After her adoption at the age of 2.5, Sam (40, but according to the law 41 years old) ended up in an unsafe family situation in the Netherlands. She was abused by her adoptive father and felt little warmth with her adoptive mother. She also found out that her adoption papers had been tampered with. 'I was just sold.'

Second choice

“I don't remember much of my first two years of life. I was born in Sri Lanka in 1981 and was adopted in 1984 by my Dutch adoptive parents. According to them, my biological mother had given me up because she could no longer take care of me. My adoptive parents also told me that they would actually adopt another girl from Indonesia,” says Sam in Grazia's Winterboek . “They had everything ready for her and suddenly that adoption was cancelled. Finally they came to me. To me, that always felt like I was second choice. And to be honest, I've never really felt comfortable at home.”

“Even at school I didn't feel at home. Because I got all the clothes from my adoptive brothers and my adoptive mother cut my hair short, I looked like a boy. I was bullied a lot about that. Meanwhile, I was abused by my adoptive father from the age of six. This developed very gradually.”

biological family

FORT BENNING, Ga. (June 6, 2012) -- Editor's note: In the Feb. 29 edition, The Bayonet featured an article on the Harts, a military Family adopting two children from India. This article is an update on their story and introduces three other Families, also adopting from India.

Of the 31 million orphans* in India, six will soon be coming home to the Chattahoochee Valley. The four Families adopting them -- three active duty and one former military -- have followed different paths to reach this decision and now they're months away from meeting their children for the first time. This is their story.

The Harts

Like many military Families, the Harts live on two continents. Although it's not yet official, and their daughters are still in India, Aimee Hart said she feels like the two sisters, ages 3 and 4, are already part of the Family.

"We are all in," she said. "To us, they're ours."

SP Member of Parliament Michiel van Nispen has tabled a motion in which he calls on Minister Franc Weerwind (Legal Protection) to refrain from appealing in the case of the illegal adoption of Patrick Noordoven and the adoption of Dilani Butink. Van Nispen also filed a motion to reimburse costs incurred by the adoptees as a result of the State's decision to continue litigation.

Van Nispen previously addressed the minister in response to an episode of Het Onderzoeksbureau . In it, children's and human rights organizations also called for the appeal to be withdrawn. In the WNL podcast, Noordoven tells how he won his lawsuit against the State at the end of 2021, which then decided to appeal.

Patrick was taken from Brazil in 1980 with the help of a Dutch diplomat by a Dutch couple. Because his legal parents had registered him as their own child, information about his biological parents was missing. Patrick, like 41 other children, turned out to be illegally adopted from Brazil. Dutch diplomats were also involved in those adoptions.

Butink was adopted from Sri Lanka in 1992 and could not find out who her biological parents are due to abuses. It is not the first time that the State has challenged a judge's verdict: the same thing happened in the case of Patrick Noordoven in February 2022.

Stress and high costs

Vanessa Emerson and Jonessa Dobbs were put up for adoption shortly after their birth in 1985. Years later, they learned they had a triplet.

INDIANAPOLIS — Vanessa Emerson and Jonessa Dobbs were born in South Korea in 1985 and put up for adoption shortly after.

"What we believe is our parents were young, unmarried and in Korea, especially at that time, you don’t have kids when you’re unmarried," said Dobbs. "That’s just a no-no, so a lot of moms end up giving their kids up for adoption."

They were taken in by a family in Michigan and the two grew up just outside Detroit.

"We always knew we were adopted," said Dobbs.

November is National Adoption Month, an occasion usually devoted to celebrating adoptive parents and asking more families to step up and care for children whose own parents are unable or unwilling to do so. But this year it might be more appropriate to use the occasion to ask why state and federal agencies are standing in the way of more children being adopted.

About half of Americans hold a favorable view of adoption, compared with about one in ten who view it unfavorably. (The remainder either don’t know or don’t have an opinion.) But in recent years, the media and policymakers have tried mightily to chip away at those numbers. Especially in the wake of the Dobbs decision, the Left wants to make sure that no one thinks adoption is preferable to abortion.

