Mirjam starts legal case in Chile for child abduction and adoption fraud by Dutch 'nun'

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.

Human rights

On behalf of Mirjam, the lawyers are demanding a criminal investigation into all those involved and compensation for human rights violations. They are asking the Dutch state to cooperate in the investigation. They are demanding access to government documents about adoptions from Chile and want the Netherlands to question all those involved.

Gertrudis Kuijpers surrounded by Chilean children in her home Las Palmas. © Archive Algemeen Dagblad

The most important witness is Miep Bastiaanse, Kuijpers' sister. Together they ran the foundation Children's Home Las Palmas and arranged the adoptions. The lawyers also want to have former board members questioned. "The emphasis is on the responsibility of the state and not so much on specific people, although we know that there is individual responsibility," says Alfaro.

In this way, Kuijpers linked several adoptees to the wrong biological families during roots searches. This also happened with Mirjam, who was brought to the Netherlands illegally as a baby in 1972. After a search, Kuijpers claimed to have found Mirjam's biological family, but much later a DNA test showed that this was not correct.

Emotional distress

"Bastiaanse is partly responsible for the fact that I have been linked to the wrong Chilean family for twenty years," says Mirjam. "I never got back the money I paid for the search. They never apologized or wanted to talk to me. They caused a lot of emotional suffering."

The Chilean investigation service PDI is requested to interview persons in Chile who have been involved in adoptions to the Netherlands. In addition, Fiom, the centre for questions about descent, must hand over Mirjam's adoption file, which it manages.

The Netherlands does not want to conduct an investigation itself , because there is still a criminal investigation in Chile . The Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice and Security say they have not yet received a request from Chile, but if they do, they will 'study' it.