olkata: A 52-year-old India-born US citizen is now in Kolkata, scouring B T Road and neighbourhoods along the Kolkata-Barrackpore route, trying to retrace her roots from the labyrinth of govt and adoption-home records and the cobwebs of a six-year-old girl's memory.

Tempori Thomas was five when she got lost from her old home and six when she found a new home around 13,000km away in Minnesota, US. "I got lost on a short-distance local train ride on December 14, 1977 while out picking firewood and charcoal for preparing dinner for my family," Thomas said.

She can recall Khardah police station, where she reached — with a stranger's help — after two days of straying. She stayed there for a day and was shifted to a home for widows, until she ended up at Presidency jail in Dec.

She stayed there until Sept 1978, before she was flown out to Minnesota with help of an orphanage and adoption NGO, International Mission of Hope in Kolkata.

Thomas, who reached Kolkata on Saturday with her friends Rebecca Peacock (49) and 47-year-old Manu Erickson (who have similar lost-and-adopted stories), spent Sunday touring the suburbs around Khardah PS from 10am to 3pm.

Now the minister wants to exempt a new group from work obligations.

Another group is set to be affected by the government's new law on work obligations in connection with cash benefits, which was otherwise intended to primarily affect non-Western immigrants.

The Ministry of Employment confirms to DR that surrogate children born abroad - just like adopted children - are covered by the new rules that come into effect on July 1 this year.

This means that if a Danish couple, for example, chooses to have a child through a surrogacy agreement from a country like the USA, the child will not have the same rights as its parents.

The Federal Council wants to ban adoptions from abroad. Now, opposition is mounting. However, opponents and supporters agree on one point.

Shortly :

• In January, the Federal Council announced a ban on adoptions from abroad.
• Now, resistance is brewing. EPP National Councilor Nik Gugger, himself adopted from India, has launched a petition against the ban. The FDP plans to submit a motion on April 11.
• Supporters of the ban take the view that even stricter controls could not prevent illegal adoptions.

Nik Gugger still remembers it clearly: As a six-year-old, he was walking through the village with his parents when suddenly someone called out: "Ah, look, there's Gugger's souvenir."

This experience doesn't stop there. "There were racist remarks from time to time, which made me feel powerless," says the EPP National Councilor, who was born in India in 1970, adopted by a Swiss couple, and grew up near Thun.

Dear journalists,

I’m Nameless Adoptee, a Korean adoptee advocating for the rights of adoptees worldwide. Today, I’m reaching out with an urgent plea: Matthieu Sung-tan, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee in France, is dying from a rare genetic disease, and South Korea’s National Center for the Rights of the Child (NCRC) is blocking access to the records that could save him. His story, detailed in two Yonhap News articles published today, March 17, 2025, exposes a systemic crisis affecting thousands of adoptees. Your coverage can make a difference — Matthieu’s life depends on it.

Matthieu’s Heartbreaking Struggle

Matthieu Sung-tan Foucault (Korean name: Jang Sung-tan) was born on December 23, 1986, in Iksan, South Korea, and adopted to France at four months old in April 1987 through Holt Children’s Welfare Society. Raised in a loving middle-class French family, he became a skilled stonemason and carpenter, contributing to the restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral. He loved playing the guitar and dreamed of a simple life with his wife, Lauriane Simon, and their children, Eloise (3) and Esteban (1).

But since spring 2024, Matthieu’s life has unraveled. He’s suspected of suffering from Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI), a rare genetic disease that prevents sleep, leading to hallucinations, memory loss, and a disconnection from reality. Yonhap News reports that he’s so exhausted he must close his eyes constantly, yet he cannot sleep — his condition is deteriorating rapidly. Without treatment, FFI patients typically survive only 18 months, with a range of 7 months to 6 years. Matthieu’s survival window is closing.

LAVA and AVGG have applied for and received a subsidy from Inea for organizing the adoption breakfast . In accordance with the subsidy conditions, we have
listed Inea's contribution on the website.

We were surprised to learn that Inea
distanced itself so openly from the meeting on Linkedin on 12 March 2025. In the relevant Linkedin post, Inea states that the
final implementation of the meeting does not fit within Inea's mission and vision.

