Unmarried mothers coming out of isolation

During her college years, Chang Ji-young once dreamed of becoming an unmarried mom voluntarily in protest against the unfair prejudice towards them here.

However, two years ago, when the 34-year-old former business consult became pregnant by her former boyfriend, she first considered getting married to him.

"Facing the reality was totally different from vaguely assuming it," said Chang, who is currently raising her daughter alone after her boyfriend didn't keep the marriage promise.

Her parents and brother tried to persuade her to get an abortion or to give up the baby for adoption. But she resisted and her family turned their backs on her and the child.

Until then, she was confident about the future because she had 10 years of overseas working experiences as well as fluency in English.

"I felt frustrated most when my expectations were shattered," she said.

"During a job interview, they asked why I raise the child alone and who the father is. In Korean society, it's impossible to avoid such questions, even though they are extremely private matters. Then, all I got was rejections."

Chang is one of the Korean unwed moms who must endure a lifetime of poverty and disgrace after deciding to raise their children alone.

According to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, about 6,000 to 10,000 babies are born out of wedlock every year in Korea.

They accounted for 1.6 percent of the total births, the lowest level among OECD member states. While Japan has the second lowest 2.1 percent, the figures in the United States and France are 38.5 percent and 50.4 percent, respectively.

Fearing financial and social struggles, 96 percent of unmarried pregnant women have abortions, and of those who choose to give birth, 70 percent give up their children for adoption, the state-run Korean Women's Development Institute reports.

In the United States, only 1 percent of unwed moms choose adoption, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.

"Unmarried pregnant women, desperate to seek help, contact adoption agencies. However, they persuade the mothers to give up their children rather than encourage them to raise the kids. Without knowing what's going on exactly, they agree for adoption," said an unwed mom and the director general of the Korean Unwed Mothers and Families Association, who requested not to be named.

Of the total 2,556 babies born to unmarried women and then adopted in 2008, 1,250 found their home abroad, the Health Ministry said. Since 1958, Korea has sent more than 200,000 children abroad.

When it comes to welfare services, Korea still legs far behind other developed countries. Childcare, in particular, is one of the biggest obstacles for working moms, regardless of their being married or not.

However, while married or divorced women receive support from their expanded family members for childcare and other family affairs, such support is absent for unwed moms, making them more vulnerable.

"Unwed mothers come to have less choices. Because the children can be looked after only at nursery school, they have to find a job near the place and can't work overtime at night," said the director general of the unwed mothers' association.

Teenage pregnancy and, more recently, rampant abortions have emerged as serious social problems in Korea. And the issue of supporting unwed moms just started gaining public attention.

Last year, the government first earmarked a budget of 1.6 billion won ($1.4 million) to provide assistance to unwed moms aged under 24.

However, the mothers and activists point out that the financial assistance should be given for the babies, regardless of their mothers' age.

When she started a campaign supporting unwed moms three years ago, Kwon Hee-jung, coordinator of the Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network, said she could not meet the mothers anywhere.

"I didn't know whom I was speaking for," she said.

However, now, it's great for me to see moms work and speak for themselves."

A growing number of unmarried mothers, mostly those in their 20s and 30s, are deciding to raise their children recently. In 1984, the rate was only 5.8 percent. However, the figure surpassed 30 percent currently, according to the women's policy institute.

And they started joining forces and speaking out for the rights of unwed moms and their children.

Choi Houng-suk, a 39-year-old hairdresser, is one of them. Along with other three unmarried moms, she opened last year an online community "Miss Momma Mia," which is aimed at sharing information and brining up the issue of unwed moms to be discussed.

Their campaign was linked to the foundation of the Korean Unwed Mothers and Families Association on Dec. 19. With some 40 members joining currently, the nation's first association of unwed moms aims to become a non-government organization in March.

"I'm not an activist, just a mother of my son. I am still hesitant to reveal myself in public," Choi said.

