Anurag Kamble

A woman doctor has been detained by the cops for selling babies in Ulhasnagar. A social activist posed as a mother and met the doctor three months ago seeking a son, but the doctor couldn't arrange for one immediately. However, a couple of days ago the doctor called the woman and said she could procure a boy against a payment of Rs 7 lakh. The doctor was caught red-handed while handing over the baby.

Social activists had got a hint about Dr Chitra Chainani being involved in the baby-selling racket and decided to expose her. Her clinic is located at Meena Apartment, Bhagat Singh Kawa Ram Chowk area of Camp Number 3 in Ulhasnagar. The business of selling children had started from this clinic some time ago. While locals knew of this business for many years, no one had the courage to come forward.

During her testimony, Cheryl Lane, of Whitehouse, admitted she hit one of the twins with an archery arrow, but she claimed it was reasonable corporal punishment.

Author: Zak Wellerman, Jesus Martinez

TYLER, Texas — A Smith County woman accused of abusing her adopted twin teenage sons in 2019 was emotional as she testified on her own behalf and also spoke about striking one of the children with an arrow Thursday afternoon.

During her testimony, Cheryl Layne, of Whitehouse, admitted she hit one of the twins with an archery arrow, but she claimed it was reasonable corporal punishment.

Cheryl Layne said she had to use corporal punishment in the past with all her children by using a belt, a fly swatter, a spoon, grabbing them by the ear, or by something that was handy.

JIMMY JENKINS   Arizona Republic

Two sons of a Maricopa "YouTube Mom," who was indicted on child abuse charges, have been charged with sexual misconduct with minors.

An indictment from February in Maricopa County Superior Court accuses Logan and Ryan Hackney of several counts of sexual misconduct with minors.

Attorneys for the Hackneys did not respond to a request for comment.

The Hackneys are the adult sons of Machelle Hobson, She was arrested in 2019 and accused of beating and starving seven adopted children who she forced to produce popular YouTube videos in their Pinal County home in the city of Maricopa.

ALBERTO LUPERON

When a “YouTube Mom” died of natural causes in 2019, it of course ended the criminal case against her, but a legacy of alleged abuse continues to haunt the family as her sons have been charged with molestation. Logan Hackney, 31, faces four counts of sexual conduct with a minor. Ryan Hackney, 29, faces two counts of the same crime.

The brothers’ ignominious claim to fame is through their mother, Machelle Hobson. She died of natural causes in 2019 ahead of trial for allegedly abusing her adoptive children and forcing them to star in her videos for the now-defunct YouTube channel “Fantastic Adventures.” Hobson was accused of an array of horrifying acts. For example, she allegedly pepper-sprayed the children all over their bodies, including their genitals; and she allegedly shut them in a closet without access to food, water, or a bathroom.

The children were known for appearing on the “Fantastic Adventurers” channel, which garnered over 700,000 subscribers before YouTube took it down. Life was full of terror behind the scenes, cops said. Hobson allegedly abused them if they forgot their lines or tried to get out of the videos, and she allegedly took them out of school to act in the productions. They hadn’t gone to class in “years,” the kids said, according to police.

The abuse left its mark, both physical and mental, cops said. According to investigators, the adopted children looked malnourished and said they were thirsty and hungry. One boy drank three bottles of water in under 20 minutes, police said. Another girl was offered a bag of chips but was afraid to eat it because she didn’t want her mother to smell the food on her breath, according to authorities.

Cheryl Layne, of Whitehouse, a nurse practitioner, is charged with four counts of injury to a child with the intent to cause bodily injury.

Author: Zak Wellerman, Jesus Martinez

WHITEHOUSE, Texas — After concluding witness testimony Wednesday, the prosecution rested its case in the trial of a Smith County woman accused of abusing her adopted twin sons, who were 13 years old at the time, in 2019.

Cheryl Layne, a nurse practitioner, is charged with four counts of injury to a child with the intent to cause bodily injury.

She and her husband, Mark Layne (a Tyler Police Department officer at the time) were both arrested in September 2019 after the 13-year-old twins reported being abused by their adopted parents to a school resource officer.

Adam Crapser was sent to adoptive parents in the US during the 1970s – a period described as mass ‘child export’ from South Korea

By Nicola Smith

A court in South Korea has ordered the country’s biggest adoption agency to pay £60,000 in damages for mishandling a man’s adoption as a young boy to the United States, where he suffered an abusive childhood.

