Instead, they tell parliamentary panel to improve access to education to delay marriages

An umbrella body of child rights organisations set up by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, which appeared before the parliamentary panel studying the Bill on raising the age of marriage for women to 21 from 18 years, has opposed the move and emphasised the need to improve access to education to delay marriages.

The India Child Protection Forum [ICPF] comprising nearly 70 civil society organisations, represented by its convener Amod K. Kanth as well as Ravi Kant from the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, made its submissions before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports headed by BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe on Monday.

The panel has been meeting NGOs for the past one week and is expected to submit its report in June. Last year, Parliament had sent the Prevention of Child Marriage Bill, 2021 to the Standing Committee after the Opposition parties expressed concerns over raising the age of marriage for women and demanded greater scrutiny of the proposed law.

The ICPF told the panel that the Prevention of Child Marriages Act, 2005 had failed to stop child marriages in the country, which was evident through the National Crime Records Bureau data which show that only 2,530 cases were registered under the Act between 2016 and 2020, while the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021) indicated that 23.3% of women surveyed were married before attaining the legal age of marriage of 18.

The appointment of experts in the inquiry into foreign adoptions is reminiscent of the home blindness that the inquiry seeks to address. The criticism that the government might have hoped for is already being renewed when the legitimacy of the inquiry can be questioned.

It was after Dagens Nyheter's and SVT's extensive investigations of irregularities and crimes in connection with adoptions to Sweden, that the government in October 2021 got its thumbs out and Minister of Social Affairs Lena Hallengren announced that an investigation was being appointed . One of the main purposes is to clarify the existence of irregularities. The assignment will be reported in November 2023.

One subject of the reviews, which has also received a lot of criticism from adoptees, was the Adoption Center, Sweden's largest adoption mediator. Former employees of the Adoption Center in Chile were singled out for making children available for adoption without parental consent, through corrupt contacts in the judiciary, social services and health care. The Chilean tragedy is spreading over large parts of the western world. Children were pronounced dead, they were stolen from daycare, they were torn from their mothers' arms, they lost their families. A major criminal investigation is underway in Chile.

Cold hand

When Dagens Nyheter focused on Colombia , the newspaper was able to provide information about incorrect background stories and how children disappeared from hospitals and day care to eventually be sent to Sweden. The newspaper also spoke with the Colombian families. But when they searched the Adoption Center for a comment about the organization's responsibility for unethical and sometimes illegal adoptions, it became cold.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade could come as early as next month. Tennessee lawmakers expect adoption and foster reform legislation to be a priority in next year’s general assembly.

Tennessee, like all Mid-South states, has a trigger law that would go into effect banning most abortion in the state if Roe v. Wade is overturned and a leaked Supreme Court Draft opinion suggests it may.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee says adoptions and foster care reform has been a focus of his throughout his term and will continue to be so no matter the decision.

The Adoption Project, a newly formed organization in Nashville, is aiming to have some of that legislation in front of lawmakers’ next general assembly.

The policy organization says it’s likely more children will be given up for adoption or go into foster care if most abortions are outlawed in the state.

At a time when most Irish people chose to ignore the thousands of girls and women locked up in Magdalene Laundries, one Galway family went to extraordinary lengths to break 15 young women free from one such ‘prison’.

It was a feat that could have come straight from a heist movie involving an insider, a getaway van and a heroic family in the west of Ireland in the early 1960s.

A new two-part RTÉ series, Ireland’s Dirty Laundry, details the desperate escape attempts by young girls incarcerated in the laundries, which often ended up heartbreakingly in failure, with gardaí returning them to the religious orders.

Along with new identities, the documentary reveals that female inmates, some just young girls, were assigned a number prefixed by the letter PEN, which stood for penitent, meaning someone who is repenting.

Labelled the “Maggies”, the women were sent to the laundries where they worked for nothing, some for their entire life, simply for being unmarried mothers or regarded as morally wayward or for transgressions such as going to the cinema twice in a week.

Do you want to learn more how civil society organisations can deliver a change for the most vulnerable children? Eurochild is organising a workshop highlighting the experiences of our Greek and Turkish members and how cultural differences and religion shape child protection.

The online event takes place on ZOOM on 1 June 2022 14h-15h30.