"When the media portrays our problems sensationally, I sometimes want to quit doing this. But I can't. If I don't take any action now, the social prejudice will be prolonged, affecting our children finally."

Fortunately, Choi is one of the rare unwed moms who receive childcare costs from their children's birth fathers. She had tried not to inform her pregnancy to her former boyfriend. But her doctor said that he also has the right to know.

Even though related laws oblige the fathers to share the rearing expenses, most of them ignore the duty. The average amount reported is less than 500,000 won per month.

Most of all, mothers themselves give up the money, fearing that the fathers could ask for the custody of their children belatedly.

"It is more likely that the fathers who have a better job as well as family support win a lawsuit. However, recently, the court also rules in favor of the mothers who have never abandoned the kids and try to find a stable job. So, the mothers need to seek the financial assistance more aggressively," Choi said.

In 2008, three years after the birth, her family finally accepted Choi and her son.

"When I became an unwed mom, my family was the first to abandon me. But they finally accepted me. And that support encouraged me a lot more than anything else," she said.

Adding to the efforts of the unwed moms' association is the support from Korean-born adoptees who recently returned home to help the mothers who face the same difficulties as their birth mothers did decades ago. They help promote the issue to the public as well as educating and taking care of the kids of unwed mothers.

"There are a lot of campaigns ongoing to promote adoption. They say 'Bear abandoned children with love.' However, the mothers had never abandoned the kids. They made an unavoidable decision for the better future of their kids," Choi said. "We hope adopted people to understand the cruel situations their birth mothers had to face."

(jylee@heraldm.com)

By Lee Ji-yoon

'Raising child not a matter of choice'

Richard Boas, an ophthalmologist from Connecticut, and his wife adopted a four-month-old baby girl from Korea 22 years ago.

"We had a sense of rescuing the child from the very uncertainty in Korea and doing a favor for her mother and for Korean society," Boas told The Korea Herald on his visit to Seoul last week.

Until a few years ago, he helped other Americans adopt foreign children.

However, it was in 2006 when he encountered his "own blind spot" that had bothered him over the years since his daughter's adoption.

While visiting Korea along with other social workers, he met a dozen of pregnant women, all unmarried and around 20 years old, at an adoption facility in Daegu.

"We were sitting around a table. They all had already agreed to give up their children.

"I realized that I had not validated a real woman, my daughter's natural mother who loved her child as much as I did and likely had to give up her daughter for adoption very painfully," he said.

Then, he began rethinking his activities promoting international adoption and decided to help unwed moms in Korea raise their children for themselves.

In 2008, he started the Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network, which is aimed at advocating the rights of the mothers and their children -- the nation's first of its kind.

Even though it has been just two years since the establishment, the KUMSN has already increased the visibility of the unwed moms' issue in Korean society. It has sponsored scholarly research and provided direct support for some women and children as well as agencies advocating them.

The 60-year-old American father is now called "godfather of Korean unwed moms" here.

"One of the most satisfying things is to share my story to brining up the issue of unwed moms and people started recognizing it," he said.

Many Koreans say it would be better for the kids of unwed mothers to be offered a better life through international or domestic adoption.

The nation's adoption rate also reflects an age-old mindset. According to the state-run Korean Women's Development Institute, nearly 70 percent of Korean unmarried mothers gave their children up for adoption in 2008, while the figure in the United States was only 1 percent.

He still thinks that adoption is needed and should be an option for vulnerable women. The situation in Haiti is an example, he said.

"However, Korea is a developed country with advanced democracy. Why does Korea see itself as an exception?"

The Hague Adoption Convention, an international resolution aimed at ensuring the best interests of adopted children, prioritizes birth mothers to raise their children over domestic and international adoption.

While some 70 nations in the world have already signed the agreement, Korea is one of few countries that are yet to join.

He pointed out that the nation's discussion on adoption is still superficial.

"Those who promote adoption think they are doing the right thing. I also used to have that mindset. However, at the root of it, there are mothers and kids that need support.

