'Stolen' kids traced to Dutch orphanage

'Stolen' kids traced to Dutch orphanage
8/28/2008 6:47:40 PM

Dekla - mother of Lisa (18) and Kapil (17)
The case of stolen children sold to foster parents abroad by a child adoption agency Malaysian Social Services is getting murkier. The parents of two children allegedly 'sold' to foster parents in Holland have revealed to TIMES NOW that they had received a letter after 12 years from their children that were abandoned at an orphanage in Netherlands.

The revelation has come as a sharp contrast to the assurances given to them by the adoption agency -- the Malaysian Social Services that their children were safe and with affluent families abroad.

Many adoptions by foreigners through this agency between 1991 and 2002 have come under the scanner after allegations that children were 'stolen' from their parents and handed over adoptions 'illegally'.

Though there are still no records as to how many children were kidnapped, the Central Bureau of Investigation and Tamil Nadu police had re-assured that biological parents - mostly slum - dwellers - that their children were safe with affluent families abroad.

TIMES NOW tracked down two kids who were victim of the illegal adoption racket. These kids were given away in 1996 to a family in the Netherlands. But shockingly, the two children were forsaken by their foster family and put in Netherlands state orphanages.

TIMES NOW is in possession of a letter written by 18-year-old Lisa on April 24, 2008, who was taken away from her mother when she was 6-years-old.

The letter read: "Dear mother, I'm so touched to hear that you have been waiting for me all these years. I'm desperately waiting to see you again. We are no longer with our foster parents. Please send a photograph of yours. I love you very much and I'm sending you kisses. - From me and Kapil."

Both Lisa (18) and Kapil (17), children of an impoverished couple in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu had been sent to foster parents in Netherlands. Their mother - Dekla was promised that they were leading comfortable lives there, till the children contacted their mother through a letter.

Reacting to the letter, mother Dekla said, “It has been twelve years since they have been separated from us. We are waiting to see them. With the government's help we want to see them at least once."

Another case of 'illegal' adoption has been tracked down tot he United States of America, of an 11-year-old Subhash. He was allegedly stolen when he was a baby in 1999; and sold to a couple in the US by the Malaysian Social Service agency.

Subhash's father - Nageshwar Rao is now fighting a legal battle to get his son back.

Earlier, TIMES NOW had reported about 14-year-old Zabeena, who was stolen when she was three -years-old and sent to Queensland in 1998, where she was adopted. Fatima - the mother of Zabeena had appealed to be re-united with her child, who was later traced to have been stolen for adoption by the Malaysian Social Service.

Cambodia - Madame Adoption

Translated from Le Figaro

28.08.2008

Facilitated Adoption

Clemence Fournier, 25, is the first Madame Adoption in Cambodia in view of the simplification of procedures for foreign adoption. From the first quarter of 2009 other young volunteers will join the "Peace Corps" of the French and will be placed in the French embassies in some twenty countries. Their missions? Supporting adoptive families in their search on the spot and to avoid irregular situations.

Intercountry adoption: France prepares to beat its competitors

ADOPTION: France wants to address its lagging behind

Unofficial translation from Le Figaro

Thanks to the funding of humanitarian projects, the USA, but also Italy and Spain, host many more children from abroad

Paris prepares itself to copy their more efficient methods.

Everyone starts doing it. In respect of Intercountry Adoption, competition is rife among the receiving countries in recent years. With some delay, France is preparing to change its methods after a decline of 20.5% last year, with only 3 162 foreign children adopted by French couples.

Nadine Morano and Rama Yade, respectively secretaries of State for Family and Foreign Affairs, today present their plan to revive adoption (see below). Other countries, thanks to a very proactive policy, succeeded in reversing the declining numbers of international adoptions. France, despite all being in the top three of receiving countries, is thus far behind the USA and has been overtaken by Spain where the number of adoptions has quadrupled in less than ten years. While there are several possible reasons for this decline: growth of domestic adoption in countries like China, slowing adoption procedures to adapt to the Hague Convention, which regulates the practices… But in this context, Italy has still seen its international adoptions jump by 9%.

