AT THE TABLE Cooking and dining for hours. AD Haagsche Courant joins fellow locals every week for a snack, a drink and a good conversation. This week with Varsha Gerritsen (30) from The Hague, for whom Indian food is not only tasty, she also needs it. Her body responds better to turmeric and lentils than to Dutch dairy.

The smells that haunt Varsha Gerritsen's hall already reveal the type of cuisine she is serving this evening: Indian. A mix of garlic, ginger and slivers of onion is simmering in a pan on a separate burner in her student room in The Hague.

Chili peppers
"Garlic and ginger are kind of my basic ingredients," says 30-year-old Varsha. "I use them for almost every Indian dish. Not that it is the same everywhere in India. That differs per region. But in the In the region where my roots are located, garlic, turmeric, ginger and chili peppers are common. As a result, they are used for many different dishes. You carry something like that with you from your youth."

Varsha came to the Netherlands at the age of 2. A new country with a completely different food culture. “Lots of dairy. Something that Dutch people experience as healthy. But for me this was not always the case. My body is not built for the large amounts of dairy that are used here."

Curry
Varsha couldn't get used to the Dutch way of cooking. It was therefore soon time for her to take up the cooking utensils herself and delve into flavors and products that her body wanted: ginger, garlic and those chopped onions. Her interest in Indian cuisine was sparked.

Tarka dahl

Ingredients for 2 people
• 150 g red split lentils
• 50 g mung dhal
• 500 ml of water
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp grated garlic
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground chili powder
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 onion in cubes
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tomato in cubes
• 2 tbsp finely chopped coriander

Preparation: Boil the red lentils, mung dahl, ginger, garlic, turmeric, chili powder and salt in the water for 20 minutes, with the lid on the pan. Mash the mixture until it is a creamy soup. Add salt. Put oil in another pan and fry the onion with the mustard seeds and tomato for 2 minutes. Pour the tarka over the lentils and garnish with coriander.

On September 29, 2021 from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., SSI France is organizing its fourth webinar on the theme of tracing origins for people adopted internationally.

This webinar will be an opportunity to review the support and support that the SSI can offer to adoptees in this process and to present our RACINE project, financially supported by the International Adoption Mission of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Here is the complete program:

– Opening by Sandrine Pepit, Director of SSI France
– Introductory remarks by the Mission of International Adoption
– Presentation of SSI/CIR publications on the search for origins by Juliette Duchesne – Roulez, Children's Rights Officer at SSI/CIR
– Presentation of psychological aspects of the search for origins by Dr. Fanny Cohen-Herlem, consulting psychiatrist at the SSI/CIR
– Presentation of the SSI methodology in the management of origins search files by Albert Mukwiye, social worker at the SSI Switzerland
– Presentation of the RACINE project, by Jimmy Messineo, coordinator of SSI France
– Question/answer time

As an adoptive mother you are not only a parent, but often also a care provider. That is something Hoda Hamdaoui did not realize beforehand.

Hoda Hamdaoui (49) knew from an early age that she wanted to adopt a child. Together with her mother she was a big fan of the TV program Spoorloos. Crying on the couch, she saw how presenter Derk Bolt flew around the world to unite adopted children with often poverty-stricken biological parents. She decided that she also wanted to adopt a child later.

About thirty years later the time had come, and baby Damir – Arabic for 'conscience' – came into her life. She tells her story in the recently published book De Goede Mama (Pluim Publishers), in which women with a migration background talk about motherhood. She tells how she experienced the first years as a single adoptive mother. It was not an easy time. Damir was a sweet but laborious child who needed a lot of care.

After the interview with the Kantteken, she sends a few photos of her adopted son. He is now a big toddler, with sensitive eyes and a beautiful head of dark hair. Hamdaoui contributed to the book, she says, because she thinks it is important that women of color are also present in literature about motherhood. They are now barely represented. But actually, she says, her story is not about origins at all. Because motherhood is universal and so is adopting a child.

How did Damir come into your life?

