6th
December 2011
Uniting Church admits to forced adoption
THE Uniting Church in South Australia has accepted responsibility for the past practice of forced adoptions.
It has urged other welfare and church groups to prepare for a wave of victims seeking help for decades of suffering.
--
Click
here to read
Surprise, surprise, it's a baby
While most undetected pregnancies are discovered by 25-30 weeks, there are at least five or six cases a year in Ireland where the mother does not know she is pregnant until she goes into labour. But how can a pregnancy go undetected for so
long
--
Click
here to read
Officials investigate US
adoptions
A DELEGATION from the Adoption Authority have visited the US to examine "a number of concerns" about adoptions between Ireland and the US, in particular from Florida.
Florida is the most popular state for Irish people who wish to adopt children from the US. Five children have been adopted from there this year. However, issues have been raised about adoption practices in the state for some time.
--
Click
here to read
Adoption practises - Children are not sale items
Under the Adoption Act 2010 people in Ireland can only adopt children from countries that have signed the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption, or from countries with which this country has a bilateral adoption agreement.
--
Click
here to read
Adoptions funded despite suspension
THE HEALTH Service Executive in Cork has confirmed it paid almost €420,000 to an adoption agency specialising in adoptions from Vietnam for 2010, despite the fact that no adoptions from Vietnam had taken place since 2009. This is double the amount previously reported.
--
Click
here to read
Warning over
lack of laws on assisted human reproduction
THE
GOVERNMENT’s special rapporteur on child protection has expressed
“profound concern” that the State’s failure to legislate for
assisted human reproduction is violating vulnerable children’s rights.
--
Click
here to read
The babies
born into a legal limbo
Surrogacy in Ireland is shrouded in secrecy and a lack of legislation
has turned it into a minefield.
--
Click
here to read
21st century baby
THE FIRST live birth following in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) just over 30 years ago marked the start of a reproductive revolution. It involved fertilising a woman’s eggs with sperm, before transferring them back into the uterus a few days later. Today, assisted human reproduction in Ireland is a booming industry. Couples are increasingly choosing to have children later in life, which increases the likelihood of fertility problems. Restrictions on international adoption mean that many would-be parents are exploring other ways of having a child. As a result, up to 3,000 children are born here each year thanks to IVF and other high-tech interventions.
--
Click
here to read
Bulgarian baby sellers arrested in Greece
Six people were arrested on Friday for alleged involvement in the sale of a 25-day-old baby for 12,000 euros, on the Greek Island of Crete. The illegal adoption involved the sale of a Bulgarian baby arranged by Bulgarian intermediaries.
--
Click
here to read
8th
November 2011
Banished
Babies second edition now available from Amazon
Mike
Milotte has completed a second edition of his groundbreaking book
Banished Babies, first published in 1997. Click
here to purchase from Amazon
Description from
Amazon:
"The story of a baby traffic organized by nuns, sanctioned by an archbishop, administered by civil servants and approved by politicians - all of whose main concern was secrecy. What the critics said of the first edition:
A brilliant expose of the shabby history of sectarian cruelty to unmarried women who became pregnant in Ireland in the 1950s Susan McKay, Sunday Tribune
This book would make your blood boil - one of the finest pieces of journalism this reader has come across for many a day. The author, Mike Milotte, has done his profession proud. Padraig O'Morain, The Irish Times
A salutary story, too long untold, and another nail in the coffin of Dev's mythical mystical Ireland. The Big Issue
An astonishing story, meticulously told - and an excellent piece of journalism. An Phoblacht
Mike Milotte's damning expose of Church-State collusion in banishing thousands of vulnerable 'illegitimate' children from Ireland in the 1950s and 60s was first published to critical acclaim in 1997, and quickly achieved iconic status. For this new, updated and enlarged edition the author has added previously untold personal stories from some of the 'banished babies' he met in the intervening period - stories that further illuminate the murky shadows of this official, but long-concealed child-export business. This second edition also examines the Irish State's failure to fulfill promises - made in the wake of the book's first appearance - to adequately facilitate search and reunion among the 'banished babies' and their natural parents."
27th October 2011
New adoption legislation will give adopted people
universal rights
New legislation when introduced will ensure that Ireland’s adopted people will have the same rights as others around the world.
That is according to Galway West Fine Gael Senator Fidelma Healy Eames who has commended the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, on her commitment to introducing a bill on adoption information enabling adopted people to access their birth certificates and early care records.
--
Click
here to read
20th October 2011
Press
Release:
Adoption
rights group looks forward to information legislation
Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA), a group advocating for equal human and
civil rights for those affected by Ireland's closed secret adoption
system, says it had a constructive meeting yesterday with Minister for
Children Frances Fitzgerald.
ARA welcomed the news that the Minister plans to publish heads of
bill for adoption information legislation in the coming months.
--
Click
here to read
Order of Business, Seanad
Éireann Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Many thanks to Senator
Susan O'Keeffe for raising issues of concern in the Seanad.
--
Click
here to read
Silence is deafening over babies scandal
(Tuesday, October 11, 2011)
THE revelations on the Prime Time programme on RTÉ last week concerning the testing of multiple vaccinations on babies in mother and child homes in the 50s and 60s were shocking to the core.
--
Click
here to read
300,000 babies stolen from their parents - and sold for adoption:
Haunting BBC documentary exposes 50-year scandal of baby trafficking by the Catholic church in Spain
Up to 300,000 Spanish babies were stolen from their parents and sold for adoption over a period of five decades, a new investigation reveals.
--
Click
here to read
Chinese orphanages buying babies for foreign adoption, investigation finds
CHINESE orphanages may still be buying babies and offering them for foreign adoption, Sky News discovered in an investigation.
