A group of Greenland-born people have sought compensation from Denmark over allegations the state facilitated their illegal adoption by Danish families starting in the 1950s, their lawyer said on Friday.

Greenland was a colony of Denmark but has been autonomous since 1979, and relations between them are shadowed by their past.

Lawyer Mads Pramming told radio P1 that four of his Greenland-born clients have sought compensation of 250,000 kroner ($35,800) each on accusations the Danish authorities knowingly facilitated their adoptions.

"These Greenlanders thought they had placed their children in foster care, but they had not realised that was for life and they would not see their children again," Pramming said in the P1 interview.

In a 2020 interview, former head of Greenland's social services Alfred Dam compared the situation on the island in the 1960s to "self-service."

Julienne Mpemba from Namur is currently being prosecuted for child trafficking. But two years ago, she was ordered to repay €84,363 to Maurice Luca, a former professor at UNamur. He hasn't received anything yet, but he's giving her a chance.
 

Julienne Mpemba , a 47-year-old Belgian-Congolese woman living in Namur, is currently being prosecuted for adoption fraud, human trafficking, kidnapping of minors, hostage-taking, fraud, corruption, forgery and use of forged documents. After eight years of investigation, the case was argued two weeks ago before the criminal court. From the beginning, Julienne has denied the evidence against her. However, the public prosecutor is requesting a 12-year prison sentence.

After some research, we learned that Julienne Mpemba had already been convicted in another case. We contacted Maurice Luca, a philosophy professor at UNamur who has been retired for two years. She actually owes him the sum of €84,363 since a judgment handed down on 20 December 2022 by the Namur Court of First Instance.

Before telling us his story, this former teacher indicates that he wants to respect the principle of presumption of innocence for the case in which Julienne Mpemba is currently charged. But as far as his story is concerned, Julienne has in fact been convicted. "We met in 2012 and she told me about her project for the "Tumani" orphanage in Kinshasa (Editor's note: an orphanage through which the stolen children passed). We got on well and she quickly asked me for €2,500 for her project. I decided to help her because I trusted her," believes Maurice, who has faith in human beings.

For two and a half years, however, he had no news from Julienne. It turns out that she had spent some time in prison for fraud in the context of adoption fraud, a case that is currently being argued. “Then around 2018, when I had no news, I showed up at her house. She was at rock bottom and was taking a lot of medication. I listened to her. She told me she wanted to relaunch a legal consultancy firm in Congo. But she had no money. I offered to help her again.”

As of this week, adoptees can view their adoption files at the National Archives, but contrary to expectations, access is limited.

Maurice Timmermans June 19, 2024, 08:29

Adoptees will be able to view their adoption files at the National Archives from Monday and will no longer have to contact the Child Protection Council. However, there is disappointment among adoptees now that it appears that the archive will black out sensitive data, such as names of half-brothers and sisters and information about genetic diseases.

This is evident from an appeal to the Open Government Act (Woo) by the foundation Verleden in Zicht, which stands up for the interests of adoptees. Archive staff will weigh the right to information about the descent of the 'children' against the right to privacy of the biological parents.

“We were always told that the National Archives would provide full access to the files,” says Barbalique Peters, board member of Verleden in Zicht. “And that the archive would not black out anything, as the Child Protection Council used to do. We were fooled.”

Bufdir has asked that adoptions from abroad be stopped while waiting for an investigative committee to look into historical adoptions. But the government would rather strengthen control.

There has been a storm surrounding adoption from abroad in recent years. Among other things, there have been cases of kidnapping, false documents and human trafficking that have been discussed by NRK and VG.

The Directorate for Children, Youth and Families (Bufdir) has therefore started an investigation where all licenses are reassessed. Several of the countries that have cooperated with Norway have already had their permits withdrawn or refused.

Last year, an investigative committee was also set up to look at historical adoptions. Bufdir has asked for a full freeze on adoptions from abroad until the investigation is completed during 2025.

Dong Hee Kim (44) discovered that her adoption from Korea was illegal and that her file was destroyed by the Dutch government. Her sadness and anger is great. “I will never know what life I missed.”

“My birth name is Dong Hee, but forty-four years ago my adoptive parents gave me the first name Stephanie. I was four months old when I came to them in Ede on a so-called adoption flight from Busan, Korea. The fact that I was adopted was often discussed and mentioned at home, and also that my adoptive parents loved me just as much as their two biological sons, my brothers. That openness was important to them. I wasn't really concerned with that myself. However, I did suffer from the fact that I always looked different from the rest. I was short and chubby, but my family consisted of white heads. My youngest adoptive brother never accepted me as a sister and often scolded me. At school I was the only Korean child, and I was bullied about that. When I saw tips for eye make-up in girls' magazines, I just thought: I don't have eyes like that.”

