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Fun, Games and Silliness / Theories Of Cat Behavior

« Last post by Tigger on March 10, 2011, 06:16:19 am »

Theories Of Cat Behavior

LAW OF CAT INERTIA
A cat at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless acted upon by some outside force, such as the opening of cat food, or a nearby scurrying mouse.

LAW OF CAT MOTION
A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction.

FIRST LAW OF CAT ENERGY CONSERVATION
Cats know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and will, therefore, use as little energy as possible.

LAW OF BAG/BOX OCCUPANCY
All bags and boxes in a given room must contain a cat within the earliest possible nanosecond.

LAW OF FURNITURE REPLACEMENT
A cat's desire to scratch furniture is directly proportional to the cost of the furniture.

LAW OF CAT COMPOSITION
A cat is composed of Matter + Anti-matter + It Doesn't Matter.

LAW OF CAT OBEDIENCE
As yet undiscovered.

Fun, Games and Silliness / Two doctors

« Last post by Tigger on March 10, 2011, 06:10:26 am »

Two doctors

Best friends graduated from medical school at the same time and decided that, in spite of two different specialties, they would open a practice together to share office space and personnel. Dr. Smith was the psychiatrist and Dr. Jones was the proctologist; they put up a sign reading: "Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones: Hysterias and Posteriors". The town council was livid and insisted they change it. So, the docs changed it to read: "Schizoids and Hemorrhoids" This was also not acceptable, so they again changed the sign.

"Catatonics and High Colonics"......No go.

Next, they tried "Manic Depressives and Anal Retentives" .... Thumbs down again.

Then came "Minds and Behinds" .... Still no good.

Another attempt resulted in "Lost Souls and Butt Holes" ....... Unacceptable again!

So they tried "Analysis and Anal Cysts". .... Not a chance.

"Nuts and Butts" ..... No way.

"Freaks and Cheeks" ..... Still no good.

"Loons and Moons" ..... Forget it.

Almost at their wit's end, the docs finally came up with:

"Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones--Odds and Ends"

Everyone loved it

Adoption in the Media / When Parents Lie About Adoption

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 07, 2011, 03:29:27 am »

When Parents Lie About Adoption

Psychologists Say Lying to Children About Adoption Could Be Traumatizing

By EMILY FRIEDMAN
May 8, 2008

For more than 17 years, Jodi Applegate believed she was adopted.

And she had no reason not to, until her mother passed away and left her aunt to tell her the real story about her birth.

Applegate, 44, an anchor on the New York City Fox News affiliate, shared her family's secret on "Good Day New York," explaining how when her mother became pregnant with her in 1963 she disappeared from Wheeling, W.Va., where she lived.

She gave birth to Applegate and put her in a foster home in Pittsburgh for eight months, only to later return and take her back.

When she returned to Wheeling with her daughter, she said she had adopted the little girl, Applegate said.

"In those days, it was a scandal for a single woman to have a baby," Applegate said Tuesday on her morning program. "She said she had adopted me."

"I grew up believing that I was adopted," added Applegate, who did not return calls from ABCNEWS.com.

Several child psychologists told ABCNEWS.com that lying to children at all -- let alone about who their birth mother is -- could be traumatizing in the long run.

Lies May Be Toxic for Children, Docs Say

Applegate is proof, several psychologists said, that traumatic events affect everyone differently. While Applegate, who has had a successful career, has seemingly not suffered any debilitating psychological effects, other adults who find out important truths about their lives late in life often react differently.

"I've seen secrets play out in a number of different ways," said Mary O'Leary Wiley, a psychologist based in Pennsylvania who specializes in adoption issues and has not treated Applegate. "Sometimes the secret will not be a really big deal and people will go on with their lives and understand the context and cope well."

That is the likely scenario in Applegate's case, Wiley said.

"Other times when presented with a secret in adulthood or late adolescence, the young adult questions everything that has ever been told to them and wonders if they can trust anything in their life," Wiley said. "It shakes them to the core and causes great difficulty on a personal level but also with trust among a family."

Wiley said that finding out that your parent isn't really who you believed them to be is much like a spouse finding out they've been cheated on for years.

