Indian family files police complaint of kidnapping in the Netherlands

Help Nagarani and other parents of missing children

Today the Sunday Times reported on the work of ACT (Against Child Trafficking), being to assist parents of missing children. Children missing because they were adopted by foreigners, in exchange for money.

Some of these children were kidnapped directly from their parents. Nagarani's son, for example, was kidnapped during the night - just as Madeleine McCann.

Madeleine McCann fund raised £2 million in first 10 months.

ACT is in need of urgent funding. To bring Nagarani and her husband to The Netherlands. But also to assist many more parents in similar situations.

I hope we can show that the world cares about all children and all parents!

SPECIAL CALL FOR HELP




In 1999, the 18 month old son of Nagarani and her husband Kathirvel was kidnapped in India and sold by to the orphanage Malaysian Social Services.

In 2007, through the work of ACT, Nagarani’s child was located in the Netherlands. The Dutch adoptive family refuses any contact, or DNA testing. The adoption agency and the Dutch Ministry of Justice take no responsibility.

ACT helped Nagarani and Kathirvel to get a lawyer in the Netherlands, so that they could request visiting rights in the Dutch Court of Justice.
See also: A Chennai slum dweller's fight for her Dutch son

ACT URGENTLY NEEDS FUNDING TO BRING THESE INDIAN PARENTS TO THE NETHERLANDS, SO THAT THEY CAN BE PRESENT IN THE COURT on 15 June 2010.

DONATIONS :

Via Paypal - see button on top of this posting, or

Against Child Trafficking,
The Netherlands, Nijmegen

Bank account: 67 26 82 060

IBAN: NL41 INGB 0672 6820 60
BIC: INGBNL2A

info@againstchildtrafficking.org

Ethiopia: Export Commodity Child

Informal translation of summary: Sonntaz Exportgut Kind

EXPORT COMMODITY CHILD

FULL ARTICLE (not yet online)

HOPE This Ethiopian Family has given a son to Germany. The father hoped that it would be better off there. That’s why he lied. Adoption agencies and orphanages claim such lies – at the intercountry adoption market.

ONE IS MISSING




(summary)
Export commodity child
A family in Ethiopia has many children and no money to feed them. A German family has money and wants a child. Human rights activists criticize the business of hope.

Human rights activists warn that the placement of orphans turned into a business.

Photo: jenzig71/photocase

AUGSBURG / SHINSHIZO taz | The number of children who are adopted abroad from Ethiopia has risen significantly in recent years. At least 3,000 children have been mediated in 2008 to countries like the USA, France or Spain. This is shown by an internal document from the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, which Sonntaz has. While German families in 2007 took 29 boys and girls from there, in 2008, according to the Federal Statistical Office it were already 47. From no other African country, more children come up for adoption to Germany.

Human rights activists warn that the placement of orphans becomes a business. They also criticize the role of adoption agencies that act as an intermediaries. "The high prices charged by the agencies for adoption are often not justified by actual costs. Foreign adoptions have thus become a market, "Brigitte Siebert of the central authority for international adoptions in the Hamburg told Sonntaz. In 2008 alone, worldwide around 37 million € circulated with adoptions from Ethiopia.

"Whenever the placement of children money flows and the players earn from it, it is sale of children," says the Dutch Roelie Post. She has for the EU Commission fought for years against the corruption and fraud in the adoption of children from Romania. Since the adoptions from there have completely stopped, she fears, countries such as Ethiopia could take the role of Romania. With her organisation Against Child Trafficking she tries to stop this.

In Ethiopia, acted in 2008, according to the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, 69 state-licensed adoption agencies. They bring children from orphanages first to transitional homes, to prepare them for their new life in the West, and finally to the countries of their new families. Potential parents want most healthy, most young sons or daughters. In Ethiopia, according to Unicef, live about 5 million orphans, but often these are ill, disabled or older. Due to the mismatch of supply and demand, it always comes back to fraud.

Also Abadi Kebede (name changed) from a south Ethiopian village made false statements, when he gave his son to Germany. The Sonntaz tells tells the whole story as Edo (name changed), aged three years, came to Germany. "The Lost Son," describes this road via an Ethiopian orphanage to a southern German family and paints how in the market for adoptions in the meantime also a librarian hoped Edo could become her child. The Sonntaz describes how an adoption agency through Kebede’s lie got into distress. And how to German authorities react to that.

France: Over 80 adopted children abandoned each year

Unofficial translation - via Fabriquée en Corée

France: Over 80 adopted children abandoned each year

Published in France-Soir, Nicole Korchia, May 3, 2010.

The figures are secret and taboo in France: officially 2% of adoptions are doomed to fail in France. But unofficially, the specialists speak bluntly of one out of ten ... Our investigation.

A terrible fact ...
The failures of the adoption, is not much spoken about. Yet even in France, heart-rending stories of adopted children handed to institutions, then returned to their countries are frequent and real. Taboo, controversial, no official statistics are given. The issue of adoption is too sensitive and the finding of failure are buried under the hundreds of pending requests. If figures of 2 and 3% failure are circulating, that is already huge, because it means that from about 4,000 children adopted each year, more than 80 are abandoned each year, returned as a simple device that does not work! What happens with these little ones, dismissed again and again, by their biological families and then the adoptive families? How will they rebuild? And why is that after so many stages and waiting, adoptive parents are unable to keep this child so much dreamed of?

