Word: australia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...file held pictures of a girl who had been sent to Australia in 2000. One of the gang confessed to stealing the child from Washermanpet, and the photo was matched to the missing Zabeen. Her parents had left the city to escape the bad memories, but in mid-2005 the police found them. "They said, We think we have found your daughter," says Fatima. "I was so happy. We both went to the police station and it was midnight when we got there. They took us into separate rooms and showed us photos from the MSS books. Separately we both...
...Three weeks ago the CBI, which investigates corruption and terrorism, sent an Interpol request to Australia to interview the Queensland authorities and the couple who adopted Zabeen. CBI sources tell TIME the investigation in Australia will also attempt to discover how much money was paid to MSS: kidnapping a minor is seen as a far more serious crime when the perpetrators profit from it. The CBI believes Australian parents were tricked by MSS and will face no charges over their adoptions, but insists that the biological parents should be allowed to see their children again in India. "When she knows...
...sort it out," they say. A spokesman for Australian Attorney-General Robert McClelland says the allegations "show why there cannot be any relaxation of standards when it comes to verifying the identity of children adopted under the inter-country program." While he says the government "is endeavoring to improve Australia-wide practice in respect to overseas adoption," Zabeen's parents would like to see firm control taken, with foreign adoptions handled by federal rather than state agencies. "It has been extremely nerve-wracking," they told TIME last week. "So far we have managed to keep this all away from...
...would deal with MSS. W.A. Child Protection director general Terry Murphy says he is unable to comment on the case until archived files are recovered, but notes: "We are aware that MSS are not currently licensed by the Central Authority in India to undertake inter-country adoptions." Elsewhere in Australia, it was a different story. MSS admission papers reveal that after the W.A. case, children were adopted to Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland. Some of the documents bear the same suspiciously vague details of mother and address as Zabeen's MSS papers...
...Alarm bells Authorities had another warning in 1999, when MSS' licence was suspended after one of its staff was arrested for handling four babies stolen from a hospital. He passed the children to another adoption agency, Madras Social Service Guild, known as MASOS, which has also sent children to Australia. Charges against the agencies were dropped, since it could not be proved they knew the children were stolen; both had their licenses restored...