Better Care Network highlights recent news pieces related to the issue of children's care around the world. These pieces include newspaper articles, interviews, audio or video clips, campaign launches, and more.
When Mugalu* was adopted, his birth family says they were told they would still be able to speak to him regularly and he would come back for visits. “They said we would be one big happy family,” says his mother, Sylvia, wiping away tears. But Sylvia, 40, has not seen her son since he was adopted from Uganda almost seven years ago by an American couple. She is now fighting to get her son back, taking her case to the high court in Uganda and exploring her legal options in the US.
Professor Megan Davis, author of the recent Family is Culture review, has criticized the government of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) for its decision to "reduce funding to the peak body for Aboriginal children in out-of-home care," says this article from the Sydney Morning Herald.
A survey administered by Save the Children in Indonesia has revealed several key risks faced by children and families in Indonesia as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to this article from the Jakarta Post.
A U.S. couple who gained popularity on social media, including through documenting their adoption of a child from China on their YouTube channel, "are facing a backlash after they revealed he had been placed with another family," according to this article from BBC News.
"Latin America has been declared the new epicentre of the global COVID-19 pandemic," says this press release from SOS Children's Villages. "With weak healthcare systems, informal economies and high levels of inequality, the crisis presents an unprecedented challenge for struggling families. Children are especially vulnerable and their families risk collapsing."
This analysis focuses on the case of Pedersen et al. v. Norway, where the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, Court) addressed the issues of adoption and post-adoption contact.
"Citing the coronavirus to seal the border to an unprecedented extent, the [U.S.] administration is engaged in a pressure campaign against immigrant parents to get them to give up either their kids or their legal claims to protection in the U.S.," says this article from the Los Angeles Times.
Families with children in foster care in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador are "in the process of being reunited with their kids after a lengthy suspension of in-person visits due to COVID-19," according to this article from CBC News.
A new report from Change the Record "highlights numerous ways Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been disproportionately affected by the more punitive and restrictive policy responses to the pandemic [in Australia]," including Indigenous children in out-of-home care, according to this article from the Conversation.
"Children in Canada’s foster care homes have gone weeks without being able to see their parents in person and plans for safe reunions are still uncertain," says this article from Reuters.