ASSOCIATION OF ACCREDITED ADOPTION ORGANISATIONS

Final programme – “Open Days” - 22. – 23. April 2010

“GOOD PRACTICE IN INTER-COUNTRY ADOPTIONS”

English will be the only working language.

Thursday 22nd April: Open Day (half day)

Adoption agencies: the shift from evaluators to partners in adoption

Lana Douglas

By Lana Douglas

'US couple didn't tend to adopted kid' Mayura Janwalkar / DNA, DNASaturday, February 6, 2010 0:24 IST Mumbai: Five years after the Bombay high court granted the guardianship of two abandoned minors to a US couple, it revoked its order in case of the older child observing that the couple had failed to fulfill their responsibility towards the child. Mita (name changed), now 14, was found abandoned at the Grant Road station along with her younger sister. As the children had no claimants, they were both declared free for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee. Subsequently, they were adopted by Wilbur and Jennifer Baker from Massachusetts, USA, with the high court’s sanction in April 2006. However, the court was informed that the couple had to send the child to a psychiatric care institution in the US, as she faced adjustment disorder, attention deficit, depressive condition and hyperactivity. The court was told when the couple refused to take her back home from the hospital, the American adoption agency Wide Horizons for Children (WHC) tried to place the child with another family but she was subsequently repatriated to India. Justice DY Chandrachud observed, “The Bakers have failed to perform their duties as a result of which Mita was repatriated.” The court then revoked the order of guardianship granted in their favour citing the abuse of the trust reposed in them. Mita had been lodged at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore since August 2008 after her repatriation. The court has now handed over her guardianship, protem to the director of the Family Service Centre and permitted them to shift her to Aarushi, a care centre in Gurgaon. The court also directed Jagannath Pati of the Central Adoption Regulatory Authority to take into account the suggestions put forth by the federation of adoption agencies and finalise the guidelines for foreign adoptions by March 26. The draft guidelines had suggested the generation of a safety fund for repatriated children from failed foreign adoptions. The court has sought progress reports of Mita’s sister also adopted by the bakers and bi-annual progress reports of Mita from her guardians.

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Children or commodities? 17 Mar 2010, 1840 hrs IST 18 year old Anisha Mortel lives all alone in Germany. Abandoned by her foster parents after they separated, Anisha came to India in search of her biological mother who claims her daughter was sold off by a children's home who had stolen her. TIMES NOW investigates the reasons why children like Anisha Mortel are forever searching answers to who really is responsible for what they are. Anisha was born in 1992 and was entrusted to 'Tender Loving Care Home'. All that Fathima wanted for her daughter was a better life. She says a children's home promised her exactly that. Fathima did not see her child for the next 28 years. Fathima, Anisha's biological mother, said, "I went back to ask for my kid. She said don't ask for the child. You gave her off to us. I protested. But she said give money for taking care of the child. I didn't have any. She sold off the kid for 6 lakh." Fatima had handed over her baby to Sister Teresa who counters the claim. Sister Teresa said, "What money is Anisha's mother talking about, she wanted to sell the child. She threw the child here. The baby was sick. I was taking care of her." Tender Loving Care Home is under the scanner in adoption racket. There are no papers to prove either party wrong or right but what has put the scanner on Sister Teresa's home is that in 2005 TLC Home was found guilty and the home's license cancelled. Fathima could not find her daughter at the orphanage because the child was not even in the country. Her daughter was given up for adoption and taken in by a couple in Germany. Fathima's daughter lived with her foster parents unaware of her mother's struggle in India. Anisha said, "I believe that adopted children are always somehow connected to their country. No matter what happened, no matter how old you were, you always feel it's a part of you and you can't cut it out." In January 2010 Anisha Moertel returned to India, met the woman who gave her birth. Anisha said, "In Germany I have no home since I left my parent's house. I have no place to breath out. It's so good to find my mother in India." This reunion might have happened but questions are being raised about the 26 lives that are still at the home run by Sister Teresa. Children at the home voice their concern: 1. I want to go to Spain. My Mummy calls on Saturday. Q: Where does she live? Where does she call you from? A: From Spain. Q: Do you want to meet her? A: Yes, I want to meet her. I want to go there because Mummy, daddy are there. 2. child at the home - "If I go to Germany, I will be happy. They will care for me." What is confounding is that despite a high court order allowing the home to hold in-country adoptions, Sister Teresa refussees to give these children to prospective Indian parents. Sister Teresa speaking on children being given for adoption to Indian families said, "Why should they go to Indian families? Many Indian families only make them work as maids." Over 600 children are sold to foreigners every year, not always to happier homes. For these young lives it is a constant search for answers and who really is responsible for what they are - too young to know how papers exchanged and changed their destinies - too young to matter as votebanks and too young for anyone to care enough to change their lives.

