Adopted Bulgarian Children Found in a Horror House in the US

Crime | August 9, 2019, Friday // 08:44| Views: | Comments: 0

The two Bulgarian children adopted in the U.S. are in good health and under the protection of the authorities, said the press office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following media publications about two Bulgarian children abused by their adoptive parents, U.S. citizens. Bulgaria’s Consulate General in Chicago conducted an immediate inquiry and reported that the children were in a safe place and under the protection of the Shannon County Sheriff's Office, Missouri. They are in a good condition and have undergone a full medical examination that has not found any serious injuries or illnesses.

The parents were arrested by the Somerville Police Department on 8 July 2019, after which the case was referred to the Shannon County Sheriff's Office.

The Consulate General in Chicago is in constant contact with the authorities and provides full administrative assistance on the case.

What we have in common is that we live in the Netherlands, and perhaps also that we were adopted from Bangladesh. If we go back further, we know nothing except for a few people there. What we do share is the historical past from Bangladesh.

Here we try to indicate how adoption from Bangladesh started until it stopped. We are not detailed about this because we do not have all the information. If you can add a missing piece of information, we would love to hear from you. We hope that this story will be rewritten by you until it is completely complete. We create the plan, will you help us complete it? Perhaps your parents still have information or you were involved in the procedures from Bangladesh or you were an escort. We would like to hear it!

Until 1971, Bangladesh was part of Pakistan and was called East Pakistan. In 1971 there was a bloody war of independence, during which women were raped en masse by Pakistani soldiers. Since Bangladesh is a Muslim country and these women would be rejected or these children would be rejected, the aid agencies at the time decided to make these children eligible for mediation to the Netherlands.

Once the great baby boom was expected to occur (about 9 months later), the mass rejection of children did not occur. The emergency services that had set up everything and had done everything possible to provide adequate assistance, had to stand idly by. The reason is probably that these children did not differ in appearance and were therefore included in the family as their own children. Adoption from Bangladesh started to take off after the great famine, which caused many people to die. This famine was one of the most disastrous in the country's history.

From about 1973 (who were the first? Who knows or are you one yourself) people started adopting children. These children came from various parts of the country and arrived in the Netherlands via Dacca.

Another five hundred Dutch parents could adopt a child from abroad. An adoption freeze has been announced, but ongoing procedures will not be terminated.

Another five hundred Dutch parents have a chance to bring an adopted child here, the Ministry of Justice confirms to Investico and TV program Zembla . Outgoing Minister Weerwind has not yet terminated these ongoing procedures, despite the adoption freeze he decided on last month.

Two hundred of these parents already have permission in principle, the last step before they are linked to a child. The other parents are not yet that far in the procedure. In recent years, approximately fifty adopted children came to the Netherlands every year. If all procedures continue, this means that adoption will continue for years to come.

Because some parents are allowed to adopt multiple children at once, the numbers can increase even further. Two or even three children regularly come to the Netherlands at the same time to grow up here in a family.

Vulnerable procedures

By strictly selecting adoption countries, outgoing Minister Weerwind wanted to secure international adoption by Dutch parents. But what does Hungary do on its list of selected countries?
 

What should happen next with international child adoption after the devastating conclusions drawn by the Joustra committee in 2021? It was a major political task for outgoing minister Franc Weerwind (D66, Legal Protection), so devastating was Joustra's assessment of the adoption world. The former top official had identified corruption, fraud and child trafficking in almost all adopted countries investigated. According to Weerwind, the only option to prevent large-scale abuses in the future as much as possible was a completely new adoption system. A system with 'important guarantees' and a strict selection of adopting countries.

In order to be able to choose from which countries adoption should remain possible, Weerwind had an 'analysis' drawn up for each country. This meant that one adoptive country after another was eliminated, leaving six. And so, in November 2022, it was announced that Hungary passed Weerwind's test. The 'country report' of the Central European country covers just over two A4 pages and is predominantly positive. Justice therefore concludes that there are 'reasons to continue the adoption relationship'.

Major supplier

And that's a good thing, because Hungary has been a 'major supplier' of children to Dutch parents for ten years. Almost a quarter of the adopted children are now of Hungarian descent, 79 came to the Netherlands in the past five years. They are often a bit older and often come at the same time as a brother or sister. Sometimes they have medical conditions or psychological problems. They come from a Hungarian foster family or from a children's home. And many children come from poverty-stricken Roma families.

Dong Hee Kim (44) discovered that her adoption from Korea was illegal and that her file was destroyed by the Dutch government. Her sadness and anger is great. “I will never know what life I missed.”

