[Finding the truth about 372 international adoptees] I am looking for my biological mother with my daughter.

Before heading to a small alley on a mountain hill in Seongbuk-dong, Seoul in the hot summer of July, we were enjoying the cool subway ride. My 10 year old daughter was strangely quiet. I thought her daughter was getting tired of the heat, but then she turned to me and she said, She said, "She's looking for ladies who look like her mom." After a brief pause, she continues. “And someone who looks like me. I hope I can meet my (maternal) grandmother someday.”

According to my adoption file, I was found wrapped in a blanket on the street in front of an institution called ‘Hwirakwon’ in Seongbuk-dong. I don't know what kind of organization Hwirakwon is, and it seems like it doesn't exist anymore. Someone found me and handed me over to the Seongbukam Police Station on May 6, 1976. I was about three weeks old. Now I'm back with my family and my daughter who wants to know more about adoption in South Korea and her potential grandmother. There was so little information in the adoption file that we could only find the name of the police station. So we did our best to wander around the old neighborhood of Seongbuk-dong.

When I saw my daughter's face as soon as she was born, it was like meeting my first family. Before that, I barely thought about Korea. Growing up in a white community, I experienced everyday racism, but I rarely thought about my background. Why should you think? My life began in January 1977 with a one-way ticket to Denmark. The fact that I never met my biological family after giving birth to my daughter shocked me. At 35 years old, I knew nothing about Korea or my background. Now that I have become a mother myself, I realize that I have less and less time to find my mother.

I quickly realized that Holt, the adoption agency, would not be able to help, so I found an online forum for international adoptees. In this forum I slowly started to realize that something was strange. Until then, I had said that overseas adoption in Korea was an inevitable humanitarian effort born of misfortune and poverty after the Korean War. But I had a question. Why didn't other countries send 200,000 babies overseas during the crisis, and why were I and the majority of adopted children sent overseas even during a period of significant economic development in South Korea after the end of the Korean War?

At these forums for international adoptees, I learned about the dark side of Korean overseas adoption. I learned that our records had been manipulated to simplify the adoption process, and that the adoption agency and the Korean government had greatly benefited economically from international adoption. I was very shocked when I learned that the history of adoption in Korea also includes instances of children being taken away or otherwise separated without parental consent. But what continues to haunt me is learning how our Korean mothers were humiliated, abused, and forced into adoption by a society that despises single mothers. When she discreetly told her daughter this, she cried out in pain: "It's so unfair and unnecessary! Why should I lose my child just because I'm not married? Why doesn't Korea help mothers keep their children?"

As my family and I walk through the old slums of Seongbuk-dong, I imagine my mother. I've done it many times, but now we can point to a specific house and imagine that I was born in that house with the blue roof on the hill. I imagine my mother was one of those young women who broke her daughter's heart. She became estranged from her family when she gave birth to me out of wedlock, and after struggling to care for her baby alone, she decided that neither she nor Korean society could protect me. I know from my medical records that I had thrush (oral candidiasis) when I was found as a baby. This disease usually occurs during breastfeeding through a mother who has inflammation of the breasts. This is very painful for the mother. As I imagine my own mother in excruciating pain every time she breastfeeds, alone with her crying baby, I can feel the despair that she had to give up in the end, despite her best efforts. Today I cling to the knowledge that I had thrush. To me, that information is the only proof that her mother actually existed.

Danish Korea Rights Group ( DKRG) asked the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (Truth and Reconciliation Committee) last year to investigate allegations of human rights violations in international adoption, I told my daughter that many adoptees around the world were telling the Korean government the truth about overseas adoption. He said he asked them to shed light and free our mothers' lives from the shadows of dishonor, misunderstanding and oppression. I also told her daughter that I wasn't sure if she would ever be able to meet her grandmother. Our search continues, but time is running out. I'm sure if she meets her mother. My daughter will let me know that it wasn't her fault that she lost her baby.

In September 2022, 283 overseas adoptees submitted an investigation request to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to determine whether human rights were violated at the time of adoption. The number increased to 372 as additional applications were submitted twice on November 15th and December 9th. They requested an investigation into whether human rights were violated in the adoption process of overseas adoptees adopted from Korea to Denmark and around the world during the authoritarian period from the 1970s to the early 1990s and whether there was any intervention by the government in that process. Fortunately, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission announced on December 8 that it had decided to open an investigation into 'human rights violations during the overseas adoption process', and on June 8, it announced the opening of an investigation into an additional 237 people. This is the first government-level investigation decision in 68 years since Korea began overseas adoption. <Pressian> plans to continue publishing articles written by overseas adoptees who have requested an investigation by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Editor's note

• More than 170,000 South Korean children were adopted by Western families in the turbulent post-war period – nearly 9,000 a year at times in the 1980s
• Many were labelled orphans, despite their birth parents still being alive, and say their documents were falsified, making them question their identity

It was late spring and Uma Feed had just dropped her son off at a kindergarten in Oslo when her phone rang unexpectedly, bringing news she’d been searching for her whole life: the true identities of her birth parents.