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'My children were sold for 50 dollars' 19 Mar 2010, 1232 hrs IST Over the last few days TIMES NOW has been bringing you a series of investigative reports on the rampant 'sale' of poor Indian children to foreign couples. For the Rollings of Australia, it was a shocker when they discovered eight years after they adopted 2 Indian children that they had been 'sold' by their father without their biological mother's consent. What followed was a fight for justice in which the courageous adoptive parents wrote to Indian authorities to take action against those guilty, and chose to reunite their Indian children with their birth mother and her family. The first time Julia Rollings met her two youngest adopted children, Akhil and Sabila, were when they were in the care of the Madras Social Service Guild Orphanage. "We heard of Malaysian Social Services agency because it was an agency in India that was approved by the Indian government and I knew that there were families in New South Wales that had adopted children from there," she recalls. In mid-1997 MASOS told the Rollings that a three-year-old boy and his two-year-old sister were put up for adoption five months earlier, in October 1996, as their 'terminally ill parents' were unable to take care of them. They said the children were born in Vaniyambadi, a 4-hour drive from Chennai, and that they were brought to the agency for adoption by an agent, who was approached by the children's parents, Sunama and Imam'. In August 1998, after the paperwork and formalities, Julia finally flew home with Akhil and Sabila. The children were given a new lease of life, but the fairy tale did not last long. Eight years later the couple was stunned to read an internet article saying a member of the staff of Madras Social Service Guild Orphanage had been arrested on charges of kidnapping. "Early 2006 we heard that the director of the children's orphanage of MASOS had been arrested in an unrelated case. Because this was the second case that we had heard of involving MASOS we were very concerned and realised we had to look into our own children's history," she says. The Rollings finally tracked down Akhil and Sabila's mother Sunama, and she confirmed their worst fears. "'They (neighbours) were the ones who first told us the children were sold by their father for 50 Australian dollars to a stranger on the streets of Chennai, while their mother slept," recounts Rolling. The children were sold to a child trafficker who then through various means arranged for them to be adopted through what was thought to be a legitimate agency (MASOS). Both the adoption agency and the orphanage in Chennai had their inter-country adoption licenses suspended in 1999 after the revelations that they were implicated in child trafficking, but were later re-licensed. MASOS had not processed any adoptions after year 2000. The Rollings know that they were misled by the adoption agency, and gravely. The consent forms carry the signature of the children's biological mother - however Sunama insists her signature was forged as at the time she did not know how to read and write. The document also claims Sunama was unwell and had relinquished all her rights to Akhil and Sabila, stating falsely that the natural mother was 26 years old. However, in reality Sunama was only 19 when her children were stolen from her. Though the truth was bitter, the Rollings want to bring it out in the open. "Somewhere along the way somebody has to be held accountable for investigating this and putting a stop to it, and that surely must rest with CARA (Central Adoption Resources Agency) and the Indian government," says Barry Rollings. Since learning the true plight of her two children, Julia Rollings has ensured they have contact with their natural mother and she says she feels a moral responsibility to assist the birth family. The Rollings have regular contact with them with the assistance of a trusted friend in India. “I am delighted that my son and daughter have coped incredibly well with the grief and distress of their difficult situation, and they are both unequivocal in their support of our decision to uncover their history,” Julia has written in an adoption resources website. The Rollings have ensured that their children now visit Chennai and spend time with Sunama whenever they get to travel abroad. They say they are committed to continue regular contact and frequent visits with this family they now consider part of our own. Meanwhile the couple continues to call for a CBI investigation into their son and daughter's story. The case is still pending with the Madras High Court and the family's fight for justice continues. Though the orphanage's name has come up in several adoption scams, sadly no action has ever been taken against it. When TIMES NOW tracked down MASOS's owner Velandi Thangavel, he claimed that Sunama had come with her husband to the home to entrust their babies to their care. "We gave away the children for adoption only after the waiting period according to Government rules. The mother must claim the baby within three months. Sunama is trying to save her face by saying that her husband gave her children without her consent. If she was a real mother why did she wait for so many years?" he defended. Since their case surfaced there have been several other cases where it is alleged that other children in India were kidnapped and then adopted by unsuspecting Australian families, leading the Australian government to put a freeze on adoptions through agencies where there is doubt. Australia is a signatory to the Hague Convention aimed at ending abduction, sale and trafficking of children. India became a signatory in 2003 after the alleged abductions occurred. Akhil and Sabila's story may have had a happy ending, but the men responsible for tragic separation of these children from their mother are still walking free and unrepentant.

