NEW DELHI: Over 600 child care institutions, run by NGOs and housing 28,000 children, received up to Rs 6 lakh per child in foreign funds in 2018-19, far more than the estimated average expenditure, the apex child rights body NCPCR said as it expressed apprehensions of possible financial irregularities.

In a random analysis of information about 638 NGO-run CCIs in five states, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) found that in 2018-19 the average amount they collected was between Rs 2.12 lakh to Rs 6.60 lakh per child and it is now planning a country-wide exercise to examine the foreign funding and expenditure of such NGOs, according to NCPCR Chairperson Priyank Kanoongo.

As per the Child Protection Scheme, the expenditure per child per annum including all recurring expenses is about Rs 60,000.

"Such a high amount of money collected by the NGOs has raised concerns about possible siphoning of funds. We will be carrying out a country-wide exercise and, accordingly, action would be taken," Kanoongo told PTI.

He said a "country-wide analysis" of the foreign funds received by NGOs run child care institutions will be carried out.

Recognising that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding” - Preamble of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

NEW DELHI: A random analysis by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) covering over 600 NGOs running child care institutions showed that going by FRCA data on the quantum of donations in 2018-19, the average amount received per child in these CCIs ranged between Rs 2.12 lakh and Rs 6.60 lakh.

The analysis covered 638 NGOs across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana and Karnataka that housed around 28,900 children at the time the NCPCR commissioned the social audit in 2018-19.

On why these five states were chosen, NCPCR chief Priyank Kanoongo said the audit in 7,163 homes in 2018-19 found around 2.56 lakh children in CCIs. Of these, over 1.63 lakh were in five southern states. NCPCR decided to analyse trends in foreign funding by taking these five states first, an official said. The NCPCR plans to study the trend further and extend the analysis to other states too.
“We are not alleging anything but yes, we want that whatever money is coming into the country should be used for the benefit of the child as these CCIs are under the Juvenile Justice Act,” the NCPCR chief said.
The random analysis was carried out by picking NGOs running CCIs audited by the Lucknow-based Academy of Management Studies in 2018-19. Kanoongo said they took the FCRA data available on the home ministry’s website (www.fcraonline.nic.in) for the year 2018-19.

“The calculation was carried out with the receipt of foreign contribution by NGOs running CCIs against the number of children staying during the social audit,” he said, adding that the expenditure per child per annum, including all recurring expenses, came to about Rs 60,000.

They see their daughter just twice a year. And she has never seen the two-story brick house in Annapolis that is supposed to be — according to all the documents they signed — her American home.

Bhagya, 12, is still in an orphanage in Nepal, where Aaron and Emma Skalka met her eight years ago. They fly there twice a year, Skype, call and email her as much as they can to talk about her hobbies, her friends, her grades.

They are stuck in an adoption limbo — a morass of paperwork and politics, fraught with the ethical weight of international adoptions and the fierce conviction of two people who don’t want a little girl to be abandoned a second time.

And they just sued the American government, essentially arguing to overturn a ban on adoptions from Nepal implemented when abuse and corruption in the system was uncovered 13 years ago. The Skalkas — who hired their own investigator to ensure everything was legit and unforced — are pressing the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to acknowledge the Nepalese approval of Bhagya’s adoption.

“The State Department doesn’t understand,” Aaron Skalka said. “From the moment we signed those papers, there was an emotional commitment to this child.”

ORIGINALLY KNOWN AS Pelletstown and later as Saint Patrick’s Mother and Baby home on the Navan Road, Dublin 7, it was originally a public workhouse and probably designated a ’special institution’ exclusively for single mothers in 1904.

It was converted for such usage in 1906 by George Sheridan at a cost of £11,000. Pelletstown was owned and financed by the Poor Law Guardians and the Dublin Union (i.e the state), and run on their behalf by the Sisters of the Daughters of Saint Vincent de Paul (later called the Daughters of Charity).

Saint Patrick’s was by far the largest of the nine Mother and Baby homes in terms of the numbers who passed through and approximately 9,000 to 12,000 women and girls went through its doors. It was also a massive ‘holding centre’ in it’s own right for unaccompanied babies and children. It was certified for 149 beds for unmarried mothers and 560 cots/beds for babies and children.

Babies and children who passed away were sent for burial to the national Angel’s Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in north Dublin. There are two periods when exact numbers of deaths are known and rough estimates from other years would indicate that at least 2,000 and possibly above 3,000 babies and children died during its 81 years of operation on the Navan Road.

The home was closely associated with Saint Kevin’s Hospital in Dublin city centre now known as Saint James.

