According to a new study, many child removals in East Germany were carried out with disproportionate harshness and were part of the systemic injustice. However, a systematically politically controlled approach or targeted involvement of the Stasi could not be proven. Ideology strongly influenced the actions of the youth welfare services. Those affected continue to suffer the consequences to this day.

from MDR AKTUELL

A new study by the German Institute for Residential Care Research shows that many adoptions in East Germany were carried out with "excessive and disproportionate harshness." Of approximately 95,000 adoptions between 1945 and 1990, about eleven percent were attributed to particularly harsh interventions by youth welfare services. Around 10,450 cases, according to the study, arose from "everyday crises."

The Latest

• Proceedings in the trial for an Ontario couple accused of killing a 12-year-old boy and torturing his younger brother in their Burlington home are set to wrap up tomorrow.
• Becky Hamber, 46, was in the witness box for a fifth day today. Hamber and her wife Brandy Cooney, 44, have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges. The couple had been trying to adopt the boys.
• The Crown questioned Hamber on how long the boys would be locked in their rooms, and how often they had access to the bathroom and were given food.
• Text exchanges between the couple were presented in Milton court. They led the Crown to suggest the boys had been physically abused but Hamber denied that contention.
• Hamber also testified that zip-tying J.L.’s blistered feet was a "dumb dumb" parenting moment but he was a "willing" participant.
• Warning: Court proceedings detail alleged child and sexual abuse.

Collaboration between INEA and Stichting Adoptiepedia

Editors

December 5, 2025

An easy-to-consult tool for those facing and following an international adoption to avoid the bureaucracy that too often holds back this path. A tool for all those involved: from citizens to embassy and consulate operators. This is essentially the 'Guide to international adoptions', produced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the Presidency of the Council of Ministers' International Adoption Commission, presented on Thursday 15 January at the Farnesina, in the presence of the head of the ministry Antonio Tajani, the Minister of Family, Birth and Equal Opportunities Eugenia Maria Roccella and the vice president of the CAI, Vincenzo Starita. "We want to give a signal to reduce bureaucratic paths," said Tajani, "at least the internal ones. Adopting a child is a gesture of great generosity, but it is not easy. The guide aims to break down the obstacles that prevent adoptions from taking place quickly. Bureaucracy cannot hinder an attempt to do good'.

La presentazione alla Farnesina

I ministri Antonio Tajani ed Eugenia Maria Roccella, e il vicepresidente della CAI Vincenzo Starita presentano alla Farnesina la “Guida alle adozioni internazionali”.

There are worryingly few people who want to adopt Danish children at the moment.

This is what Minister of Social Affairs Sophie Hæstorp Andersen said in a briefing to the social affairs rapporteurs at Christiansborg.

- The situation has received great attention from my side, as it is important that we have adopters to welcome the children who are considered to be best helped through adoption and a new family to grow up in, the minister writes in the briefing.

Harder to find a good match

The minister's briefing shows that at the beginning of November 2025, there were 13 adoptive families on the adoption list, while there were 8 children waiting for matching.

Orignal Text[Artiklen her afslører dele af det nyeste afsnit af 'Sporløs'. Se den nye sæson på DRTV.

At vokse op på et børnehjem uden at ane, hvem ens mor og far er, lyder nok som lidt af et mareridt.

Sådan startede livet for Frida, der i dag er 25 år.

Hun voksede op på et børnehjem i Guatemala, indtil hun blev adopteret til Danmark som seksårig. Heldigvis – det var godt, hun kom væk, ville de fleste nok tænke.

Men ikke Frida. 

The chairman

Mrs. Perdaens has the floor.

Freya Perdaens (N-VA)

Minister, on January 7, we read in the press that the investigation into irregularities in intercountry adoption will gain momentum this year. Perhaps let us go back in time for a moment: in 2023, it was your predecessor, Minister Crevits, who called for reports to be filed regarding suspected irregularities in intercountry adoption. Since then, 241 reports have been received from 31 countries, and 168 people have responded to the request to initiate an investigation.

Most reports concerned adoptions from Belgium, Ethiopia, South Korea, and Rwanda. The Flemish Centre for Adoption (VCA), together with the International Social Service (ISS), is screening potential partners to conduct investigations into the individual files in the aforementioned countries of origin. It concerns only a few countries. Previously, 31 countries were mentioned, but it is limited to a list of just four. An investigator has been found for Belgium, and the screening for India, Ethiopia, and Rwanda is reportedly almost complete. At least, that is what the press tells us.

Susanna Egida Frank's lifelong quest for identity culminated in a moving courtroom reunion with her biological father in Illinois, reshaping their lives and futures.

ST. CLAIR COUNTY, Ill. — For decades, Susanna Egida Frank, 60, felt an inexplicable void while growing up in Germany. Adopted at a young age, Frank, who is Black, often felt out of place in her environment.

“So there I started to search because I knew that I was different,” Frank said. “The hair, the color, the acting, dancing, smiling, happiness, you know?”

Dominique from Djursland had nothing to go on in Sporløs. Today she has two mothers

Dominique lives in Djursland with her husband and children, the family dog, has a job she loves – and is close to her mother.  

But right now she is in Mauritius, a small island state east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

Together with her husband, her two daughters and her Danish adoptive mother, she has traveled back to the island where she was born 48 years ago. Her father unfortunately passed away in 2010, but if he had been alive, he would of course have come with him too.

An American woman’s search for her birth mother unravels a dark web of illegal adoptions from Chile—exposing a system shaped by U.S. political and economic influence—leaving families now fighting for truth and accountability in the pursuit of justice.

SYNOPSIS

As Adrian Reamey searches for her Chilean birth mother, she discovers an article about an American man stolen as a baby from Chile in the 1980s and trafficked to the United States through an illegal adoption—leaving Adrian grappling to wonder if she, too, was stolen. Her search quickly unravels into a full investigation in this three-part, true-crime docuseries where a horrifying truth emerges. An estimated 20,000 babies were trafficked internationally during the Pinochet dictatorship at the hands of an elaborate network involving the Chilean military government, judges, hospitals, Catholic priests, orphanages, and social workers.