It follows a series of scandals linking China's foreign adoption program to baby trafficking and the illegal confiscation of children.
--
Click
here to read
13th October
2011
Shocking abuse of innocents
LAST Thursday night’s Prime Time special investigation by journalist Katie Hannon on RTÉ One television revealed another truly shocking catalogue of abuse of innocent children in institutions run by various religious orders on behalf of the State some fifty years or so ago. Not only were children in mother and baby homes used as guinea pigs for the testing of vaccines, those who died had their bodies taken away and dissected for medical science research without any parental consent.
--
Click
here to read
11th October
2011
Universal
Periodic Review
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is holding a public consultation on Ireland’s Third National Report to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which will take place on Thursday 3 November 2011 from 10am-12.30pm, in Iveagh House, 80 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2.
Written submissions on the draft
report should be sent to ICESCR2011@dfa.ie
by close of business Friday 28 October 2011.
Click
here to view the report
Click
here for our UPR page
Click here
for our Human Rights page
Keeping adoption safe
GREAT SOCIAL changes in Ireland since the 1970s have meant that very few Irish children are available for adoption. As a result, Irish couples wishing to adopt have been looking abroad, and since the 1980s children have been adopted in significant numbers from places as far apart as Romania and Latin America.
--
Click here to read
Adoption
agency funded despite Vietnam suspension
THE HEALTH
Service Executive paid more than €200,000 in 2010 to an adoption
agency in Cork which deals with adoptions from Vietnam, despite the fact
adoptions from that country were suspended in May 2009.
--
Click here to read
Authority to travel for talks on adoption agreements
DELEGATIONS FROM the Adoption Authority of Ireland will travel to Mexico, the Philippines and the United States to discuss adoption agreements, the International Adoption Association was told at the weekend.
--
Click here to read
HSE still without vaccine trial files
SOME 15,000 adoption files held by the Sacred Heart Convent at Bessborough in Cork have yet to be transferred to the Health Service Executive (HSE) — two months after the initial deadline for the transfer.
--
Click here to read
Hundreds of Irish babies used in medical research and dissection
Babies used as research subjects without single mothers’ consent
A disturbing documentary that ran on RTÉ’s Prime Time revealed the gruesome fact that hundreds of Irish babies born out of wedlock were used in medical research without their mothers’ consent.
--
Click here to read
Forced
adoptions heartache
IN 1969 Robyn Cohen gave birth to a baby girl at the former Gore St
public hospital in South Hobart. She was 18 and, like thousands of
other young unmarried mothers, was given no choice but to put her baby
up for adoption. Mrs Cohen is one of more than 300 women so far to
give evidence to a Senate committee investigating forced adoption in
Australia.
--
Click here to read
Vietnam ‘eager’ to resume adoptions with Ireland
VIETNAM is eager to treat Ireland as a "priority country" for adoption following its ratification of the Hague Convention.
Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald said a number of recent developments have taken place in relation to inter-country adoption with Vietnam and that the country is close to ratifying the convention, which ensures that international adoption occurs in the best interests of
children.
--
Click here to read
China Fires 12 After Inquiry on Adoptions
BEIJING — Twelve government employees have been fired and stripped of their Communist Party membership after an investigation into allegations that family planning officials kidnapped children in an impoverished rural area in the southern Chinese province of Hunan, People’s Daily, the party’s official newspaper, reported Thursday.
--
Click here to read
8th October
2011
Adoption groups demand inquiry into dissections
ADOPTION groups have received a large surge in calls to helplines following revelations that hundreds of dead babies from mother and baby homes were dissected in universities.
--
Click here to read
7th October 2011
Adoption
Rights Alliance strongly condemns use of deceased infants in anatomical
experiments
Adoption
Rights Alliance, a group advocating for equal human and civil rights for
those affected by Ireland's closed secret adoption system, has strongly
condemned the use of the bodies of deceased infants in anatomical
experiments, as well as the use of children in Mother and Baby Homes in
vaccine trials, as reported in RTÉ’s Prime Time programme on Thursday
6th October.
--
Click here to read
400 babies were dissected at universities
HUNDREDS of dead babies from mother-and-baby homes across the country were dissected in Irish universities — without the knowledge or permission of their mothers.
--
Click here to read
6th October 2011
Adoption Authority loses second chief executive in 15 months
THE ADOPTION Authority has lost its second chief executive in just over a year after Elizabeth Canavan resigned just five months in the job.
--
Click here to read
1st October 2011
First ever agency audit uncovers 50 cases of illegal adoption
THE first ever audit of the Adoption Authority’s records has uncovered approximately 50 cases of illegal adoptions.
--
Click here to read
28th
September 2011
Nepal comes to terms with foreign adoptions tragedy
Hundreds of parents in Nepal are struggling to come to terms with the fact that their children have been adopted by Western couples without their consent.
--
Click here to read
26th
September 2011
Armenia Considers Changing Adoption Procedures Amid Allegations Of Corruption
YEREVAN -- The Armenian government is considering changes in its rules and procedures for international adoptions in an effort to stamp out alleged corrupt practices.
--
Click here to read
Rights of parents being put ahead of children at risk, says law expert
THE HEALTH Service Executive is pursuing an “overdeferential” approach to the rights of parents at the expense of children at risk, the Government’s special rapporteur for child protection Geoffrey Shannon has said.
--
Click here to read
7th
September 2011
Guatemalan Court Rules on Child Abduction for Adoption Case
Loyda Rodriguez finally received a long-awaited Guatemalan court order on July 29, 2011, which found her daughter’s intercountry adoption to the U.S. to be illegal. The court order gives a 60-day window for return of the child.
