The Sean Ross mother-and-baby home opened in Roscrea in 1931 and closed in 1969, and was among the homes run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

During that time, 6,414 women were admitted and 6,079 babies were born there.

One of them was Philomena Lee, whose son was forcibly taken from her and adopted to US parents in the 1950s. Her experience was turned into the award winning film, 'Philomena'.

Records show that the home was established for single mothers seeking assistance from Tipperary and mostly neighbouring counties of Laois, Kilkenny, Clare, Limerick and Kildare.

The average age of the women on admission was 22 and the majority of them gave birth in Sean Ross Abbey, with 5,665 (88.3%) doing so.

All people who have reported to the Application Point for Domestic Distance and Adoption in the period between September 2019 and 31 July 2020 will receive a message from Fiom or the Verwey-Jonker Institute this week. In it, the Ministry of Justice and Security informs them about the state of affairs with regard to the Verwey-Jonker Institute's research into domestic distance and adoption between 1956 and 1984. Unfortunately, this research is delayed because errors were made in the design of the Application Point.

Errors at the reporting point

A report was made of every call that was received at the Application Point. Not all requirements of the privacy legislation have been met during the processing and storage of the reports. The people who told their story should have been asked for written permission to use and keep the interview record. Also, all applicants should have been given the opportunity to check and correct their report. At the time, this only happened if the applicant asked for it during or after the interview. As far as is currently known, mistakes have been made in a number of interview reports. Due to all the shortcomings, the responsible ministry has reported a data breach to the Dutch Data Protection Authority.

Excuses

All the people who have shared their story have taken a bold and difficult step that deserves a lot of appreciation. Thanks to the decision of all those referrers to share their story, we know what happened in the past and we can learn lessons from it. Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker said publicly in the Lower House that the errors should not have happened at the Application Point. He has expressed regret to all who registered at the reporting point.

They were kidnapped, tortured and illegally adopted: During the dictatorship, the Argentine military committed crimes against hundreds of children and babies of critics of the regime. Many grandmothers are still looking for their grandchildren - with success.

Javier Matías Darroux Mijalchuk was long suspected of being the child of those who had disappeared - on his adoption papers it was noted that he was found as a baby in 1977 near the ESMA naval school in Buenos Aires , the largest torture center of the Argentine military dictatorship.

DISPLAY

When he turned to the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo organization, a DNA test in 2019 confirmed his true origin: at the age of 40, he met his relatives for the first time, who had reported the child as missing and had provided genetic samples themselves. Darroux Mijalchuk's biological parents were kidnapped by the military and probably murdered.

Around 30,000 students, activists and other regime critics were kidnapped and murdered during the military dictatorship in Argentina from 1976 to 1983. They were tortured, then partly drugged and handcuffed, thrown from airplanes into the Río de la Plata or into the sea, others shot and buried in mass graves. The military also abducted children and raised babies born in torture centers or given them to families loyal to the regime.

MANY CASES OF underage girls who became pregnant and were sent to mother and baby homes were not referred to Gardaí to investigate as statutory rape.

The long-awaited final report from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation was published today. It called for survivors of the institutions to be given a State apology, redress and access to their birth information.

Although there are some cases of women reporting allegations of their rape to Gardaí cited in the Mother and Baby Home Commission report, it notes that “most of the mother and baby homes and county homes under investigation did not have a policy of reporting underage pregnancies to the Gardaí”.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that it was “striking” that in many cases where underage girls became pregnant, it was not referred to authorities at the time.

“Clearly statutory rape was involved,” he said at a press briefing this afternoon. “It’s just extraordinary that no one even thought for a second, it seems from personal testimonies, that these issues should be pursued.”

La France tente de s'adapter à la baisse de l'adoption

Aujourd'hui, moins d'une famille candidate sur sept recueille un enfant.

Par Agnès Leclair

Publié le 25/11/2009 à 08:42, mis à jour le 25/11/2009 à 08:43

Le profil des enfants proposés à l'adoption a changé. Ces derniers ont souvent 5 ans et plus, font partie de fratries ou présentent des pathologies. AFP

AMSTERDAM - The Flash adoption agency is no longer allowed to bring Haitian children to the Netherlands. The data from the agency about the children is incorrect, says Justice. Adoptive parents would be misinformed about the ages and backgrounds of the children.

From our reporterSeptember 28, 2002 , 0:00

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport received three complaints in the spring from parents who had adopted a child from Haiti via Flash. The parents suspect that the children are older than the adoption agency states. One child also has behavioral disorders that may indicate abuse. The department then called in the inspectorate for youth assistance and youth protection for an investigation. After examining 26 files, he concluded that the information provided by the institution about the children is incorrect.

Chairman P. van Loon of the foundation that the adoption agency falls under, says that his agency meets all the requirements set by the government. Since Flash was founded in 1993, the agency has brought about 150 children to the Netherlands. “We also notice that the ages of the children sometimes do not match what is stated in the birth certificate. We have always said that to the parents. Now two parents have complained, one of which has two children. Before that, we have always had good reports from the inspection. Now we would have too little insight into what our contacts are doing in Haiti. ''

Professor Hoksbergen, professor of adoption, knows one of the duped parents. “I have read the correspondence between the parents and the foundation. Such an organization must take a critical look at the information it receives from Haiti. When parents are expecting a baby and they have a child of more than two and a half years, that is a different story. It can hurt the adoption process. ''

KOCHI: In addition to the challenges posed by the pandemic, the state is struggling to alleviate the concerns of the prospective parents in the backdrop of rigid rules set by the Centre. Biju Prabhakar, chairman of the State Adoption Resource Agency (SARA), told TNIE that the pan-India platform for adoption — CARINGS (Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System), introduced by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) — doesn’t give much choice to parents to adopt kids from the same state.