Adopted as a baby from South Korea in 1983, Feed grew up in Norway being told she’d been abandoned – a story she refused to believe but could only disprove in May this year, when at age 40 she was finally reconnected with her biological mother thanks to DNA testing.

A long letter and video message followed, revealing that Um Sul-yung – the name given on Feed’s adoption documents – was actually given up for adoption by her grandparents without the consent of her mother, who was hospitalised with tuberculosis at the time.

“Every evening, my mum and my older brother had gone out to look for me. They were just wandering the streets,” she said.

France has issued a decree suspending all international adoption procedures concerning children habitually resident in Burkina Faso by any person habitually residing in France.

The Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs issued an order on September 13, 2023 relating to the suspension of international adoption procedures concerning children residing in Burkina Faso.

“ All international adoption procedures concerning children habitually resident in Burkina Faso by any person habitually residing in France are suspended ,” it is written in a decree dated September 13, 2023. This measure does not apply " to the procedures which gave rise, on the date of publication of this decree, to an agreement by the Burkinabe Central Authority for the implementation of the Hague Convention of May 29, 1993", it is specified .

Degraded relations between France and Burkina Faso

In the matter pertaining to the issue of whether children born out of a void or voidable marriage had a right in parents' ancestral property as per the Hindu law, the Supreme Court discussed whether in case of a notional partition before the death of a father, a child born to the said father from a void or voidable marriage would be entitled to the property inherited by the father in the...

Stories of Sri Lankan adoptees in far-flung lands searching for their biological families always tug at our heartstrings. Their quest to find out their biological parents and possible siblings is an innate desire some of these adoptees have as they long to know more details about their origins. Perhaps they want to feel their mother’s hug or just ask them why they were given up for adoption. Whilst many have experienced love and stability thanks to their adopted families, there are a fair few who have ended up facing a lifetime of “what ifs” because they have had negative adoption experiences.

Recently Sebastian Jensen an adoptee of Sri Lankan origin who lives in Denmark struck up a conversation on Social Media. He longs to find his birth parents and to be reunited with them.  Adopted at the age of 2 years and 9 months by a Danish family, and named Claus Frank Anderson, he changed his name to Sebastian Jensen in 2007. 

According to the frayed Sri Lankan birth certificate that he has in his possession, Sebastian believes that he is possibly 47 or 48 years old. His name on his Sri Lankan birth certificate is simply listed as Thirukumar and his place of birth is Telpallai. His adoption was processed at the Juvenile Court in Bambalapitiya in 1977 and it states that at the time of his adoption, Sebastian was a resident at the Prajapathi Children’s Home in Panadura. 

Sebastian says his initial adoption went wrong. The first family that adopted him in Sri Lanka, who are named on his adoption papers separated 12 days after returning to Denmark with Sebastian. However, he alleges that this separation was hushed up because one of the people who was instrumental in his adoption did not want any negative stories to affect the adoptions that were taking place between the two countries. 

His adoptive parents were Danish. His adopted father was a dentist (who did some social service with the Lions club in Sri Lanka) and his adopted mother was a homemaker who between the years of 1977 and 1998 was helping children at a place called Evelyn Nursery in Kandy, a nutrition centre in Trincomalee and another centre in Hikkaduwa. 

One of the adopted girl is 4 year old while the other is 2 and a half year old

Cuttack: A highly educated couple from Bangalore has adopted two minor girls from ‘Basundhara’ of Cuttack in Odisha after executing all the legal formalities. The two girls had been rescued from the Jagatpur Golei Chhaka in the silver city two years ago. They had been abandoned by their parents. The two girls Lipa and Seepa are 4 year old and 2 and half year old respectively. The couple adopted them and took the two girls with them to Bangalore.

A couple from Karnataka adopted these two sisters from Basundhara through the Cuttack District Administration today and took them to Bangalore.

As per reports, the two sisters had been rescued from Golei Chhak on February 24, 2021. Their mother had abandoned them. The Cuttack district administration has not been able to find any trace of their father or anyone else. According to the law, these two sisters were adopted today by a couple from Karnataka, Rahul Isaac and Angeline Kutavilla.

