My roots trip to India, the end of a quest

My roots trip to India, the end of a quest

It's the beginning, not the end

Honestly, I never thought I could write this blog. But look, it's here now. My motto to “never give up” has brought me to where I am today. Regardless of how you look at it now. The whole roots thing is a huge roller coaster of emotions. While I can easily put things into perspective otherwise, this is a completely different story.

Once you are in that flow of such a search for your roots. Well, actually you don't know what you're looking for or what you're going to find and everyone answers that question in their own way. But once that train has left, it is not always easy to keep a balanced approach to it. Those emotions, it grabs you by the throat. You are completely taken in by it and before you know it you are completely swept up in it. And all you can do is trust that it will all work out, someday.

Relinquished

Jayanti was born in 1995 in Nagpur, a city in India. Jayanti's mother was only 21 years old when she got her. She then gave her up because she was unmarried and in India you are only allowed to have children if you are married. Furthermore, Jayanti has very little information about her biological mother and nothing about her biological father at all, because he probably doesn't even know about her existence. Jayanti was first taken to the children's home in Nagpur. Here she also got her name from a social worker. The name Jayanti means: Victorious.

Adoption

As soon as there was talk of adoption, Jayanti was taken to the Bal Anand children's home in Bombay. When she was 1.5 years old, she flew to the Netherlands together with three other girls. This was done under the supervision of two Wereldkinderen employees. Jayanti was adopted by Sjaak and Astrid. Jayanti: “These are two incredibly sweet and caring people who I really see as my parents.” After a while, Jayanti's parents separated and her father got a new wife and her mother got a new husband. She also got a sister. The divorce was difficult for Jayanti at times, but she can't imagine never meeting them.

Journey to native

We quickly talk about searching, finding and contacting first parents, but not everyone has to search, can find or have contact. In this series, various adoptees tell how they experience this.

Annick | 36 years | °India | founder Adoptie Schakel | child coach | buddy at a-Buddy

“Meanwhile, the images have faded, but they are still there”

I was almost five years old when my adoptive parents picked me up in Zaventem. That was in December 1989. A year and a half before that, my uncle took me to the orphanage in Madras. He came to visit me regularly, but after six months I was transferred to Calcutta. I grew up in Tongeren with an older brother.

In the beginning I told my parents and grandmother about India. About a blue house, a train, rooms with other kids… They didn't know if my stories were fantasy or reality, but because it was so detailed, they thought it must be some of it. So they wrote everything down in a booklet. I myself did not know for a long time: did I have to remember it, was I dreaming or fantasizing?

32-year-old Iresha was born in India and adopted as a baby by Dutch adoptive parents. Iresha is 12 years old when she dares to confide in someone and tells about how things really go at her home. At the age of 15 she is removed from home. She spends her teenage years in various youth care institutions.

Years later she has her own life on track. She lives in Antwerp where she is educated at the art academy and works on her artworks with great passion. This is her story.

Where I come from

I grew up in a family with Dutch parents. After my arrival in the Netherlands, my parents adopted my sister from Colombia. My mother got pregnant twice more. She interrupted one pregnancy and when I was 7 years old they had another son. I've always felt different. I looked different from the people around me.

When I was 5 years old, I traveled to India with my adoptive parents to meet my biological mother. This was a traumatic experience. I was too young to be confronted with my background; the different culture in India and the poverty I saw. When I got off the plane and was confronted by the people living on the streets, I threw up.

When it turns out that Reina and her husband cannot have children, it feels like a heavy loss. But their story has turned for the better: through adoption, they now enjoy their children and grandchildren.

“In the beginning, people sometimes looked surprised when they saw a dark child in the pram. We lived in the countryside in Drenthe, so you didn't see that much. Fortunately, we received a lot of positive reactions.”

Reina is in her early twenties when she discovers that she and her husband cannot have children. She married when she was eighteen, her husband was 26 years old. “I'm a Baptist and my husband was of Catholic descent, but at that time he didn't have anything to do with the faith,” says Reina (67). “Even before our marriage, it was a struggle, including with his parents. So we got married pretty quickly. We had a great desire to have children, especially me: women didn't work like that in those days."

Shame

But Reina doesn't get pregnant. “In the hospital it became clear that my husband was infertile. He has yet to have surgery and the gynecologist suggested artificial insemination, but that was not in line with my belief. It was difficult to talk about it, I was ashamed of it. When my sister and friends did have children, I found it very difficult. I must have said to God: why everyone and not me? But I can't remember praying for it. I also had to deal with it alone, because my husband was not religious.”

Becoming a mother without being married was often considered a sin in the 50s, 60s and 70s. That is why thousands of women at that time had to give up their babies for adoption immediately after birth, against their will. One of those 'remote mothers' is Trudy Scheele-Gertsen (75), who, together with women's rights organization Bureau Clara Wichmann, filed a lawsuit against the Dutch State because of these abuses.

The interest group Critical Adoptees Front Europe (CAFE) is demanding official apologies from the government after images have surfaced of South Korean children arriving in our country completely upset, to be handed over to their adoptive parents. CAFE also wants a committee to be established. That message 'Het Nieuwsblad' Tuesday.

The images date from 1981. According to Yung Fierens (45), chairwoman of the interest group Critical Adoptees Front Europe (CAFE), these images show that even then it was already known what malpractice was happening. For example, children were sold and false birth certificates were also drawn up.

“We request an official apology from the government,” said Fierens. “In addition, we want a truth commission that investigates what went wrong with the intercountry adoptions. And finally, we want support in the search for our parents.”

“As the Flemish Minister of Welfare, Public Health and Family, I understand the questions and concerns about abuses in the past,” responds Hilde Crevits (CD&V). “Flanders has been co-authorized for intercountry adoption since 2012. Previously, this was exclusively a federal competence. There is now a federal debate about how to deal with these abuses.” The minister also points out that at the beginning of June the House unanimously asked the government to start an investigation into illegal adoptions in our country.

Crevits adds that last year, on the basis of a report by an expert panel, the Flemish government laid down the guidelines within which international adoption is still possible in the future. “We try to exclude abuses and abuses as much as possible,” says Crevits.

Gather as many of the approximately 4,000 Belgians adopted from South Korea as possible, and then look together at recently surfaced reportage images from more than forty years ago. That is what Yung Fierens wants to achieve. “These images show that people already knew what suffering was being done to us. It's time we finally get recognition for that."

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