Featured Illegal adoptions? Stolen children? Adopted children request an investigation

Following a similar investigation, the Netherlands recently suspended all foreign adoptions.

Falsification of documents, lost files, victims of child trafficking: a group of people adopted abroad and adoptive parents is asking the French government for an investigation to shed light on "illegal practices" observed during international adoptions.

"We, adopted people and French adoptive parents, ask the government and parliamentarians to set up a commission of inquiry so that illegal practices in international adoption since the 1970s are noted", write the members of this recent collective for the Recognition of illicit adoptions in France (Raif) in a petition addressed to the National Assembly and published on the Change.org site.

Mali, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Peru: illegal adoptions? Stolen children?

In recent years, several children adopted in France, now adults, have testified in books or in the media of difficulties in accessing their origins, even of fraudulent procedures during their adoption.

This is particularly the case of Jean-Noël Raoult, whose testimony we had collected, who discovered that his biological parents in Mali were looking for him. In search of the truth, he filed a complaint, along with other people adopted through the same association, in December 2020.

This is also the case of singer Carmen Maria Vega, adopted at the age of nine months, who recently testified to AFP to have discovered during a trip to Guatemala in search of her biological mother that she was a stolen child.

Two years ago, it was a vast traffic for adoption in Sri Lanka that had been revealed, concerning several French families.

For Emmanuelle Hébert, one of the spokesperson for the collective, "these stories are not isolated cases. They are part of a system and probably there has been laxity" on the part of France, she denounces .

The opening of an investigation could make it possible, according to her, "to establish statistics and to have a follow-up of all the bodies authorized for the adoption" (OAA), of the private associations whose authorization is delivered by the International adoption mission (MAI), dependent on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Asked by AFP, the latter did not follow up.

According to information from AFP, the office of the Secretary of State for Children, Adrien Taquet, said it was ready to "receive very soon" the collective.

Contacted by Konbini news, Marie, a person adopted in Mali and co-founder of the Raif collective, affirms that "the collective is satisfied to note that the French political class is showing a growing interest in our cause which impacts the entire community of l 'adoption […]".

"We ask the government that all cases involving illegal practices already brought to [its attention] are finally really heard and that the necessary arrangements be taken as soon as possible," she said.

Number of adoptions divided by ten in 15 years

Emmanuelle Hébert, born in India, arrived at Orly airport in 1977, aged 2 and a half, to be adopted by a French family through one of these associations. While her orphanage record mentioned that her mother died shortly after her birth and her father abandoned her, she discovered in 2008 during a trip in search of her roots that her mother was alive, and the encounter.

But, eleven years later, the orphanage "tells her a new story with another mother, she died". "After 20 years of research, three trips to India, I still do not know what is true or false. It's really hard to build," testifies the forty-something, who has not found an act of abandonment official file.

Recently, the Netherlands and Switzerland admitted "illegal practices" in adopting abroad and presented regrets. On February 8, the Dutch government even suspended international adoptions after the findings of the investigation.

Faced with the small number of children to be adopted in France, many families applying for adoption have been looking abroad for decades. In 15 years, the number of these adoptions has been divided by ten. In 2019, 421 children were adopted abroad against more than 4,000 in 2005, according to official figures.

"Irregular or illegal files are not the majority, but we are aware of more and more cases", notes Anne Royal, president of the Association for Children and Adoption Families (EFA), which has more than 5,000 members.

"It is often at the time of the original research that we realize that we have been the subject of an illicit adoption. It is a crash in the life of everyone, of the adoptees, of his adoptive and biological family, " continues Anne Royal, who supports the collective's approach.

"You have to face the past and the responsibility of each person. It is a right to know the reality of your origins."

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