AMAR ICF held a five-day summer school for Romanian special needs children and Ukrainian refugee

children. A significant goal of the camp was to help these children make friends as they enjoyed

learning new things together. “We mixed the children together so the newcomers [the refugees] could

make new friends as we feel they will be away from home for quite a while,” said AMAR ICF president

Baroness Nicholson.

Bertha Holt’s The Seed from the East (1956), an account of herhusband Harry’s pivotal role in the history of international Ko-rean adoption, offers this vivid summary on the back cover: ‘‘Ko-rea . . . 1954 . . . Thousands of children suffered in crowded, un-derstaffed and poorly supplied orphanages—children, it seemed,that no one wanted. But God gave one couple a heart to love thesechildren. This most ordinary family—a lumberman with a heartcondition, a farming wife and six children—changed the worldwhen they adopted eight Korean-Amerasian children. The storyof the Harry Holt family testifies to God’s ability to use ordinarypeople to bring about extraordinary change. Intercountry adop-tion flourishes today, largely because God used the faith anddetermination of the Holts to adopt homeless children into fami-lies of their own.’’ This is, in fact, the story that is conventionallytold about the origins of Korean overseas adoption.? Not only anarrative of Christian charity and divine selection, it is also one ofthe ‘‘extraordinary’’ capabilities (even if God given) of ‘‘ordinary’’individuals. The key characters in this story are thousands of needychildren, a quintessential American frontier figure, and a ChristianGod. Bertha Holt, Harry’s ‘‘farming wife,’’ penned The Seed from theEast (1956) and also Bring My Sons from Afar (1986),? both ofwhich borrow their titles from verses in the Book of Isaiah. Theseare the primary texts that compose the legendary story of Harry’sefforts to bring Korean children to families in the West.

.

Franc Weerwind, the Minister for Legal Protection, must disclose more information about adoptions from Sri Lanka in the period between 1984 and 1994, the Council of State has decided. It concerns a file of Dilani Butink.

Dilani Butink was adopted from Sri Lanka in 1992 and still does not know who her biological parents are due to abuses. According to her, the Dutch government has done too little to prevent fraudulent adoptions.

Passages painted black

Butink had requested access to a file in which certain passages had been painted black via an appeal to the Government Information (Public Access) Act (Wob). Weerwind must now make these illegible passages public from the highest administrative court.

In addition to making it public, the minister must forward the woman's request to the National Archives, because there are also documents that fall under Butink's Wob request. These are documents referred to in the report of the Joustra Committee.

Illegal international adoptions

How adoptees demand enlightenment

In the 1970s and 1980s it was relatively easy for couples with an unfulfilled desire to have children to adopt a child from abroad. Today these children are grown. When they search for their biological parents, they often find out that their adoption was illegal and documents were forged.

ISTANBUL, TURKIYE - JANUARY 8: 3-year old Syrian girl, Rana is seen playing at a park with her foster family in Beylikduzu district of Istanbul, Turkiye on January 8, 2022. Parents of 2 boys, Doganer couple adopted 3-year- old Syrian girl Rana after deciding to become a foster family. Ali Atmaca / Anadolu Agency

Knowing the biological origin is important for identity formation. Not knowing anything about their birth family plunges some adoptees into deep crises. (picture alliance / AA / Ali Atmaca)

ABSTRACT

Most academic studies and public debates about transnational adoption prioritise the experiences of adoptive parents and the voices of professionals, but the perspectives and voices of birth families are rarely heard. I address this shortcoming through a critical analysis of the transnational adoption system by exploring the narratives and experiences of Nepali birth families. Drawing on a 14-month ethnographic study, I explore how birth families’ search for their children illuminates the concept of ‘agency-in-waiting’ and opens up new possibilities for thinking critically about the politics of adoption and the experience of ‘waiting’. The invisibility of birth families in scholarship about adoption belies the fact that many birth families actively search for the children they lost to adoption. This research makes visible the power inequalities that shape family policy and opens new avenues for deconstructing hegemonic narratives that exist in transnational adoption by focusing on birth families’ narratives.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude to all the families who have opened their hearts to me and shared their painful experiences. Susan Frekko provided feedback on this manuscript and edited the English.

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Following our articles on the wave of adoptions of Malian children in France, initiated by the French NGO "Rayon de soleil", Mrs. Boudault Danielle, Representative of the subsidiary of this NGO in Bamako from 1988 - 1991, addressed to our editorial staff, from Limours (France), a right of reply which we publish in full.

rn

I was assigned to Bamako in Mali on 09/01/1987, seconded by the Finance Administration to the Ministry of Cooperation and lecturer at the National School of Administration in Bamako.

rn

My salary as a Technical Assistant allowed me, at my modest level, to react to painful situations that I could encounter. The house was open, those who wished could find a little help, listening, and hope.

The Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Ms. Catherine Colonna, the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice, Mr. Eric Dupond-Moretti and the Secretary of State to the Prime Minister for Children, Ms. Charlotte Caubel, decided to seize the General Inspectorate of Foreign Affairs (IGAE), the General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ) and the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) on illicit practices in international adoption.

International adoption developed significantly in the 1950s to culminate in 2005 with the arrival of more than 4,000 children from abroad on our territory. Since then, the number of adoptions has dropped significantly, from 4,136 in 2005 to 421 in 2019 1 .

This drop is mainly due to changes in policies in the countries of origin of adopted children, but also to the implementation of the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption; the creation of the French Adoption Agency in 2005 also made it possible to further improve fraud prevention.

Despite these significant results, several associations of children adopted prior to the implementation of the convention and the actions initiated by the French Adoption Agency (AFA) argued that adoptions organized in the past had been able to be irregular or even illegal. They would like the public authorities to be able, as far as possible, to document these irregularities and ensure that the structures which today contribute to the adoption of foreign children in France put in place effective systems to prevent fraud.

During the parliamentary debates around the law of February 7, 2022, the government undertook to shed light on the phenomenon of illicit adoptions, which was able to develop internationally from the 1980s.

MELISSE (26) WAS ADOPTED FROM CHINA: 'I DIDN'T KNOW THAT ADOPTION WAS A TRAUMA'

BACKGROUND

LINDA.GIRLS

REALLIFE

28.11.2022 | 3:25 PM | KIM HARTRING

Hillary and Bill Clinton – zealous promoters of forced adoptions in the USA

By Marianne Haslev Skånland

• • • •

This article was updated in July 2021 with some addition in the section 'Some ideological background' and the quotation from Mark Pendergrast's book.

The first edition of the article was also published on Wings of the Wind on 29 November 2020 and on Arizona Telegraph on 3 December 2020, and has been updated on Wings of the Wind.