SEOUL: Born as Yoon-hwa in South Korea in 1974, she became Petra Zwart of the Netherlands at the age of one.

Her adoptive Dutch family provided a warm and welcoming home to both Zwart and her biological brother, who was adopted at the age of five.

Even so, Zwart recalls finding it difficult to fit in as a child, due to her East Asian appearance being different, “like an ugly duckling”.

She and her brother are among the nearly 170,000 babies that South Korea has sent overseas for adoption since 1953.

The Directorate for Children, Youth and Families believes that if adoptions are not temporarily stopped, the Norwegian authorities must step in and take more control.

MUST CLEAN UP: Minister for Children and Families Kjersti Toppe has taken on the task of cleaning up Norwegian adoption practices. 

The Directorate for Children, Youth and Families (Bufdir), which is the professional authority in the adoption field, believes that there is a real risk that illegal adoptions may occur. They have therefore recently recommended to the minister a  temporary halt in all adoptions . 

If the minister does not follow Bufdir's recommendation, Bufdir proposes three alternative measures. 

Among other things, they will check documents in each individual case. They also propose that an adoption should only be carried out after direct cooperation between the countries' state administrations. And that requirements for soundness and legal certainty are clarified to a greater extent than today.

The fact that it is not possible to adopt from abroad for the time being is not the same as abolition, says Lene Myong, who believes that one must take a fundamental stand against transnational adoption as a phenomenon.

Now it's over with adoptions from abroad - at least for a while. The last international adoption center in Denmark, Danish International Adoption (DIA), announced on Tuesday last week that they are turning the key. It comes after the organization has been notified that the last five countries they mediate adoptions from will be suspended for a period of time. On 14 December last year, the Board of Appeal suspended adoptions from South Africa because it was suspected that the adoptions were not taking place according to the rules.

Lene Myong is a professor at the University of Stavanger, has researched transnational adoption and is herself adopted. She believes that there should be a political confrontation with adoption from abroad.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s presidential office said Monday it approved a request by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a one-year extension after investigators sought more time to examine human rights violations linked to past military governments, including the widespread falsifying of child origins that fueled a foreign adoption boom in the 1970s and ‘80s.

In granting the request for an extension through May 2025, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol acknowledged the need to “restore the honor of those who were unjustly victimized during our past history and those who sacrificed for the sake of the country,” said Hwang Sang Moo, senior secretary for civil and social affairs.

Commission chair Kim Kwang-dong is expected to announce the extension after a meeting of commissioners on Tuesday. While Kim had the nominal authority to extend the mandate by up to a year, the decision depended on the consent of the government, which would have to approve its budget.

Kim last month said a one-year extension beyond May 26 of this year was crucial because investigators are struggling to handle the thousands of cases.

Kim highlighted the investigation into the cases of 367 Korean adoptees from Europe, the United States and Australia who suspect their biological origins were manipulated to facilitate their adoptions. Some have asked the commission to look into abuse they say they experienced at South Korean orphanages or under the care of their foreign adopters.

What do you do when an NGO has a monopoly on a central service and does not deliver?

When Minister of Social Affairs and Housing Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil (S) announced on Tuesday an indefinite halt to international adoption to Denmark, it gave rise to a number of questions.

Many of them cannot be answered here and now, but one of the most interesting starts from the fact that adoption is a rare, if not unique, phenomenon: a central service that has until now been 100 percent NGO-driven.

It is an area that civil society has had a monopoly on. And the interesting question is about much more than adoption.

You can put any service into the equation and ask: What do you do when the only provider of a service is a civil society organization that is no longer able or deprived of the right to provide it?

Actor Shakeela was attacked by her adopted daughter in her house in Chennai on Saturday. 

The actor filed a complaint with the Kodambakkam police. In her complaint, Shakeela said she and her lawyer Soundarya suffered injuries during the tussle with her adopted daughter 

Sheethal. Sheethal is Shakeela's brother's daughter and was raised by the actor as her own child.

Sheethal, as per reports, initially left the house after a fierce fight broke out between her and Shakeela. The actor then informed her lawyer who arrived at her house to resolve the issue. By then, Sheethal had returned to the house along with her birth mother and sister Jameela and started attacking Shakeela and the lawyer.

While Sheethal hit Shakeela with a tray, her birth mother bit the lawyer Soundarya's hand. Following the incident, Shakeela filed a complaint with the police. Sheethal also filed another complaint against the actor in the same police station. The police said they will analyse the CCTV visuals and register a case after they conduct a further inquiry

It is important that the child does not feel alone, says the organization Adoption og Samfund.

Adoptees may be affected by the fact that international adoptions to Denmark have ceased for the time being.

This is what the organization Adoption og Samfund says, after Denmark's only adoption agency, Danish International Adoption (DIA), stopped mediating adoptions from abroad to Denmark earlier this week. This means in practice that it is currently no longer possible to adopt from abroad.

The closure takes place after doubts have arisen about conditions surrounding international adoptions to Denmark. For example, some countries are suspected of committing fraud , while other examples show children being taken from their biological parents without consent .

Chile is no longer conducting a criminal investigation into possible child theft and illegal adoptions by a Dutch 'fake nun'. After the death of Truus Kuijpers last year, the Chilean investigating judge no longer decides whether she was guilty of this. His spokesperson told this site.

Adoption victims and interest groups are disappointed. They call on the Dutch government to conduct its own investigation, because new abuses continue to come to light about Kuijpers' adoption practices.

In Chile, a criminal investigation has been going on for years into the illegal adoptions of 20,000 children during the dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. Kuijpers, who ran a children's home there and falsely posed as a nun, was one of the suspects. Chilean mothers and adoptees accuse her of stealing children for adoption in the Netherlands. This would involve at least a hundred children.

According to investigating judge Jaime Balmaceda, five hundred cases are in a final phase and six hundred have been dismissed, including Kuijpers' case. She died exactly a year ago. "Due to her death, she is no longer a suspect and no statement will be made about her possible criminal liability," said a spokesperson for Balmaceda.

The Impilo Partners

Danish International Adoption (DIA)

Naledi Asbl Luxembourg

Eltern fur Kinder Osterreich (EfKO)

National Adoption Coalition South Africa (NACSA)

Genesis of the project:

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Over the last decades a significant number of international adoptions have taken place from abroad to France. More and more people adopted in the 80s, 90s or early 2000s feel the legitimate need to research their origins and access their right to identity.

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This research is a complex journey and not without risk. So being able to support them is today the great challenge to take up for the central authorities and all those involved in adoption as evidenced by recommendation number 31 of the special commission of July 2022 on the practical operation of the Hague Convention. 1993 on the protection of children and cooperation in matters of international adoption .