"It makes a person distrust a lot of things that person said," Wiley said. "Even though people will say that they didn't tell you for your benefit, often times the reason they don't tell the truth is that they're afraid their fragile family will blow part if the truth becomes known."

For those traumatized by lies, Wiley said depression, anxiety and general intimacy issues can result.
David Kirschner, a psychologist and the director of the New York-based Adoption Treatment and Research Center, told ABCNEWS.com that one of the reasons Applegate may have coped well with the lie is that she may have had a gut feeling that her mother really was her biological mother.

"I have a hunch that [Applegate] may never have believed she was adopted," Kirschner said. "The opposite happens a lot with adopted kids who are lied to."

"Late discovery adoptees who find out that they aren't actually biological children often say, 'I never felt that woman was my real mother,'" he said.

Adoption Lies Less Common Now, Experts Say

Wiley said that while 25 years ago many parents hid the truth from their adopted children, it's less common to do so now. It's even less common, Wiley said, to lie to your children that they are adopted when they really aren't.

"Over time the shame factor [surrounding adoption] has diminished," Wiley said. "For birthparents and adopting parents it's considered more acceptable to adopt or relinquish children, so society is a bit more compassionate."

Several psychologists told ABCNEWS.com that Applegate's situation is quite unusual, and that there is no research about the long-term effects that could result in falsely telling your child he or she was adopted.

Academy Award-winning actress Loretta Young experienced almost an identical situation to that of Applegate and her mother. Young gave birth in 1935 to the love child of Clark Gable, and because she was unmarried she gave the baby to an orphanage.

Later, Young adopted the baby girl, according The Associated Press.

"People do unusual things when they're stigmatized," said Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. "The genesis of this was this young woman was stigmatized and she dealt with it in some way that was acceptable so she could live within the culture she was in."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/Story?id=4807497&page=1

Adoption in the Media / Judge attacks social workers who took 'abused' girl, ten, away from parents for

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 07, 2011, 03:28:07 am »

Judge attacks social workers who took 'abused' girl, ten, away from parents for no reason
By STEVE DOUGHTY

Last updated at 01:37am on 6th May 2008

A girl aged ten was taken from her parents by social workers for no reason, a High Court judge has ruled.

Mr Justice Holman said there was not "the slightest worry or concern" about the girl's welfare to justify the separation from her family.

The girl and her 11-year-old brother were sent to live with their grandparents for nearly a year on suspicion of sexual abuse raised by doctors.

Despite the girl's adamant denials of abuse, social workers took no notice.

Mr Justice Holman said that the case was a warning that the lessons of the Cleveland child abuse controversy of the 1980s have gone unheeded by doctors, social workers and the courts.

He ruled that the parents were "completely exonerated" and that the child had never been abused.

But, the judge said, the children had been damaged by the intervention of the doctors, the social workers and the state.

The Cleveland scandal was one of a series of incidents in the late 1980s in which children were removed from their homes by zealous social workers for reasons that proved to be baseless.

A total of 121 children were taken into state care in North-East England over five months after abuse was diagnosed on the basis of physical examinations.

The family of the ten-year-old girl came from Leeds. This was the city in which Dr Marietta Higgs, the paediatrician at the centre of the Cleveland scandal, learned at a conference her method of diagnosing abuse from physical examination.

In the ten-year-old's case doctors made a diagnosis of abuse when the girl was taken by her parents to hospital after they discovered a bloodstain on her underpants.

Doctors found small amounts of blood in several examinations and subjected the girl to eight examinations.

They decided that the girl's condition meant she had been abused.

Mr Justice Holman said: "There was nothing at all about this family to attract the slightest attention, worry or concern.

"All the indications were, and are, that the parents and children were a well-functioning, happy and closeknit family, in which the children thrived."

After adding that the girl was "subjected to no less than eight invasive, intimate examinations of her private parts', he said: 'Both children must inevitably have been emotionally damaged by the experiences."

The judge said social workers should have listened to the children and he also condemned the use of flimsy medical evidence to break up a family.

Signs of sexual abuse were "considerably subjective", he said.

