Discussed in this essay:

Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala, by Rachel Nolan. Harvard University Press. 320 pages. $35.

In May 1982, Blanca Luz López entrusted her son, a toddler, to a full-time caretaker in a poor neighborhood of Guatemala City. This was a common arrangement for working mothers, like López, whose long hours prevented them from assuming themselves the responsibilities of parenting. She visited her son when she could, and then, one day that next February, he wasn’t there. The caretaker said she had sent the boy elsewhere “for his greater safety,” and gave López an address. López went to the house, and a woman there told her that the boy would be returned to her at a piñata party so that he could be given a proper goodbye.

When López and four other people—three adults and a child—arrived for the party, they were shown in, offered a bottle of liquor, and then set upon by a group of attackers with knives. All four adults, including López, were murdered, and the child was kidnapped. The assailants had already shuttled López’s son out of the country, and the other child was never seen again. To this day, neither has been found.

Before Guatemala outlawed foreign adoptions in 2007, one in a hundred children born there was adopted internationally. The country was second only to China in the number of children being sent abroad, yet Guatemala had a population of about thirteen and a half million people, roughly one one-hundredth of China’s. Rachel Nolan, in her detailed and heartrending first book, Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala, uses years of research to show the way that a country destabilized by war can invite merciless profiteers to break apart families such as López’s and allow others overseas to reconfigure them according to their own desires. For the three decades between 1977 and 2007, Guatemala allowed lawyers to match children with foreign families, with minimal oversight from a court. What happened in Guatemala, along with similar scandals in Romania, South Korea, and Peru, inspired the creation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption in 1993. The treaty now governs the way more than a hundred countries conduct adoption across national borders.

A Danish doctor-married couple discovered six years ago how official medical statements were being falsified when the humanitarian organization Terre des Hommes was mediating adopted children from Romania to Denmark.

The couple then reported the case to the Danish authorities. Nevertheless, it took several years before the Ministry of Justice, under current Minister of Justice Frank Jensen, intervened and stopped Terre des Hommes.

The case started for the married couple Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther, Århus, when they received a severely disabled girl in 1995. The child was two and a half years old and came from the notorious Romanian orphanage Babadag in the city of Tulcea.

Prayed especially for a healthy child
- We were getting old and had therefore stipulated that we did not want a disabled child, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen, who is now 56.

- At that time we had heard a little about the fact that many disabled children were coming up from Romania. That's why we specifically asked about it when we were at Als and spoke to Anne Botfeldt, the person responsible for Terre des Hommes' adoption department.

Anne Botfeldt promised the parents that they had nothing to be afraid of:

- No, there was no danger and no problems. On the contrary, we had been very lucky, because the orphanage Babadag was the best in all of Romania.

Before the adoption went through, medical reports were issued on the child. They determined that the little girl was healthy, of normal development and could both talk and walk.

So retarded girl in Kastrup
Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther were not down to pick up their daughter themselves. She was brought to Denmark by a young Danish man who was a volunteer for Terres des Hommes in Romania.

Already at Kastrup Airport, the couple could see that their child was ill.

- We are both doctors, and knew immediately that it was crazy. The girl was retarded and could do nothing. But of course we accepted her.

Immediately afterwards, the couple complained to the Directorate of Civil Rights under the Ministry of Justice.

- We told them what had happened and asked who actually controls the organizations that mediate the children.

Was threatened with Interpol
The couple's complaint did not cause the Directorate of Civil Justice to sound the alarm, but triggered a lengthy exchange of letters between the Directorate and Terre des Hommes.

But the complaint caused Terre des Homme's then chairman of the board, Jessie Rosenmeier, to write and scold the couple several times:

- We called her 'the lady in the hat'. She threatened to report us to nothing less than Interpol because we wouldn't report every six months and tell how the child was doing.

- Our answer was that when Terre des Hommes could falsify medical documents, they could also write such a report themselves, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

Traffic continued
Even though the authorities were now involved in the case, Terre des Hommes, Anne Botfeldt and Jessie Rosenmeier continued to send sick adopted children to Denmark. And the traffic continued with false medical certificates that officially made the children healthy.

The Civil Rights Directorate and the judicial authorities' reaction did not come until three years later.

Namely, a late summer day in 1998, when Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther talked about their experiences in a DR broadcast made by the now deceased TV documentarian Steen Baadsgaard.

A few days after the case was raised on television, the Ministry of Justice decided to conduct a retrospective study of around 200 Romanian adoption cases. Especially by Terre des Hommes and the organization's contact person in Romania.

But Terre des Hommes itself was allowed to continue its activities.

Right up until January 1999, when the organization was once again exposed as having sent a disabled child to an unsuspecting family.

