Protocol for Responding to Allegations of Illicit or Illegal Practices in Intercountry Adoption

What to do if you think your, or your child’s, intercountry adoption was illegal or illicit

In Australia, intercountry adoptions are facilitated under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (the Hague Convention)(link is external). This helps preserve the safety, rights and interests of children. The rights and best interest of the child are central to any decisions made about a child’s adoption.

The Australian Central Authority (ACA) and State and Territory Central Authorities (STCAs) are aware of the risks involved in intercountry adoption and only partner with countries who adhere to the Hague Convention.

If concerns or allegations about illicit and illegal adoption practices are raised we have the Protocol for Responding to Allegations of Illicit or Illegal Practices in Intercountry Adoption (the Protocol). It has been developed by the ACA for intercountry adoption under the Hague Convention, in consultation with STCAs. The protocol is reviewed periodically to make sure it adheres to best practice in preventing and addressing illicit or illegal practices in intercountry adoption.

All 5 petitions were filed last year by BJP leader & lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. In all of them, SC has issued notice, asking relevant govt authorities to respond.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court currently has five petitions pending before it that demand uniformity in civil laws in the country on five aspects — age of marriage, divorce, succession, maintenance and adoption.

All the petitions were filed last year by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. And in all of them, the apex court has issued notice, asking the relevant government authorities to respond.

The petition seeking uniform age of marriage demands that the marriageable age for both men and women should be increased to 21 years.

The remaining four PILs have the same demand — either the Supreme Court should direct the government to “remove anomalies” in different laws, or it should frame guidelines itself to declare such “discriminatory grounds” of succession, adoption, maintenance and divorce as unconstitutional.

Thousands of Sri Lankan babies were put up for adoption between the 1960s and 1980s - some of them sold by "baby farms" to prospective parents across Europe. The Netherlands, which accepted many of those infants, has recently suspended international adoptions following historical allegations of coercion and bribery. As that investigation unfolds, families who never stopped thinking about the children who vanished hope they will be reunited.

Indika Waduge remembers the red car driving off with his mother and sister, Nilanthi, inside. He and his other sister Damayanthi stayed at home and waited for their mother to return. When she came back the next day, she was alone.

"When we said goodbye to each other I never thought Nilanthi was about to go abroad or it was the last time we'd see each other," he says.

This was in either 1985 or 1986, when Indika's father had left his mother Panikkarge Somawathie to raise three children alone. As the family struggled to survive, he remembers a man his mother knew convincing her to give Nilanthi, who was four or five, up for adoption.

Indika Waduge

About Me

Annick Boosten

I was adopted from India at the age of four. My parents already had a son David, who is four years older than me. There was another son but unfortunately he had a metabolic disease that killed him when he was eight months old. Due to the disease being hereditary (David appeared to have it too, only to a lesser extent) my parents decided to adopt a child. My parents are hardworking people who are always busy, the type who always say, “Don’t whine, just get on with it.” That’s how they raised me.

My mother worked furiously to teach me the Dutch language so that I could go to school as soon as possible because I came to them in December then by January, I had to go to school. When I used to object and say, “I’m sure they do that very differently in India,’ my mother replied, “You’re not in India, you’re in Belgium and that’s how we do it here.” I am very happy with my parents but sometimes I would have liked them to have known me a bit better, to have been a little more empathetic. As a child, I was overloaded with expensive clothes and all kinds of electronic toys as compensation because my parents worked so hard. During the holidays, I was sent to all kinds of camps so that my parents wouldn’t have to take off from work. I would have much preferred if we had been closely involved as a family and my parents made time for us to do fun things together. I’d have preferred a day at the beach than an X-box or Playstation.

Now that I have a son of my own, I give him a kiss every day and tell him how very happy I am with him. I do this even in those moments when I might be a bit angry because he doesn’t want to sleep. I missed that sort of interaction with my parents.

Thousands of Sri Lankan babies were put up for adoption between the 1960s and 1980s - some of them sold by "baby farms" to prospective parents across Europe. The Netherlands, which accepted many of those infants, has recently suspended international adoptions following historical allegations of coercion and bribery. As that investigation unfolds, families who never stopped thinking about the children who vanished hope they will be reunited.

Indika Waduge remembers the red car driving off with his mother and sister, Nilanthi, inside. He and his other sister Damayanthi stayed at home and waited for their mother to return. When she came back the next day, she was alone.

"When we said goodbye to each other I never thought Nilanthi was about to go abroad or it was the last time we'd see each other," he says.

This was in either 1985 or 1986, when Indika's father had left his mother Panikkarge Somawathie to raise three children alone. As the family struggled to survive, he remembers a man his mother knew convincing her to give Nilanthi, who was four or five, up for adoption.

Indika says this man was a broker for a "baby farm" in a suburb of the capital, Colombo, called Kotahena. He claims that while a female clerical officer at a court and her husband ran it, it was the broker who arranged the adoption for foreign parents - mainly Dutch couples.

Often adopted children go missing without a trace

Precariousness pushes thousands of Haitians to entrust their children to reception centers, or to have them adopted. Most of these children leave the country, without their parents having any possibility of tracking them down or hearing from them.

Many parents do not know how international adoption works. “The 'madan sara' are sometimes victims,” says journalist Michel Joseph. Having no one to look after their child, they [sometimes] entrust them to a crèche so that they can go about their business activities. When they return after eight or fifteen days, it is announced that the child has already been adopted and that he has traveled ”.