"Even 20 years after the Cleveland inquiry, I wonder whether its lessons have been fully learned," the judge added.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=564174&in_page_id=1770

Adoption in the Media / "Birthmothers Day" - An Adoptee's Perspective

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 07, 2011, 03:25:36 am »

"Birthmothers Day" - An Adoptee's Perspective
by Anne Patterson

Of all the most condescending insulting visions of adopters and baby brokers, the day called "Birthmothers Day" would win the prize for ignorance and disregard.

While the traditional adoptee has had to live with a blind invisibility about our issues of loss and grief this celebration takes the whole thing to the largest level of illusion.

Adopted adults have lost their mothers, their fathers, their families, their names, their heritage, their history, the rights to who they were when they were born, their birth certificates, and their identities. It is quite a long list of losses, and one's that should never be ignored.

The expectation for adoptees to swallow their pain at the expression of their true feelings to keep adopters happy has been very damaging. Few adoptees are allowed to express their true feelings of loss and grief at being separated from their mothers and natural families. Birthmothers Day Celebrations is not only a total disregard for our feelings of sorrow but an overt exploitation of our pain. Not only now do we have to ignore our pain in adoption but the perversion of celebrating it is the expectation.

I would never expect any mother who surrendered a child to adoption to celebrate that loss. I would further never expect any adopted adult or adopted child to ever celebrate their loss either.

In researching what some call "Birthmothers Day Celebrations", it occurred to me who would be stupid enough and cruel enough to ever expect anyone to celebrate the loss and separations that occur in adoption. This was a question of other adopted adults enraged and insulted that such a thing had ever been created? It didn't take me long it know that this three ring circus of celebrations was all in itself both devised, orchestrated and planned by baby brokers and adopters. According to them, this celebration is a way of recognizing natural mothers.

If they valued natural mothers, and moreover those who have been separated from their natural mothers, then "Birth Mothers Day" would not exist. The presumption that we adoptees need a separate day to think of our mothers is shocking.

Most adopted adults have spent years both mourning, dreaming, fantasizing, grieving, hoping and trying to come to terms with our separations and loss in adoption. Our birthdays are of course the day of the most intimate connections to our mothers - whether they are shadows of what we hope to find, or real as in we have found and reunited with them this day is a day of reality, and deep feelings be we in contact with our natural mothers or not.

Mothers day, recognized holidays and other regular days are also days that cannot change that we are adopted. We think of our natural mothers on all kinds of days. To designate a special day and to be told that this is the day to "celebrate" adoption by others is sick.

This celebration is an in your face slap to natural mothers who are seen as not being worthy enough to be thought of, loved or cherished on what a normal society calls "Mothers Day". It is a coercive measure to dismantle the meaning of natural mothers and to give them a lower status while perpetuating the pedestal worship of adopters at their expense. What is even more damaging though is that adopted adults are supposed to participate in this. How dare a group of adopters and baby brokers tell me or anyone else what to think of our mothers, when to think of them, or to boldly be expected to celebrate our loss?

I do not know anyone who would wish to celebrate being a first mother, nor anyone who would wish to celebrate being adopted.

I interviewed many people when I heard of this disgusting orchestration; most adoptees were also insulted and certainly did not feel like celebrating, and most mothers were deeply angered and insulted that I know about this bizarre created celebration. That anyone would disregard their pain to the point of it being celebrated both angered and saddened both sides of this.

Birthmothers Day Celebration Day - It is a day of cruel expectations, illusions and manipulation. Its goal is to promote the oppression and exploitation of other women so that baby brokers can sell their children. It is sick, twisted and highly offensive to me as an adult adoptee.

It is bad enough to feel the loss of being unworthy and to have feelings of being not good enough as in being adopted those feelings are created. But to think of my mother or any mother celebrating their separation from their child is very cruel. How painful it would have felt to me to know my mother celebrated this loss. It would have if anything told me that she did not love me as she was happy to not be able to raise me. That would have turned into feelings of self-hatred and no self worth. How sick and damaging it is to children to have this type of thing going on. It would be up their with divorce day celebrations and or celebrating diseases and other tragedies.

Adoption is not anything to celebrate. Expecting the victims to celebrate it is beyond bizarre - it is as damaging and as sick as it gets. I would sincerely hope that anyone see this for the manipulation that it is.