--
Click here to read
ARGENTINA:
Purging the Legal System of Dictatorship Accomplices
BUENOS AIRES, Sept 6 (IPS) - As human rights cases from Argentina's
1976-1983 military dictatorship move ahead in the courts, cases of
judges and prosecutors who were accomplices in the crimes are coming to
light.
--
Click here to read
6th
September 2011
One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring
Cynthia Daily and her partner used a sperm donor to conceive a baby seven years ago, and they hoped that one day their son would get to know some of his half siblings — an extended family of sorts for modern times.
--
Click here to read
5th
September 2011
15,000 adoption files still to be transferred over to HSE
SOME 15,000 adoption files, including those relating to controversial vaccine trials carried out on children at a mother-and-baby home run by the Sacred Heart Convent at Bessborough in Cork, have yet to be transferred to the HSE.
--
Click here to read
96FM
coverage of files issue
Adoption support groups are demanding to know the precise location of up
to 15,000 files, once held by the Sacred Heart Adoption Society in
Cork. The agency was formerly based at the Bessboro mother &
baby home in Blackrock, but also held files for Seán Ross Abbey in
Tipperary and Castlepollard Home in Westmeath. The Sacred Heart
order of nuns is now under pressure to state exactly were the files are
being stored, after the HSE said it doesn't yet have them.
--
Click here for PJ Coogan's report
RIP
June Goulding
It was
with deep sadness that we belatedly learned of the death of one of our
heros, June Goulding (aka June Crotty), who died in July 2010. In
her book, The
Light in the Window, June courageously wrote about what she
witnessed during her time as a midwife in the Sacred Heart Mother and
Baby Home in Bessboro, Cork. June will always have a special place
in the hearts of those of us who are affected by Ireland's closed,
secret adoption system and she has well and truly earned her place in
Irish adoption history.
Secret jury selection held in local Russian adoption death case
A York County judge said information was withheld from court calendar and dockets intentionally.
A jury has been seated in secret for the internationally high-profile case of a York County couple accused of killing their 7-year-old adopted Russian son. The presiding judge said this was done primarily out of fear that coverage by the York Daily Record/Sunday News would taint potential jurors.
--
Click here to read
31st
August 2011
New
photos added
New
photos of St. Clare's, Stamullen, Co. Meath (kindly donated by Marie
Cunniffe Stubbs) have been added to our History and Heritage
section.
--
Click here to view.
Woman convicted of child abuse in alleged ploy to appear on Dr Phil
AN ALASKAN WOMAN who squirted hot sauce into the mouth of her adopted Russian son for lying about getting in trouble in school has been convicted of misdemeanor child abuse in what prosecutors said was a ploy to get on the Dr Phil TV show.
--
Click here to read
Jessica Beagley, Alaska Woman, Convicted Of Child Abuse After Squirting Hot Sauce Into Adopted Son's Mouth
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A woman who squirted hot sauce into the mouth of her adopted Russian son for lying about getting in trouble in school was convicted Tuesday of misdemeanor child abuse in what prosecutors said was a ploy to get on the "Dr. Phil" TV
show.
--
Click here to read
A loving home, gay or straight, is what a child needs
Bishop Christopher Jones's comments on gay marriage don't address the real
issue
--
Click here to read
Guatemalan Court Order Rattles Foreign Adoption Community
The story about a young, missing Guatemalan girl whose mother searched for her for five years and eventually found she had been adopted by a couple in Missouri has been floating around for a couple of years now. But the latest news is that the mother, Loyda Rodriguez Morales, has essentially won her case. CNN reported on Monday that the Guatemalan government had ordered the girl returned, and that because it was considered a case of human trafficking, would call Interpol to enforce the order if the adoptive parents didn't comply. According to Erin Siegal, a fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University who's been covering the case closely, that's an unprecedented move in the world of international adoptions.
--
Click here to read
22nd
August 2011
‘I want my son to know he was adopted’
TRESSA REEVES, whose son was illegally adopted and registered as the natural child of the adoptive parents, says she has received no assistance from the Adoption Authority more than a year after her case was exposed.
--
Click here to read
The $180,000 black market baby that may have multiple blonde, fair and blue-eyed siblings - each designed to get the highest price
New details of black market baby-selling ring emerge as lawyer says eggs, sperm came from same two donors
--
Click here to read
19th August 2011
UPDATE:
Sacred Heart/Bessboro Files
It has been confirmed to the Irish Examiner that the files from Sacred
Heart Adoption Society in Bessboro, Cork will be transferred to the
HSE. Note, these will include records from vaccine
trials.
All enquiries to: HSE Adoption Unit, St. Stephen's Hospital Cork.
Telephone enquiries to 021 4858650 (note, we recommend dealing with the
HSE in writing).
For
further information click
here to read Conall O'Fatharta's article in the Irish Examiner on
19th August 2011
Note:
The files in question cover Sacred Heart Bessboro as well as Sean Ross
Abbey, Roscrea and the Sacred Heart Mother and Baby Home in
Castlepollard.
18th August
2011
Universal
Periodic Review
The United Nations has published it summary of stakeholder reports to
the Universal Periodic Review, which includes reference to Adoption
Rights Alliance's submission. Click
here to visit the UN website and download the summary. Click
here to view Adoption Rights Alliance's full submission to the
UPR.
Vaccine
Trials
If you suspect you were used in a vaccine trial, you can submit an
online "adverse effect" report to Glaxo SmithKline here.
Guatemala mother searched 5 years for adopted
girl
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Loyda Rodriguez Morales felt someone tug at her daughter as she tried to enter her simple home with three young children in tow. She turned to see a woman whisk the 2-year-old away in a waiting taxi.