"I think it's a matter of simple mathematics. If more mothers raise their children, there's going to be less adoption, domestically and internationally," he said.

He also gave some encouragement to the unmarried pregnant women who still hesitate to bring their babies into the world.

"You are an individual who needs to live a life that you feel is best for you, a life of your choosing. And you have to determine your path. This would include woman's or couples' desire to raise a child.

"If you decide that you want to have your own child, I will say more power to you. There are people and resources out there that can help you." (jylee@heraldm.com)

By Lee Ji-yoon

Haiti’s Children and the Adoption Question

Haiti’s Children and the Adoption Question

Darron Smith, a researcher on issues of interracial adoptions, joins the discussion.

---

Updated, Feb. 2, 4:20 p.m. |

Haitian officials have detained 10 Americans for trying to take 33 children out of the country and into the Dominican Republic. The officials said that the church-affiliated group lacked the proper authorization and that some of the children, who ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years, might have parents. Members of the church group said they traveled to Haiti to rescue children from orphanages destroyed in the quake.

Related

• The Lede: Road From Haiti Was Paved With Good Intentions, American Baptists Say

While foreign adoption is legal in Haiti, according to Joseph Philippe Antonio, former foreign minister of Haiti, the formal process is complex and long, and it is not always respected. What rules should be followed in approving adoptions from Haiti? A lot of children are in orphanages and their lives could be saved or improved by quicker adoptions. But in the chaos, are there additional reasons to be cautious about such efforts?

• David Smolin, Cumberland Law School
• Elizabeth Bartholet, Harvard Law School
• Cynthia R. Mabry, Howard Law School
• Diane B. Kunz, Center for Adoption Policy
• E.J. Graff, Brandeis University
• Jane Aronson, pediatrician
• Darron Smith, University of Utah

> read more < > comments <

Comment from the UAI

The New York Times did a great job by starting, or should I say, continuing the debate about intercountry adoption. They interviewed, or at least collected,different academic point of views. Some of them are adoptive parents (AP) themselves. And even in the list of those who left comments, are mostly AP's also. And so the adoption history was constructed as continued. Even though more AP's become aware of the international phenomena of childtrafficking for adoption, not many of them dared the oppose the system which continues the international baby market called: international adoption.

Also many ideas written in several parts and by different persons in the article as in the comments are based on gut feeling instead of tracking down the history and international interests on religious, political and economical fundamental beliefs.

(http://www.conducivemag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81:international-adoption-and-the-fight-for-human-rights&catid=37:critical-thinking)

The international history around foster-care, orphanages ending up with (intercountry) adoption generally shows a well hidden agenda of powerplay, child abuse and exploitation of children brought into limbo by governments and their so-called social workers.

Nowadays more and more adult adoptees found the truth behind their adoption and what was meant as the idea of saving lives and in the best interest of the child they once were, they found a web of money making adoption multinationals connected with churches and religious groups, well backed up by politicians who see their chances to increase the numbers of voters and covered by academics and mewho are pro-adoption and most times (P)AP's themselves.

The whole arena regarding intercountry adoption is based on a strict marketing doctrine of to do well and to save. But the phenomena of intercountry adoption is in reality an international accepted well staged childfactory with celebrities (Madonna, Jolie etc.) marketing for more adoptions, politicians who adopted outside of the normal procedures (Milliband-GB, Schroder-D, Schelfhout-B etc.)

But lets see what happened last few years regarding (intercountry) adoption. The Netherlands accepted a new bill proposed by the homo-lobby in the Netherlands to adopt from the US while the US, according to their arguments, do not want to adopt black babies. Meaning coloured children from American Soil. But how would you explain the hundreds or thousands Haitian children flown into the US for intercountry adoption or Ethiopian children earlier ? But no one is answering this question.

