From: Arun Dohle [mailto:arundohle@gmail.com]
Sent: Dienstag, 14. Mai 2019 11:13
To: ‘Laura Martinez-Mora’
Subject: RE: working group “illicit practices” meeting

Dear Mrs. Laura Martinez Morah,

Thank you for your swift reply and we are glad that at least the Permanent Bureau

opens the door a tiny bit for adoptee organizations. However, as we discussed on phone, this is absolutely not sufficient. Therefore we kindly request the Hague Bureau to reconsider its position.

ACT is a foundation registered in the Netherlands. In addition, we have an office in Brussels, as you already know. We are also registered in the United States as a 501c organization, and we are formally registered in India as well. We have contact persons in Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden and Ethiopia who represent us.

I categorically refute the stand of the Permanent Bureau, which considers that we are not an international organization.

From our perspective, the Permanent Bureau, since years, is advocating for policies in utter violation of the UNCRC, i.e. the “subsidiarity principle”. We made this quite clear during our presentation in the European Parliament in November 2018, where you were present as speaker too.

Hereby a few comments regarding the policy issue:

Attached you find an extract of a law review article written by Prof. DM Smolin himself.

From this article it is evident that there

is a conflict between The Hague Adoption Convention and the UNCRC.

Professor Smolin is of the opinion, however, that the conflict between these two

conventions has been resolved by the 2004 UNICEF position on

Intercountry Adoptions.

This cannot be:

1) UNICEF’s mandate is the CRC. Not the Hague Adoption Convention.

2) UNICEF does not have the authority to change the UNCRC or its interpretation.

Nigel Cantwell drafted the 2004 UNICEF position as a reaction to what happened at the time in Romania. The European Commission had established an Independent Panel of Family Law Experts, in 2003, which advised Romania on drafting new child rights and adoption laws. Those new laws were needed because the laws implementing the Hague Adoption Convention, 1998, had created a market in children.  On request, we can make the Panel’s opinion, that intercountry adoption should not be considered a child protection measure available.

In relation to that, UNICEF hired Nigel Cantwell in 2004 to draft the UNICEF position. Nigel has been advising Romania since the early nineties.

As concerns Nigel Cantwell, Prof. Smolin, and Lynelle Long, we would like to bring up the following:

1) Prof. Smolin himself adopted children through illicit procedures, likely through criminal practices.

In particular, he knew the moment his adoptive daughters stepped out of the plane, that something was wrong. Nevertheless and despite the legal knowledge of the consequences, he filed knowingly, false information for obtaining legal adoption under US. Law. (Quote can be found here at 06:20 “The perfect crime”.

https://youtu.be/ZTZHIevkxqM )

2) Nigel Cantwell was involved in advising Romania since early nineties.

The implementation of the Hague Adoption Convention led to an absolutely disastrous system. The EU forced Romania to stop this system as a condition to Romania’s accession to the EU. Our founder Roelie Post was the European Commission’s task manager at that time. Nigel Cantwell had a clear position end 2001: continue intercountry adoptions.

3) Without going into the details, attached you will find that ISS Australia funded ICAV/Lynelle Long for the book “The Colours of All Times.” The amount of money is being kept secret.

Also, Lynelle, as the ‘owner’ of ICAV has been advocating for government funding for ISS.

ICAV is not a registered organization. Lynelle Long definitely does not represent me, nor many other organizations/adoptees who take a clear position on Intercountry Adoptions.

Furthermore, ISS has been directly involved in criminal adoption practices.

Namely, for India and Romania we have clear evidence of that. ISS/FIOM was also involved in the illegal adoptions towards the Netherlands, in the early days.

Therefore it is our opinion that ISS should not even be part of such a working group. It is a clear-cut conflict of interest.

Also, since ISS is advising governments on the implementation of The Hague Adoption Convention, we consider that ISS should have sufficient in-house knowledge. It is surprising that they hired an external consultant to represent them during the Working Group. The same goes for UNICEF. It is incomprehensible why Unicef for years lets itself be represented by an external consultant when it comes to intercountry adoption.

As per our knowledge, the Working Group on illegal practices was established around the 2010 Special Commission, not at last due to the illicit adoptions our organization (ACT) exposed in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Australia. It mainly concerned adoptions from India and Ethiopia. These scandals remain covered up till date. ACT is the organisation with most experience on field research, and has assisted many adoptees and their families to reconnect.

This is an open submission to the Working Group, which we will also share with the Dutch Parliament as well as the EU Parliament.

Kindly acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely,

Arun Dohle

www.againstchildtrafficking.org 
www.adopteerightscouncil.org

Annexes:

ISS: Decision letter

David Smolin: The Two Faces of Intercountry Adoption: The Significance of the Indian Adoption
Scandals:  David Smolin

Countries: India, The Netherlands
Agencies:  Malaysian Social Services, Meiling

Nagarani and Kathrivel’s son was kidnapped during the night in Chennai, India. Five years later the kidnappers were arrested and they confessed that her son had been sold to an orphanage Malaysian Social Services Chennai and subsequently was given for adoption to adoptive parents in the Netherlands, through the mediation of a Dutch adoption agency.

ACT retraced the child in the Netherlands. The adoptive parents have so far refused to cooperate in DNA testing, to proof that the child is indeed Nagarani’s. ACT helped this Indian family to find a Dutch Attorney and to file a Court case in the Netherlands that took place in June 2010.

After two weeks, Nagarani and Kathirvel went back to India. Without even having met the adoptive parents, who did not appear in Court.

The Family Court of Zwolle-Lelystad has ruled on March 4 2011 in the case. The Indian couple’s request for a DNA test to determine that a boy adopted by Dutch parents is their biological son, was dismissed by the Court.

On 13 September 2012 the Dutch Appeal Court also dismished the Indian’s parent’s request.

ACT is working on further actions.

If you would like to support Nagarani and Kathirvel:

Or bankaccount:
Against Child Trafficking, the Netherlands
Bank Account 67 26 82 060
IBAN: NL41 INGB 0672 6820 60
BIC: INGBNL2A

Related news:

In 2007 Arun Dohle brought out the news that an Indian couple was looking for their kidnapped son. He had traced them after having read about it in the Indian news.

