Romania has banned the adoption of its children by families in other countries, except in very limited circumstances.

The vote by MPs to approve the bill passed by the upper house two months ago bows to the EU's demand that the lucrative trade in children should be stamped out, and defies pressure from the US for regulated foreign adoption.

The ban, which will take effect at the beginning of next year, replaces a moratorium on foreign adoptions imposed three years ago but widely ignored.

The US ambassador, Michael Guest, has been crusading for months to have the moratorium rescinded.

US Congress members have been piling on the pressure, US lobby groups have been seeking to influence the government, and would-be adoptive parents in the US have been advertising in the Romanian press, pleading to be granted the opportunity to adopt Romanian children.

The Bombay High Court on Saturday quashed and set aside a March 2023 order passed by a civil court directing the adoptive parents of a two-year-old boy to hand over his custody to his biological parents pending hearing on their adoption petition.

A single bench of Justice Sharmila Deshumkh said the lower court’s order was passed in a summary manner without giving any opportunity to the parents to lead any evidence and that the matter was decided on the basis of affidavits.

“Considering that the compliance of conditions of adoption were required to be taken into consideration, it was necessary for issues to be framed in that regard and evidence be permitted to be led and as the same was not done, there was no question of bringing on record any reliable or convincing evidence to establish validity of adoption,” HC said.

The HC was hearing a petition filed by the adoptive parents challenging the order passed by the civil court dismissing their adoption petition.

The adoptive parents had filed a review application in the civil court against the order dismissing their adoption petition.

Boonyoung Han

Ph.D. student in Social Welfare

Seoul National University

By Kim Young-gyo

SEOUL, May 14 (Yonhap) -- Following recent allegations of irregularities in international adoptions from Vietnam, Korean adoptees said Wednesday South Korea's adoption system has also had serious problems.

"Earlier signals about trafficking from Vietnam ... has significant comparisons with those of South Korea in earlier 1970s and 1980s," said a Dutch activist, who was adopted from South Korea, in an interview with Yonhap News Agency.

Hilbrand Westra has been actively involved in international adoption, working as a chairman of the Netherlands-based United Adoptees International, the first independent and international foundation by adoptees, since 2006 with a political and social aim to address problems involving adoption.

"In the seventies and eighties, many children disappeared from streets in Seoul and Busan. Many older Koreans in these cities have been confirming that they knew or heard about this. Still, no one ever asked for a thorough investigation in South Korea," Westra said.

Adoption Justice: Issues of Records and Identity

INTERNATIONAL KOREAN ADOPTEE ASSOCIATIONS (IKAA) GATHERING 2007 JULY 31, 2007 DONGGUK UNIVERSITY, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA Edited by Kim Park Nelson University of Minnesota (USA) Eleana Kim University of Rochester (USA) Lene Myong Petersen University of Aarhus (Denmark)

Dear , We wish to express our unreserved support for those impacted by forced adoptions in Australia, and our recognition of the immense courage, determination, energy, and grief entailed in coming forward and sharing their experiences. We commend the Australian Government’s recognition of past harms and abuses, and the offerings of formal apologies to communities who bear the lifelong impacts of forced family separation. Gillard’s formal apology in 2013 and Australia’s commitment to increased openness of records and provision of support services was closely watched by adoptee communities overseas and in Australia and is viewed by many as an example to which governments around the world should aspire

Several MEPs, led by the French Claire Gibault and Jean-Marie Cavada (liberal democrats), have launched a petition in which they demand that the Romanian authorities reconsider the refusals they have opposed to some 1,000 families.

The question of international adoption in Romania gives rise to a painful battle in the European Parliament. Several MEPs, led by the French Claire Gibault and Jean-Marie Cavada (liberal democrats), have launched a petition in which they demand that the Romanian authorities reconsider the refusals they have opposed to some 1,000 families who would have been, say they, surprised by the moratorium on adoptions, which entered into force in October 2001. They hope to collect before July 6 the 367 signatures necessary for this petition to bind Parliament.

Mrs. Gibault , who specifies that she is "adoptive mother of two Togolese children" , is sorry for the fate of Romanian children who are victims of the moratorium on adoptions, when they have "established emotional relationships" with their future parents: "They must feel abandoned a second time!" , exclaims the conductor. "How are they going to rebuild themselves after such a trauma?" The Romanian authorities claim to have accepted all adoption applications (1,003) submitted before the entry into force of the moratorium and then rejected those made after. These requests concern, according to them, 1,092 children, with whom certain families have come into contact,

Christine and Alain Roques are among the couples who have been refused and do not understand why. "We applied in February 2001, but we weren't offered to meet two children until November 2003!" , says Mr. Roques. They were two brothers, Marin and Catalin, then aged 7 and 5, who lived in an orphanage. The Romanian Office for adoptions assures that it was not the authorities, but a private association which presented these two little boys to them, when it had no right to do so, since the moratorium was running. The Office is unable to say how this association was able to open the doors of the orphanage, where the couple from Aveyron went"every two months, for four days each time, with a translator" . Mrs. Roques regrets that the two children "with whom emotional ties have been established" , are now placed in a foster family.

Jimmy Lippert Thyden always thought he had no living blood relatives. Then he came across a USA TODAY story about a man stolen from his mother in Chile and adopted out to American parents.

It has been 42 years since María Angélica González saw her son.

He was a newborn. A nurse told González he needed to be put in an incubator because he was premature. Not long after, she returned with devastating news: The baby was dead.

For 42 years, that's what González believed. For 42 years, it has been a lie.

Gonzalez's son, Jimmy Lippert Thyden, was stolen from González, adopted out to unwitting parents in the United States and raised in Arlington, Virginia. For 42 years, Thyden believed he had no living relatives in Chile, where he was born.

I am a child who first belonged to a country that I can barely remember and whose family history is nonexistent in every possible way.

As an international adoptee from China, I was brought to the United States at nine months old. Left on the street of Qingyuan City, I came to America without a note, and a doctor at the Social Welfare Institute estimated my birthday.

My experience is far from uncommon. With limited knowledge of their family history, international adoptees often struggle to make sense of their identity. In recent years, multiple companies that allow customers to send a DNA swab or tube of spit have risen in popularity. People curious about their ancestry receive a pie chart with several colors telling them what countries they come from and a list of possible relatives, however distant. 

Still, DNA is not a substitute for the family history that, both medically and orally, can only be passed down from one generation to the next and cannot be shared through blood or by taking a test. It is the hope of developing a sense of belonging and understanding of how their parents and grandparents have shaped them into the person they are today that drives international adoptees to take a genealogy test. 

So, what does all of this mean for adoptees? Growing up in homes where their family is of a different race, many international adoptees are also transracial adoptees. Transracial adoptees focus more on their adoptive identity and on searching for biological parents than other adoptees. As they become teenagers and adults, many adoptees wonder what their life or community would have been like if not adopted.