Is eight years old and wears diapers
- The cases were hushed up, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

- What the motives have been remains uncertain. But there is a part that must have been sitting inside with some knowledge.

- Today we know that at least one in eight 'healthy' children who came to Denmark with Terre des Hommes had severe injuries and will be dependent on institutions for the rest of their lives.

- We ourselves love our own daughter, who is now eight years old, very much. She is loving, talks like a waterfall, and we have many happy moments together. But she is developed as a three-year-old, wears diapers and will never be able to fend for herself.

- And it has given us both a completely different life than we had imagined.

A Danish doctor-married couple discovered six years ago how official medical certificates were being falsified when the humanitarian organization Terre des Hommes conveyed adopted children from Romania to Denmark.

The couple then reported the case to the Danish authorities. Nevertheless, several years passed before the Ministry of Justice, under current Minister of Justice Frank Jensen, intervened and stopped Terre des Hommes.

The case started for the married couple Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther, Århus, when they received a severely disabled girl in 1995. The child was two and a half years old and came from the notorious Romanian orphanage Babadag in the city of Tulcea.

Prayed especially for a healthy child
- We were getting old and had therefore stipulated that we did not want a disabled child, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen, who is now 56.

- At that time we had heard a little about the fact that many disabled children were coming up from Romania. That's why we specifically asked about it when we were at Als and spoke to Anne Botfeldt, the person responsible for Terre des Hommes' adoption department.

Anne Botfeldt promised the parents that they had nothing to be afraid of:

- No, there was no danger and no problems. On the contrary, we had been very lucky, because the orphanage Babadag was the best in all of Romania.

Before the adoption went through, medical reports were issued on the child. They determined that the little girl was healthy, of normal development and could both talk and walk.

So retarded girl in Kastrup
Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther were not down to pick up their daughter themselves. She was brought to Denmark by a young Danish man who was a volunteer for Terres des Hommes in Romania.

Already at Kastrup Airport, the couple could see that their child was ill.

- We are both doctors, and knew immediately that it was crazy. The girl was retarded and could do nothing. But of course we accepted her.

Immediately afterwards, the couple complained to the Directorate of Civil Rights under the Ministry of Justice.

- We told them what had happened and asked who actually controls the organizations that mediate the children.

Was threatened with Interpol
The couple's complaint did not cause the Directorate of Civil Justice to sound the alarm, but triggered a lengthy exchange of letters between the Directorate and Terre des Hommes.

But the complaint caused Terre des Homme's then chairman of the board, Jessie Rosenmeier, to write and scold the couple several times:

- We called her 'the lady in the hat'. She threatened to report us to nothing less than Interpol because we wouldn't report every six months and tell how the child was doing.

- Our answer was that when Terre des Hommes could falsify medical documents, they could also write such a report themselves, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

Traffic continued
Even though the authorities were now involved in the case, Terre des Hommes, Anne Botfeldt and Jessie Rosenmeier continued to send sick adopted children to Denmark. And the traffic continued with false medical certificates that officially made the children healthy.

The Civil Rights Directorate and the judicial authorities' reaction did not come until three years later.

Namely, a late summer day in 1998, when Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther talked about their experiences in a DR broadcast made by the now deceased TV documentarian Steen Baadsgaard.

A few days after the case was raised on television, the Ministry of Justice decided to conduct a retrospective study of around 200 Romanian adoption cases. Especially by Terre des Hommes and the organization's contact person in Romania.

But Terre des Hommes itself was allowed to continue its activities.

Right up until January 1999, when the organization was once again exposed as having sent a disabled child to an unsuspecting family.

Is eight years old and wears diapers
- The cases were hushed up, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

- What the motives have been remains uncertain. But there is a part that must have been sitting inside with some knowledge.

- Today we know that at least one in eight 'healthy' children who came to Denmark with Terre des Hommes had severe injuries and will be dependent on institutions for the rest of their lives.

- We ourselves love our own daughter, who is now eight years old, very much. She is loving, talks like a waterfall, and we have many happy moments together. But she is developed as a three-year-old, wears diapers and will never be able to fend for herself.

- And it has given us both a completely different life than we had imagined.