“We wrote to the ministry multiple times about this. A Keralite cannot adopt a child belonging to Manipur because of the physical difference. Likewise, a North Indian may not prefer to adopt a child from South India. Hence, they should give the applicants first preference to adopt a child belonging to their respective states,” said Biju.

He added that rigid rules would make people want to bypass the procedure, increasing malpractices. “For a child, every day is valuable. There are several cases when the parents are no more and the surviving parent is not interested in keeping the child. Such children are not treated legally free for adoption. The result being that the child is denied care and shelter,” said Biju.He added that the stigma surrounding adoption is yet another issue. “In other countries, people feel proud about adopting children and the society appreciates them. But here, prospective parents are usually not very comfortable.”

The Centre had also made a move to enable district collectors, instead of family courts, to take the call on children. “Institutional care is the last resort. In Kerala, some institutions do it for commercial gain. We had shut down multiple institutions because of such malpractices. They are raising funds from other countries, which is unethical. This is why deinstitutionalisation is being pushed. We are exploring foster care and adoption and trying to keep the children at their own homes by giving necessary funding to custodians,” he added.

in a nutshell

In the last few years many countries have voiced their concerns over inter-country adoption prevalent in most South Asian countries including India. Many countries including China, Russia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Korea etc., have banned adoption after instances of abuse of the adopted children were reported. In recent years many adoptee adults have started talking openly about the emotional trauma they undergo due to the sudden change of physical, linguistic and social environment at a young age due to adoption. There is a surge in the number of adoptees who go the birth of their countries in search of their biological parents. A few have succeeded in reuniting with their original parents whereas for a majority the search has proved to be a futile exercise.

One such adoptee who has been frantically trying to find her roots in India is Carol Peters ‘Carol D'Souza’ (Original name Carol Fonseca), a citizen of Belgium. Carol, who is now 53, has made four trips to India in her quest to locate her biological parents and to connect with the country of her birth. Her first trip was in 1998 and the fourth one was in 2018 and it has been like ‘so near yet too far’ in her pursuit of finding her biological parents. In 2009, she had visited India with her husband and two daughters to locate her biological parents and also to acquaint her family with the country of birth.

Despite her success in getting some vital clues in the last 20 years Carol is still far away from her mission. However, she isn’t giving up yet, this is my strength. Carol who is polio affected and suffers from many other ailments wants to come to India again despite her failing health to with the fond hope that she will succeed in her mission. “It was a painful experience for me in my new home in a new environment where I felt totally alienated. I wanted to know who my biological mother is and wanted to connect to connect with my roots and my culture. I wanted to find out why I was given away to the orphanage,” says Carol during the long telephonic conversation I had with her. After listening to her tale, I could realise that she went through a harrowing experience as an adoptee.

Uprooted and Alienated

Carol’s adoption story and her subsequent efforts to find her parents and get back to her roots make an interesting reading. She was born in Mumbai on December 2, 1967. Within four days of her birth she was admitted into St Joseph’s Home & Nursery, an orphanage located in Byculla (Agripada), Mumbai. She had poliomyelitis when she was 2.5-years-old. On October 7, 1974 when she was 7 years, she was adopted by Marcel Peters of Belgium. However, it wasn’t a happy ending to her story. She was unable to cope with the sudden change of the physical, linguistic and social milieu at such a young age. She says she felt out of place in her foster family. This traumatic experience was the trigger that resolved her to know more about her past and the circumstances that orphaned her.

“Do I belong here in the Netherlands? And what would it have been like if I had stayed in South Korea? ” Soorien Zeldenrust from Zwolle has these questions in her stomach. When she was three months old, she was adopted from the Asian country. “A lot of people around me said, 'You should be grateful, you are kind of saved.' Many people see adoption as a kind of fairytale, but I just didn't have that. ” Now, as an adoption coach, Soorien helps people with the same experience as her.

She has no memories of South Korea when she came to the Netherlands. Logical, because Soorien was only three months old when she arrived at Schiphol. Her adoptive parents picked her up. “The only thing that knows is that my body does have memories. I don't have an image, but I do have a feeling ”, she says.

Love sickness

Soorien, now 34 years old, does not feel completely understood. Despite having a good time with her adoptive parents, she feels pain and sadness. “I sometimes compare it to a serious heartbreak or when you lose someone. The advantage of that is that you know the one, but I don't know the one I lost. It hurts me a lot. You experience that pain in your body. I cannot trace who I miss or where exactly the feeling comes from. ”

Soorien thinks the feeling is mainly caused by her adoption at a young age. “It has also been proven that children have a great need for safety from their parents, especially during the first few months and years. I never had that safety at a young age. I was taken away from my mother after about ten days. As a result, my body went into a certain survival mode, ”she says. When she was three months old, she arrived in the Netherlands.

Christine Ockrent marâtre, Bernard Kouchner distant : Camille Kouchner acide

ILS N'ONT PAS ÉTÉ PRÉSENTS

Solène Gressier | mardi 5 janvier 2021 à 22h58 - Mis à jour le mardi 5 janvier 2021 à 23h43

Christine Ockrent marâtre, Bernard Kouchner distant : Camille Kouchner acide

Camille Kouchner a accusé le politologue Olivier Duhamel, son beau-père, d’inceste sur son frère jumeau dans son ouvrage La Familia Grande, qui paraîtra ce jeudi 7 janvier. La juriste aurait également brossé le portrait peu flatteur de son père et de sa belle-mère, Bernard Kouchner et Christine Ockrent.