Though 10 years have passed after the marriage, the Bangalore-based couple had no children. After many medical treatments, they failed and thus finally applied for adoption.

https://www.vg.noyheter/innenriks/i/pQkga1/inger-tone-58-ber-kong-harald-trekke-tilbake-fortjenestemedalje?fbclid=IwAR1bh3Rnmb3AG4v5UfpKRDMS3sk61zDPDj-FScF5kok5uS4gfhch_BcFmhg_aem_AUTiWcvM1ds4hHVD1zkEGbLsZit2Wn2aJIQ28V_DJK_4D1GtBEmv0UDGreDw6f6TM_o&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

Inger-Tone Ueland Shin did not have too much hope when she wrote a letter to the royal house. Now the 58-year-old has been invited to an audience with King Harald.

Shin was thirteen when she was brought to Norway. Those who would become her adoptive parents themselves came to South Korea in 1978 to take her home.

The only problem was that the couple from Rogaland were not approved as adoptive parents. In fact, the then King Olav had refused in the cabinet that the couple would be allowed to become adoptive parents after they submitted a complaint.

Advocate Shubham Lokhande, who approached the police, said the toddler is the sixth daughter of her parents and they sold her because they were unable to look after her.

The Pune city police have arrested a couple belonging to a nomadic tribe for allegedly “buying” a toddler from their relative and then making her beg. According to the police, the girl was under two years of age when she was allegedly sold for Rs 2,000 and she is now four years old.

The police registered a first information report (FIR) at the Yerwada police station Wednesday based on the complaint by advocate Shubham Lokhande. They booked the arrested couple, the girl’s parents and 11 others, including the “panch” of their community, under sections 363A, 370 (human trafficking), 34 of Indian Penal Code, and provisions of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and Maharashtra Prevention of Begging Rules.

When contacted, advocate Lokhande said he received information about the toddler from his friend Sudam Nimbalkar. “Initially, I found it hard to believe that a little girl was sold by her parents for just Rs 2,000. After conducting inquiries, I learned the girl is the sixth daughter of her parents. They were unable to look after her. Hence, they gave her to a married couple just for Rs 2,000,” said Lokhande.

The lawyer further said following “consent” from the “panch” of their community, the nomadic couple took the girl’s custody just by making a “notary” agreement, saying they were adopting her.

The nine persons allegedly running a criminal surrogate mother and adoption ring on Crete through an assisted reproduction unit testified on Sunday at the court in Chania, western Crete

Officers of the Greek Organised Crime department have successfully dismantled a criminal organisation operating in Chania, Greece, involved in human trafficking and illegal adoptions of babies.

Two prosecutors are involved in the testimonies being collected. The first defendant to testify was a 73-year-old doctor and head of the controversial unit of assisted reproduction. Citizens expressing support for him rallied outside the courts.

On Saturday, Health Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis removed alternate professor of gynaecology (University of Athens) Nikolaos Vrachnis as head of the National Authority on Assisted Reproduction. The Authority is responsible for overseeing all assisted reproduction facilities and approving their licensing.

'What to others appears to be purely administrative paperwork, for adoptees often represents the only potential, tangible link with the first period of their lives, the people from whom they were born, their origins, an important part of who they are, a part of their identity', writes Ae Ra Van Geel. She calls, among other things, for better monitoring and retention of the administration. At Flemish level, it is expected that a decision will be made in September on the list of countries from which Flanders will adopt in the future.

Work is currently underway in Flanders on a new decree on intercountry adoption, as well as on screenings of all countries of origin from which Flanders is currently moving and adopting children, such as Portugal.

Much has been said and written in recent years about what should be important in the policy on transnational adoption, including by myself. The adoption field, that collection of forces, powers, individuals and often conflicting interests, is extremely complex. This field includes parents and their children; people with an unwanted and unfulfilled desire to have children; people who want to do 'good'; adopters; adoption services; governments in both sending and receiving countries; people who had to give up their child due to socio-economic circumstances, for example.
In response to recent current events in Flanders and the Netherlands, I would like to draw attention to a number of considerations that I believe are important in decision-making and policy-making regarding transnational adoption.

This is how I think of the recurring 'interests of the child'. This empty and meaningless phrase has been used to legitimize, condone and frame distance, forced displacement and adoption for decades. However, it has been known for just as long that the interests of the child are merely an excuse for other, less noble-sounding interests such as economic gain or fulfilling a desire to have children in the global North. This was recently demonstrated once again in an article that De Morgen published, based on written documents from the early 1970s.. The image of children as a commodity to be monetized emerges from this. In this way, money was made from deceased children and money was saved by exchanging children. Prospective adopters were also scammed because they were charged non-existent fees. The Belgian ambassador already mentioned such a lack of competence among the adoption services involved at the time. However, thorough investigation was not found necessary.

Whose interests did this serve?