{"id":3296,"date":"2013-02-18T14:37:26","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T14:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.againstchildtrafficking.org\/?p=3296"},"modified":"2013-02-18T14:37:26","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T14:37:26","slug":"indian-family-in-fight-to-repatriate-stolen-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/indian-family-in-fight-to-repatriate-stolen-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian family in fight to repatriate stolen daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Source: http:\/\/www.theage.com.au<\/a><\/div>\n<\/dt>\n
Date February 19,\u00a0 2013<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n\"ON\n

Fatima (left) and Salya attend the High Court in India in 2010.<\/p>\n

AN INDIAN mother, whose child was kidnapped and illegally adopted to\u00a0 Australia, has accused the country’s officials and the girl’s adoptive parents\u00a0 of blocking the now teenager from having contact with her and of making no\u00a0 effort to try and repatriate the girl.<\/p>\n

Fatima, who only uses one name, will travel to New Delhi on Tuesday to try\u00a0 and meet with officials and hold a news\u00a0 conference in a bid to be reunited with\u00a0 her daughter Zabeen who was kidnapped by\u00a0 child-stealers near the family home in\u00a0 the slums of Chennai in 1998.<\/p>\n

The then two-year-old was sold to a corrupt adoption agency that\u00a0 forged\u00a0 records to make it appear she had been abandoned. She and another\u00a0 child were\u00a0\u00a0 fraudulently represented as siblings and adopted by\u00a0 a family in Queensland.<\/p>\n

Indian police uncovered the scam in 2005 and arrested the child-stealers who\u00a0 provided details of the children\u00a0 who\u00a0 were stolen. Their information was\u00a0 matched with adoption agency records\u00a0 that confirmed Zabeen’s situation,\u00a0 prompting police to alert Australian authorities. They\u00a0 said they would\u00a0 investigate, but did not return the girl to India.<\/p>\n

Fatima and her husband Salya, who have three other children, say since then\u00a0\u00a0 their efforts to be reunited with the girl have been\u00a0 rebuffed by Australian\u00a0 authorities and the girl’s adoptive family while Indian authorities appear\u00a0 powerless to lobby for the girl’s return.<\/p>\n

The couple’s only contact after years of lobbying was a short Skype\u00a0 conversation with the girl in September last year and the brief exchange of some\u00a0 photos via email – a communication arranged by European NGO Against Child\u00a0 Trafficking (ACT), which tracks down trafficked Indian children. Following the\u00a0 Skype chat, all other contact was blocked.<\/p>\n

Fatima and Salya’s Indian lawyer Selvi Palani this week said the family\u00a0 wanted ”steps taken to ensure the child is sent back to them”.<\/p>\n

”The family wants nothing except the girl. They say no amount of money can\u00a0 compensate the loss,” she said.<\/p>\n

”All they want is for pictures to be sent to them and for them to be kept\u00a0 informed about what she is doing. They will be happy if the girl visits them as\u00a0 they want to know that she is all right.”<\/p>\n

”They were demanding for her to send pictures of her which she also sent at\u00a0 the time. They were of course shocked to see their girl in a bikini as they\u00a0 belong to a conservative Muslim family.”<\/p>\n

Ms Palani said the girl may have to give a DNA sample.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Fairfax Media tracked down the Australian adoptive parents who\u00a0 said that they had been willing to allow contact between their adoptive daughter\u00a0 and the Indian family, on the grounds that there would be no attempt to forcibly\u00a0 repatriate the girl to India.<\/p>\n

But the adoptive father said the biological parents had not agreed to the\u00a0 deal.<\/p>\n

”We want to do something. We have been very worried,\u00a0 but we are not going\u00a0 to do anything unless there is an agreement that they would not try and\u00a0 repatriate the girl against her and our will,” said the adoptive father who\u00a0 cannot be identified under Queensland\u00a0 law.<\/p>\n

”We got a lawyer to write a letter to their lawyer seeking this\u00a0 \u2026 but we\u00a0 never got a reply.”<\/p>\n

The adoptive father said he would not approve a DNA test as he feared\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the\u00a0 evidence would be grounds for\u00a0 repatriation under international law.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: http:\/\/www.theage.com.au Date February 19,\u00a0 2013 Fatima (left) and Salya attend the High Court in India in 2010. AN INDIAN mother, whose child was kidnapped and illegally adopted to\u00a0 Australia, has accused the country’s officials and the girl’s adoptive parents\u00a0 of blocking the now teenager from having contact with her and of making no\u00a0 effort… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,38,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3298,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3296\/revisions\/3298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.againstchildtrafficking.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}