For 12 years Arun Dohle and Roelie Post (ACT) supported the couple in their desperate search for a sign of life of their son.

It is a long and harrowing story. The Dutch police turned them away. The Courts dismissed their request, up to the European Court on Human Rights.

The Ministry of Justice could not get information. Secretary of State Fred Teeven did not have time to read the report when he finally got it from the Indian Ambassador in 2013.

On the 12th of February, the Indian Court finalised their 12-year long trial. It took ACT 4 months to get the final judgment. Yes, the wheels of justice turn slowly. But we got it this week.

Guilty as charged

Conspiracy to kidnap the children, change their names, to forge a surrender deed to look as if the biological mother did surrendered the child to Malaysian SOcial Services to impersonate as mother of the kidnapped children, to use such forged surrender deed for cheating, to use such forged surrender deed for as genuine, to file such false and forged documents before the COurt of Judicature in Madras for the purpose of obtaining order from the Honorable High Court to kidnapped children in foster care of foreign coupes by obtaining donations from the foreign countries.

In 2005 Fatima’s children were playing outside. A rickshaw driver pulled over and grabbed them. The older boy got away, but his little sister was kidnapped. And legally adopted in Australia.

Years and years ACT has done whatever possible to try and connect the girl again with the grieving Indian family.

Contacted the authorities, the adoptive parents. We supported all parents of children stolen for adoption to protest in front of an international conference of the adoption industry and meetings with the Indian authorities. Denial, miscommunication, obstruction.

Some years ago, we gave the Australian girl’s phone number to her Indian family. She told her brother adoption was the best thing that happened to her.

Now we know for sure. The child was indeed kidnapped.

Guilty as charged by the Indian Court on 12 February 2019, ‘orphanage’ director and those who kidnapped the children:

Conspiracy to kidnap the children, change their names, to forge a surrender deed to look as if the biological mother did surrendered the child to Malaysian SOcial Services to impersonate as mother of the kidnapped children, to use such forged surrender deed for cheating, to use such forged surrender deed for as genuine, to file such false and forged documents before the Court of Judicature in Madras for the purpose of obtaining order from the Honorable High Court to kidnapped children in foster care of foreign coupes by obtaining donations from the foreign countries.

This is from 2013, with interviews with Arun Dohle and Anjali Pawar from Against Child Trafficking.

For around 300 families that lost their children, there is however little to celebrate.
Geetika Mantri
Wednesday, June 19, 2019 – 08:05

Fathima holding up a photo up her daughter, Jabin

“Have you heard from my daughter? What did she say? It makes me happy to hear from her,” a hopeful Fathima tells me over the phone. When I tell her that I haven’t spoken to her, her voice immediately deflates. “Okay,” says the Chennai-based mother of four, now nearing 50. “Please do something madam. I want to see her. When I think of her, I just want to cry.”

In November 1998, Saida Banu, nicknamed Jabin by her parents, Fathima and Salia, was just three-and-a-half years old. Jabin was cruelly snatched from her family – kidnapped by Malaysian Social Services (MSS), an orphanage that then illegally facilitated her adoption to a couple living in Australia, in 2000. Over two decades after Jabin and – according to estimates – over 300 other children suffered a similar fate at MSS’s hands, a Chennai court convicted MSS in relation to the illegal inter-country adoptions.

An Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Egmore, Chennai on February 12, 2019, said that MSS had to pay a fine of Rs 10,000 under section 420 (cheating) of the IPC. Among the accused persons, the maximum punishment awarded was just one year. However, ironically, the main accused in the case, who plotted the kidnapping and illegal adoption, PV Ravindranath the chairperson of MSS, died a few years ago.

Arun Dohle, co-founder of Against Child Trafficking (ACT), an NGO which has fighting against child trafficking through illegal inter-country adoptions, told TNM that this judgment confirms what the media had been saying about children from economically backward families being kidnapped to be adopted overseas. “The media stories were accurate, and Dutch, US, Australian Authorities have failed big time.”

However, there is no respite for the families who want to see their children who were snatched away. “The punishments are minimal and show how unjust the law is,” Arun states. “This judgment doesn’t do anything – neither for the affected families, nor for the adopted children.”

Broken families

Speaking to TNM, Saddam, one of Jabin’s three siblings reveals that the last he spoke to his sister, Jabin, was in 2014. Jabin, or Sundari, as she was renamed by MSS, would be in her 20s now. Jabin’s adoptive parents cut off her contact with her biological family. Once, when Saddam tried to contact her on social media, she said she did not like Chennai and told him not to contact her again before blocking him. “My mother is sick now… she has high BP and high sugar. All she wants to do is see her daughter once…” Saddam trails off.

Fathima at a protest in Delhi in 2013

Another family that became a victim of MSS’s illegal activities was that of Nagarani’s. In March 1999, Nagarani and her husband Kathiravel, a coolie, residents of Chennai’s Pulainthope Colony, were sleeping outside their hut as they had no electricity. When they awoke, they were horrified to find their one-and-half-year-old son, Satheesh, missing – like Jabin, he too had been kidnapped. After years of investigation by the CBI, in 2005, Satheesh was traced to adoptive parents in the Netherlands. By then, Satheesh had been renamed Rohit by his adoptive parents.

In 2010, with ACT’s help, Nagarani and Kathiravel traveled to the Netherlands to prove with a DNA test that Rohit was indeed their son. However, they were denied the same by a Dutch family court which said it would risk emotional trauma to the minor child. Nagarani also has a case ongoing in the Madras High Court seeking to meet her son.

Kathiravel and Nagarani at a Dutch court

Last year, the Madras High Court responded affirmatively to a February 2016 writ petition asking for Rs 3 lakh compensation for Nagarani, and ordered interim compensation of Rs 1 lakh to be given to her last year. The writ petition was filed by Madras High Court advocate Selvi, who tells TNM that now the DGP’s office is delaying the payment at a time when Nagarani’s family is in deep financial crisis.

