ABUJA – The 36 State governors under the aegis of Nigerian Governors’ Forum NGF on Wednesday condemned the heinous act, where 17 Soldiers were killed in Okuama Community, Ughelli South Local Council Area of Delta State and observed a minute of silence for their souls.

The members of the NGF also raised concerns over the growing illegal and fraudulent inter-country adoption of Nigerian children by the United States.

AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq, the Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum and Executive Governor of Kwara State, gave the highlight in a issued after the governors’ meeting, and made available to newsmen on Thursday.

“We, members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), at our meeting held today. Wednesday 20” March 2024, deliberated on various issues of national importance and resolved as follows:

“The Forum commiserated with the Governor of Delta State. H E Sherif Oborevwwori. over the communal clash between Okuama in the Ughelli South Local Government Area and Okolaba in the Bomadi Local Government Area of Delta State, and which led to the death of many including sixteen (16) military personnel. While condemning the heinous act, members observed a minute of silence for the souls of the departed.

After he was snatched, Antonio Salazar-Hobson didn’t see his family for 24 years. His desire to return to his mother, and his discovery of a higher purpose, helped him navigate a path through hell

Although it happened more than 60 years ago, Antonio Salazar-Hobson remembers every detail of his kidnapping. He says that if he closes his eyes, he is instantly taken back to that hot Sunday afternoon in 1960 when he was a four-year-old boy standing with his brothers and sisters in the red dust of his back yard on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona.

Nearby, at the bottom of a short passageway connecting the back yard to the road out of town, a car is idling.

A white man is leaning out of the window, calling Salazar-Hobson’s name. He is very afraid of this man and the woman sitting next to him in the passenger seat. His older brother and sister are also afraid. They have been told by their parents, who are out working in the fields, that they must not let Salazar-Hobson go anywhere with the couple in the car. He can hear the fear in their voices as they call out: “Thank you very much, but Antonio can’t come for ice-cream.”

Lisbeth Johansen could not turn away from the children in the slums of the Indian city of Kolkata. "You can almost call it a vocation," says the woman behind the aid organization LittleBigHelp

Most Danes can do without founding their own aid organization. They can also refrain from establishing an orphanage and a school for street children in a dirty, smelly slum in South Asia.

But Lisbeth Johansen could not do that when she traveled to Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, which is the capital of the eastern state of West Bengal in India, in 2010. Here she saw how children and adults struggled to survive in the slums. She saw children living alone on the streets sniffing glue, child prostitutes and a poverty so deep and hopeless that she felt compelled to stay and do something herself.

"Sometimes we encounter situations in life that we cannot turn away from. For me, this was one of those situations: I couldn't turn away," she says.

Lisbeth Johansen had ended up in Kolkata by chance, because it was the cheapest place in India to fly to from Thailand, where she stayed before. The plan was for her to stay in Kolkata for a few days and then travel on.

In the sixties and seventies, getting pregnant without being married was a big taboo in the Netherlands. Thousands of girls and young women therefore kept their pregnancies secret and gave birth to their child in isolation. Many of them were then forced by social pressure and circumstances to give up their baby.

The children ended up in homes or special children's departments, such as the Midwifery School in Heerlen. They were then adopted by parents who had often been waiting for a child for a long time. Although people thought adoption was a good idea at the time, it turns out that the impact of the events continues to have a long-lasting effect, both on the mothers and the adopted children and on the adoptive parents.

The four-part television series Dossier Afgestaan ​​brings together the personal stories of birth mothers, adopted children, adoptive parents and care providers.

In the series, various women talk about their experiences with unwanted pregnancies at a young age. Their babies were sometimes taken away immediately after birth, and they themselves had to continue with their lives as if nothing had happened. After a few days, for example, they went back to school or training and hardly anyone knew that they had become mothers. "When I came home from Moederheil, my father literally said: it is not talked about anymore," says a certain Cecilia.

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Ankie Vandekerckhove

Ankie is currently involved in a project in Brussels to realize the social function in ECEC. In this project some 80 childcare centres get support to lower thresholds for vulnerable families (due to poverty, migration, problematic family situation...) and to adapt their working methods to the context of increasing diversity in the city.

From: GIANSANTI Annalisa (ELARG)

Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 9:02 AM

To: 'ankie vandekerckhove'

Cc: IBOLD Per (JUST); JONES Allan (ELARG)

Subject: FW:

The European Commission cannot find this report in its archives. 

Tilbagekaldelse af tilladelse til at yde adoptionshjælp vedrørende børn med bopæl i Sydafrika 

Jeg har i dag truffet afgørelse om at stoppe adoptionsformidlingen af børn fra Sydafrika. 

Da Danish International Adoption (DIA) fortsat har tilladelse til at yde adoptionshjælp vedrørende børn fra udlandet, og da tilladelsen vedrørende Sydafrika er givet til DIA, betyder dette, at DIA ikke længere kan bistå ansøgere med at gennemføre en adoption fra Sydafrika. Det betyder således også, at der efter DIAs ophør ikke foreligger tilladelse til at yde adoptionshjælp vedrørende Sydafrika. 

Sending unwanted offspring abroad, bringing desired children to Switzerland – since the 1950s, Switzerland has been involved in a systematic child transfer.

Shortly :

• Between the 1970s and the early 2000s, around 2,200 children were adopted from India.
• Reports confirm systematic child trafficking and failures of the Swiss authorities.
• Documented irregularities include missing signatures and contradictory information.
• To make their work easier, officials noted “mother unknown” on numerous birth certificates.

Some were found on the streets, others were taken to children's homes by relatives - many were taken away from their mothers immediately after birth.

By Lumka Oliphant

• South Africa’s adoption framework may change as key international partners withdraw from inter-country adoption.
• The Netherlands and Denmark have informed the country of their plans to phase out adoptions from South Africa by 2025,citing challenges in tracing biological parents as a key factor. 
• This shift will force South Africa to bolster its domestic adoption program,which has already identified irregularities in the private adoption sector.

South Africa will soon need to strengthen its national adoption program as countries are beginning to withdraw from the inter-country program. This was revealed by social workers during the review of the social development Integrated Justice System (IJS) program underway in Cape Town underway this week.

Dr Tebogo Mabe, Director Adoption Services at the department of social development revealed that the Netherlands and Denmark have written to the department informing it of their intention to stop accepting adoptions from South Africa.  “We have been a sending country to these countries and we have received a notice from these countries of this intention,” said Mabe.

Although, this was not unique to South Africa but a trend globally, he said these trends are giving South Africa an opportunity to strengthen its national adoption program.  He revealed that the two countries did not have too many children adopted from South Africa but they received their notices of intention.  He said the Netherlands has informed the department that it intends to go to its Parliament in September and will take a phased in approach which should  end the program by the end of 2025.