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AUSTRALIA
Source: http://www.abc.net.au Families in the dark as adoption chief quits By Cassie White for News Online's Investigative Unit Updated Thu Jul 8, 2010 1:14pm AEST
Adoptive familes condemned what they say is the Government's "secrecy" surrounding the real reason he stood aside. (Flickr: Mk B) The man who ran Australia's adoption program with Ethiopia for 20 years has stood down amidst ongoing serious allegations of corruption. Earlier in the year ABC News Online revealed allegations by adoptive parents about the program, which until the end of last month was run by Ato Lakew Gebeyehu and his wife Misrak from their transition home for children, Koala House. Families told heartbreaking stories of their time in Ethiopia - from witnessing their new baby choking on vomit, to a young boy being kept in a bucket to stop him from moving about. One family had to pay a bribe and others found their paperwork falsified with their child's age dramatically altered. Other families discovered their new children had parents and sibilings who were still alive, when they had been told they were adopting orphans. Adoptive familes have welcomed the news Mr Gebeyehu will no longer be in charge, but have condemned what they say is the Federal Government's "secrecy" surrounding the real reason he stood aside. But rather than renew his contract, it was unexpectedly announced that he would no longer continue to run the program and there would be a six-month transition period during which the Government would find someone else But the ABC obtained documents showing the Howard government knew of serious concerns in 2005 and that the Rudd government was warned again in 2008 by Brussels-based human rights organisation Against Child Trafficking, after Mr Gebeyehu was arrested and held on suspicion of child trafficking. He was later cleared after it was considered to be a case of mistaken identity, but Against Child Trafficking urged the Federal Government to look further into the case. The organisation says it received little response…
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Source: Times of India A Chennai slum dweller's fight for her Dutch son CHENNAI: On June 15, when Nagarani Kathirvel leaves the squalor of a Chennai slum for the first time and appears in a court hall in Zwolle-Lelystad in the Netherlands, she would still be a long way from the end of her bitter, traumatic struggle. But it would be a beginning — to establish in a foreign court of law that she is the mother of a 12-year-old Dutch boy. But even as high drama is being played out in the Dutch courts, Nagarani's case relating to her plea to be reunited with her son has been moving at snail's pace in the Madras high court. Since September 2007, when it was entrusted with the case, the CBI has been grappling with what it claims is the "intransigent attitude" of foreign governments. The investigating agency has taken up three cases of abducted children (including that of Nagarani) given up for adoption abroad. "We sent letters rogatory (a formal communication to competent authorities for investigation in foreign countries) to the US, Australia and Netherlands about two years ago. We finally received a reply from the Netherlands. But the correspondence is in Dutch and we have not been able to proceed further," said a CBI source. … |
Source: http://www.ag.gov.au Update on Ethiopia-Australia Intercountry Adoption Program New fee structure The new fee structure for the Ethiopia program has now been finalised. All files with activity from 6 April 2010 will attract a fee of $9,500USD per application. This includes files already in Ethiopia and files yet to be sent. This amount will be payable in three instalments–$5,300USD at the time the file is sent, $3,900USD at the time an allocation is accepted and a $300USD in-kind donation to Koala House at the time the child is collected. A summary of the fees is outlined in the below table. The increase of fees will include sufficient funding for the Australian program administration. A new program fee of $5,400USD will include court processing fees, medical and immigration fees, document verification services, the Australian representatives’ salary, staff salaries and running costs of the program office and Koala House. .. |
Source: www.abc.net.au Online investigation into overseas adoptions Suzanne Smith reported this story on Sunday, March 21, 2010 Mary Ann had an alarming story to tell about the largely unregulated inter-country adoption industry in the US. There were allegations that both children and adoptive parents were lied to by one particular adoption agency in Ethiopia, and as a result one young girl said she felt like she'd been sold. Journee Bradshaw was told she would go to school in America, and would visit her family in Ethiopia often. Her adoptive family were told that Journee's father was dying from AIDS and that she would most likely become a prostitute. All lies. Lots of money was exchanged during the adoption process and at the end of it many people felt cheated. The ABC's online investigative unit followed up the story with Australian families who'd adopted children from Ethiopia and what it found was chilling… |
Source: www.timesnow.tv |
Source: www.abc.net.au Australians caught in Ethiopian adoption nightmare Updated Tue Mar 16, 2010 9:03am AEDT Corruption allegations: A young girl in Ethiopia (AFP: Roberto Schmidt, file photo) The Evidence First warning: In 2005, a Federal Government report detailed concerns raised about Ethiopian adoptions. The US State Department's advisory on changes to its adoption program. Attorney General website: What's New in Intercountry Adoption The ABC has spoken to several families who claim they have been lied to in the course of their adoption process. They have told heartbreaking stories of their time in Ethiopia - from witnessing their new baby choking on vomit, to a young boy being kept in a bucket to stop him from moving about. One family had to pay a bribe and others found their paperwork falsified with their child's age dramatically altered. The families say the Federal Government has been slow to act and has not fully investigated the allegations… |