In other situations, birth parents fall victim to false promises. "Sometimes [nurseries, orphanages or foreign missions] promise them a house or money, under the pretext of sponsorship, in exchange for the child."

Michel Joseph's reports on Radio Caraibes have made it possible to link some twenty Haitian parents with their children scattered around the world. To systematize this work, the journalist has just launched on March 6, Voie d'Espoir. Several hundred parents made the trip, documents yellowed by time in hand, to launch research on children who have sometimes disappeared for decades.

Iresha, 32, was born in India and adopted as a baby by Dutch adoptive parents. Iresha is 12 years old when she dares to confide in someone and talks about how things really go at home. She is removed from home at the age of 15. She spends her teenage years in various youth care institutions.

Years later she has her life on her own. She lives in Antwerp where she is educated at the art academy and works on her artworks with great passion. This is her story.

Where I come from

I grew up in a family with Dutch parents. After my arrival in the Netherlands, my parents adopted my sister from Colombia. My mother got pregnant twice more. She interrupted one pregnancy and when I was 7 years old, they had another son. I've always felt different. I looked different from the people around me.

When I was 5 years old I traveled to India with my adoptive parents to meet my biological mother. This was a traumatic experience. I was too young to be confronted with my background; the different culture in India and the poverty that I saw. When I got off the plane and was confronted by the people living on the street, I threw up.

For the opening of investigations into illegal adoptions and illicit practices in intercountry adoptions since 1950 in Europe

In recent years, more and more of us in Europe have called for an investigation into the illicit practices observed in intercountry adoption for several decades.

Indeed, today, it is clear that :

In view of the difficulties encountered by adoptees in obtaining information on their origins, despite the right to access information which is supposedly a fundamental right ;

In view of the growing number of adoptees living in European Union countries who discover that their international adoption has been the subject of illegal practices (falsified documents, erroneous accounts, child trafficking, kidnappings, false contentment’s, etc.) and some of whom find, against all odds, their biological family ;

A woman who was adopted in Liverpool in 1953 has discovered that her birth mother is still alive 67 years after she gave her up for adoption.

The 67-year-old daughter of an Irish woman who traveled from Ireland to England to give her up for adoption in 1953 has made the shocking discovery that her mother is still alive.

Margaret, who lives in Warwickshire, was adopted in Liverpool when she was just six months old. Her mother Bridget had given birth to her when she was unmarried and traveled to England to give her up for adoption, leaving Margaret wondering about what happened to her every year on her birthday.

Margaret appeared on Tuesday night's episode of BBC2's DNA Family Secrets in the hope of tracking down her biological mother and was stunned when she discovered that Bridget was still alive and living in an Irish care home.

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Adoption is often not a rosy story, even if you were raised in a happy Dutch family. The committee investigated the role and responsibility of the Dutch government in intercountry adoptions. She presented the results of the study on 8 February. There is often a dark reality behind adoption stories full of wrongs. With this report, there is finally recognition for the pain that many adoptees experience. Joëlle Raus Prudence, herself adopted from Mauritius, explains why this is so important.

February 8 was an emotional day. The conclusions of the Joustra Committee report are clear. It confirms what I and many other adult adoptees have known for a long time: the adoption system is inciting child trafficking worldwide. The process is linked to serious abuses of which the Dutch government has been aware since the 1960s. In response to the report's conclusions, intercountry adoption has been completely halted for the time being. It gives me a strange feeling of relief that the minister is adopting the report's advice.

Although I also immediately think of the grief of prospective parents - my parents once were -, it is time to see what is wrong. To recognize that adoption is in many cases about love, but is also a form of human trafficking that hides untold suffering. Especially in the case of closed adoptions. The report states that the origin of the children is often difficult to trace and that the system is maintained by many perverse financial incentives, which makes the adoption business a lucrative sector. In the past fifteen years that I have studied my own adoptive past, I have heard the most horrible experiences from other adoptees and those involved. I have heard stories of young women and girls in parts of Southeast Asia who traded to give birth in so-called baby farms. Stories about parents whose children are stolen on their way to the store. There are children who have been "lost" after natural disasters. And stories about women in Haiti who become pregnant without being married and are manipulated by the (Catholic) church to give up their child for a small fee. The list is endless.

However, this does not happen in a vacuum. It starts with the unfair distribution of wealth and the arrogant attitude of the West. Many people feel that parenthood is a right and sometimes go to such extreme lengths to have a child that they ignore the rights of the child. This has created a system of supply and demand. Many stakeholders in the adoption process are convinced that a child is better off in the rich West. The Catholic Church played a decisive role in my adoption. This didn't stop when she gave me up. To this day, they continue to convince her that she made the right choice at the time. It's about the perception of the outside world: the shame, the opportunities for mother and child. And of course to generate income.

Being born in less prosperous circumstances is often seen as the guarantee of an unhappy life. That is exactly that arrogant view from the West. People do not think about what it is like to be a child who does not know exactly where she comes from and that - when she starts her search - finds out that the information in her adoption file is incorrect. Without leads it is impossible to find your biological family. For some, that pain is all-consuming and can result in a life full of sadness and psychological problems. I myself had a happy childhood with my white, Dutch parents. But still the search for myself, where I come from and the conflict of loyalty that goes with it, is the common thread in my life. But imagine ending up in a dysfunctional family, enduring abuse, and all of that on top of the adoption issue. How do you find your way in life? It's something we don't like to hear, but in the Netherlands there are plenty of adoptions that are not successful. Not least because the adoptive family does not meet the requirements.