Decision on Woo-request applications and NOW grants to transnational adoption foundations

Von: Rally Reform

From: Arun Dohle [mailto:arundohle@gmail.com]

Sent: Dienstag, 11. November 2014 20:24

To: Catherine.Day@ec.europa.eu; simon.mordue@ec.europa.eu

Subject: Reply to your letter of 7 August 2014 addressed to Ms Catherine Day, Secretary-General of the European Commission - Rights of the Child and the EU acquis - intercountry adoptions

Dear Catherine Day,

Adopted Bulgarian Children Found in a Horror House in the US

Crime | August 9, 2019, Friday // 08:44| Views: | Comments: 0

The two Bulgarian children adopted in the U.S. are in good health and under the protection of the authorities, said the press office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following media publications about two Bulgarian children abused by their adoptive parents, U.S. citizens. Bulgaria’s Consulate General in Chicago conducted an immediate inquiry and reported that the children were in a safe place and under the protection of the Shannon County Sheriff's Office, Missouri. They are in a good condition and have undergone a full medical examination that has not found any serious injuries or illnesses.

The parents were arrested by the Somerville Police Department on 8 July 2019, after which the case was referred to the Shannon County Sheriff's Office.

The Consulate General in Chicago is in constant contact with the authorities and provides full administrative assistance on the case.

What we have in common is that we live in the Netherlands, and perhaps also that we were adopted from Bangladesh. If we go back further, we know nothing except for a few people there. What we do share is the historical past from Bangladesh.

Here we try to indicate how adoption from Bangladesh started until it stopped. We are not detailed about this because we do not have all the information. If you can add a missing piece of information, we would love to hear from you. We hope that this story will be rewritten by you until it is completely complete. We create the plan, will you help us complete it? Perhaps your parents still have information or you were involved in the procedures from Bangladesh or you were an escort. We would like to hear it!

Until 1971, Bangladesh was part of Pakistan and was called East Pakistan. In 1971 there was a bloody war of independence, during which women were raped en masse by Pakistani soldiers. Since Bangladesh is a Muslim country and these women would be rejected or these children would be rejected, the aid agencies at the time decided to make these children eligible for mediation to the Netherlands.

Once the great baby boom was expected to occur (about 9 months later), the mass rejection of children did not occur. The emergency services that had set up everything and had done everything possible to provide adequate assistance, had to stand idly by. The reason is probably that these children did not differ in appearance and were therefore included in the family as their own children. Adoption from Bangladesh started to take off after the great famine, which caused many people to die. This famine was one of the most disastrous in the country's history.

From about 1973 (who were the first? Who knows or are you one yourself) people started adopting children. These children came from various parts of the country and arrived in the Netherlands via Dacca.

Another five hundred Dutch parents could adopt a child from abroad. An adoption freeze has been announced, but ongoing procedures will not be terminated.

Another five hundred Dutch parents have a chance to bring an adopted child here, the Ministry of Justice confirms to Investico and TV program Zembla . Outgoing Minister Weerwind has not yet terminated these ongoing procedures, despite the adoption freeze he decided on last month.

Two hundred of these parents already have permission in principle, the last step before they are linked to a child. The other parents are not yet that far in the procedure. In recent years, approximately fifty adopted children came to the Netherlands every year. If all procedures continue, this means that adoption will continue for years to come.

Because some parents are allowed to adopt multiple children at once, the numbers can increase even further. Two or even three children regularly come to the Netherlands at the same time to grow up here in a family.

Vulnerable procedures

By strictly selecting adoption countries, outgoing Minister Weerwind wanted to secure international adoption by Dutch parents. But what does Hungary do on its list of selected countries?
 

What should happen next with international child adoption after the devastating conclusions drawn by the Joustra committee in 2021? It was a major political task for outgoing minister Franc Weerwind (D66, Legal Protection), so devastating was Joustra's assessment of the adoption world. The former top official had identified corruption, fraud and child trafficking in almost all adopted countries investigated. According to Weerwind, the only option to prevent large-scale abuses in the future as much as possible was a completely new adoption system. A system with 'important guarantees' and a strict selection of adopting countries.

In order to be able to choose from which countries adoption should remain possible, Weerwind had an 'analysis' drawn up for each country. This meant that one adoptive country after another was eliminated, leaving six. And so, in November 2022, it was announced that Hungary passed Weerwind's test. The 'country report' of the Central European country covers just over two A4 pages and is predominantly positive. Justice therefore concludes that there are 'reasons to continue the adoption relationship'.

Major supplier

And that's a good thing, because Hungary has been a 'major supplier' of children to Dutch parents for ten years. Almost a quarter of the adopted children are now of Hungarian descent, 79 came to the Netherlands in the past five years. They are often a bit older and often come at the same time as a brother or sister. Sometimes they have medical conditions or psychological problems. They come from a Hungarian foster family or from a children's home. And many children come from poverty-stricken Roma families.

Dong Hee Kim (44) discovered that her adoption from Korea was illegal and that her file was destroyed by the Dutch government. Her sadness and anger is great. “I will never know what life I missed.”