Shame on those who participate, orchestrate and promote this bizarre parody of truth.

I personally and professionally decry and boycott all days called "Birthmothers Day Celebrations". Neither my mother who surrendered me to adoption nor I would wish to celebrate. If we created "Infertility Celebration Day" I bet the brokers might be offended. Maybe that is what I will do: bake a cake and celebrate another person's pain?? Where is humanity going when such cruel orchestrations exist?

Copyright 2002 © Anne Patterson

Anne Patterson is a reunited adopted person and professional private investigator. She has 11 years experience and a 95.4% success rate in reuniting families separated by adoption. Visit her website at http://www3.sympatico.ca/searches

http://www.exiledmothers.com/speaking_out/birthmothers_day1.html

Adoption in the Media / Judges attack adoption 'disgrace'

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 07, 2011, 03:24:47 am »

Judges attack adoption 'disgrace'

Senior judges have attacked the "disgraceful" conduct of East Sussex social services over the adoption of a child against the wishes of her father.

Lord Justice Thorpe said East Sussex County Council "was out to gain its ends by means more foul than fair" by rushing through the adoption case.

Appeal Court judges ordered that copies of their ruling should be sent to all family judges and adoption agencies.

A council spokesman said it would carefully review its part in the case.

It said it would also examine its procedures in light of what the judges had said.

"In exercising our responsibilities in cases like these we always have to achieve a difficult balance between considering the best interests of the child, dealing with matters in a timely way, and the interests of the birth parents and prospective adoptive parents," a council statement said.

'Manifest injustice'

The child, who the court ordered should not be identified, was born in November 2006 to parents who had had a casual relationship.

The appellant, identified only as MC, did not know he was the father until the council served care proceedings on him and asked him for a DNA test.

At the time the child was with her mother but the council had recommended adoption.

The Court of Appeal in London heard that although the father was served with the proceedings he was in hospital after a heart attack and took no part.

He eventually learned of the adoption plans once the child, known as J-L, was in the care of foster parents.

He alerted his solicitors who immediately contacted the council and applied for permission to revoke the placement order at Brighton County Court.

Barbara MacDonald, the lawyer who acted for the father, said the hearing was due to take place on 30 January, but on the day before the council ratified the adoption panel's decision.

She said it meant that the father, when he got to court on the 30 January, "couldn't be heard by the judge".

Lord Justice Thorpe said the council should have responded "promptly and openly" to the solicitors' inquiries and the father had "suffered a manifest injustice".

"The council's failure to answer that letter and subsequent placement on the eve of the hearing give rise to the clearest inference that the council was out to gain its ends by means more foul than fair," he said.

The judges added that no evidence in response to the father's statement was heard at an adoption meeting.

Appeal rejected

But the judges' panel ruled with "regret" that they could not allow the father to challenge the adoption order in court.

Lord Justice Wall said "a travesty of good practice" had happened in the case but ruled that the best course of action would be to ensure such conduct could not happen elsewhere.

He added that he could see no reason why a High Court judicial review should not declare a decision such as that taken by the agency as unlawful.

"If it did so, it would quash the decision to place the child for adoption," he said.

A spokesman for the father's solicitors said they would be seeking legal aid to pursue the judge's suggestion.

East Sussex County Council said it regretted that the father's late intervention was not acknowledged by letter

"It remains our view that it would not have been in the best interests of the child to delay the adoption process further and we are pleased to say that the child is happy and thriving."

Nadine Taylor, from Fathers 4 Justice, said the case illustrated similar problems experienced by many "who had no voice".

"I don't think I have seen anything positive about social services since I've been doing this work... it's as if they just ignore the fact that fathers and grandparents exist."

She added: "We have a father who's been denied the opportunity to be a loving father to his own, his own child, his own flesh and blood.

"And on top of that you have grandparents who would have probably adored the fact that they had a grandchild to dote on, and they again have been cut out of that child's life."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/7378031.stm

Adoption in the Media / HOW WAS A SEX MONSTER ABLE TO ADOPT 3 CHILDREN?

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 07, 2011, 03:23:38 am »

HOW WAS A SEX MONSTER ABLE TO ADOPT 3 CHILDREN?

