Former nuns Sister Chantal (92) and Sister Angeli (81) worked at the Paulastichting in Oosterbeek, a home for unmarried mothers, in the late 1960s. Many of these mothers gave up their children. Like Ellen van Ree (69), who carried this trauma with her for the rest of her life. Fifty years later, she visits the nuns. How do they look back on what happened in their home?

This article was written byJenda Terpstra and Petra Vissers Published on June 13, 2020, 1:00 AM

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Ellen van Ree was sixteen years old and a "child of her time, with trendy clothes and spiky blond hair" when she became pregnant in 1967. Her parents refused to hear of it and  sent her to the Paula Foundation  in Oosterbeek. There, Ellen was housed, along with about 29 other unmarried girls, waiting to give birth. Half of them gave up their child for adoption. Ellen's parents also refused to let her keep it.

Mother and child belong together was the creed in 1956. But after the introduction of the adoption law, that principle disappeared. How could it be that thousands of women were separated from their children in ten years? 

It's August 1967, and in Oosterbeek, nestled in the green space on Nico Bovenweg, the new building of the Paula Foundation is opened. Here, in the coming years, hundreds of unmarried mothers will give birth, and just as many babies will spend their first months, or even years. The modern, new building is opened by psychiatrist Gribling.

His speech breathes a new era. In the past, he says, the guiding principle was: mother and child belong together. But "you will be aware," he continues, "that this principle has been completely abandoned, especially in the last ten years, for reasons so obvious that we can only wonder about its application now."

The adoption law has been in effect for eleven years, since 1956. That law was inspired by the desire of foster parents to also obtain legal parenthood over their foster children. At the time, this involved small numbers. The motto at the time was: mothers, no matter how disabled, must care for their babies. A principle that now holds true again.

The adoption law seems to have unintentionally created its own dynamic

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From: Against Child Trafficking

Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2020 at 23:55

Subject: Ms. Roelie Post

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Suspicions of irregular adoptions in Mali: Rayon de soleil already involved in another case

by Hélène Chevallier

June 10, 2020

The adoption agency against which 9 people adopted in Mali in the 1990s complained had already been involved in an illegal adoption case this time in Peru in the early 1980s.

Rayon de Soleil had already been involved in an illegal adoption case © AFP / Patricia de Melo Moreira

Pathways to adoption SURVEY (2/2). From 1989 to 2001, more than 300 children were adopted in Mali via a French association. Many wonder about the conditions of these adoptions.

Time has stood still in Saint-Thégonnec Loc-Eguiner, in the north of Finistère. Sitting in front of two photo albums, Françoise Raoult and her son Jean-Noël, 35, relive each image one by one, with a smile on her lips and tender eyes. This October 17, 2019, nothing else exists except these pictures, vestiges of the childhood of Jean-Noël and that of his little brother Pierre-Yves. “A real bath. With water coming out of the shower head! » , Marvels Jean-Noël again, pointing to the photo where they both laugh out loud in a bathtub.

It was in December 1990. Françoise and Bernard Raoult, a Breton couple, had just adopted Jean-Noël and Pierre-Yves, who arrived from Mali at the age of 6 and 4. Thanks to the French association Rayon de soleil defant stranger (RDSEE), parents and their new children then realize their dream: Françoise becomes a mother and the two brothers discover France within a loving family, after having been "Abandoned" by their biological family. "Abandoned" , that's in any case what RDSEE has always told them ...

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Nine French people of Malian origin file a complaint against an adoption agency

At the same time that pressure on unmarried women to relinquish their babies is mounting, the question of who is responsible for the thousands of children relinquished is also becoming increasingly unclear. Mothers and children are being crushed in an opaque and chaotic system.

Gertha stands at the door of the Aldegonde orphanage in Amersfoort. It's February 23, 1960, a cold and cloudy day. Gertha's then three-year-old son, Hans, lives in the stately orphanage. She was unmarried when she had him, but she gave him up under pressure from her parents.

She's picking up her son today, she thinks. She has an appointment with the Utrecht Child Protection Council: once married, she can pick up her child. The wedding is in a few days. She's getting married, and her future husband, Hans, acknowledged his paternity on February 11th. The child is legally his son; they'll take him home together.

Things take a different turn. Gertha is told at Aldegonde's door that Hans has already gone to foster care. She can't take him with her and isn't told where he is.

