The 82-year-old former chairwoman of the Belgian non-profit organization "Hacer Puente" will be tried for thirteen child abductions in Guatemala in the 1980s. The Mons court ruled this.

Published: 6 hours ago

The non-profit organization "Hacer Puente" arranged the adoption of over 150 children from the Latin American country by Belgian couples between 1985 and 1992, but in at least some of those cases the biological parents would never have voluntarily given up their children.

The High Court of Judicature at Madras, in a significant ruling, has held that the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, (JJ Act) do not apply to adoptions validly conducted under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, (HAM Act). In a judgment delivered on October 25, 2025, Justice To Read More Please Subscribe to VIP Membership for Unlimited Access to All the Articles, Download Available Copies of Judgments/Order, Acess to Central/State Bare Acts, Advertisement Free Content, Access to More than 4000 Legal Drafts( Readymade Editable Formats of Suits, Petitions, Writs, Legal Notices, Divorce Petitions, 138 Notices, Bail Applications etc.) in Hindi and English.

"I didn't do anything wrong," she maintains to this day. But according to the presiding judge in Mons, there's ample evidence that Michèle H., now 82, from Tournai, kidnapped at least 14 children from Guatemala and trafficked them to unsuspecting adoptive families in Belgium. "It turns out my biological mother isn't my mother, but the mother of another kidnapped adopted child who now lives in Belgium. But who am I then?" asks Eva Langenus (41).

Bjorn Maeckelbergh

October 30, 2025, 10:00 AM Last update: 10:12 AM

I currently don't know where I was born, nor when. Actually, I know nothing. Except that black-and-white photo of the woman in my file is definitely fake. (hesitantly) I've cherished that image for years. But she's not my mother.

The South African Human Rights Commission has launched an investigation into possible discrimination against homosexuals by South African adoption agencies, including Abba Adoptions, which collaborates with the Dutch adoption agency Wereldkinderen. The D66 party has since submitted parliamentary questions to State Secretary Fred Teeven of Security and Justice.

The South African Human Rights Commission has launched its investigation into adoption agencies based on complaints from potential adoptive parents and adoption agencies in South Africa, the United States, and Europe. Among these complaints are complaints from the Netherlands, as one of the agencies being investigated is Abba Adoptions, which collaborates with the Dutch adoption agency Wereldkinderen.

The international complainants allege that adoption agencies discriminate against single people, same-sex adoptive parents, and non-Christian adoptive parents in international adoptions. Two European same-sex couples have filed a complaint against Abba Adoptions, alleging that the agency excludes them based on their sexual orientation.

Abba Adoptions

Abba Adoptions requires that adoptive parents be Christian, heterosexual, and married for at least five years. Last November, the agency received notice from the Central Authority for International Adoptions of the Ministry of Social Development that its adoption policy needed to be amended because the criteria used for adoption were discriminatory. The Central Authority's guidelines prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, language, religion, disability, or financial means. These guidelines are based on South African anti-discrimination legislation and the Children's Act .

Hello -

Ethica will have a representative at an upcoming meeting required of
all U.S. adoption agencies at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa. The
notice is below. We are not sure if there will be time allowed for
Q&A, but we'd like to collect any questions that the community might
have. Please send them to ethica@.... Thank you!

Meeting notes will be posted on the Ethica website (www.ethicanet.org)
as well as on our email news list (ethicanews@yahoogroups.com).

--
Linh Song, MSW
Executive Director
Ethica

June 6, 2003

Dear Readers,

Some who read our paper on the Child Trafficking Standard of Evidence may be familiar with my background as an agency representative and my role in advocating for cases during the Cambodian adoption crisis. The Cambodia crisis was, in many ways, a life-changing situation for me. Those events led to much contemplation on the current state of adoption, which in turn led to the formation of Ethica itself. For those familiar with the details of the situation, it may seem odd that I so adamantly fought for the clearance of those cases only to find myself writing 18 months later about the difficulty of proving child trafficking.

In the fall of 2001, I was employed by an agency as a program coordinator for Viet Nam and Cambodia. While none of the first 12 Cambodia families whose adoptions were investigated were my clients, I became involved early on as the co-chair of the Joint Council Cambodia caucus. The failure of the Immigration Service to conduct adequate investigations was well known in the adoption industry, and over the years I had seen many families bring their children home after months-long appeals that proved the inadequacy of the investigations. <!--

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By Brent Israelsen, Staff Writer

Published: Friday, May 24 1991 12:00 a.m. MDT

I was in Romania last week and met with Bogdan Panait, the Secretary of the Romanian Office of Adoptions. I only have a few tidbits of information, but thought I would share.

1) Mr. Panait reiterated the typical party line that only those with Romanian citizenship can adopt. We all know that.

2) The Office of Adoptions would like to work directly with the adoption agencies who apply. They do not want to work with foreign representatives, especially lawyers.

3) There are three agencies in the United States and one agency from Canada that have been licensed to work in Romania. We all know that the Romanian Co-Chair, Debbie Price’s agency is one. Are the other two of you on this listserv?

4) No other agencies have applied as of this date.

.