Wednesday April 30,2008
By Padraic Flanagan AUSTRIAN authorities faced a storm of criticism yesterday for allowing Josef Fritzl to adopt three of his daughter’s children despite his sex crime history.

He was convicted at least twice, for arson and ****, and jailed in the late 1960s.

It also emerged that the apparently model citizen of Amstetten regularly took sex tourism trips to Thailand.

Officials said yesterday they were trying to trace records to discover how he slipped through social service checks.
But prosecutors fear they had been erased due to the statute-of-limitations law by the time Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie, 60, came to adopt.

The Austrian public is demanding to know how Fritzl could adopt the three children “found” outside his home.

They were left with notes he forced his captive daughter Elisabeth to write, saying she could not raise them.

In fact, they were fathered by Fritzl, who repeatedly **** Elisabeth in the dungeon.

According to a former employer, Fritzl had been convicted of attempting to **** a woman from Linz in the 1960s. And one 50-year-old neighbour revealed: “I was 10 at the time, but I remember how we children were afraid to play near Mr Fritzl’s house because of the rumours he had **** a woman and spent some time in jail for it.”

Fritzl is also known to have regularly travelled to Thailand for up to four weeks at a time.

Police discounted claims that he must have had help to keep his captives alive because of the length of the trips, saying they believed he bought food in bulk before going. Photographs have emerged of Fritzl in 1998 enjoying a month in the notorious Thai sex resort of Pattaya – considered a haven for paedophiles.

Although he holidayed without his family he bought children’s clothes and lingerie. German friends reportedly joined his “men’s vacations”.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/42972/How-was-a-sex-monster-able-to-adopt-3-children-

Adoption in the Media / We expose evil baby trader who supplies children for rich by preying on poor

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 07, 2011, 03:22:44 am »

We expose evil baby trader who supplies children for rich by preying on poor

By Mazher Mahmood

IN A stench-ridden Indian village the News of the World has uncovered a vile trade in human life—cashing in on dirt-poor families ready to SELL their kids at £1,200 a time.

At the centre of this wicked industry is a shameless, grasping MRS FIXIT, ripping off both the parents and childless rich Westerners—even though she's meant to be a caring SOCIAL WORKER.

We expose the scandal as pop superstar Madonna prepares to journey to India in search of a second foreign child to adopt.

Pushy

And news travels fast. Desperate for cash, £1-a-day labourer and dad-of-five Imtiaz Alam made this desperate pitch to our investigators: "Madonna can choose ANY of my children."

Then astonishingly, just like a pushy car dealer haggling on the forecourt, he insisted Madge does not have to settle for a second-hand model.

"My wife is due to give birth again in three months," he told us. "Madonna can have a BRAND NEW baby if she wants.

"She's such a big star I know she'll bring up my child properly. And we'll be happy with her money. It couldn't be better."

It's the promise of £1,200 from crafty child trader Nida Warse that has lured poor Imtiaz, 36, and his wife—plus hundreds like them—into her racket.

Greedy Warse, a chubby woman in her 40s, runs her lucrative empire from the small town of Moradabad about 150 miles north of Delhi in northern India.

As a social worker she should be ensuring the safety and well-being of youngsters.

Instead, she offers her human wares as if they were mere trinkets to be bartered over on a market stall of misery.

And the £3,500 price tags presented to wealthy would-be parents means she creams off a massive £2,300 mark-up on EVERY illegal deal.

She's profiteering from the misery of her impoverished neighbours who misguidedly hope to improve their lot AND secure a better life in the West for their kids.

The scam has certainly secured Warse one of the best houses in the area.

Following a tip-off our investigators visited her home posing as a childless British couple desperate to adopt.

Within minutes Warse was cynically proffering a range of children for sale.

"Just choose which one appeals to you and I do all the paperwork for you," she boasted.

"Even if they don't have birth certificates, I will sort everything out for you. As a social worker here, I have all the contacts. I have connections with families and doctors and I get to know who'd be willing to part with their children."

Astonishingly Warse then called in three children to parade for our reporters, like wary contestants on a sick talent show.

