Patrick Madden was raised as an only child in the Bronx by his adopted Irish father and Irish American mother, but only learned about his Irish birth family in January 2023 at the age of 63.

Patrick Madden, who was given up at birth in Dublin and adopted by an Irish American couple in New York, has recently discovered his long-lost Irish family and learned that he is the eldest of eight siblings.

Madden, who was raised as an only child in the Bronx by his adopted Irish father and Irish American mother, only learned about his birth family in Ireland last January at the age of 63.

Madden told IrishCentral that it was "no big surprise" when he learned that he was adopted because he didn't look anything like his adopted parents but said he did not have a birth certificate, which made it very difficult to find any information about his birth mother.

It also made it next to impossible for him to obtain an Irish passport, even though he was born in Ireland to Irish parents and subsequently raised by an adopted Irish father.

There was a lot of fuss about Spoorloos because the tracking program had linked many participants to the wrong family members. Thanks to Spoorloos, Mabel Nummerdor (49) did find her real French father, but she still gives presenter Derk Bolt (67) and his investigation team a big kick. Why?

Last year, crime journalist Kees van der Spek revealed in his RTL 5 program Kees van der Spek, scammers tackled that the KRO-NCRV program Spoorloos had gone wrong countless times – many participants who were looking for their 'lost' relatives had been to the wrong people linked. After the TV broadcast, more mistakes were made and a media storm ensued.

Displeasure

These so-called mismatches came about through the corrupt intermediary Edwin Vela, on whom presenter Derk Bolt and his editors blindly trusted. Just as the failed 'family reunions' of the tracking program have faded into the background, former participant Mabel Numberdor expresses her displeasure with the search for her biological father.

Cheated

Inaya Sadik Khan was nine when her truck driver father died.

Initially studying at a BMC school, she graduated in Commerce,

mastered in Management Studies and now is an assistant vicepresident with an MNC. She lives with her highly paid chef

husband and 11-year-old son at an apartment in tony Cuffe

Parade.

Introduce…

Fiom is the center of expertise in the field of unwanted pregnancy, distance & adoption and related questions. The starting point of working at Fiom is the right of self-determination of unwanted pregnancies and the right of a child to know where he or she comes from and to grow up while retaining its own identity. Fiom offers information and help with unwanted pregnancies, aftercare in the field of adoption and guides people in their search for biological family in the Netherlands and abroad. We also manage the KID-DNA Database, which enables a match between a donor child and an anonymous donor. We do all this with approximately 80 passionate employees from our offices in 's-Hertogenbosch and Houten and from our home workplaces.

We are immediately looking for an experienced person for our Family Questions – Donor Conception team

Caregiver Related questions for 28 - 32 hours a week

What are you going to do?

A petition by the Freiburg association "Stolen Children - Forgotten Victims" was finally successful: children from Eastern Europe who were abducted by the Nazis are to be compensated.

77 years after the end of the Second World War, the country wants to recognize kidnapped children as victims of the Nazi regime. People who were abducted as children by the Nazis from Poland and other occupied territories are now to receive compensation from a special fund. The petition was brought in by the Freiburg association "Stolen Children - Forgotten Victims".

Rolf Klein: robbed as a two-year-old

"Rolf Klein, born on March 8, 1943 in Kraków," says the birth certificate that the former Freiburg innkeeper has on his living room table along with old photos. Whether that's true - who knows. One thing is certain: Rolf Klein is a kidnapped child. The 79-year-old lives with the name of an unknown. She had missed her child after the war. It turned out that he wasn't her son, but the name stuck.

"They didn't give a fuck. The main thing is that the guy has a name and was born at some point and that's it."

Participants of the second international conference on Children and Residential Care 15 May 2003

This document represents the agreements made at the Second International Conference on Children and Residential Care in Stockholm, Sweden, held from 12 to 15 May, 2003. The conference was sponsored by the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the Swedish International Development and Co-operation Agency (Sida). The document includes the principles and actions, regarding children and residential care, that were agreed upon by the participants at the conference.

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In February 2018, we held a getaway for adult adoptees, over two nights at Barrenjoey Hideaway in the Adelaide Hills. The aim of this getaway was to connect adopted adults in a relaxed setting, for them to share their experiences of what life has been like as an adopted person. Coinciding with this, we filmed interviews and created a documentary by which we hope to raise awareness of the complexities and issues surrounding adoption.

Five adoptees reveal their most personal experiences of adoption and how it has affected their lives.

See how their seemingly unrelated life experiences resonate with others who’ve faced such extreme trauma so early in their lives but are somehow expected to be grateful. The common traits among adoptees, despite their seemingly different circumstances and the unspoken issues which sometimes surface decades later.

This new emotion-charged documentary dispels many myths which have kept adoptees silent for decades and helps unite them as a community working for better lives.

A not-to-be-missed documentary for anyone touched by adoption.

“In Haiti, Mica didn't have a mirror, so it hangs above her play corner. It is special for her to see herself,” says Miranda Tollenaar (49). She recently started living with her adopted daughter in a 'no longer so humble home' in Arnhem.

“I used to live in a small house. Too small for Mica and me together. My dream was to find a house for the two of us, within walking distance of Mica's school. But I never thought it would work.” The Arnhemmer searched for a long time for a suitable, larger home and out of desperation she even enlisted the help of a TV program . Miranda eventually found her place in the Spijkerkwartier.

A place of your own

"This house brought us peace after the adoption period." It lasted eleven years and gained momentum when Miranda was allowed to pick up Mica after all these years. “It gives us a fulfilled feeling that we have everything we want here. A delight!” De Arnhemmer refers to, among other things, the amount of space (76 square meters), two separate bedrooms and a garden. "I always thought that combination was not feasible, but now we both have our own place."

'Really our moment'

Khan and Sayeed found a childless couple in Hyderabad who were willing to adopt a child... once the newborn's condition improved, the child was handed over to them, said an officer

Four persons, including a mother of a six-month-old, were arrested after the newborn was illegally handed over to a childless couple in Hyderabad, police said.

Cops are investigating if the child’s mother – identified as Shamima Shah – and her accomplices got any financial benefits.

Shah, who is already a mother to five other children, however, told police her husband had married another woman. He was not supporting them financially due to which she decided to give away her sixth child.

“We are checking if the four got any monetary benefits. But it appears Shah was not in a position to take care of a child and a childless couple wanted a baby. So, the newborn was handed over to them without following due legal procedure,” said an officer.

Have you ever tried to go back (in your thoughts) and listen to yourself, to what you really felt growing up as an adoptee?

When I try to go back in time like that, I realise I have so many feelings and thoughts I never dared to express. I still carry those feelings inside of me.

As a transracial, intercountry adoptee growing up in Sweden during 1970-1980, I feel that I was part of an experiment. Children from countries all over the world were placed in Swedish families and we were supposed to be like a “clean slate”, as if our life stories started at the airport in Sweden.

My background was never a secret and I was allowed to read my documents from Chile. But I never felt that I could talk about my feelings and thoughts about my first mom. I held so much inside and was never asked to express anything regarding my feelings or thoughts. I couldn’t understand why I was in Sweden, why I wasn’t with my mom and my people in Chile. I felt so unwanted and not loved.

I wrote a letter to my mom as if I was 7 years old. I don’t know why I did it, but I wrote the letter in Spanish.