Why these failures?
"In the context of adoption, explains us at the AFA (French Adoption Agency), there is very often the child dreamed of and the real child. And the two do not always converge. Adoption is truly a graft which takes or does not. Indeed parents often go far beyond their original plan, thinking they can take an older child with a past emotional or physical problem or pathological ... But over the months, things get complicated ... Dr. Geneviève André-Trevennec, director of Médecins du Monde, said: "We must make parents aware of the responsibility they had in their adoption process. They committed themselves, it's like when you have a biological child who was born with difficulties, we assume and we love him until the end, whatever happens."


What happens to these rejected children? When full adoption is recognized, the child remains legally forever bound to his parents. He is placed by the social services, but he will never be adoptable in full. When he is foreign and his country has made a legal decision, his country no longer wants him. And if not yet registered with the French registry, he finds himself a bit stateless. This happens especially when individual adoptions.

To avoid this, the psychological preparation for parenthood and monitoring of adoptive families are gradually established by adoption agencies. "With the current trend of international adoption that offers more and more older children from complex situations, it becomes vital. Otherwise the failures will multiply! A supported and warned family reacts so not to come to extreme situations," confirms André Genevieve Trevennec. But it is still insufficient and many signs of alarms go unnoticed. However, a failure to adopt never happens overnight. So many lives shattered in the first years of existence can not leave us indifferent ...

"More than 30% of approvals granted should be denied"
Dr. Pierre Levy-Soussan is a child psychiatrist, medical director Consulting affiliations in Paris. France-Soir. What is a real failure of the adoption?
Pierre Levy-Soussan. The most serious are those that result in abuse, neglect and with delivery of the child to the ASE (Child Welfare). They go well beyond the announced 2%. Then there are the equivalent of stalemate where the situation has degenerated to such an extent that parents or children have nothing together except indifference or hatred. The professionals assess globally these stalemates at 10 or 15%. And that’s huge ...

F.-S. What should be done to prevent such tragedies?
P. L.-S. Being more selective about the licensing and stop the amateurism institutionalized in adoption. A case dismissed by the commission can be saved by a president of the general council or a judge. Amateurism! Anybody can get a license. The refusal rate nationwide is 10%, with 70% of departments between 0 and 10%! More than 30% should be rejected because the areas that work best have a refusal rate between 30 and 40%. No politician wants to challenge the law and children are paying the price!

F.-S. How to do this concretely?
P. L.-S. Under the assumption of an efficient selection of candidates, by doing the work of matching of families: that child for that parent, as any child can not go with any parent. We must stop relying on the random arrival of files as does the AFA.

F.-S. Do we paint a too rosy image of adopiton compared to its reality?
P. L.-S. Of course, and peopolisation contributes to that, adoption has a picture of a fairy tale. The realities and difficulties are put aside and it that does not help prospective adoptive parents who are often overwhelmed by the obstacles they encounter.

F.-S. A story like the little Russian boy could have happened here?
P. L.-S. Not only it could have, but it happens in France. Children who are returned with their bags to the ASE that is unfortunately not an exception ...

A serious act that justice sanctions
On March 29, 2010, the Criminal Court of Nantes sentenced adoptive parents to nine months suspended sentence for abandoning in 2004 their two Ethiopian children. Adopted four years before, they were delivered to ESA some time after the birth biological child of the couple in question. They were "violent and difficult," explained the adoptive parents who paid 400 euros per month social services for custody, but no longer exercised their visiting rights.

Second story: that of a couple who had adopted a Chinese child first and then a second, who around 3 years had shown a medical condition. When the parents heard the diagnosis, they left the child to the hospital and went to report the abandonment to the ESA. Obviously, this has destabilized the elder child, who thought that if she fell ill, her parents would abandon her. The second child was immediately placed in a remarkable family, who accompanied her on her treatment and was then adopted. It is an unfortunate story that did not end too badly ....

Third case: that of a child born in Eastern Europe. It was well adapted, but the family made him their property, totally isolated from the world. Outside school, he saw no one other than his two parents. One educator charged with his follow up, reported these facts to the judiciary, because the parents refused to get help. Result, the child was placed in provisional detention. Finally, more recently, a mother went to pick up a child in Haiti after the earthquake of January 12, but she could not assume that adoption and gave it back to social services last month. The little girl is now at the DDASS (Child Protection) in the Reunion, abandoned after less than three months in a new family...

Why Russia should stop exporting its children

Amidst the pressure to re-open Romanian adoption, I of course followed the situation of Artyom Savelyev, the Russian adoptee who was ‘returned to sender’ by his US adoptive mother. This case has brought the controversial issue of intercountry adoption from Russia back into the international news. The possibility that Russia might stop exporting children has spread panic in the adoption industry.

