|
|
|
|
.JPG)
United States
Translations are informal, when quoting please refer to the original article.
(So far only articles from 2009 - will be updated with older articles soon)
Source: www.abc4.com Utahns working on last minute deal for Haitian orphans Laura Trinnaman with the adoption service had been working through contacts in Haiti for the better part of a week to get the children on the task force plane, but she was informed early Thursday the paperwork was held up because the Haitian prime minister had left the country. The charter plane, she said, would have to leave Port au Prince without the orphans. But late word Friday night gave her some hope. She was told the prime minister was returning and would meet with the U.S. ambassador sometime during the day Friday to expedite the release of the orphans. Still, it seemed that getting them on the chartered jet would be impossible since strict rules enforced by the U.S. military limit the time an aircraft can remain at the Port au Prince airport. |
Source: www.politico.com SENATORS SPEAK OUT FOR HAITIAN ORPHANS TAGS: Senate, Haiti, Mary Landrieu, Frank Lautenberg, Orphans Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), eager to capitalize on the goodwill engendered by the month’s earthquake, held a news conference with six other senators to push a bill that would create a new office in the State Department that coordinates adoption policy…. |
Source: online.wsj.com HAITI HALTS DEPARTURES OF ORPHANS The Haitian government has halted the departure of all orphans from the earthquake-ravaged country until it can guarantee that only legitimate adoptions are being approved, according to U.S. government officials. The government only will allow the departure of orphaned children whose paperwork it has examined and approved, the officials said. The decision temporarily suspends the arrival to the U.S. of Haitian orphans under a policy announced last week by Washington. The so-called humanitarian parole was introduced to expedite the adoption of children in orphanages who had been assigned to U.S. families before the Jan. 12 earthquake occurred…. |
Source: www.pittsburghlive.com/ Disaster in Haiti gives adoption 'new energy' By Luis Fabregas Soon after dramatic images of Haitian orphans began popping up on the Internet, newspapers and TV, big-hearted Americans flooded adoption agencies with calls, eager to adopt the children. In Allegheny County, the Department of Human Services fielded about 850 calls from people interested in adoption, officials said. The Three Rivers Adoption Council, which handles adoption opportunities throughout Pennsylvania, received about 200 calls. "It's been quite unusual," said Jacqueline Wilson, the council's CEO. The same is happening elsewhere in the United States, where charitable families are offering to open their homes to Haitian children, perhaps motivated by reports of more than 300,000 orphans in the earthquake-battered country. It is unclear how many families will get an opportunity to adopt orphans who remain in Pittsburgh from the BRESMA orphanage, which was nearly destroyed by the Jan. 12 earthquake in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Of 54 children brought to Pittsburgh from the orphanage, 12 remained Sunday in Holy Family Institute in Emsworth. The children are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Health and Human Services but are being cared for by local volunteers including Jamie and Ali McMutrie, the Ben Avon sisters who ran the orphanage. The other 42 were placed with adoptive families. Officials at the federal agency did not respond to questions about who might be able to adopt the remaining children, who arrived in the United States without having started an adoption process…. |
Source: www.sltrib.com/ Child experts warn not to rush Haiti adoptions As a second volunteer team prepares to leave on a "life-saving, rescue and rebuilding mission" that includes bringing Haitian orphans to Utah, adoption experts called for a cautious approach to helping traumatized children. |
