IN MARCH, the alarm went off in Denmark.

Last week, France followed suit:

All adoptions from Madagascar had to stop.

Right now, four Norwegian couples are waiting to have a child from the African country.

What happens when a child from there is to be adopted to Norway?

In this weekly column, people talk about something they 'never want to experience again', never want to do again or never want to do again. This week: Hester Bouwmeester (45) from Lebanon knew early on that something was not quite right with her adoption. Still, it came as a shock that she was stolen from the hospital as a baby. "They told my parents I was dead and already buried."

"I was ten days old when I arrived in the Netherlands. That date is about the only thing that is correct on my adoption papers, it turned out. My adoptive parents in the Netherlands received a phone call that I was born and they flew to Lebanon to pick me up. My mother had fertility problems but had a great desire to have children. The spirit of the times was very different then, she and my father really thought they would do well to 'save' a child from the war. They did this with the best intentions and went from there. that the adoption was completely legal.

At that time, adoption was romanticized: parents did something 'good' and the children should be especially grateful that they were lifted out of poverty. It ignored the fact that children were being torn from their natural environment and their families. In my case that was even more harsh, because I had a twin sister whom I would not see again until forty-five years later."

"I grew up in the Netherlands in a warm, loving family. Eighteen months after my arrival, my parents adopted another baby from Lebanon through a recognized foundation. I got along well with my sister, we could play around in the yard of our farm. "I wasn't unhappy, but I always felt 'different'. As if I was missing something. At school I found it difficult to connect with other children."

We are looking for a new caretaker for the Oranje Fonds and Andersson Elffers Felix (AEF). As a caretaker you take care and responsibility for our two monumental office villas with beautiful gardens on the Maliebaan in Utrecht.

Position : You are responsible for keeping our buildings and grounds (Maliebaan 18 and 16) safe, orderly and representative and you are the first point of contact for internal colleagues, suppliers and other external parties. The position is for 32 to 36 hours, spread over 4 days: 2 days at the Oranje Fonds and 2 days at AEF. We aim for 4-5 months of training time/overlap with the current caretaker, who is retiring.

Activities :

▶ Carrying out periodic checks on maintenance
▶ Minor repairs and minor maintenance work
▶ First point of contact in case of malfunctions and defects
▶ Involving, directing and checking activities of external parties, including: cleaning, gardener, painter, contractor, electrician and security
▶ Logistical work at events
▶ Carrying out periodic maintenance checks checking stock (food, cleaning products, office supplies) and replenishing it
▶ Part of the emergency response team
▶ Carrying out occupational health and safety-related matters
▶ Administrative work

What do you take with you:

About NOK 50,000. Norwegian couples had to pay directly to orphanages in Colombia in order to adopt a child.

This was in addition to the costs of the adoption itself.

Colombian authorities responded that the sum was called a "donation".

- After all, the children do not live in a six-star hotel, said the head of the Colombian adoption governing body, Beatriz Helena Guzman, to the Norwegian authorities when they were on an inspection trip to the country.

Nevertheless, 11 years passed from the time the Norwegian authorities were first notified of the donations in 1994 until they put an end to them in 2005. 

Despite receiving death threats, Israeli-origin Dr Michelle Harrison dedicated her life to providing safe space and a future to orphaned girls.

With continued bomb blasts and strikes leading to loss of life, property and basic resources, the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel has resulted in the killings and abduction of hundreds of children from both the countries.

While ceasefire remains a distant dream, Kolkata-based Dr Michelle Harrison, who has Israeli origins, says with anguish, “It is a nightmare for everybody. In this war, children are being used as pawns, held hostage, and ultimately, orphaned.”

A few decades back, Dr Michelle came to India to adopt a child. Being a single mother, she only had the option to do so from either here or Central America. In India — home to at least 30 million orphans — she saw how children are subjected to human trafficking and abduction. 

This, she noted, was however not a result of some war but due to the apathy of child welfare organisations. 

Annabel is geadopteerd door een Nederlands gezin vanuit Palestina, maar dat is niet helemaal volgens de regels gegaan, vertelt ze aan Nordin en Vonneke. Daarnaast vertelt Annabel dat ze elke dag meeleeft met haar Palestijnse familie en heeft ze een inzamelingsactie opgezet om de mensen in Gaza te helpen.

ANNABEL

Annabel vertelt dat ze samen met 200 à 300 andere Palestijnen is geadopteerd in de jaren '90. "Mijn Palestijnse ouders waren christenen en hun wens voor mij was dat ik bij een gezin terecht zou komen die ook Palestijns en christelijk waren", vertelt Annabel. Haar Palestijnse ouders kregen te horen dat dat ook zou gebeuren, maar niets bleek minder waar. Er heeft namelijk interlandelijke adoptie plaatsgevonden. "Ik ben samen met honderden andere Palestijnse kinderen geadopteerd door Nederlandse, Noorse en Zwitserse gezinnen", gaat ze verder. Annabel kwam erachter dat haar Palestijnse ouders zijn voorgelogen. "Tien jaar geleden heb ik mijn Palestijnse ouders voor het eerst opgezocht en ze vertelden mij dat ze hier niets vanaf wisten", zegt ze.

PALESTINA

Annabel heeft nu nog regelmatig contact met haar Palestijnse familie, maar merkt dat dat steeds moeizamer gaat. "Recentelijk had ik nog wel contact met mijn Palestijnse ouders en halfbroer, maar dat is nu wat minder. Mijn familie en kennissen daar vertellen dat ze niet makkelijk de deur uitgaan en geen Arabisch durven te praten. Ze hebben het gevoel dat ze in de gaten worden gehouden door de Israëlische overheid en er hangt een gespannen sfeer op dit moment", aldus Annabel.
 

Recommendations of the working groupOrigin search for supportof adopted people

On behalf of the board of the KKJPD, an interdisciplinary working group examined the possibilities of better support for adopted people in their search for origin. The working group consisted of representatives of authorities, adopted people and representatives of private organizations and tracing services. The work was carried out under the joint leadership of the General Secretariat of the KKJPD and the Federal Office of Justice (BJ). With the adoption of the technical recommendations, the working group has completed its work.

A mother has revealed how she has married her adopted son - after raising him from the age of 14. 

Aisylu Chizhevskaya Mingalim, 53, from Tatarstan, Russia, has left child welfare experts horrified by tying the knot with 22-year-old  Daniel Chizhevsky.

She first met Daniel when he was just 13 and working as a singing teacher at his orphanage.

Luc Nibbeling (29) and his partner Luuk started an adoption procedure in the US in 2018. Their dream fell apart when it was banned in 2021. Now they are in the middle of a surrogacy process in Canada.

Want to have children

“I have always wanted to have children. Coming out meant that I also had to acknowledge and accept that I would never become a father naturally. That's why it took me until I was nineteen before I dared to take the step. When I met Luuk shortly afterwards, I immediately discussed my desire to have children, which is unusual in the gay scene . Especially in the beginning, gay men are often concerned with accepting themselves, which causes any desire to have children to fade into the background.

Luuk thought the same; he also wanted to become a father. In 2017 we went to an information evening about LGBT parenting organized by the Meer Dan Gewenst Foundation for the first time and in 2018 we started the adoption process. You can choose to adopt in the Netherlands, but the supply of adopted children is not large here; Often the first search for these children is in their own environment. As a gay couple you can only choose from four countries: the Netherlands, US, South Africa and Portugal. We decided to go for the United States.

It was a big disappointment when we heard that international adoption was being suspended. Adopting from the US will probably be completely banned, because there are sufficient prospective parents in the US itself. We were disappointed and sad. What now? We gave ourselves a year to explore other options.