--
Click here to read
China considers clampdown on illegal adoptions
China is considering new rules to crack down on illegal adoptions in a bid to curb child trafficking, a welfare official said Tuesday, amid rising public outrage over child abduction cases.
--
Click here to read
Adoption measures to be tightened
Orphanages will play pivotal role in move to tackle trafficking of children
BEIJING - The government is toughening rules to tackle the scourge of child trafficking, including making orphanages the only institutions that can offer abandoned children for adoption, an official said.
--
Click here to read
11th August
2011
Adoption
Rights Alliance submits legislative proposals to Minister Frances
Fitzgerald
Adoption
Rights Alliance has submitted a document containing proposals for
legislation concerning adoption to Minister for Children, Frances
Fitzgerald.
Click
here to view the document.
10th August
2011
Vaccine
trial files will not be transferred to HSE
FILES relating to controversial vaccine trials carried out on children
at a Mother and Baby Home run by the Sacred Heart Convent in Bessboro in
Cork will not be transferred to the HSE.
--
Click here to read
Adoption
Rights Alliance statement on vaccine trial files:
10th
August 2011
Adoption
Rights Alliance said the HSE's use of the word “immunisation” was a
crude attempt to sanitise the non-consensual participation of adopted
people in illegal drug trials and has no place in a civilised society
where transparency and accountability are the order of the day.
Adopted people who were given vaccines in these trials did not
receive the drugs for the purpose of 'immunisation' - these were
experiments carried out on defenseless infants.
Questions must be asked as to why the Sacred Heart Adoption Society did
not supply the HSE with the files relating to vaccine trials at the
Sacred Heart Mother and Baby Homes. Did Sacred Heart refuse to
hand them over or did the HSE refuse to take them?
Adoption Rights Alliance is calling on the government to reinstate the
inquiry into the vaccine trials. Children were used as
guinea pigs without their mothers' consent and it is simply unacceptable
for the Irish state to ignore this abuse of its vulnerable citizens.
If such vaccine trials had taken place in China, the Irish
government would clamber to be the first to issue condemnation.
We look forward to the day when they apply the same moral outrage
to actions in which their own parties have been complicit.
9th August 2011
Adoption data at unaccredited agencies not legally protected
TENS of thousands of adoption files, some exposing illegal adoptions and birth registrations, cannot be inspected by the Adoption Authority as a number of agencies have not applied to be accredited under new legislation.
--
Click here to read
Report of
the Action Group on a National Records Index
In
2004 the late Brian Lenihan established a number of Advisory Groups to
the Adoption Board. One such group was the Action Group on a
National Records Index. Click
here to read the report and its recommendations which have never
been acted upon, resulting in the situation as reported above in the
Irish Examiner.
4th August 2011
Church
apology over 'forced adoptions' in Australia
THE
AUSTRALIAN Catholic Church issued an apology yesterday over what have
been called “forced adoptions”.
--
Click here to read
China's family planning:
Illegal children will be confiscated
The one-child policy is not just a human-rights abomination; it has also worsened a demographic problem.
--
Click here to read
22nd July 2011
Not allowed
to know
That a country
like Ireland maintained a veil of secrecy over the illegal activities of
its religious orders has long ceased to be a surprise. However, for it
to allow such secrecy to persist more than a decade into the 21st
century is shameful. Yet, by seeming to rule out any chance of
historic tracing and information rights to some 50,000 plus adopted
people and their several hundred thousand natural parents and relatives,
children’s minister Frances Fitzgerald will help continue that legacy.
--
Click here to read
20th July 2011
10,000 CHILDREN RIPPED FROM THEIR FAMILIES
AT LEAST 10,000 young children have been dragged from their families and needlessly adopted due to a flawed target at the heart of Government, it was claimed last night.
Vulnerable children were handed over in their thousands under a New Labour crusade driven by artificial adoption targets.
--
Click here to read
Nancy meets her mum (92) for first time
A 77-year-old Dublin woman who had been searching for her birth mother for 25 years has finally been reunited with her in Australia.
--
Click here to read
Argentina 'stolen baby' cases legacy of Dirty War
Francisco Madariaga is blunt about how most of his life has been until now.
"I spent 32 years living a lie," he says. Mr Madariaga, 33, used to be called Alejandro Ramiro Gallo, the name given to him by his adoptive parents.
Last year he came face-to-face for the first time with his real father and confirmed his fears.
--
Click here to read
15th July 2011
No timescale
for audit results of adoption body
MORE than a year after it began an audit of its tracing and information
records to identify any cases involving illegal activity, the Adoption
Authority (AAI) has still not offered a timescale as to its completion
or if the findings will be made public.
--
Click here to read
1st July 2011
Irish
Examiner Feature Piece
For
people who are adopted, tracing their birth mother can be an arduous
task. Rachel Borrill talks to three women about their emotional
experiences.
--
Click here to read
18th
June 2011
Full scale of illegal adoptions remains unknown says Health Minister
The full scale of illegal adoptions and birth registrations in Ireland prior to the 1970s is unknown, the government has admitted.
Click
here to read this IrishCentral.com article
--
Click here to read
Profit, not care: The ugly side of overseas adoptions
Lax regulation and an endless demand by childless couples in the West has created an often exploitative market in babies born in the developing world
--
Click here to read
Adoption 'donations' encourage crime
The industry insiders said that overseas families wishing to adopt a Chinese child almost always make donations to the welfare home, leading homes to put up more children for adoption and resort to illegal practices to find more children, Xinhua reported.
--
Click here to read
Nigerian 'baby farm' raided – 32 pregnant girls rescued
Teenage mothers were allegedly forced to give up newborns to human traffickers in southern city of Aba.