Source: www.latimes.com 83 Haitian adoptees arrive in Miami Catherine Downes is united with adopted son 21-month-old Benicio at Miami airport. (After days of trauma, sleeplessness and anxious plans, father and son Kevin and Benicio Downes rest for a few moments in the Miami airport. Layne Downes, xx / January 22, 2010) By Catherine Saillant and Richard Fausset Reporting from Los Angeles and Atlanta - A harrowing effort to evacuate dozens of Haitian orphans to the United States started with some unexpectedly good news in those first terrible hours after the massive earthquake. Somehow God's Littlest Angels orphanage in the mountains above Port-au-Prince had survived the destructive shaking intact and all 150 of its charges were safe. Over the next 10 days, U.S. families who were already in the process of adopting 83 of the children organized a frantic effort to bring them to Miami, reaching out to politicians, humanitarian aid workers and the news media. On Friday, a jetliner delivered the U.S.-bound orphans to the city's international airport, uniting the children, ranging from newborns to 6-year-olds, with their adoptive families…. |
Source: www.miamiherald.com Miami Herald reports that Haitian community wants children to be cared for in Haiti Author: Miami Herald |
Source: www.miamiherald.com Pedro Pan plan for Haiti unlikely to happen State child welfare administrators had started planning for a possible influx of Haitian children orphaned by the catastrophic quake, but now are being told there will be no such exodus. Florida is unlikely to see a wave of Haitian children orphaned by last week's killer earthquake, as Haitian and U.S. leaders do not favor a recreation of the famed 1960s Pedro Pan effort that rescued thousands of children from communist Cuba, the state's top social service administrator said Tuesday. ``The Haitian civil government is starting to reemerge,'' said Florida Department of Children & Families Secretary George Sheldon, who has been meeting with state, county and federal leaders for several days to coordinate refugee resettlement efforts. ``The desire of the Haitian people, to the extent that this can be done, is for the children to be cared for in Haiti,'' Sheldon added. ``That is their preference.''… |
Source: www.wibw.com Posted: 2:53 PM Jan 18, 2010 Of those, 200 cases are being accelerated. Twenty-four of those children, whose cases "were at the very end of the process" before the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti nearly a week ago, have departed Haiti and joined their new families after the embassy expedited processing for immigrant visas, said Michele Bond, deputy assistant secretary for American citizen services. Department officials said Sunday 150 children had already left Haiti, but corrected that number Monday. Officials are reviewing every case individually to see where they are in the process, what actions have been taken in the case and whether the case can be accelerated, Bond said. The department will be announcing an adoption "plan" with travel specifics shortly. If an American adoption case was early in the process, there is no guarantee of an accelerated adoption, Bond said. Examples of being early in the process would be if prospective parents have not been properly vetted; have not been matched with a specific child; or have been matched with a child but the Haitian government is still attempting to prove absolutely the child is an orphan. The State Department is working with DHS to examine the documents in each case and show some flexibility, but this also requires the agreement of the Haitian government, she said…. |
Source: www.eurasianet.or EURASIA INSIGHT US lawmakers intend to press the government of Kyrgyzstan to expedite the adoptions of 65 Kyrgyz children by American families. The adoptions have been stalled as Kyrgyz officials mull changes to the Central Asian state’s adoption framework. Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Bob Casey (D-PA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) are preparing a letter to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev concerning the 65 stalled adoptions, according to a spokesperson in Sen. Brownback’s office. Despite encouraging signs earlier this fall that the situation might be resolved, the Kyrgyz Parliament failed to take action on new adoption legislation in a mid-November session, as had been expected. The parliament pushed off further talks on the issue to February 15, citing a need for "deeper study," according to the parliamentary press service. The latest delay is causing some of the prospective American parents to lose hope that they will ever be allowed to bring the children to the United States… |
