Waar kom ik vandaan? Een pleidooi voor transparantie in het adoptiesysteem - nieuws - Maastricht University (Where do I come from? A plea for transparency in the adoption system - news - Maastricht University)

Where do I come from? A plea for transparency in the adoption system

The ‘Afstammingscentrum’ (research centre of filiation) offers assistance for everyone in Belgium who has questions about their own filiation and kinship – when the legal kinship does not match the genetic kinship. The centre develops and gathers expertise, raises awareness and formulates policy recommendations on these issues. In practice, the centre often has to deal with ethical questions about adoption. Experts, such as Sophie Withaeckx, researcher at the Centre for Gender and Diversity at Maastricht University, help with answering these questions.

For and by target groups

Adoptees, donor-conceived people and metis of the former Belgian colonies have argued for years for their right to know where they come from. In 2019, the Flemish government approved their proposal for a research centre of filiation. The Flemish government opened the centre in 2021, and has subsidised it ever since. “The Afstammingscentrum was meant to exist for and by the target groups, so our steering group exists of members of our target groups and experts on our working topics to ensure that the centre remains on the right track,” Joyce Bex, one of the programme counselors at the Afstammingscentrum, explains.

The Leuven Adoption Study is blowing out 14 candles this month. We spoke to Simon Fiore, child and adolescent psychologist and doctoral researcher at the LAS, about the study and some of the findings.

What is the LAS study and what is its purpose?

LAS stands for Leuven Adoption Study. It is the first large-scale long-term study in Flanders that follows about forty families with an adoption story.

The aim of the LAS is to better understand how families with an adoption story develop over time. I am talking about both adoptive parents and children and young people with an adoptive background.

Where does the question or interest in following these families through time come from?

Veronica Serbov had a nightmare childhood, eating bread and butter from the older girls in the orphanage where about 300 children were crammed.

"I simply could not sit still. I was standing up on the bench and the teacher told me to sit down in vain. If I didn't move for more than 10 minutes, I felt like I was going crazy, my blood was boiling, my heart was pumping faster". says Veronica in a publication.

She found her vocation alone: ??"I liked martial arts when I saw the first movie with Bruce Lee. I saw him kicking trees to train, I was kicking too... There were some boys doing martial arts in our school hall. I was 8-9 years old and I used to watch for hours through the window during training. I would climb the building and stay there in the sun, in the rain, in the wind, summer and winter, it didn't matter".

19,333 children are institutionalized in Romania. In larger or smaller houses. Of them, 5,959 are in centers dedicated to those with special needs. 60% of those in special homes receive psychiatric treatment. And almost 30% of all institutionalized minors are under treatment. The reason? Does the system only want quiet, submissive children with no aspirations and no freedom of expression? I am convinced that many of them would have had the chance to become normal adults, able to discover and develop their talents in painting, music, theater, but is it so easy to destroy sensitivities?

"I'm not saying I was born to do martial arts. But three years spent in the extermination center from P?cli?a, during which I was sedated, tranquilized, did not manage to turn me away from this sport". World champion of senior women in martial arts, kempo style, at only 18 years old, Veronica Serbov was a child-phenomenon, who promised to overcome her destiny with amazing drama.

Tamara Fierens (37) from Borgerhout lost both her parents earlier this year. Six months later, the hospitalization costs have not yet been fully reimbursed. "A little bit of humanity would be nice," she says.

Koen DeBeuckeleer

Tuesday, December 24, 2013 at 3:30 PM

Tamara Fierens lost both her parents this spring. Where normally the grieving process starts, a new agony started for Tamara. After all, reclaiming the hospitalization money went much less smoothly than expected. 'My parents have dutifully paid for hospitalization insurance all their lives,' says Tamara. 'Normally you don't expect any problems. But in the meantime I've already sacrificed many a free morning calling the insurance company and insurance agent.'

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Bought children, doctored files… A generation of adoptees in search of the truth

By Agnes Leclair

Published on 03/17/2023 at 19:45, updated on 03/17/2023 at 19:45

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00:00/11:33

A senior US politician has praised the Scottish first minister’s decision to make a formal apology over the historic forced adoption scandal.

Nicola Sturgeon is expected to deliver an apology this week to the estimated 60,000 Scots women forced to give up their babies but Congressman Jim McGovern urged her to also voice official regret for the use of cancer-causing drug Stilbestrol.

McGovern, who is pushing for an apology in America, said Scotland was showing the world how to address the scandal of the synthetic oestrogen hormone given to around 10 million women.

Scots campaigners have led the way in questioning the damage done by Stilbestrol, also known as DES, which was given to unmarried mothers during the forced adoption era to dry up breast milk after their babies were taken.

