Police said that they have developed “strong leads” and are examining one or two couples who may be the biological parents of two of the rescued babies.

The investigation into a child trafficking racket busted last month, in which seven newborns were rescued, has hit a roadblock. On one hand, investigators have been unable to locate the biological parents of rescued newborns; and on the other, while they have found some couples whose babies are missing, they haven’t been able establish if these couple are linked with the trafficking network.

Delhi child trafficking probe hits roadblock as parents of rescued babies remains untraced, representational image (Hindustan Times)

The Secretariat's staffing quota has been expanded from 137 to 165, and
Investigation Bureau 3 has been formally established, reflecting the third amendment to the Enforcement Decree.

[Seoul=Newsis] Reporter Hwang Jun-seon = Song Sang-kyo, the newly appointed Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is delivering his inaugural address at the inauguration ceremony held at the Commission in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the afternoon of March 4. 2026.07.07. hwang@newsis.com

[Seoul = Newsis] Reporter Cho Seong-ha = The 3rd Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) has prepared an amendment to the enforcement decree to increase the number of secretariat personnel by 28 to carry out expanded truth-finding duties.

The investigation into the historical abuses in international adoption in Flanders appears to be bogging down due to conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency. Three participating academics have already withdrawn. Among adoptees, incomprehension is growing.

When Sophie Withaeckx saw the contract in December 2025, she found an unexpected clause that immediately made her decide not to sign: she and her fellow researchers were expected to maintain absolute secrecy.

The Flemish Centre for Adoption (VCA) had asked her to oversee the screening process of a new investigation into illegal adoptions as an independent expert.

A valid question, Withaeckx initially thought. As a lecturer at Maastricht University, she had already served on the Flemish expert panel that investigated abuses in intercountry adoption. She knew better than anyone how often the grievances of adoptees were ignored.

Expert Sophie Withaeckx: “If you are not allowed to speak publicly about your advice, you run the risk of being automatically expected to stand behind every decision.”

One of the 241 whistleblowers reporting irregularities in their adoption discovered that the woman who illegally smuggled her biological mother across the border later became director of the Flemish Adoption House. She is not the only whistleblower hitting a wall at the Flemish Centre for Adoption today. “The people responsible have since been given even more important positions in Flemish adoption organizations.”

Charlotte* (29) was smuggled across the border from France as a baby. Her adoptive parents made no secret of this.

Her Belgian biological mother had unexpectedly become pregnant as a student in 1996. Because she did not want her parents to find out, she turned to the adoption agency vzw Gewenst Kind - Amok .

For she could prevent her name from appearing on the birth certificate, which she absolutely did not want. Nor could she prevent the court from investigating whether a solution was possible within the family – for example, through the child's grandparents.

The non-profit helped the unwanted pregnant woman, more specifically by first smuggling her abroad – to France – to allow her to give birth there anonymously. A trick that had been devised and perfected by cloistered nuns in the 70s and 80s.

On receiving the child, the CWC named the baby Kiyan, which means king or royal in Persian.

KOCHI: Nine-day-old Kiyan, the newborn found abandoned near a roadside food stall in Maradu last week, has been discharged from the Ernakulam General Hospital after having recovered from an infection and has been shifted to a special adoption agency for further care. The Ernakulam Child Welfare Committee (CWC) formally took charge of the infant on Monday.

On receiving the child, the CWC named the baby Kiyan, which means king or royal in Persian.

“The boy was found abandoned near a roadside food stall close to Forum Mall. On receiving the information, a team from the Maradu police station safely transported the infant to the casualty department of the Ernakulam General Hospital,” said CWC chairperson Ullas Madhu.

For more than 45 years, Holt supporters have helped children and families in India create healthier, more hopeful futures through our long-standing partnerships with Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK) in Pune and Vathsalya Charitable Trust (VCT) in Bangalore. Through your generosity, more than 40,000 children and families each year receive access to education, child development centers, nutritional support, skill training and vital social services for parents — especially single mothers.