Letter like a bomb

“When I was 12, my adoptive mother started a search for my parents in Korea through the Wereldkinderen adoption service. She had always been determined to do it at that age, before I hit puberty. It took months before we got a response. In retrospect I understand why. That letter set off a bomb in my family's home in Korea because almost all of them thought I was dead. Only my mother knew what really happened. As a six-week-old baby, she had given me up to a home with my father's forged signature. Korea is a traditional country where boys are valued more highly than girls. A dowry also had to be paid for daughters. My parents already had three daughters and were dirt poor, my mother was illiterate. When my father was in the hospital for a few days after an accident, my mother brought me to the home out of desperation. At home she said I had died. That was possible, infant mortality was high in Korea and child funerals were rare. Only I wasn't dead, I was living my life eight thousand miles away. That is very sad for my mother, but also for my father and sisters. They knew nothing and retroactively became angry with my mother. I also feel bad for myself. I was the only one in this family given up and lost everything.”

Measures to be taken in accordance with the revision of the Missing Children Act in September
 

[Seoul = News Fim] Reporter Park Woo-jin = Starting in September, when the police request personal information from relevant organizations during the search for missing children, the relevant organizations will be required to provide the information. The police have begun revising detailed regulations in accordance with this change in the system.

According to the police on the 18th, the National Police Commission held a meeting the day before and decided on three related regulations, including the 'Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Protection and Support of Missing Children, etc.'

This rule revision appears to be a measure taken in response to the revised Act on the Protection and Support of Missing Children (Missing Children Act) going into effect on September 27.

The revised bill allows police chiefs to request without a warrant information from relevant agencies that hold information necessary for finding missing children, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), credit and transportation card usage history, and medical treatment dates and locations. It also stipulates that the relevant agencies must provide the information immediately upon request to the police.

AMSTERDAM/BRUSSELS/SOFIA - Adoption is often associated with poor countries in the global South. Yet Flanders and the Netherlands adopt children from other European countries, such as Bulgaria and Hungary. This cross-border research shows that Roma children in these countries are discriminated against and end up in the adoption system due to stigma, poverty and a lack of support for families. 

Both Flanders and the Netherlands had a study conducted on the sending countries to decide from which countries adoption would still be possible in the future. The issues of discrimination, poverty and a lack of support for families in Bulgaria and Hungary were raised several times in those screenings. Nevertheless, both countries decided not to break off the collaboration. 

The research was conducted by the weekly magazine Knack, the platform Investico, the TV programme Zembla, the Bulgarian newspaper 24chasa and the Hungarian medium Atlatszo.

Human rights organization: stop adoptions immediately (Investico, 24/06/2024)

Quebec recently made a big step forward regarding the rights of adopted persons. The right to know the identities of the members of your family of origin is now included in Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Until recently, the general rule was confidentiality. However, as of June 8, adopted persons can find out who their biological parents were — even if the parents previously refused to have this information disclosed. 

In some other provinces, adopted persons already had this right. In Quebec, some organizations have been advocating for this right for more than 40 years. The ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (department of health and social services) expects to receive between 30,000 and 70,000 applications to identify biological parents as a result of this change in the law.  

What does the law say? 

Mandira Bedi shared her struggle with the adoption process and how they flew her daughter Tara home in a private jet during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

After having her first child, Mandira Bedi wanted to adopt another, and after years of paperwork, she and her late husband, filmmaker Raj Kaushal, adopted their daughter, Tara Bedi Kaushal. In a recent interaction, Mandira shared her struggle with the adoption process and how they flew Tara home in a private jet during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking to Humans of Bombay, Mandira said, “I wanted to have a second child and adopt. When my son Veer was about six, I put in the papers for adoption. It’s a long process, and I don’t know why it’s not easier. I mean, I understand the reasons, but when it’s clear that this is a good family, it should be simpler. It took a while—Veer turned nine, the pandemic hit, and I told Raj, ‘It still hasn’t happened. Why?’ We had gotten caught up and didn’t follow up much. So, I thought, it’s now or never, and we pushed forward.”

Mandira Bedi recalled how they received Tara’s photo via email and instantly felt she was the one. Raj Kaushal traveled to Jabalpur alone to complete the formalities while Mandira stayed back with Veer due to the pandemic. After Raj completed the paperwork, Mandira and Veer flew from Mumbai to Jabalpur in a private jet to bring Tara home. Mandira met Tara at the airport and flew her back to Mumbai.

Pédocriminalité : une femme accuse un groupe d’intellectuels connus de sévices sexuels envers des enfants

 Lecture 1 min

Accueil Justice

L’écrivain Gabriel Matzneff, ici en 1990, était un proche du père adoptif d’Inès Chatin. © Crédit photo : PIERRE GUILLAUD

Par sudouest.fr