When Eun Ae Koh was 8 months old, she was adopted from her birthplace in Korea by two white Americans. Overnight, she gained two loving parents, three older brothers, and an older sister and spent her childhood and teen years growing up in rural Illinois, about three and a half hours south of Chicago, not far off from fields of soybeans and corn. With her parents’ older biological children already grown up and moved out, it wasn’t until the pair adopted a second child, from China, a decade later, that Koh saw anyone who looked like her at home.

“Growing up, I was really only ever around white people,” says Koh, now a 30-something Washington, D.C.-based artist. “That’s what my town looked like, that’s what my school looked like, that’s what my family looked like. There was no exposure to anything Korean at all. I always felt different.”

Koh is far from alone. After a rise in Asian adoptees in the US in the 1990s, many of these children are now in their 20s and 30s and dealing with the mental health impacts of growing up in white families who didn’t resemble them, and were unable to guide them through the unique experience of growing up a person of color in America. Today, they’re finding solace in their own communities and are working to create new systems that can help future cross-cultural adoptees walk an easier path.

The vast majority of Asian adoptees in the US born in China can be attributed to 1991, when China launched its international adoption program, through which adoptive parents were led to believe that adoptees had been found abandoned – whether at orphanages, or on the streets. In reality, China’s one-child policy and a preference for boys led to a mass of abandoned infant girls. Since, roughly 110,000 children have been adopted from China globally, according to Kerry O'Halloran’s 2015 book The Politics of Adoption, with the majority coming to the US. And in 1981, the Korean government made inter-country adoption more accessible in hopes of raising emigration rates, leading to a wave of Korean adoptees from the mid-’80s to ‘90s.

While Koh adores her parents for providing a better life, it doesn’t erase the many and often invisible hardships she went through while growing up in America. She recalls being bullied for looking different and being called slurs, and because her parents and educators weren’t equipped to discuss how this might feel and what it might mean (with few resources provided through her adoption agency or at her school), she eventually learned to “fly under the radar,” to stop standing up for herself, to be small, to be quiet, she shares. What’s worse is her family and friends would insist they didn’t see her any differently than themselves. To Koh, that felt as good as being told they didn’t see color.

A woman doctor has been detained by the cops for selling babies in Ulhasnagar. A social activist posed as a mother and met the doctor three months ago seeking a son, but the doctor couldn*t arrange for one immediately. However, a couple of days ago the doctor called the woman and said she could procure a boy against a payment of Rs 7 lakh. The doctor was caught red-handed while handing over the baby.

Social activists had got a hint about Dr Chitra Chainani being involved in the baby-selling racket and decided to expose her. Her clinic is located at Meena Apartment, Bhagat Singh Kawa Ram Chowk area of Camp Number 3 in Ulhasnagar. The business of selling children had started from this clinic some time ago. While locals knew of this business for many years, no one had the courage to come forward.

Finally, social activist Sania Hinduja got information about the racket and sent a woman, Jyoti More, as a dummy client to Dr Chainani. More told the doctor she has two daughters and wanted a son. But, even after working on all angles for three months, activists could not break the deal. Two days ago, Dr Chainani called More about a 22-day-old boy. More immediately informed Hinduja, who alerted the Women Child Welfare Department and Crime Branch of Thane police. The teams immediately rushed to Ulhasnagar and caught Dr Chainani red-handed.

The mother of the child had brought her infant son to sell. Dr Chainani was to get Rs 3 lakh from the final sale amount. "We suspect that deals of more than 10 children have been done here," said Hinduja. At the time of going to press, cops were in the process of registering an FIR against Dr Chainani and four others in the case.

Authorities in a central Indian state are continuing to target a Catholic orphanage despite court orders preventing them from attempting to remove children living there, its administrators say.

The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh on May 15 issued an order to shift 26 boys and girls from the St. Francis Sevadham Orphanage in Sagar diocese to a government-run shelter within two days.

However, the order was withdrawn a day later after diocesan officials filed a contempt of court petition with the state's top court.

It has become very difficult for us to run the orphanage as government agencies continue to harass us, Father Sinto Varghese, its director told UCA News.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court in December 2021 directed authorities not to remove the children and also sought a report from the CWC explaining the need to do so.

FORGED ADOPTIONS 6: Personal notes or memos that could serve as important clues to tracking down birth parents have often been withheld from adoptees under the current scheme

The oldest international adoptee to share their story with the Hankyoreh was Margaret Conlon, adopted in 1965, while the youngest was Mia Lee Sorensen, adopted in 1988. Regardless of the period in which they were adopted, the majority of adoptees are unable to trust the personal information and records about them held by adoption agencies, and they expressed frustration over the difficulty of even accessing this information.

The National Center for the Rights of the Child (formerly Korea Adoption Services) was established under the Ministry of Health and Welfare in line with an amendment to the Act on Special Cases Concerning Adoption in 2012 for the purpose of post-adoption follow-up services. The transfer and release of information on adoptees became a hot topic at this time, but adoption agencies including the national center still only entered 51 basic items of factual information including the names and addresses of adoptees and their birth parents. Other information such as consultation records and personal notes or memos that could serve as important clues to tracking down birth parents were not released.

Adoption experts believe adoption agencies should apologize for the common practice of illegally forging documents in the past and release the original copies of all documents, including consultation records, with no filters.

“To adoptees, even a small note that pertains to their roots is very precious,” said Noh Hye-ryeon, a professor of social welfare at Soongsil University who formerly worked in the overseas division of Holt Children’s Services and an adoption agency in San Jose, California. “They even say the documents are imbued with the life of the mother who gave them up, and want a chance to personally hold them in their hands.”

