THE HAGUE

Following the news that a number of participants in the Spoorloos program in Colombia are not linked to the correct biological family, there are signs of unrest among adoption organizations. Stichting Wereldkinderen, the only Dutch organization with a permit that mediates in adoptions in Colombia, has received three questions, says director Jeroen Jansen when asked. According to Inez Teurlings of the Interland Adopted Foundation, some adoptees are concerned after the revelations about the mismatches.

"It causes unrest. For example, there are questions about whether some DNA tests have been performed correctly. Cheap tests only test on four points, others on twenty. We find the latter tests more reliable, but they are a lot more expensive, around 400 euros," said Teurlings. "There must also be a hearing about Edwin Vela's actions." Furthermore, according to Teurlings, the way in which Spoorloos presenter Derk Bolt reacted was poorly received in the community. Bolt said on talk show Khalid & Sophie on Wednesday evening that he continues to believe in the discredited fixer.

According to the World Children's Foundation, the broadcast of the Scammers Addressed program, in which the mismatches come to light, can "lead to emotions and questions among people who feel connected to adoption in general or adoptions from Colombia in particular, from whatever role." , according to a message on the website. Jansen does not want to comment further "on the nature of the reactions we receive, since they are of a personal nature".

Collaboration

DELFT - According to Jody Bernal, the television program Spoorloos should have put on the robes, after it became clear that adopted children were linked to the wrong parents in the program. The singer and DJ himself came to Delft from Colombia when he was six months old, the country where there is now much to do. He has seen for some time that things are going wrong in the search for biological parents of adopted children: 'It has been rumbling for years.'

In recent days there has been much to do about the Spoorloos program of the KRO-NCRV. The program is said to have used a rogue 'fixer' who often led the children to the wrong parents. Jody Bernal, herself an adopted child, tells in the radio program Menno in de Afternoon of Omroep West that there have been rumors about errors in the television program for some time.

The program is said to have knowingly used a rogue intermediary in Colombia, who linked children to the wrong parents. Bernal is also originally from Colombia and reacts shocked. 'If you are adopted, I myself was three months old then, you are looking for your roots. It must be terrible to be told years later that it's not right.'

Stories have been going on for a long time

The singer, known for his hit 'Que Si, Que No' from 2000, finds it intense that last night's program Spoorloos declared to Khalid and Sophie that they still have faith in their 'fixer', even after it appears that mistakes have been made. Something that according to Bernal is not possible. 'It has been rumbling among adoptees for some time. The bell has been ringing for some time and we often heard that certain stories would not be correct and the matches would not be correct.'

Following the news that a number of participants of the 'Spoorloos' program in Colombia have not been linked to the correct biological family, there are signs of unrest among adoption organizations. Stichting Wereldkinderen, the only Dutch organization with a permit that mediates in Colombia adoption, has received three questions, says director Jeroen Jansen when asked. According to Inez Teurlings of the Interlandelijk Adoptees Foundation, there are concerns among some adoptees after the revelations about the mismatches.

"There are questions about whether some DNA tests have been performed correctly"

"It causes unrest. There are questions whether some DNA tests have been carried out correctly. Cheap tests only test on four points, with others on twenty. We think the latter tests are more reliable, but they are a lot more expensive, around 400 euros," said Teurlings. "There must also be heard and heard about Edwin Vela's actions."

Furthermore, according to Teurlings, the way Spoorloos presenter Derk Bolt reacted poorly in the community. Derk said on Wednesday evening in talk show Khalid & Sophie that he continues to believe in the discredited fixer.

The broadcast of the program Scammers Tackled , in which the mismatches come to light, can, according to the Wereldkinderen foundation, 'lead to emotions and questions in people who, from whatever role, feel connected to adoption in general or adoptions from Colombia in particular'. , according to a message on the website. Jansen does not want to comment further 'on the nature of the responses we receive, since they are of a personal nature'.

Friends Annick (37), An Sheela (42) and Sheela (41) lead different lives, but have one thing in common: all three are adopted from India. and they know what you struggle with if you don't know exactly where you come from. “Adoption is not always a fairy tale.”

Recognition and recognition

“Recognition and recognition. That's what I find with An Sheela and Sheela and all those other adopted kids from our Facebook community. For example, if I say, "I don't know exactly who I am," they know exactly what I mean. It is something that binds us. What do you run into if you don't know who your biological parents are? How does it feel when the start of your life is unclear and what you know about it may be based on lies? What are you struggling with then? They are things we discuss when we see each other on meeting days.” Annick is speaking. In 2008 she was only fifteen when she wanted to meet other adopted children. Together with her mother, she founded the Facebook group Adoptie Schakel, for children and their parents adopted from India. Initially a friendly group that exchanged messages and saw each other now and then, years later it became a more serious community. On which members post messages and photos, but which also organizes and undertakes all kinds of things.

The club got more and more members, from the Netherlands and Belgium. At a certain point, Annick was no longer able to manage everything on her own. In 2017 she asked An Sheela to help, a year later also Sheela. The three of them try to take the Facebook group to an even higher level. Together they organize meeting days and information evenings about DNA tests, for example. The three also fight against illegal adoption in their home country of Belgium. Despite their adoption stories being completely different, the trio feels connected to each other and to the members of their community.

Annick: “In the fourteen years that I have been working on this, the adopted children from then have grown up. Many have started families or have now made a roots trip to India. Sometimes they find what they are looking for, but often it is impossible. India is a huge country and the government discourages adopted children from looking for their biological parents. It's simply not done. The moral is: let the past rest.”