Source: www.nytimes.com 21ST-CENTURY BABIES By STEPHANIE SAUL Working mostly over the Internet, Ms. Kehoe handpicked the egg donor, a pre-med student at the University of Michigan. From the Web site of California Cryobank, she chose the anonymous sperm donor, an athletic man with a 4.0 high school grade-point average. On another Web site, surromomsonline.com, Ms. Kehoe found a gestational carrier who would deliver her baby. Finally, she hired the fertility clinic, IVF Michigan, which put together her creation last December. “We paid for the egg, the sperm, the in vitro fertilization,” Ms. Kehoe said as she showed off baby pictures at her home near Grand Rapids, Mich. “They wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for us.” On July 28, the Kehoes announced the arrival of twins, Ethan and Bridget, at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. Overjoyed, they took the babies home on Aug. 3 and prepared for a welcoming by their large extended family. A month later, a police officer supervised as the Kehoes relinquished the swaddled infants in the driveway. Bridget and Ethan are now in the custody of the surrogate who gave birth to them, Laschell Baker of Ypsilanti, Mich. Ms. Baker had obtained a court order to retrieve them after learning that Ms. Kehoe was being treated for mental illness…. |
The Lost Children
Source: CBS Dec. 10, 2009 "48 Hours" Investigation: Families are Torn Apart in One of the Largest Foreign Adoption Scams in U.S. History Play CBS Video Video The Lost Children Correspondent Maureen Maher profiles her upcoming report, "The Lost Children" - the culmination of a two-year investigation by "48 Hours" into one of the largest foreign adoption scams in U.S. history. (CBS) CBS News will present, "The Lost Children," a "48 Hours" special, on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT - the clmination of a two-year investigation by "48 Hours" into one of the largest foreign adoption scams in U.S. history. Anchored by "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher, who herself was adopted, "The Lost Children" profiles three families - Patti Sawyer, Mike and Kari Nyberg, and Elizabeth and Gary Muenzler - who adopted children from the South Pacific island of Samoa through the Utah-based Focus On Children adoption agency, only to face a heartbreaking decision years later… |
GUATEMALA REOPENING INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS
Source: Washington Post By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA The Associated Press GUATEMALA CITY -- Guatemalan officials on Friday announced the resumption of international adoptions after a nearly two-year suspension prompted by the discovery that some babies were being sold. Legal reforms established during the suspension will prevent problems in the future, according to the National Adoption Council, which said in a statement on its Web page that it will start a pilot program involving four countries. The Council did not say when the program would start or which countries would be involved. Prior to the shutdown, Guatemala was the world's second-largest source of babies to the U.S. after China due to its routinely quick adoption process…. |
Surrogacy, the New Trend After Adoption?
Source: www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com
by Samuel Chong |
International Adoption of Children Goes DomesticSource: www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com China, a country where many adoptive parents used to adopt their children from, has been delaying the adoption process of American parents. Domestic adoption has become the new trend, says Felice Webster, a Los Angeles based attorney specializing in adoption law. It can be cheaper, faster, and nicer. by Samuel Chong Los Angeles, California.: International adoption has been popular for American adoptive parents who wish to adopt a child, until China slowed down its adoption process for the improvement of its image for the Olympics Game of 2008. Now, domestic adoption has become the new trend. It can be cheaper, faster, and nicer, according to Felice Webster, an adoption attorney based in Los Angeles. China, the country that provides the largest number of children for adoption, has been the top choice for American parents who are thinking about adopting a child internationally. However, to improve its image and not wanting it to be a country full of unwanted baby girls, China has recently slowed down the adoption process, especially before and after the 2008 Olympic Games. "It used to be 1.5 years of waiting period. Now it is almost 3 years", says a prospective adopting parent. "There are many rumors on the internet, mostly started by Rumor Queen, a forum moderator at ChinaAdoptTalk.com, a website. And every time when I hear about the rumors, my heart becomes cold and I become moody." Although China has slowed down the adoption process, it still provided 3911 children to adoptive parents in the world, according to World Map Adoption Statistics of the United States Department of State. However, the recent trend is for prospective parents to find a child for adoption domestically. "In the US, though it varies from State to State, it generally takes between 12 to 18 months to complete the adoption process for domestic adoption compared to 2 to 3 years for international adoption. The cost is somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 for domestic adoption compared to between 25,000 to 35,000 for international adoption." Says Webster… |