Intercountry adoption is in crisis. Over the last five years the number of children adopted from one country to another has halved. Many countries have closed their doors to this unaccountable industry. So, the adoption industry, driven by private adoption agencies, is facing difficult times. They have taken large sums of money from people who want to adopt, but they can no longer supply the children to satisfy the outstanding demand.

Russia is now the third largest “sending” country from where the US adopts children, after China and Ethiopia. These three countries are all confronted by a growing number of legal scandals which show that international adoption agencies routinely trample local laws in their search for adoptable children (a typical legal scam involves the falsely declaring of the child as an orphan or abandoned, thus clearing the way for international adoption). And yet these countries continue to export their children.

Having been involved in the Romanian child protection reform, on behalf of the European Commission, I have had the privilege of an insider’s look into the adoption “kitchen”, where the most common ingredients are political pressure and emotional blackmail. A nexus of adoption agencies, adoptive parents and politicians are using their powers to ensure that intercountry adoptions continue. Often they are successful. However, in Romania they were not. Successive Romanian governments, with support of the European Union, stood firm and took the decision to stop the export of their children -- a decision the adoption industry has continued to aggressively challenge for the last 5 years.

A main player in the adoption industry is the Joint Council on International Children’s Service, a US umbrella organisation of private adoption agencies. They are at the heart of a vicious lobby to make intercountry adoption a worldwide accepted practice. A recent leaked document showed that this organisation is suffering from a negative image, seen as a trade organisation, and is in financial difficulties. If things are not turned around somehow, they may have to close down this year. The closure of Russia could well be the last nail in their coffin.

It is therefore no surprise that the Joint Council has started an aggressive campaign to “keep Russia open” - titled WE ARE THE TRUTH. On the internet they are mobilising adoptive parents to sign a letter to President Medvedev and President Obama, to involve their Senators and to swamp the internet with positive adoption stories.

In these hot waters, the US State Department is now lobbying in Moscow, to push for Russia to “better regulate” adoptions, and to sign the Hague Convention. This Convention has been proven to be about consumer protection, not about protecting the rights of the child. It creates a legal trade in children and protects the interests of the adoptive parents – and even more the adoption agencies, not the children. It further has the perverse effect of making local child protection become dependent of the donations of foreign adoption agencies. This dependency results in a continuous flow of adoptable children. Children are taken out of the children’s homes for intercountry adoption, but new children are taken in. Children who could with little support, often remain with their families. Again, it is the demand that creates the supply.

Once children are adopted abroad, Russia can follow up on their well being only by requesting post adoption reports. Just some week ago the Russian Ministry of Education posted a long list of foreign adoption agencies that had not send in these post adoption reports. However, one has to understand that the post adoption reports are being provided by those involved in the adoption industry. There is sufficient evidence that such post adoption reports may paint a much rosier situation than the reality. After all, for Artyom Savelyev Russia received a positive post adoption report, just weeks before this boy was brutally send back. Also for Masha Allen, adopted at the age of five to the US for sexual slavery and internet pornography. To think a bilateral agreement will solve this is just wishful thinking.

Intercountry adoption is an industry in crisis. An industry that functions by the economic rules of supply and demand, which is now suffering due to a lack of supply. Not many countries still export their children.

It is up to Russia to decide the fate of its children.

"A country which is unable to care for her children is a country with no future and therefore I believe there should be no additional pressures to liberalise procedures for international adoption in Romania, meaning adoption of Romanian children by people of other nationalities with domicile abroad"
Sabin Cutas, Member of the European Parliament (Romania)

Source: EURACTIV

Romanian President: Country’s Adoption Law Will Not Change During My Term

Romanian President Traian Basescu said Thursday in Brussels that the country’s law on adoptions will not change, “at least” not during his term, regardless of the lobby in favor of change made “in Brussels and elsewhere.”

A petition for the reopening of international adoptions in Romania was dismissed on March 23 on the request of Romanian MEP Victor Bostinaru, unanimously backed by the European Parliament's Petition Committee.

Bostinaru argued at the time that, before accession, the European Union itself requested that Romania ban international adoptions and the move was welcomed by the European Parliament and European Commission. He added that any attempt to put this topic back on the agenda of EU institutions, or to pressure Romania must be speedily and firmly rebutted.

Source: MEDIAFAX



See also the previous posting:

The Adoption Lobby: Report from Brussels

Haiti puts a halt to new adoptions.

In the midst of adoptions? That's rather vague. Finalised adoptions, Court Decision. That would be clearer:

Lassegue told the German Press Agency dpa that the government has put a halt to new adoptions. Only those children who were already in the midst of adoptions would be allowed to leave. There have been increasing reports from the UN and elsewhere over trafficking in the disaster's smallest victims, who have been found wandering on their own through the country.

Full article HERE

The Dutch Airlifting Haiti's children

Instead of airlifting the 56 Haitian children out of the country, it would be advisable to find back their parents and to help them reunite if that's what they want. That would be a true humanitarian act - and a great blessing in these tragic days.

Because, in many cases the children have parents who with a little bit of help will be able to care for their children themselves. And not always they understand that their children are handed over forever.