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'Adopted' woman fights for identity 18 Mar 2010, 0845 hrs IST For over two years now, Jennifer Haynes has been languishing in Mumbai away from her family in the USA. In her 24 years, Jennifer has seen far more of the cruel world than her peers. Entrusted to a children's home at a tender age to get an education, she was instead given up for adoption to an American couple when she turned 8. "There are so many things that happen and nobody knows. The outside is good but the inside is terrible," says Jennifer. Jennifer's journey, spanning over fifty foster homes, practically destroyed what was left of her childhood. "I remember bits and pieces. Like him (first foster father) giving me too much affection. But the abuse really started with the second home. The abuse was directed towards not only me but other children as well," she recounts. Years later, as a married woman with children, she was deported from the US because the adoption agency - 'Americans for International Aid & Adoption' - never bothered to get her paperwork right and now refuses to take the blame. Clarice D'Souza, a trustee of the now defunct Kuanyin Charitable Trust from where Haynes was adopted, has stated that many children are adopted by US nationals and they settle and adapt well. She refuse to talk to TIMES NOW, only denying the allegation saying Jennifer's trials and subsequent deportation has nothing to do with her adoption papers which were "complete". Jennifer meanwhile, only says the agency knows but doesn't care. "And that is wrong because then that child has to suffer through the whole process," she says. Despite her exile from her family and children, Jennifer hasn't given up hope, or the fight. After a year long search in India, she managed to locate and contact her brother Christopher in January this year. Christopher, 24, lives in Ambernath. But in the reunion there was no drama, no emotion. "I felt nothing. Nothing hurts anymore. I only think of my kids", Haynes said. Chris knows that, though he has just discovered Jennifer after so many years, he has to let her go again. "Any brother in my place who cares about his sister, would tell her, go back to your husband and kids," he says. But Jennifer knows it's all in the Indian government's hands now and it takes time. Something of her frustration was conveyed when she spoke on Newshour on Wednesday (March 17). "I got sent from home to home, no family and no love I was abused by all the families. Then I finally got the love, I got married, and had two children. And now I am taken away from them. Everyday I am without my children, everyday I struggle, and I sit at home with no documents, no nothing to get away. And it hurts. I blame everybody, I blame the whole system of India, for accepting me back.," she said. Jennifer is only one victim of hundreds who suffer due to the lack of adequate laws on inter-country adoption in this country. India also needs better implementation of existing laws. Meanwhile the number of reported cases of adoption of Indian children by foreign nationals has been steadily increasing. In 2001 there were 573 cases while shot up to 984 in 2007. Children are voiceless, vulnerable, and they are not votebanks. Perhaps that is why it seems so easy to rob these innocents of their childhood. Action assured TIMES NOW brought Jennifer's plight to light with the US government who has now assured to look into the case. After hearing of TIMES NOW's investigation, MoS for Child Welfare, Krishna Tirath, has promised strong action against adoption rackets such as the ones TIMES NOW has exposed. The minister has promised strong action against adoption rackets responsible for the fate of children like Jennifer Haynes. Krishna Tirath said the minsitry will take action if something illegal is taking place in adoption agencies.

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