A few years ago, a so-called French relieve organisation 'Arc de Zoe' trafficked children from Chad saying that these children needed medical support in France while hundreds of prospective adoptive parents where waiting at French and Belgium Airports. Just like the American traffickers in Haiti they where released from Prison and free to go after deals with the French governments.

And what about the international ring of Catholic churches who took children away from young mothers and gave them away to other parishes for adoption to richer and social more accepted families without children. A book by Carina Hutsebaut shows extensively this phenomena and who does not know now the Magdalene files from Ireland and many other Catholic regions in the world.

What about the annual + 2 billion dollar babymarket called intercountry adoption. Is it really true that those (+45.000, last year) children and their families who are adopted could not have been helped with this amount of money ?

And what about the fight for Adoptee Rights. In the Netherlands it is hard to marry without a birth certificate. But what about those hundreds or thousands Adoptees who have been adopted without one and have to go to court to marry. The Dutch government does not care as does many others in the world. And what if Adoptees want their original name. Again they have to court to fight for it. And what if adoptive parents forgot to complete adoption procedures, suddenly Adoptees are aliens and can be deported from the country where they have been raised in, like the US. What if Adoptees found out that their adoption procedure was false and deliberately falsified or in the most horrible scenario where stolen for adoption. Is there a government who are willing to deal with this ? NO. The Adoptees have been saved according to the international mantra and after arrival in the new country, you are at you own. At least in many legal situations. Many things have been arranged for adopters and agencies. They all covered for possible flaws in the adoption systems. Even many of them are covered by insurances and expensive law-firms. But what if Adoptees wants or need to go to court. Indeed, they are at their own.

Time has come that the adoption world dares to admit their real interest instead 'helping' children. Children became objects of possession. But we are human beings !

Celstraffen voor adoptiefraude

Susan en Jan krijgen celstraffen

De rechtbank Zwolle heeft drie mensen veroordeeld voor illegale adoptie. Ze probeerden een kind uit Sri Lanka met valse papieren naar Nederland te halen.

De hoofdverdachte, een vrouw uit Stegeren, kreeg een celstraf van 189 dagen, waarvan een deel voorwaardelijk. Haar ex-vriend uit Ommen kreeg 134 dagen, ook voor een deel voorwaardelijk. Een handlanger die adoptiepapieren had vervalst, kreeg 6 dagen gevangenisstraf.

De rechter gaf de vrouw en de ex-vriend een hogere straf dan het OM had geëist. De rechtbank liet meewegen dat de twee al eens eerder waren veroordeeld voor een poging tot illegale adoptie.

NOS

PAPs receives punishment for trying to traffic a child from Sri Lanka in 2007 for adoption in the Netherlands . Not the act itself is penalised but the fraud of papers. None the less, the judge decided to punish heavier as the public prosecutor asked for due to the fact that the two tried earlier to traffic a child for adoption.

Again, 'stealing children with 'good' intentions not punishable ?

Haiti judge recommends freeing US missionaries

The missionaries have said they were not trying to kidnap the children

A judge has recommended that 10 US missionaries detained in Haiti for alleged child smuggling should be freed while the case is investigated.

The five men and five women, most of them from Idaho, have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy.

They deny allegations that they tried to smuggle 33 children across the border to the Dominican Republic.

The group said they were taking the children to an orphanage.

But it has since emerged that some of the youngsters' parents are still alive, and many came from the same village.

The judge, Bernard Sainvil, says the missionaries should be provisionally released while he looks into the case.

According to Reuters news agency, the judge said he had signed the request for the release of the 10 Americans and sent it to the prosecutor's office.

The judge has the power to drop the charges at any time.

Better life

He says he made the decision after listening to evidence from some of the parents, who said they had no food or water to give their children.

They said they willingly gave up the youngsters because they believed they would have a better life with the missionaries.

The group's leader, Laura Silsby, has said her group had met a Haitian pastor by chance when it arrived in the country, and that he had helped them gather the children. She also admitted that the missionaries did not have the proper paperwork.

