The 'stolen' children scandal: The abuses of a French non-profit organization under judicial investigation

The organization Rayon de Soleil de l'Enfant Etranger, which is still accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in five countries, is being investigated by the French courts for its illegal adoption activities in Mali in the 1990s. Similar cases have been documented in Romania and the Central African Republic.

After years of struggle – finally, a sense of relief. On September 6, the Judicial Court of Paris requested the opening of an investigation for fraud following a complaint filed in June 2020 by nine French adoptees from Mali against their adoption agency and their former correspondent in Bamako: Rayon de Soleil de l'Enfant Etranger (Ray of Sunshine of the Foreign Child, RDSEE) and Danielle Boudault.

They all accuse the French organization, still accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in five countries (Bulgaria, Chile, China, South Korea and India), of using "schemes" to "bypass the law" in order to have them adopted in France between 1989 and 1996, and deceiving their parents – biological as well as adoptive – in the process. The organization allegedly promised their biological parents that the children would only stay in France temporarily. As for the adoptive families, RDSEE reportedly assured them that the little Malian children had been abandoned by their families of origin.

For five years, Le Monde has conducted an investigation on this organization, one of the most important French non-profits responsible for the adoption of more than 7,000 children around the world. RDSEE is suspected of having adopted children who shouldn't have been taken from their families – in Mali, but also in the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Haiti, Peru and Romania – in order to cater to French couples' international adoption requests.