Read the below translation

Original text: Haïti : quand adoption rime avec transaction

Haiti: when adopting rhymes with transaction

(Syfia / Haiti). Haiti is one of the main "suppliers" of adoptable children. A quasi-commercial sector has settled, based on the law of the market rather than on a logic of child welfare. Many adopted children still have their parents ...

On the tarmac of the overheated Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port-au-Prince, not a day goes by without a child in Haiti embarks an international flight, accompanied by his adoptive parents or representative of an adoption agency. Many go to Europe: Haiti has indeed become a major "supplier" of adoptable children: the first for France, one of the main for Belgium and Switzerland. More than 400 young Haitians are adopted each year in France and fifty in Belgium. In this country, their number is declining, "Especially after a campaign denouncing the bad adoption practices in Haiti, "said Gerrit De Sloover, vice-Honorary Consul of Belgium in Haiti, a consultant on issues international adoption.

From 300 to 400 in the 1990s, the number of international adoption files of Haitian children filed per year in Port-au-Prince, Institute of Social Welfare and Research (IBESR) is now between 1 000 and 1 500. Exactly 1 367 for the period October 2007 to October 2008. This increase results from the fact that Haiti is one of the rare countries not to have ratified the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in international adoption, which sets a clear ethical framework and establishes the principle that a child is adoptable when no family can host it in the country.

Business

Often driven by a genuine desire for a child on the side of parents, international adoption appears in the field to be a real business. In 2005, the procedure could cost the adoptive between 5 000 and 6 500 $ U.S. on average, according to UNICEF, including attorneys' fees incurred by nurseries and those proceedings. Today, we approach the $ 10,000 U.S.. The offer has always existed on the Haitian side, shows Sloover De Geer, but demand has increased recently. Children's homes have therefore multiplied in the country. In 2008, 66 nurseries were accredited by the IBESR (against 47 in 2005), mostly in Port-au-Prince. But their control by the institute is problematic, given the lack of resources of the institution and lack of will on their part. According to the Deputy Director of IBESR himself, Mr. Casseus, nurseries would be much more numerous than those accredited by the Institute, "almost two hundred, 'he says, without seeming very certain. According to UNICEF, "international adoption through private organizations who have not received permission is unfortunately possible. "I know of cases where not recognized nurseries subcontract to accredited creches, "said Gerrit De Sloover. Because "sometimes, some have not enough children 'in stock' explains X. V., Director for ten years of a nursery in Port-au-Prince. They will therefore look elsewhere "to meet the desires of adoptive parents. "I received many emails from parents, always the same: ''We have the authority to adopt, we seek a child, a daughter,'' 'she says.

Purely formal control

The little ones who have "defects" are not very popular: older or sick children have little chance of being adopted and some nurseries who focus solely on international adoption do not accept them. Moreover, the majority of children adopted from Haiti have always an alive parent, either both, either one of them, an aunt, a grand mother ... from which they are literally "bought" to be entrusted to adopters. "It seems that some nurseries give money to the family, "says Mr. Casseus. The most common is that people related to the nursery actively seek poor mothers and their offer to their young children for adoption. "Once the papers signed, they will explain them what adoption is. It is not illegal, but illegitimate and abusive, "said Gerrit De Sloover, although he considers that these cases are less numerous than in India.
Sometimes the initiative comes from parents. There was much talk of sale of children in Haiti. The case of a mother who sold both her children for his 500 gourds (10 €) made noise. "The parents, unable to care for their children, place them, "said X. V. The absence of social security, of guarantees for old age, and high Infant mortality rates are pushing parents to have many children in the hope that some will take care of them later. To the deputy director of the IBESR, many parents are aware what they do when they place their child in a nursery, and and sooth themselves with the illusion by thinking that someday they will make them travel ... The Haitian law, in fact, does not recognize itself plenary adoption that involves breaking ties of biological filiation. It thus comes into conflict with many Foreign laws. In giving their consent, many parents are not well informed, and more, a majority sign documents they can not read.

Limiting individual adoption ...

According to Haitian law currently IBESR has no obligation to check the veracity of the families' consent before an adoption decision is taken to court. Only the presence in the records of administrative and legal paperwork holds, the same goes for the consulates also involved before departure. "It's a purely administrative work at the end of the process, "said Gerrit of Sloover. "For years, the criteria were not applied. Today, the procedure is fairly slow, because they tend to be more strictly. They started asking for more papers for the adoption, which has primarily been a source of more corruption, " said X. V. From six months to a year ago, the time may now be two and a half years. "Much is left to personal interpretation of judges and officials in the management of cases, said Gerrit De Sloover. The concept of 'easy case' is fairly elastic. X. V. sighs: "The nurseries suffered so much pressure ... If you did not pay, the case dragged on for months and months, and adoptive parents accuse you of not being as fast as other nurseries. No nursery responsible obviously will tell you he pays ... " The embassies also exert pressure on the Haitian authorities, not to increase the controls, but to expedite the process. A draft law was tabled in Parliament, but it is not likely to be adopted in the short term. However, the responsibility falls also on the adopting countries. Some, like France, accept steps taken by individual prospective parents, who turn directly to a Haitian nursery. 90% of the children "exported" from Haiti to Hexagon follow this path. Elsewhere, individual adoption is limited and parents are obliged to go through approved adoption agencies, where the procedure is known longer. "But what is needed is more control on the ground, "said another manager manger. The IBESR believes that also should "the consent procedure for parents Haitians needs to be strengthened so that they are well aware of the implications of the actions they take." But, paradoxically, the salary of the Institute staff is paid, in part, with revenues from adoption records filed: 5 000 gourds (100 €) per file. Even incomplete or problematic, many are accepted ...
Maude Malengrez

