NEPALESE PARENTS RECLAIM THEIR ADOPTED CHILDREN IN SPAIN

Informal translation from Spanish: EL PAIS

NEPALESE PARENTS RECLAIM THEIR ADOPTED CHILDREN IN SPAIN
NGOs denounce irregularities in the delivery of children with local families
ANA ROJAS GABRIELA - New Delhi - 03/03/2009

On the death of her husband, Nirmala Thapa, Nepalese of 35 years, was forced to surrender her three youngest children to a juvenile center. Offering them care and educate them while she recovered from her economic strangulation. But, when she wanted to retrieve them, she discovered they had been given up for adoption to a Spanish family. It is one of the cases recorded by CWIN, a Nepalese NGO for the protection of children.

The parents say they were deceived in signing the papers

The adoptive parents argue that children lived in extreme poverty

"The woman is since three years trying to have her children returned, but it is very difficult: she signed a letter in which he gave the power, but she was deceived as she can not read," said Madhav Pradhan, director of CWIN. Pradhan says that her NGO Thapa helped to report the case to the District government in Kathmandu. Her organization has supported five other families to reclaim seven Nepalese children who have been adopted by Spaniards. In her view, "most of Nepalese international adoptions have been made illegally."

A study last year by UNICEF and the Swiss NGO Terre des Hommes (TDH) said that poor regulation resulted in the sale, abduction and trafficking of children, and that an industry was flourishing in which "the economic benefit counted more than the welfare of the child." Adoptive parents pay up to $ 25,000 (20,000 euros) per child. The director of a center recognizes that often there is deception "the poor in rural areas say they take their children to a boarding school in Kathmandu, instead they are given up for adoption by foreigners." Seven out of nine parents signed the letter in which they relinguished their children without understanding, the report says.

UNICEF and TDH are not sure what percentage of children taken to Spain was in this situation, but say that the irregularities are not unusual. " Up to 80% of the children could have stayed in Nepal "and reunited with relatives," said the delegate from TDH, Joseph L. Aguettant.

Spain is the country that adopted most Nepalese since 2000 (681 of the 2314 delivered). Of these, about 170 happened last year. Sources from the Spanish Embassy in New Delhi claim that their role has been to provide the passport for the child if the documents were in order.
Spaniards questioned by this newspaper say they knew that their adoptive children had parents, but that in Nepal families are so poor that they believe their children will be better off abroad. "My daughter is big enough to express her wishes and wants to be adopted: their recently widowed mother could not keep all her children," said José Luis (assumed name). Mary (another nickname) has learned about the parents of her daughter when at the Ministry of Justice to declare for the second time they wanted to give the child up for adoption. "It was a poor family that was relatively calm and happy that their child could be raised in better conditions. Everything has been transparent," he says. Spaniards consulted agree on the propriety of the process. Also that the ideal is that the parents could stay with their children, but that it is "utopian" in such a poor country.

But child rights advocates say the opposite: "It's very arrogant to think that just because we are rich we will provide a better future. Children are always better with their family and if not, in their country. We are not opposed to international adoption, but it must be the last resort, "said the representative of TdH. This coincides with opinion of the Unicef representative in Nepal, Joanne Doucet. "We must promote domestic adoption," she says. However, only 4% of the children are placed with local families. The Secretary of the Ministry of Women and Children does not understand the position of UNICEF and TDH: "Many children will be better off," she says.

Meanwhile, children in schools and orphanages in Nepal there are about 15,000 children, many of whom have parents, and arrived there by fraud or coercion. Irregularities increased since 2000, when orphanages lost their monopoly and workers created their own juvenile business, "says the manager of TDH. In these places the children live in appalling conditions.

As concerning the young Nepalese who are in Spain and "who are not orphans in the strict sense of the word," experts believe that there is very little chance of them returning to their country. "Now it's too late. After the adoption has been declared they are Spanish citizens," laments the delegate from TDH.

Business

To give children in adoption to foreigners is a good business for the orphanages in Nepal. According to conservative figures from Unicef and the Swiss NGO TdH, these practices bring the centers about two million dollars (1.5 million euros) in 2006 alone. And it could be much more, as the centers pressure adoptive parents to give more money after they grew fond of the children.

Spaniards interviewed denied having been extorted. "I did not see anything shady in Nepal, but, as elsewhere, there could be bad people that enrich themselves with this situation. The fault lies with the families who will take forward their checkbook," says one adoptive mother.

Since January this year, the Government of Nepal has introduced new regulations for the process as a result of pressure from workers for children's rights. Now children can only be given up for adoption through registered centres, and the Ministry of Women and Children assigns children to families. Still, advocates for the rights of children are pessimistic. "The situation is uncertain: the centers that were trafficking are still operating to cater for children and are accredited," said the delegate of Nepal TDH, Joseph L. Aguettant.

Another serious concern is that "the directors of the centers are the ones who decide which children are adoptable and are the recipients of the money: so it is convenient for them to consider many children as orphans and to give them for international adoption," says Joanne Doucet, Unicef.

Spain looking into adoption crimes

Spain, one of the main importers of foreign children nowadays, is now confronted with its past when children were unjustifiedly taken from their parents.