Together with BSSK and VCT, Holt works to address both immediate needs and long-term stability. Programs focus on empowering women and girls through education and vocational training, supporting migrant families with nutritional support and ensuring children with disabilities receive the care, therapy and resources they need to thrive within their communities.

This January, we invite you to join Holt on a special journey to India. You’ll visit these life-changing programs in Pune and Bangalore, meet children and families whose lives are being transformed by your support and hear powerful firsthand stories of resilience and hope. Along the way, you’ll have opportunities to participate in activities with children and families, engage directly with communities and provide tangible support to those you meet.

Throughout the week, you’ll also immerse yourself in India’s vibrant culture — exploring local landmarks*, savoring traditional cuisine and more. Each experience will deepen your understanding and appreciation of the communities you’re helping.
*JUST ADDED: Visit to Taj Mahal!

Join us for an unforgettable journey that celebrates the hope you bring and strengthens your connection to the children and families whose lives you help transform. This trip promises to be both heartfelt and fun — creating memories that will last a lifetime!

For decades, a small group of specialists at Starship Hospital’s child protection unit have played a central role in some of NZ’s most serious physical child abuse cases. Their opinions trigger police investigations, child removals, criminal prosecutions and prison sentences. In many cases, their medical findings are treated as the starting point for everything that follows. But what happens if some findings are wrong?

It took three weeks of evidence, 30 witnesses and four hours of deliberation for a jury to reach a verdict that will reverberate far beyond the Dunedin courthouse it was delivered in.

Captured in the season finale of Melanie Reid’s latest award-winning investigative podcast, Diagnosis of a Crime, the recent criminal trial of a professional athlete marked what may be the first time the opinions of New Zealand hospital paediatric doctors were seriously challenged in court by international medical experts.

The evidence heard during the trial, and the result, has drawn attention to a developing global controversy that has been likened to Satanic Panic, a moral hysteria fuelled by pseudo-science that gripped institutions around the world in the 1980s and 1990s and led to dozens of wrongful convictions. (In New Zealand, this played out in the Christchurch Civic Creche case.)

IDAHO FALLS — After nearly two days of traveling, McKenna Christensen walked through the Chișinău International Airport in Moldova ready to change her life forever.

About six months before, Christensen, who was born in Moldova and adopted by an Idaho Falls couple, discovered shocking information about her adoption. She was never supposed to be adopted.

"There were a lot of illegal things going on (in Moldova) at the time with children. Children were very much a source of money," Christensen told EastIdahoNews.com in December. "Pediatricians would tell parents, 'Sorry, your child died, it was very sick.' And then they would not release a body. This was a very common thing that happened over in the '90s."

For Christensen, she learned that her mother had been diagnosed with cancer while she was pregnant with her. She was very sick at the time of her birth, so the family was told that Christensen would be placed in a care facility while her mother regained her health.

But Christensen, who was originally named Marcela Ibrian, never saw her family again. Instead, she was apparently trafficked by the hospital, ending up at an orphanage and then adopted.

How notorious Sydney daycare paedophile David James was caught by police

This doesn’t happen to us’: Family’s horror after Sydney day care
abuser unmasked

Perry Duffin and Clare Sibthorpe
July 4, 2026 — 1:50pm
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Walking to his young son’s bedroom to check his clothes against
footage of a day care worker’s abuse, Tom* had one thought: “This
doesn’t happen to us.”
The clothing matched, and an unthinkable realisation followed.
David James was on Thursday to 12 years’ prison with a non-parole
period of seven years.Michael Howard
“It’s almost overwhelmingly upsetting to the point when you almost
block it out of your mind,” Tom said.
“There was a strong desire to believe that whatever happened, it was
not a big deal.”
Tom shared his story with the Herald as police revealed how they
caught his child’s abuser, Sydney day care worker David William James.
The 27-year-old was sentenced on Thursday to 12 years’ prison with a
non-parole period of seven years for sexual offences relating to nine
children.