Nigerian police have raided an alleged "baby farm" where teenage mothers were forced to give up their newborns for sale to human traffickers.
--
Click here to read
Nigeria 'baby farm' girls rescued by Abia state police
Nigerian police have raided a hospital in the south-eastern city of Aba, rescuing 32 pregnant girls allegedly held by a human-trafficking ring.
--
Click here to read
17th
June 2011
Adoption
Rights Alliance response to the Adoption Authority Draft Corporate Plan
Click here to view the Adoption Rights Alliance submission to the
Adoption Authority Corporate Plan Consultation Survey.
16th
June 2011
Reilly:
Scale of illegal adoptions is unknown
THE
Government has admitted it has no idea as to the scale of illegal
adoptions and birth registrations facilitated by more than 40
mother-and-baby homes which closed in 1972.
--
Click here to read
Adoption
Rights Alliance statement on the Adoption Authority Corporate Plan
16th June 2011
Adoption Rights Alliance Spokesperson Susan Lohan said:
"We are appalled that in the Adoption Authority of
Ireland’s (AAI) national consultation survey, the management and staff
of the AAI and their Board Members failed to include the provision of
Information and Tracing services (including the already established
National Adoption Contact Preference Register) to Ireland's 50,000+
adopted people and their several hundred thousand relatives.
"Adoption is not a point of sale
transaction, it is a life changing event with generation-wide
consequences. These glaring omissions vindicate all of the deep
misgivings that Adoption Rights Alliance and its predecessors have had
about the integrity of the Adoption Authority (Adoption Board) over the
last 2 decades", Susan Lohan said. She added "that it
appeared that the AAI were no longer even pretending to be interested in
the needs of adopted adults desperately seeking information on their
origins".
Claire McGettrick, co-founder of
Adoption Rights Alliance called for the AAI to urgently reboot their
entire mindset regarding adoption and said that the organisation would
be seeking clarification from Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Children,
AAI Chairman Geoffrey Shannon and CEO Elizabeth Canavan at the earliest
opportunity.
Ends.
Click
here to view the Adoption Authority Corporate Plan from 2004.
Adoption
Authority Corporate Plan
From
the Adoption Authority website: "To
assist the Adoption Authority of Ireland in the development of a
Corporate Plan for the years 2011-2014 your views on the draft mission
and objectives of the organisation are sought through the consultation
form at the link below."
Please
note: Incredibly, this survey has completely omitted references to
the delivery of tracing and information services. We encourage you
to express your views to the Adoption Authority of Ireland.
Click
here to
participate in the survey. [Link disabled as survey is now completed -
click here to email the Adoption
Authority if you have feedback on their services - please cc Adoption
Rights Alliance in correspondence.]
Note: Closing date is tomorrow Friday 17th June 2011
9th
June 2011
Adopted adults
have a right to know details
I
READ the recent article in the Irish Examiner concerning historic rights
of adopted adults by Claire O’Sullivan. I
was upset at the flippant remark made by Minister Frances Fitzgerald in
her radio interview with Pat Kenny (June 2) when she said that historic
tracing will not be made available to adopted adults and that "some
people will be disappointed".
--
Click here to read
6th
June 2011
JFM
welcomes UN Committee recommendation for statutory inquiry and redress
for Magdalenes, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators
The UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) today
issued its “Concluding
Observations” following the first examination of the Irish State
under the UN Convention Against Torture.
The Committee reiterated its calls for an independent
investigation into the Magdalene Laundries abuse and redress for the
women who suffered. It also recommended that the State “prosecute
and punish the perpetrators with penalties commensurate with the gravity
of the offences committed.”
Click
here to visit Justice for Magdalenes' website for further details.
3rd
June 2011
Journalist
wins top Law Society award for exposing illegal adoption scandals
Congratulations
to Conall Ó'Fatharta of the Irish Examiner from Adoption Rights
Alliance in winning the top prize at the prestigious Justice Media
Awards for his work in exposing illegal adoptions in Ireland.
To date, no action has been taken by the Irish State or the Adoption
Authority to resolve the issue of illegal adoptions. Promises were
made by Adoption Authority Chairman Geoffrey Shannon to deal with the
issue, yet Registrar Kiernan Gildea said months later that no
investigations would be carried out. No arrests have been made and
no assistance given to reunite the people affected.
Click
here to read Conall Ó'Fatharta's articles from April 2010.
From
the Law Society's Justice Media Awards:
"The
winner of the Justice Media Award in the ‘Daily Newspapers’ category
is Conall
Ó Fátharta (Irish Examiner) for his article ‘Adoption
in Ireland’.
What
the judges said:
"The
Justice Media Award in this category is being presented for an
excellent series on the legal quagmire of illegal adoptions. This
two-day series looked at one woman’s 30-year search to find her son,
whom she subsequently discovered had been illegally adopted after being
placed in the care of the St Patrick’s Guild adoption agency in
Dublin. It transpired that the boy’s birth had been falsely registered
through the nursing home where Tressa Reeve had given birth. This
effectively removed all legal evidence that she had ever given birth to
her son André, and was done without her knowledge or consent.
"The
writer of this article challenged the Adoption Board to reveal the full
extent of the number of such adoptions that had been carried out in the
State – but failed to receive any satisfactory answers. Part 2 in this
series focused on what was then the Adoption Bill 2009 –
subsequently the Adoption Act 2010. While primarily focused on
ratifying the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and
consolidating previous adoption legislation, the author discovered that
the new legislation avoided giving adopted people and natural parents
any legal rights relating to the tracing of relatives, or the release of
information for medical purposes.
"This article
contained an excellent review of current adoption laws, revealed the
difficulties encountered by natural parents and adopted children through
a number of case studies, and fairly criticised the failure of the
Government to enact legislation to assist adopted children and their
natural parents to trace each other.""