First of all, we are curious about what Inea based this judgment on. LAVA and AVGG
organized this meeting to update members of parliament and their employees on the
(im)possibilities of the phase-out plan, both legally and socially, emotionally and socially.
In our opinion, the meeting worked out exactly as indicated in the request for proposals.
In addition, permit holders, parents and adoptees were involved in the organization and the
organization was organized by two associations together. It is precisely on this subject that it is good to
seek connection and in our opinion this fits within Inea's mission and strategy.

In addition, Inea's attitude surprises us even more, because the approval for the subsidy
was only given on March 6 (one day after the meeting). Due to malfunctions in the system, Inea was behind in
processing applications. In our opinion, Inea was therefore able to
inquire in advance about the elaboration of the meeting at all times.

We deeply regret that Inea, after the commotion caused by a small but very verbal group of
radically critical people, feels compelled to self-censor its own decisions
. In our opinion, this shows that Inea is mainly there for those who
are critical of adoption. Inea should be objective and independent and for all adoptees. However, because
this post also suggests that LAVA and AVGG have done something that would not be in line with
the application, we feel compelled to publicly distance ourselves from these claims. In addition,
we will file a formal complaint about this course of events.

Thousands of Georgians are coming to terms with a black-market adoption scandal in which children were stolen from maternity hospitals from the 1970s to the mid-2000s.

Irina always thought that the suitcase buried underneath a tree in her backyard contained the remains of her twin sons who had died shortly after birth, in 1978.
"When I gave birth, the doctor said to me: 'Do you have the means to raise these children?" she recalled decades later.
Three days after they were born, Irina was told the babies didn't survive. As instructed by the doctors, her husband brought a cloth and a suitcase to bury them in.
Since they couldn't find a cemetery plot, they buried the suitcase in their garden, unopened.
For more than 40 years, the suitcase and its contents laid untouched, until Irina's daughter Nino came across a Facebook group filled with stories of children searching for parents and parents searching for children.
Black-market adoptions and child trafficking had thrived in Georgia for decades from the Soviet era in the 1970s until the mid-2000s, when tougher laws were introduced.
Experts who have spoken to those affected by the scandal said a culture of shame surrounding adoption was one of the reasons the practice lasted so long underground.
Others believed high-level government officials were complicit and some of those involved might still be working in Georgian hospitals today.
"I read a few [Facebook] posts and then I couldn't read any more," Nino said.
Parents said in the posts they had been told their children had died but never saw the bodies — something that sounded familiar to Nino.
She asked her sister Nana: "Did our brothers really die?"
The family grew suspicious of the twins' fate and decided to dig up the suitcase in the backyard.
For more than 40 years, a suitcase was buried in Irina's garden believed to contain her twin sons' remains. Source: BBC

Inside, they found a couple of twigs, which the police later said were from a grape vine.
"We were completely shocked," Nino said. "There’s nothing inside. They’re probably alive."
 

Searching for answers

In 2016, Georgian journalist Tamuna Museridze was cleaning out her mother's house after she unexpectedly died. She found a birth certificate with her name but with a different birthdate.
In Georgia, every woman receives an official document after giving birth. But when Museridze went to the archives, she found no such document existed for her mother.
She concluded that her mother didn't give birth to her, so she must have been adopted. When her family refused to talk about it, Museridze set out to find answers.
She and her friend set up a Facebook group called "I'm searching". It quickly exploded. In post after post, people shared how they too, were looking for their biological parents and siblings.
Museridze's research found that the trafficking of babies was happening in at least 20 hospitals across Georgia. Many were in rural areas, like Kvareli, a small town in east Georgia, where Irina and her family lived.
Georgian journalist Tamuna Museridze accidentally found out she wasn't her mother's biological child. When she set out to find answers, she uncovered an old illegal adoption scheme that had thrived across Georgia. Source: BBC

Aid Pamela Keesee's Medical Journey

My mom, Pamela Keesee, age 69, had a major stroke on January 14, 2025. She was rushed to the ER in Brenham, TX, and later moved to Memorial Hermann Hospital for treatment and physical therapy. She was then moved to Katy Encompass Rehab facility where they would evaluate and help her recover. Finally, she was moved to Katy Silvercrest Memory and Assisted Living until she heals.