How a day care worker lured children with threats

Tom learnt the heartbreaking truth as detectives began uncovering
James’ depravity.
During a day care shift, the day care worker had ordered Tom’s son to
clean up in the staff bathroom, having earlier told him to play in
mud.
“If you don’t come in here, your mum’s going to be really mad at you.”
From our partners

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‘Dual life’: Sydney daycare worker jailed for abuse in multiple centres

The seven-year-old told him he knew the area was out of bounds for
kids, but obeyed once he was threatened.
Inside the sink area, the boy was abused and filmed.
Tom had seen James in passing, describing him as shy and avoidant of
eye contact. He could not have imagined what he was capable of.
After the AFP contacted him and his ex-wife, and they identified that
their son was a victim, disbelief was eventually replaced with
devastation and cynicism.
“It has made me not so naive about the world,” Tom said. “It’s
affected my job a lot. I go to therapy. I have looked into the reality
around us, and I have a lot less trust in people.”
Initially, his son would get angry whenever he was asked about what
happened. After time, he opened up to his mother. He said he wanted
“Mr James to die”.
The parents struggled with balancing their desires to help police get
the predator off the streets and shield their son from the horrors
that had been committed against him.

The hunt for “Remy”

James first came to the attention of police under his dark web pseudonym “Remy”.
Remy always posted on his favourite dark web forum between 9:30pm and
2am Sydney time, where users shared photos and perverse fantasies
about real-life children.
It was likely the paedophile was Australian, given the hours he kept,
but there were few clues about his identity. Despite being an active
member, Remy didn’t slip up.
Police obtained CCTV showing abusive childcare worker David James, far
right, in Chatswood.NSW Police
That was until September 2024, when he posted six photos of little
boys. One, wearing blue shirt and shorts, sat on his father’s
shoulders in a crowd.
Officers from Queensland Police’s Operation Whiskey Beau were
watching, and scraped Remy’s metadata from the single image.
They passed it to the Australian Federal Police, who put Remy at a
time and a place: the Matsuri Japanese Festival, 5:13pm, 13 September
2024, Chatswood Mall.
Footage from the festival shows a blur of colour and activity.
Officials speak under red and white lanterns, families browse kimonos
and buy bowls of ramen from street vendors, and children fold origami
paper for a game.
On grainy CCTV from cameras outside the Commonwealth Bank, a boy in a
blue and orange shirt, on a man’s shoulders, appears in frame.
Behind them, a loner in a black jacket looks over his shoulder, takes
a phone from his pocket and snaps an image before vanishing off-screen
in the direction of the train station.
A moment later, the man is caught on a second camera headed into the
Orchard Hotel to buy a beer. He paid with a card.
CCTV of James at the Orchard Tavern.NSW Police
The next day, detectives went to a stately, brick federation cottage
in Artarmon, into the childhood bedroom of James.
Adopted into a wealthy family, educated at prestigious private school
Knox, and having once trained as a police officer before leaving the
force soon after graduating, James seemed strangely calm, slightly
smug, and not overly bothered by the intruders with badges and guns.
He stonewalled, refusing to give investigators the passwords to his devices.
Refusing a digital access order, as that offence is known, carries a
maximum of two years’ imprisonment. But that’s an easy calculation for
those staring down decades if the content of their phone is uncovered.
James’ only hope was the detectives in AFP Operation Arctile would
never see the images and videos he’d taken of nine children, exposed
in day care centre bathrooms, while he performed heinous acts standing
behind them.
It was an “egregious betrayal”, James later acknowledged in court, to
use children under his care to make abuse material for the enjoyment
of his paedophile companions.