"We signed for 18 years"

Kettelie Wesh lives in Soleil 17, in Port-au-Prince. In 2005, violence corrodes the area. Kettelie heard of women in the neighborhood who had "placed" their child in kindergarten for international adoption. This is how she met le Blan (foreigner) she shows on a yellowing photograph with her daughter, Jenny. He is a pastor, supported by a network of Churches in the United States to manage a nursery in Hait oriented towards international adoption, but also helps some families care for their children. "If I could have, I would have put all my children.” In October 2005, she brought the youngest, Jenny, 4 years, most likely to be adopted because it is a girl, still small.
"Le Blanc told us that even if the child leaves, you remain the mom. That you will always be in communication with her, even if you can not see her and at 18 years, she would come back to meet you. He added that when Blans will take your child in Haiti, they have the courtesy to come and meet you to explain what will be the child's life. That you will always be have news about the child. "
In October 2007, Jenny moved to the United States. Kettelie received some photos. But since a year and a half, no news. The white Pastor left without that she knew and his former driver in turn took over the nursery. "When we come to ask about our children and we do a scene outside his door, he sends the police. I have already been arrested. "
The children adopted from Haiti, for the most part, have parents still life, but who can not raise them. These sign consent to adoption, often without being aware of what it implies. "We signed for 18 years, claims Lucienne Ophelia, whose daughter left for Germany at the age of 5 years. She stayed one year in the nursery. I went to see her from time to time. I received a picture the first six months after her departure. Then, nothing: neither photo nor news. She will be 16 years. "Lucienne awaits her return in two
years: "In my neighborhood, everyone says that I have sold my child." "We wanted to seek a better life for our child, but we never thought we were going to lose her, "testifies
Kettelie. And when, exceptionally, photographs arrive, nurseries change envelopes before giving them to parents, "so that no one finds a trace of the child "says Emilio Rafael with a faint voice, the father of two small children adopted to France in 2001 and he is without new since 2003.
Mr. M.

Samoa's stolen children

Adoption Scam? I would rather call it Adoption Crime.

And as long as such crimes go unpunished, and the biggest risk is losing the adoption licence, these crimes will continue over and over again.

Focus on Children scam: No jail time in adoption-fraud case
In a plea deal, four defendants get probation and are banned for life from the business.

CBS News will present, "The Lost Children," a "48 Hours" special, on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT - the culmination of a two-year investigation by "48 Hours" into one of the largest foreign adoption scams in U.S. history.

THE LOST CHILDREN



Watch CBS News Videos Online

Romanian Grandmother looking for her Grandchildren

The Romanian newspaper Curentul today published an article and video about alleged child trafficking for adoption by Klaus Werner Iohannis, who is a candidate to become Romania's new Prime Minister.

... The Iliuţ family tragedy begins in the years 1990-1991, when, taking advantage of early loss of parents of three children, appears on the line school inspector Klaus Werner Iohannis. He, together with his wife, Carmen Georgeta Iohannis brokered at the time more adoptions of children in the county of Sibiu for Canadian and American citizens. About these children nothing is known today, says "Justice". The Committee on Research of Abuses, corruption and Petitions of the Chamber of Deputies investigated the case, and in 2004 Maria Iliuţ was heard, the grandmother of three brothers adopted by a Canadian family through the gang of Iohannis, together with another girl aged only two months...

Full article in Romanian HERE

Recommended reading:

Mirah Riben about how the US treats its children:

Suffer the Children:
The Exploitation of America’s Most Vulnerable

by Mirah Riben / November 23rd, 2009


“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest—tost to me,”

And we will send you ours?

Full text HERE

Madagascar. Adoption of a child. A mother victim of a scam

One by one, mothers who saw their children disappear for intercountry adoption are speaking out. This time a mother from Madagascar, whose child is somewhere in Europe.

Yesterday I read the following statement:

Should original mothers on this planet ever stand up en masse and demand their children back, there will be a revolution the likes of which this planet has never seen.

Let's spread the word, let's give these mothers a voice

Madagascar. Adoption of a child. A mother victim of a scam

By signing papers without having read, Olivia Rakotoarison, the biological mother of Elisa has made the greatest mistake of her life. She wants to see her little girl.

Six years after the "abduction" of her daughter, Olivia Rakotoarison is tired and comes out of her silence. She gave birth January 28, 2003 to little Haja Elisa Andrea. Feeling the victim of a process she calls a plot, Olivia wants to reconnect a close relationship with her daughter and her adoptive parents.
"I confied, in 2003, my daughter to Madame Jacqueline, also called Mother, who was presented as being responsible for a rehabilitation center for children. We agreed that Eliza could stay at the centre, this after having signed an Act before a police officer. Now, I realized that I made a big mistake in signing papers I did not even know the content of, "says she.

