Statement Adoption Association Gereformeerde Gezindte (AVGG) in response to the report of the Joustra Committee. [1]

On February 8, 2021, the Commission Investigation into Intercountry Adoption handed over the report with the results of its investigation to the Minister for Legal Protection. The committee has investigated the actual course of affairs regarding intercountry adoptions and the role and responsibility of the Dutch government in this regard. Commissioned by the committee, Statistics Netherlands has conducted research into the living situation, well-being and search behavior of intercountry adoptees. This covers the period 1967-1998, before the introduction of the Hague Adoption Convention. During the execution of the original investigation assignment, the Committee, in consultation with the Minister, expanded the investigation into known abuses outside this period and outside these five investigated countries of origin.

The adoption community is deeply shocked by those adoptions where abuses occurred in the 1970s-1990s. Recognition is appropriate here for the suffering inflicted on those involved, the adoptees and their biological family. Our association also thinks of the adoptive parents, who entered into a procedure in good faith, which later turned out to be based on lies. They see the pain their children struggle with. We realize that questions can arise about God's providence, doubts about God's way of which adoptees and their parents were previously firmly convinced. Could not then arise the complaint from the book of Job: Shall God pervert justice, and the Almighty pervert justice? (Job 8:3)

The AVGG was founded in 1979, in the middle of the period under investigation. (Former) members of our association have also had to deal with abuses. Although the AVGG has not mediated in adoptions and has not committed any culpable acts, the association has not always reacted as alertly and empathetically. If anyone was hurt in doing so, even if it was done in ignorance, we hereby apologize.

We support the following recommendations made by the committee and adopted by the minister:

On Tuesday, the Chilean lower house voted through a resolution regarding the thousands of suspected illegal adoptions from the country.

136 members voted for the resolution and only one member voted against.

The decision means that the left-wing president Gabriel Boric will establish a truth and reparations commission for internationally adopted and families of origin who have suffered from irregularities linked to adoptions from the 1950s until the turn of the millennium.

In a parliamentary inquiry from 2019, the Chilean lower house established that children had been stolen from their parents and adopted away to countries in the Western world – including to Sweden.

The investigation said that networks of social workers, judges, healthcare professionals and adoption agencies had acted in concert “with the aim of confiscating minors, especially if their mothers were in a vulnerable situation”.

Social Care Standards Authority CEO Matthew Vella says that efforts are underway to widen the group of countries from where Maltese could adopt children

The Social Care Standards Authority is currently negotiating with Nepalese authorities over a possible deal which would allow prospective Maltese parents to adopt from the country.

Social Care Standards Authority CEO Matthew Vella said this while addressing the National Adoption Conference on Friday.

Also addressing the conference was Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who insisted that every effort should be done to make it easier for prospective parents to be able to adopt.

“There’s no cutting corners when it comes to adoption. We must ensure that as policy makers we do the utmost to facilitate adoption of both Maltese and foreign children for parents looking to adopt,” he said.

After a couple from Malta was denied permission to adopt a one-year-old from an orphanage in KR Puram, they

moved the High Court and finally got the go-ahead to add ‘Nicholas Dhruva Schembri’ to their family of four.

The High Court allowed Joseph and Deborah Schembri to adopt the boy who lives in Shishu Mandir, KR Puram,

setting aside a lower court order that had barred from adoption on the grounds of age, income and cultural

differences. It said that the lower court had “acted illegally and with material irregularity” in the case.

The widow of notary Ivan Barbara breaks her silence and denies benefitting from money held in escrow by her late husband or that the funds were used to adopt her daughter from India

The widow of notary Ivan Barbara is denying client funds held in escrow by her late husband were used to adopt their child from India.

Rosanne Barbara Zarb said in a letter sent to the media that she had no involvement or connection with her late husband’s profession.

This is the first time that Barbara Zarb broke her silence after clients of her late husband who had deposited funds on promise of sale agreements were left chasing their money.

Ivan Barbara died earlier this year from COVID-19 in India. He was there, along with his wife, to adopt a child.

An adoptive mother has recounted to TVMnews that in addition to her biological children she had always also wished to have adopted children.

Interviewed by TVMnews she said she treats her own children in the same manner while expressing her satisfaction at increasing her family through adoption.

Currently there are about 500 parents waiting to adopt children from other countries.

197 children from other countries have begun a new life in Malta after being adopted last year.

TVMnews obtained from official sources that last year the most children adopted came from Ethiopia, Cambodia and Russia. There are other countries from which adoption is favoured, including India.

MT — . One of the accusations levelled at gender-critical feminists, even those with decades-long track records of leftwing activism and gay rights campaigning, is that we are somehow in league with the Religious Right.

Trans-rights activists like to portray themselves as the vanguard of liberal progress, and use this to justify their

rejection of any public debate or scrutiny of their insistence that the legal and everyday definition of ‘woman’ is

changed, which feminists argue makes it harder for women to protect their boundaries and rights.

What the trans-rights activists are less willing to do is cast a critical eye over their own bedfellows, be they Big Pharma,

Tista' taqra bil- Malti.

Social policy minister Michael Falzon said that “the reality is that there are no local adoptions and there are several reasons for this despite the fact that we have changed the law”.

Appearing on Andrew Azzopardi’s talkshow on 103 Malta’s Heart, Falzon was quizzed about the recent case of of a family in Malta that returned three children adopted from India to the State, insisting they did not want to care for them any longer.

Falzon said the “exceptional” case was worrying, especially after the couple claimed that the behaviour of the children was “impossible”.

He added that when officials found out about the case, they did their utmost to find an alternative place for the children but Falzon admitted that there is much to be learnt from the case to ensure it doesn’t repeat itself.

Australian Federal Police are searching for women and children who may have been affected by the practice of forced adoption in Northern Ireland.

Northern Irish police are searching for women and children in Australia who may have been affected by institutional abuse between 1922 and 1990.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland launched an investigation in 2021 into allegations of abuse within Mother and Baby Institutions, Work Houses, and Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland.

On Sunday, the Australian Federal Police announced it will assisting the investigation in an effort to find victims and witnesses who may now live in Australia.

The Police Service are appealing for mothers who gave birth in, or anyone who was adopted from, institutions in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1990 to come forward.

The inmates and management of Keshav Bahety Surjudaya Children Home at Gangabari

near Makum in Tinsukia district have reason to rejoice as two couples from Malta

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TINSUKIA: The inmates and management of Keshav Bahety Surjudaya Children Home

at Gangabari near Makum in Tinsukia district have reason to rejoice as two couples from