FOUND PARENTS: According to her adoption papers, Uma Feed was abandoned on the streets by her biological parents. Now she has come into contact with her biological mother, who tells a completely different story.

ADOPTION FROM SOUTH KOREA

Several adoptees from South Korea, who are listed as orphans in the adoption papers, have discovered that they were adopted against their parents' will.

South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) investigates the cases of people who have been adopted to, among others, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands from the 1960s to the early 1990s, as of today 334 cases.

There are approximately 6,500 adoptees from South Korea in Norway.

In the 1970s and 1980s it was relatively easy for couples with an unfulfilled desire to have children to adopt a child from abroad. Today these children are grown. When they search for their biological parents, they often find out that their adoption was illegal and documents were forged.

Isabel Fuhs wants to know who her mother is. "I keep asking myself that. But I can imagine that she's somewhere.” Isabel Fuhs was adopted from Brazil in 1985. She was not even two months old then, a little baby. But she knows almost nothing about her first weeks of life. The biological mother is said to have been only twelve years old when the child was born. A Brazilian lawyer arranged the adoption to Germany.

“The story about my adoption is really very strange. There's nothing, no records, what hospital was I born in? Nothing to say about the birth parents either, nothing about the mother, no name. This is really very dirty. You can't understand much today."

It's an agonizing blank in her biography. Psychologists have long known how important knowledge of one's biological origins is for the formation of one's identity. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 1989 that it is part of a person's personal rights to know their own origins. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child also contains the right to identity. Not knowing anything about their birth family plunges some adoptees into deep crises.

Right to know one's parentage

The Constables and driver apprehended the man and checked the bag. They found the body of a female, aged about 30 years, in the bag

Hyderabad: In a shocking incident, a man was caught red-handed carrying a dead body in a gunny bag. Police constables on patrol nabbed the man on the outskirts of Chatanpally village, towards Buchiguda road, on the intervening night of 2 May.

Constables Rafi and Bupal Reddy and SPO Govardhan (driver) apprehended the man and checked the bag. They found the body of a female, aged about 30 years, in the bag.

The suspect, identified as Ramulu, confessed to the crime. During interrogation, he revealed that he had a longstanding desire for a male child and adopted his friend Purushotham’s one-month-old son by paying Rs. 1.5 lakhs. However, after two months, Purushotham’s wife Devaki demanded Ramulu return her child. Ramulu’s family convinced her and she left. But Devaki returned to Ramulu’s house on the night of the incident, demanding her son back.

An argument ensued, and Ramulu became angry. He strangled Devaki in the presence of his family and stuffed her body into a gunny bag, intending to dump it on the outskirts of Shadnagar.

Memories can be precious. But Alexander Guibault’s first memories are horrific.

“I sometimes feel I am meant to survive,” Guibault said.

When Alexander was about six, his family sold him to organ traffickers. He was taken from rural Guatemala and put in a basement in Guatemala City. He remembers being tied to a post and held captive with other kids. He recalls a doctor coming for each of them, examining their bodies and marking a “Y” on the children’s chests.

“I was marked,” he said. “I will say the three kids before me was cut open and I can’t really specify which organs was removed.”

Alexander’s instinct was to run and escape. When his capturers were drunk, he and a few others took off. He survived on the streets and in several orphanages, but his life was not without abuse.

NC’s Baptist Children’s Homes dedicates ministry home for birth mothers

With the cutting of a ceremonial ribbon, the transformation of a historic, residential home, brought back to life after nearly being condemned, is complete. Much like the women this new ministry will serve, the house is prepared for a bright, new beginning as The Emmanuel Home.

Approximately 200 people attended the dedication ceremony on Tuesday (April 25) to celebrate the opening of the completely restored home that is the next step in Baptist Children’s Homes of North Carolina’s commitment to providing compassionate support to birth mothers — women who have chosen adoption for their babies through BCH’s Christian Adoption Services (CAS).

“This is a heartbeat ministry,” BCH President/CEO Michael C. Blackwell shared with those in attendance. “Emmanuel Home is giving courageous birth mothers a glorious opportunity to be partners with God in affirming life with all of us. We are in the business of sharing the hope of God in Jesus Christ and restoring the lives of those who accept Him.”

The new ministry for birth mothers came together through two lead gifts. The residential home was given to BCH in 2021 as an estate planning gift by Thomasville resident Charles Franklin Finch. Once it was determined that the home, which sits directly on the outskirts of BCH’s Mills Home campus in Thomasville, was perfectly located for this new effort, CAS supporters Chris and Darci Horne of Charlotte made a lead financial gift. They donated funds from the sale of a piece of property that was willed to them by a friend from their church whose name was Emmanuel.

90% of adopted people feel that adoption should be more open, according to new research.

Over 70% of adopted people feel there is not enough information about their birth parents, and why they were adopted, while 76% said that direct contact with birth parents should be standard practice.

These new findings have been revealed by adoption service agency, Family Action Pak-UK, as part of The Big Consult - the largest piece of research into birth parents and adopted people’s experiences and feelings around the adoption process, in over 20 years.

Other key findings include that 85% of adopted people have attempted contact with birth parents after reaching 18, and 92% said they were glad that they attempted contact.

77% of adopted people reported that they had accessed mental health support as an adult. 50% of birth parents cite mental health issues as a main factor in a child’s removal, and 84% of birth parents have mental health issues currently.