Sujata Mody, National Secretary of New Trade Union Initiative, who has been in touch with Nagarani, argues that the judgment should have made sure that she can meet her son at least once on costs borne by the Indian and Dutch governments.

“After she lost the child, her family was never complete. When you lose a child to death, at least there is closure. Whenever we met them, even 5-10 years after the kidnapping, they would still talk about the pain of searching for Satheesh. Her husband would go everywhere – in bus, roads etc. and if he saw a child who looked like him, he’d be reminded of Satheesh. The court has not recognised their emotional, psychological injuries,” Sujata says.

“The state failed them,” says Selvi. “They should have been given proper lawyers and counsel from the very beginning. The CBI has also put forward a watertight case.” “Had action been taken in 1-2 years, Nagarani could have asked for Satheesh to be reunited with her family,” Sujata adds.

Both Selvi and Sujata say that the institutional apathy has to do with Nagarani and her family’s poor background. “Had it been a chit fund scam that affected the middle class, the response would have been very different,” Selvi says. She adds that the state should appeal this verdict, and ask for a harsher sentence for the accused.

Saddam, who earns a living selling mutton, agrees. “The people who took Jabin away… they should have been punished more.”

The crimes of MSS

The judgment reveals the many ways in which MSS broke families and caused unimaginable trauma to poor couples; how they hoodwinked CARA, the agency responsible to oversee adoptions in India; and how they earned big bucks by forging numerous documents to change the identities of the kidnapped children and to bypass laws and guidelines to facilitate inter-country adoptions that earned them tens of lakhs.

The modus operandi involved kidnapping young children from disadvantaged households and forging a surrender deed from a fictional person as the mother of the kidnapped child. They would then forge a fake rejection letter from Indian couples for these children. This is because according to the Supreme Court’s guidelines, priority must be given to get these children adopted within India. Using this forged letter, they would obtain orders from the Madras High Court to place these children in the ‘foster care’ of foreign couples. In all the cases highlighted in the chargesheet, MSS received significant amount of money from the overseas adoptive parents of the children once the adoption went through.

In some cases, they also tried to pass off two unrelated children as siblings, because it allowed them to bypass registering children with the Voluntary Coordinating Agency (VCA), which was set up by the Supreme Court to scrutinize inter-country adoption.

“In the case of Suji and Sundari and in some more cases, they were presented as siblings born to a single mother and avoided registering with VCA by using just one clause 425 of Cara guidelines which says exemption may be given from registering with VCA for children much older in age, or children with disability or siblings,” the judgment notes.

Suji was a 15-day-old infant and Sundari, was actually Fathima’s kidnapped daughter, Jabin.

Nagarani (centre, in the pink blouse) protests along with other families who were affected by MSS at Delhi in 2013

Families of children who were kidnapped by MSS protest at the International CARA Conference, Delhi (2013)

While the late PV Ravindranath was the chairperson of MSS, Somu was the one who forged the signatures on the surrender deeds. The other accused – Dawood and Navjeen – had kidnapped several children and sold them to MSS. They were assisted by Saleema, Sabeera, and P Manoharan. Vatsala, who was also a chairperson of the MSS, was acquitted because the court said that Ravindranath only signed the documents in front of her. Her presence was not enough to prove that she committed the offences, the court held.

Further, in 2001, a joint investigation by Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) and the Tamil Nadu government into MSS found several irregularities. “Number of irregularities were found. (1) the surrender documents were not proper, (2) more children were placed for foreign adoption, (3) there was violation of grant in scheme mean for children homes (Shishu Greh Scheme), (4) improper documentation was made and (5) Malaysian Social services Chennai was running as a family business,” the judgment says.

After this, recognition of MSS to conduct inter-country adoptions was withdrawn. They also stopped the grants.

Apart from Jabin and Satheesh, another case highlighted by the CBI was that of Nageshwar Rao and Sivagami, whose son, Subhash, was kidnapped by MSS. “Malaysian Social Services prepared a forged surrender deed as of one H Noorjahan [who] surrendered one male child called Ashraf reportedly born to her on 12.10.1996 at Kancheepuram out of wedlock. Somasundaram forged the signature Noorjahan,” the judgment notes. And while Nageshwar Rao was able to get a positive DNA test to prove his paternity, he too has been unable to meet his son, who was adopted by a couple in the US.

“There is little clarity on how many more children have been kidnapped. The governments of the countries of the children’s origin ought to start a broader criminal investigation into adoptions by MSS and other Indian orphanages,” Arun says.

(With inputs from Anjana Shekar)

We are following since a few weeks the public outcry in Romania: United for Sorina.

It is dramatic. An 8-year-old girl removed by Police forces from her foster family because she was adopted by a Romanian family living in the US. They paid 30.000 dollars to the American adoption agency.

The girl is still in Romania…

We hold the EU responsible for this drama.

Intercountry adoption became a hot issue for the European Commission in the year 2000.

Romania had changed its adoption laws a few years before. Aligning it with the Hague Adoption Convention. Numbers had exploded. Corruption was rife. The EU had to interfere because Romania was on its way to become an EU Member State. EU Commissioner Gunther Verheugen was clear: EU Member States do not export children.

It was the start of a huge fight on children’s rights.

This blog will go down into the rabbit hole of how the European made a U-turn on children’s rights and became part of the ‘adoption lobby’.

The European Commission is actively encouraging intercountry adoption through sheer corruption and abuse of power. Instead of acting as the guardian of the Treaty, the European Commission committed white collar crimes at the service of the pro-adoption lobby. It became part of the larger organised crime networks that are involved in the sale of children.

The 2009 Strasbourg Conference: Challenges in Adoption Procedures

In hindsight, the 2009 conference in Strasbourg was the beginning of the end of the EU’s adherence to children’s rights as laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since then the EU uses a pro-adoption biased interpretation of children’s rights, as laid down in the infamous Hague Adoption Convention and the so-called UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.

In 2004, Romania officially banned the export of children to foreign countries in order to join the European Union. The adoption lobby, both inside and outside of Europe, keep pressuring Romania to lift that ban.