It took 60 years...

How long will it take China, India, Guatamala, Vietnam and many other countries, like Romania, until they will investigate why children were sold for adoption. Often the children concerned were from (disliked) minorities.


Spain looks back at dark chapter of adoptions
By DANIEL WOOLLS – 7 hours ago

SARRIA DE TER, Spain (AP) — As Antonia Radas left school one day in 1945, a cheerful third-grader growing up as a beloved only child, a stranger greeted her with shocking news. The little girl was not who she thought she was.

"I am your brother, and I have come to take you back to mother," Radas, now 70, recalls the man saying. He looked to be 19 or 20, and wore khaki military garb with a white cape; she was in the crisp gray uniform of her parochial school in Spain's Canary Islands.

Radas did not believe him, insisting she had no siblings, and stayed put. But that man was in fact her elder brother Jose.

It would take decades for Radas to learn the truth about her past: that she was one of perhaps thousands of child victims separated from their parents toward the end of the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War and its immediate aftermath.

The ordeal of Radas and others is now putting Spain under pressure to take a closer look at a dark chapter of its past. Historians say government archives show that the right-wing regime of Gen. Francisco Franco waged a campaign to take away children of their enemies, Republican prisoners, and sometimes stripped women of newborn babies. The goal was to educate the children to shy from leftist thought, embrace Roman Catholicism and support the regime.

As part of an unprecedented ruling last year that accused Franco's forces of crimes against humanity, Spain's best-known judge, Baltasar Garzon, called for an investigation into the cases of people known as "the lost children of the Franco regime." He complained that "in 60 years they have not been the subject of any investigation whatsoever."

Adoption from Samoa - lost children

The US adoption agency Focus on Children misled Samoan families, and had their children adopted for the price of 13.000 US dollars each.

Is that a crime? Is that child trafficking?

Not so, according the the US judge who had mercy and gave no prison time:

Prosecutors accused the five of conspiring to arrange adoptions that violated U.S. immigration laws, and alleged the scheme included lying to Samoan birth parents and American adoptive parents. As part of a plea bargain with the U.S. Attorney's Office, all five pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the illegal entry of an alien, a misdemeanor.
Dozens of felony charges against them were dropped, and prosecutors recommended probation. Wakefield is expected to get the same sentence as the others.
...
U.S. District Judge David Sam instead sentenced the four to five years of probation and ordered them to contribute to a trust fund to help adopted children stay in touch with their birth families. He also ordered the defendants to never engage in the adoption business again.

Stolen and Sold for Adoption

Hearing the disturbing news of children kidnapped for adoption, Australian Julia Rollings followed her heart and traced her adopted children's parents in India. And not only that. She connected both families.

Let's hope more families follow her example.



Stolen and Sold
Broadcast: 24/02/2009

Reporter: Sally Sara



Sabila and Akil with their birth mother Sunama

View promo


What would you do if you discovered your adopted children were stolen and trafficked, and not willingly given up by their parents, as you'd believed?

South Asia correspondent Sally Sara investigates the insidious trade of children in India, and joins an Australian family in their moving search for the truth.

Sara reveals that dozens of Australian families are oblivious to the true background of their adopted youngsters, because of bureaucratic bungling and government ineptitude both here and in India.

It’s a remarkable story that reveals a shocking truth about some overseas adoptions.

We follow the journey of the Rollings family from Canberra.

For ten years Barry and Julia Rollings believed their son Akil and daughter Sabila had been given up willingly by their birth parents in Chennai.

But after hearing suspicions reports about Indian orphanages, they set out to locate the childrens’ birth mother. The news was shocking. Akil and Sabila had been taken from their mother, and sold to an orphanage.

The Rollings have now embraced their ‘Indian family’ as part of their own - Akil and Sabila have ‘two mothers’.

It’s an inspirational story of one family’s courage.

Sally Sara also investigates claims that dozens of trafficked Indian children may have been placed for adoption in Australia - their new parents oblivious to the background of the youngsters.

She speaks to heartbroken couple Fathima and Salya, whose child Jabeen was kidnapped from the streets of Chennai by traffickers. Jabeen was adopted to an Australian couple, and now lives unaware of her background, while her adoptive parents live in anguish.

It’s a story of crime and cover up - its victims both here and in India.

Camera: Wayne McAllister, Geoffrey Lye
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Research: Simi Chakrabarti
Producers: Trevor Bormann, Vivien Altman


Further information

Julia Rollings' blog
"Love Our Way - A Mother's Story"

INSIDE STORY OF AN ADOPTION SCANDAL

With courtesy to United Adoptees International:

NEW PAPER PUBLISHED:

Samford University Cumberland School of Law

INSIDE STORY OF AN ADOPTION SCANDAL

- CUMBERLAND LAW REVIEW - Vol. 39:1 -

BY ARUN DOHLE - Aachen - Germany -

Introduction

In historical terms, intercountry adoptions from India havehad a short run. Within thirty years of its inception, murky scandals of child kidnapping, falsifying paperwork, outright trading, and other tragic stories have ridden these intercountry adoptions. Worldwide, adoption experts widely believed that ratifying the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (1993) would help reduce malpractice in such adoptions. The Convention aims to minimize malpractice in adoption and "prevent the abduction, the sale of, or trafficking in children." But does regulating help in weeding outcases of malpractice? Or does the regulation of intercountry adoptions, because of the strong demand for children, lead to a legalized market for children without effective control? Dutch anthropologist Pien Bos studied the relinquishment process of unmarried mothers in India and came to the startling conclusion that the formal controls in intercountry adoptions are counter-productive:


"I am convinced that these Conventions, Regulations and Guidelinesare not appropriate instruments because they do not address the main concerns. . . . Instead of taking away threats, it takes away transparency and causes a mystification of reality. The more adoption is regulated and monitored, the more politically correct objectives get distanced from daily practices.... The transparency of surrender and adoption procedures is obscured by the taboo on the financial component of adoption."

Generally, receiving countries do not know the details of the scandals taking place in sending countries. The aim of this article is to give the reader an inside view of an adoption scandal and to explain how the system deals with the scandal. Therefore, I will often quote directly from documents gathered from journalists, as well as from High Court proceedings. In order to enable the reader to understand the violations, I will give a short overview of the Indian adoption system and regulations. This article illustrates the scandal surrounding the Indian agency Preet Mandir, as it is the agency that has weathered the most corruption and baby-trade scandals and is reputed to have immense clout with the Indian Government. Consequently, the organization's operations have continued nearly unhampered. Preet Mandir placed 518 children up for adoption during the period from 2004 to 2006, accounting for five percent of all the adoptions carried out by agencies registered with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). Of these 518 adoptions, Preet Mandir placed 358 children abroad, representing 13 percent of all Indian intercountry adoptions within this period.9 Preet Mandir works with all major receiving countries, many of whom also ratified the Hague Convention.

Complete article can be requested at UAI Research & Development uai.hwestra@gmail.com

http://uai-news.blogspot.com

Austria stops adoptions from Ethopia

Over the last years Ethiopia has become one of the biggest sending countries. This is mainly the result of the closure of Romania, Guatemala, Cambodia and others that closed their doors due to corruption.

Sadly, but understandably as it is inherent to today's adoption system, Ethopia seems to encounter the same problem: fake documents, children leave the country that are no 'orphans'.

But worst of all, a child protection system is building up that fully depends of the money coming from intercountry adoptions (in cash or in project aid).

Those who read Romania, For Export Only, will know that The Hague Convention will not fix that...

Unofficial translation; original article can be read HERE:

Stop for adoption
24.1.2009

International Adoption: With mediations from Ethiopia forged documents were in the game - the TT reported. Now, adoptions have been stopped from this country.

INNSBRUCK - After two cases in Lower Austria, where children who were supposed to be orphans were mediated for adoptions, adoptions from Ethiopia to Austria have now been stopped. Those who adopt children from countries that are not able to ensure serious regulations, "have no guarantee that everything is lawful," says Marion Zeillinger of the association "Parents for Children", that offers information about the adoption, adoption courses, but does not mediate . In the past two years alone, 25 children were mediated from Ethiopia to Tirol - through the agencies “Family For You"(FFY) and "Bridge to Ethiopia”. "The freeze will be maintained for sure, until all outstanding issues are clarified. Many families have already researched, "said Zeillinger. Even when FFY “built up a lot", they have been too naive. There should have been more control, but at this distance that is difficult, "says Zeillinger. Therefore, parents who want to be sure, "should only adopt children from countries which have signed the Hague Convention."

Child Trafficking

And: "In countries with a lot of corruption, adoption can quickly become child trafficking. Imagine, in a country where in orphanages 80 percent are boys and 20 percent girls. If you want to have a girl, the home will try to find one - by all means, because the financing of the home is usually depending from it. "Around half of the foreign adoptions, according to Zeillinger, is illegal," but possible - with tricks that I do not want to mention in the Media. "The new Justice Minister Claudia Bandion-Ortner has already initiated a new international adoption law - a draft is available.

Further background CLICK HERE

Further Background in German: CLICK HERE

Book Review: Romania for Export Only

Roelie Post allows the reader a unique insiders view regarding the politics of international adoption. It was an eye-opening account that not many are willing to share to the outside world.

In her experience with Romania’s orphan care and international adoption program, Ms. Post begins her journey as many do (innocent) and as her knowledge about the politics behind international adoption grows-- revelations on the real truth behind the industry of international adoption becomes quite clear.

Never again can I look at the “black and white” pictures of the "poor orphans" that rely on us to “save” them with the same naïve eyes. This book offers amazing parallels into other international programs-- including China. Ms. Post talks about the points system, safe-haven drops, attachment studies on orphans, media attention and the pressure from outside countries and NGO’s to gain access to Romania’s children... all of which are familiar themes in many IA programs.

While it was heart-warming to know that there are many people who work very hard to preserve children’s rights, it is equally scary to understand the underlying situation that most will never get to see.

This is a must-read book for anyone entering into the world of international adoption.

Cathy Wagner