This would be her 6th stroke with 2 major and 4 minor. This would be the first time she has experienced cognition problems leading to longer stays. However, all the medical bills came at once and are too much for me and my mom to pay, and would love help in our times of need.

0 Catholic adoption agencies pressured unmarried mothers to give up their newborn child. In three episodes, investigative journalist David Van Turnhout examines these practices, but he also looks at the consequences and the current situation. Today he speaks with Benoît Vermeerbergen of Binnenlands Geadoptteerd.

From 1945 to 1980, Catholic adoption agencies such as Thérèse Wante organised thousands of forced adoptions. Unmarried pregnant girls were usually put in touch with centres through clergy or Christian organisations where they had to hide during their pregnancy, because becoming pregnant without being married was a mortal sin. Those who had enough money to spare could give birth anonymously in France, after which the child was smuggled back across the border and placed with a Catholic adoptive family. In this way, they wanted to prevent the pregnancy from ever coming out and society from speaking shame about the girl's family. Those who were less well-off were often sent to Belgian centres, such as De kleine vos in Borgerhout or Tamar in Lommel. The birth was discreet, but not anonymous, as the mother's name was then mentioned on the birth certificate. In France, the mother's name was not mentioned on the birth certificate.

A total of 30 to 40,000 girls and young women are estimated to have given birth in domestic and French centres and hospitals. The number of adopted children still alive today may therefore be in the tens of thousands. Almost all adopted children have questions about their origins and identity. Their search prompted them to unite. In the meantime, there are Facebook groups in which thousands of members try to help each other find their biological mothers. Their cry for attention led to the first recognition in 2015. Both the Belgian state and the Church apologized for the practices they had organised and made possible for decades.

Mother known for 2.5 hoursApologies do not answer the many questions. To help adoptees and birth mothers, Benoît Vermeerbergen De Coninck and Debby Mattys founded the website and support group Binnenlands Geadopteerd around the same time. “With our platform, we primarily offer a listening ear, but we also stand up for the rights of domestic adoptees. We also include people who were brought to Belgium via an anonymous birth in France,” says Vermeerbergen De Coninck. “There were already a few initiatives for adoptees from far abroad, but not for our group.”Vermeerbergen himself was born via an anonymous birth in France and ended up with an Antwerp adoptive family. Although he grew up in a warm nest, the search for his identity and his birth mother dominated his adult life. It was only a few years ago that he met his birth mother for the first time, who was terminally ill. It was just one meeting. “Her husband didn’t allow any further contact. I didn’t know my birth mother for more than two and a half hours.”Benoit Vermeerbergen De Coninck.Benoit Vermeerbergen De Coninck. © Patrick De Roo

David Van Turnhout

Woensdag 6 maart 2025

om 03:00

Vanaf de jaren 50 tot begin de jaren 80 zetten katholieke adoptiebureaus ongehuwde moeders onder druk om hun pasgeboren kind af te staan. In drie afleveringen neemt onderzoeksjournalist David Van Turnhout die activiteiten onder de loep.

Vandaag deel 1: de naam Adoptiewerk Thérèse Wante keert in adoptiedossiers steeds terug, wat was haar rol?

Now that Spoorloos is ending, the government must make money available for adoptees who are looking for relatives. That is what experts and people involved say. Former editors of the TV program will be questioned in court on Thursday.

Shortly after the adopted Iris Kolthof had heard from a Spoorloos editor that she would be reunited with biological family members, it turned out that the TV program would be taken off the air immediately. That decision followed more than a week after the news, in the Volkskrant of February 12, that the editors had linked Marthainès de Vries to the wrong relatives in Colombia .

After a great deal of commotion about De Vries' heartbreaking story, KRO-NCRV decided to stop showing Spoorloos and to throw out the recordings for the coming season. To prevent De Vries and other victims of a mismatch - officially there are eight - from being confronted with the program again.

Kolthof (32) was informed five minutes before the press release. 'I was shocked. I was supposed to travel to Brazil with a team from Spoorloos in mid-March . I knew they had a DNA match. I would hear the rest there.' To her relief, it turned out that the trip would go ahead as planned, because it had already been set in motion. 'But the reunion will not be filmed or broadcast.'

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