Anusha to Alexander Italianer: Email of protest+ reply

From: Anusja 

Sent: Dienstag, 5. Juli 2016 21:10

Subject: Email of protest

Dear Mr Italianer,

We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. I am speaking for every adoptee in this world and their families, who will have consequence by the declaration of invalidness of Roelie Post, and by that also the ruin of Arun Dohle and Anjali Tara Pawars life work. I am only 'one of many', probably not knowing everything, but this I know. Please read.

They were able to trace my mother, as only people in this world. When every one else told me this was impossible. When nobody else cared enough to fight or knew how to.

They are sacrificing their own life so I could keep mine, and for the first time can start living instead of surviving. They gave me a voice, when mine was not heard.

And that's why I am sending this email. If they cannot continue their work, lifes of adoptees and birth parents, and even adpotive parents will be destroyed. Their work is of valid, I cannot even describe. Valid which is not possible to put a number on, or an amount of money. It's about the quality of life. It's not about quantity. With killing Roelie Post, so many other people's life are.

As so many adoptees, I have been through a lot. I will spare you the details. Most of it was only memorised by my own heart as every bit of truth of an adoptees life gets hidden and lost. Through the system, agencies, society in the country of origin and society of the receiving countries.

Adoption is about needs. Where there are needs, there is a market. Where there is a market there is money. Where there is money, there is power and.. exploitation and abuse of vulnerable people. The sad but simple law of asking and receiving.

I grew up as a 'succesful adoptee' according to my environment.

My adoptive family asked and received.

I adapted as expected, I was succesful at school, I did not complain, I was happy with the chances I got and my new family. I went to University and got three degrees.

I got married with a wonderful (white) man, I built out a career working hard realising I had to go the extra mile to prove I was worth the given opportunity. I started my own business next to working 60 hours a week.

As so many adoptees I was traumatised by grievance and loss. I grew up silently, being called introvert and high intelligent. I had eating and sleeping problems, but this was covered as being a sensitive child and the doctor thought giving medication for every symptom could solve it all.

However I was never sick. Adoption made me sick. I was a child missing her mother and family, growing up in an envorinment where those didn't exist. I was a child with so many questions, and nobody had an answer which was based on truth, my truth. I don't want any pity, I only want to speak up.

My birth family was reduced as being 'lost' and having 'no information about them'. I was forced to survive, so that was what I did, seeking happiness in whatever I could get out of life. I lost sense of my true self and my boundaries, as they were completely ignored in becoming a product of import 'made in India'. Exotic and fascinating.

My adoptive parents returned to India with me when I was 10 and 12, so I could see the poverty and understand the circumstances I was probably given up for adoption. Those two times I became so sick, as every part of my body got triggered by what once was surpressed.

Last year I realised I could not continue life like this. The urge to find my mother and family, who were still in my heart, was too big. Howevery I worked so hard to become a 'succesfull adoptee' feeling almost guilty I still was not happy.

As I knew there was somewhere some information about my roots, but everyone was reluctant to give it to me I contacted ACT after being desperate. They told me I did every thing possible to find them back, and made clear I would not be able to find them myself.

This was a sense of relief, as I had the feeling of doing something wrong and trying to find a way to fix things. I was at a crossroad, losing either everything, in order to restore what I once lost.

But I did not lose again, as ACT gave me the opportunity to continue with my life.

They searched and found, they did it with respect for every one involved. They were understanding to my adoptive parents and family in India. They were honest with me from day one, telling me there was no guarantee but they would try whatever possible. And I trusted them, as for the first time I really felt understood in my urge and knowing they already had solved so many cases. In only less than six months they traced my mother. Arun met me, listened to me, was patient, always there in this period.

The work is exhausting, they carry emotions of all adoptees and their families. In good and bad times. They worked hard to find a way to help an adoptee, and they did. They did. Why wants the world and authorities to stop them? Why? Why don't they get the financial support they deserve, while the government authorities only sent a couple of emails not pushing through, advising me to take again an airplane spending money to go look and never find, only life. Money and time? Six months ago I did not know how to survive any longer. I know I am one of many adoptees. I was lucky to be helped. There is so much proof of illegal practices. There is so many proof of adoption as not being in the best interest of the child or birthfamily.

How can this work be invalid? How can a person facitiliating this work being called invalid?

Everything in this world has two sides, every adoption story has two sides. In every adoptee story when it is written, the beginning shows the side of the receiving country. But we cannot be reduced to a storyline, written only by the hand of them. Creating a beginning in which everything is erased. As every adoptee has a story in their memory and heart, which relates to the other side. The side of the country of roots. Where there is a mother who carried the child, where there is a family. This part of the story is completely ignored by the receiving countries. Except by ACT. The only people who put the pieces together and fight for our rights.

Instead of stopping ACT, the world should stop calling adoption a solution. It is not, for nobody.

We should stop trafficking children who have to survive and recover from the process of adoption and the grievance and all other troubles. We have to start looking for ways to keep families together, instead of ripping them apart and creating new ones, who will never be the same to the old one.

Kind regards,

Anusja