"Our intent was to help only those children that needed us most, that had lost either both their mother and father, or had lost one of their parents and the other had abandoned them," she has said from her jail cell.

The children, who are aged from two to 12, were later taken into care in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

The Haitian prime minister has warned that the case is a "distraction" from earthquake recovery.

Jean-Max Bellerive said last week that the case of the missionaries risked diverting international attention from the plight of Haitians who had lost their homes and livelihoods.

________________

Comments UAI:

Who does not remember the so-called charity l’Arche de Zoe whom tried to kidnap children from Chad for intercountry adoption. After conviction in Chad, the French government, a Europen Country with difficult transparency in their adoption procedures and figures and very much pro-adoption, got them out of Prison and nobody heard from this case and the offenders since.

It seems, that if the intention of adoption, does free people of the act itself. This also has to do with the fact, that international criminal law does not pursue to make the act of childtrafficking for adoption punishable while the international community believes that the intention of adoption is not a matter of exploitation but serves the best interest of the child. Even when a child is stolen and traded, the international criminal law accepts the final receiver, the adopters as legitimate owners of the child.

The act of reception, which is in many laws an offence or criminal act if the receiver could have suspected/known that the object, was probably traded/processed under suspicious circumstances, the receiver is also punishable. But in the case of adoption the 'traders' and the receivers of children (sujects) are free to go, because the final destination was in the best interest of the child. No further question asked.

This reality of intercountry adoption, how children are tracked down, recruited and processed, should create an outrageous response. But the international community is silent as ever and the adoptionlobby hopes that these examples, just a few popped up in the media, dies in silence, so the international adoption-caravan can be continued.

World is being deceived ?

Coloured kids not welcome in the US ?

While the Homolobby and the involved Adoption Agency in the Netherlands made clear last year, that the urgency is there to adopt coloured children from the US while they are not adoptable within US boarders, the US is lifting hundreds to thousands coloured children from Haiti right now.

The Dutch government and public were convinced that the necessity was there to enhance and extend US adoptions to the Netherlands in the interest of the children of colour.

No government did ever demanded a thorough research included the opinion from adoptees of colour unless they supported the voice of adopters.

Neo Colonialism ?

It is a strange world where everyone forgot to look to the parents and adoptees and their needs. Instead they keep the supply of children circulating as long the children are not theirs. And at the end, it looks that, the more colour you have, the easier the availability of these children for intercountry adoption exists.

If that conclusion is correct, than the long avoided debate about 'possession' and 'power of decision' by one part of the world colour ruling and deciding about other people of colour should raise questions. Some adoptees already wrote in the nighties about mechanisms of neo-colonialism. To push the intercountry adoption issue towards this topic seems to be harsh and extreme, but it becomes day by day more difficult not to raise this question.

The hunt for children

With knowing all this and peace-corps and student recruiters scattered around the world to find new coloured children for the west, the question should be raised now; how valid are the adoptions from western countries based on colour ?.

Until now, no government has ever answered this question. But should it not become time now, the world should raise this question ?

United Adoptees International © 2010

Dutch Government will sign the new EU Adoption Treaty

Ministry of Justice keeps Status Quo

A widespread letter from the Ministry of Justice to the House of Representatives but not published for the public, reveals that the Netherlands will sign the new EU Adoption Treaty.

United Adoptees International warned several years ago already for the silent movement within the European Union. Especially the European Commission, where the international adoptionlobby was represented to reform EU adoption laws to create a possibility of faster adoptions within Europe and to pull of adoptions which are now protected by Foster Care and International Children Rights (CRC).

The Adoption lobby ,existing foremost by (prospective/single) adopters and the homomovement, has been successful of using anti-discrimination statements to enforce adoptionrights for their own purposes without acknowledging the necessity of creating thresholds and protection measures for the most vulnerable ones in the adoption process, the parents and adoptees.

It seems that no one really cares and believe that governments act in the best interests of the vulnerable and weak citizens in the world.

