Community 23 July. 2001 Save article Justits-Frank smoldered for four years

A Danish doctor-married couple discovered six years ago how official medical certificates were being falsified when the humanitarian organization Terre des Hommes conveyed adopted children from Romania to Denmark.

The couple then reported the case to the Danish authorities. Nevertheless, several years passed before the Ministry of Justice, under current Minister of Justice Frank Jensen, intervened and stopped Terre des Hommes.

The case started for the married couple Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther, Århus, when they received a severely disabled girl in 1995. The child was two and a half years old and came from the notorious Romanian orphanage Babadag in the city of Tulcea.

Prayed especially for a healthy child
- We were getting old and had therefore stipulated that we did not want a disabled child, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen, who is now 56.

- At that time we had heard a little about the fact that many disabled children were coming up from Romania. That's why we specifically asked about it when we were at Als and spoke to Anne Botfeldt, the person responsible for Terre des Hommes' adoption department.

Anne Botfeldt promised the parents that they had nothing to be afraid of:

- No, there was no danger and no problems. On the contrary, we had been very lucky, because the orphanage Babadag was the best in all of Romania.

Before the adoption went through, medical reports were issued on the child. They determined that the little girl was healthy, of normal development and could both talk and walk.

So retarded girl in Kastrup
Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther were not down to pick up their daughter themselves. She was brought to Denmark by a young Danish man who was a volunteer for Terres des Hommes in Romania.

Already at Kastrup Airport, the couple could see that their child was ill.

- We are both doctors, and knew immediately that it was crazy. The girl was retarded and could do nothing. But of course we accepted her.

Immediately afterwards, the couple complained to the Directorate of Civil Rights under the Ministry of Justice.

- We told them what had happened and asked who actually controls the organizations that mediate the children.

Was threatened with Interpol
The couple's complaint did not cause the Directorate of Civil Justice to sound the alarm, but triggered a lengthy exchange of letters between the Directorate and Terre des Hommes.

But the complaint caused Terre des Homme's then chairman of the board, Jessie Rosenmeier, to write and scold the couple several times:

- We called her 'the lady in the hat'. She threatened to report us to nothing less than Interpol because we wouldn't report every six months and tell how the child was doing.

- Our answer was that when Terre des Hommes could falsify medical documents, they could also write such a report themselves, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

Traffic continued
Even though the authorities were now involved in the case, Terre des Hommes, Anne Botfeldt and Jessie Rosenmeier continued to send sick adopted children to Denmark. And the traffic continued with false medical certificates that officially made the children healthy.

The Civil Rights Directorate and the judicial authorities' reaction did not come until three years later.

Namely, a late summer day in 1998, when Peter Chr. Rasmussen and Agnes Winther talked about their experiences in a DR broadcast made by the now deceased TV documentarian Steen Baadsgaard.

A few days after the case was raised on television, the Ministry of Justice decided to conduct a retrospective study of around 200 Romanian adoption cases. Especially by Terre des Hommes and the organization's contact person in Romania.

But Terre des Hommes itself was allowed to continue its activities.

Right up until January 1999, when the organization was once again exposed as having sent a disabled child to an unsuspecting family.

Is eight years old and wears diapers
- The cases were hushed up, says Peter Chr. Rasmussen.

- What the motives have been remains uncertain. But there is a part that must have been sitting inside with some knowledge.

- Today we know that at least one in eight 'healthy' children who came to Denmark with Terre des Hommes had severe injuries and will be dependent on institutions for the rest of their lives.

- We ourselves love our own daughter, who is now eight years old, very much. She is loving, talks like a waterfall, and we have many happy moments together. But she is developed as a three-year-old, wears diapers and will never be able to fend for herself.

- And it has given us both a completely different life than we had imagined.