License holders

Since 1989 in the Netherlands an organization that mediates in adoption has

been obliged to apply for a permit. Although there has been talk of a licensing

system since 1980, this was only introduced in 1989 with the “Wet Adoption of

Foreign Children for Adoption” (WOBKA). Only after 1989, therefore, there are

Flemish Minister of Welfare, Public Health and Family Hilde Crevits is strengthening care and guidance during adoption and is investing 425,000 euros in this. The aim is to make society more aware of intercountry adoption and also to offer more opportunities for the exchange of experiences between first parents, adoptive parents and fellow sufferers. The guidance process when adoptees go in search of their origin will also be strengthened. In this way, Minister Crevits meets some of the recommendations of a 'care and guidance' working group that was set up in response to the final report of the expert panel on intercountry adoption.

“A great job has been done by all those involved to provide us with very concrete proposals for better care and supervision of adoption. We will ensure that there are more opportunities to exchange experiences and to strengthen knowledge about adoption into education and assistance. In this way we want to avoid that those involved in adoption, foster care and other forms of growing up outside the original family are sometimes approached on the basis of erroneous assumptions or social ideas, which could lead to new and avoidable difficulties. In addition, it is also important that people can share their positive stories and their concerns. The question “who am I” and “where do I come from” sooner or later preoccupies every adoptee. We are therefore strengthening the ancestry center in order to provide even better assistance to people who are looking for their roots or close relatives.” –Flemish Minister of Welfare and Public Health Hilde Crevits

The final report of an expert panel on intercountry adoption in mid-2021 gave rise to a number of recommendations for reforms within the adoption landscape. The Flemish Government then set the guidelines for the future of intercountry adoption. This is also followed by Growing up. An important theme is better care and guidance. A working group led by Professor Nicole Vliegen set to work on this and provided very concrete recommendations, some of which Minister Crevits wants to implement immediately.

A better understanding of adoption

Minister Crevits has instructed the Adoption Support Center to further deepen knowledge about adoption in Flanders. The theme of adoption must be more strongly embedded in education and assistance, among other things, so that teachers and care providers can deal more sensitively with questions from children and young people with an adoption story. With the resources, the Adoption Support Center will be able to recruit additional employees who, together with adoptees, will introduce professionals to certain sensitivities specific to adopted children and specific themes such as racism and diversity through training and workshops. In this way, therapists and primary care providers, among others, can better pick up signals when they come into contact with them in the event of a request for help.

More than a decade after Cambodia banned inter-country adoption over human trafficking and corruption allegations, Italy is inching closer to resuming the practice amidst widespread concerns about lack of adequate child protection measures

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BEATRICE SIVIERO

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PUNE: The process of issuing final adoption orders to prospective adoptive parents has come to a standstill in Maharashtra since January 11, a day after Bombay high court stayed implementation of a notification authorizing district collectors to pass such orders.

Child adoption agencies said the move has further delayed issuance of the final adoption order to prospective parents in waiting since September last year, after the amended Juvenile Justice Rules were notified.

The notification of the 'Model Amendment Rules 2022' to implement the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act 2021, which came into force on September 1 last year, empowered district collectors to issue adoption orders, which were till then the domain of the district courts.

However, after the HC order stayed the new rules' implementation in January this year, adoption agencies have been unable to obtain adoption orders for prospective adoptive parents.

Prajakta Kulkarni, founder of Snehankur Adoption Centre, told TOI, "We have 13 older children currently in foster care with their prospective parents, who have been waiting for the final adoption order since September 2022. The absence of an adoption order is affecting various processes, such as preventing the parents from getting the child's birth certificate required for admitting him/her into a school or get Aadhaar made."