For the record, starved and exhausted by a long march they had made, Olivia and her little girl stopped not far from home "Mother" in Ambohimiandra Mahazoarivo. Playing the good Samaritan, Madame Jacqueline supported them.
After a few exchanges the two women agreed that Elisa would be entrusted to Madame Jacqueline, a staff member of a rehabilitation center for children.
"At the police office, Mother asked me already if I wanted the adoption of my daughter by a foreign couple. I replied in the affirmative, provided they would allow me to stay in touch with my Elisa and especially with her adoptive parents, witnesses Olivia, while not remembering having given a precise answer on the subject.

A few days after concluding the agreement with a police officer, Ms. Jacqueline and Olivia went to the court. "I was asked about the reason for my decision to leave my child in a center, but there was no question of adoption. I remember, however, that a European couple was also in court, but their presence did not attract my attention. However, I confirm that I have not signed anything when we were in court, "Olivia insisted...

Full text in French on Abandon & Adoption

“Gotcha” from a mother's perspective

I strongly recommend Jane Trenka's article What does “Gotcha” mean?, in which she gives her mother a voice.

It is no longer a secret that intercountry adoption, in the past and present, is not about 'saving orphans', but about taking children from vulnerable families.

The abuses of the Korean adoption system, spelled out in THIS ARTICLE are not typical for South Korea. They can be found in most if not all other sending countries. Same system, same abuses.

What does “Gotcha” mean?
By Jane Jeong Trenka | Published: November 3, 2009


Lee Pil-rye, Trenka's "birthmother"

November is National Adoption Month. What would such a celebration of adoption, whether in the U.S. or another country, mean to my Korean birthmother?

At the time my mother became a “birthmother,” I was six months old, and my sister was four years old. Because she passed away about nine years ago, I will take the liberty of imagining what she might say about the meaning of adoption in her life, if she could read other people’s blogs in English, and if she could blog back.

What Adoption Means to Me
By Lee Pil-rye


I did not give birth to my child “with my heart.” I gave birth to my child with my body – painful, and tearing.

I did not “give” my child to another mother as a “gift.”

I was desperate and without the means to earn enough money myself. I and my children were victims of domestic violence. There was nowhere for us to go. No one would help us. We were so alone. I had no other choice but to relinquish my children.

But my children did not feel relinquished. They felt abandoned. I am so, so sorry.

FULL ARTICLE

See also: Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea TRACK

Adoption Agencies: GET US CHILDREN. NOW!

Surfing the Internet to look more into the background of the European Convention "Challenges in Adoption Procedures in Europe: Ensuring the Best Interests of the Child", this is what I found.

The Nordic Adoption Council was careless enough to give us a look behind the curtains. Leaving their Members only site open, they gave us a look into their desperation to GET CHILDREN.

Children from other countries. But now that these are more and more reluctant to give their children to foreign child greedy adoption agencies, now they are refocussing on getting children for national adoption too.

Denmark, for example, proudly announces that soon they will have new legislation which will give more Danish adoptions without consent of the parents.

What is going on? Were the Nordic countries not proud of their social system that was such that there were hardly adoptable children? What has changed?

The DEMAND has changed. Until now, the European Adoption Convention adoption was allowed by married heterosexual couples or single persons only.
When Sweden in 2002 allowed gay adoptions, they wanted to withdraw from the European Adoption Convention.
As a result, the Convention was changed: adoption of GLTB is allowed, married - non married. Everything will be allowed.

The revised European Adoption Convention in fact takes away most precautionary measures. For example, adoption may now be granted without that the child has been in the care of the adopters (no testing period):

See how this article got changed:

old:

Article 17

An adoption shall not be granted until the child has been in the care of the adopters for a period long enough to enable a reasonable estimate to be made by the competent auth

ority as to their future relations if the adoption were granted.

new:

Article 19 – Probationary period

States Parties are free to require that the child has been in the care of the adopter before adoption is granted for a period long enough to enable a reasonable estimate to be made by the competent authority as to their future relations if the adoption were granted. In this context the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

I will blog more about this revised Convention later.
Now back to the Nordic Adoption Council.

The adoption market is faced with their own 'FINANCIAL CRISIS' now that the supply side of the market is drying up. The traditionally succesful Nordic countries are the last 5-7 years faced with strong competition from the South (Italy and Spain have reinforced their position the last years - and France already was a strong competitor.

To find children for the new client group, is an extra challenge. For the moment only the United States of America allows their children to be adopted abroad by European same sex partners.

So, now the Nordic countries push to get access to European children. They are a specially invited guest at the European Adoption Conference in Strasbourg.

READ BELOW HOW THE NORDIC AGENCIES PUSH FOR NATIONAL ADOPTIONS - WHICH ARE A NECESSARY STEP TO GET CHILDREN FOR THE EUROPEAN ADOPTION MARKET - AND EVENTUALLY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET.

THE RISK? Instead of having a social system in place to help families, or to provide services and care for children who can for whatever reasons not be cared for by their parents, let's free the children for adoption.