Source: www.mandurahmail.com.au Mothers looking for answers after losing babies Now 58, Sue has spent most of her live grieving for her baby girl lost through the “wicked” government-sanctioned adoption policies of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s. But with the help of Mandurah MLA David Templeman, who listened to the local woman’s story and agreed to help, Sue, along with thousands of other women forced to give up their babies, looks set to receive a State Government apology. Following an emotive speech by Mr Templeman in State Parliament last month which detailed Sue’s heartbreaking account of the birth and loss of her daughter, the local MLA called on the government to acknowledge and apologise for this “great wrong”… |
Source: www.theaustralian.com.au `Forgeries and lies' in Australian adoptions of Ethiopian children - Rory Callinan - The program, under which about 450 children have been adopted by Australians over the past 10 years, has been suspended while the federal government negotiates with Ethiopian officials over a push by the African nation for aid to be linked to adoptions. Canberra is concerned the move is "inconsistent with its obligations" under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption. The program's representative, Ethiopia-based Ato Lakew Gebeyehu, denied any impropriety in his operations or any knowledge of the report… |
Source: abc.net.au Fly Away Home Some children arrived in the United States believing they were only visiting. Last year Foreign Correspondent exposed deep flaws and appalling practices in the international adoption industry operating in Ethiopia and the United States. Our story Fly Away Children generated a massive viewer response, triggered an industry investigation in the US and propelled the American media to probe the system. CBS News recently broadcast an investigation into the activities of an American adoption agency at the centre of Fly Away Children. Fly Away Children drew an extraordinary response and demonstrated a deep concern about the way some international adoption agencies are operating and dramatically affecting the aspirations of many Australians looking to adopt overseas. Our story unearthed a great deal but we knew there was so much more to examine, so much cause for concern and urgent reform. In a powerful and disturbing new report we uncover major failures including children portrayed as young as 7 or 8, destitute and in danger of being pressed into prostitution who were in fact much older - teenagers - who did have a family who could support them at home. And another harrowing and cruel dimension – children unaware that they’re on a one way trip to a new family. |
Source: www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au Couple's dream of family in limbo Scott and Bronwyn McNamara have had their hopes of adopting two Ethiopian orphans dashed. BRETT WORTMAN But after a five-year wait, the Bokarina couple’s hopes of adopting two Ethiopian orphans appear to have been crushed after federal attorney-general Robert McClelland decided to suspend Australia’s adoption program with the African country. The McNamaras, who do not have any children, were devastated by the news. They have renovated their beachside home, adding a rumpus room and a pool, as well as buying toys, clothes and children’s books in anticipation of having a young family… |
Source: www.abc.net.au Deborra-lee Furness pushes for more adoptions |
Source: www.nationalpost.com Britain to apologize over forced child migrants to Canada OTTAWA -- The British government will apologize to the families of thousands of poor children who were shipped to Canada and Australia -- where many were used as forced labourers and abused -- according to an announcement Sunday that is being met with celebration in this country. Between 1869 and 1948, more than 100,000 children were sent from Britain to Canada, while thousands more were sent to Australia and other former colonies of the British Empire, as part of the Child Migrants Program. The children, often taken without the knowledge of their parents under a government-sanctioned program, were promised a better life but many were abused or forced into labour against their wishes. Some children were told their parents were dead. The majority of the children were sent to Canada because it was cheaper than sending them to Australia. Many Canadians wanted the children to work on their farms, said Sidney Baker, 76, who's with Home Children Canada, an organization that has helped the victims find out where they came from. According to the organization, more than 10,000 records were deliberately falsified... |
Silence on case of stolen Indian children INDIAN authorities have failed to launch any investigation into how two stolen children were adopted in Australia despite being given documentary evidence last year proving the siblings were trafficked. Australian couple Julia and Barry Rollings adopted two toddlers, aged 1 and 3, in India in 1998 after being assured they had been relinquished by parents who lived on the streets of Chennai and were allegedly too sick to care for them. However, in 2006, the couple discovered the children had been taken by their father while they slept on the pavement with their mother in the slums of Chennai… |
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By Mary Ann Jolley for Foreign Correspondent 15 September 12009 Sit for any time in the foyer of the Hilton Hotel in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, and you'll see a procession of Americans and Europeans wandering from their rooms across the marble floor to the restaurant or swimming pool with their precious new possessions - babies or infants they've just adopted.