“My birth name is Dong Hee, but forty-four years ago my adoptive parents gave me the first name Stephanie. I was four months old when I came to them in Ede on a so-called adoption flight from Busan, Korea. The fact that I was adopted was often discussed and mentioned at home, and also that my adoptive parents loved me just as much as their two biological sons, my brothers. That openness was important to them. I wasn't really concerned with that myself. However, I did suffer from the fact that I always looked different from the rest. I was short and chubby, but my family consisted of white heads. My youngest adoptive brother never accepted me as a sister and often scolded me. At school I was the only Korean child, and I was bullied about that. When I saw tips for eye make-up in girls' magazines, I just thought: I don't have eyes like that.”

Letter like a bomb

“When I was 12, my adoptive mother started a search for my parents in Korea through the Wereldkinderen adoption service. She had always been determined to do it at that age, before I hit puberty. It took months before we got a response. In retrospect I understand why. That letter set off a bomb in my family's home in Korea because almost all of them thought I was dead. Only my mother knew what really happened. As a six-week-old baby, she had given me up to a home with my father's forged signature. Korea is a traditional country where boys are valued more highly than girls. A dowry also had to be paid for daughters. My parents already had three daughters and were dirt poor, my mother was illiterate. When my father was in the hospital for a few days after an accident, my mother brought me to the home out of desperation. At home she said I had died. That was possible, infant mortality was high in Korea and child funerals were rare. Only I wasn't dead, I was living my life eight thousand miles away. That is very sad for my mother, but also for my father and sisters. They knew nothing and retroactively became angry with my mother. I also feel bad for myself. I was the only one in this family given up and lost everything.”

Adopted children may be interested in discovering more about their origins as an important part of their identity. Several countries allow children to access their adoption files and receive information about their biological families and the circumstances of their adoption.

This right does not always include identifying pieces of information about their biological parents (such as their identity and address).

View full dataset in data explorer.

Key aspects

• In fourteen Member States, persons have access to their adoption file and to certain information regarding their biological families at 18 years (Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).
• Only Italy requests a higher age, namely 25 years.
• In Belgium, Finland and Czechia, children aged 12 or over may exercise such a right; in Austria and Hungary, this is possible from the age of 14 years. In Bulgaria, Germany and the Netherlands (as well as in Scotland) the threshold is set at 16 years. In the Netherlands, in the case of intercountry adoption, children may obtain their adoption file from the age of 12 years.
• In France and Slovakia, the possibility to access files depends on the child’s maturity.
• Ireland and Slovenia do not grant the right to access adoption files and information relating to one’s biological family. In Ireland, there is a register for facilitating contact between adopted people and their biological families. Participation is voluntary and contact is only initiated if all people involved register. In Slovenia, new rules will apply from 15 April 2019. Access to data on biological families will only be possible if the relevant persons consent. If the child wants to obtain such data, the biological parents must therefore consent. Similarly, if the biological parents ask for information, the child has to consent.
• Certain states allow children to access this information at a lower age, provided they have the consent of their parents (for instance in Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Portugal), for important reasons (for instance in Italy and Lithuania) or subject to an individual assessment of the child’s maturity (in Belgium and Sweden).
• Some countries provide for professional assistance for children prior to or during the consultation of the adoption file. This is the case, for instance, for the French-speaking community in Belgium, where such an assistance is compulsory for all persons under 18 years, and in Finland, where the child is free to accept it or not.
• In Hungary and Estonia, there are limits on the release of information regarding the identity of biological families. These apply if biological parents or siblings could not be asked or did not consent to their identity being disclosed, or if such information is not in the child’s best interests.
• In Slovakia, adoptive parents – if they so choose – may provide the child with information about the biological family, if this is in the child’s best interest.
• In Czechia, children have the right to access files at the Registry Office from the age of 12 years, and those kept by the court at 18. In the case of the mother having requested confidentiality at birth (so called “secret birth” or “anonymous” or “confidential” birth), the disclosure of her identity is allowed only on the basis of a court’s decision, regardless of the child’s age.

CHENNAI: On the date of adoption, the ties of the adoptive child with his biological family shall be deemed to be severed and replaced by those created by the adoption in the adoptive family, Madras high court has held.
“Thus, it is clear that the adoptive child is construed to be a member of the adopted family, all the ties of the child are replaced in the adoptive family created by adoption,” Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan said.

The judge made the observation while setting aside an order passed by Revenue Divisional Officer, Erode, granting legal heir certificate to biological siblings of an adopted son after the latter’s death.
According to petitioner V Sakthivel, his grandfather Sengota had three children Ramasamy, Varanavasi and Lakshmi. He is the son of Varanavasi.

Ramasamy married Sivakami. Since they had no children, they adopted one Kottravel Sethupathi in 1999. Ramasamy and Sivakami died leaving behind Kottravel Sethupathi as their sole legal heir, he said.
On Sept 6, 2020 Kottravel Sethupathi also died without any Class I legal heir as per the Hindu Succession Act. While the petitioner is Class II legal heir, Kottravel Sethupathi’s biological siblings obtained legal heir certificates to inherit the properties left behind by him.

Aggrieved, he has moved the present plea challenging the order.

Allowing the plea, the court set aside the order granting legal heir certificates to the biological siblings of Kottravel Sethupathi.