The 2009 Strasbourg conference, organised by the Council of Europe (not part of the EU) and the European Commission, was part of such lobby efforts. The goal of the conference was that Romania should follow the Bulgarian child protection model, where intercountry adoption is included as a child protection measure. And thus re-open intercountry adoption.

The abuse of power started right at the organisational stage of the conference. The conference was organised by a team who did not have the competence to do so. In fact, the whole organisational process showed how the adoption mafia worked through the European Commission to re-open adoptions from Romania.

At first, the conference was to be a closed event. For the adoption lobby only. Of course, someone leaked the info to ACT.

Against Child Trafficking (ACT), was set up at the behest of the European Commission’s Secretary General, to park Roelie Post. She had been removed from her job as ‘Task Manager Romanian Children’ on the ‘advice’ of Mr. Francois de Combret. The highest public servant of the European Commission, the Secretary-General Catherine Day, felt powerless to address this nefarious act. She told Roelie to set up her own NGO and fight the adoption lobby from the outside. Paid by the European Commission as a civil servant. Seconded to Against Child Trafficking. Bizar. It is.

Anyways, because of this funny construction ACT sent regularly briefings to the Secretary-General about children’s rights and adoption.

The October 2009 briefing, which you can read HERE, gave an update of the State of Play of the adoptionlobby, including the upcoming Strasbourg conference.

The Commission’s Secretary General did not cancel the conference but instead increased its budget so that ACT and United Adoptees International could also participate.

It was a scandalous lobby event.

The Aftermath: A Falsified Report by the EC

Six months later, a journalist dug out the evidence that the European Commission’s report on intercountry adoptions, presented during the Strasbourg Conference, was a fraud.

Again, ACT informed Secretary-General Catherine Day and requested her to take actions. To withdraw the report and to have the issue investigated by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

Failing actions, in December 2010, we blew the whistle with the help of the Romanian journalist: The European Commission Forges Official Report

Our whistleblowing was taken up by Dennis de Jong, Dutch Member of the European Parliament, who requested clarity from the European Commission about the news that the European Commission is trying to get more power at the expense of adoptive children.

Also in the Netherlands, a Parliamentary Question was handed in about the alleged abuse of power within the European Commission.

The replies were denial. The issue was covered up.

The good news was, however, that the European Adoption Policy was removed from the EU’s agenda. By Secretary General Ms. Day (proof on file).

The bad news? The European Commission continued pushing for more intercountry adoptions by promoting the Hague Adoption Convention.

Up to a point that they included this convention wrongly in the list of Conventions that EU candidate countries must ratify. ACT got it deleted from the list.

But too late, the harm was done.

Romania and other countries had already changed their laws. Following the Hague Adoption Convention, they made intercountry adoption a child protection measure.

For this obscure agenda, one condition needed to be fulfilled:

Destroy whistleblower Roelie Post

After the temporary “rescue” – the secondment to ACT (2008/2014) – she returned inside the European Commissions walls. And…

She was not welcomed back

She was not given a real job, mobbed

The European Commission tried to declare her ‘invalid for work’ on psychiatric grounds

When she did not give in and blew the whistle about her situation in 2016, she was fired in a range of procedures, where all conspired: OLAF, European Ombudsman, Disciplinary Committee (IDOC) and the successive Secretaries-General of the European Commission

If that were not enough, they financially break her. Fully.

ACT Against Child Trafficking is, and will always be, Roelie’s legacy.

Therefore we call upon the EU to unite for Sorina.

We call upon the EU to put the record straight. Repair children’s rights.

For all the past and future Sorina’s.

EU Commissioner Verheugen was appalled how Romania removed children from foster care in the past. A brutal affair, he said.

History repeating itself now. This must stop!

Mai 2010

The Ranch for Kids, shown here in a 2012 file photo.

Date: 2019-07-23
Source: https://missoulian.com

CAMERON EVANS cameron.evans@missoulian.com

TOM BAUER/Missoulian
Joyce Sterkel Ranch for Kids file
Joyce Sterkel, founder of the Ranch for Kids Project in northwestern Montana, snuggles Lilia, her 3-year-old daughter adopted from a Russian mother, at her home outside Eureka in this 2013 file photo. Sterkel, whose facility housed troubled adopted kids, many of them Russian, was then battling what she said was unfair scrutiny by both the Russian government and the state of Montana. The state suspended the Ranch for Kids’ license in July 2019.

KURT WILSON, Missoulian

In an unprecedented action, the state of Montana removed 27 children from the Ranch for Kids in Lincoln County on Tuesday morning after receiving multiple complaints of physical and psychological abuse and neglect at the private program for troubled youth.

Acting on an order from Lincoln County District Court Judge Matthew J. Cuffe, and with support of law enforcement, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services personnel took the children from the remote ranch outside Rexford, and suspended its license.

Officials said the children, boys and girls roughly ages 11 to 17, are safe, but they could not disclose specific information to protect their privacy. They believed all children were accounted for Tuesday.

DPHHS had received multiple reports of students being “hit, kicked, body-slammed and spit on,” DPHHS Deputy Director Laura Smith said Tuesday, just hours after the children’s removal. Reports included assault by staff members and “excessive discipline,” including 15- to 20-mile walks in harsh weather conditions on remote roads with inappropriate shoes at night. The agency also received reports of weapons on the property.

“The health, safety, and welfare of all children who live in Montana is paramount, and no child should have to experience what multiple sources have alleged has happened at the Ranch for Kids,” DPHHS Director Sheila Hogan said in a statement.

Multiple agencies including law enforcement authorities were involved in the removal of the children. Montana Department of Justice spokesman John Barnes said no arrests were made Tuesday but authorities would investigate pending interviews with the children.

“On a personal and professional level, knowing the pervasiveness of this abuse and neglect of these children and the allegations involving abuse and neglect, I am deeply, deeply relieved and grateful for our partnership with law enforcement on getting these kids safe,” said Smith, who called Tuesday’s action “one of the most complex child welfare and operational events we’ve had at our agency.”