Missing Representatives at International Conferences

Due to the missing representatives of adult adoptees last decades, to ensure their voice to be heard, the European Commission and European Parliament could speed up and execute their agenda's to create new loopholes in the new EU adoption law.

United Adoptees International was present at the last Strasbourg conference warned the public for the hidden agenda of the real interest of the designers and signatories of the treaty. One of the arguments which are been used now is the statement of the Dutch Ministry, saying that, equality of sexes and the non-marital status or single adoptions becomes possible within the EU. The essence of the treaty according to this letter is to create equal rights for wish-parents (adopters).

But no sentence or revision has been pulled of to protect and to facilitate parents in stressful situations who have to make the decision of relinquishment. Nor a change in the necessary (Post) Adoption Care has been given attention. And with no word, the interests of adoptees and their questions has been answered.

Again, the international community has been successful to silence adoptees and parents. Not because they are not there, but because the 'elite' of the western society executed a well managed exclusion of their voices by denying access to conferences and space to present their stories and researches.

The UAI was finally accepted to the Strasbourg conference after threatening with the EU Ombudsman. But as said with huge hesitation to let us in. It seems that the EU is afraid of critical voices which are based on meta-level instead of representing adoptees always as mascot's denying the relevance of the intrinsic and content based discourse of the adoption debate.

Open EU Adoption Market

With the new EU Adoption Law, the Netherlands and all signatories are accepting an international adoption market, lets say a new 'Schengen Adoption Treaty' where children can be freely moved and transported easier and faster from one country to another. A new chapter is add to the international child-caravan. Constructed and directed by and at EU Level.

Foster Children free for Intercountry Adoption ?

United Adoptees International is concerned that parties behind the new EU Law see this treaty as the next step of free Foster Children for international adoption. Meaning that those children who are right now in foster care , will soon be made available for intercountry adoption. Nevertheless the subsidiarity rule in the Hague Convention. The mantra of "in the interest of the child" will be used again but this time to create a new European Adoption Market.

UNITED ADOPTEES INTERNATIONAL © 2010

French looking for control of Haitian Adoptions ?

French Propose International Oversight of Haitian Adoptions

Tom Ramstack - AHN Correspondent

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AHN) - The French government is proposing to set up a commission with the Haitian government to oversee the adoption of children orphaned by the Jan. 12 earthquake that ravaged the Caribbean country.

The French proposal follows the arrest Jan. 29 of 10 U.S. Baptist missionaries who sought to take Haitian children to the Dominican Republic.

Haitian prosecutors accuse the missionaries of acting without government permission, which means their attempts to transport the 33 children could be considered child abduction.

France's ambassador for international adoption, Jean-Paul Monchau, is in Port-au-Prince to discuss the plan for a bilateral adoption commission with Haitian authorities.

The French Foreign Ministry reports that at least 326 Haitian children have been adopted by French families since the earthquake, all with Haitian government approval.

The bilateral commission would examine files of pending adoptions to determine whether they should be approved when the adoptive parents live in France or other countries.

In some cases, records of the children's families were destroyed by the earthquake, meaning the commission would need to set up new procedures to manage the adoptions, according to Haitian officials.

Emmanuelle Guerry, spokeswoman for the charitable group SOS Haiti, said the Haitian government is allowing adoptions only after a review of each child's circumstances.

She urged that procedures for reviewing the cases for international adoptions be established quickly, but gave no details of any plans being made.

Nearly 800 Haitian children already have been brought to the United States for adoption. About 1,100 more are scheduled to arrive by the end of February.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department announced it would not intervene to block Haitian legal proceedings against the Baptist missionaries.

Instead, State Department officials plan to monitor the proceedings to ensure proper legal procedures are followed, just like with any other American detained overseas.

"This is a Haitian legal process," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley. "The matters right now involve whether these individuals have broken Haitian law."

The missionaries made a court appearance Wednesday in Port-au-Prince before Judge Bernard Saint-Vil, who is investigating whether they should stand trial.

