Chilean adoptee Mirjam Hunze is starting a lawsuit in Chile for child abduction to the Netherlands. She is holding the Chilean state liable for illegal adoptions by 'nun' Truus Kuijpers. She is also demanding that the Netherlands provide access to adoption documents and question those involved, including Kuijpers' sister and former employees of the Las Palmas orphanage.

Human rights lawyers from the Chilean Colombara office filed the case on Mirjam's behalf with the Santiago Court of Appeal. The court has accepted her complaint of child abduction. Later, other Chilean adoptees will also start proceedings.

During the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, some 20,000 Chilean children were systematically adopted illegally abroad. This was done with the cooperation of doctors, notaries, judges, hospitals, orphanages and churches. "Thousands of people were harmed because their sons and daughters were taken and deprived of their right to identity, through deception and probably through a form of fraud from which many people benefited financially," says Jennifer Alfaro, coordinator of Colombara.

Truus Kuijpers ran the Las Palmas orphanage in Santiago since the 1970s. She presented herself as a 'nun', while she was not. She managed to have at least 155 children adopted from Chile, most of them in the Netherlands. Adoptees and their biological mothers accuse Kuijpers of having taken babies from hospitals without permission and offered them for adoption. Kuijpers was a suspect in a criminal investigation in Chile, but she died in January 2023.

The authorities in our country wanted to forget about the fate of children adopted abroad in the early 1990s. They assumed that they would all lead a fulfilled life, without the deprivations and traumas of Romanian orphanages at that time. When the children grew up and began to search for their roots, physical and psychological abuse, unhappiness and destinies broken by lovelessness came to light. Lucian was 7 years old when he was adopted by a Belgian family. His life was a torment and he sued the Romanian state for trafficking in minors and crimes against humanity. A new disturbing episode in the "Written in DNA" campaign.

• "Directly in the chest, assassinated on command". The moment when the two clans clashed in the middle of the street, in Urziceni. Two young men from the Catană clan, shot dead

Lucian is "a little boy", born into an absurd world in 1984. He was abandoned at birth and ended up in an orphanage in Mangalia. He vaguely remembers the gray and tormented days, but immediately after the Revolution, it seemed that everything would change. The visits of families from abroad who wanted to adopt children from the orphanages brought hope to the little ones' souls. The first vacation with those who would become his parents seemed almost a dream.

• Countless internationally adopted children uncover the lies surrounding their adoption
• The investigation reveals the lucrative business and the crimes hidden behind these adoptions

Since the 1950s, more than a million children around the world have been adopted by Western families. The investigation carried out by one of those adoptees, now a journalist, reveals in the documentary The Adoption Scandal how this colossal and lucrative market has been able to flourish and why it still exists today. From children stolen from their mothers during the Pinochet dictatorship to false orphans from Africa or Asia , international adoption is at the centre of an unprecedented scandal .

Korean children in Sweden

The children adopted by Western families in recent decades are now between 30 and 40 years old . Interested in finding their identity and, thanks to social networks, many of them were shocked to learn that a large majority had been illegally separated from their biological parents.

Historians and demographers estimate that more than a million children have been adopted over the past six decades . South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Chile and Ethiopia are just some of the hundred countries that have given their children up for adoption to Western parents over the years.

RE: Woo-verzoek inz. Independent Panel EU Family Law

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By Heather Massey

On January 6, 2025, Congressman Rob Wittman (VA-01) announced the re-introduction of his Adoption Information Act. According to a press release, this act “…would require family planning services to provide information on nearby adoption centers to anyone receiving their services. A family planning services’s eligibility to receive federal grants or contracts through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would be contingent upon providing this information.”

An adoptee, Congressman Wittman also shared his perspective about adoption:

“A lot of people say they would not be where they are today without their parents—for me, that is the absolute truth….When I was eight months old, my mom and dad adopted me. My birth mother’s decision to choose adoption gave me more opportunities than she felt she could provide, and my parents’ decision to adopt instilled in me a passion for public service and a desire to give back. That’s why I’m proud to reintroduce my Adoption Information Act so that all mothers know what options are available to them. This legislation is a simple step that can make a world of a difference.”