No one answered a Tuesday afternoon call to the Ranch for Kids seeking comment.

The Ranch for Kids’ owners can request a hearing within 10 days to determine whether the license should remain suspended.

***

Although complaints about the Ranch for Kids had been made to an oversight board under a different state agency for years, those were not sent to the state health department. DPHHS had no regulatory power over Ranch for Kids until July 1, when new state lawspassed during the 2019 legislative session went into effect, according to Smith.

With the new law pending, DPHHS began receiving complaints from several sources including former students and staff, law enforcement and U.S. Forest Service personnel about the program, which specializes in children adopted overseas, many from Russia. The program’s website said it focused on children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Reactive Attachment Disorder.

Reported punishments included withholding food and prolonged isolation, Smith said. One report involved a nail gun being shot at a child. Runaways were not reported, she said. Reports also stated that medications were not properly administered or regulated, and that children did not receive medical attention when it was “critically needed.”

As of Tuesday, she said, “all 27 children are safe. … They are in a trauma-informed safe place.” Dr. Eric Arzubi, a Billings Clinic board-certified psychiatrist specializing in child and adolescent issues, is working with DPHHS on the cases, she said.

The agency was trying to reach the children’s parents and guardians, and set up a toll-free hotline — 1-888-200-8002 — for those people and others with information about the Ranch for Kids.

On Tuesday, the agency credited a 2019 Missoulian series — Troubled Kids, Troubled System — on private alternative treatment programs for adolescents, and the fact that the only oversight for those programs, most of them based in northwestern Montana, came from a board whose majority membership comprised programs’ owners and operators.

The series led to new laws being passed that dissolved the previous board and put regulation under DPHHS, instead of the state Department of Labor and Industry. That agency received 58 complaints about the programs during 12 years — including 10 complaints involving Ranch for Kids and program staff — but no program was significantly sanctioned.

On May 17, the Department of Labor and Industry board that previously oversaw programs proposed taking action against Ranch for Kids, based on a complaint filed in September 2017 by the parents of a former program attendee. The complaint alleged that the program physically, verbally and emotionally abused the student and other children in its care.

At the time, Bill Sutley, the executive director of Ranch for Kids, denied any unprofessional conduct in a response to the complaint, according to a notice to Ranch for Kids from the Department of Labor and Industry board. According to that notice, Sutley claimed the program did not employ punishment or behavior modification techniques that “lack dignity and respect.”

Sutley claimed the hours-long walks were “only to get out to get fresh air,” according to the notice, which said Ranch for Kids provided conflicting information about the purpose for the walks.

However, an investigation by the board previously responsible for program oversight, the Private Alternative Adolescent Residential or Outdoor Program (PAARP) Board, found “reasonable cause” that Ranch for Kids “failed to meet accepted standards of practice.” In the notice to the program, the board cited disciplinary measures that included 5- to 22-mile “therapy walks,” removing mattresses from participants who wet their bed, and withholding phone calls from parents.

Despite the board’s proposed action against Ranch for Kids, the program still received its annual license renewal under the same board. On July 1, the oversight of private alternative residential programs was moved to the state health department.

For more than a decade we followed the news about the so-called Montana Ranch.

Here it’s background: When Adoption Goes Wrong

When Sterkel, a nurse, first started working with international adoptees in the early ’90s, she didn’t see many deeply troubled children. But 10 years ago she adopted two Russian boys whose American parents had given up on them. One of them, a 14-year-old boy, had just been released from a juvenile-detention center after trying to poison his mother. Over time, Sterkel was approached so often about adopting other children that she decided to open her camp. Today it houses 25 to 30 kids from all over the country, and has a waiting list. The overwhelming majority are from Russia, Romania and Bulgaria, but she also has had children from South Korea and Colombia. Some were bullied or raped while institutionalized or were the children of prostitutes, drug addicts or alcoholics. “I have gotten calls from parents who say the child they adopted has killed the family dog, threatened to kill them, and no one will help them,” she says.

In 2012 we informed the Russian Children Ombudsman about the Ranch.
We had heard already about the doubtful practices there.

Ranch becomes focus for Russian adoption outrage

Russia’s lower parliamentary body on Tuesday approved the agreement signed last year by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that regulates the adoption of Russian children by Americans. Negotiations began in 2010 after Torry Hansen sent her then 7-year-old adopted son, Artyom Saveliev, back to Russia with a letter saying he was violent and disturbed and she didn’t want to be his mother anymore.

That led to outrage in Russia and temporarily halted American adoptions of Russian children, of which there have been more than 60,000 to date. That anger has now landed at Sterkel’s doorstep, with Astakhov making serious allegations against her Ranch For Kids.

He claims the Ranch For Kids is a place for American parents to cast off their adopted children, and that the children there receive substandard education, health care and lack security.

Astakhov did not get access.

And now, finally, the US authorities intervened:

‘Hit, kicked … spit on’: Montana alleges abuse, removes kids from private youth program

However, an investigation by the board previously responsible for program oversight, the Private Alternative Adolescent Residential or Outdoor Program (PAARP) Board, found “reasonable cause” that Ranch for Kids “failed to meet accepted standards of practice.” In the notice to the program, the board cited disciplinary measures that included 5- to 22-mile “therapy walks,” removing mattresses from participants who wet their bed, and withholding phone calls from parents.

Despite the board’s proposed action against Ranch for Kids, the program still received its annual license renewal under the same board. On July 1, the oversight of private alternative residential programs was moved to the state health department.

This is a must read.

In light of the dramatic events in Romania Romanian journalist Adriana Oprea gives a chilling message, but a message of hope too.

In fact, what she describes was the driving force of Roelie Post and Arun Dohle for setting up Against Child Trafficking (ACT).
To ACT.
To be back.
Reporting the traffickers.
Like in a nightmare that is repeated endlessly.

Thank you Adriana Oprea!

They were there, unseen, and all the children who disappeared without even starting to cry for help. The children who will disappear and the same cops will look for.

We were there and we will be back there, like in a nightmare that is repeated endlessly.