I'd never really thought a great deal about international adoption until I was confronted with the scene as I checked into the hotel in September last year. I'd arrived to film a story for ABC TV's Foreign Correspondent program about the drought-induced famine.
The longer I stayed, the more I started to think about the adopted children - where they were from and how they must feel to suddenly find themselves alone with someone whose skin colour doesn't match theirs and whose language they don't speak.
They're dressed in alien attire - a brand new Red Sox baseball cap and T-shirt with some cute and cheery foreign slogan plastered across the front - and in an environment like none they've ever seen, when just out on the street is the one they know so well, where their extended family and fellow countrymen reside. There was something incredibly disturbing about seeing international adoption en masse… |
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Brian Robins The inquiry's chairwoman, Labor MP Christine Robertson, said same sex-parents should be assessed on the same terms as anyone else - on whether they were suitable to adopt a child. She said the committee found reforming laws to allow same-sex adoptions would "ensure the best interests of children" were met, broadening the pool of applications from which the most appropriate parents for a child were selected… |
twist in Asia's grim baby trade A law official believes there are thousands of cases of pregnant Asian women being used to carry babies across national boundaries. [ABC] Created: Mon, 25 May 08:18:39 UTC-0300 2009 Baby-smugglers have hit on a new angle in business - trading in pregnant women and using them to carry the item for sale, says a senior Australian law Australia's chief federal magistrate, John Pascoe, says demand from the Mr Pascoe has just presented a paper on the issue to a LawAsia conference in Singapore, which was looking at children and the law. He told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program that among the measures needed to fight the insidious trade should be a new system of children's rights… |
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Friday, May 22, 2009 Reporter: Liz Hayes They are not your average suburban couple, but they do have the great Australian dream. A nice house, a big backyard and the kids to play in it. And, a few days ago, their dream really did come true. Pete and Trev are now proud fathers. They've just had twins, little girls called Gaia and Evelyn. These days, gay dads aren't exactly news, but, in their own quiet way, Peter and Trevor are pioneers. They bought their family from a kind of one-stop baby factory in India… |
Does it matter where babies come from? Sharon Gray |
A-G's dept scours India on adoption kidnap trail ABC News, Feb 24, 2009 Dozens of children were kidnapped from the streets, their identities changed and put up for adoption. (File photo) (REUTERS: Parth Sanyal ) The Federal Government says it has identified 12 children from India who may have been kidnapped and sold to orphanages before being adopted by unsuspecting Australian families. An investigation by the Foreign Correspondent program has revealed some of the families are now seeking legal help to make contact with the birth parents of their adopted youngsters. The child trafficking scam centres on two orphanages in Chennai. Dozens of children were kidnapped from the streets, their identities changed and put up for adoption… |
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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… |
Adoption agencies see risks in tender Adoption agencies see risks in tender |
Warning on suspect Indian adoption agency ignored Michael McKenna | October 03, 2008 |
Birth parents want to see 'trafficked' child By Sean Parnell | September 03, 2008
THE Indian birth parents of a nine-year-old girl allegedly stolen by child-traffickers before being adopted by an unwitting Queensland couple have now asked to see her. Seven years after the girl was allegedly sold to an Indian adoption agency, a lawyer for the birth parents has contacted Queensland's Department of Child Safety asking for help to resolve the case. The Australian obtained a copy of the letter yesterday as federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland promised tougher scrutiny on inter-country adoptions and revealed other applications had been frozen pending further investigation. The letter states that the birth parents want to see the girl, in Australia or India, to bring an end to their "emotional pain"… |
Adoptive parents of 'kidnapped' children may face legal action ABC News, Sep 2, 2008There are allegations two Indian children were kidnapped and then adopted in Australia. (www.sxc.hu: File photo, Charlie Balch) The Federal Attorney-General has warned Australian adoptive parents of some children from India that they may face legal action to keep their child. The Government has been investigating allegations two Indian children were kidnapped and then adopted in Australia. Robert McClelland has told Federal Parliament the birth parents and adoptive parents have legal rights to care for the child. Mr McClelland says the courts, and not politicians, should decide the children's future… |
Red tapism delays relief for parents
CHENNAI: Three years after the controversy over illegal adoptions carried out by Malaysian Social Services (MSS), hit the news stands, the story has made it to the headlines again following a recent report by a foreign publication. Last month, on the CBI's request, Madras high court issued a letter rogatory under section 166 (a) of CrPC. The CBI forwarded these letters of request to interrogate foster parents of three children, who had been sent abroad - one to the US, one to Australia and another to Netherlands. But the status of these letters remains unknown. The CBI which took over the case following a Madras high court directive in 2007 is itself unsure of the final outcome of the letters. "The letter of request, issued by the court is forwarded to the ministry of home affairs through the Interpol in India. This is then passed on to the ministry of external affairs (MEA). The MEA then forwards it to the Indian embassy in the respected countries which sends to the Interpol concerned. Case details are collected and submitted to the local police authorities," a CBI official told TOI… |
