to say “see you soon” to the kids in six languages. “I never say goodbye.”

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2009

SERVICE PROJECT FOR LUCKY HILL ORPHANAGE AND THE PRIMARY, GHANA AFRICA

So, we have another GREAT

SERVICE PROJECT OPPORTUNITY!!!!!

Remember Lucky Hill Orphanage, where William was living when we sent him his care package? Well, the man who started that orphanage is the Bishop of the LDS church ward there (Mormon). Their primary has almost NOTHING by way of materials...no Scriptures, no pictures, no song books, NOTHING! This is the primary the orphans of Lucky Hill attend! (Primary is the axillary in the church organized for children to learn the gospel through lessons, music and activity. The children attend primary on Sunday's, going to a one hour of class time and one hour of a group time, where they sing religious music and have a lesson).

¶7. ADOPTION FRAUD: Post has not received any adoption cases since

Togo resumed national and international adoptions last December.

However, Post was asked to verify an adoption decree for Cotonou,

which was confirmed to be fraudulent. Post has also seen fake

adoption decrees submitted in support of IR2 petitions. It appears

Liban

Le trafic d’enfants au Liban, un sujet encore bien tabou
    Par Anne-Marie El-HAGE | 05/11/2009

« La gravité du problème réside dans le manque d’informations », estime Carla Lewis de World Vision.
Société Le trafic d'enfants existe-t-il au Liban ? Si oui, quelles en sont les représentations et quelle en est l'ampleur ? Difficile de le dire en l'absence d'études et de données statistiques.

Sur le même sujet
World Vision sensibilise les enfants