The new law on international adoptions has entered into force in France, which establishes the obligation for French couples to be followed by an authorized body, the possibility of adopting for unmarried couples and a one-year post-adoption follow-up. The other most important news

A reform that "will have a direct and beneficial impact on the daily life and development of thousands of children in our country"... for "better taking charge of children's needs , guaranteeing them fully reassuring life plans". With these words the secretary of state responsible for children and families to the Minister of Solidarity and Health Adrien Taquet greeted the reform of international adoptions that France has recently launched by introducing several rather significant innovations which, here, we will try to briefly analyze.

International adoptions in France: ban on proceeding with individual procedures

First of all, the Law regulates international individual adoptions: all candidates in possession of suitability must, therefore, be accompanied by an Authorized Adoption Organization (OAA) - of which there are 24 in all - or by the French Agency for Adoptions ( AFA).

The other significant aspect of the reform is the introduction of a mandatory follow-up period of one year starting from the moment in which the minor is definitively accepted into the adoptive family.

A six-day-old baby girl, who the gang had abducted and wanted to sell, was recovered from the possession of the accused.

Mohali police on Friday said that they have so far found that a woman — who had been arrested earlier this week and subsequently found to be part of a racket that stole newborns — also provided fake adoption certificates.

Police are also probing the role of some Asha Workers in the scam as the gang could have in touch with the workers to know about the deliveries of children.

Police on Monday had arrested Manjinder Singh, and his wife Parwinder Kaur — both residents of Faridkot — and Charanbir Singh, and his wife Sakshi, both residents of Patiala, for being part of a racket that was involved in stealing and selling newborns. A six-day-old baby girl, who the gang had abducted and wanted to sell, was recovered from the possession of the accused.

On Friday, the police told The Indian Express that they have found in the course of their investigation that Sakshi was also involved in providing the fake adoption certificates. A laptop that was issued to Sakshi by Punjabi University — where she was an employee — for official work was confisticated for further probe.

Olivia Atkocaitis, now 19, alleges in the lawsuit that her parents prevented her from attending public school and imprisoned her in a room in their basement.

A woman born in China and adopted by parents in the New Hampshire town of New Boston is now suing them alleging years of abuse, dangerous living conditions and racist treatment.

Olivia Atkocaitis, now 19, alleges in the lawsuit filed Monday that her parents, Denise and Thomas Atkocaitis, prevented her from attending public school and imprisoned her in a room in their basement. It also alleges they forced her to perform intense manual labor, beat her and shouted racial slurs at her, among other abuses, for nearly 14 years.

Atkocaitis said in the suit she attempted to escape multiple times throughout her childhood but was reprimanded and returned to her home’s dangerous conditions by local police each time, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit says Atkocaitis escaped for the last time in 2018 by digging through the walls of a “basement prison” and running away to nearby woods.

Upon learning of her escape, the New Boston police used dogs to track her, according to the lawsuit. After a private citizen found Atkocaitis covered in dirt from the woods the next day, the New Boston Police Department investigated and arrested her adoptive parents and initiated criminal prosecutions of them for felony-level offenses in September 2018. After pleading guilty to the charge of criminal restraint, Denise Atkocaitis did not serve jail time, while Thomas Atkocaitis served six months after pleading guilty to endangering the welfare of a child, according to New Hampshire Public Radio.

BY PIJ REPORTER

Pastor Ryan Lilli, a South African cleric who worked at Kondanani Children’s Village, a Bvumbe-based orphanage, has been found with one case to answer by the Midima Magistrate’s Court in Limbe.

Both Lilli’s lawyer Tamando Chokotho and private practice lawyer Chikondi Chijozi, who is prosecuting the case, told PIJ that Lilli has been found with a case to answer on the count of indecent assault.

He was, however, found with no case to answer on the other two counts of rape and having sex with a minor.

“On the charge of rape, the court found that the accused has no case to answer. On the charge of indecent assault, the court found that the accused has a case to answer and on the charge of having sexual intercourse with a minor under one’s care, he was also found with no case to answer.