'Maybe now, we will get justice' Scott Carney NOVEMBER 11, 1998, was like any other day in Chennai: hot and humid. Fatima, a young housewife with three children left her house for a grocery run across the street while two of her children, Zabeen, 2, and Sadaam Hussein, 4, played in an alley. A three-wheeled auto rickshaw pulled up at the alley entrance and the children peeped inside. A woman reached down and grabbed Zabeen and Sadaam and dragged them into the rickshaw. The driver, a man, sped away but Sadaam managed to break free. He ran home to an empty house and cowered under a small wooden bed. "I can still remember their faces," says Sadaam, now 15. While his parents searched the neighbourhood, the kidnappers were meeting with the owners of Malaysian Social Services… |
Couples sent stolen children by Indian adoption agency John Lyons, 23 August 2008 AT least 30 children brought into Australia for adoption may have been stolen from their parents as part of a child-trafficking network in India. A major investigation by Time magazine, to be published this weekend, has found that a gang of criminals kidnapped "pretty" children from the poorest parts of southern India, gave them new identities and sold them to adoption agencies… |
CBI goes after foster parents in child racket 14 May 2008, 0606 hrs IST , K Praveen Kumar , TNN CHENNAI: The CBI Anti-Corruption Bureau in Tamil Nadu, which is investigating a child adoption racket that was busted by the city police in May 2005, will try to contact the foreign foster parents who adopted the children with the help of an illegal agency in Chennai. According to sources in CBI, three foster families based in the Netherlands, Australia and the US would be contacted. CBI will also review the procedures followed by the foster parents for the adoption. "The Central Crime Branch of city police had investigated only the local angle. They have handed over the investigation details which prima facie provides evidence against the adoption agency. Now we want to know about the procedures used by the foster parents who adopted children from Chennai," a senior CBI officer told The Times of India … |
Aboriginal stolen children 'were used in leprosy tests' By Rachel Shields The allegations surfaced at a Senate inquiry this week into plans to compensate the "stolen generation" of aboriginal Australians who were taken from their families as part of a government programme. "As well as being taken away, they were used... There are a lot of things that Australia does not know about," Kathleen Mills, a member of the Stolen Generations Alliance and an indigenous elder, told the hearing… |
Overseas adoption move welcomed Caroline Marcus DEBORRA-LEE Furness was overjoyed yesterday to learn that an advisory body will be formed to make overseas adoptions easier. The actress has long championed the need for legal reform. "I'm thrilled, I'm beside myself," she said yesterday while holidaying in Queensland with her husband, Hugh Jackman, and their two adopted children. "It shows that the Rudd Government are taking this one seriously," she said. "Hopefully, from dialogue and communication, we are going to get action to improve the archaic system." The group, to be announced today, will be made up of 16 representatives, each with personal experience in overseas adoption, who will advise the Government… |
Celebrity campaign to reform adoption laws Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 13/03/2008 Reporter: Kirstin Murray The celebrity campaign to slash red tape restricting overseas adoption to a trickle. TranscriptKERRY O’BRIEN: The apparent ease with which celebrities adopt children from the developing world has left many prospective parents in Australia wondering why it's such a difficult process here. Australia has one of the lowest inter country adoption rates in the developed world. Last year, 400 children were adopted from overseas, but the queue of hopeful parents stretches into the thousands. At the moment, the process can take anything up to six years. Actor Deborah Lee Furness, herself an adoptive parent, is using her celebrity profile to lobby the Government to make it an easier and faster procedure. But the push doesn't enjoy universal support… |
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February 21, 2008 - 12:28PM Thirty-five years ago there were almost 10,000 adoptions in Australia. Last year there were just 568. A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) suggests various medical, social and policy factors are the cause for the drop in adoptions. "The availability of more effective birth control together with the emergence of family planning centres and sex education classes has had a substantial impact in reducing the number of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies," the Adoptions Australia report says. "In addition, decreasing fertility rates may reflect a general change in individual preferences and social trends with regards to having children." The increasing success of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) also has negated the need for many adoptions as has an increasing social acceptance of raising children outside marriage, the report says. In 1971-72, there were 9,798 children legally adopted in Australia. Three and a half decades later, in 2006-07, 568 children were adopted. The vast majority of children adopted last financial year - 71 per cent - came from overseas. |
Sorry Day and the Stolen Generations
Warning. This article may contain the names and images of Aboriginal and Islander people now deceased. It also contains links to sites that may use images of Aboriginal and Islander people now deceased.