Historic
adoptees will not have legal right to trace parents
ADULTS who were put up for adoption when they were babies are not going
to be given legal entitlement to trace their natural parents, according
to the Minister for Children. For the past decade adoption groups
have been lobbying for legislation giving rights on family information
and tracing.
--
Click here to read
Click
here to email Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald
Examiner journalist scoops top award
IRISH
Examiner journalist Conall Ó Fatharta has won one of the highest
accolades on offer at the Justice Media Awards for his outstanding exposé
on Ireland’s illegal adoption scandal. Conall
was awarded the top prize in the daily newspaper category — a section
dominated entirely by three Irish Examiner reporters — after a series
of exclusive stories on the hidden crisis.
--
Click here to read
Click
here to read Conall Ó'Fatharta's articles from April 2010.
2nd
June 2011
Minister
for Children, Frances Fitzgerald on Today with Pat Kenny
Today Minister
for Children, Frances Fitzgerald was interviewed on Radio One with
Chairperson of the Adoption Authority of Ireland, Geoffrey
Shannon. In just a few sentences she (and Pat Kenny) demonstrated
a total lack of regard for the dignity and much sought after information
rights of the 50,000 people adopted under the 1952 legislation. Though we emailed and
phoned the Today with Pat Kenny programme, no comments were aired.
Adoption
Rights Alliance is currently completing a Legislative Proposals
Submission for the Minister for Children, due to be sent in the coming
weeks.
If
you disagree with Minister Fitzgerald, please let your voice be heard
and email her at: omc@health.gov.ie
or frances.fitzgerald@oir.ie
Click
here to listen to the mp3 of the interview and a transcription of
the relevant section is below:
Frances
Fitzgerald: “...I think you can bring in tracing legislation,
I think probably not historic, not going backwards but from current best
practice going forward that the child would have access you know, for
example, to birth certs, to detailed information.”
Pat
Kenny: “But there’s
no question of changing historical traceability because Ireland is a
very small country and a lot of the time in the past we know that
adoptions were made for reasons of family shame and all the rest of
it…”
Frances
Fitzgerald: “Exactly.
I think that would be very difficult and there will be people who
will be very disappointed hearing that but what I think we need to do in
the meantime is build up very good services and we’re doing that,
where people who do want to trace have access to high quality
counselling and information on both sides – the mother who has given
up the child and the person who is looking
for information. There
have been some very very sad situations where if that had been done
people would have had access but didn’t and then somebody had died and
they never got to meet their birth mother when they wanted to.”
31st
May 2011
New
photos uploaded
New
photos of Sean
Ross Abbey and Castlepollard
have been uploaded to our History
and Heritage page.
If you have any photos, sample records, stories or other items you would
like to donate, please contact us at heritage@adoptionrightsalliance.com
26th
May 2011
‘Illegal’
babies abducted by Chinese population control officials
As Beijing continues to vigorously pursue its infamous one-child policy,
PRI has gathered evidence showing that Chinese villagers who cannot
afford to pay these fines have their “illegal” children abducted and
sold by Chinese population control officials.
--
Click here to read
21st
May 2011
Big strides
made in Vietnam’s adoption service
SENIOR
members of the Adoption Authority have met with the Children’s
Minister to report on "important improvements" in Vietnam’s
inter-country adoption procedures.
--
Click here to read
Adoption
scandal exposed by muckraking Chinese journalists
GAOPING,
HUNAN PROVINCE – Until this year, Yang Libing, whose daughter was
taken from him by family planning authorities, would receive visits from
one or two Chinese journalists every year.
--
Click here to read
China probes
child trafficking, adoption link
BEIJING,
May 10, 2011 (AFP) - China has launched a probe into the abduction of
children allegedly born in violation of population control policies then
trafficked by officials into adoptions worldwide, an official said
Tuesday.
--
Click here to read
Chinese
babies sold abroad for adoption for £2,000
Chinese
babies were sold abroad for adoption for up to £2,000 each after they
were forcibly seized by officials enforcing China's one-child policy, an
investigation has claimed.
--
Click here to read
China
province probes sale of "illegal children"
BEIJING
(Reuters) - A southern Chinese province has begun investigating a report
that officials had seized at least 16 babies born in violation of strict
family planning rules, sent them to welfare centers and then sold them
abroad for adoption.
--
Click here to read
23rd
April 2011
Playing
politics with adopted children's rights
DAVID
QUINN's concern for the welfare of adopted children and those conceived
via sperm and egg donation is touching (Irish Independent, April 8,
2011). However, we must strenuously object to the issue of adopted
people's rights being hijacked for the purpose of illustrating Mr
Quinn's argument against gay marriage. Children who are in need of homes
are not concerned with labels like marriage or civil partnership;
rather, these children are looking for security and that security must
not come at the price of losing your identity or access to family,
culture and heritage.
--
Click here to read
"I
felt like I was dead ... and my life was a lie"
Eight years ago Theresa Tinggal discovered she was illegally adopted.
Now aged 56, Theresa, like many others, is still fighting for
information about the circumstances of her birth. She tells Conall Ó Fátharta
about her quest to find her true identity and the obstacles that remain
in her way.
--
Click here to read
22nd
April 2011
Adi Roche
optimistic about future of Belarusian adoptions
"Claire
McGettrick of the Adoption Rights Alliance told TheJournal.ie that in
each prospective adoption case, every effort should be made to locate
the child’s parents and ascertain their family situation before going
ahead with the adoption."