• My twins aren't technically twins, they are virtual twins instead.
• Virtual twins are kids born less than six months apart and not biologically related, but raised together.

I have twin 13-year-old boys. Sort of. One is 12, and one is 13 because we're in that pocket of the year where they're different ages. My twins aren't technically twins. They're virtual twins.

The accepted definition of virtual twins is siblings less than six months apart and not biologically related. Virtual twins sometimes go by other nicknames, such as almost twins, twiblings, or artificial twins.

My kids are four months apart. They're both adopted from China, and they are not biologically related to one another. We adopted them in 2012 and 2013 when they were 2 and 3 years old. After adopting our son Zack at age 2, we quickly decided to adopt again. The paperwork for our second adoption went very quickly and smoothly, and we were matched with a little boy, Kyle, four months older than Zack.

They have a twin-like relationship

If parents are unable to take care of their children, the latter may end up in foster care. But what if the authorities believe that the couple will never be able to take care of their children? Such a case may end up in forced adoption.

And the number of these cases is rising in Denmark. Contrary to the trend of decline in international adoptions, the number of domestic adoptions is increasing. Often, these adoptees come from families who are socially disadvantaged and do not want to give up their child, Kristeligt Dagblad writes.

Between 2015 and the spring of 2023, 157 children were forcibly adopted, statistics from the Danish Appeals Authority show. In addition, the authority refused the adoption of 18 other children.

Michael Vinther Hansen says to Kristeligt Dagblad that the decision to remove children from their biological parents starts with the interest of the child. "It is only a decision that is taken when we assess that parents are permanently unable to take care of their own children", the deputy head of Children, Youth and Families in Lolland explains.

Financial interests

Chinese woman in search for daughter who was forcibly adopted 40 years ago wants to give her US$138,000 inheritance, wins support online

• Mother who became a single parent when her husband went to jail has not seen her daughter since her in-laws took her more than 40 years ago
• Only clues she has are daughter’s name, fact that she has birthmark and that she is in Beijing

A 64-year-old woman’s search for the daughter she was forced to give up four decades ago to give her more than 1 million yuan (US$138,000) in inheritance has captivated China after being aired on television.

Wang Yunjuan from Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, southeastern China, shared the story of her separation from her daughter in a forced adoption on the programme Xiao Qiang Re Xian, or “Xiaoqiang’s Hotline” in English, on June 30.

In 1981 when 21-year-old Wang was expecting her daughter, her husband was sentenced to life imprisonment for assault, briefly meeting their daughter just once in prison after she was born on May 12, 1982.

Promising practices in child protection is out now

The child protection network of Denmark is a professional network for NGO’s working in the care sector. On our page you will find our seminar series ‘Alternative care talks’ that aims at improving intra-sector knowlegde dispersion and help us build new innovative knowlegde. We wish to Increase knowledge on how to work with a rights-based approach to protect children from, and put an end to, domestic violence through expert presentations and working in groups with concrete examples.

In December 2019, the annual Resolution of the Rights of the Child addressed for the first time ever children without parental care in recognition of the vulnerability of this group of children. The purpose of these seminars is to explore how to use the Resolution and the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, in order to safeguard and promote the rights of children who have lost or are at risk of losing parental care

WASHINGTON: Uzra Zeya, a senior US diplomat in charge of democracy and human rights, will embark on a visit to India and Bangladesh beginning Saturday to engage with civil society organisations on freedom of expression and inclusion of women and girls and vulnerable groups including religious and ethnic minorities.
In India, the Indian-American diplomat will also meet government officials to discuss the deepening US-India partnership, the state department said in a release on Friday. Under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights and US special coordinator for Tibetan issues Zeya will travel to India and Bangladesh from July 8 to 14.
 

Taking to Twitter, Zeya said, "Traveling to India and Bangladesh next week to advance shared solutions to global challenges; contribute to a more free, open, secure & prosperous Indo-Pacific; and bolster humanitarian support for refugees & host communities throughout the region".

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