Laos probes sale of babies to Australians

by: From correspondents in Hanoi
From: AFP
February 06, 20127:55PM

LAOS is investigating a retired justice ministry official for allegedly selling adopted babies to Australians, Americans and Canadians for thousands of dollars each.

The official is accused of seeking out unwanted babies in poor rural areas, obtaining adoption papers and selling the infants to foreigners for up to $5,000 each, according to a Radio Free Asia report today. (more…)

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Surrogate not legally a baby’s mother, judge rules

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com
Joseph Brean Sep 13, 2011 – 7:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Sep 12, 2011 10:39 PM ET

“It’s tough for the legislators to keep up, and this is a case where it may be lagging,” said Rich Gabruch, lawyer for “John” and “Bill,” the same-sex couple who are now properly called the parents of “Sarah,” who was conceived with John’s sperm and an ovum from an anonymous donor, and carried to term by “Mary.”
A Saskatchewan judge has ruled that a woman who gave birth to a baby girl in 2009 is not actually the child’s mother, in a decision that exposes the gap between legislation and reality in modern parenthood. (more…)

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Die verschwundenen Kinder von El Salvador

Source:  http://derstandard.at 
29. August 2011 23:29

Viele Bürgerkriegsopfer wurden von Militärs für Adoptionen im Ausland entführt
San Salvador – Das verknitterte und vergilbte Schwarz-Weiß-Foto hütet Raúl wie einen Schatz. Es ist das Einzige, was er von seiner Mutter noch hat. Als Raúl vier Jahre alt war, brachte seine Mutter ihn und den um ein Jahr jüngeren Jorge in einem kirchlichen Kinderheim in Sicherheit vor den Wirren des salvadorianischen Bürgerkriegs. Mit sieben erfuhr Raúl, dass seine Mutter tot war.

Sie war in den kirchlichen Basisgemeinden aktiv, die vom Militär als Zuarbeiter der Guerilla verdächtigt wurden. 1992 endete der Bürgerkrieg in dem mittelamerikanischen Land. Raúl war 15, er und sein Bruder blieben Kriegswaisen. Rund 75.000 Menschen starben im Bürgerkrieg, mehr als 8000 gelten immer noch als verschwunden, darunter 871 Kinder. (more…)

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Profit, not care: The ugly side of overseas adoptions

Date: 2011-06-05

Lax regulation and an endless demand by childless couples in the West has created an often exploitative market in babies born in the developing world

By Laurie Penny
Sunday, 5 June 2011

In rural Nepal, where the going rate for a healthy orphan is $5,000 (£3,000), some 600 children are missing. They were taken by agents who came to the villages promising that they would educate the children and give them a better life in the capital, sometimes for a steep fee. The children never returned. (more…)

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Liberals pass law to ease adoption of Crown wards

Published On Wed Jun 1 2011
Laurie MonsebraatenSocial Justice Reporter

Queen’s Park has removed legal barriers that trap most of the province’s 9,000 Crown wards in foster care with no hope of adoption.

The legislative change, passed by MPPs unanimously Wednesday, will make more kids in the care of Children’s Aid Societies eligible for adoption, said Children and Youth Minister Laurel Broten. (more…)
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Canadian parents wary as China confronts baby trafficking

May 25, 2011 9:47 PM | By Leslie MacKinnon

When Cathy Wagner of Bridgewater, N.S., heard a CBC story last week about babies stolen from their families several years ago in Hunan province, her reaction was that nothing has changed.

She’s the mother of a 5-year-old girl adopted from the same region in China. “It’s like a dirty secret”, she says, “but it’s time we started talking about it.”

CBC News’ China correspondent, Anthony Germain, interviewed two parents in China who said the family-planning officials who enforce the country’s one-child policy seized at least 20 babies, including their own, and sent them to orphanages to be adopted abroad.

“By changing their identities and processing the stolen children through legally recognized orphanages, the chances of any impoverished Chinese parent ever finding their child are almost nonexistent,” Germain reported. (more…)

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Court strikes down anonymous sperm-donor law

BY KEITH FRASER, THE PROVINCE,  MAY 20, 2011
A B.C.-born woman has won a long-running battle to strike down a law that prevents her -and thousands of others -from learning about their biological parents.

Olivia Pratten fought for more than 10 years to find out the identity and other information about her biological dad, an anonymous sperm donor.

T h e B . C . g ov e r n m e n t blocked her efforts, so Pratten, a 29-year-old journalist who now lives in Toronto, took her case to court.

On Thursday, a judge found that the Adoption Act, a law that applies to anonymous sperm and egg donors, is discriminatory. (more…)

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China’s government trafficking babies from poor families

Date: 2011-05-15
Source: http://www.youtube.com

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The scandal of orphanages in tourist resorts and disaster zones that rent children to fleece gullible Westerners

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk 
By IAN BIRRELL
10th April 2011

As a child welfare expert who has worked amid bullets and bombs in some of the world’s toughest war zones, Jennifer Morgan is not someone easily shaken. But even she admits she was shocked by some of the orphanages she visited recently in Haiti.
‘Outside it is a sunny day. Then you step inside the walls of an orphanage and realise that the children there have been exposed to rapes, severe beatings, emotional and mental trauma,’ she said. It was even more disturbing, she added, than the damaged children she came across amid the deadly mayhem of Darfur.
But perhaps the most troubling thing is that these tragic scenes in Haiti are not unusual. In dozens of places around the world, unregulated orphanages have become a boom business trading off Western guilt. Our desire to help is backfiring in the most dreadful fashion. (more…)

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Two charged in adoption agency fraud investigation

Nadia Matos on the adoption agency charges
Two people are facing numerous fraud charges in connection with an investigation at Cambridge-based Imagine Adoption Inc.
Date: Friday Apr. 8, 2011 11:13 AM ET
Two people have been arrested and charged in connection with fraud allegations at the Cambridge-based Imagine Adoption Inc.

The non-profit adoption agency filed for bankruptcy in July 2009, and after public complaints, police launched an extensive investigation. (more…)

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