Competition can be played within orphanages. In its bilateral agreements, Vietnam, for example, requires funding for a humanitarian project. "For a project, the French agencies approved for adoption (OAA) can give about 15 000 euros. The Americans will have an envelope at least twice as large. Their adoption agencies operate like private businesses, "says someone from Doctors of the World. "The orphanages say that children are not assigned based on money received, but there is a principle of reality that we can not ignore," he yet deplores.

The financial weight of the USA, which generates more than half of international adoptions, can not be ignored. "France, can invest in major works such as construction of a hospital but did not provide money for projects to link more directly with children and adoption," another OAA regrets.

Italian families less demanding

Projects that sometimes flirt with the limits of the framework imposed by the Hague Convention. "When agencies are working on programs to prevent abandonment and are also doing adoptions, how do you know if everything is done for a mother to keep her child? Especially if there is a financial issue behind "asks Stephanie Romanens-Pythoud, a lawyer at the International Social Service.

In terms of humanitarian projects, Italy, for its part is illustrated by an effective policy, with funding from the central authority. Actions which are also valued by diplomatic channels. "The State finances the full cost of Italian OAA – offices, local correspondents - which leaves them the money to build search teams," says Gilbert Bayon, president of Les Enfants de reine de miséricorde, which operates Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. "These research teams criss-cross the country to find small orphanages not identified by authorities hosting adoptable children." Even if it is then the Government of Burkina Faso that "assigns" the children in hosting families, "this aid for the census weighs heavy, "points out Gilbert Bayon.

But "good" results of Italy have another cause: the host families have understood that they had to be less demanding. In France, only 23% of adopted children are more than five years. In Italy, this figure exceeds 50%. However, this practice has been directly encouraged by the Italian authorities. In Peru, the "Angel che guardan" programme was created to boost the adoption of already big children. Finally, the good implantation of Italian nuns in orphanages in countries of origin would also favours assigning children to their compatriots. The Spanish enjoy the same advantage.

The future of Cambodian adoptions

I am still somewhat puzzled by the French Peace Corps, young volunteers who will have as mission to find adoptable children for French families. The first targetted country is Cambodia.

Rereading the Colombani report of March this year, I noticed the following:

[translated from French]

In Cambodia, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has explained the
[French] mission early January 2008, that now several years after the war and, in a certain way, thanks to the massive aid from international NGOs, but also because of an economic development in the order of + 10% per year, the number of truly orphaned and adoptable children decreased, and the time would come quickly where Cambodia "will keep its children as future members of a community that will have developed and where they all have their place.

Original text:

Au Cambodge, le secrétaire d’État aux Affaires étrangères a expliqué à la
mission, début janvier 2008, que plusieurs années désormais après la guerre et,
d’une certaine manière, grâce à l’aide massive des ONG internationales, mais aussi
du fait d’un développement économique de l’ordre de + 10 % par an, le nombre
d’enfants réellement orphelins et adoptables diminuait ; et le temps viendrait
rapidement où le Cambodge « gardera ses enfants comme membres futurs d’une
collectivité qui se sera développée et où ils auront toute leur place.

ABC News: children allegedly stolen for adoption

With courtesy to Zench, who linked to this video in his comment

Stolen for Adoption - Australia

Stolen Children - shipped to Australia

Since beginning of last year there is much debate about intercountry adoption in The Netherlands. It started with the news of a stolen, kidnapped Indian child who allegedly had been adopted by Dutch citizens.

Today, Australia was hit by similar news. It is worthwhile reading the full article that explains how this child trafficking took place:

TIME MAGAZINE

Stolen Children

Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008 By RORY CALLINAN/CHENNAI

YEARS OF HEARTBREAK: Zabeen's birth mother Fatima at a local tea shop; her daughter was taken as she played outside

BuzzFatima thinks it was her daughter Zabeen's beautiful smile that attracted the child stealer. Playing outside the tea shop near their home in the north Chennai suburb of Washermanpet, with only her four-year-old brother watching, the bright two-year-old was an easy target. While Fatima popped around the corner to the market, Zabeen was bundled into a motorized rickshaw and vanished into the mass of humanity that swirls through the city's squalid alleyways and slums. Full text