There is a strong demand. Adopters are willing to pay a high price.
The government saves money.

A WIN WIN situation ?

Or, BACK TO THE PAST... WHEN CHILDREN DID NOT HAVE RIGHTS, OR MOTHERS


FOUND HERE

Nordic Adoption Council

Panel Discussion
Debate in Reykjavík
Saturday 16 - 17, the 5th of September 2009.

Moderator: Inga Näslund, Adoptionscentrum, Sweden.
Summary: Gunn Kvalsvik, NAC Board Member

A panel consisting of: Jennifer Degeling (Permanent Bureau, The Hague), Mia Dambach (ISS/IRC, Geneva), Michael Paaske (Adoption & Samfund, Denmark), Erika Bernacchi (ChildONEurope, Firenze), Bente Hoseth (Central Authorities, Norway), Neel Pryds (Central Authority, Denmark), Meit Camving (Central Authority, Sweden), Hanna Rantala (Central Authority Finland).

Issue 1.
The new situation: Fewer children and desperate waiting parents. How to deal with it?

Erika Bernacchi (ChildONEurope):
They asked this question in a survey to all European countries. Trying to find out how countries are dealing with this issue. Some parliamentarians are lobbying to get more children, which is not good.

I do not have answers – I do agree that it is a new situation creating new challenges.

Jennifer Degeling (Permanent Bureau):
I feel that some politicians are using a lot of energy on this issue. Receiving countries making pressure on giving countries is not a good situation. Romania is newest example where politics (EU membership) and adoption were mixed.

Meit Camving (Central Authority, Sweden):
We need to educate and inform parents about the new situation. Which include the information that adoptable children mostly are older than before and with special needs.

Bente Hoseth (Central Authority, Norway):
In Norway I think it is the organisations that strongly feel the situation of today. We are not working so close up to applicants and therefore do not have the first hand information on how it materialises.

Neel Pryds (Central Authority, Denmark):
In the waiting period – we have noticed that some people are quite creative in trying to solve the new situation. Because we have this rule in Denmark giving a possibility to adopt a child outside the normal track, if you have a special connection to the child some are trying to use this to what is it worth. The Good Practice Guide tells us to be even stricter with this practice.

Michael Paaske (Adoption & Samfund):
I am a representative of the parents. I think we have to stress the issue we discussed earlier. We need to tell the Southern European countries about ethics in adoption. Because if their practice continues – they end up taking the whole market.

Hanna Rantala (Central Authority, Finland):
More and more information is the way to deal with this issue.

Mia Dambach (ISS/IRC):
Also at ISS we are aware of the Nordic model. And we are interested in telling the rest of Europe about good moral and ethics.

Sanna Mäkipää (University of Oulu):
It is so important that we come together and discuss this matter. There are tensions also between Nordic countries – we have people asking why Sweden gets more children than us and so on.

I do look forward to the article we will make as a group and hope we also can publish it in our internal magazines.

Hanna Rantala (Central Authority, Finland):
The attitude in the media has changed towards more aggressively asking why we are not willing to help these poor children on orphanages in the world.

Sten Juul Peterson (NAC):
Yes I do think we could publish an article on the Nordic Approach also in the internal magazines of member organizations.

Issue 2.
We need to teach the countries of origin about their rights to make limitations on how many organisations should work in their country. Is there anybody who can tell us how to do that?

Erika Bernacchi (ISS/IRC):
We do not deal with this.

Jennifer Degeling (Permanent Bureau):
One of our most important talks when we travel around is to tell countries about their rights to say no and to limit the number of organisations. This it not specifically mentioned in the convention.

We also try to inform them that they should preferable work with Nordic countries because of your ethics.

Meit Camving (Central Authoritiy, Sweden):
We always discuss these matters when we travel around.

Neel Pryds (Central Authority, Denmark):
Agree with the Swedish answer.

Bente Hoseth (Central Authority, Norway):
I also agree with the Swedes.

Hanna Rantala (Central Authority, Finland):
We do not deal with countries in that way, because we do not travel around.

Mia Dambach (ISS/IRC):
We like the Swedish system (SIDA) very much. Because their contributions are not directly connected with the institutions where the children are staying, there is no way they can mix their roles.

Øystein Gudim (Adopsjonsforum):
We should never forget to be ethical in how we do our jobs. Because there are some organizations out there who are not working in the right way, we have to keep our standards.


A Swedish woman:
I have a dream that we see more assistants from our central authorities when it comes to working together with new countries.

Marianne Wung-Sung (DanAdopt):
I do agree with Denmark and Sweden. We are under heavy pressure – and we do have a competition with other countries. We need more assistance from our central authorities.

Issue 3.
What about recourse centres for adoptees? Do we need it?

Michael Paaske (Adoption & Samfund):
We are finishing a pilot project in Denmark. The evaluation tells us that there is a need and we hope that the project will continue.

Sanna Mäkipää (University of Oulu):
Our project is also about teaching people working with adoptive families about post adoption issues. We find that tit an important issue. We would like to recommend our government to make a centre for adoptive families.

