Comic book artist Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom was in her 30s when she learned she was a “paper orphan”.

Born in South Korea, and taken to an orphanage before being adopted to a Swedish family at 2 years old, Sjöblom was removed from her mother because of her unmarried status. Poverty, disability, religion or simply being indigenous can be enough of a reason for the adoption industry to take children from their first families, she says.

As a “paper orphan”, Sjöblom was registered as an orphan even though her parents who were alive and known to authorities.

Illicit transnational adoption has deliberately erased the families and identities of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.

Now, the comic book artist, illustrator and adoptees rights activist lives in T?maki Makaurau Auckland with her partner, children and cat.

Project History and Roots

Wereldkinderen started the 'History and Roots' project in 2017 to collect available information.

Publications adoption

A report per country from which more than 200 children were adopted to the Netherlands describes the social, economic and cultural context at the time of the adoptions in the period 1970-2000.

Adoption file

A child can request the cooperation of his presumed biological father with a DNA test in order to definitively establish paternity. In principle, the presumed biological father must cooperate in this. It is only possible to deviate from this under exceptional circumstances. The Supreme Court ruled that today.

The case

In this case, a 53-year-old man (hereinafter: the man) has repeatedly requested his presumed biological father to have DNA taken to investigate whether the latter is actually his biological father. The presumed biological father, who had a relationship with the man's mother prior to the man's birth, refuses to cooperate.

The rulings of the court and the court of appeal

The court previously ruled that the presumed biological father must cooperate with DNA testing because the interest of a child to know from whom it descends outweighs the interest of the father to keep it hidden. In doing so, the court took into account that the violation of the physical integrity of the presumed father, which is required for a DNA test, is very minor (reduction of buccal mucosa).

Each year, the International Adoption Mission publishes a comprehensive report containing all the figures relating to the adoption of foreign children by French nationals or foreigners residing in France.

International adoption in 2021

In 2021, 252 children were adopted abroad by French nationals or foreigners residing in France, compared to 244 in 2020.

The top 5 countries of origin

In 2021, the top 5 countries of origin are:

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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has personally apologized to a group of Greenlandic Inuit who were taken from their families in 1951 as part of a social experiment as a child. Six of the 22 are still alive. The apologies were conveyed at a meeting at the National Museum in Copenhagen.

The children were brought from Greenland to the then colonizer Denmark to be re-educated there. The idea was that once back in Greenland, they would form a Danish-speaking elite that could set an example for the rest of the Greenlandic population. In that way, they would contribute to the development of Greenland and improve the ties between Greenland and Denmark. The children were between 5 and 9 years old when they were taken from their families.

"What you went through was terrible and it was inhumane," Frederiksen said at the meeting. "It was unjust and heartless. We can take responsibility and do the only thing that is just: apologize for what happened."

Forbidden to speak Greenlandic

Initially it was the intention to send orphans to Denmark, but they proved difficult to find. Subsequently, children were also selected from families with only a father or mother. They were promised that the children in Denmark would receive a better education. “Our parents said yes, but they barely knew what they were agreeing to,” said Eva Ilum, one of the children.

The Bombay high court has directed the Dharavi division deputy collector to issue a caste certificate within two weeks to the adopted son of a single mother, assigning him the same caste as her.

A division bench of justices Sunil Shukre and GA Sanap passed an operative order on Tuesday allowing the petition filed by the 44-year-old doctor, a Borivali West resident. A detailed order is expected in due course.

In the petition, filed through advocate Pradeep Havnur, the woman said the process to adopt the boy was approved by the Bombay City Civil Court in October 2009.

The woman, who belongs to the Hindu Mahyavanshi (scheduled caste) community, then applied to the deputy collector in 2016 for a caste certificate for her son seeking the same caste. On September 3 that year, the deputy collector rejected her plea, saying her documents could not be accepted for assigning the same caste.

The District Caste Scrutiny Committee for Mumbai city rejected her appeal against the deputy collector’s order on November 30, 2017 citing absence of specific legal provisions covering adopted children. The woman then moved the high court.

Ukraine - Adoption Update

Last Updated: March 9, 2022

The Office of Children’s Issues has received many inquiries from prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) at all stages of the adoption process in Ukraine who are understandably concerned about the safety of the children. ??

Many families have previously hosted the child they wish to adopt and hope to find a mechanism to bring the child to the United States until the crisis in Ukraine resolves. We are also hearing from hosting organizations and other humanitarian groups who seek information about how to bring Ukrainian children to the United States outside of the intercountry adoption process. ?Right now, the situation in Ukraine is fluid. We are in touch with Ukrainian authorities who have expressed concern about moving children out of Europe at this point.?Our understanding is that children may depart Ukraine with their legal guardians, who are often the orphanage directors, if other required criteria are met. The Ukrainian government has confirmed they are not approving children to participate in host programs at this time and are taking measures to ensure their safety in neighboring countries.

We will continue to seek clarifications from the Ukrainian government for how parents with final court approval and final orders of adoption may proceed.? PAPs may find helpful Information for U.S. Citizens In the Process of Adopting in Ukraine on our website.?

Victorian Government response to the recommendations of the

Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee’s Inquiry into

responses to historical forced adoption in Victoria

Adopted as a baby, denied any information about her natural parents, Lohan has spent years fighting for the church and state to reveal what they know – about her and the thousands of others in the same position

A “destroyer of lives”. That is what a nun called adoption rights activist Susan Lohan when she sought answers from the religious order that brokered her adoption. Instead of being given the truth, Lohan was told not to ask questions. She was born in 1964 to one of thousands of unmarried mothers forcibly separated from their children – usually women who had no choice but adoption due to their circumstances. In the mid-60s in Ireland, up to 97% of all children born to unmarried mothers, like Lohan, were taken for adoption, mainly by the religious institutions and agencies that controlled social services and opposed reproductive choice.

On our drive to her home in Malahide, a coastal suburb of Dublin where she lives with her husband and son, Lohan reels off the heritage of her dog, Flynn, happily sprawled on the back seat. She laughs at the fact that her dog had documents to prove his ancestry but, as an adopted person, Lohan had to fight for decades to access her own birth information.

The married couple who adopted Lohan were loving parents, unlike some families in the past who took in children to use as free labour. A housewife and a shoe salesman, they were the rosary-reciting ideal of Catholic Ireland and their religious devotion would have been necessary to adopt a child. Couples needed a priest’s approval to adopt and sometimes even proof that they couldn’t have children biologically. Lohan’s adoptive parents were told that her mother had died in childbirth but they were sceptical. Lohan always had an image in her mind of her mother as an unmarried girl, too young to keep her. She later found out that her mother had been in her 30s at the time, a civil servant who became president of a trade union. “She was not a woman who was easily intimidated,” Lohan says. “And even she felt unable to resist.”

While studying at University College Dublin in the early 80s, Lohan’s “eyes were opened on a lot of issues”. Contraception was difficult to get in Ireland, for example, and the anti-choice eighth amendment, which made the foetus’s life of equal value to the mother’s, was introduced in 1983. But systemic abuse within the Catholic church in Ireland was also being exposed and many, like Lohan, were beginning to understand how religious-run agencies had used adoption “as a mechanism to separate families” who didn’t meet the Catholic ideal.