--
Click here to read
18th
April 2011
Rights of
children key issue in applying best practice to inter-country adoption
IN
ADVANCE of an Irish delegation from the Adoption Authority travelling to
meet the relevant authorities in Vietnam about the possibility of
proceeding with adoptions from that country to Ireland, it is timely to
discuss the need to apply rigorous standards to the inter-country
adoption process.
--
Click here to read
13th
April 2011
Adoption
chiefs to go to Vietnam over fears
OFFICIALS from the Adoption Authority are to travel to Vietnam to
examine if the "profound concerns" raised in a number of
international reports about adoption practices in the country have been
addressed.
--
Click here to read
Minister asks
Adoption Authority to assess situation in Vietnam
THE MINISTER FOR
CHILDREN Frances Fitzgerald has asked the Adoption Authority chairman to
visit Vietnam to assess how the country has improved its foreign adoption
system.
--
Click here to read
Adoption
board chief to visit Vietnam
The
chairman of the Adoption Authority of Ireland is to travel to Vietnam to
assess what progress has been made in addressing concerns which led the
Government to suspend all adoptions from there in January 2010.
--
Click here to read
Minister for
Children & Youth Affairs Fitzgerald asks Adoption Authority to visit
Vietnam
Minister
Fitzgerald has today asked the Chairman of the Adoption Authority to
visit Vietnam to assess current standards in their ratification of the
Hague Convention.
--
Click here to read
12th
April 2011
Vietnam
adoption deal unlikely until concerns resolved
THE
Adoption Authority will ensure all of the "very serious
issues" that caused the suspension of adoptions from Vietnam
are addressed before any administrative agreement is agreed with the
south-east Asian country.
--
Click here to read
Family's
struggle to adopt their ninth troubled child
Over
the past two decades Sue and her husband Jim have successfully adopted
eight of the most troubled children in the care system, but when they
took on seven-year-old Maisie they feared even they did not have the
skills to cope with her. Was she too damaged to adopt?
--
Click here to read
10th
April 2011
Census
2011
Tonight is Census night - please make sure to fill out your Census
Form. As part of our campaign of alerting the general population
about closed, secret adoption, we are suggesting answers for key
questions that effect adopted people.
--
Click here
for more.
7th
April 2011
Sensitivity
in adoption contact
Madam,
– Aoibhin Ní Mhaille (April 4th) shows her respect and concern for
her parents and her desire to have them kept informed about any tracing
developments. While she is certainly entitled to her feelings in
the matter, I would take a different view of the agency’s
conduct.
--
Click here to read
Secrets,
lies and an identity denied
An Irish woman who
learned she was an illegal adoptee eight years ago believes there are
Irish people in Australia also fighting to access files on who their
natural parents are.
--
Click here to read
4th
April 2011
Minister
seeks to reopen Vietnam for Irish adoptions
THE
GOVERNMENT will begin talks on securing a new administrative agreement
with Vietnam shortly to help reopen the southeast Asian state for Irish
couples pursuing intercountry adoptions.
--
Click here to read
Sensitivity
needed in adoption contact
A chara, – As an adopted adult I recently received a shoddily- written
HSE letter from the agency that arranged my adoption informing me that
contact had been made by “someone I may have known in the past”.
--
Click here to read
Sunday
Times Article
Click here to read an article from the Sunday Times of 4th April
2011, regarding Alan Stanford's adoption. (Please note this is a large
pdf file and it may take some time to download.)
30th March 2011
Adoption
agency re-accredited
A RELIGIOUS-run adoption agency which facilitated a number of illegal
adoptions and which exported over 500 "illegitimate" children
to the US has been re-accredited by the Adoption Authority.
--
Click here to read
28th March
2011
Adoption is
for children, not adults
ALTHOUGH Bulgaria has signed the Hague Convention for the Protection of
Children in Intercountry Adoption (Irish Examiner, March 25) and
therefore Irish couples are within their rights under Irish law to seek
adoptions from there, we fear that in the effort to find
"available" children to adopt, that the principles of Hague
are often forgotten about.
--
Click here to read
The stolen
children
They were sent from Irish orphanages to Australia with the promise of
freedom. Instead, writes Declan Cashin, our child migrants battled with
abuse and slave labour.
--
Click here to read
Wikileaks on
Romanian Adoptions
Wikileaks has exposed that the US was using the Visa-Waiver programme to
try to negotiate international adoptions.
--
Click here for more.
24th March
2011
Foreigners
Looking to Adopt Japanese Earthquake Orphans Need Not Apply
Foreigners
looking to adopt a Japanese child orphaned by the recent earthquake may
be surprised to know their help, in that respect, is not wanted at the
moment.
--
Click here to read
New Illegal
Adoptions Website
We
have been asked to pass on the details of a new website for people who
were illegally adopted. Click
here to view.
22nd March
2011
East-Asian
orphans illegally adopted and abused
Children
in Cambodian and Vietnamese orphanages are being abused and adopted
illegally, says a UNICEF representative.
--
Click here to read
21st March
2011
Universal
Periodic Review
Adoption
Rights Alliance has submitted its main report to the United Nations for
the Universal Periodic Review, during which Ireland will be examined by
other UN countries on our human rights record. We have also
submitted reports to the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Rights
Now campaign.
--
Click
here to view the submissions.
17th March
2011
Adoptees
deserve adult treatment
Mary
Kenny's article (Irish Independent, March 14) contains a number of good
points: a loving and supportive family provides the best start in life
for most people and some mothers do feel adoption gives their child a
better chance in life.
However,
I believe that Joan Burton's elevation to Cabinet is neither an
endorsement nor a criticism of adoption practice. For example, if Ms
Burton singlehandedly destroys any semblance of social protection during
her time as minister, will there be a similar article condemning
adoption or supportive families?
