Newborn baby handed over to brother and sister-in-law after tampering with the Sadar Hospital register

Garhwa: An illegal adoption racket has been exposed at the Sadar Hospital in Garhwa. With the alleged collusion of hospital staff, babies were being handed over to childless couples without any legal process. A woman attempted to change names in the hospital records to give her newborn daughter to her brother and sister-in-law. An investigation into the matter is underway.

An alarming conspiracy to hand over a child to someone else has come to light at the Sadar Hospital. Legal adoption laws are being openly flouted, allegedly with the connivance of hospital employees. If childless couples or those desiring a specific child want a baby without going through the legal process, they simply need to contact an ANM (Auxiliary Nurse Midwife) working at the Sadar Hospital. Following this, an illegal path is cleared to hand over the newborn.

This recent case tied to the Sadar Hospital has become a major talking point, sending shockwaves through the hospital administration upon its disclosure. Notably, a case had emerged recently involving patients being referred from the Sadar Hospital to private hospitals in exchange for a commission of ₹5,000 per patient. Sub-Divisional Officer Sanjay Kumar had investigated that matter under the directives of the District Commissioner. Before that issue could even settle, this new scandal of flouting adoption laws surfaced.

Greater Noida: A 10-day-old premature baby girl was rescued by a Child Helpline (1098) team from an alleged illegal adoption racket operating out of a private hospital in Greater Noida West, officials said on Sunday. Four people, including the hospital owner and two staff members, have been detained, and an investigation is underway. The infant, born at 33 weeks, was abandoned at a private facility in the Bisrakh area earlier this month. She remained at the hospital, where she was allegedly offered for sale under the guise of adoption. The case surfaced when a man approached the Child Helpline office in Noida after receiving an “offer” for a newborn while searching online for legal adoption procedures. He told officials he was promised a baby for Rs 2.7 lakh along with forged documents, including a birth certificate. Authorities alerted the police and persuaded him to assist in a sting operation.

A joint team comprising the Child Helpline, Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU), Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and Bisrakh police laid a trap. On Saturday evening, the complainant met the suspects near Bisrakh roundabout. Two hospital employees, including a nurse, arrived with the infant, whereupon plainclothes officers intervened and detained them. Central Noida DCP Shakti Awasthi said the woman carrying the baby was apprehended around 4:30 pm. “During interrogation, the duo allegedly revealed they were acting on instructions from the hospital owner.” Police subsequently detained the owner, identified as Yashika Garg, along with two others — Gajendra, a sanitation worker, and Ranjit, an operation theatre technician. Police suspect a wider network, with preliminary inputs indicating similar transactions in the past, where infants were allegedly sold for up to Rs 5 lakh. Efforts are underway to trace the baby’s biological parents and ascertain the circumstances of her abandonment, the DCP added. The rescued infant has been shifted to a shelter facility under the CWC and is reported to be stable.

https://www.millenniumpost.in/delhi/no-demolition-of-existing-homes-in-o-zone-colonies-cm-assures-663643

Adopted to Australia in 1980, Vanessa returns to Taiwan in search of her roots—only to face a bureaucratic battle over citizenship, identity, and the truth behind a controversial cross-border adoption network.

In 1980, Vanessa Miles was adopted by an Australian family and taken from Taiwan as an infant. Decades later, in 2025, she returned to the island to submit her DNA, hoping to trace her origins and reunite with her birth mother. She believed that when she came back to Taipei this year, that long-awaited reunion might finally become possible.

Instead, she found herself confronting an unexpected and deeply personal crisis.

When Miles presented her long-expired Republic of China (Taiwan) passport—bearing an exit stamp from 1980—at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Sydney, she was initially told a renewal would be straightforward. The clerk clipped a corner of the expired passport as part of standard procedure and asked her to return in a few days.

But when she did, the outcome was shocking: Taiwan’s Ministry of Interior had revoked her nationality.

Inside the Long, Winding Search for India’s Forgotten Adoptees

Amid a growing global community of adoptees revisiting their pasts, 32 inter-country adoptees filed applications with the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) in 2024–25 seeking to trace their biological parents, according to an RTI response obtained by TOI.

For a growing number of adults adopted abroad from India, that empty space has become impossible to ignore. Many of them—now in their 30s, 40s, and 50s—are returning to the country of their birth in search of answers their documents never held. These adoptees were part of hundreds sent abroad when India's adoption landscape was a patchwork of private shelters, under-regulated agencies, and inconsistent documentation. For them, the search is not only about identity—it is also about confronting the silence built into their early histories.

A Study Reopens What Was Long Buried

In February of last year, a study titled ‘Mother Unknown' cast new light on the scale and complexity of inter-country adoptions between India and Switzerland. Its findings revealed that 2,278 Indian children were adopted into Swiss families between 1973 and 2002.

In a significant development for constitutional rights and gender justice, the Supreme Court has affirmed that reproductive autonomy extends beyond biological processes to include the decision to adopt a child. By bringing adoption within the ambit of Article 21, the Court reinforced the idea that personal liberty includes the freedom to determine how one chooses to build a family.

The case addressed a legal provision that limited maternity benefits for adoptive mothers based on the age of the child at the time of adoption. The Court found such a restriction to be arbitrary and lacking a rational basis, noting that the responsibilities and emotional investment involved in motherhood do not depend on the age of the child. Denying benefits on this ground, therefore, undermines the principle of equality and fails to recognise the realities of adoptive parenting.