Child Trafficking: HANCI Boss Confesses
Source: www.sierraexpressmedia.com Author: Donstance Koroma - SEM Dr. Roland Kargbo, executive director of the controversial Help A Needy Child International (HANCI) organization has, after being grilled by human right activist Emmanuel Hindowa Saidu of Foundation for Democratic Initiative and Development confessed he engaged in child trafficking and blamed former Attorney General Tom Carew whom he said did not ensure that the biological parents were informed prior to the children being taken abroad. |
Montana churches take on challenge in Ethiopia
Source: www.ethiopianreview.com November 11th, 2009 at 11:01 am | By SUSAN OLP BILLINGS, MONTANA (Billings Gazette) — Harvest Church's African journey began two years ago at a leadership summit. Pastors from the Billings Heights church watched a stellite feed of a talk by British screenwriter and director Richard Curtis. Curtis, a humanitarian, has raised nearly $1 billion for charitable causes. "He was showing poverty around the world, especially needy kids," said Tim Weidlich, teaching pastor at Harvest. … Weidlich led a team, which included the Rev. Brian Hopkins, pastor of Journey Church, on a trip to Ethiopia last November. Out of that came a connection with Bright Hope School in Addis Ababa and with Christian World Adoption out of Flat Rock, N.C., which operates four orphanages in Ethiopia… |
HANCI Refutes Allegations of Child Trafficking
Source: http://awoko.org Help the Needy Child International (HANCI) has come under constant pressure by parents whose children were adopted by a United States based organization called Maine Adoption Placement Services (MAPS) a deal believed to have been facilitated by HANCI. |
S Leone fury at 'forced adoption'
Source: news.bbc.co.uk Wednesday, 4 November 2009 Thousands of children were forced to flee during the civil war |
Assets from adoption scammer to go to victims
Source: www.thedailysound.com
|
Tweede adoptieorganisatie in VS
Second adoption agency for US
Source: di 06 okt 2009, 22:26 The Dutch Adoption Association (Nederlandse Adoptie Stichting), who already mediates from Haiti, Bolivia and Mongolia, will be the second Dutch agency for the US, next to the much criticised Foundation Child and Future (Kind en Toekomst). |
Adoption group is under shadow
Source: www.stltoday.com
For hundreds of families around the country, the Chesterfield-based Small World Adoption Foundation enabled them to become loving adoptive parents of orphaned Russian and Eastern European children. Those 17 years of uniting foreign children with American parents, though, may be unraveling in a wave of questions about how the group, and its founder in particular, spent its money. Last year, a tug-of-war for control of the foundation — and oversight of its money — pitted the founder against his board. Allegations about improper spending caught the attention of state and perhaps federal authorities. Then, two weeks ago, on Sept. 15, the founder and director, Viacheslav "Slava" Platonov, 58, was found dead in his condo in Creve Coeur. Police said it was a suicide. Now, the future of the nonprofit group that has handled nearly 2,000 adoptions is clouded, perhaps threatening its ability to continue bringing together children and prospective parents… |
A YOUNG CHINESE GIRL PINES FOR HER TWIN
By Barbara Demick Reporting from Gaoping, China - In a village tucked deep in a lush valley of Hunan province, 9-year-old Zeng Shangjie dutifully practices writing the English alphabet. When she learns enough to find the words to express herself, she wants to write a letter to the twin she believes has become an American. Dear sister. Do you miss home? When are you coming home to me? The twins were separated before their first birthday, when their mother, Yuan Zanhua, a migrant worker, went off to another province. Afraid she wouldn't be able to handle two babies in addition to an older daughter, Yuan took Shangjie, strapping her to her back, and left the other twin, Xiuhua, with her brother and sister-in-law in the countryside. Then on May 30, 2002, a dozen officials from the local family planning office stormed Yuan's brother's house. They grabbed 20-month-old Xiuhua, shoved her into a car and drove off.
