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Legislation again passed by New York lawmakers would allow some people who have lost parental rights to contact their children in the future — even when kids have been adopted into other families.
Under the Preserving Family Bonds Act, S6720, such contact would have to be approved by a judge and determined to be in the child’s “best interest.”
Similar versions of the bill have been vetoed by two governors in recent years. Gov. Kathy…
A day after the United States of America announced financial and visa restrictions against two Ugandan judges, the Judiciary came out with at least seven new guidelines that they think will address concerns surrounding child adoption.
The new guidelines were issued yesterday by the Principal Judge, Justice Flavian Zeija, pursuant to Section 20 of the Judicature Act and in consultation with the acting Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo.
“The objective of the circular is to address the numerous concerns raised by key stakeholders on the manner in which some judicial officers have handled…
This radio segment from the program 'This American Life' tells the story of Shamyla, who grew up as the adoptive child of her aunt and uncle in the United States but whose biological parents in Pakistan wanted her back in their care. The family argued over this for years, Shamyla's adoptive mother saying "I'm not going to give her back. She's not a ball, I can't toss her back." When Shamyla was twelve years old while on a visit to Pakistan, her birth parents took her on a trip out to the countryside and did not return. Shamyla's adoption had been informal and, as such, her US parents had…
Stuart, then five, and his cousin Juliet Tendo, seven, were taken to the US by a caring Baptist family who had been given a legal guardianship order in June 2009 after arriving in Uganda. The children were later adopted through a US court. They were given what were said to be legal death certificates for Juliet’s mother and Stuart’s father. It was only in summer 2011 that the Hodges learned that both were, in fact, still alive.
Article available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/06/uganda-child-adoption-market-confusion
A press release from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India recapped a series of new initiatives by the Ministry during 2015. The achievements relevant to children’s care are briefly described below and include the launch of the flagship programme Beti Bachao Beto Padhao for protection of the girl child; several initiatives to track, restore, and rehabilitate missing children; and adoption reforms and a new foster care system.
The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) programme is aimed at preventing gender-biased sex selection and ensuring survival,…
This series of podcasts from Faith to Action Initiative features the audio from past Faith to Action webinars, including a webinar on The Continuum of Care. "The Continuum of Care" is the audio version of Webinar 2 for on-the-go learners. This podcast looks at the range of alternative care for children who have been separated from parental care and emphasizes family care. Alternative care includes: kinship care, foster care, adoption, and formal residential care such as temporary rehabilitative care and small group homes. Large-scale institutional care is not recommended. This podcast…
The Lost Daughters is an online independent collaborative writing project founded in 2011, edited and authored by adult women who were adopted as children. The piece ‘Orphans and Economics,’ written by Aselefech Evans, a woman adopted from Ethiopia when she was five years old, addresses the issue of family preservation and international adoption.
Recognizing the role of money in international adoption – typical adoptions cost about $30,000-$40,000 USD and adoptive families are almost always more economically well-off than birth families who are typically living in poverty – the author of…
Romania’s Abandoned Children: Deprivation, Brain Development and the Struggle for Recovery, by Charles A. Nelson, Nathan A. Fox and Charles H. Zeanah
This article reviews a new book by Charles A. Nelson, Nathan A. Fox and Charles H. Zeanah who conducted seminal studies in Romania on children who were institutionalised, comparing their developmental and well-being outcomes to children who were placed in foster care or adoptive families. The study found that placing children in foster care, even relatively late in infancy (the average age was 22 months), brought benefits in…
In this article in the magazine Mother Jones, Kathryn Joyce, the author of a recently published book on the issue titled The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption chronicles the rapidly growing evangelical movement for international adoption in the United States since early 2000, and its impact on children and their families, with a particular focus on Liberia. She follows the story of four children adopted by a Tennessee family from Liberia, a country that had just emerged from a 14-year civil war…
Ukraine's Ministry of Social Policy has said interstate adoption is impossible under the current conditions, and the dissemination of such false information contains signs of fraud and a violation of children's rights.
"Recently, the media and social networks are filled with messages about the readiness of foreigners to adopt a child from Ukraine and calls that Ukrainian children need to be adopted abroad. The Ministry of Social Policy notes that interstate adoption is impossible under the current conditions, and the dissemination of such unreliable information contains signs of fraud and…