There, instead of mourning mothers, in the inability of parents who do not know how and where to look, in the despair of children who cannot save themselves.

All at the mercy of some who don’t even want to imagine what it’s like to be there

Google translation from Romanian
Source: Libertatea
Tuesday, July 30, 2019,

Adriana Oprea, 48, is a reporter on the Freedom Investigation team, has written two books on serial killers and has been in charge since 2005 of a journalistic series dedicated to missing children.

I was there in the 90s, when the police found missing children wandering the streets and interned in orphanages where, under a new identity, they were leaving for international adoptions. I was there when a 2-year-old boy was missing in the streets, and the police found him and called his mother to recognise him from the pictures, then lied to him for a while – in an orphanage, but they gave him up for adoption without her knowledge and consent.

I was there all the way before 2005, when the police sent home the parents whose children were missing and put them on hold for another 48 hours, before recording their notification. I was there in December 2005, when Andreea Simon, 9, was kidnapped in Miercurea Ciuc from the corner of the block where she lived, and investigators covered the suspect for months, only because he was a policeman, a colleague of them.

I was there when the body of Larissa Chelaru, 8 years old, was found in a dumpster near the block, after being hidden, 73 days, in the basement where the police had passed, without going inside, but checking it as being verified. I went to Hoghiz, where Roxana Iakab, 4 years old, died frozen in the annex of a stable, which the head of the lie lied to check, and the girl’s body was to be found by accident after five months.

I was there when the mother of Adina Motaş, a teenager from Vaslui who disappeared in 2013, in suspicious circumstances, vainly implored to be received in the audience by the Attorney General of Romania, Tiberiu Nițu. I was near her when the gendarmerie kept her on the doorstep, and the prosecutor sent her home to the village where she had come from.

I was also in the Romanescu park in Craiova, where exactly four years ago, Alexandra Goghez, 17, disappeared and the police searched her so conscientiously that the girl’s lifeless body was found only 18 days later, by a passer-by, a few tens of meters from the place of disappearance. And it was not discovered until today who killed her.
I was in the garage on Craiovei street, when Alexandra cried on the phone and told the 112 policeman that she saw a walnut and fir trees, dogs in the yard and that she was in the neighbourhood of Caracal.

I was there when the policeman, she thought would save her, told her not to keep the line busy. He didn’t know, but I was there all along.
Because there could be anyone in Alexandra’s place. She could be your child, who would put her life and all hope in the hands of some who would not be able to help her.

I was all there when the cop hit Alexandra with “Come on, what do you want?”. Even though he himself has a child, a 13-year-old!

They were there, unseen, and all the children who disappeared without even starting to cry for help. The children who will disappear and the same cops will look for.
We were there and we will be back there, like in a nightmare that is repeated endlessly.

There, instead of mourning mothers, in the inability of parents who do not know how and where to look, in the despair of children who cannot save themselves.

All at the mercy of some who don’t even want to imagine what it’s like to be there.

Citeşte întreaga ştire:Criminalul de la Caracal și cazurile monstruoase de copii răpiți din ultimii 30 de ani, pentru care poliția n-a plătit!

Adopted orphan or abducted by parents? Congolese adoptive children must donate DNA

The judicial investigation into adoption fraud among Congolese children and about fifteen Belgian parents is in a final phase. That’s what the Mediahuis newspapers write today. “The investigating judge hopes to complete the judicial investigation in August. We have indications that fraudulent adoption has occurred in five cases,” says public prosecutor Wenke Roggen.

In other words, five children were abducted and offered to Belgian parents as “orphans”. At least three of those five children – the girls Samira, Zakiatu and Jaëlle (all now 7 or 8 years old) – were given a different name and date of birth after their abduction. A DNA test in Belgium on fifteen other suspected abducted children does not yield anything for the time being. “This painful story has completely ruined our lives, that of the biological parents and that of the children,” three of the five Belgian parents react.

The probable central figure of the entire carousel, the investigation shows, is Julienne Mpemba (41), a Belgian-Congolese woman from Namur with contacts in the highest Congolese political circles and the Francophone Community. In old interviews she says that she has given some fifty Congolese children “a new future”. The federal public prosecutor suspects her of human trafficking with child victims. She was detained for months and is now, awaiting trial, free with an ankle strap.

Source:  http://www.apom.eu/2019Deva, Thursday, August 1, 2019
Author: Mircea Dan Opris

On the night of July 27/28, 2019, that is Saturday on Sunday, while all the attention was directed to the event in Caracal, the Association for the Protection of the Human and the Environment, signalled a descent of a mixed team from three special structures in Bucharest, who, without the news of the press and without the knowledge of the policemen from Arad county, started investigations at a farm in the town of Chilindia, Arad county. Here, complex researches were conducted, as well as searches, sample collections and security interviews with several persons. Chilindia is 50 kilometers from the border town Curtici, 80 kilometers from Turnu and 75 kilometers from Varsand, all three being border crossing points between Romania and Hungary.

More specifically, the investigators descended on a farm in Chilindia, of some Italian employers, belonging to ALBIERO GRUP SRL. In this place, two of Gheorghe Dinc?’s sons, the alleged perpetrator of several assassinations in the Caracal-Slatina area and surroundings, worked and came in various periods. Both Dinca’s wife and his sons were in Italy at the time when the scandal of the murder of the minor Alexandra Macecanu broke out, in Caracal, Olt County. According to the statements of several witnesses with protected identity, from Chilindia, Arad County, the two sons of Gheorghe Dinca, brought to work, at the farm of the Italians, both men and women from Caracal area, Olt County but also from other neighboring counties. Later, especially the younger women who accepted the offer to work, theoretically, on the farm of Italians in Arad, could no longer be contacted by the relatives nor gave any sign of life. Relatives and friends were “helped” by explaining that these people either married or went to work in Italy, Belgium or Spain. It must be remembered that the alleged perpetrator of crimes in Caracal himself lived for a time in Italy, where he was expelled after the Italian authorities accused him, with clear evidence, of being part of a pimping network, in the Bari area.

