What if after years of searching you finally find your biological parent(s), but afterwards you are told that it is not the case after all. It happened to participants of the Dutch TV program "Spoorloos". Noëmi Plateau also testifies that such a search is difficult and emotional in "Late". "All my life I felt a kind of mourning and loss. Something I've lost, but don't know."

There was a lot of commotion in the Netherlands when it became known there that the popular program “Spoorloos”, which has been looking for lost relatives for more than thirty years, has linked at least two people to the wrong biological family. That's what investigative journalist Kees van der Spek of a competing channel told on Monday evening at the table at Eva Jinek. The program makers of "Spoorloos" paid a Colombian intermediary for research work and that's where things went wrong.

A painful story that the Flemish Noëmi Plateau can also speak about. When she was one and a half years old, Noemi was adopted from China. Last year, together with her adoptive sister Anéline, she went in search of her biological parents in the program “We are family” by Lidewij Nuitten. A quest that started with hope.

"I wanted to find my biological parents for a long time", Noëmi begins her story in "Late". Ultimately, that search starts at the age of 25 with sending her DNA to all kinds of DNA databases. Six months later, there was suddenly a result.

"We found your birth father. The DNA was a complete match with you," she heard via an online conversation with someone in China. "As big as the shock is for you, it is for him too," continues the woman on the other side of the world. A message that hit the adopted Noemi with great intensity.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rDwmrvPWLsjcAPy1apo_skF5MMYPCWaA/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101922190264536777845&rtpof=true&sd=true

Rep. Kim Seong-joo "Child exports disguised as orphans... We need to find out the truth about overseas adoptions"

During the authoritarian government, 41.7% of overseas adoptees whose birth parents were unknown… 1.4 times higher than domestic adoption

Reporter Dae-Hong Kim (=Jeonbuk) | Article input 2022.10.03. 08:17:43

? Kim Seong-ju, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea. ?

Controversy has arisen over claims that serious human rights violations have been committed over overseas adoptions under the neglect of the authoritarian government in the past.?

Marie, born Kadiatou, was adopted in Mali in 1989 when she was only 19 months old. She grew up in France in a loving family, yet ignorant of her story and that of her biological parents.

Marie was 30 when her first daughter was born. The young mother feels ready to reconstruct the film of her life, hoping one day to be able to tell her daughter what she calls 'her great story'.

By consulting the file kept by her adoptive parents, she notices inconsistencies in aspects of her marital status that she took for granted. She then begins to ask herself questions about the conditions surrounding her adoption.

How old was she really? What is his date of birth ? Was she really born of an unknown father? What is his true birthplace? Under what circumstances was she entrusted to an adoptive family thousands of kilometers from Mali, her country of birth?

This quest for truth will lead Marie to take legal action against the Rayon de soleil association for foreign children (RSEE) and one of their correspondents. Eight other Malian adoptees also members of the Collective of French adoptees from Mali created by Marie participated in the legal action. The adoption organization specifies on its site "Between 1991 and 2001, we welcomed about 300 children for adoption" from Mali.

In 2012, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation entered into a partnership with the non-profit association Tumaini to organize the adoption of Congolese children. The outlook was promising. The fiasco is complete. Excessive fees, false documents, abuse, theft of children: this is the worst part of adoption.

" I am called Anna. It was written that I am 5 years old but it is not true. I am 4 years old and I was woken up. We got off the plane. A long clean hallway. This metallic gray airport with lots of white people. I have never seen so many. We are eleven children to have boarded the plane, to have left the Tumaini house, in Kinshasa. Without even saying goodbye to Uncle Kitambo.

We are then all gathered in a room, black children and white parents. There are games, presentations. A lady wears, like me, a flower on a sign attached around her neck. She talks to me. I do not understand. I'm playing. Then everyone leaves. Big whites with little blacks. The lady with the sign wants to go with me. I am the only one crying. So the big brother who had accompanied us so that we wouldn't be afraid of the plane said not to cry, he said that they would come and get me.

I believed him. For a week, every morning, I hit the lady. I got dressed, I put on my panties, my socks, my shoes, my pants, my T-shirt, my jacket. I tied my hair in a rubber band and put on my backpack. I positioned myself in front of the window. From the second floor of this lady's house, we could clearly see the crossroads. I waited. No one came to pick me up. It wasn't true.

When I could speak French. I told the lady. "You're not my mom. I have one in the village.” While painting my dolls, I told her about Gemena, my sisters, my parents. She said to me: “I think you are confusing my darling. She is a lady who behaved like a mother.” But it's not true. My parents live in Congo. My anger was to survive. She left. A little. With time. The lady became my adoptive mother.

An adopted man discovered his biological family after 20 years when his brother tracked him down on Instagram thanks to his unusual first name.

Iverson Poff, 20, was adopted from birth and raised by his adoptive parents—but always wondered who his biological family were.

Iverson, who grew up in Portland, Oregon had a few baby pictures provided by the adoption agency. However it was a closed adoption where adoptive family and the biological family have no contact, and the adoption agency used had long since shut its doors.

