DR. MICHAEL BOWIE

DIRECTOR (FLORIDA)

Executive Director Recruitment, Retention, and Multicultural Affairs

Adoption is trauma.

Trauma for birth mothers.

Trauma for the adoptive child.

Not acknowledging this truth would be irresponsible.

But can we not also acknowledge that for generations, people have suffered through terrible trauma—and thrived.

Is it in the child's interest to keep quiet about the fact that the father is not the biological father? No, according to a court: from a certain age the child must know this in order to be able to consent to an adoption.

When adopting, the child's will must also be taken into account from a certain age. In this sense, the Family Law Working Group of the German Lawyers' Association (DAV) points to a decision by the Hamburg-Bergedorf District Court (Az: 415c F 15/19), which rejected an adoption "over the head of the child".

In this specific case, a man wanted to adopt his wife's biological daughter. He met his future wife while she was pregnant. They moved in together and later got married. Neither had informed the girl that her “father” was not her biological father. This harms the child's well-being, they argued. When the adoption agency rejected the adoption because of the lack of information, the couple went to court - but without success.

A lack of information is serious

KEY POINTS

• JPMorgan Chase said it has reached a settlement regarding victims of late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
• The bank’s litigation with the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Epstein matter remains, however. Its claims against former executive Jes Staley, who was friends with Epstein, are also active.
• Last week, lawyers for a Epstein victim, called Jane Doe 1 in documents, asked the court to reopen JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s deposition.

JPMorgan Chase is prepared to pay $290 million in a settlement with victims of the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC on Monday.

The settlement does not include an admission of liability by the bank, the person said.

FORGED ADOPTIONS 6: Personal notes or memos that could serve as important clues to tracking down birth parents have often been withheld from adoptees under the current scheme

The oldest international adoptee to share their story with the Hankyoreh was Margaret Conlon, adopted in 1965, while the youngest was Mia Lee Sorensen, adopted in 1988. Regardless of the period in which they were adopted, the majority of adoptees are unable to trust the personal information and records about them held by adoption agencies, and they expressed frustration over the difficulty of even accessing this information.

The National Center for the Rights of the Child (formerly Korea Adoption Services) was established under the Ministry of Health and Welfare in line with an amendment to the Act on Special Cases Concerning Adoption in 2012 for the purpose of post-adoption follow-up services. The transfer and release of information on adoptees became a hot topic at this time, but adoption agencies including the national center still only entered 51 basic items of factual information including the names and addresses of adoptees and their birth parents. Other information such as consultation records and personal notes or memos that could serve as important clues to tracking down birth parents were not released.

Adoption experts believe adoption agencies should apologize for the common practice of illegally forging documents in the past and release the original copies of all documents, including consultation records, with no filters.

“To adoptees, even a small note that pertains to their roots is very precious,” said Noh Hye-ryeon, a professor of social welfare at Soongsil University who formerly worked in the overseas division of Holt Children’s Services and an adoption agency in San Jose, California. “They even say the documents are imbued with the life of the mother who gave them up, and want a chance to personally hold them in their hands.”

At issue in the case was whether a law aimed at keeping Native American adoptees within tribes is constitutional.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 1978 law aimed at keeping Native American adoptees with their tribes and traditions, handing a victory to tribes that had argued that a blow to the law would upend the basic principles that have allowed them to govern themselves for years.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, affirmed the power of Congress to make laws about Native American tribes and child welfare. But the ruling did not resolve the question of whether the law, the Indian Child Welfare Act, discriminated against non-Native families based on race.

The vote was 7 to 2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissenting.

The case pitted a white foster couple from Texas against five tribes and the Interior Department as they battled over the adoption of a Native American child.

A North Texas couple who was convicted of human trafficking after they spent years adopting children for free labor at their puppymill will stay in jail.

Jeffrey Barrett of Greenville is currently serving a life prison term and his wife Barbara is serving 99-years after they were found guilty of Continuous Trafficking of a Child in Hunt County.

Both were part of a horrendous operation out of their rural home. Court reports show the couple adopted at least five children. But instead of raising the younsters, the Barretts kept the kids out of school and used them as slave labor in their business, raising dogs.

Prosecutors say the kids were abused and neglected all while being forced to be on the job from sun-up to sundown, feeding animals and cleaning pens, even grooming dogs around the clock if state regulators were expected.

The children were all totally cut off from the outside world with no friends or computer access.

The health protection committee of the Russian lower house has reviewed the bill banning “sex change” and supported introducing two amendments to it, parliamentary channel Duma TV reported on Tuesday.

The bill seeks to ban gender reassignment surgery and hormonal treatment except in cases of “congenital physiological deviations”. It will also prohibit changes to official documents on the basis of medical “sex change” certificates.

The proposed amendments will allow to annul marriages in cases when one or both spouses undergoes a “sex change”.

“Those marriages that were registered by a man and a woman, one of whom then ended up of a different sex, will be annulled,” deputy chair of the committee Sergey Leonov told TASS.

The amendment will be retroactive, rendering invalid those marriages where one or both spouses had transitioned before the law’s introduction.

As the frequency of DNA paternity tests surges, the umbrella Human Rights Organization (CLADHO) has issued a stark warning, highlighting the potential risks faced by children in the absence of adequate protective measures.

A recently released report by Rwanda Forensic Laboratory shows a significant increase in the number of paternity tests, soaring from 168 in 2018/19 to 780 in 2022/23.

Lab records show that 246 paternity tests were performed in 2019/20, 424 tests in 2020/21, and 599 in 2021/22, and then 780 tests in 2022/23.

An official from the institution explained to The New Times that the surge in DNA paternity tests can partly be attributed to the accessibility of DNA services and greater awareness campaigns across the the country.

Established in 2018, the Forensic Science Laboratory is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Justice.

One of PEAR’s members, Pamela Veazie, wrote an independent analysis of the Against Child Trafficking (ACT) Fruits of Ethiopia Report. In it she highlights various orphanages in Ethiopia named in the report, potential problems and agencies affiliated with those orphanages. This in-depth analysis can be found here: http://reformtalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/fruits-of-ethiopia-part-2-cases.html

Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/

People for Ethical Adoption Reform
www.pear-now.org