Answer in writing

Priority question for written answer  P-000699/2023
to the Commission
Rule 138
Ladislav Ilčić (ECR)

In several EU Member States, cases have been recorded in which it was
proven that children adopted via inter-country adoption procedures
were previously victims of human trafficking, mainly from countries
that are not signatories to the Hague Convention. Eight Croatian
citizens who were hoping to adopt children from the Democratic
Republic of Congo are currently detained in Zambia on suspicion of
child exploitation. In view of the principle of free movement in the
EU, which is one of the fundamental rights of EU citizens, such cases,
although primarily within the competence of Member States, have a
European dimension on account of potential abuses by international
criminal networks. This is also borne out by data from relevant
institutions such as Interpol, UNICEF and the organisation Save the
Children, which shows a global rise in organ trafficking (which also
affects children) and an increase in child pornography and
prostitution. In accordance with the above:

1.Is the Commission planning specific guidelines to help the Member
States improve the international adoption process with a view to the
long-term welfare of children, protecting the integrity of adoptive
parents and preventing human trafficking in the EU?
2.Is it planning to take diplomatic steps to persuade the Democratic
Republic of Congo and other non-signatory countries to the Hague
Convention to adopt the latter and to adapt their system to the
standards enshrined therein?

Submitted: 2.3.2023






Answer given by Mr Reynders on behalf of the European Commission

25.4.2023

Written question

There is no EU legislation on adoption. At the international level,
adoption is currently governed by national laws and international
conventions, in particular the Hague Convention on Inter-country
Adoption[1], (‘the Convention’) which has to date 105 Contracting
Parties including all Member States of the EU. However, it is
estimated that 50% of international adoptions are not carried under
the Convention.

The Convention operates through a system of national Central
Authorities, reinforces the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child (Art. 21) and seeks to ensure that inter-country adoptions
are made in the best interests of the child and with respect for their
fundamental rights. One of the main objectives is to prevent the
abduction, the sale of, or traffic in children[2].

While Zambia is already Party to the Convention, the Democratic
Republic of Congo is not.

The Anti-trafficking Directive (the directive)[3] establishes minimum
standards for the definition of trafficking in human beings, including
a non-exhaustive list of the forms of exploitation, which are the
purpose of trafficking offences. Illegal adoption as a form of
exploitation has not been explicitly criminalised in the directive,
while practice among Member States varies in this respect.

In a wider context of legislative reforms to strengthen the criminal
framework against human trafficking in line with the EU Strategy on
Combating Trafficking of Human beings 2021-2025[4], on 19 December
2022 the Commission proposed a revision of the Anti-trafficking
Directive[5], including, inter alia, the addition of illegal adoption
as a form of exploitation covered by the directive.

[1] The Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and
Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (HCCH 1993 Adoption
Convention).
[2]  See the report of the Working Group on preventing and addressing
illicit practices in intercountry adoption
https://assets.hcch.net/docs/35d8530a-b5bd-4330-b2fc-abda099e7f6b.pdf
[3] Directive 2011/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 5 April 2011 on preventing and combating trafficking in human
beings and protecting its victims, and replacing Council Framework
Decision 2002/629/JHA, https://db.eurocrim.org/db/en/doc/1513.pdf
[4] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52021DC0171
[5] Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE
COUNCIL amending Directive 2011/36/EU on preventing and combating
trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims,
COM/2022/732 final.
 

A woman gave her one-and-a-half-month-old child up for adoption for Tk 42,000 in Gazipur’s Sreepur Upazila. Police later returned the child to the mother as no legal process was followed.

She was forced to place her son for adoption due to poverty as ‘Tuhin’, the father of the child, refused to recognise it, the mother claimed.

Narail resident Saddam Hossain, a technician in a local cable factory who was also a tenant at Abdar village in Telihati, adopted the child, police said on Tuesday.

The child's mother, a resident of Mymensingh’s Fulbaria Upazila, lives in a rented house in the same village.

She gave her son to the childless Saddam for adoption in exchange for money by signing a stamp, said Abu Raihan, sub-inspector of Sreepur Police Station.