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TWO MOTHERS
Sat, 2007-11-10 23:08 - Lulu
FAMILY IN INDIA
FAMILY IN UNITED KINGDOM
What do they have in common:
Their child was stolen!
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE:
The UK family do not know where their child is.
The Indian family knows their child was adopted in The Netherlands.
AND
The UK family gets all the support: millions of euros (donated in part by J.K. Rowling/Harry Potter) to finance a huge media campain.
The Indian family gets nothing. Dutch TV Network exposed their misery, but the Dutch Minister of Justice denies all responsability and considers the child can stay in The Netherlands. And India remains silent...
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Now suppose...
Suppose the child of the UK couple would somehow end up being adopted by a Moroccan family, who unknowingly of any malacy raise Madeleine McCann, would in that case the same judicial decision be made?
Indian vs UK
Well, don't think so...
Two Mothers different classes
in 1991 21 month old Ben Needham went missing on the Island of Kos. Circumstances were similar in some ways to Maddie Mccann but the response was completely different. Ben's mum was a single parent who along with her parents and young brother had moved to the Greek Island to make a better life for themselves. On a sunny afternoon in broad daylight little Ben vanished off the face of the earth from out side the family home. The Maccans story is well known and the investigation is in the media almost everyday (as it should be). Maddies parents both of whom are well respected Doctors have had mass media support and all legal costs funded by donations. Even Richard Branson the multimillionaire has offered to pay for anything they family needs. They were provided with the funds to remain in Portugal for as long as needed.
Kerry, Bens mother received no help at all. Media attention died down within a matter of weeks and she was let down by the Greek police investigating Bens disappearance in the worst possible way. The whole family had to leave the Island of Kos shortly after Ben went missing due to financial reasons. Why did no one come forward to offer financial help to this family who clearly needed it. Ben will be 18 shortly and his family with the help of a computer whizz have had a photograph done of how Ben would look today in the hope of either Ben or someone who knows him recognising him.
It has from the beginning been widely thought that Ben was taken by someone for illegal adoption. Greece at the time announced that Ben must be dead because 'no Greek person would steal a child'. Illegal adoption and especially that of blue eyed blond haired children (as Ben was) has been rife in Greece since the 1940's. Greece does not even have to this day a central data base of Birth records, making illegal abduction and adoption an easy mission.
Even if Ben is to be found and the adoption theory proven, who ever took him will go unpunished because Greece also has a 15 year statute of limitations, which for Ben has passed, so no one can ever be prosecuted for any crime towards Ben. The attitude in the UK, I'm ashamed to say, has for the Mccanns been sympathetic (even though they left 3 children under the age of 5 alone in an apartment) and they have been offered help at every turning. The same peoples attitude towards Kerry, Bens 19 year old mother was a complete contrast. She was portrayed as a single parent who had failed to keep her child safe and offered no help or compassion. The Greek police have now admitted they made grave errors in the immediate search for Ben but what good is that now. Does society really think that a persons financial status is what decides a persons worthiness and goodness. Sadly in the UK it seems to be the case.
Where in the world are the traffic-stoppers???
http://www.newsmonster.co.uk/toddler-ben-needham-disappeared-over-15-years-ago-and-mum-kerry-still-preys-for-his-re.html
She had rushed from a farmhouse which she and husband Eddy, 56, were renovating for their new life together with Kerry and little Ben.She broke the news that blonde-haired Ben, then just 21-months old, had disappeared sometime that afternoon from the gardens behind the farmhouse.
At first Christine thought Ben was with Kerry’s brother, Stephen, 32. But when Stephen returned on his moped to the farmhouse without Ben, one of the longest running missing persons cases in British history began.
Fifteen years later, Ben, who would now be aged 16 if he is still alive, hasn’t been found.There have been sightings, DNA tests on one child suspected to have been snatched which turned out to be a red herring, numerous appeals, rewards of up to £250,000 offered, photographic reconstructions of how Ben would look today, but still Ben’s fate remains a mystery.
Ben’s elder sister Leighanna, 12, who shares his fair complexion, was even taken to the island as a toddler to take part in a reconstruction of Ben’s disappearance but with no result other than more heartache for Kerry and the Needham family.The emotional cost to Kerry, now 34, has been immense.