They testified that they had no bad intentions.

The missionaries, mostly from Idaho, said they were transporting the children from a damaged orphanage in Haiti to another orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

Some of the children later were found to have parents but media reports said the parents consented to having their children taken to the Dominican Republic.

Under Haitian law, Judge Saint-Vil has three months to decide whether to put the missionaries on trial.

They are receiving daily consular visits in jail from U.S. Embassy representatives, State Department officials said.

I felt sick. My whole life had been a lie

Adopted – but we didn't know

How does it feel to discover as an adult that you were adopted as a baby? We talk to four people who came to terms with finding out later in life.

Hilary Moon found out she was adopted 12 years ago. Photograph: David Sillitoe

Hilary Moon, 60, was 48 when she discovered that she was adopted. She is divorced.

"I was at my uncle's funeral when my cousin's husband wandered up to me and said, 'I've been wanting to meet you, because we're both adopted.' It was a huge shock – how could it not be? On the other hand, I had an instant explanation as to why I'd always felt like a square peg in a round hole when it came to my family.

"I once said to my mother, 'I've always felt like I was found on a doorstep.' She got terribly upset, and I later learned that was the point at which she confided in my cousin's husband. She chose him because he's a vicar. She assumed he'd keep it to himself.

"My mother had died by the time I found out the truth, but my father hadn't, so I asked him about it. He was an unpleasant man and simply said, 'Well, nobody else would have you.' I threw a cup of tea at him, said that at least it meant I wasn't related to him and we never spoke again.

"Was I angry? Of course I was. I had been advised not to have children because my mother and brother had both had severe diabetes and had gone blind and died early. To learn I wasn't blood-related to them means I made an enormous decision based on fiction.

"I've mellowed now. My mother had such a bum deal in life – a husband that had affairs and a son who died young – that it's hard to feel anger towards her. She and I got on well, and I'm thankful for that. And although I still have negative feelings towards my father, who is now dead, I think that's probably more to do with how he treated my mother.

"About eight years ago, my biological sister sought me out. She put me in touch with my birth mother, to whom I look incredibly similar. I've met others in the extended family, too, and I even changed my full name to what it was before the adoption. With all my adoptive family dead, and a large birth family still alive, it just made sense to me. But, actually, they're a funny lot and I can't say I feel any great bond with them.

"The whole situation has left me feeling neither part of my adoptive nor my biological family, and the lack of a sense of belonging in either can make me feel lonely if I let it. When people ask me who is my next of kin, I say, 'I haven't got one', because that's how it feels."

> read more <

UAI files official complaint against payments for acces adoption files

Biggest Adoption Agency Wereldkinderen charges money for Access Adoption file

Last year the UAI was suprised by the decision of the biggest adoption agency in the Netherlands , Wereldkinderen, to charge € 55,-- for granting access and copy of the personal file for adoptees.

The agency broke a verbal agreement with the UAI to grant access without any payments for adoptees without consulting the UAI.

Today the UAI filed an official complaint to the agency with the request for explanation and the arguments of the UAI to withdraw their decision.

The UAI sees the free access to the personal adoption file as a basic human right which should not be hindered by the agency which keeps the files of the adoptee. We believe its a fundamental right and of importance for the well being of to the adoptee to have free access to their personal files without any obstacle.

Also we believe that an adoption agency who says that they see the interest of the child who is 'available' or 'freed' for adoption should be aware that granting access of the adoption file to adoptees without any payments is an obligation considered the intention of the interest of adoptees.

Again new cases from Nepal - BBC Reports

Nepal 'should suspend' adoptions

Case study: Adopted in France

The adoption of children from Nepal should be suspended, the international body that governs adoption between countries has recommended.

An investigation found children from remote areas were falsely declared to be orphans and put up for adoption without their parents' knowledge.

A draft report by The Hague Conference on Private International Law urges Nepal to take steps to prevent abuses.

