Tamara searches for her biological mother, but stumbles upon a web of child trafficking: 'I might never find out who she is'

On a muddy field outside the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, Tamara Dubbelman stands face to face with the woman who is supposedly her biological mother. Even before a word is spoken, she knows: this isn't right. “I felt: this is not my mother.”

Until that moment, Tamara only knew the woman from a yellowed photo her adoptive parents had once taken. “I used to watch the TV program Spoorloos ,” she says. “You see a child finding their father or mother and you hear beautiful music in the background. I thought: will it be like that for me too?”

When Tamara walks up to the woman and extends her hand, she sees her hesitate for a moment. “I thought: how stupid of me. In Sri Lanka, you don’t just shake someone’s hand; that is traditionally considered unclean there. Yet she took my hand. At that moment, I suddenly knew for sure: this is not my mother. It felt as if God was making me realize that.”

Her husband Wouter emphasizes that this is the woman in the photo. This makes Tamara start to doubt, because she wants to find her mother so badly. “Later, I had a DNA test done. It confirmed what I already knew deep down.”

Incorrect data in file

Tamara grew up in a Dutch family. Her parents were unable to have children of their own. “First they adopted my brother from Indonesia, and two and a half years later, me from Sri Lanka. The fact that I was adopted was never a secret at home. Yet the question always remained: why couldn't my biological parents take care of me?”

At the age of 18, she therefore travels to Sri Lanka for the first time, together with her adoptive parents. “I had imagined the country very differently. It wasn't dry or barren, but green, tropical, and very diverse.”
After a few days, she begins the search for her mother. “That soon came to a standstill. We went to the address listed in my papers, but there was nothing to be found there anymore. The information in my adoption file turned out to be incorrect. I returned to the Netherlands with more questions than answers.”

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New date of birth

In 2010, Tamara returned to Sri Lanka, this time with her husband Wouter. “I really wanted to show him my homeland. Through another adoptee, whom I had known since childhood, I came into contact with taxi driver Andrew. In addition to his work, he helped adoptees in their search for family. He suggested placing an appeal in the newspaper, with a photo of me and the woman who, according to my papers, was my mother. Shortly afterwards, a tip came in from someone who thought they knew her. That is how we eventually ended up on that muddy field outside Colombo.”

The DNA test Tamara had done later confirmed that her intuition was correct and that the woman was not her biological mother. But that was precisely the beginning of a new search. “I always thought: my date of birth is right, my name is right, and somewhere my mother lives. But suddenly, nothing seemed certain anymore. I was probably born a few months earlier than had always been assumed. My place of birth also turned out to be incorrect.”

Even Tamara's Sri Lankan name does not come from her biological mother. The name she has associated with her heritage her entire life suddenly takes on a completely different meaning. “My official name is Tamara Nelum Dubbelman. Nelum means lotus flower. My adoptive mother kept that name alongside Tamara so that a connection to my country of birth would remain. And honestly? Sometimes I think about having Nelum officially removed from my name. But I find that difficult. Then I would just be Tamara Dubbelman, and it would feel like I am letting go of the last piece of my heritage as well.”

Between two worlds

After her visit to Sri Lanka in 2010, she began to suffer from panic attacks more and more frequently. “My psychologist told me that such intense feelings sometimes stem from infancy. I kept asking myself: what happened to me when I was still a baby? My head knew I was God’s beloved daughter, but my heart didn’t believe that. I didn’t feel at home anywhere. In the Netherlands, to many people, you are the one with the dark skin. In my native country, I was actually too Western. You don’t speak the language and you don’t know the culture. It felt like I didn’t really belong anywhere, as if I was living between two worlds.”

Eventually, Tamara ends up with burnout. It is precisely during that period that one Bible verse keeps coming back: Jeremiah 29:11. “I have your happiness in mind, not your misfortune.” At a certain point, she knows: I have to go back to Sri Lanka. “Not to look for my mother again, but to make peace with my past. I noticed that I had become angry with the country. I didn't want that.”

Baby farms

In 2019, she went to Sri Lanka again, together with her husband Wouter and her mother-in-law. During that trip, she met taxi driver Andrew again. “He told me that he thought I came from the Ratnapura area, a region where many adopted children came from. I knew by then that there had been fraud with adoptions, but only then did I realize how extensive the network actually was. Nurses forged birth certificates, women pretended to be a child’s biological mother, and midwives pressured pregnant women to give up their babies. Anything just to get money. Andrew also told me about baby farms, where women were held captive, raped, and where they had babies that were subsequently sold for adoption. I couldn’t comprehend that something like that had actually existed.”

 

On baby farms, women were held captive and their babies sold for adoption.

On the second-to-last day of the trip, Tamara, her mother-in-law, and Andrew drive to Ratnapura. “Andrew pointed out a large house. The nurse who played a key role in the child trafficking once lived there. It was the place where babies were taken before they went to Colombo. Then Andrew said: 'Chances are you were here too.' That hit me incredibly hard.”

Next to the house stood a dilapidated shed, where the nurse's husband was sitting. "Through Andrew, I asked if he realized what he had done to all those children. I will never forget his answer. 'I am proud of what we have done. We have done a good job,' he said. I became so angry. I didn't know what to do with those words. Only after the conversation did I hear that he had also been involved with a baby farm. In hindsight, I am grateful for that. I don't know how I would have reacted if I had known that at the time.”

God's beloved daughter

On the last evening in Sri Lanka, Tamara walks along the beach with her mother-in-law. “I didn’t know what to do with all my emotions. As we watched the sunset, I thought again of Jeremiah 29: ‘I have your happiness in mind, not your misfortune.’ At that moment, I realized that God had always been there. When I was a baby, but also when people made wrong choices.”

She has to think back to a phrase she often heard on the trip: 'You're a lucky girl'. At first, that is difficult to hear. “I just thought: if only you knew how much sorrow I carry with me. But on that beach, I suddenly understood what they meant. Not because my past is beautiful, because it isn't, but because God has given me a future. From that moment on, I could also look at Sri Lanka differently.”

She does not know if she will ever find her biological mother. “Of course, I would like to know who I look like and when I was born. But I have learned that my identity does not depend on that. Maybe I will never find out what my real name was or who my mother was. One thing I do know by now: I am God’s beloved daughter. That is my identity. No one can take that away from me.”