From the beginning, based on the experience of APOM members, who have worked in the field of combating trafficking in human beings, trafficking in organs and networks of illegal traffickers and illegal adoptions from Romania and other countries in Europe and North America, in a project seconded by the European Commission [Against Child Trafficking], I announced on Facebook that this is not a serial rapist and/or criminal but a complex network of trafficking in human beings and possible organs, including officials of some institutions of the Romanian state, from Olt county and not only.

Some details from the ongoing investigation confirm the data collected by the Association for Human and Environmental Protection regarding Dinca’s membership in a cross-border network organised by human trafficking, which traffics women, but possibly also human organs.

An Aradean publication, criticarad.ro , published the following article, which confirms, based on information from sources from DIICOT, which APOMa reported from the first hour of July 28, 2019. See HERE

Please look for Alexandra
Any news, please inform her uncle
office@cnmr.ro

On the International Day Against Trafficking in Human Beings, investigator and journalist Mircea Opris tagged Arun Dohle and Roelie Post on Facebook – thanking us for our help in the fight against trafficking – and expressing his opinion that the Caracal case was linked to trafficking in human beings.

Mircea Opris and ACT worked together for some years on exposing the mafialike workings of the adoption mob, in their attempt to enforce a European Adoption Policy.

2009   Battle of international adoptions reaches peak

2010:  THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION FORGES OFFICIAL REPORT

Today indeed Mircea Opris published about the existence of a trafficking network.
The world we live in:

APOM investigation into human trafficking network, confirmed

Crime | August 9, 2019

The two Bulgarian children adopted in the U.S. are in good health and under the protection of the authorities, said the press office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following media publications about two Bulgarian children abused by their adoptive parents, U.S. citizens. Bulgaria’s Consulate General in Chicago conducted an immediate inquiry and reported that the children were in a safe place and under the protection of the Shannon County Sheriff’s Office, Missouri. They are in a good condition and have undergone a full medical examination that has not found any serious injuries or illnesses.

The parents were arrested by the Somerville Police Department on 8 July 2019, after which the case was referred to the Shannon County Sheriff’s Office.

The Consulate General in Chicago is in constant contact with the authorities and provides full administrative assistance on the case.

Source: https://www.novinite.com

Society | August 9, 2019, Friday // 13:33| Views: | Comments: 0

Send to KindleBulgaria: The Bulgarian Consul in Chicago Will Try to Meet with the Abused Adopted Bulgarian Children www.pixabay.com
For month now, authorities in Missouri have been caring for two Bulgarians adopted 8 years ago who have been abused by their American parents. Our Consul General in Chicago, Ivan Anchev, told bTV that he had applied for a meeting with them, but explained that they were already US citizens and under the jurisdiction of local law.

He explained that he had learned about the case from the media and that the children were in good hands with the social services, where they were well looked after. Anchev also said they were well aware of the experience.

Following a signal from neighbours, the parents were arrested. The case became known in early July. One of the adopted girls was in apparent bad condition and told neighbours that she had not been fed for a long time.

According to international requirements, in the first 2 years after the adoption, Bulgaria received the necessary report from the US social services on the status of the twins.

According to experts, the children are highly traumatized and will need time and considerable work with psychologists and psychotherapists. However, they are adamant that adoption legislation should not be branded but the legislation should be changed.

Specialists explained that everything probably happened because of some changes in the family – a change of residence or a job loss.

They moved from a big city to a small town, and the children were in a home-based learning environment (home-schooled), so it was difficult for others to notice changes in their appearance and behaviour.

It was in 2008 that documentary-maker Geert-Jan Lassche asked Arun Dohle (ACT) for help in regard to adoptions from China. He needed background information, contacts. In short: ACT’s knowledge.

The outcome: two dramatic documentaries, which shook the Dutch adoption world. Wereldkinderen’s biggest adoption agency’s director resigned. Because of admitting she did wrong by ignoring previous signs that adoptions from China were wrong?
Nope. It was because officials of the Dutch Ministry of Justice had threatened to suspend Wereldkinderen’s license if she would do her own (under-cover) research in China.

Honestly, that research had already been done. The proof that China’s adoption system was based on the sheer exploitation of Chinese families and the human rights abuses under the One Child Policy was already out in the open.

Adoptions from China should have stopped then and there.
But no. China was at that time the biggest provider of adoptable children. So the show had to go on. Including the money transactions, asked by China per adoption.

Despite the Hague Adoption Convention’s rules that no such payment is allowed.
According to Mr. William Duncan of the Hague Conference’s Permanent Secretariat:
“Not a dollar, not a cent“.

Now a new movie came out. We haven’t seen it yet, but its trailer and reviews are promising. A harrowing story of breaching human rights in China, and how the adoption mob benefitted from that. State organised, legalised, child trafficking.

The director of the organisation has been accused of abetting a British national in unlawfully procuring a Nepali child and assisting in obtaining fraudulent documents to claim the baby.
Head of Bal Mandir, nation’s oldest non-profit for children, arrested on charges of child trafficking

Tsering D Gurung
Published at : August 15, 2019
Kathmandu

Bal Krishna Dangol, the director of Bal Mandir, the country’s oldest non-profit organisation for children, has been arrested on charges of child trafficking.

Dangol was detained by police on Wednesday morning from outside his office for his alleged role in abetting a British national in unlawfully procuring a Nepali child and assisting her in obtaining fraudulent documents to claim the baby as her own.

The British national, Dina Smith, was detained by immigration officials at Tribhuvan International Airport last week when she tried to leave the country with the infant.

Smith had arrived in the country on July 26 and claimed she had given birth to a baby, who was born on July 28. She attempted to fly out on August 7, a little over a week after the baby was born.

Initially, she told officials she had given birth to the baby herself in Kathmandu. But after tests at the Maternity Hospital proved otherwise, she confessed that she had received help from Dangol in obtaining the infant. Smith told officials that Dangol had found the baby at an abortion clinic and helped her obtain fraudulent documents, which included a birth registration certificate naming her as the mother.

