Adoption Fraud: Congo abducted children end up as "ophans" in Belgium
At least three Congolese 'orphans' who were adopted in our country, have biological parents in their home country. They were kidnapped and placed in an orphanage where they were given false names. The Belgian adoptive parents are oblivious and never knew that their children - Samira, Zakiatu and Jaelle - were stolen from their families. Our reporters searched and found the biological parents in the Congolese bush. The first episode today reads exceptionally free, the rest of the series on Saturday in Het Laatste Nieuws and HLN +.
KURT WERTELAERS BENOIT AND THE FREINE IN CONGO May 5, 2017
When the DRC halted foreign adoptions in 2013 - after far too many stories of abuse - if no child have left the country. At that time, however, there were dozens of adoptions pending. Also in our country. They then tried to filter out fraudulent records - at least that was the intention - and after a long, grueling process, and more than two years of waiting in November 2015 came a dozen Congolese orphans still in our country.
Those children were all from Tumaini orphanage in Kinshasa, an institution run by the Belgian-Congolese Julienne Mpemba (40) from Namur. Since 2012 she had been thirty Congolese orphans linked to adoptive parents in our country. "Never had any problems," she would explain about it. Mpemba incidentally earned thousands of euros to the temporary stop of adoption. "If you want them to be taken care of, you have to pay for it," she told the adoptive parents. "They are your children."