Thousands of Sri Lankan babies were put up for adoption between the 1960s and 1980s - some of them sold by "baby farms" to prospective parents across Europe. The Netherlands, which accepted many of those infants, has recently suspended international adoptions following historical allegations of coercion and bribery. As that investigation unfolds, families who never stopped thinking about the children who vanished hope they will be reunited.

Indika Waduge remembers the red car driving off with his mother and sister, Nilanthi, inside. He and his other sister Damayanthi stayed at home and waited for their mother to return. When she came back the next day, she was alone.

"When we said goodbye to each other I never thought Nilanthi was about to go abroad or it was the last time we'd see each other," he says.

This was in either 1985 or 1986, when Indika's father had left his mother Panikkarge Somawathie to raise three children alone. As the family struggled to survive, he remembers a man his mother knew convincing her to give Nilanthi, who was four or five, up for adoption.

Indika Waduge

Iresha, 32, 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 talks about how things really go at home. She is removed from home at the age of 15. She spends her teenage years in various youth care institutions.

Years later she has her life on her own. 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 that I saw. When I got off the plane and was confronted by the people living on the street, I threw up.

Tahiti, March 3, 2021 - After the unexpected general acquittal pronounced on February 25 by the criminal court against two couples in the context of an adoption carried out out of procedure, Tahiti Infos details and explains the reasons for the judgment.

On February 25, the Papeete Criminal Court released the biological parents of a little girl born on September 29 and the couple who had tried to adopt her by freeing themselves from the procedure. This decision had strongly reacted to public opinion in view, in particular, of the requisitions for firm prison taken by the public prosecutor during the hearing against three of the four accused.

Of the three offenses for which the four accused were prosecuted, as authors or accomplices, the criminal court began, in the reasons for its judgment of February 25, by addressing that of the “offense of provocation to abandonment”. of a child ”which was reproached to the adoptive couple. It emerged from the investigations carried out by the investigators that between September 16 and October 10, the two men had paid medical expenses (gynecological, dental), as well as amounts related to "food expenses" and shopping for. the start of the school year for a total amount of 114,000 Fcfp. Refuting any idea of ??a consent “provoked” by a “financial donation” or the “promise of some benefit”, the court considered on this point that “in any event, the nature of the expenses, exclusively related to food and accommodation of the biological family and to the health of the mother and the unborn child as well as their limited nature ” did not allow them to be regarded as “ undue material gain. ” He considered that these sums were intended only to participate “ in the preservation of health and to provide for the nutritional needs of the mother and of their children."

Full and complete agreement

On the fraud, that is to say the falsification of the act of early recognition and the birth certificate, the court affirmed that if it emerges from the investigation that one of the two members of the couple adopting had recognized the child of whom “he knew not to be the biological father” , the latter, by recognizing the little girl as his own, had pursued “no other goal than that of assuming the consequences of the bond of filiation thus created, in particular the obligation to provide for the maintenance and education of this child within the framework of the exercise of parental authority. ” The court also noted that this recognition was carried out with“The full and complete agreement of the biological father and the biological mother with regard to whom the maternal filiation remains established” and that therefore, this recognition did not “constitute a punishable forgery” .

This Belgo-Congolese from Namur is suspected of fraud in the adoption of Congolese children.

The Dinant council chamber referred Julienne Mpemba to the criminal court on Tuesday, Eric Van der Sypt, spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office, said Wednesday, confirming information from several media. This Belgo-Congolese is suspected of fraud in the adoption of Congolese children.

In this case, the prosecution suspects that five adoptions of Congolese children by Belgian couples were carried out fraudulently. Some had been taken from their families. Julienne Mpemba is suspected of human trafficking, forgery and forgery. She has in the past suggested that she delivered thirty to forty orphans to adoptive parents in Belgium and the United States. Seven officials from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation were also suspected of being involved in this case. Searches were carried out at the FWB. They were accused of having turned a blind eye to fraudulent manipulation of dates of birth and photos of children. However, these were not referred by the Dinant council chamber to the criminal court.

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Often adopted children go missing without a trace

Precariousness pushes thousands of Haitians to entrust their children to reception centers, or to have them adopted. Most of these children leave the country, without their parents having any possibility of tracking them down or hearing from them.

Many parents do not know how international adoption works. “The 'madan sara' are sometimes victims,” says journalist Michel Joseph. Having no one to look after their child, they [sometimes] entrust them to a crèche so that they can go about their business activities. When they return after eight or fifteen days, it is announced that the child has already been adopted and that he has traveled ”.

In other situations, birth parents fall victim to false promises. "Sometimes [nurseries, orphanages or foreign missions] promise them a house or money, under the pretext of sponsorship, in exchange for the child."