Now campaigners are hoping Sturgeon’s statement on historic adoption practices to the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday will also include an apology for the use of the drug, now known to cause vaginal and breast cancer, reproductive organ defects and infertility among women and their children and grandchildren.

A couple has been arrested by local police for allegedly torturing and sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl, who was admitted to the Cantonment Board

Hospital with brutality injuries.

A case was lodged against Arun Sinha, a teacher by profession, and his wife Anjana based on the complaint made by Newa police outpost in-charge Preet

Pandey for digital rape, assault, and other relevant sections of the IPC and the POCSO Act, said officials.

According to police, primary investigations have revealed that the accused couple, originally from Patna, were living in an apartment in Preetam Nagar locality of Prayagraj.

The Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation announced that it was looking for caregivers for eight orphans who are living at the National Maternal and Child Health Centre (NMCHC) and Battambang Orphanage Centre I in Battambang province.

Four of the eight children are disabled, according to a March 9 notice from the ministry released this past week.

The ministry’s General Department of Technical Affairs director-general Touch Channy said that it was not unusual for them to announce the availability of children for adoption and they are now checking all of the application forms submitted to the ministry.

“When we have children to be adopted, we notify the public so people know about it and whether they wish to adopt the children. The reason why the ministry has always announced adoptions is because when children have no relatives we must look for guardians or foster parents for them to take care of them.

“But after the ministry does its best to inform the public, if no one comes forward to care for them then the ministry will take the children to [orphanages],” he continued.

The latest government statistics show that approximately 6,000 children in Romania are adoptable. In 2021, 1,655 children were adopted, and in the first six months of 2022, 418 children under the care of the state were adopted, 100 more than in the same period last year. For those interested in becoming adoptive parents, the National Authority for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Children and Adoptions (ANDPDCA) has compiled a list of 17 questions and answers . The ANDPDCA thus explains who can and cannot be an adoptive parent, as well as the adoption rules for those who meet the conditions to be adoptive parents.

1. Where do we go to adopt a child? In order to adopt a child, you must contact either the General Directorate of Social Assistance and Child Protection in whose administrative-territorial radius you have established your domicile or to an authorized Private Organization (OPA). The list of authorized OPAs can be consulted on the ANPDCA website in the "National adoption" section ( http://www.copii.ro/activatie/adoptie/adoptie-nationala/ ).

2. Do members of a couple have to be married to each other in order to adopt? No, both families (married persons between husband and wife) and single persons (unmarried) who obtain the certificate of family/person capable of adopting can adopt. In the case of spouses, Romanian law allows, in addition to adoption by the certified family, also adoption by one of the spouses, in which case the other spouse (in addition to consenting to the adoption) will also give a statement regarding the reasons for not joining the adoption application. They can also adopt people of the opposite sex who live in a stable relationship and live with the (unmarried) parent of the adopted child, if the new adopter participated directly and directly in raising and caring for the child for an uninterrupted period of at least 5 years .

3. Can we choose the children/child we want to adopt? The adoption procedure is governed by the principle of identifying the most suitable family for an adoptable child and does not focus on finding a child for a family. Consequently, for each adoptable child in the RNA records, the specialists of the General Directorate of Child Protection and Social Assistance will select the adopter/adoptive family that best meets the child's needs. In order to facilitate the adoption of difficult-to-adoptable children, the law provides for the existence (at the level of each direction) of a "profile of difficult-to-adoptable children" database accompanied by photos and information, which can be consulted by adopters. On the occasion of consulting the public profile, the adopters who are certified for adoption, have the opportunity to decide whether they will continue the adoption procedure with a certain child.

4. When can we access the profile of difficult to adopt children?)The certified family/person can access the profile of the difficult-to-adopt child at any time, but only from the headquarters of the home directorate.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A Swedish legal expert investigating the country’s international adoption practices said Tuesday she’s trying to determine whether Swedish authorities were aware of falsified child origins as they approved the adoptions of thousands of South Korean children.

Anna Singer spoke to The Associated Press during a weeklong trip to South Korea, where she plans to meet with officials from the government and a Seoul-based agency that handled adoptions to Sweden to gather details on how South Korea procured and documented children for foreign adoptions.

Many South Korean adoptees accuse their agencies of fabricating documents to expedite adoptions by foreigners, such as falsely registering them as abandoned orphans when they had relatives who could be easily identified, which also makes their origins difficult to trace.

Most South Korean adoptees were sent overseas during the 1970s and ’80s, when Seoul was ruled by a succession of military governments that saw adoptions as a way to deepen ties with the democratic West while reducing the number of mouths to feed.

“Our primary focus is the Swedish organizations and the Swedish actors — what did they do and what did they know? But in order to get a full understanding, we also need to know how (adoptions were) organized in the countries of origin,” said Singer, a law professor at Uppsala University who was appointed by the Swedish government to lead the investigation in 2021.