On a hot summer day, during the week of Haute Couture presentations, Jean-Louis Scherrer called me and asked to see me urgently. He arrived in my office decomposed and explained that he had a tax audit by a woman, particularly picky. I advised him to speak to the President at the time, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, with whom he had very good relations.

He said it bothered him a lot and he didn't want to mix friendship and business. He therefore asked me to intervene directly with the office of the President of the Republic.

I knew Polge de Combret, Secretary General of the Élysée, who received us in his office. I quickly explained the situation to him and this very senior official scrupulously noted the facts that we related to him. So he took off his glasses, got up, tapped Jean-Louis Scherrer familiarly on the shoulder, saying to him: "So, old man, it's better."

I understood then that the interview was closed and that he was ready to intervene. I thanked him, and took Jean-Louis Scherrer with me towards the exit. On the stairs, Jean-Louis told me of his concern. He had not, in fact, understood that the file was going to be closed. When we arrived at the foot of the Elysée, he rushed to the newsstand in front of Pierre Cardin's store and he feverishly consulted his horoscope "UNE SOIREE UNOUBLIABLE".

Jacques Mouclier

Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220 - 235)

THURSDAY 3 MARCH 2005

Mr Nigel Cantwell, Ms Gill Haworth and Ms Naomi Angell

Q220 Chairman: Is there, or could there be, a set of criteria which would find general agreement? In a way you are both saying these are the sorts of things which would make us worry about the country. Is there a set of criteria? Could there be a set of criteria which would lead you to conclude that a particular country was not one in which adoption should be considered outside special cases?

Ms Angell: I think they would have to be reasonably general, because it is a huge range of concerns that have been raised. I would add to that I feel there should be a dialogue with countries where there is concern about their procedures. If there is a failure to respond in a reasonable way to those concerns over a period of time, that would cause concern. Different countries raise very different issues. As an illustration of that, for instance, in Guatemala the concern was on the provenance of relinquished children, that the people giving the children up for adoption may not be the mothers but were saying that they were, and what was put in place there was DNA testing by the British Embassy to provide those sorts of safeguards. In Cambodia children are not relinquished on the whole; it is mainly that they are abandoned, and it is very difficult then. DNA testing would not work, so one is having to look at very different solutions. I think any criteria would have to be broad and general.

Romania: Adoption Issue May Cloud NATO Plans

April 15, 2002 00:00 GMT

By Eugen Tomiuc

Share

Print

When Anouk (42) and her partner think she can't have children, they decide to adopt. Now her (adoptive) daughter is in the middle of puberty. Every puberty is intense, but in Anouk it increasingly evokes feelings of guilt.

“I feel guilty about the adoption.”

My girl dream came true

“Nine years ago, my partner and I adopted our daughter. To be honest, we thought at the time that I couldn't have children, so our choice was made quickly. We immersed ourselves in the adoption process and were soon able to hold our daughter in our arms. Indra was two years old when we adopted her from India. Later I unexpectedly became pregnant with twins, so suddenly my girlhood dream came true. I always wanted to have a big family. Have breakfast together at a large table; I had that loving picture in my head.

That my dream came true was great, and the first years I lived on a pink cloud. Now, nine years later, things are a little less rosy than I had hoped or expected. Indra is naturally very curious. For example, she was still very small when she once heard the bells of the church ring. She asked if she could go and see where the sound was coming from. I thought she was going to walk to the garden, so without a doubt said she could go. Moments later, I panicked. She had opened the garden gate and was already walking towards the end of the street. "I was allowed to watch, right?" was her innocent reply.

Parents spend tens of thousands of euros to adopt a child. But if adopted children want to find their own parents, there is no money for that. That's not right, thinks Sam van den Haak, who was adopted from Sri Lanka himself.

Patricia is adopted from India but finds no trace of her biological mother. Then a DNA test shows that she has a relative - in Norway! Can the relative reveal the secret of Patricia's origins?

Gunilla Nordlund has followed Patricia's journey and enlists the help of genealogist and DNA expert Peter Sjölund to help her in her search for answers.

Have you uncovered a family secret that turned your self-image upside down? Feel free to contact us with your story. Email to familjehemligheten@sverigesradio.se

Producer for the series is Ola Hemström.

.

It is estimated that between 10-15% of couples struggle with infertility. After trying to conceive and failing, these couples often seek methods like in vitro fertilization, (IVF) or look into adoption.

A local couple used a different option.

Megan Ivery and her identical twin sister grew up in Sidney with parents who shared their home with foster children. Ivery remembers many children moving in and out over the years and it fueled her desire for a large family.

“When I got married, I knew right away I wanted to start a family,” Ivery, who lives in Harrison Township, said. “We were attending a church in Kettering and there were a lot of folks fostering there.”

Ivery and her husband, Shimar, met with their pastor about fostering. At the same time, they were also trying to get pregnant. The pastor recommended they work on their biological family first, but after a year of trying, Ivery still wasn’t pregnant. The couple signed up to foster and within a couple of months, they got their first placement of a little boy who needed a place to live after a family tragedy. But he only stayed with them for four days before he went back home.

If it is abundantly clear that the Dutch state has made a mistake in the adoption of children, the State wants to prevent proceedings by settling. The government believes that the argument of prescription should not be discussed in such cases.

On Friday, Minister Franc Weerwind for legal protection informed the House of the state of affairs regarding the so-called distance mothers, unmarried women who say that they were forced to give up their child in the second half of the last century. In the first case of a waiver mother , the State still invoked prescription .

“Perceived abuses during adoptions can have a major and lasting impact on the lives of those involved. When they have the impression that the government has played an important role in this, it is understandable that people turn to the government primarily for acknowledgment of their suffering, but also for help or compensation for damage,” writes Weerwind.

The minister also announced that a commission of inquiry into domestic adoption practice will be led by Micha de Winter, who previously investigated abuses in youth care . The committee will start work in September.

Intercountry adoptions are possible again, from a limited number of countries

Fiom conducted research on women 1 who discovered their pregnancy late. What seems? They face a lot of misunderstanding. Fiom is therefore starting a campaign to gain more understanding for these women. An unintended pregnancy is often an intense experience, a late pregnancy is even more so. Women in the study share their experiences.

Many people cannot imagine that someone will not discover a pregnancy until after 30 weeks or during delivery. It is often thought that a woman deliberately kept it hidden. But would you know you're pregnant if you didn't get a big belly and keep bleeding every month? Imagine what that would be like. How would you feel if you suddenly gave birth to a child without knowing you were pregnant?

A late pregnancy can happen to anyone, of all body shapes and sizes, of all reproductive ages, mother or not and of any level of education. For all these women 1 this is a heavy event. They are suddenly told that they are not only unintentionally pregnant, but also have a child within weeks or days. Women who discover pregnancy at delivery have even less time to get used to the idea. From one moment to the next they have a child in their arms.

.

LONDON: Britain should formally apologise to unmarried mothers who were forced to give up their babies for adoption, according to an official report Friday that gave harrowing detail of the anguish suffered by the women.

Some 185,000 children were taken away for adoption between 1949 and 1976 in England and Wales, the report by parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights estimated.

The committee’s chairwoman, Labour MP Harriet Harman, said the bond between mothers and babies was “brutally ruptured” over the period.

“The mothers’ only ‘crime’ was to have become pregnant while unmarried. Their ‘sentence’ was a lifetime of secrecy and pain,” she said.

The committee acknowledged the “grave wrong” done to the mothers and their children, Harman said, adding: “It is time for the government to do the same and issue the apology they seek.