Michel Joseph's reports on Radio Caraibes have made it possible to link some twenty Haitian parents with their children scattered around the world. To systematize this work, the journalist has just launched on March 6, Voie d'Espoir. Several hundred parents made the trip, documents yellowed by time in hand, to launch research on children who have sometimes disappeared for decades.

After a devastating report on abuses, the Netherlands immediately suspended international adoption. Nova-Lilly (33) also had to deal with this. She was adopted from Sri Lanka, but had a terrible childhood.

'All my childhood I was punished. Sometimes I had just 'looked wrong', sometimes my room was not properly tidy. Then my mother would empty my desk drawers on the floor. "Start over," she shouted. I was seven. If I was "not nice" she would take me to her sister. After a week, sometimes longer, I was allowed to return. My brother and sister were just at home. According to her, they were 'nice'. '

'I was adopted. My adoptive parents, Peter and Marja, were invited by the adoption agency to pick up 'their' child in Sri Lanka. They preferred a girl. Once arrived there were only boys. Marja and Peter suddenly only wanted a girl on the spot. I was six days old and literally moved somewhere when I lay in their arms. In the Netherlands I had a brother of one, their biological child. When I was four, another girl came from Sri Lanka. '

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Emily (36) about the cot death of her son: 'He just should have been here'

Kolkata: The kidnapper or ‘chele dhora’ has been a device used by generations of families in West Bengal to scare wandering children into coming back home at a certain time or from straying. The other narrative that has survived generations of retelling is the snatching of unattended babies by sanyasis. In popular imagination, the suitably clad ascetic is both anonymous and dangerous.

The archetype of the chele dhora, a criminal disguised as a saffron robed sanyasi, is perhaps a variation of Ravana kidnapping Sita in the Panchavati forest. The reinvention of the trope, using disguise to nab the children is a reversal of roles and a sneaky, smart move that insinuates that there is a connection between the Bharatiya Janata Party and crime. After the arrest of Juhi Chowdhury, a local leader of the BJP’s women’s wing in North Bengal for alleged links to a baby adoption racket, the controversy has now brought within its ambit Kailash Vijayvargiya, general secretary of the BJP in West Bengal and, Rajya Sabha MP Roopa Ganguly. It had emerged that Chowdhury had met them after her name surfaced. Chowdhury had been on the run and was arrested a few days after allegations against her name were made.

Vile as the crime of trafficking in babies is, the political connection has brought into sharper focus the ‘huge networks’ that run these operations. The police also arrested the Darjeeling district child protection officer (DCPO), Mrinal Ghosh, exposing the underbelly of the network that includes errant officials, doctors, nursing homes and NGOs. The arrests were made after key accused Chandana Chakrobarty — who owned the children’s home and the shelter for the mentally ill and disabled, Bimala Sishu Griha and Ahsray — revealed details about how the nexus worked.

The crime has inevitably become entangled in the saffron groups versus Mamata Banerjee tussle over political turf. This one dramatic case, both, focuses public attention on the problem and also shields the size of it from closer scrutiny, because the ‘huge networks’ that operate to keep the trade going, continue to do so.

It points to a chilling reality. In West Bengal, which tops the list of Indian states for trafficking in women and children, acquiring or procuring people – babies for adoption, the young and the able bodied as labour, women, girls and boys for the sex trade, the healthy for organs, for organised for begging and for every other form of exploitation that the imagination can conceive – there is a well- established supply chain that procures what the market or trade in persons wants.

Search result - view documentECLI: NL: RBAMS: 2020: 6419

Authority

Court of Amsterdam

Date of judgment

10-12-2020

Mumbai: After falling in trap, adoptive parents set up foundation to clean up system

TNN | Oct 26, 2020, 07.13 AM IST

Mumbai: After falling in trap, adoptive parents set up foundation to clean up system

MUMBAI: Delhi residents Abhinav Aggarwal and his wife, awaiting custody of their four-year-old son after a city civil court earlier this month declared them his adoptive parents, launched a foundation on Sunday to streamline the adoption system and create awareness.

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COIMBATORE: The city police on Saturday arrested four people, including two women, from Karumbukadai in connection with illegal adoption of two girl children and physical harassment of the youngest child.

The office of district child protection officer rescued the children – aged seven years and four years – and accommodated them in a children’s home.

“After separating from her husband, the biological mother of the children had started living with another man. Four months ago, she gave the children to a friend, who gave them to his two sisters. Within a month or so, the woman who was taking care of the four-year-old child, handed her over to another couple who was looking for adoption,” said an official. “The couple assaulted the child, causing scars on her body. Their neighbours alerted police.”

Podanur police officers and child protection officials visited the house on Friday and rescued the child. “We shifted the kids to a children’s home. We might send the elder girl with the family upon submitting legal adoption documents as she was taken good care of. The youngest child will be subjected to medical examination,” the official said

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