“There are no more leads to follow. There is nothing left to cling on to,” says Kerry, who has always believed Ben was kidnapped for money and handed over to an illegal adoption agency. Today she believes he is living a ‘normal’ childhood, the son of a well off family in Australia or the United States.“If there was something I could do I would do it. If there was somewhere I could go I would go,” says Kerry.
“All I have left is my mother’s instinct which says ‘hold on’ because as a mother I will never give up on Ben.“I have reached the stage now where I know my family and I have done everything we can. I have searched my heart out for him.“But now I am waiting for Ben to find me because I believe one day he will. I’m not really religious but I prey that he will find me. “Wherever he is he is 16 years old now and if he is anything like his sister Leighanna he will start asking questions because he will be inquisitive.“He will ask: ‘Where is my birth certificate? Why don’t I look like my mother and father? Why do I feel different?’
“When that process happens he will find me. I believe that. I have to.”
But there are darker thoughts which Kerry has more difficulty talking about.“Sometimes I admit I believe it would have been easier on me and my family if they had found a body.“We could have moved on. But because he could still be alive we have that hope which has slowly been tearing us apart emotionally.
“I don’t think I could face another 15 years of empty hope yet if you gave me a crystal ball and it showed Ben returning to me after another fifteen years I would gladly wait. It’s hard to describe.“My father has always blamed himself because he was working on the farmhouse nearby when Ben disappeared.“Because he felt he had lost Ben he felt it was his duty to find him and for years he followed every lead. It nearly killed him and I had to tell him to stop.
”The burden of Ben’s disappearance has also taken its toll on Kerry who returned to her home city of Sheffield after losing her son. The pain drove her to attempt suicide and in the first years after Ben disappeared she took two overdoses and slit her writs. Her relationship with Simon buckled under the pressure of the relentless search for Ben and after he was convicted of robbery in 1994, just two weeks after the birth of their second child Leighanna, Kerry broke up with him.
After that there was an eight year relationship with former boxer Pierce Mount and a fling with a dancer called Jimmy Santos Yan who she met during a holiday in the Dominican Republic in 2004.“I’ve been an emotionally yo yo” says Kerry.“Pierce was Pierce. He made me laugh and Leighanna called him dad. But he couldn’t cope with parenthood.
“When he drank he got rough and that was the end of that. We split up because I didn’t want Leighanna around that sort of behaviour.“I know what has happened to Ben has made me over protective of Leighanna but I think that is only natural. I won’t take any risks with her. “After Pierce I wasn’t interested in men at all. It was me and Leighanna and the search for Ben. That is all that mattered.“But I met Jimmy on the first holiday I had had since I lost Ben.
It was a holiday romance and at the time I thought it might be the real thing.“But when I sent him $1000 to help him come to Sheffield, I didn’t hear from him again. You live and learn.”After that Kerry openly admits, “My trust in men was zero. Leighanna and I had enough to cope with without being let down by men and I kept myself to myself after Jimmy.
”Keeping herself to herself involved locking herself in her well kept three-bedroomed council house on the anniversaries of Ben’s disappearance and staring at pictures of him, weeping and then pulling herself together before Leighanna returned from school. Or falling asleep alone and experiencing the recurring dream of Ben being returned to her front door by Det Sgt Malcolm Silk of South Yorkshire Police with the words: “I’ve got someone here who wants to see you.”That is until handsome fence builder Craig Grist, 23, who is 11 years her junior, walked into her life.
Kerry was holding down a job as a receptionist at fencing firm in Sheffield, where she still works, when Craig asked her out.She turned him down – every day for 18 months – still frightened of another disappointment. But that changed just over a year ago when Kerry, who says Craig has kind eyes, wasn’t going to take no for an answer.“He’s my toy boy,” jokes Kerry, who despite the tough shell she has built around herself to survive the disappointments and heartache of Ben’s loss, still manages to be optimistic.“Actually Craig is anything but a toy boy. He is a man with two daughters of his own from a previous relationship – Kiera, five and Regan, two - and he knows how to face up to his responsibilities like a man.