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." Yang wept and argued, but, alone with her 4-month-old daughter, she was in no position to resist the man every parent in Tianxi feared. |
Adoptions suspended Adoption Alert September 17, 2009 |
NEWS MIDDLE EAST Egypt jails US couples for adoption Seven other people were also sentenced in the case, first of its kind in the country, which became publicly known earlier this year after the US embassy in Cairo reported it was suspicious of the couples after they tried to get their adopted children out of Egypt. The four, Iris Botros and Louis Andros of Durham, North Carolina, and Egyptian-born Suzan Hagoulf and her husband Medhat Metyas, were also fined 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($18,150) each. They went on trial in May on charges of child trafficking and forgery after being arrested in December…
|
|
Since Angelina Jolie adopted her daughter Zahara in 2005, the number of Americans adopting Ethiopian children has quadrupled. |
Guatemalan army stole children for adoption, report says Many of those children ended up in the United States, as well as Sweden, Italy and France, said the report's author and lead investigator, Marco Tulio Alvarez. In some cases, the report said, parents were killed so the children could be taken and given to government-operated agencies to be adopted abroad. In other instances, the children were abducted without physical harm to the parents. "This was a great abuse by the state," Alvarez told CNN on Friday. In some cases, the report said, parents were killed so the children could be taken and given to government-operated agencies to be adopted abroad. In other instances, the children were abducted without physical harm to the parents… |
|
K&T (Child & Future) stops mediation United States September 2009 Partial mediation US On Monday 24 August Foundation Kind en Toekomst (Child and Future) informed both Mr. Michael Goldstein and Ms. Tara Gutterman (ARC) that the foundation ends all efforts to get a contract with them for regular procedures. After many years of negotiation Foundation Child and Future could only conclude that the needed transparency and openness in communication remained inexistent, whereby sensitive but very important issues could not be sufficiently discussed. Therefore, Foundation Child and Future will not and cannot carry the responsibility for concluding a contract for regular procedures… |
PRESSIUNE LA NIVEL INALT U.S. and EU force reopening international adoptions Jurnalul National came into possession of an official document of the U.S. Congress, in which 8 senators and 13 members of the American Congress ask the Romanian Government, since May, to reopen international adoptions. In parallel, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has given the same "advice" following the presentation of the country report of Romania in Geneva on June 5. Romania has become the target of pressure from some interest groups and some foreign NGOs that fight for more than about 5 years to re-open international adoptions from Romania. In fact, foreigners require the changing of Law 273 of 2004, which brought the regulations necessary to resume international adoptions after a suspension of over three years by the moratorium since 2001. The new law, however, accepts that children can only be adopted by foreigners who are relatives of the children. Trafficking in children, unable to stop Last week has come to light a new scandal concerning the illegal adoption of two Romanian minors in Italy, which has reopened the issue of international adoptions, a real battleground between the National Authority for Protection of Child Rights and several members of the European Commission, on the sidelines, and several private groups in the U.S. and EU which require reopening pressure through adoptions made at the highest level, from Western governments to the Romanian authorities. Exclusively Jurnalul National shows you an incredible document, bearing the letterhead U.S. Congress and signed by 20 U.S. senators and congressmen… |
Adoption scammer pleads guilty By COLBY FRAZIER — July 3, 2009 A former Montecito businessman who swindled $800,000 from 59 hopeful parents through his adoption business, pleaded guilty in Superior Court yesterday to 17 felonies and a white-collar crime enhancement. Wearing a light-blue shirt, dark pants and a tie, with shackles around his hands and feet, the defendant, Orson Mozes, said plainly that he was guilty, and acknowledged he felt “very comfortable” with the plea bargain he had negotiated with prosecutors. Although the man won’t be sentenced until July 14, Senior Deputy District Attorney Paula Waldman said he most likely would be sentenced to three years and four months in state prison, with three years of parole. Mozes, 57, also faces a civil lawsuit in the state of Pennsylvania that was jointly filed by 17 of the adoption scam victims. Additionally, Mozes conceded to forfeit $300,000 in cash and gold coins that were seized from his Florida home. The funds will be used to repay the victims, some of whom, Waldman said, are owed amounts as high as $75,000… |
