March 29, 2022 - We are deeply alarmed by Cambodia reopening intercountry adoptions and the Italian government’s apparent disclosure that at least nine potential adoptions from Cambodia are being processed by Italian adoption agencies. We fear these decisions will lead to more families being irreparably torn apart by a poorly regulated system that has failed to protect children’s best interests in the past.

Cambodia reports having sent 3,696 children abroad for adoption between 1998 and 2011. The country suspended intercountry adoptions following evidence of fraud and corruption. Cambodian officials forged documents to falsely change some children’s names or ages or claim they were orphaned or abandoned, before children were adopted abroad without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

Cambodia today still lacks a sufficient child protection system, judicial system and anti-corruption measures to guarantee that adoptions will proceed legally and ethically. Despite Cambodia acceding to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 2007 and enacting numerous laws and policies, there is no guarantee that intercountry adoptions would occur in children’s best interests.

Cambodian and Italian government agencies have ignored requests for information from LICADHO in recent months about the reopening of intercountry adoptions, including requests for information about the bilateral agreement, related procedures, and when children are expected to leave Cambodia.

Since 2017, six families have approached LICADHO to seek information about 15 children who were fraudulently adopted from Cambodia in the 2000s. Each family had temporarily placed their children in shelters or orphanages after being told their children would receive care and an education before returning home. Parents often only learned their children had left the country when they returned to visit them and found them missing. Each family has spent years seeking information about their children. While some children have been located abroad following extensive investigations, for others there has been no confirmation of where they are, who is caring for them, or if they are even alive, leaving families in a state of limbo and continued suffering.

For years, adoption agencies preyed upon impoverished Cambodian mothers, taking their children in shady circumstances and sending them to families abroad.

Elizabeth Jacobs remembers some of the earliest red flags she noticed when she was trying to learn more about her adoption from Cambodia as a baby in 2000.

While the 22-year-old’s birth certificate stated Jan. 1 as her birth date, records kept by the orphanage indicated Feb. 2. Her surname, too, was listed in her adoption document as “Rath,” Khmer for state or government, and known to be commonly used in falsified birth documents. Then there was the fact that Jacobs had no information about her biological family.

But the brightest red flag of them all came when Jacobs found out who facilitated her adoption: an American named Lauryn Galindo. Galindo was convicted of fraud in 2004 after handling the adoptions of about 800 Cambodian children, some of whom were deemed to have been disguised as orphans, but were in fact sold by impoverished mothers for as little as the price of a bag of rice.

The more she dug into her adoption, the more unsettled Jacobs felt, grappling with the reality that she might not have been “rescued” as an orphan from Cambodia at all.

Jobs in Central Adoption Resource Authority: Apply now, check eligibility

criteria

ANI | Updated: Apr 27, 2022 19:42 IST

New Delhi [India], April 27 (ANI): The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), a statutory body of the

Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of India, has invited applications to fill several posts on

Legal action to be taken against adoptive parents

Kozhikode

The Child Welfare Committee of Kozhikode sent the 4-year-old-boy, who was illegally adopted by a couple in Chakkumkadavu, Kozhikode, with his biological parents. CWC Chairman P.M. Thomas said that the child left with his parents for Wayanad on Wednesday.

The child was found by the police at his adoptive home at Chakkumkadavu a month ago after one of the actual children of the adoptive parents reported it at his school following which the Child Welfare Committee intervened. The CWC wanted to give the child back to his biological parents if they were willing to accept him, or else start legal adoption proceedings for him.

The police, upon investigation, identified an unwed couple from Wayanad as the child's biological parents. The mother, due to her unwed status, wanted to give up the child after he was born in a private hospital in Kozhikode in 2018. She was planning to leave him in the 'Amma Thottil', but was unwilling to travel to Thrissur for the purpose. She handed over the child to the couple in Chakkumkadavu through a caregiver at the hospital as mediator.

Biotechnology is one of the fields of science in which China wants to become a leader. Last year, China declared human DNA a natural resource that the state can dispose of. This has far-reaching consequences for pharmaceutical companies that are active in the country. Is the combination of a totalitarian regime, applied scientific research and rising nationalism a danger?

China has regarded human DNA as a 'natural resource' for two years now.

In principle, the state reserves the right to dispose of all materials that are stored in databases and labs.

Companies with more than half of foreign stakeholders must request permission to work with Chinese DNA.

“Iunderstand my work will be controversial, but I believe families need this technology. And I'm prepared to be criticized for this.' With those words, Chinese scientist He Jianku delightedly announced the birth of Nana and Lulu in a 2018 video. As if he were the father himself. In a way it was. The girls were the first children in the world to have their genes edited. As a result, the twins were no longer susceptible to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

IMAGINE AN anguished French father sneaking into a bedroom at night to snip a lock of hair, or cajoling an infant to obtain a trace of saliva or fingernail cutting. It may sound melodramatic, but there is evidence that thousands of Frenchmen are commissioning genetic paternity tests from foreign laboratories every year.