Nepal temporarily suspended international adoptions in 2007.

It introduced new rules in 2008 and international adoptions were resumed.

Documents faked

But the report from the Hague Conference says that abuses are still rife. Its investigation found that documents which declared children as orphans were often faked.

Children who were put up for overseas adoption had been taken from their families to care homes in the capital, Kathmandu, under the pretext of receiving education.

The probe found evidence of "false statements" about the child's origin, age and status; lack of transparency and accountability for the money coming into Nepal from international adoptions; and an absence of a policy on such adoptions.

It said Nepal had failed to prevent the abduction, sale and traffic of children and recommended the government suspend international adoptions to allow new laws and procedures to be implemented.

The report follows a probe by Unicef, and other NGOs. The Swiss-funded charity, Terre des hommes, said it found that more than 60% of children in orphanages had parents who could take care of them.

"The Hague report makes a very strong finding which is that there is evidence of abuse in terms of paperwork. Paperwork is created to declare the child an orphan whereas the child... could be supported in the family," Terre des hommes Nepal country director, Joseph Aguettant, told the BBC's Joanna Jolly in Kathmandu.

Unicef and Terre des hommes have previously reported that it is common for Nepalese children to be abducted, trafficked and, in effect, sold.

Nepal's adopted children mainly go to Spain, France, Germany, Italy and the US.

Our correspondent says that the report has been welcomed by those working in child protection in Nepal who say the proper safeguards need to be in place before children are offered for international adoption.

Again Childtraffcking for Adoption in Disaster area Haiti

Ten American Christians arrested in Haiti trying to take 33 orphans out of the country

By Sue Reid Last updated at 9:14 AM on 01st February 2010

Ten Americans have been arrested after allegedly trying to smuggle 33 children out of earthquake-stricken Haiti.

The Baptist church group claimed they were on a mission to rescue orphans of the disaster.

But last night the Haitian authorities accused the group of child trafficking and ‘abduction’.

Arrested: Eight of the accused, including leader Laura Silsby, second from right, at police headquarters in Port-au-Prince

They said the five men and five women had no paperwork authorising them to take the children, who are aged between two months and 12 years, across the border into the Dominican Republic.

The group, from the Idaho-based charity New Life Children’s Refuge, were stopped at Malpasse, Haiti’s main border crossing, after police conducted a search of their bus.

Officers said they were arrested because they did not have proof that the youngsters - many of whom were sick and dehydrated - were orphans.

And they pointed out that although the leader of the detained group claimed to be taking the children to an orphanage, the building is still in the planning stages.

Prime Minister of Haiti Max Bellerive said yesterday he was outraged by the group's 'illegal trafficking of children' in a country long afflicted by the problem.

Abducted? Some of the children suspected to have been taken by the charity

But some parents say they would part with their children if it would mean a better life.

Adonis Helman, 44, one of some 20 Haitian parents interviewed at a tent camp yesterday said: 'Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners.'

'I've been thinking how I will choose which one I may give - probably my youngest.'

The arrests will renew concerns about child abduction, which has blighted Haiti for years. Even before the 7.0 earthquake struck on January 12, killing as many as 200,000, around 2,000 youngsters were believed to be being taken from the streets each year.

Aid groups say 500,000 children have either been made homeless or are in orphanages following the quake, and that rumours of child trafficking are circulating. In response, Haiti’s government has imposed strict controls on adoptions amid fears traffickers could exploit the current chaos.

Although hundreds of children have been flown to the U.S. to meet new parents, most were already in the process of being adopted before the disaster.

The 33 children, aged between 2 months to 12 years, have been taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, which is trying to find their parents or close relatives.

A spokesman said: ‘One child, an eight-year-old, said she thought she was going to some sort of summer camp in the Dominican Republic.

'She was crying, and saying, "I am not an orphan. I still have my parents".'... > read more <

Additional Article: Child Trafficking Rings Kidnapping Haitian Kids from Hospitals