Based on the certificate prepared by the municipality office in Mahalaxmi, Lalitpur, the British Embassy in Kathmandu issued a passport in the baby’s name.

“It’s a matter of great concern that such a high-ranking official at the country’s most prominent orphanage is involved in trafficking,” said DSP Hobindra Bogati, who is leading the investigation. “There’s cause to believe that this may be part of a bigger racket.”

According to police, Dangol would regularly visit abortion clinics across Kathmandu, looking for unwanted babies. Once he found such babies, he would then contact foreign nationals looking for children. Police believe that he would then invite these foreigners to the country, help them with fraudulent paperwork, and then facilitate their exit with the child.

“Had the immigration officials not done their due diligence, Smith could have easily left the country with the baby and we would not know anything about Dangol’s involvement,” said Bogati.

A few months ago, a South Korean woman was caught trying to leave Nepal with a baby with fake papers. She was detained at the airport.

According to police, Smith was introduced to Dangol by her boyfriend, Ram Shrestha, originally from Lalitpur, who has been living in the United Kingdom. Smith wanted a child, and Dangol told her he could arrange one for her for 8,000 pounds, according to police.

The police say they have obtained CCTV footage of Dangol accepting Rs 400,000 from Smith’s brother-in-law.

So far the police have only taken Dangol into custody. But as the investigation proceeds, more names will be uncovered and arrests will be made accordingly, said Bogati.

“It’s too early to say if other officials at Bal Mandir were also involved,” said Bogati. “But there’s no denying that local level authorities played a part, and we will get them.”

According to police, Dangol and Smith will be charged under the Human Trafficking and Control Act. They are both currently in police custody.

This is not the first time that Bal Mandir, which has a network of orphanages across the country, has been embroiled in controversy. In 2014, the former head of adoptions at the organisation, Rabin Shrestha, and his accomplice, Rabin Chalise, who ran a child club there, was found guilty of sexually harassing and raping three minor girls. The two were sentenced to 16.5 years in jail by the Kathmandu District Court.

Tsering D Gurung
Tsering D. Gurung is a social justice reporter for The Kathmandu Post, focusing on women’s rights, marginalised communities and criminal justice.

A Texas woman who managed aspects of an international program at an Ohio-based adoption agency pleaded guilty today for her role in a scheme to corruptly facilitate adoptions of Ugandan children through bribing Ugandan officials and defrauding U.S. adoptive parents and the U.S. Department of State.

Robin Longoria, 58, of Mansfield, Texas, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge William H. Baughman, Jr. of the Northern District of Ohio to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), to commit wire fraud and to commit visa fraud. Sentencing is scheduled for January 8, 2020, before U.S. District Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the Northern District of Ohio.

“The co-conspirators compromised protections for vulnerable Ugandan children and sought to undermine the State Department’s visa screening process,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “This case demonstrates how far-reaching the adverse consequences of corruption can permeate, and the Department’s commitment to detecting and prosecuting it.”

“This defendant has admitted to playing a part in a conspiracy in which judges and other court officials in Africa were paid bribes to corrupt the adoption process,” said U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman of the Northern District of Ohio. “We are committed to pursuing justice for the adoptive parents and for all parties involved.”

“While adoptive families were financially and emotionally invested in the welfare of their future child, misrepresentations were made by Ms. Longoria and others to disguise bribe payments made to court officials in Uganda,” said Special Agent in Charge Eric B. Smith of the FBI’s Cleveland Field Office. “We are pleased Ms. Longoria has accepted responsibility for her role in facilitating an international adoption scam.”

As part of her guilty plea, Longoria admitted, among other things, that she and her co-conspirators agreed to, and did, cause bribes disquised as fees to be paid to an Uganda Agent. Longoria knew that these fees would and were used by the to pay bribes to court registrars and Ugandan High Court judges to corruptly influence the court registrars to assign particular cases to “adoption-friendly” judges and to corruptly influence the judges to grant the U.S. clients of the adoption agency the authority to bring the Ugandan children to the United States for the purpose of adoption. Longoria also admitted that she and her co-conspirators agreed to, and did, conceal these bribes from the adoption agency’s U.S. clients. Further, Longoria admitted that she and her co-conspirators agreed to, and did, create false documents for submission to the U.S. State Department to mislead it in its adjudication of visa applications for the Ugandan children being considered for adoption.

If you believe you are a victim of this offense, please visit https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/victim-witness-program or call (888) 549-3945.

The FBI’s Cleveland Field Office is investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Rice and Trial Attorney Jason Manning of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.

The Fraud Section is responsible for investigating and prosecuting all FCPA matters. Additional information about the Justice Department’s FCPA enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa.

Full text in Romanian: Romania Libera

09.09.2019

Romania has violated the EU acquis and the law of the European Union

Timmermans backs whistleblowers but forced her to hide even though she was right, Sorina’s Case confirmed her warnings.

The case of Sorina, a 9-year-old girl, of Roma origin, dragged and forcibly taken from the home of her foster family, shook Romania but also the Dutch Parliament.

On September 4, 2019, the case of Sorina was debated in The Hague, in the Parliament, in the context of Roelie Post, the former official of the European Commission charged with the implementation by Romania of the Law on Child Protection and the Law on Adoption in the Community acquis, and at the moment a whistle-blower, who is suffering “serious” consequences as a result of the disclosures made about the danger that exists in Romania, and about the replacement of the acquis with the “law of Adoptions based on The Hague Convention”, dedicated more or less to “traffickers of children”.

We summarize the video from the Dutch Parliament, in which the member of Parliament, Pieter Omtzigt asked the Dutch prime minister to address the problem of Romania’s adoption practice, but also the problems faced by Roelie Post, a whistleblower, at the European Commission level with Frans Timmermans.

Video here

“There is now a whistle-blower hiding somewhere: Roelie Post.
From the European Commission, because of the trafficking of children and I saw recently how a child was abducted in Romania from his foster parents by screaming and yelling, the scenes are very shocking, to be adopted in US for several tens of thousands of euros.

How bizarre it can be.

Roelie Post worked against these practices. These practices are not solved.
Worse, they are allowed again.”