Expanding on the meaning of reproductive rights, the Court clarified that autonomy in this sphere is not confined to decisions about pregnancy or childbirth. Instead, it includes broader choices related to parenthood, including adoption. This interpretation aligns with the evolving understanding of family structures and acknowledges that parenting is defined by care and responsibility rather than biological connection alone.

The judgment also builds upon the established jurisprudence surrounding Article 21, which has been interpreted to include dignity, privacy, and the right to make personal life choices. By recognising adoption as a facet of reproductive autonomy, the Court has further strengthened the protection of individual decision-making in matters of family and personal life.

Additionally, the ruling emphasises the importance of equality in the application of welfare laws. Any distinction that places adoptive mothers at a disadvantage without a valid justification is inconsistent with constitutional guarantees. The decision therefore ensures that adoptive parents are not treated differently in accessing benefits that support caregiving and child development.

New Delhi: In view of difficulties faced by adult adoptees s ..

 

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Adoptee Kimbra Butterworth was well into adulthood when she confirmed she was a victim of an infamous Taiwanese baby smuggler.

If it weren't for dogged family and media investigations plus a bit of luck, she may have never found out.

"I may never find my [biological] family because of all these circumstances that someone else did that was completely out of my control," she said.

Adoption papers show Ms Kimbra was born in Taiwan in 1980, the supposed fifth child of a family with the surname Chen.

But the family names were forged, leaving her in the dark about her biological parents' true identities.

Punjab & Haryana HC Seeks Clarification from Centre on NOC for Inter-Country Adoption Relocation

Chandigarh: In a case highlighting the complex legal hurdles of international adoption, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked the Centre to clarify the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) for inter-country adoption relocation. The move came after Australian authorities sought an NOC from the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) before allowing the children to move abroad.

Justice Jagmohan Bansal passed the orders while hearing a petition filed by Manisha Saini, a 42-year-old Indian citizen residing in Gold Coast, Queensland (Australia), seeking the relocation of her two minor nieces, one aged 17 years and the other 13 years. She approached the court seeking directions to the authorities to issue an NOC-cum-support letter required for inter-country relocation adoption.

Case Background

The certificate is essential for the nieces to obtain Australian visas and join their adoptive mother. Manisha's sister, Sushma, died in September 2016. Following Manisha's divorce in 2020 and the death of her mother in 2022, a unanimous family decision was made for her to adopt the girls.

The Royal Government of Cambodia is not processing intercountry adoptions with other countries at this time. The Department of State is still not able to issue Hague Certificates in adoptions from Cambodia. However, the Department continues its efforts to work with the Government of Cambodia to resume intercountry adoption.

In March 2015, Adoption Division Chief Trish Maskew and Special Assistant to the Special Advisor for Children’s Issues Kathy Sacco traveled to Cambodia and met with the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth (MOSVY) Inter-country Adoption Administration (ICAA); the Ministry of Justice (MOJ); a group of adoption receiving country representatives; and UNICEF to discuss Cambodia’s desire to memorialize understandings regarding how State Parties seek to process Convention cases.  Ms. Maskew and Ms. Sacco also participated in a multi-day, USAID-hosted Co-Creation Workshop, where 30 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) discussed broad issues related to child welfare, such as the efforts in place to support Cambodian families to care for their children at vulnerable times and find permanent placements for children if they are removed from the family. The Department of State raised the importance of maintaining intercountry adoption as a small but important part of the overall action plan for seeking permanency for Cambodia’s children. The workshop was part of Cambodia’s Family Care First initiative, rooted in the U.S. government’s Action Plan for Children in Adversity.  

During their meetings, the Cambodian Director of the Inter-country Adoption Administration shared Cambodia’s accomplishments completing laws and regulations related to intercountry adoption and requested the Department’s review of these regulations and proposed procedures. The ICAA noted that UNICEF has worked with MOSVY’s Child Welfare Department (CWD) to develop a child protection case management system and that the pilot of this system is now operating in five provinces.

The Department of State’s Special Advisor for Children’s Issues, Ambassador Susan Jacobs, led a discussion with multiple other receiving countries on intercountry adoptions and Cambodia during the the Fourth Special Commission of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoption (Special Commission), held June 8-12, 2015 in The Hague. The goal was to discuss how countries might collectively promote an intercountry adoption system that successfully protects the best interests of the child as Cambodia looks to begin processing Convention cases for the first time. At the meeting, several countries expressed interest in joining the United States in sending a letter to MOSVY to seek clarification on questions and areas of mutual interest regarding Cambodia’s law, regulations and procedures.

Ambassador Susan Jacobs met again with Cambodian adoption officials in Phnom Penh from October 7-11, 2015. During her visit, Ambassador Jacobs hand-delivered to MOSVY a joint letter endorsed by the Central Authorities of Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, requesting clarification of Cambodia’s envisioned Convention adoption process. The Government of Cambodia’s response to the issues raised in the letter is necessary for the United States to fully understand several key issues, including the role that Cambodia seeks to take with regard to the supervision and monitoring of ASPs authorized by the Cambodian government. 

As 2015 came to a close, Cambodia continued its efforts to improve its mechanisms for child welfare and protection, including more oversight over child care institutions by requiring all child care institutions to register with the Cambodian government by March 11, 2016.
 
The Department of State will continue to publish updates related to Cambodian intercountry adoptions on http://adoptions.state.gov. c

By investigative reporter Alex Turner-Cohen, James Oaten and Giselle Wakatama

Topic:Adoption

Thu 12 MarThursday 12 March

A Korean-born Australian says she struggled to remove her adoptive parents from her birth certificate. (ABC News: Maren Preuss)