“My birth name is Dong Hee, but forty-four years ago my adoptive parents gave me the first name Stephanie. I was four months old when I came to them in Ede on a so-called adoption flight from Busan, Korea. The fact that I was adopted was often discussed and mentioned at home, and also that my adoptive parents loved me just as much as their two biological sons, my brothers. That openness was important to them. I wasn't really concerned with that myself. However, I did suffer from the fact that I always looked different from the rest. I was short and chubby, but my family consisted of white heads. My youngest adoptive brother never accepted me as a sister and often scolded me. At school I was the only Korean child, and I was bullied about that. When I saw tips for eye make-up in girls' magazines, I just thought: I don't have eyes like that.”

Letter like a bomb

“When I was 12, my adoptive mother started a search for my parents in Korea through the Wereldkinderen adoption service. She had always been determined to do it at that age, before I hit puberty. It took months before we got a response. In retrospect I understand why. That letter set off a bomb in my family's home in Korea because almost all of them thought I was dead. Only my mother knew what really happened. As a six-week-old baby, she had given me up to a home with my father's forged signature. Korea is a traditional country where boys are valued more highly than girls. A dowry also had to be paid for daughters. My parents already had three daughters and were dirt poor, my mother was illiterate. When my father was in the hospital for a few days after an accident, my mother brought me to the home out of desperation. At home she said I had died. That was possible, infant mortality was high in Korea and child funerals were rare. Only I wasn't dead, I was living my life eight thousand miles away. That is very sad for my mother, but also for my father and sisters. They knew nothing and retroactively became angry with my mother. I also feel bad for myself. I was the only one in this family given up and lost everything.”

Adopted children may be interested in discovering more about their origins as an important part of their identity. Several countries allow children to access their adoption files and receive information about their biological families and the circumstances of their adoption.

This right does not always include identifying pieces of information about their biological parents (such as their identity and address).

View full dataset in data explorer.

Key aspects

• In fourteen Member States, persons have access to their adoption file and to certain information regarding their biological families at 18 years (Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).
• Only Italy requests a higher age, namely 25 years.
• In Belgium, Finland and Czechia, children aged 12 or over may exercise such a right; in Austria and Hungary, this is possible from the age of 14 years. In Bulgaria, Germany and the Netherlands (as well as in Scotland) the threshold is set at 16 years. In the Netherlands, in the case of intercountry adoption, children may obtain their adoption file from the age of 12 years.
• In France and Slovakia, the possibility to access files depends on the child’s maturity.
• Ireland and Slovenia do not grant the right to access adoption files and information relating to one’s biological family. In Ireland, there is a register for facilitating contact between adopted people and their biological families. Participation is voluntary and contact is only initiated if all people involved register. In Slovenia, new rules will apply from 15 April 2019. Access to data on biological families will only be possible if the relevant persons consent. If the child wants to obtain such data, the biological parents must therefore consent. Similarly, if the biological parents ask for information, the child has to consent.
• Certain states allow children to access this information at a lower age, provided they have the consent of their parents (for instance in Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Portugal), for important reasons (for instance in Italy and Lithuania) or subject to an individual assessment of the child’s maturity (in Belgium and Sweden).
• Some countries provide for professional assistance for children prior to or during the consultation of the adoption file. This is the case, for instance, for the French-speaking community in Belgium, where such an assistance is compulsory for all persons under 18 years, and in Finland, where the child is free to accept it or not.
• In Hungary and Estonia, there are limits on the release of information regarding the identity of biological families. These apply if biological parents or siblings could not be asked or did not consent to their identity being disclosed, or if such information is not in the child’s best interests.
• In Slovakia, adoptive parents – if they so choose – may provide the child with information about the biological family, if this is in the child’s best interest.
• In Czechia, children have the right to access files at the Registry Office from the age of 12 years, and those kept by the court at 18. In the case of the mother having requested confidentiality at birth (so called “secret birth” or “anonymous” or “confidential” birth), the disclosure of her identity is allowed only on the basis of a court’s decision, regardless of the child’s age.

CHENNAI: On the date of adoption, the ties of the adoptive child with his biological family shall be deemed to be severed and replaced by those created by the adoption in the adoptive family, Madras high court has held.
“Thus, it is clear that the adoptive child is construed to be a member of the adopted family, all the ties of the child are replaced in the adoptive family created by adoption,” Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan said.

The judge made the observation while setting aside an order passed by Revenue Divisional Officer, Erode, granting legal heir certificate to biological siblings of an adopted son after the latter’s death.
According to petitioner V Sakthivel, his grandfather Sengota had three children Ramasamy, Varanavasi and Lakshmi. He is the son of Varanavasi.