Meit Camving (Central Authority, Sweden):
I always stress this issue when I meet with politicians. I do think it is even more important now when the children are getting older and older when they arrive.

Bente Hoseth (Central Authority, Norway):
The organisations are stressing this issue.

Hanna Rantala (Central Authority Finland):
It is a political question and it takes a lot of money. We can hope.

Issue 4
The issue of national adoption and the right also Nordic children have to get a family, what is the situation?

Neel Pryds (Central Authorities, Denmark):
We do the matching between family and child in our office. Between 10 and 20 adoptions a year are national adoptions. From 1st of October we will have the new legislation which will give more adoptions without consent of the parent.

Tina Tammi (Save the Children, Finland):
We do work with domestic adoptions in Finland. All together we have about 50 domestic adoptions a year. We also look into the possibility for open adoptions.

Bente Hoseth (Central Authority, Norway):
The matching is done by us. The number is only between five and ten children every year. We also have had this discussion in Norway, and especially about the open adoption systems.

Issue 5.
How will/and can our central authorities use the good practice guide?

Bente Hoseth (Central Authority, Norway):
Our plan is to use the guide and discuss it in a common meeting in October. Then the Nordic authorities will meet again.

Issue 6.
There’s a special challenge when special need children are offered to more than one county. Often we see that the Nordic countries loose the competition with for instant USA, because of our system of slow bureaucracy.

Øystein Gudim (Adopsjonsforum):
This problem we do face often.

Marianne Wung-Sung (DanAdopt):
It is also up to us as organisation to not be part of this carrousel. It is up to us to question this kind of practice. We have to tell them that we don’t like it.

Inga Näslund (Sweden):
We also have this situation in Sweden, and uses to work with it.

Other issues addressed:

Erika Bernacchi (ISS/IRC):
We will put something on our web-pages about how you work with post-adoption. The purpose is to tell other countries and organisations about different ways of dealing with post adoption matters.

End of discussion.

Gunn Kvalsvik, 10th of September 2009.

Romanian Government opposes resumption of international adoptions

Yesterday the Romanian Secretary of State for Adoptions, Bogdan Panait, handed in a proposal to re-open intercountry adoption.


Bad news for the Adoption Lobby, because today the Romanian Prime Minister announced NOT to change the adoption law.

Full article HERE

CONGRATS ROMANIA

Adoption: Island of the Lost Children - France

French adoptions from the Reunion: a must see:

HARVESTING CHILDREN

The French and the Adoption Market

With courtesy to ABANDON & ADOPTION where the full text can be read in French.

ADOPTION, THE PRACTICE OF "ENVELOPES" DIVISES

The French adoptive families are increasingly faced with requestf for "gifts" to the adoption countries. The Associations
affected by this are divided on the practice. The President of the French Adoption Agency, Yves Nicolin, outraged Enfance et Famille d’Adoption, the main association of adoptive families, when he recently mentioned, seeming justifying the practice of requesting "envelopes" from families at the time they receive the child: "I am not there to promote a practice, but it is reality, we must break the taboo and help families by indicating the reasonable sum.
Adopters "are free to give or not, but, those who do not give or do not give sufficiently, must know that they are -- quotation marks – putting "at risk" the adoption of prospective adopters, Yves Nicolin said on radio on August 27.

For the association EFA, this "value” given to unofficial donations is not welcome,
while adoption is regularly suspected of financial and ethical abuses, based on the strong demand.

"Giving more, to adopt more»

While it is "normal" to help the countries of origin, "without returns”
"to create child protection services or to support families, "it should in no way encourage them to monetize their children and create human distress," she counters. "It is abnormal that the president of a public authority encourages himself an attitude which could be summarized with the motto "give more, to adopt more" "
adds the association, who refers to the risk that international adoption
"market economy"….

The number of adoptions in France has dropped 20% in two years(3,162 in 2007 against 4,136 in 2005).

China's Adoption Myth further unraveled

Some Chinese parents say their babies were stolen for adoption

In some rural areas, instead of levying fines for violations of China's child policies, greedy officials took babies, which would each fetch $3,000 om adoptions.

By Barbara Demick
September 19, 2009

reporting from Tianxi, China - The man from family planning liked to prowl around the mountaintop village, looking for diapers on clotheslines and listening for the cry of a hungry newborn. One day in the spring of 2004, he presented himself at Yang Shuiying's doorstep and commanded: "Bring out the baby."

Full article HERE

Suspension of adoptions from Ethiopia:

Netwerk TV yesterday evenening announced the suspension of adoptions from Ethiopia:

The biggest adoption agency from the Netherlands, Wereldkinderen, stops per immediately with adoption procedures from Ethiopia because of a new adoption scandal.

From research done by the organisation it appears that the background information of the adopted children is not always in line with the information in the files.

In a number of cases the mothers of the childern appeared to be alive, while in the files it was mentioned they were dead.

It is the so-manieth scandal in the adoption world. Recently the former director of Wereldkindren resigned after she was intimidated by the Ministry of Justice because of research into adoption irregularities in China.

This comes head over heels on the Australian revealing documentary FLY AWAY CHILDREN