China Checks Out Charges Babies Taken From Home ASIA NEWS By GORDON FAIRCLOUGH SHANGHAI -- Authorities in southern China are investigating allegations that local officials took babies from their parents between 2003 and 2005 and delivered them to an orphanage that press reports said has offered children for overseas adoption. |
INHOFE BI-PARTISAN EFFORTS TO FACILITATE FOREIGN ADOPTIONS Congressional Desk June 26, 2009 |
Three jailed for child trafficking 26 June 2009 |
People & Power - Stolen Babies 24 June 2009 But the practice was marked by lax adoption procedures and plagued by criminals targeting poor mothers. |
Adoption of Ethiopian children halted, then resumed POSTED: 18 JUNE, 2009 This decision affected three orphanages in Addis Ababa: Kebebe Tsehay Orphanage, Ketchene Orphanage and Kolfe Youth Center. The courts observed a great increase in children being brought for adoption from the Addis Ababa orphanages. Because the number of abandoned children has increased so dramatically in past months, Ethiopian authorities suspect immoral practices in some of the cases. The Ethiopian First Instance Court and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) did not accept these cases until several questions were answered about the suspicious cases. Though the investigation continues, almost a month later, on May 23, the courts began again to accept abandoned children cases from Addis Ababa… |
Dozens of human smugglers captured 19 June 2009 The bust was the biggest of its kind in the nation’s fight against human trafficking, the NIA said. |
More than 1,800 U.S. adoptees from Russia in 2008 Published: June 16,2009 …In 2008, Americans adopted 17,438 children from abroad, more than all other countries combined. In this number, 1,861 came from Russia, the third-highest after Guatemala (4,123) and China (3,909). There are more than 200,000 foreign-adopted children living in the United States today. "We believe that children who don't have a family should have the option of finding a family outside their country, if a good-faith effort has been made to find a local family," said Michele Bond, deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the U.S. State Department, the central intercountry adoption authority in the United States. Bond said the U.S. government carefully reviews each case and rejects those that raise legal, social or ethical questions. "We need to ensure that when each of these adoptions occurs, U.S. laws and policies have been fully complied with and laws and policies of the other country have been complied with." |
Madonna is my new mum, New York here I come... Last updated at 10:33 PM on 13th June 2009 |
Belangen van wensouders prevaleren
INTERESTS OF ADOPTIVE PARENTS PREVAIL
3 June 2009
|
|
Adoption body orders inquiry into US case MUMBAI: The Central Adoption Resources Authority (CARA) has said that it has asked the Maharashtra government to conduct an inquiry and send a 27-year-old Jennifer Haynes, adopted by a US couple, had moved the Bombay high court after being suddenly deported to India in July last year from the US where she has a husband and children. CARA deputy director Jagannath Patil in his report has said that CARA has communicated with the central agency in the US. He has also asked the Maharashtra government to conduct an inquiry and is awaiting the report. The court had asked CARA to submit its report after Haynes' advocate Pradeep Havnur had argued that the entire adoption process was questionable. Patil said that CARA has asked the central authority of USA on adoption matters. It has asked the authority to provide details on how Jennifer could not be given citizenship and possible efforts on her rehabilitation. "CARA will be able to form an opinion only after receiving reports from these quarters,'' Patil said. |
US couple who wanted to adopt on trial in Egypt 2009-05-13 CAIRO (AP) - An American couple, Iris Botros and Louis Andros, thought they were finally reaching their dream of having a child when they came to Botros' homeland, Egypt, to adopt twin orphans. Instead they found themselves in a cage in a courtroom, on trial for alleged child trafficking. |
Korean intercountry adoptees support birth mother’s rights in South Korea Korean intercountry adoptees support birth mother’s rights in South Korea |
Operation Babylift from an Adoptees Perspective Published in the May/June 2009 Humanist |
Stricter requirements in respect of adoption from the United States |