It was July 20th however, that he got an Instagram message from a man called Jalen Vickers; he said he was his older brother.

“I have that date tattooed on my arm, because it was so important to me,” said Poff. “I opened the message instantly and I knew straight away who it was. I just knew.”

JANET OGUNDEPO writes about the cartels trafficking in babies

After 31-year-old Chineye Odoh allegedly agreed to sell her newborn twins for about N3m, sadly Odoh was allegedly killed by some women collaborators who purportedly facilitated the process.

The Enugu State Police Command said that the suspects, after selling the twins, gave the mother an amount lesser than what was agreed. They were said to have later poisoned Odoh’s food when she resisted their action.

Upon the arrest of the suspected women by the police in Enugu in August, the women were arraigned in court and the case was adjourned to October 5 for trial.

The Lagos State Police Command on the same day, August 26, reportedly arrested a man for allegedly conspiring with his doctor and a nurse to sell his three-month-old baby for N400,000.

Kenya has adopted new synchronised rules and policies to help in children's adoption and, at the same time, address cases of child trafficking in the country.

According to the Court of Appeal judge Imaana Laibuta, the new laws allow the country to track every process involved in adoption.

Speaking on Thursday, September 15, on Spice FM, Justice Laibuta explained that under the new system, children placed on adoption can be traced to where they are being taken. The process also involves regularly monitoring their progress in their adopted parents' hands.

The new rules contained in the Children Act 2022 are also anchored on cultural backgrounds where the child's background is considered before the process is initiated.

"We have made it in such a way that if it is inter-country adoption which is a measure of last resort, we have made sure that we are able to track where that child goes, the conditions under which the child will live till adulthood," he explained.

Adoptees say their documents are riddled with misinformation, fabrications

By Lee Hyo-jin

Peter Moller, 48, who was adopted to Denmark from South Korea in 1974, reached out to Korean adoption agency Holt International for the first time in 2011 to search for his roots.

Holt initially told the Danish adoptee that he was born in Seoul. But in subsequent letters, the adoption agency said he was actually born in Daejeon. Moller was then told that his biological mother gave birth to him in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province on March 16, 1974, which happened to be the same day she brought him to the adoption agency in Seoul.

"How is this possible?" Moller thought. "What is the possibility that a woman who just gave birth to a child could travel across the country to give away the infant?"

I was at Chetna Sharma’s home for our monthly beer sessions. Their two little girls, Saanya and Raina, came running to ask if I could take them to watch a game of quidditch. Chetna holds me responsible for their newfound obsession with the world of Harry Potter while Raina is the one who made me fall in love with dogs after the first time she and Tobler assumed their throne on my lap (Tobler uninvited!)

At the tender age of 1.5 years, Raina was found by the local police abandoned on the streets of Uttar Pradesh with a few bruises. Around the same time, the couple, who already had Saanya, had filed their application with the Central Adoption Resource Authority to adopt their second child. As destiny would have it, within 8 months, Raina found herself a loving family in the Sharmas.

As I poured another round, I told Chetna about how they have performed a noble deed by giving a new lease of life to an orphan, instead of producing ‘their own’. To my surprise, she emotively disagreed and said, “No Samyak, it is the other way around. With Raina coming into our lives, we have become so much more compassionate, open and emotionally intelligent. In fact, though she is still young, our decision has had a huge positive impact on Saanya as well. She understands now that love is unconditional.” This is one of the many stories of adoptive families that I have known.

By choosing to adopt, adoptive parents/families embark upon a journey of spiritual growth, contentment, and joy. Yet, in India, the general perception of adoption is quite the opposite. The narrative on adoption as an alternative to family planning either does not exist or is frowned upon in most households. Humans are inherently controlled by their need to reproduce and carry on their bloodlines. The story in India is no different. Yet, what makes the case of India different is the concept of caste. The fear of not being able to carry on their bloodline exists and adopting someone from a different caste may be an absolute no-go for many prospective families. Even if modern couples wish to adopt, the elders in the family may not accept a child out of adoption with concerns about them being from a lower caste or social strata. It is also true that one may be willing to adopt but may not possess the emotional bandwidth to do so. This, however, may be overcome by counselling and training. Moreover, the fear of legal and administrative delays also looms large upon those who wish to adopt and many a time stops them altogether from pursuing this option. While this fear may be somewhat justified due to India’s unyielding bureaucracy, it is important to reiterate that despite the potential hurdles in the process of adoption, it is worth it!

A person’s childhood holds significance in more ways than one can think. The compassion, care, and exposure with which a child is raised can determine the entire course of their lifetime. A child raised in the comforts of a loving home, will not only be able to create a good life for themselves but also contribute to the better good of society. A lack of emotional guidance, resources, and poor quality of education, on the other hand, may potentially create societal threats in the form of petty thieves, drug addicts, and criminals with little other recourse. For adoptive parents/families, adoption can help them evolve as individuals and perhaps even improve their mental health.