BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Sixteen people, including a former UNICEF official, were convicted Monday of participating in a child sex ring that used a lab in the cellar of a UNICEF office to develop pictures of children in obscene acts.

Jozef Verbeeck, 63, former director of the Brussels office of the U.N. Children's Fund, was sentenced by a Belgian district court to two years in prison for his part in the scandal.

The ring used an organization called CRIES, a French acronym for 'Study and Research Center on Children and Sexuality,' as a cover for its operations.

Verbeeck was charged with knowledge of the group's activities, coordinated by Michel Felu, a UNICEF employee who installed a photo lab in the cellar of the UNICEF office to develop pictures of children engaged in obscene acts.

Felu was sentenced to eight years in prison. Other ring members, ranging in age between 30 and 64, received prison sentences of four to 10 years.

A mother is speaking out after she says her 12-year-old daughter was denied a place on the heart transplant list at Cincinnati Children's Hospital because of her vaccination status.

Brayton and Jeneen Deal, who adopted Adaline from China, said she was born with two heart conditions that will now require a transplant.

When the Deals were in the process of adopting Adaline, the adoption agency told them to pick another child because "her heart was so bad, she wasn't going to make it," they wrote in a GoFundMe campaign.

"We continued to support Adaline so she could stay in a foster home, but shortly after we arrived home with our other adopted child, the agency stopped taking the funds out of our account," they wrote.

"So, we thought she had passed away."

Broadcaster KRO-NCRV is 'happy to talk' to a woman who was linked to the wrong family in the program Spoorloos . The broadcaster announced this in response to an article in the Volkskrant , in which the woman told her story on Wednesday. Her real family has already passed away.

The woman, Marthainès de Vries, was linked by Spoorloos to a family that turned out not to be her real family more than twenty years later. De Vries later found her real family herself, but her father and mother had already passed away. "I am so sad, and so angry with Spoorloos . If the editors had done their job properly, I could have spent another nine years with my real mother and eleven years with my father. Now they are dead. I will never get that time back," De Vries told the newspaper . De Volkskrant also writes that De Vries has started a crowdfunding campaign to finance a possible lawsuit.

KRO-NCRV states in a written response that it finds it 'very sad and regrettable' that an incorrect match has been established. "We have been in discussions with Mrs. De Vries for months about her doubts and have immediately offered her to conduct further DNA research, which she has not wanted to use." KRO-NCRV writes that it is happy for her that she has found her own biological family in Colombia.

"We realise that she still has many questions and so do we. Mrs De Vries has informed us that she will contact us further. We would like to talk to her personally. We believe that this constructive approach does more justice to the situation, in which there is a lot of personal suffering." The broadcaster believes that it is 'not the right route' to discuss it via the media.

The Kerala High Court ruled that prospective adoptive parents must be given child study report and medical examination report to review when they are referred the profiles of children for possible adoption.Justice C.S. Dias referred to Section 59 (6) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015 and Adoption Regulations of 2022 to state that child study report and...

Kochi: The procedure for adopting a child must be approached with empathy, humane consideration and a holistic perspective that resonates with the anxiety of an adoptive couple, rather than adhering strictly to procedural rigidity and pedantic interpretations, the HC has stated.

"Matters involving children cannot be confined to the four corners of legal technicalities; they demand a compassionate and progressive approach that prioritizes the child's best interest," added the bench led by Justice C S Dias. The bench made these remarks in response to a petition filed by a couple challenging the decision of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to bar them from adopting a child for one year. The bench set aside this decision and directed the Authority to give the petitioners another opportunity to adopt a child as per the law, within a month.

The petitioners, who had previously adopted a five-year-old boy, approached CARA in 2021 to adopt a girl child. They registered on the designated portal, ‘Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System' (CARINGS), and after a four-year wait, were provided the details of a girl child for adoption on Nov 11, 2024. They were required to reserve the child within 48 hours. However, the necessary study and medical reports, which are mandated by law, were not attached to the child's details. The petitioners contacted the authorities, and the reports were provided a day later. By the time they attempted to reserve the child, the details had been removed from their dashboard due to the lapse of the 48-hour window. As a result, they were debarred for a year, which led them to approach the high court.

The court noted that the decision to debar the couple, due to the absence of the mandated reports, was arbitrary. It emphasized that the case was not a commercial dispute requiring strict adherence to timelines but rather involved an adoptive couple's deep and enduring desire for a child, which had caused them significant anguish for the past four years.

Maxance was placed at birth to escape abusive parents. He is now 18 years old, is a brilliant student and today tells us about his extraordinary journey.

CHANDRAPUR: Born with a disability, the child was abandoned — without a name, a family, or a future. This little soul was deemed unworthy by those who gave birth to it. But fate had other plans. Across the seas, in a distant land, a Swedish couple longing for a child saw not the child's limitations but the boundless love they could offer.

In a rare and heart-warming act of compassion, Rickard Tobias Hedberg and Maria Elisabeth Victoria Eriksson, a childless couple from Sweden, stepped forward to adopt the child complying with all legal formalities to ensure a life filled with care and dignity.

District women and child development officer Deepak Banait, informed that children who are orphaned, abandoned, or surrendered receive protection through the District Child Protection Unit and the Child Helpline 1098.

CHANDRAPUR: Born with a disability, the child was abandoned — without a name, a family, or a future. This little soul was deemed unworthy by those who gave birth to it. But fate had other plans. Across the seas, in a distant land, a Swedish couple longing for a child saw not the child's limitations but the boundless love they could offer.

In a rare and heart-warming act of compassion, Rickard Tobias Hedberg and Maria Elisabeth Victoria Eriksson, a childless couple from Sweden, stepped forward to adopt the child complying with all legal formalities to ensure a life filled with care and dignity.

District women and child development officer Deepak Banait, informed that children who are orphaned, abandoned, or surrendered receive protection through the District Child Protection Unit and the Child Helpline 1098.

Institutions like the Kilbil Adoption Centre, where the child was fostered, play a crucial role in their care, ensuring they are nurtured in a safe environment until they find permanent families. The Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Chandrapur, legally frees such children for adoption, allowing prospective parents to register on the CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority) portal at cara.wcd.gov.in.

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Arun Dohle

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2021 at 15:23

Subject: Re: Adoption Conference / Conférence sur l'adoption : Today's headlines in Romania - FYI

To: ,

Dear Sir/Madam, 

In 2013 I handed in a FOIA request. I had requested to communicate by mail, since I live in Brussels/Europe. 
I did not hear anything back. 

Now this FOIA overview was send to me by someone who found my name on it. 
It states 'other reasons', and it is not clear to me what that means. 

Could you please clarify? 

Thank you in advance, 

Roelie Post