Breed

"This young girl is Simran, she's about four," said Warse as the first one entered the room. "And next is Fardeen, he's also four. And then I have this one, Amaan—he's just two years old.

"If you don't like these, I have more to show you. I can even get you an unborn child but the problem is I've already agreed a deal on that one. You'll have to beat the price."

Disgustingly, Warse then brags: "I wouldn't give you any rubbish. It's important to know about the breed.

"A lot of girls get pregnant just to sell the babies, but you don't know the background, you don't know the genes.

"If the kids are good looking the parents don't like to give them up easily. Its not easy to get pretty kids like these."

As two more young children came into the room and joined the line-up Warse boasted of past deals. "One British couple who couldn't have children of their own were referred to me through a doctor in Delhi," she said. "I did everything for them.

"You can try orphanages but it takes a lot of time and paperwork and, above all, you don't know the pedigree of the child.

"Is it from a low-caste family? Is it illegitimate? Is it the son of a murderer? Bloodline is very important."

Warse then promised that, after the sale, the natural parents would NEVER see their children again.

"I make sure they never know where their children have gone," she vowed.

Asked the cost of buying one of her current stock of children, Warse lied: "The parents wanted 500,000 rupees (£6,000) but I knocked them down to 300,000 (£3,600) each.

"Times are hard here and life is so expensive. There are families who have 12 people sleeping in one tiny room.

Stink

"Parents are willing to give up one or two children but they expect enough money to help change their lives."

Our reporters insisted on meeting Fardeen and Amaan's parents before supposedly considering them for adoption. Reluctantly, Warse took us to their village of Warsi Nagar, a 15-minute drive away. There, in the cramped backstreets where the stink from open sewers fouled the air, they were introduced to Imtiaz and his pregnant wife Roomana.

Even though Warse claimed she had already fixed a buyer for the unborn baby she offered to switch it to us in a special discount package deal if we took TWO children.

"I will arrange all the paperwork on the India side, everything that the British High Commission need," she added.

"You have to sort out the England side, all the reports and documents you need there."

While Warse took a break from her hard sell, Imtiaz chatted to us and made his outrageous offer to supply Madonna— already mum to baby David from Malawi and now looking for adoption No2 with less red tape than she's encountered in Africa.

Imtiaz said: "Life is hard but Nida Warse said she will pay us 100,000 rupees (£1,200) each if we give up our children. It's the only way out of our problems."

His wife Roomana, 33, added: "I will do whatever Nida says. She has looked after me and I have to listen to her.

"I will give up my baby because she has said it is best for our family." Then Warse pounced in a bid to close the transaction for two children.

"I need a £2,000 deposit in my bank by the end of the week to confirm the deal," she said. "Otherwise you may lose the kids. There's a lot of people out there willing to pay more.

"You can be sure the deal will go through smoothly. You hand me the money and I personally hand you the children.

"The parents will not change their minds and call the police to investigate at the last moment, as has happened in the past."

They won't need to. Our dossier, including covert video recordings, is available to the authorities.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2704_baby_traders.shtml

Adoption in the Media / Justice minister Prentice describes views as 'odious'

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 04, 2011, 04:45:22 pm »

Justice minister Prentice describes views as 'odious'

Posted: 25 April 2008

writes Paul Stephenson

Claims by MP John Hemming that there is a "massive social experiment in forced adoption" in the UK have been rejected in parliament.

In a debate on family law this week, justice minister Bridget Prentice told the House of Commons there was "no coherent evidence" to support the "odious claims surrounding so-called forced adoptions".

Hemming, Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham, Yardley, had used the debate to put forward claims about the law being "systematically undermined" in family courts, and of incompetent and corrupt social workers, lawyers, experts or judges forcing through the adoption of children against the wishes of their parents.

However, Prentice told the Commons: "Instead of ranting, we should take a comprehensive, considered and objective view of what we can do to make life better for vulnerable children."

She added: "I do not believe that there is systematic corruption and unprofessionalism throughout the social services, local authorities, the courts or elsewhere."

Prentice said Hemming’s claims, that "honest, skilled and hard-working professionals would seek to cause children to be adopted unnecessarily" were "unacceptable".