“It enabled me to move forward in my relationship with my child,” an anonymous father told France 2 television on May 28th. “If I hadn’t done it, I’d still be wondering whether I was the father.”

Paternity tests were banned in France 15 years ago. If French customs intercept DNA samples or results in the mail, the perpetrators in theory risk up to a year in prison and a €15,000 fine. The French Council of State upheld the law on May 6th, saying it did not want “to upset the French regime of filiation” and that the intent of lawmakers was to preserve “the peace of families”. On May 15th, the German Bundesrat adopted a similar measure.

Yet the tests are widely available on the internet, and are reportedly sold over the counter in the US.

If you google “paternity tests”, you’ll find 1,180,000 entries, the first of which offers a test in Dublin for €259 in five days.

Eight Walloon officials of the French Community know today whether they risk a prison sentence for covering up adoption fraud in Congo for years. The federal prosecutor's office is convinced they knew that "orphans" from Kinshasa who were adopted by Belgian parents had actually been kidnapped. The pivotal figure is lawyer Julienne Mpemba (47) who ran the orphanage for years.

On April 11, the Dutch government published its position and decision memorandum with various annexes ( more information here ). On April 12, Stichting Wereldkinderen, together with the other permit holders, spoke with the Ministry of Justice and Security. Stichting Wereldkinderen is happy and relieved that the Dutch government indicates in these documents that intercountry adoption will remain possible in the Netherlands in the future.

In the interest of the child, it is the hope of the World Children's Foundation that the Dutch government will quickly provide clarity regarding the resumption of granting permissions in principle, as indicated in the letter to the House of Representatives. That there will soon be more clarity with regard to the various proposals to change the current system. Without further details and planning, there remains a great deal of uncertainty for all involved.

The minister states in his letter that one thing is certain: 'the past does not equal the present and the system of intercountry adoption has improved in recent decades.' Stichting Wereldkinderen is happy to contribute to possible further improvements. The proposals in the letter and accompanying documents are a possible first step in the right direction. Whether the direction as now set out by the minister will lead to improvements compared to the current system will have to be shown from the as yet unknown details.

Stichting Wereldkinderen is pleased that there is more clarity and we would like to thank the minister for this. For questions, the Ministry of Justice and Security has compiled a 'FAQ' with telephone numbers. The official press release can be found here .

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It almost looks like a story from a movie, but it really happened to Rob: shortly after his birth in South Korea he was kidnapped by his aunt and given up for adoption. He told FunX how this could have happened.

ADOPTION STORY

For a long time, Rob and his adoptive parents had no idea of ??the bizarre adoption story that had taken place in South Korea. It wasn't until Rob went looking for his biological parents that the truth came out. "It's a difficult story," says Rob. He explains that his family has always been a little bit against his parents' marriage.

When his mother was pregnant, Rob's father left for the Emirates to work there. The moment the labor started - two months early - he couldn't just come back to South Korea. "He then said to his eldest sister: 'Listen, you are my eldest sister, you must look after my wife, because she is going to give birth." After Rob was born, he had to go straight to the incubator. His mother was in a coma at the time. "My aunt may have bribed the whole thing and ensured that I ended up in an orphanage and that I was sent away to the Netherlands as soon as possible when I was strong."

DECEASED DAUGHTER

(CNN)When Russian bombs started dropping on Ukraine in late February, a country singer half a world away in Nashville says he felt the panic of a parent whose child is in danger.

The 9-year-old boy who Scooter Brown and his wife, Vicki, had started the process of adopting was among those hiding in the basement of an orphanage in central Ukraine as three Russian missiles soared overhead and slammed into a Ukrainian military base about 60 miles away.

After that episode, the Browns took matters into their own hands.

Brown, a burly and bearded former Marine who fought on the front lines of Iraq in 2003 and whose namesake band has produced songs with titles such as "Guitars, Guns, and Whiskey" and "Wine Drunk," convinced a "special forces buddy" to join him overseas. They worked with a small Nashville organization run by another military veteran in an attempt to rescue the Browns' future adoptee and a handful of other kids; Brown's wife arrived later to provide additional support.

What followed was an erratic chain of events that started with Brown and his friend setting up a fortress of computer screens and whiteboards in a Polish hotel. From there, they said they fed associates the details they needed to pick up passports from a Kyiv apartment and to make a harrowing rescue of a woman connected with the orphanage who was trapped in a bunker.