A race against time and refusal to hand over passwords

Even as James was led from his home in handcuffs, investigators
concluded he was confident of avoiding serious jail time.
“He had sat on the dark web, behind a veil of anonymity, getting away
with it for a period of time,” one investigator said.
An earlier court sketch of David James.Rocco Fazzari
A court released James on bail after five days. He was still only
facing a single charge of refusing to hand over his passwords.
It was a race against time to either crack James’ phone or find
definitive evidence that he was Remy.
“We didn’t want him coming out again,” one investigator said.
“There are children at immediate risk, that’s it.”
James’ encryptions didn’t survive the month. On October 10, his phone
unlocked inside the AFP’s digital forensic laboratory and disgorged 22
images and videos containing child abuse material of victims aged
between five and eight.
Police rearrested James, this time with a heavier set of charges
including four counts of using a child under 14 years to make child
abuse material, three counts of doing and filming a sexual act with a
child to create abuse material, and four counts of producing or
possessing child abuse material.
“We didn’t even need your passwords,” they told him.
But it was the start of the most difficult chapter in operation
Arctile. James had recorded the children during his day care shifts.
As with Tom’s son, some content was recorded in “out of bounds” areas
to children.
No faces of any victims were in any of James’ perverse images. That
meant the AFP’s victim-identification team spent months analysing the
patterns of tiles, the shapes of urinals and layouts of toilets,
patterns on children’s underwear and catalogues of shoes, trying to
narrow down the scenes of the recordings.
James had worked at 58 centres, casually, and the number of children
he could access was in the hundreds.
The victim ID team tracks down at-risk children to get them away from
abusers, but in a case like Arctile, their work also allows
investigators to reach out directly to victims rather than alerting
every parent who had a child at James’ centres.
David James’ entry in the Knox Grammar yearbook from 2017.
It’s an approach that quarantines the traumatic information to the
directly impacted families and allows detectives to arrive with
psychologists already in tow, and prevents contamination of the case
by the horrified wider school community.
The Herald was in court, by chance, for James’ first appearance on the
child abuse charges and chose not to oppose a non-publication order
over his identity until his victims could be identified.
It took a year for the victim ID team to find all nine from the small
details in the images.
Their identities were confirmed by horrified parents like Tom. Some
told a court James had destroyed their sense of safety and trust in
others.
On Thursday, James sat emotionless as he learnt he would remain behind
bars until at least 2031, with time already served.
Judge Guy Newton condemned his abuse of trust and authority to feed
sexual gratification.
“In the community [he] was a pro-social young man who had actively
pursued a career in policing, was well-engaged with others and was
self-confident,” he said.
“However, in private [he] harboured deviant sexual interests … James
has led a dual life.”
While Tom – alongside all victims’ families – will serve their own
life sentence for the unforgivable betrayal, he was satisfied with
James’ punishment.
Tom said his biggest disappointment was with interaction of the
childcare and state government protection systems. James was fired
from working at centres owned by Primary OSHCare’s parent company,
Junior Adventures Group, after a number of complaints. However, he was
offered continued casual work with recruitment company Randstad
because his Working With Children Check was not affected.
He hoped improvements would come from a recent overhaul of the system,
including a new National Early Childhood Worker Register which
centralises clearances, qualifications, training and enforcement
actions of all childcare and outside of school hours (OOSH) care
centre staff. However, he felt men like James would continue to find
loopholes within an overstretched system.
“I had a lot of trust in the system, but it was all disjointed,” Tom said.
“The fact that they even caught the guy is testament to some of the
systems we have in place working.”
*Tom is a pseudonym
Anyone needing support ca

HC directs nodal adoption agency CARA to issue an NOC to an Australia-based couple of Indian origin. The order is expected to set precedent for similar cases.

New Delhi:In an order likely to help Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) couples overcome bureaucratic hurdles in inter-country adoption, the Delhi High Court has directed the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to issue a no-objection certificate (NOC) to an Australia-based couple, enabling travel documents to be prepared for their adopted child.

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