FIRST PART 1956-1998
Section 1

On March 20 , 1968, the editor-in-chief of Germany's
  major national   newspaper 'Hamburger Abendblatt' wrote in his daily front page column "From a human perspective". The article can be seen th in facsimile, including in Danish translation 

 

        About helping others The purpose of life is to help people in need. At first it was Germany's mixed-race children whom she placed in Danish homes, and last year victims of the war in Vietnam.      Anna Lorenzen, Hamburg, manager of Terre des Hommes, had a lot to do last year. This was not least true in Hamburg's hospitals to provide beds for seriously injured war-disabled children and provide help for them. Anna Lorenzen, who was not a well-known name and did not have a bank account, but only lives on her pension, thanks to her vitality and incomparable energy, brought 20 Vietnamese children to our hospitals for treatment. The slim woman with the narrow face understands very well people who have had a difficult fate. Nor has her own fate been a bed of roses. Anna Lorenzen is Danish. She married a German who died in World War II. She herself was badly injured and lost her right arm. In 1945 she was taken prisoner and was only released again in 1956. Today, Hamburg is her home, and her purpose in life is to help those who have often been considered 'half people', as she herself expresses it. In that relationship, it doesn't matter to her whether it's a child from Vietnam, from India or from Germany. "But the Vietnamese children have the greatest need for help at the moment ," she believes. Right now, she visits the 15 most seriously injured children and young people in Bernbecker Hospital every day. They know her and are happy every time she comes. A happy child's laugh is the biggest thank you that Anna Lorenzen could wish for.




































 

Did I inherit my blue eyes from my mother? Is my father also a late riser? How much do I resemble my siblings? For most people, knowledge of their family heritage is essential to their identity.

In Germany, a system of so-called "baby hatches" allows desperate mothers to anonymously turn over their newborns to hospitals. These infants, raised by adoptive parents, usually have no way to learn about their biological parents later in life.

Supporters, such as some church representatives, see baby hatches as a way to prevent the deaths of unwanted children. But critics like the German Ethics Council argue that all children have the right know where they come from.

Schröder supports the new lawImage: Reuters

Sunitha’s earliest photo at the Orphanage

I was born in a rural area of southern India at the beginning of 1979. I passed through a Catholic orphanage before reaching my adoptive home in Belgium, April 1981.

My adoptive parents already had two biological sons, aged 6 and 8. I grew up with the knowledge that my adoptive parents wanted a daughter. I learned later in life that they felt responsible for the death of their first son, who passed away from leukaemia. They wanted to provide a safe haven for a disadvantaged child. India came as a second choice because it was too complicated to adopt a Belgian child.

They had prepared two names for me. The feminine of the son they lost – Patricia and Angelique – like angel. Eventually, they kept my Indian name saying they liked it and it fitted well in Belgium.

Tiphaine Scholz was born in South Korea and adopted by a couple from Europe. Years later, this turns out to be completely unsuitable. Scholz goes looking for her biological parents. But on a trip to her native country, she learns things she would have preferred never to have known.

An a day in August, Tiphaine Scholz stands in her kitchen and imagines what she would say to her birth mother if they were to face each other one day. It's a simple, conciliatory sentence: "I'm not mad at you." Tiphaine is preparing Korean ribs, a dish that reminds her of the country of her birth. She is sure that her birth mother is blaming herself hugely.

A few months later, in December, everything is different. Tiphaine sits on the sofa. She has made a trip to South Korea, a journey into her past. She experienced things there that overwhelmed her like a wave that first buries what has been washed up and then pulls it back into the ocean. “I now wonder whether women in South Korea have no heart,” says Tiphaine. If she were to meet her birth mother now, she would only have one question for her: “Why?”

As a toddler, Lalita is adopted by a Lucerne family. At the age of 39, she is traveling to India for the first time. The report follows Livia Lalita Zgraggen's search for clues.

An old man with white hair sits behind an old-fashioned reception desk. He raises his head, his eyes glance at us behind his rimless glasses. We say who we are and what we want. He looks a bit grumpy, then wiggles his head in that vague Indian way and picks up the phone. With a wave of his hand he motions for us to take a seat. We sit down on a hard, fabric-covered wooden bench and wait.

It's quiet in the small room, the heat shimmers outside the windows with fly screens. A bird caws somewhere, the hot air from the fan turns above us. Along the wall are bags of toys, boxes of washing powder and other things; probably donations for the children here: It is 2 p.m., June 2018, and we are at St. Catherine's Home, an orphanage in a poor district of Mumbai (formerly Bombay).

The Indian sisters know nothing. Or is it?

Now Chilean authorities are to help the families who were separated as a result of international adoptions in the 70s and 80s and who today want to be reunited.

It was announced by the Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero Vega, during a conference in Santiago this weekend.

Since 2018, there has been a criminal investigation in Chile about the suspected irregularities that occurred in connection with the country's adoptions.

- I was so worried that I walked around with palpitations. I didn't see any other option than to notify, says Freja Bøggild to VG. 

It was Danwatch and DR that published the first interviews with her. 

As an employee of the Swedish Appeals Board, Freja Bøggild investigated several thousand adoption cases, she says. 

She says she was shocked by what she saw:

- Although my job felt meaningful, I was put off by the cynicism and indifference that characterized the system.