There's adoption-related news from all over today ...

I must start out with what was breaking news this week, but doesn't square at all with other reports we've seen.

Do you recall this post from the 17th ... UNICEF's big PR spin on "Signs of Progress and Momentum in Global Response to Children and AIDS," that I published with hopes that you'd read with an eye toward digging through the fluff?

Well, a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, or maybe just a brilliant example of how nincompoopish the whole UN organization (unorganization) actually is, popped up before me without any prompting.

The breaking news? A UN report titled,"International
Response to children with Aids 'tragically indifferent'".

Ach! Will someone slap the lot of them, please?

In Kenya, the Committee on the Rights of the Child met this week and reviewed the second periodic report covering all aspects of the present situation regarding children in that country. As one of the 193 parties to The Hague Convention, Kenya is obliged to present periodic reports on its efforts to comply with the provisions of the treaty.

Here's a small excerpt from this very long and detailed account:

In preliminary remarks, Committee Expert Hatem Kotrane, who served as Rapporteur for the report of Kenya, said that with the political transition in Kenya, a number of political and economic reforms had been undertaken by the Government, and those reforms were beginning to bear fruit. That was evidenced in a number of new laws, and in the ratification of international instruments, among other things. Among the Committee's remaining concerns were the questions of children's institutions, healthcare, refugee children, and children in conflict with the law, and those subjects would be addressed in the Committee's concluding observations and recommendations.

Other Experts raised a series of questions pertaining to, among other things, how the Area Advisory Councils — the district and divisional level bodies responsible for children's issues — worked and what protection was available for children in areas where there was no such body; the lack of an independent follow-up mechanism for implementation of the Convention; discrimination against children born out of wedlock and concern that the law on birth registration was only available to children born in wedlock; the continuing use of corporal punishment in the home, and in institutions, and the insufficiency of a ban on corporal punishment in schools only; and discrimination against girls.

Anyone with an interest in Kenya will want to read the entire piece.

Portugal is preparing to open its doors to African orphans.

a ... reception centre to be established in northern Portugal will "take in orphan children who are still in foreign countries, even their home countries, waiting for fate to give direction to their lives. This will be a means of preventing them from becoming child soldiers, for instance," said Tito de Morais.

To date, despite its special relationship with several African countries that were former Portuguese colonies, "Portugal has not had a strong tradition of receiving unaccompanied children," she said. "In 2006 we have only taken in 10, but since the government expressed an openness to welcome African orphans, we immediately went to work so that in two years time, or two and a half, the reception centre should be ready," she added.

In an article titled, "Celebrating adoption in Thailand" , a BBC producer, mother of a Thai-born child, gives an account of her family's participation in a,"series of events, organised by the Thai Government, for hundreds of adopted returnees and their new parents from around the world."

Sixteen-hundred people from six hundred countries came together in Bangkok for a week of events focused on the children, including some reunions.

Wow.