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.

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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.

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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

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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.

PLATTSBURGH — Maria D. Holderman received a perfect score shortly after her December birth in 1967 Dragasani, Romania.

This seemingly routine assessment of an infant made all the difference in her life, even in her very living.

In her new Adelaide Books release, “Children of the Decree: A Journalist’s Battle to Save Romanian Orphans and Herself,” the Keeseville resident’s memoir time travels between her selves in her country of origin and the U.S.A. that offered her refuge from dangerous times in Romania.

From 1997 to 2001, Holderman was the “Diane Sawyer of Romania” (pen name Dana Achim.)

Before leaving her native country for the United States on a one-way ticket, she was a bestselling author and an investigative reporter for the National Daily in Bucharest.

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA – A former Derby Line resident, now living in Keeseville, New York, returned to the United States over the weekend after spending two weeks in Romania. Maria D. Holderman traveled there to work in a refugee center to assist Ukraine immigrants who fled from their country as Russian forces continue to attack their homeland.

Holderman is no stranger to that part of the world. She was born in Dragasani, Romania, in December 1967. A week after the war with Ukraine started, Holderman decided to return to Romania. She traveled at her own expense, spending $1,300 because she couldn’t just do nothing after seeing the news. Through the Facebook page, “Romanians for Progressive Values," she connected with other volunteers, most of them Romanians living worldwide.

Waddinxveen - She is 40 years old, writing a book and giving lectures; Mariel Fox. She lives in Gouda, but the first 18 years of her life she lived in Waddinxveen. First with adoptive parents, later in a foster family. She has sometimes asked herself the question: do I want to live or do I choose death? Her conclusion is now: 'Life is worth living, make something of it.' That is her message for Foster Care Week (November 2-9).

She was four months old when she came from India to her adoptive parents in the Netherlands. Vos calls her adoptive parents gifted. “I was beaten, mentally molested and at the age of eight I already knew how much my adoption had cost.”

Were adoptive parents not screened in those days? "Surely. But the rules that apply now are very different. I also know that the church guaranteed my adoptive parents.”

One day, Vos was eight, she was sick and vomited. According to Vos, her adoptive mother was not happy with her and kept repeating that she was not getting value for money and now she also made the sheets dirty. Vos was locked in the barn where she was eventually freed by the police.

She was asked the question: do you want to go to the office or do you want to stay at home? “I chose the latter and promised to always be a sweet child. I did everything to please my adoptive parents.”

In total, 89 complaints have been made to gardaí to date.

The third episode of Redacted Lives, a new podcast series about mother and baby homes, was released by The Journal this week. The six-part documentary series explores the experiences of people who passed through the system.

Children born into these institutions were usually adopted or sent to industrial schools – often without their mother’s consent.

Many women have tried to find their children over the years, but to no avail. Adopted people have also struggled to find their parents, or information about their early life.

Redacted Lives gives these people the chance to tell the real story of mother and baby homes, and explores how the State continues to deny survivors access to information, proper redress and ownership of their true identities.

An estimated 29.6 million stranded, orphaned and abandoned children live in India, out of which just up to 4,000 get adopted annually.

While thousands of prospective parents are waiting to adopt in India, there is still a stigma associated with adoption that deters many from that route.

A social movement needs to develop to get adoption considered ahead of other alternatives, such as surrogacy or IVF.

There are many life stages that change the direction of our lives. Becoming a parent is one such turning point. Parenthood changes the way we live and the way we think. When our daughter came into our lives, via adoption at four months old, it changed all of our lives for the better.

When we decided to adopt, we registered with the Central Adoption Resource Authority-Nodal Agency for Adoption in India (CARA), which is a legal requirement. After two and a half years of waiting, we were matched with a baby girl and after completing the legal paperwork we welcomed her into our family.

Only recently, a proposal for paid paternity leave was approved in the referendum of 27 September 2020 and the resulting law came into force on 1 January 2021. Since then, fathers can take two weeks of paid paternity leave within six months of the birth of their child.

The growing need for care and nursing, the new types of family structures as well as the steadily increasing employment rate among women have also led to a reform in the area of balancing gainful employment and child or family care. Since 1 January 2021 and 1 July 2021, the law has provided an entitlement to paid care leave of up to three days for the necessary care of relatives and up to 14 weeks for the care of children with serious health problems.

The extension of leave for mothers and fathers and the resulting improvement in the compatibility of family and gainful employment have so far not extended to the area of adoption. Although the issue of an adoption allowance had already been the subject of several parliamentary debates, parents who adopted a child had until now had no legal entitlement to leave when the child joined the family.

This will change from 1 January 2023 as both adoptive mothers and fathers will have a statutory right to two weeks’ paid adoption leave.

Gainfully employed persons who adopt a child less than four years old are entitled to the adoption allowance. Adoption leave is a necessary supplement to adoption allowance. In other words, only those who meet the requirements for an adoption allowance are also entitled to adoption leave.