The circumstances in which biological parents give up an adopted child sometimes do not match what the adoption file states, researcher Atamhi Cawayu in Bolivia noted. 'Adoption services have too much reliance on paperwork.'
A couple in rural Bolivia had a seventh child in 2008, a girl with a medical condition. According to her adoption file, the parents decided to give up their daughter because of their economic situation.
The Flemish Atamhi Cawayu, himself adopted from Bolivia, went to talk to the father for his doctoral research, which he recently defended at Ghent University. 'The man was shocked when I told him that his daughter had been adopted by a Dutch couple. The father thought all along that his daughter was living with a lawyer in Santa Cruz.'
'He was told that the childless lawyer could pay much more attention to the sick child and that she also had the money to do so. He said to me, “It wasn't really what I wanted. It wasn't my first choice. Who wants to give up their own child?''
Kidnapped