The drumbeat appears to be having an effect. According to data released from the Children’s Bureau of the federal Administration for Children and Families a few weeks ago, 391,000 kids resided in foster care on September 30 of Fiscal Year 2021, of whom 114,000 were waiting to be adopted. But the actual number who were adopted—54,200—reflects a 6 percent drop from the previous year and an 18 percent decline from FY2019.

Last week’s dialogue between Nicole Chung of The Atlantic and her fellow adoptee Tony Hynes is emblematic of the anti-adoption messaging. “Many adoptees I know today feel conflicted at best about this month,” Chung explains, “in part because the narratives leveraged to celebrate and promote adoption have not always left space for discussing its complexity.” Hynes, who is black and was raised by a white lesbian couple, responds that we are feeding into a notion that “families of color are somehow ‘less fit’ to raise their children.” Chung adds, “Yeah, sometimes it’s hard for me not to hear the assertion that ‘more kids should be adopted’ as ‘more kids should experience the trauma of being separated from their families of origin.’”

The problem of speaking in these broad terms about “narratives” is that no one is denying that adoptions are complex. Of the hundreds of adoptive parents and professionals I have met in the past several years, I cannot think of one who does not see the process as inevitably beginning from a source of loss or tragedy.

Hope for 14 Belgian adopted children from South Korea in search of identity: "The stories are harrowing"

She was nine months old when she was adopted as a Korean by a couple from Deurne, but it was only sixteen years ago that Yung Fierens (46) discovered the fraud in her file. She is far from alone: ??a special committee in South Korea will examine adoption fraud among more than 350 adoptees, including 14 Belgians. “They will finally know who their birth parents are.”

”

Todd and Julie Chrisley hit back at biological mom of adopted daughter, Chloe, 10, after she said she wants custody back amid their legal troubles

Todd and Julie Chrisley have spoken out after the biological mother of their adopted daughter, Chloe, 10, announced her plans to regain custody following their recent prison sentencing for tax evasion and bank fraud.

The couple, best known to television audiences for their USA Network reality show "Chrisley Knows Best," were sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison on fraud convictions in November.

Shortly after, their eldest daughter together, Savannah Chrisley, shared that she had been granted custody of both her niece, Chloe, and her 16-year-old brother, Grayson.

However, earlier this week Chloe's biological mother Angela Johnson announced that she is seeking to regain full custody of the pre-teen. Johnson told TMZ she has yet to file any official paperwork but said she hopes to "go back to court and get Chloe back home," per ET Online.

Research Presentation

This research is being carried out by the Université Libre de Bruxelles within the framework of an international collaboration. The aim of this study is to increase scientific knowledge about the development of the adoptive family in different European countries. This is important to answer current questions and improve professional practice.

Are you an adoptive parent (heterosexual, gay or lesbian)?

Do you have one or more adopted children between the ages of 4 and 17? Are you single or are you in a relationship?

If so, your help is invaluable.

Following a Telegraph investigation, authorities are to examine claims of deception around many of the babies’ true identities

By

Nicola Smith,

ASIA CORRESPONDENT and

Sarah Newey,

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Thursday upheld an order of a Family Court which directed the petitioner to pay maintenance to his alleged son. The child's mother had also deposed that the child was born out of her physical relationship with the petitioner, who once had kept her as his 'mistress'.

While dismissing the revision petition, a Single Judge Bench of Justice Satyen Vaidya observed,

"The statement of mother of the respondent regarding the paternity of respondent cannot be brushed aside easily. It is hard to believe that a female would name any unknown person to be the father of her son. Contest by petitioner to the prayer for DNA test strengthens the claim of the respondent."

Background

The respondent sought maintenance from the petitioner claiming himself to be his son. He alleged that he was born out of relationship that once existed between the petitioner and his mother. The mother of the respondent also deposed that she had fallen in love with the petitioner, who had kept her as a mistress. She further stated, on oath, that the petitioner had maintained physical relation with her, as a result of which she conceived and ultimately delivered a baby boy i.e. the respondent.