--
Click here to read
more
To read Mary Kenny's
article click here
16th March
2011
Most adopted
people here face monumental brick wall
Mary
Kenny's opinion piece portrays only one side of Ireland's closed secret
adoption system. We
agree with Ms Kenny that Joan Burton is an inspirational person, and are
proud to see an adopted person in Cabinet. However, we must vehemently
disagree that her case is 'a shining example of good practice' in
adoption.
--
Click here to read
Adoption Rights Alliance's letter in the Irish
Independent in response to Mary
Kenny's recent article.
15th March
2011
I was 'given
up' as a child–not 'placed'
I WAS
‘given up' for adoption by my birth mother, so forgive me for being
absolutely disgusted, angry and insulted by Mary Kenny's article,
especially where she says she wants to use the term ‘placed for
adoption' rather than ‘given up for adoption' as this implies
rejection.
--
Click here to read
more
Burton
reveals birth mother sadness
New
minister Joan Burton yesterday shrugged off controversy over not being
appointed to a finance portfolio and revealed her deep emotion about
being sent a photograph of her birth mother on the day she was appointed
to Cabinet.
--
Click here to read
Ethica
Report on Nepalese Adoptions
Orphaned
or stolen? The US State Department investigates adoption from Nepal,
2006-2008
--
Click here to read
Nigerian
Medical Council Condemns Baby Factory Clinics
The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) has condemned
as unethical, the practice by some medical doctors who use young girls
as baby factories to produce babies for sale
--
Click here to read
10th March 2011
Romania
detains two Italians for child trafficking
Romanian
authorities have detained two Italians for child smuggling and using a
false identity after they allegedly tried to illegally take a Romanian
newborn to Italy, prosecutors said Thursday.
--
Click here to read
9th-10th March 2011
Housekeepers
for priests were exploited: study
A
STUDY on priests’ housekeepers’ lives presented for International
Women’s Day found they were exploited, underpaid and worked from as
young as 13.
--
Click here to read
6th March 2011
Programme for government
A flicker of good news from the programme for government:
"We will modernise and reform outdated elements of family law. We will enact legislation to consolidate and reform the law on adoption."
Human Rights
Submissions Uploaded
In
October of this year, Ireland will be examined by other UN countries on
our human rights record, otherwise known as the Universal Periodic
Review (UPR). This is the first time that this will happen.
In anticipation of this review, Adoption Rights Alliance has made
submissions to both the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Irish
Council of Civil Liberties' "Rights Now" campaign. We
will also be submitting a report directly to the United
Nations.
Click
here to view the submissions.
How blue-eyed
Irish boy won icon's heart
She was the 'mean,
moody and magnificent' queen of Hollywood, but to a little Irish boy, she
was just 'mom'. And when 89-year-old screen legend Jane Russell died of
respiratory failure at her home in Santa Maria, California last Monday
morning, Tom Waterfield, the son whom she adopted from an impoverished
Irish couple, was by her side, as ever.
--
Click here to read
Ethiopia to
Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 Percent
Ethiopia is cutting back by as much as 90 percent the number of
inter-country adoptions it will allow, as part of an effort to clean up
a system rife with fraud and corruption. Adoption agencies and
children’s advocates are concerned the cutbacks will leave many
Ethiopian orphans without the last-resort option of an adoptive home
abroad.
--
Click here to read
New details on
Grace Farrell, woman who froze to death in NY
Farrell
was born out of wedlock to a young unmarried couple in the 1970s
Ireland. Due to the stigma related to having a child out of
marriage, Grace’s mother gave her up for adoption. For the first
six years of her life, Grace lived in a happy environment with her new
family. However, because the adoption was not finalized Grace was forced
to return to the foster care system.
--
Click here to read
4th March
2011
Attention -
calling all of Ireland's "Banished Babies"!
The Irish Times
reported on Friday 25th February that the Adoption Authority sent a
delegation to the US in the previous week to discuss intercountry
adoption. (Article available here)
Click
here to read why Irish people should not be adopting from the US and
what you can do to complain.
1st March 2011
Argentina's
ex-military leaders tried over baby thefts
Two
former military leaders have gone on trial in Argentina, accused of
overseeing the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners.
--
Click here to read
Hollywood
star Jane Russell dies at 89
Over 2,000 Irish children (that we know of) were secretly sent from
Ireland to the US for adoption. Perhaps the most famous adoptive
mother involved in these adoptions was Jane Russell. Click
here to read the BBC News report of her death.
Birth
fathers can get in touch
"There is now
more support and help available for fathers looking to trace a child
given up for adoption." Click
here to read Sheila Wayman's article in the Irish Times.
: While Adoption Rights
Alliance encourages people to register with the National Adoption
Contact Preference Register (NACPR), it would be remiss of us to allow
people tracing to get the wrong impression from the article above.
The NACPR has never been operated in the manner first envisaged in that
it has not been widely publicised (apart from the initial coverage), we
have not seen it advertised internationally and the promise of an
additional mailout of leaflets in 2007 never happened.
Adoption Rights
Alliance also takes issue with the manner in which people matched on the
NACPR are automatically sent to their adoption agency (now known as
"accredited bodies") for the reunion to be processed. We
encourage people to not be afraid to object to their adoption agency's
involvement if this is something they are not comfortable
with.
The NACPR is a
useful tool in the search process, but it does not mean that the
Adoption Authority is tracing for your family member. Should you
wish to trace, please visit our Search and Reunion page here.
24th February
2011
Bessboro Photos
Our US Coordinator Mari
Steed has uploaded a set of photos from Bessboro to her Flickr feed.
Click
here to view. See further photos and information about agencies and
Mother & Baby Homes at our History
& Heritage page.
23rd February
2011