Join Eurochild as we highlight country-level practices from Greece and Turkey that support the transition from institutional to family- and community-based care. We will also hear from EU representatives on what opportunities lie ahead for child protection reforms in the EU and pre-accession countries - the European Child Guarantee and Enlargement Package in particular. We will discuss how EU policies & funding can further support these civil society efforts.

Eurochild members Roots Research Centre Greece and Hayat Sende Youth Association Turkey will share their lessons learned and good practices on what worked best for preparation of professionals and foster carers as well as how to increase an interest among the public to become a foster parent. They will also explain how cultural differences and religion shape child protection systems.

In cooperation with the Martin James Foundation, Eurochild provides capacity building and targeted technical assistance to convert the good practices and innovations of our members into systemic change. Read about our new push to support our members and strengthen family-based care.

CLEVELAND, Ohio— A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the former owner of a now-defunct Strongsville adoption agency to three months in prison for her lying to U.S. and Polish authorities about the adoption of a 5-year-old girl from Poland, whose caregiver later violently raped her.

Margaret Cole, the owner of European Adoption Consultants, will also spend a year on house arrest after she serves her prison term and must pay a $7,500 fine.

U.S. District Judge James Gwin sentenced Cole to far less than the two years in prison and a $90,000 fine sought by prosecutors. Cole’s defense attorneys argued for probation. Gwin also allowed Cole to self-report to prison.

“I’m really sorry for what happened, but I worked for 24 years to help 8,000 families,” Cole said. “The children were the joy of my life.”

Gwin said he factored in the 74-year-old’s age and health issues before handing down his sentence.

Nine cases in six months; focussed communication needed from govt to curb the practice, say experts

HYDERABAD: The alleged case of illegal adoption by cine actor Karate Kalyani has exposed the deep-rooted issue of illegal adoption. The issue, in fact, is neither new nor uncommon for Telangana as the State has seen nine such cases in the last six months. However, on the positive side, the Women Development and Child Welfare Department rescued all the nine children who had been adopted illegally during this period and rehabilitated them at Shishu Vihar, which is one of the nodal child care institutes run by the State government.

All the nine children, who were rescued from different parts of the State, are under the age of five. However, it may be mentioned here that there are other such government centres in different districts so the actual number of children rescued after illegal adoption may be higher. In 2020, the State also saw a total of 127 legal adoptions both within the country and from abroad.

Detrimental to children

Meanwhile, experts stressed the need for a focussed communication from the government to convey that adoptions done out of sympathy hold no legal sanctity and are, in fact, detrimental to the adopted children.

Andhra Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairman Kesali Apparao said on Friday that the commission would take stern action against those found guilty of adopting children illegally.

“Couples who are childless can approach the Sishu Grihas to adopt children in a legal manner,” Mr. Apparao said while visiting the Sishu Griha in Vizianagaram, where he distributed clothes to the staff and nutritious food to children.

Speaking to reporters, he said actor Karate Kalyani’s reported illegal adoption case which was registered in Hyderabad was referred to the commission recently as the actor hails from Viziana

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THE HAGUE - Sebastian Kruis, leader of the PVV party in The Hague in daily life, was at Schiphol a month ago, not knowing what the following weeks in Colombia would bring him. He went on a trip to the South American country to look for his biological family. And with success, less than two weeks later he found his biological mother in a shelter for the homeless elderly in Medellín. "I went from no information at all about my mother to a meeting with her in a matter of days."

The 32-year-old party leader was adopted at a young age by a couple from the Netherlands. 'When I was nine months old, I was adopted and came to the Netherlands. I grew up there in Zoetermeer and when I was eighteen I moved to The Hague, the most beautiful city in the Netherlands', Kruis begins in the radio program Menno in de Middag. 'I am now 32 years old and in all this time I really didn't feel the need to know more about my biological family and look for them.'

Until more than a year ago a report was published about abuses in international adoptions and the role of the Dutch government in this. 'There have been stories for some time that things have gone wrong with adoptions. But that research showed that things often did not go well with adoptions and that the government played a reprehensible role in this,' explains the PVV member. 'That made me, like many other adopted children, start to doubt whether my adoption file is correct and I really wanted to find out', says the politician.

Tour of Colombian population register and police

So Kruis put his money where his mouth is and he was standing at Schiphol on 22 April with a suitcase and ticket to Medellín in his hand. 'I mainly went to Colombia with the idea to see if I could get more information about my adoption file. I only had a name and a place of birth', he says.

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