Newgein/Weert -

Amanda Janssen, adopted as a baby from Sri Lanka, had a carefree childhood in a family in Weert. The shock was great when she discovered that her birth certificate was false and that her sister who came along was not a family member. She now heads a foundation that uses DNA kits to help other adopted children find their biological family. She herself is still searching in vain.

Today at 18:45 Roel Wiche

How old are you actually? When Amanda Janssen is asked that question, it is always an awkward moment. The only thing she knows for sure is that she was adopted from Sri Lanka to a family in Weert in February 1985. But every other trail to her origins has so far been a dead end: her identity papers turned out to be false, just like those of thousands of other children who were adopted at the time. "I don't know my roots, but I do exist. That makes it very complicated. As if the ground is disappearing beneath your feet. Who am I?"

Let's keep her age at 39, says Amanda, as she extinguishes the oriental incense sticks in her apartment in Nieuwegein and serves coffee on the balcony. Her ruby-red, authentic Sri Lankan dress sparkles in the sunlight. She tells her story at a time when adoption is all over the news: the Netherlands has immediately imposed a stop because the Lower House fears a repeat of past abuses. In Sri Lanka in particular, there was large-scale adoption fraud. The documents of no fewer than 2,300 of the 3,500 adopted children who came to our country were allegedly forged, revealed the TV programme Zembla a few years ago.

A-Buddy is a subsidiary of Adoption Support Center, supported by volunteers and managed by thecoordinator. Adult adoptees are trained to provide a listening ear to othersadoptees. This volunteer organization also organizes activities and shares storiesadoptees via the website and social media.a-Buddy wants to be a place where adult adoptees (both the buddies themselves and the callers) feel at homewhere they find the recognition and understanding they lack elsewhere.a-Buddy is currently looking for a coordinator to temporarily replace the current coordinator.

The Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court last week quashed an FIR against christian missionary Dr. Ajai Lall accused of trafficking two children, who were earlier living in an orphanage run by a society of which he was the office bearer, and who were subsequently adopted following a family court order in 2017. In doing so the High Court noted that the adoption of the children was...

Indonesian syndicate allegedly bought and sold babies on Facebook

Police in Indonesia busted a baby-trafficking ring that bought newborns on Facebook and sold them to foreigners in Bali.

Police said the “well-organised” syndicate operated in Depok city of West Java, about 27km from capital Jakarta.

The infants were bought from parents for less than £800 on Facebook and sold to foreigners in Bali at four times the price, police said, adding the traffickers also worked on “pre-orders”.

As an American citizen and adoptee, I know firsthand how the values and promises of America have made life exponentially better for those who were not born on these shores.

Twenty years ago, a single mother in a developing nation made a heartbreaking decision. I know very little about her, except that she desperately wanted to give me, her child, a better life – and that she knew in her heart of hearts that she couldn’t do it herself.

She sent me to an orphanage, believing as she gave me away that somewhere, in an uncertain future she knew nothing about, there would be the opportunity for me to grow up safe and happy and free, even if that future never involved her again. That dream was worth giving up her child, and hoping against hope that I could succeed in a world she simply couldn’t get me to.

As she no doubt predicted, she never did see me again. Yet I never write about this issue without thinking about my birth mother.

Two decades after we saw each other for the last time, I have two amazing parents and a job advancing the financial freedom and mobility of everyday Americans. I am more self-realized than I ever imagined.

Police in Guatemala raided five regional offices of British aid agency Save the Children on Monday as part of an investigation into alleged child abuse.

Prosecutors requested information from US authorities in April about the alleged involvement of the organisation in smuggling children across the border, according to local media.

Save the Children said it was "aware of the activity" at their offices, and denied the prosecutors' allegations.

The prosecutor in charge of the case, Rafael Curruchiche, and the country's attorney general, Consuelo Porras, have previously been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for attacks on democracy.

Curruchiche said the searches were being carried out in different regions of the country as part of a "transnational investigation of great importance", in a video statement on X.

From the 1970s onwards, Swiss couples adopted thousands of children from countries in the global south. Triggered by the first critical historical studies and demands from adopted people, the federal government and cantons have begun to examine international adoptions in recent years.

How did parents end up separating from their children? Who brought the children to Switzerland and how did they get there? How did the admission and adoption decisions come about? How did people who did not know each other become a family in Switzerland? And how do adopted people today deal with their biographies, what they know and what they do not know?

Panel discussion with Sabine Bitter, Andrea Abraham, Celin Sithy Fässler and Rita Kesselring (moderator)

venue

Das Gleis, Zollstrasse 121, 8005 Zurich

Last week, a report from The Associated Press in collaboration with Frontline stated that untold numbers of South Korean children had been stolen from their families, trafficked into international adoption through widespread fraud.

The stewardship of internationally adopted children has long been a subject of concern and rumor. Earlier this month, China abruptly stopped their international adoption program, and other countries have recently done the same. From Romania to Vietnam to Chile, rumors of stolen children adopted by unsuspecting American and European parents have endured. Now they are being proven true.

In 1995, after years of miscarriages, including the loss of twins, the advice from my doctors, therapists and everyone I talked to was to adopt, and I welcomed the idea. I was in my mid-thirties — “old” by adoption standards — and I knew I wanted any child I raised to have a sibling. I decided to adopt two children at once.

I received pictures of two babies. With them were documents showing blurry, black-and-white copies of government ID photos of their birth mothers, along with the papers that relinquished the rights to their children.

My sons and I lived a life of closeness, love and all the frustration of a mother single-parenting two boys: video games, smelly rooms, homework, the magically emptying refrigerator, bedtime stories and birthday parties.

Eight-year-old Grace Welch has been waiting since 2019 for her older sister to occupy the bed next to hers.

Her parents had told her that, Penelope, a 10-year-old born in China, would be joining the family, who live in Kentucky in the US.

Grace, also adopted from China, was born without her left forearm. Her mother, Aimee Welch, said Penelope too has a “serious but manageable” special need, although she did not wish to disclose it.

The Welch family, who have four biological sons, sought to adopt children with disabilities after the birth of a nephew without arms.

“He taught us all what a person with limb differences can achieve with the right love and support. His birth started us on the path towards adopting Grace,” Ms Welch said. “We believe in the dignity and worth of each person, just as they are, in all their diversity.”

In his lifetime, Ratan Tata was often compared to Jamshedji Tata and JRD Tata. But what many may find interesting is that Ratan Tata would never have acceded to the Tata throne had his father Naval Tata not been adopted by Navajbai Tata

Former Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata breathed his last in Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital at 11:30pm on Wednesday. The industrialist leaves behind a formidable legacy in the corporate world, having a staid group into India’s largest and most influential conglomerate with a string of eye-catching deals.

Given his successes in the business world and the charitable causes close to his heart, Ratan Tata has often been compared to Jamshedji Tata and JRD Tata. But what many may find interesting is that Ratan Tata’s father Naval Tata, who was born on August 30, 1904, was only a distant relative of the Tata business family.

Naval Tata’s father worked as a spinning master at Ahmedabad Advance Mills. In 1908, Naval lost his father at the age of four, following which his mother took him to Gujarat’s Navsari where she started working on embroidery to make ends meet.

In these circumstances, Naval Tata was sent to the JN Petit Parsi Orphanage, where he met Navajbai Tata, wife of Sir Ratanji Jamsetji Tata. Navajbai decided to adopt Naval when he was 13. Following this, Naval Tata was given formal education and he graduated in Economics from the University of Bombay. He then went to London where he enrolled in courses related to accounting.