Hemming, who chairs the Justice for Families campaign, used the debate to raise a number of individual cases he has been involved with.

However, he claimed MPs could do nothing "to stop social workers who lie to the courts because they want to win a case and hit their adoption targets, or to stop doctors who provide rubbishy, unproven and unchallenged medical evidence that destroys families, but fills their bank accounts".

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2008/04/25/108002/mps-dismiss-hemmings-forced-adoption-claims.html

Adoption in the Media / Madonna ‘cuts off’ father from adopted son

« Last post by Montraviatommygun on March 04, 2011, 04:43:20 pm »

Madonna ‘cuts off’ father from adopted son

The father of the Malawian boy adopted by Madonna has accused the pop star of severing contact between him and his son and says he regrets ever putting the child up for adoption.

Yohane Banda, 33, said the singer had reneged on a promise to allow him to maintain regular contact with his son David, whom he last saw in 2006.

Banda, a peasant farmer, said he had not received any correspondence since the three-year-old was taken to London by Madonna and her husband, the film director Guy Ritchie.

Madonna, 49, began adoption proceedings after meeting the boy at an orphanage in Malawi. At the time it was claimed that the singer had used her celebrity status to fast-track the adoption, an allegation she denies.

The adoption is due to be approved formally by a court in Lilongwe, the Malawian capital, next month. Because the terms of the agreement are secret under Malawian law, it is not clear whether Banda’s intervention will jeopardise the adoption.

Banda, who first expressed his frustration at not being kept informed about his son’s progress a year ago, said the star had failed to address his concerns and he now regretted giving the boy up.

“I feel robbed. I should be able to see my son and say hello,” Banda said. “I don’t know how he is growing, what person he is turning into. This pains me because it looks like he is not my son any more.”

Banda, from Lipunga, a village 100 miles from Lilongwe, claims Madonna promised to keep him updated about his son’s well-being and his progress adapting to life with the celebrity couple and their two children.

“I was promised by Madonna that I would be able to see my son,” he said. “The government people that were coming to see me also assured me that they would facilitate my meetings with my son. I miss him so much because he is my only son, the only gift of life from God – all others have died.

“I told her [Madonna] that although I was giving her my son she should look after him well . . . I told her that she should raise him, educate him and make sure that he does not forget me and Malawi.

“Now I fear that my child will never know his roots and will not know me. He is the only surviving child I have and I regret the whole thing now. It’s so painful sometimes to realise that I have been forgotten.”

Banda claims the star snubbed him during a visit to the country in April last year. Madonna funds six orphanages through her Raising Malawi charity and is setting up one for 4,000 children in a village outside the capital.

“The last time Madonna came to Malawi, I didn’t know she was here and that she visited the orphanage. [If I had known] I would have been given a chance to see my son,” he said.

Banda said the only recent pictures he had seen of David were shown to him by journalists and the orphanage where his son lived before he was adopted. He added that he had not been allowed to keep any of the photographs. Banda said he hoped he would be given the opportunity to see his son again when Madonna, who has been granted temporary custody of the boy, returns to Malawi to conclude the adoption.

“I am praying that I have a chance to see him. All I want is for them to maintain contact as promised, to teach him I am his real father,” he said.

In a documentary premiered in America last week, the singer said that when she first saw David, nobody knew the whereabouts of his father. When she returned to see him three months later, Madonna said he “had pneumonia, malaria and God knows what else”.

The Malawian government has already recommended that the adoption go ahead. A report by an official who visited the singer’s London home last year concluded that the adoption was “in the best interests” of the boy.

Justin Dzonzi, a lawyer and prominent critic of the adoption, said both Madonna and the Malawian government had a moral duty to maintain contact between Banda and his son.

His group, the Human Rights Consultative Committee, is calling for a change in the law to ban adoptions by foreigners.

“If the government and Madonna promised, as is being claimed, to keep the biological father updated on his child, then they have to honour that for the sake of the poor man,” he said.

“By allowing the adoption of his child he clearly surrenders his parental rights to Madonna and her husband but he still deserves some news on his boy.”

Yohane Banda is no relation to Mabvuto Banda, the journalist who wrote this article

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3822639.ece