News and comment from the 14th European Forum on the rights of the child in Brussels

The 14th European Forum on the rights of the child took place between the 27th and the 29th September 2022 in Brussels. Hope and Homes for Children was among the few organisations invited to attend in person. The forum covered topics crucial for our work such as

child participation

children in armed conflict

and addressed important EU policies, including

What if after years of searching you finally find your biological parent(s), but afterwards you are told that it is not the case after all. It happened to participants of the Dutch TV program "Spoorloos". Noëmi Plateau also testifies that such a search is difficult and emotional in "Late". "All my life I felt a kind of mourning and loss. Something I've lost, but don't know."

There was a lot of commotion in the Netherlands when it became known there that the popular program “Spoorloos”, which has been looking for lost relatives for more than thirty years, has linked at least two people to the wrong biological family. That's what investigative journalist Kees van der Spek of a competing channel told on Monday evening at the table at Eva Jinek. The program makers of "Spoorloos" paid a Colombian intermediary for research work and that's where things went wrong.

A painful story that the Flemish Noëmi Plateau can also speak about. When she was one and a half years old, Noemi was adopted from China. Last year, together with her adoptive sister Anéline, she went in search of her biological parents in the program “We are family” by Lidewij Nuitten. A quest that started with hope.

"I wanted to find my biological parents for a long time", Noëmi begins her story in "Late". Ultimately, that search starts at the age of 25 with sending her DNA to all kinds of DNA databases. Six months later, there was suddenly a result.

"We found your birth father. The DNA was a complete match with you," she heard via an online conversation with someone in China. "As big as the shock is for you, it is for him too," continues the woman on the other side of the world. A message that hit the adopted Noemi with great intensity.

DNA does not lie, but the interpretation that can be given to it, says genetic genealogist Maarten Larmuseau after the testimony of Noëmi, who is linked to the wrong biological father. Because it is such an emotional and existential quest, it is precisely the scientific execution of genetic genealogy that is so important. Don't let descent be just a commercial product, he explains in this opinion.

The testimony of the Flemish Noëmi Plateau was heartbreaking. On Tuesday evening she told openly about her difficult and emotional search for her biological parents in "Late" on One. Noëmi was adopted from China at the age of one and a half and had felt a loss all her life.

She first felt where she came from when she was linked to a biological father after a DNA test. But a second DNA test disproved this claim. She's back at the start of her quest. How is it possible that different DNA analyzes provide conflicting results? DNA doesn't lie, does it?

DNA kits

However, there is no doubt about the power of DNA analysis for finding biological relationships. As soon as commercial DNA kits came on the market, many adopted children found their biological parents, children of the same anonymous sperm donor were linked together and genealogists further clarified their family history by searching for distant relatives worldwide. For children with unknown biological parent(s), the commercial DNA companies are often the only hope in their emotional and existential quest.

Child welfare organization Wereldkinderen is shocked by the role it played in the much-discussed mismatches in Colombia, according to program maker Kees van der Spek. Like the TV program Spoorloos , the foundation worked for years with Edwin Vela, the Colombian fixer who became discredited after the broadcast of Scammers .

On September 29, 2022, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice and reparation, the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children and the Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances have issued a joint statement (in English only) on illegal international adoptions.

This declaration aims to “promote a human rights-based and gender-sensitive approach to preventing and eradicating illegal intercountry adoptions by identifying the rights that are violated by illegal intercountry adoptions and clarifying the obligations of States in this regard. regard, under international human rights law .

This text is undoubtedly welcome at a time when many host countries are considering how to respond to the consequences of past mistakes. The right of victims to know the truth and to obtain the assistance necessary to find their origins is, for example, clearly expressed there. However, the UN authorities have included in their approach other rights and different concepts which, in my opinion, would have deserved either a more detailed lexical study or a development of their ins and outs.

In general, this text presents the risk of a certain confusion insofar as it does not make sufficient distinctions between the bad practices of the past and the standards of human rights whose application is necessary and recognized today. .

On the qualification of the theme first of all: speaking of “illegal international adoptions” certainly makes it possible to grasp the subject of the declaration, but the use of the word “illegal” is not appropriate. In my opinion, there is a bias in understanding between, on the one hand, what is considered today as an "illegal adoption", and, on the other hand, the analysis of the practices which may have affected procedures in the past. In a current reading, there is no doubt that "adoptions that are the result of crimes such as abduction, sale or trafficking of a child, fraud in declaration of adoptability, falsification of official documents or coercion, as well as any activity or practice such as the absence of the appropriate consent of the biological parents, improper material profits for the benefit of intermediaries and the corruption associated therewith, constitute illegal adoptions and must be prohibited, criminalized and punished as such ”.

Van der Spek brought the news last night that the TV program Spoorloos has linked adopted children to wrong biological parents. KRO-NCRV has since confirmed that there have been two mismatches and is investigating twelve more cases . In two other cases investigated, the match was correct.

In his RTL5 program Oplichters tackled , Van der Spek will tonight look for a fraudulent Colombian fixer who linked Dutch people to family members for Spoorloos . ,,Actually, I never realized that adoptive children and their search for their parents is such a huge thing. Coincidentally, my last broadcast is also about adoption, but with a completely different approach. It is about children who are adopted from India from a children's home in Mumbai. From there, 500 adoptions have been made. Children who knock on their door now have to pay to look in their file. That orphanage is a revenue model.”

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