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission,Bringing them Home report. The first National Sorry Day was held on 26 May 1998 - one year after the tabling of the reportBringing them Home, May 1997. The report was the result of an inquiry into the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The public and political debate about the removal of children was marked by intense political activity since the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1992 Prime Minister Keating acknowledged that 'we took the children from their mothers' at a speech in Redfern. In 1994 legal action was commenced in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. These children who were removed came to be known as theStolen Generations. Documentation of forced removal of children… |
Police ground children in Dili Jill Jolliffe in Dili AUTHORITIES have stopped a woman from leaving East Timor with 23 children from an orphanage run by an Australian after a UN agency raised concerns. Police descended on Dili airport on Thursday after the woman approached immigration officials seeking to get the children flown to Malaysia. Authorities had been contacted by the international agency UNICEF about the plan to take the children abroad. "UNICEF suspected the project's intentions could be shady," said Inspector Elias Mendonca, an immigration adviser to East Timor's State Secretary for Security. "So a team of UN police was deployed, with UNICEF people."… |
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KIM WHEATLEY ABOUT 20 South Australian families who have been waiting up to three years to adopt Indian babies remain in limbo after an adoption agency was accused of baby trafficking. The State Government has also said the private agency – known as Preet Mandir – asked for exorbitant "donations" of $5000 on top of the usual $5000 fees from SA couples. The Indian Government revoked Preet Mandir's inter-country adoption licence in July, following an undercover CNN investigation where babies were sold to foreigners for $16,000. That followed the adoption agency being investigated and cleared of tricking poor, vulnerable women into giving up children last year. Preet Mandir has brokered around 40 babies for SA families since 2000. It is believed many would have paid the so-called $5000 donation… |
Adoption heartache for hundreds Erin O'Dwyer SOUTH Korea has suspended all new overseas adoptions, plunging hundreds of Australian families into uncertainty. Adoption agencies in Korea have suspended inter-country adoption because of falling birth rates and new welfare policies that promote local adoption and provide better support for single mothers. The NSW Department of Community Services confirmed the suspension yesterday, but a spokeswoman said it was temporary and all applications already received by Korean authorities would be processed. Australian Society for Intercountry Aid for Children vice-president Linda Robertson said the suspension had come as a shock to many families… |
Virtual land of the baby broker business December 16, 2003 |
Private hurry-up for foreign adoptions December 15, 2003 The long delays for overseas adoptions may be over with new rules being considered to allow private adoption agencies to operate in NSW for the first time. |
Greece's Black-Market Babies Come Home -- Stolen Children Demand To Know Their Histories Raised in an orphanage and by foster parents and told her mother had died in childbirth, young Amalia Balch and dozens of other children that October were herded aboard an airplane in Greece. When the plane landed in New York City, adults streamed on board to claim the children they knew only by photographs, the kids they had adopted by proxy. "I remember being very sick, and a plane full of children . . . and being very scared," she says. Today, at age 45, Amalia Balch still doesn't know if she was a black-market baby, if her adoptive parents paid money for her. She hasn't pressed the point, but she suspects they did. Over the past 10 years and five trips to the country of her birth, she has learned some truths about her roots. First she learned that she was stolen from her unmarried mother at birth. And recently she was reunited for the first time with dozens of her blood relatives in her mother's home village. Balch is one of thousands of people who now suspect that as infants they were sold in the baby black market that flourished in Greece for more than a decade after the 1946-49 civil war. A baby for $1,000 Almost half a century later, there's no reliable way to determine how many children were taken from poor parents and sold, both in Greece and abroad, in Canada, Australia, Sweden and South Africa, as well as the United States…. |
Adopting from Romania Extract from 'How many planes to get me?' by Jonquil Graham |
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