Today in the newspaper Le Soir:

POLICY:

'We have to do everything to find out the truth': Govt defends itself on illegal adoptions case

Foreign Affairs Minister responds on handling of illegal adoptions file. Hadja Lahbib will produce, she says, the findings of research in the ministry's archives in the new school year. What about the expected report on adoptions? Justice is working on it.

Image : BELGIAN.

The Karnataka High Court has said that an adoption deed or registered document is not a must to prove the adoption of a child. If conditions of valid

https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/karnataka-high-court/karnataka-high-court-child-adoption-proof-adoption-deed-hindu-adoption-maintenance-act-233093

What started as a complaint from the Leithgöb family about the slow progress on their criminal case against the accused, and following the PPU’s involvement, culminated in the police identifying dozens more victims of the alleged scam.

Van den Berg is alleged to have offered services as an adoption social worker, where she would charge prospective adoptive parents, many incapable of having children, for various services in the process to adopt a child. It is alleged that the accused did this, when in fact there was no child to adopt or a child had been offered to the hopeful parents, despite the biological mother not giving consent for adoption. Her alleged offences date back to 2014.

When the PPU took on the case, the police were only investigating a charge of fraud. In a letter in May last year, Adv. Gerrie Nel, head of the PPU, advised the investigating officer on the serious nature of the alleged offences. “We are concerned that more babies have been sold under similar circumstances that the complainant had to endure. The prevalence of such conduct does raise serious consideration that the suspect’s alleged behaviour could be likened to and fall within the ambit of trafficking.

“Furthermore, the suspect seems to be continuing with her devious manipulation because of the vulnerability of childless people. Decisive investigation and action by the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Prosecuting Authority are essential to deal with, what seems to be, a serial fraudster or trafficker of babies,” said Nel.

 

PPU spokesperson, Barry Bateman says Van den Berg preyed on the vulnerability of men and women who yearned to be called mom and dad. “It is alleged that the prospective parents’ were shown pictures of a child they hoped and prayed they would one day adopt, meanwhile the same child was promised to another couple, who were shown the same pictures, and who eventually adopted that child.”

-- The culprits for the disappearance of 404 adoption files from the Bucharest Court were discovered, but left unpunished, being tolerated by the Ministry of Justice * The judge who dealt with most adoptions is Claudia Gherbovan - Silinescu, the daughter of the former General SIE Constantin Silinescu * Other magistrates involved: Florea Visan, Mirela Pod, Mihai Tomescu, Daniela Bragau

Yesterday, the former Minister of Justice Valeriu Stoica presented to the press a shocking document, which sheds light for the first time on the phenomenon of child adoptions and the disappearance of 404 adoption files from the archives of the Bucharest Court, crimes for which no one has been punished so far . A control carried out by the inspector judges Gabriela Barsan, Carmen Grigore, George Ezer and Iulian Teodoriu, from the Court of Appeal and respectively the Ministry of Justice, between April and May 1997, tried to establish the responsibilities for the disappearance from the archives of the Bucharest Court of 404 files of adoptions.The criminal phenomenon, of maximum gravity, happened in the period 1990 - 1995, it was found that 173 files are missing from the period 1990 - 1993, and the remaining 231 from the period 1994 - 1995. When exactly these files disappeared, it was not possible to specify with certainty, but the names of the judges and clerks involved in the adoption industry have been established, who escaped disciplinary sanctions on the grounds that they can no longer be applied, according to Law 92/1992 on judicial organization, only within 1 year of on the date of committing the acts. On the criminal side, however, we specify that the General Prosecutor's Office buried these files, the prosecutors proving to be complicit with those who stole and destroyed the 404 files from the TB archives, in order to cover the traces of an "international trade" in children.Organized thieves in gangs