In the years following the introduction of the adoption law, mothers and children were crushed in a chaotic and opaque system. The life story of Hans van Rijssel (64) illustrates the consequences of this lack of oversight. "Child Protection Services made me swim. And I'm still swimming."

After his mother,  under pressure from her parents, gave up her son , Hans was initially placed in the "De Kloek" home in Leusden after his birth. After five months, he moved to "Zonnestraal" in Bilthoven, and then lived for more than two years in "Huize Aldegonde." "I was brought in there by the social worker," he recalls. "I stood in that large hall, I turned around, and I was alone. And that's how I've felt ever since."

At Huize Aldegonde , his biological mother and the man she's about to marry try to pick him up. At the home's door, the couple learns that Hans is already living with a family. What they don't know is that he had been taken away just five days earlier.  Read more about what happened here.

Van Rijssel has nothing good to say about the family he ends up with. Officially, he lived there from age 3 to 18, but in reality, he only spent three and a half years under their roof. The boy was sent to various homes throughout his childhood because he allegedly had behavioral problems. "I was stupid, always did everything wrong," he says. Throughout that time, he was under the guardianship of the Utrecht Reformed Children's Association. His foster parents never adopted him because, according to his file, "they didn't dare accept all the consequences."

Workplace round up: Ark Globe Academy walkout + Homerton outsourcing dispute

UVW union members have been involved in crucial battles

UVW union members have been involved in crucial battles (Pic: UVW union)

Cleaners at Ark Globe Academy in south London walked out on a wildcat strike on Thursday last week.

They say they are still owed wages from as far back as January 2019 in some cases.

PARIS-BAMAKO SURVEY , paths to adoption (1/2). Between 1989 and 2001, more than 300 Malian children were adopted through a French association. Nine of them are now taking the case to court.

A red dress with flowers among the boubous. This September 21, 2019, Marie M. stands out with her look. By his attitude too. On this day of celebration, this Frenchwoman of Malian origin, expatriated in Luxembourg, seems embarrassed. At his side, about forty members of the Malian diaspora are celebrating the 59th anniversary of independence, at the cultural center of Ellange, a small town in the Grand Duchy. But the young doctor knows nothing of this distant country where she was born thirty-two years ago, not even its anthem. To reassure herself and be able to sing a few verses with her lips, she stares at the screen where the lyrics scroll, like at karaoke. Marie M. seems disturbed to be suddenly immersed in this culture. These people, this hymn, these colors, it's a little, a lot, his story.

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Nine French people of Malian origin file a complaint against an adoption organization

His Malian life was brief, eighteen months. When she was one and a half years old, Marie M. was adopted in 1989 by a French couple. For years, growing up in this loving family, she didn't really ask questions about her African past. Until the day she herself became a mother, in 2017. So, to offer a complete family history to her daughter, she opened the blue binder, that of her adoption file, so long set aside. Inconsistencies, things left unsaid, lies: the examination of the various documents plunged her into doubt, to the point of encouraging her to go in search of her roots. With a central question: under what conditions had she left Mali in 1989?

Nine French nationals of Mali origin file a complaint against an adoption agency

House likely to have sheltered children adopted through the Rayon de Soleil association. Hippodrome district, Bamako, Mali, January 3. Matthieu Rosier for “Le Monde”

They are called Marie M., Jean-Noël R., Lise F. or Florent T. *. They were born in Mali about thirty years ago. All of them then became French, adopted through the Paris-based association Le Rayon de soleil de l’Enfant Alien. But under what conditions ? Thirty years after their adoption, this Monday, June 8, they are nine to file a complaint at the tribunal de grande instance of Paris against the French organization and their former correspondent in Mali, Danielle Boudault, for “Scam, concealment of fraud and breach of trust”.

“This case is dramatic. There are still people who have had their identities stolen, children who have been lied to all their lives, and people who are quiet today. The purpose of this complaint is to hold everyone accountable for their responsibilities. The state too, because there has been action at all levels “, said Noémie Saidi-Cottier, one of the complainants’ two lawyers. ” This is not an isolated case, adds Joseph Breham, the second lawyer. Here it is Mali, but other countries are probably affected. This is this association, but there are probably others. We are not on an epiphenomenon, but on something that affects a certain number of French women. “

In this 38-page complaint, containing more than 100 documents, the two French lawyers, members of the Alliance of Lawyers for Human Rights (AADH), detail the main operating mode of the Rayon de soleil and the “Stratagems” implemented to allow “Circumvention of the law” in order to have Malian children adopted in France who, under local law, should not have been.