Would-be parents turn to foster kids as adoption costs rise 27 April 2009 Would-be parents turn to foster kids as adoption costs rise The recession has pushed the high cost of private adoptions out of reach for many prospective parents, prompting more of them to look into adopting hard-to-place foster children. |
At least 35 criminal cases filed over illegal adoption of children by foreigners in Kyrgyzstan 24/04-2009 12:31 , Bishkek , News Agency “24.kg” , By Nargiza YULDASHEVA |
Netherlands limits adoptions of US children 22 April 2009 THE HAGUE (AFP) — The Dutch government said Wednesday it would make it more "The adoption of children from the United States will be subjected to stricter >From a total of 767 foreign adoptions last year, 56 were of American children Under Dutch adoption regulations, it was preferable for a child to be adopted "There appears to be no necessity to place these children outside the United |
Adoption: New Front in Gay Rights Battle? April 20, 2009 CBNNews.com - One of the priorities of the Obama administration is to advance adoption rights for gay couples. It is a divisive issue. On one side, supporters of the gay agenda talk about the thousands of kids waiting to be adopted. On the other side, a strong belief exists that children need both a mom and a dad. |
Netherlands: Letter of Conditions for Adoptions from the United States |
|
16/04/2009 22:47 - (SA) Monrovia - A rights group has sued the Liberian government and an agency that facilitates adoptions for American families over the disappearance of 35 children, the organisation said on Thursday. The Independent Civil and Human Rights Centre said the children aged between one and 12 years old were in the process of being adopted through the West African Children Support Network and disappeared last month. The network is registered with the Liberian government to facilitate adoption of Liberian children for American families. |
Russia, U.S. discuss treaty on child adoption 19:31|07/ 04/ 2009 |
Some parents without Madonna's cash must put adoption dreams on hold during recession Tuesday, March 31st 2009 If Madonna’s not permitted to bring home four-year-old Mercy James from Malawi, it certainly won’t be for lack of cash. The Material Mom’s got an unlimited budget for adding to her family through adoption. But budget is a huge issue for frustrated non-celebs who are finding themselves increasingly pinched by the recession and unable to fulfill what for many is a longheld dream: a child to call their own. “We’ve seen a surge of applications from people who need help, and they want to become parents so badly,” says Becky Fawcett, co-founder and executive director of Help Us Adopt, a non-profit grant organization that offers financial assistance to prospective adoptive parents. “The economy is affecting their ability to become parents because they can’t even go out and find the resources to borrow against. It’s heartbreaking.”… |
Meet the Parents: The Dark Side of Overseas Adoption By Scott Carney | Mon March 9, 2009 10:59 AM PST Listen to an interview with the author. After hours hunched behind the wheel of a rented Kia, flying past cornfields and small-town churches, I'm parked on a Midwestern street, trying not to look conspicuous. Across the way, a preteen boy dressed in silver athletic shorts and a football T-shirt plays with a stick in his front yard. My heart thumps painfully. I wonder if I'm ready to change his life forever. I've been preparing for this moment for months in the South Indian metropolis of Chennai, talking to khaki-clad officers in dusty police stations and combing through endless stacks of court documents. The amassed evidence tells a heartrending tale of children kidnapped from Indian slums, sold to orphanages, and funneled into the global adoption stream. I've zeroed in on one case in particular, in which police insist they've tracked a specific stolen child in India to a specific address in the United States. Two days ago, the boy's parents asked me to deliver a message to the American family via their lawyer, seeking friendship and communication. But after traveling across 10 time zones to get here, I'm at a loss for how to proceed… |
Judge has mercy on Samoan adoption scam defendants; no prison time Posted: 02/25/2009 Standing in front of the people she blamed for almost destroying her family, Elizabeth Muenzler on Wednesday clutched a photo of her adopted Samoan daughter and struggled to relate the depth of her suffering. "There are no words to describe the disgust and disdain I have for you," Muenzler told defendants as a judge considered how to punish operators and employees of the now-defunct Focus on Children adoption agency. "Lord knows, if anyone deserves jail time, it's you." After hearing Muenzler's plea and from other parents who either condemned or supported agency operators Scott and Karen Banks, U.S. District Judge David Sam sentenced the couple and two others connected to the agency to five years of probation and banned them for life from the adoption business… |