The judicial control found that some of the causes that allowed the cases to disappear were "the lack of responsibility of the presidents of the sections and the judges and clerks who resolved these cases; non-compliance with the procedures regarding the registration and resolution of these cases; failure to stop this phenomenon, by not taking measures which were imposed, as a result of the notification to the Ministry of Justice since 1994; the application of overly lenient sanctions to auxiliary personnel".The files were taken out of the courtroomThe control note notes the involvement of some clerks in the falsification of reports, the signing of sentences by clerks and for judges, the names of Simona Radulescu and Iuliana Craciun being mentioned. The note also states: "Regarding two files, on March 12, 1996, the lawyer Sega Marius appeared (no - he became a judge at Section Ia of the Bucharest Court today), who requested their reinstatement, AFLANDU FILES - SE LA HIM. This lawyer declared on March 14, 1996, according to the report drawn up by the president of the section, judge Doina Popescu, that he had the mentioned files from an Italian, who in turn had them from an official who worked at the court ".Even the sentences from the map were stolenRegarding three files, no. 3112/95, 3473/95 and 5794/95 from the IVth Civil Section, resolved in the same session of September 14, 1995 (full court: Daniela Bragau, Florea Visan and Silvia Ruxandu) all sentences had the same number, respectively 860 bis. The files have disappeared, including the clerk's notebooks (he has gone abroad for good), but this case is particularly remarkable because a criminal hand stole even the sentences from the sentence folder, which is kept separately from the main archive.Changes of dubious termsThe files 9044/94, 9161/94 and 5400/95, from the 3rd Civil Section, all resolved on June 26, 1996, were initially suspended. After about a year, the suspended files were resumed in a dubious manner, "as a result of pending reinstatements that are not registered in any register, even on the day they are brought directly to the hearing, without the judge verifying the request for reinstatement on the roll (full court: Mirela Pod, Mihai Tomescu and Firoiu Magdalena). The two files from 1994 disappeared without being able to prove "that after the verdict they were handed over to the archive under the signature of (registry Magdalena Firoiu)". the file from 1995, the judicial inspectors found that in it there were several requests to change the term "given by the president of the section at that time, Mirela Pod, which appear at least bizarre,General SIE's daughter, hardworking as a beeThe control also noted: "Another cause that led to the perpetuation of the phenomenon over time was the distribution of files by sections, respectively their judgment primarily by the 3rd Civil Section, especially by a certain panel: Daniela Bragau and Claudia Gherbovan - Silinescu" (who is the daughter of General Constantin Silinescu, who was then deputy director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, married to the lawyer Radu Gherbovan). Eloquent for how these files were managed is the fact that the adoption files were moved from one civil section to another, depending on how the judges assigned to them were moved. Thus, with the move of judge Daniela Bragau from Section III to Section IV, the files went on the same route, in violation of the legal provisions in the matter. The inspectors found that in most cases, the judges and clerks did not report the disappearance of the files on a hierarchical line: "These operations were obviously done deliberately by those who had their management". It was noted that following the moving of the Elena Cortel archive, from the archive of the III department, a series of conditions and registers considered to have disappeared miraculously appeared.cover upContacted in 1997 with two criminal complaints regarding the disappearance of hundreds of files, the prosecutors of the General Prosecutor's Office acted incompetently, classifying the files with the initials "authors unknown" on the grounds that it was "impossible" to track down the culprits. The lie of the Prosecutor's Office is obvious, because the results of the checks of the inspecting judges clearly retained the names of clerks and judges. No one can believe that 404 files can disappear overnight, without showing in the registers who and how they last took them, in order to be held accountable. In this regard, the inspection report reached the following conclusion regarding the crimes found: "Currently,Stanoiu reopened the investigationAt the time when Minister Rodica Stanoiu left the portfolio of Justice, there remained to be completed, at the level of the General Inspection, a voluminous material related to the disappearance of adoption files. The investigation into the adoption files was reopened as a result of the scandal related to the reports of some high representatives of the EU, who exposed the fact that there were clear cases of corruption, when dozens of adoption sentences were pronounced in a single day, from to the same judge. As part of the re-opened investigation, the past activity of other TB magistrates, among them Vice President Costica Iconomu, as well as judge Doina Picearca, from the Bucharest Court of Appeal, former prosecutor of the TB session, in some adoption cases, is being analysed

Hyderabad: An Italian couple has adopted a 10-year-old orphan from Karimnagar. The couple from Casarsa della Delizia, Italy, was handed over the child after completing formalities as per the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) guidelines.

“I interacted with the child. He was comfortable with the Italian couple, who came to adopt him. I have also advised him to maintain contact with us and keep us informed about his well-being in Italy,” district collector B Gopi told TOI on Wednesday.

The boy was taken care by Sishu Vihar till he was six years. Thereafter, he was in the care of the authorities at a different place. The Italian couple spoke only Italian and an English interpreter accompanied them as the child was formally handed over in adoption to them.

As per CARA rules, prospective parents seeking to adopt a child, whether, they are from within the country or abroad, should fulfil certain criteria. They will not be given a choice on whether they will be given a boy or a girl in adoption. However, an attempt will be made to accommodate their request. The profile of a child is first sent to the prospective parents, who register as per CARA norms. The child will formally be given in adoption to them once they respond within 96 hours.