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An orphanage in Craiova, Romania in 1994. Photo by Michael Carroll

Virginia Hughes is a science journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her blog, Only Human, is published by National Geographic.

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The investigation of illegal adoptions is growing - 600 children may have been affected

published today 06.10

The Chilean criminal investigation on suspected illegal adoptions from Chile is growing. Now more than 600 Swedish cases are included in the investigation. The adopted requires a Swedish investigation - but it is still far away.

Nina Hugosson from Burträsk which is one of the cases included in the investigation . She thinks the scope is hard to grab.

"Crazy, that's crazy," she says.

child adoption centres,Maneka Gandhi,Women and Child Development minister

Union minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi said that the government has shut down 28 specialised adoption agencies in six states after allegations of illegal adoptions, child abuse and flouting of norms under J.J. Act. (PTI File Photo )

The government has shut down 28 specialised adoption agencies in six states after allegations of illegal adoptions, child abuse and flouting of norms under J.J. Act surfaced, Union minister Maneka Gandhi told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

In the wake of alleged rape of inmates of a shelter home in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur and another in Deoria, Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi also requested parliamentarians to visit the shelter homes periodically to check the living conditions and level of care provided to the children.

The Minister for Women and Child Development (WCD) also said that there were only 43 complaints regarding child abuse and neglect in shelter homes and Child Care Institutions (CCIs) from 2014 to 2018, out of which 38 have been disposed of.

There were 77 international adoptions in B.C. last year, down from 117 in 2012/2013. (Shutterstock)

One of B.C.'s small handful of licensed adoption agencies is closing its doors, blaming a drop in the number of international adoptions.

Family Services of Greater Vancouver's (FSGV) adoption agency will officially shut down on Nov. 1, after 21 years in operation and more than 700 children placed with adoptive families.

"We're really saddened to have to make a decision to close the adoption agency," FSGV's vice president Jessica Denholm told CBC.

International adoptions decline dramatically in Canada

By Spencer Punnett

''What can a woman do with four children suffering from hunger, when she can't give them an education?'' asks Maria Cristina Bernat de Bonilla. ''To me it seems more unselfish - she's a better mother - if she gives up a child so it may have a better future.''

If you live in Colombia, as Mrs. Bonilla does, this is a controversial line to take. But it's a view this lawyer from the city of Cali defends with passion.

Mrs. Bonilla is talking about destitute Colombian mothers who sign release forms allowing their children to be adopted. Over the past nine years, she says, she has helped place some 150 Colombian children with adoptive parents throughout the United States - and about 300 with Europeans.

Although shifting government policies prohibit her from participating at present in the adoption process, Mrs. Bonilla still keeps in touch with the adoptive families she has brought together. During a recent visit to Boston, she described how some of the Colombian mothers who gave up children have come to her later for news.

73 Missionaries of Charity homes linked to central adoption ..

Read more at:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/66581789.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Return To Adoption System: Maneka Gandhi To Missionaries of Charity Homes

The move seeks to bring children living in 79 homes into family care, Maneka Gandhi said. (File)

NEW DELHI: Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday asked child-care homes run by the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) to "come back into" the government's system of adoption services.

In 2015, an ideological row erupted between the ministry and the Mother Teresa-founded organisation over issues such as the MoC's denial to give children to separated or divorced parents.

Following this, the Missionaries of Charity decided to stop putting children up for adoption under the government's Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) system.

Sarmishta Venkatesh and Venkatesh Gopalakrishnan with their son Abhi By Express News Service

BENGALURU: My husband Venkatesh Gopalakrishnan, who is a pastor, and I wanted a child for a while, and had tried different ways to get pregnant, says Sarmishta Venkatesh, who legally brought nine-year-old Abhi home earlier this year. “I had suffered two miscarriages earlier, and wasn’t sure if I was ready to adopt a child yet. In 2017, we started the process and registered as Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs) with CARA. We registered for a low-risk category adoption.

I would frequently go through their website, and read the profiles of kids with special needs. There were about 350 to 400 kids on that list, and over the months, I noticed that none of them were being adopted,” she says.

Their son, Abhi, was the eighth profile on the list of special needs children up for adoption, and Sarmishta says that his profile had been on the site for five years – no one had come to get him. Abhi suffers from a condition called spina bifida, where the spinal cord is malformed – he is paralysed from the waist down. He also suffers from hydrocephalus, wherein fluid builds up in brain cavities. He was abandoned as an infant in a hospital, and spent his first eight years in a children’s home in Andhra, during which he had eight surgeries.

“We were on the waitlist, and didn’t think we would see any results for the next two years. But when I saw my son’s face on the website, something tugged at my heart – we thought, maybe this is the child we should focus on. We then started to get more information on Abhi, and touched base with his foster dad and the adoption centre in Andhra,” she says.

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19 children adopted from three centres across Ernakulam district in four months

Indicating an increased demand for children from Kerala and speedy completion of adoption formalities, 19 children have been adopted from three adoption centres across the district during the four month period between June and October.

Thirteen boys and six girls were among those adopted, out of which eight were three-months-old, five were four-months-old, one was seven-months-old, one was one-year-old, two were nine-years-old, and one was three-years-old and one was 11-years-old.

‘Legally free’ children