|
|
20 February 2009 The potential parents emerged, some holding video cameras, laughing and talking nervously. Six babies whom we, as volunteers, had been playing with, feeding and generally 'watching over' were leaving. And 20 minutes later, after a rushed ceremony and a few brief conversations, they were taken away to their new lives… |
Adoption restrictions to rule out single, gay foreign applicants Friday, February 13, 2009 IN meetings with representatives from France and the United States, Cambodian officials this month expressed their opposition to adoptions involving single parents, gay parents, low-income parents and parents who already have two children. This opposition will become an outright ban when a draft law on adoption, currently being reviewed by the Council of Ministers, is approved by the National Assembly, said Koy Kuong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who added that he hoped the law would be passed "soon". Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong met with Jean-Paul Monchau, the French official responsible for overseeing international adoptions, on February 3 and voiced concern about the potential psychological effects such adoptions can have on children, according to a ministry press release issued Tuesday…. |
Want a Baby? Gay or Straight, Come to India, Says Doc By ASHFAQUE SWAPAN After outsourcing software, customer service, back office work, here's the latest trend: Infertile gay or straight couples can outsource the complicated business of having a baby to India, and what's more, like all outsourcing options, they can get more bang for their buck. Gay couples in the U.S., who are struggling for marital rights here, had an opportunity recently to explore the possibility of fulfilling another dream close to their hearts but fraught with financial, legal and bureaucratic hurdles — the possibility of their own child with state-of-the-art care and bargain basement prices — in India. In four seminars Jan. 26 and Jan. 27 — two in New York City and two in Los Angeles — Dr. Gautam N. Allahbadia, M.D., director of Rotunda-The Center for Human Reproduction, a world-renowned infertility clinic at Bandra, Mumbai — walked interested couples through the procedure towards fulfilling their dream of having a baby. The seminars were sponsored by PlanetHospital, a company that promotes medical tourism… |
Adoption Alert
The Kyrgyz Government has formed an adoption commission that includes officials from the Vice Prime Minister’s office, the Ministries of Education, Social Protection and Labor, Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, and Justice, as well as the General Prosecutor’s office. This commission is responsible for drafting new adoption policy and legislation, with special emphasis on clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the different agencies involved. The commission will recommend whether the Kyrgyz Republic should join the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. The commission plans to report to Parliament by March 20; the Parliament will then choose what action it will take on these proposals. The Kyrgyz government does not intend to process any adoption cases, new or pending, until the adoption commission issues its report and Parliament has taken action on its recommendations. |
Samoans shocked by lenient adoption scam penalties 28 February 2009 Samoans have expressed shock at the sentence given to four Americans, over an adoption agency that tricked Samoan families into giving up their children. The three women and one man have escaped jail sentences, as New Zealand correspondent Kerri Ritchie reports. Eighty Samoan children were adopted out by the Focus on Children Agency between 2002 and 2005. The Samoan parents were told the children would be educated in the US and could return home when they were 18. But the agency told American families they were orphans and accepted thousands of dollars for them… |
Adoption Notice U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE January 30, 2009 Recent media reports that the Government of Moldova is planning to impose a temporary ban on intercountry adoption appear to be erroneous. According to a Moldovan government official, no such ban is planned. The Department of State will continue to monitor the status of intercountry adoptions in Moldova and will update this adoption notice when we have any new information. |
Alleged baby broker remains in Mexican judicial limbo |
|
15 January 2009 Svetlana Chifa, chief of the Directorate for Protection of Child |
OptionalRegion3
@2009 Against Child Trafficking