In addition to being a constituent of Congressman Wittman, I’m also an adoptee who believes the Adoption Information Act would cause more harm than good.

Dear Press Service,

Please forward this to the person who deals with FOIA requests.

I would like to request the following to be made public under FOIA:

Letter from Condoleezza Rice dated 17 January 2006, addressed to
European Commissioner Olli Rehn, copied to European Commission
President Jose-Manuel Barroso.
The letter was transmitted by fax on 20 January 2006 by your Embassy.

Thank you in advance,

Mrs. Roelie Post

Foreign applicants who desire to adopt Sri Lankan children are required to forward their joint applications to the Commissioner of Probation and Child Care Services

Every application for adoption of a child must be in conformity with the provisions of the Adoption of Children Ordinance (Chapter 6)

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda

The Minister of Women and Child Affairs has issued an Extraordinary Gazette notification limiting the number of adoption orders that may be made by all courts in Sri Lanka for foreign applicants during the calendar year 2025 to 100.  

The subject Minister, Saroja Savithri Paulraj, issued a Gazette notification under Paragraph (b)(i) of Subsection (5A) of Section 3 of the Adoption of Children Ordinance.  

In Switzerland, 14 cantons want to work more closely together to help adopted individuals find their biological parents. In the past, not everything was always done by the book.

Why were there so many international adoptions in the past?

In recent years, as economic and social conditions in Switzerland improved – especially for unmarried mothers – there were fewer children available to adopt within the small Alpine state. This led to some people looking to adopt from abroad. From the 1960s onwards, there was a wave of adoptions from Asian countries, and later from South America and Africa. From 1989, there was an increase in adoptions from Eastern Europe.

Fertility issues were not always the main reason for adopting. Some Swiss couples felt as though it was a “humanitarian act”. They wanted to rescue children from poverty due to their social or religious beliefs and offer them a better life with educational opportunities.

Developments in certain countries were also partly responsible. For example, the South Korean government reduced funding for social welfare systems for unmarried mothers and poor families and instead promoted large-scale international adoptions until the 1980s. In Sri Lanka, an adoption industry developed: lawyers, social workers, midwives, chauffeurs and hotels all profited from international adoptions.

For most adoptees, being adopted is just one piece of a multifaceted identity—and like other identity markers such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or personality, it’s often necessary to navigate feelings of uncertainty, pride vs. shame, and questions about who one is and where they’re meant to be in the world. Adoption has unique influences on identity formation as a child grows up and may require that children confront loss and feelings of rejection; it may also present distinct challenges in adulthood, particularly when it comes time to discuss family history that might be unknown. Though being adopted has its challenges as children grow into adults, many adult adoptees report feeling stronger for having navigated them—and may even end up feeling more connected to their adoptive families, their birth families, their cultures, and their inner selves as a result.

On This Page

• Growing Up Adopted
• Life as an Adult Adoptee

Growing Up Adopted

Nowadays, in the U.S. and other countries where formal adoption is common, most adoptive families start discussing adoption with their child from the moment they arrive home—thus, the “big reveal” in which a child suddenly finds out they’re adopted is less common than it once was (though not unheard of). Growing up knowing that one is adopted generally has beneficial effects on children’s mental health and sense of self. However, it also raises questions that the child will need to grapple with as they grow: What does it mean to be adopted? Does being placed for adoption mean that they were unwanted? Is it possible to truly fit in in one’s adopted world?

According to childhood researcher Sarah Alminde, adopted children can benefit from spending time with their biological family, but they must be able to decide for themselves.

- Poor adoptive parents... what a nightmare to go through.

- I would have done the same thing, fought tooth and nail.

- Where is the child's best interests?