Adam Crapser, 48, was sent with his sister to adoptive parents in the US in the 1970s, during what has been described as a period of mass “child export” from South Korea.

A Telegraph investigation into the phenomenon found that, between the mid-1950s to the late 1980s, some 200,000 South Korean babies were adopted by families in the US and Europe – many of whom were put up for adoption under false pretences. 

Maria Damm Hansen. Adopted at 1 year old. Currently 46 years old. Denmark.

For 46 years I was told, and I believed, that I was an orphan and a foundling, adopted from Namkwang Children’s Home through the Korea Social Service (KSS). Everything is a lie and today KSS tells me a totally different story.

I was born on Oct. 4, 1976, and referred to KSS immediately after birth through San Ho Midwifery Clinic located in the Sadang neighborhood of Gwanak District, Seoul. Within 24 hours of my life, I was ready for adoption.

Furthermore, KSS tells me that I have a biological mother (last name Lee) and a biological father (last name Yom), three siblings, and that I have a fraternal twin brother. Because of extreme poverty, my biological father decided to keep and raise my twin brother and release me for adoption.

This new information has come to me as a shock and my whole identity has been turned upside down. I do not feel upset or angry in any way toward my biological parents. But I am devastated to find that the adoption bureaus have treated me and so many other adoptees like pieces of furniture, lied to us about our whole adoption and identity, in an attempt to ensure that it would be almost impossible to find one’s biological family and find the truth — even today. KSS still denies me access to valuable information they claim they have.

Adam Crapser was sent to adoptive parents in the US during the 1970s – a period described as mass ‘child export’ from South Korea

By Nicola Smith, ASIA CORRESPONDENT

A court in South Korea has ordered the country’s biggest adoption agency to pay £60,000 in damages for mishandling a man’s adoption as a young boy to the United States, where he suffered an abusive childhood.

Adam Crapser, 48, was sent with his sister to adoptive parents in the US in the 1970s, during what has been described as a period of mass “child export” from South Korea.

A Telegraph investigation into the phenomenon found that, between the mid-1950s to the late 1980s, some 200,000 South Korean babies were adopted by families in the US and Europe – many of whom were put up for adoption under false pretences. 

By Son Ji-hyoung

A South Korean court on Tuesday ordered adoption agency Holt Children's Services to pay 100 million won ($74,700) to Adam Crapser, who was adopted to a family in the United States in 1979 but deported after four decades.

The Seoul Central District Court acknowledged the agency's "failure to uphold its duty to protect the adoptee and ensure the adoptee's acquisition of citizenship," it said in a ruling.

The landmark ruling is the first in the history of Korea to recognize a legal violation of an international child adoption agency. South Korea was considered the biggest child exporter to the US decades ago.

The court, however, did not hold the Korean government liable for its alleged negligence of duty to protect its citizen.

SADAF AHSAN

When Eun Ae Koh was 8 months old, she was adopted from her birthplace in Korea by two white Americans. Overnight, she gained two loving parents, three older brothers, and an older sister and spent her childhood and teen years growing up in rural Illinois, about three and a half hours south of Chicago, not far off from fields of soybeans and corn. With her parents’ older biological children already grown up and moved out, it wasn’t until the pair adopted a second child, from China, a decade later, that Koh saw anyone who looked like her at home.

“Growing up, I was really only ever around white people,” says Koh, now a 30-something Washington, D.C.-based artist. “That’s what my town looked like, that’s what my school looked like, that’s what my family looked like. There was no exposure to anything Korean at all. I always felt different.”

Koh is far from alone. After a rise in Asian adoptees in the US in the 1990s, many of these children are now in their 20s and 30s and dealing with the mental health impacts of growing up in white families who didn’t resemble them, and were unable to guide them through the unique experience of growing up a person of color in America. Today, they’re finding solace in their own communities and are working to create new systems that can help future cross-cultural adoptees walk an easier path. 

The vast majority of Asian adoptees in the US born in China can be attributed to 1991, when China launched its international adoption program, through which adoptive parents were led to believe that adoptees had been found abandoned – whether at orphanages, or on the streets. In reality, China’s one-child policy and a preference for boys led to a mass of abandoned infant girls. Since, roughly 110,000 children have been adopted from China globally, according to Kerry O'Halloran’s 2015 book The Politics of Adoption, with the majority coming to the US. And in 1981, the Korean government made inter-country adoption more accessible in hopes of raising emigration rates, leading to a wave of Korean adoptees from the mid-’80s to ‘90s.