Ramasamy married Sivakami. Since they had no children, they adopted one Kottravel Sethupathi in 1999. Ramasamy and Sivakami died leaving behind Kottravel Sethupathi as their sole legal heir, he said.
On Sept 6, 2020 Kottravel Sethupathi also died without any Class I legal heir as per the Hindu Succession Act. While the petitioner is Class II legal heir, Kottravel Sethupathi’s biological siblings obtained legal heir certificates to inherit the properties left behind by him.

Aggrieved, he has moved the present plea challenging the order.

Allowing the plea, the court set aside the order granting legal heir certificates to the biological siblings of Kottravel Sethupathi.


 

Bringing an adopted child to the Netherlands has become difficult, but adoption from Hungary is still allowed. There the system would be organized responsibly. However, research shows that this is not true.

In Hungary and Bulgaria, disabled children and Roma often end up on lists for foreign adoption. Nevertheless, Flanders continues the adoptions from Eastern Europe.

On November 27, 2023, prospective adoptive parents throughout Flanders will be glued to their computer screens, waiting for a message from the Flemish Center for Adoption (VCA). The final decision will be made that day: can they continue their procedure? Due to reports of malpractice and fraud, the Flemish government decided to examine all its collaborations with the so-called sending countries.

We often associate intercountry adoption with Africa and Asia, but there are also European countries on that list of countries. In a joint study with the Dutch platform Investico, the TV program Zembla , the Hungarian medium Atlaszo and the Bulgarian newspaper 24 Chasa, Knack examined adoptions from Bulgaria and Hungary - the latter has become the second largest sending country to Flanders. , after Thailand. This shows dire situations with Roma children.

Discrimination

Everything revolves around children from Hungary and Bulgaria who were given up for adoption in the past ten years. Eighteen of them ended up in Flanders. The golden rule for adoptions is the principle of subsidiarity: if an adoption is in the best interests of the child, a new home must first be looked for at home, abroad is only the very last option. This is also the rule in Hungary and Bulgaria. There are plenty of candidates in both countries: there are more prospective parents on the waiting lists than children. However, the profile of those children does not necessarily match the preferences of the domestic parents. They prefer healthy, young children from the Bulgarian and Hungarian majority. Roma children, children with disabilities and older children end up on a list for adoption abroad.

The first screening round of countries of origin with which Flanders collaborates for intercountry adoption has been completed by the Growing Up Agency. Five countries were examined. Collaboration with Portugal, Colombia and South Africa will continue. For the cooperation with Kazakhstan, an on-site visit will take place to gain more clarity on a number of important issues. Cooperation with Vietnam is being terminated because there are insufficient guarantees that the rights of children eligible for adoption and their families are guaranteed. Minister Crevits confirmed this during an exchange of views in the Welfare Committee.

If there are children for whom we can do something, we should not close our eyes to them. That is precisely why we believe in a future for intercountry adoption. But we can only guarantee that future if we give society at large and all those involved, the children themselves, but also their parents and adoptive parents, the best possible guarantees that we have done everything we can to rule out abuses. The Growing Up Agency has carried out a very intensive screening. We want to make sure that families are not pressured to give up children, that the rights of the child are not affected or that there are no financial interests involved in an adoption.” -Hilde Crevits

In mid-2021, the Flemish Government instructed to screen cooperation with countries of origin in the context of intercountry adoption. This screening must sharpen the context in which intercountry adoptions take place in order to avoid possible malpractice in the future. The Growing Up Agency developed a detailed decision framework based on the guidelines established by the government . International organizations with expertise in youth protection and children's rights such as UNICEF, International Social Service (ISS) and Child Identity Protection (CHIP) were called in to provide the most accurate possible picture of the cooperative relationship in each country of origin based on contacts with local authorities, NGOs and organizations involved in youth care and adoption processes. Both adoptees and the intercountry adoption services in Flanders were given the opportunity to assess all information. The Flemish Center for Adoption of the Growing Up agency made the final decision.  

First round of screening

Five countries were part of the first round of screening: Portugal, Colombia, South Africa, Kazakhstan and Vietnam. For Portugal, Colombia and South Africa, the screening confirmed that a further direct cooperation relationship with Flanders is appropriate and that further agreements can be made. Kazakhstan turns orange: this means that an on-site visit is necessary before a final decision can be made. For the time being, contact with the competent authorities in the country was only possible to a very limited extent. A working visit should provide an answer to the question of whether a sustainable cooperative relationship for adoption with Kazakhstan is possible. Pending more clarity, the collaboration will continue in the meantime. In the coming months, the 15 other countries of origin with which Flanders currently has an adoption relationship will also be examined.