“Last year on July 24th, for the first time we did something as a family to try and be happy. Craig arranged a barbeque and we had a good time. We weren’t forgetting about Ben, but I am very aware that Leighanna must come first now, and as a family we were happy. “I’m not sure what we will do this year. I will have to see how I feel. But thanks to Craig we coping better these days. ”After a whirlwind romance we can reveal the couple got married at a Sheffield registry office on April 24 this year and have just returned from honeymoon in northern Cyprus where Kerry’s mum and dad have now set up home.
“We had a wedding ceremony in Cyprus too and we have had a wonderful, wonderful time,” says Kerry. “My late grandmother Edna always wanted me to marry using her wedding ring and that is what I have done.”Craig, who is a quietly spoken but resolute man said: “The age difference is not an issue to me at all.
Why should it be? No one would bat an eye if it was the other way round.“When you fall for somebody you don’t see an age or a history you see a person who you know you connect with.“Mind you, it took 18 months of trying. When Kerry finally agreed to come out with me I just punched the air and shouted ‘Yes!’.
Since then we’ve never looked back.“I don’t talk about Ben unless Kerry wants to in which case we chat about him. But otherwise I don’t believe it’s my place.“We’ve got a long time ahead of us and whatever the future holds for Kerry, Leighanna and Ben, I’m here for them. I’m sure they know that.”Kerry is moving on with her life and trying to leave the dark days behind her. But she knows it will be a difficult balancing act.“I’m two different people living under one roof,” she says.
“I’m now Mrs Grist with a husband and duty to Craig to make our marriage a happy one.“And I’m also Kerry Needham who will always keep my hope alive that Ben and I will be reunited.“When I start to hope too much for Ben’s return I can get depressed and I have to guard against that and be Mrs Grist for my sake and for Craig and Leighanna’s sake.”
profiteering
As if this family hasn't enough sorrow in their lives, there are others that try to profit from their misery, read this:
Dollars in abduction and adoption
In terms of money-exchange, how can money replace a mother's child, anyway?
When and where in adoption is the natural mother given cash for her baby? The money is given to the third-party broker.
"Donations" are then offered to those working for the agents in operation.
Welcome to the world of non-hostile take-overs.
Kidnapped for adoption
Kids 'kidnapped for Aussie adoption'
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24223562-12377,00.html
By staff writers | August 22, 2008
POOR Indian children are being kidnapped and adopted out to Australian families through state government agencies, authorities say.
More than a dozen “pretty” children kidnapped in Indian slums have ended up being adopted in Australia, TIME Magazine reported.
According to the magazine, at least 120 children were kidnapped from slums in southern India and were sold to a Chennai-based adoption agency Malaysian Social Services (MSS) for as little as $280, before being sent overseas.
Police in India told the magazine that after MSS bought the children, new identities were created and the children sent overseas.
According to one set of paperwork, the mother had wanted her child to go up for adoption because of “the social stigma of the child being born outside marriage”.
In an interview with the magazine, an Indian mother named Fatima said her two-year-old daughter Zabeen was plucked off the street, thrown into a motorised rickshaw then disappeared.
"I thought someone had taken her for her kidney,” Fatima said.
Seven years after Zabeen vanished, it was discovered that she had been processed by MSS and police in India now say she was adopted by a family in Queensland.
Indian police believe at least 13 kidnapped children were adopted by Australian families.
Indian authorities are now hoping to question officials from the Queensland Families Department.
Queensland Child Safety Minister Margaret Keech told the magazine that the allegations were “very concerning”.
“(Officials) will work very closely with federal and state agencies to investigate these claims,” Ms Keech said.
Police also hope to interview people who may have adopted kidnapped children.
The process of elimination
I'm curious, how are police going to interview people who may have adopted kidnapped children, especially if a birth certificate and other identifying information can be changed and falsified before that final adoption payment? [Gives new meaning to an agency's "additional fees and services", doesn't it?]
Knowing this type of falsified documentation DOES exist, makes statements like Kerry's (from the original article posted above) that much sadder and tragic:
Changing information
Most of my children have had their paperwork changed in some way: birth dates to suit flights home to America; birth dates
because the real one was unknown; who had legal custody when relinquished; etc. It can be done in the birth country and easily in America. If any of my children were kidnapped, even I would not know. It is truly tragic and very sad when a child
grows up with NO chance of finding out who they really are.
"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy