Source: http://www.nyasatimes.com

Orphanage sells Malawian children to Dutch Agency 

Tuesday, 6 July 2010 

By Nyasa Times 
Published: July 6, 2010 
Kondanani Orphanage at Bvumbwe in Thyolo district is in partnership with Kind end Toekomst-a Dutch licensed adoption agency which systematically violates Malawian law and the Dutch Ministry of Justice and “buys” orphans from Malawi.

Kind en Toekomst (Foundation Child and Future) officially started an adoption programme from Malawi in 2006 through the partnership with Kondanani Orphanage which is under a Dutch lady Annie Chikhwaza.

Eye of the Child, a local Non Governmental Organization, says Malawi Laws rule that adopters must reside 18 months in Malawi before the adoption.

But that is not the case with the Dutch agency which buys children from Kondanani Orphanage. 
“In March 2007 Kind en Toekomst started cooperating with the Malawian children home Kondanani which is led by the Dutch Annie Chikwaza (married to a Malawian). According to Kind en Toekomst, Dutch adopters will only need to stay five weeks in Malawi,” reads update report accessed from one of the websites used by Chikhwaza and her Dutch partners…

Source: http://www.thenational.ae

Indian children stolen for adoption

Shaikh Azizur Rahman, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: June 28. 2010 11:13PM UAE / June 28. 2010 7:13PM GMT

Nagarani, with her husband and two children in the background, at their home in Pulianthope slum in Chennai. Their bid for a DNA test to confirm whether a boy adopted by a Dutch family is their son kidnapped 11 years ago was turned down. Shaikh Azizur Rahman / The National

CHENNAI, INDIA // When Nagarani and her husband, Kathirvel, reached the Netherlands from India this month, the couple believed they would be able to prove that a 12-year-old Dutch boy was their son Sathish, who had been stolen from their home in a Chennai slum 11 years ago. 

But a Dutch family court last week turned down the couple’s request for a DNA test on the adopted son of a Dutch ethnic Indian family, ruling that it risked inflicting severe emotional trauma to the minor.

“I am dead sure that Rohit is none but our Sathish. I went all the way to the Netherlands, I am disappointed that I was not even allowed to meet my son,” said Nagarani on her return to India last week,

“I am not angry with the Bissesars for taking my son into adoption. We felt very bad that the adoptive parents did not even want to meet us. I wanted to tell them that we became distraught after Sathish was lost. One day I hope Sathish will understand at least our pain we have lived through since we lost him.”

The struggle to retrieve their son by the couple highlights the plight of dozens of Indian parents who are searching for their children after they were apparently stolen by child traffickers and then sold into adoption in foreign countries, without the knowledge of their birth parents…

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com

Dutch moves court to trace Indian roots

A 34-year-old Dutch national has approached the Bombay High Court for help in locating her roots in India, alleging that she was probably kidnapped as an infant and given up for international adoption.

Daksha Van Dijck, a clinical psychologist who worked as a scientist at Maastricht University, has filed a petition saying she suspected she was kidnapped in 1975 and given up for adoption by Shraddhanand Mahilashram in Matunga.

A division bench on Tuesday directed the state to file a reply in two weeks. Dijck was adopted by Johan Van Dijck in 1975 through Wereldkinderen, an adoption agency in Hague.

After her first visit to India in 2001, Dijck tried locating her biological parents through Wereldkinderen. She returned to India in 2007 withher husband and approached Shraddhanand Mahilashram. "The office bearers were totally uncooperative in furnishing any details about her [Dijck] adoption and her biological parent/parents," her petition alleges.

Dijck then approached Wereldkinderen, which allowed her to see her file. The file, however, did not have details about her biological parents or any declaration that she had been abandoned, the petition says.

Pradeep Havnur, Dijck's advocate, said Wereldkinderen had registered complaint with the Matunga police on February 2, 2009 because Shraddhanand Mahilashram was not cooperating…

Source: Times of India

A Chennai slum dweller's fight for her Dutch son
Jaya Menon, TNN, May 28, 2010

CHENNAI: On June 15, when Nagarani Kathirvel leaves the squalor of a Chennai slum for the first time and appears in a court hall in Zwolle-Lelystad in the Netherlands, she would still be a long way from the end of her bitter, traumatic struggle. But it would be a beginning — to establish in a foreign court of law that she is the mother of a 12-year-old Dutch boy. About 10 years ago, Rohit Shivam Bissesar was Satheesh Kumar, a toddler living in the Pulianthope slums, that is, until he was kidnapped and given away in adoption to a Dutch couple. Earlier this month, a court in the town of Lelystad in the Netherlands summoned her to appear before it.

"Nagarani has been directed to appear before the court of Zwolle-Lelystad at 3.30pm on June 15. The proceedings will be held behind closed doors," Maaike Junte, a spokesperson for the court, told TOI from the town of Zwolle. It is a victory of sorts for the 35-year-old woman but it has come after hard battles both in courts in Chennai and the European nation. Only a month ago, her plea for a DNA test to establish that Rohit was her son was rejected by a fast-track court there. Going along with views of the special curator appointed for Rohit, the fast-track court in Zwolle-Lelystad decided "it was not in the interest of the child to know its roots."

Against Child Trafficking (ACT), a Netherlands-based organization fighting Nagarani's case, reacted rather strongly. Said Roelie Post, director of ACT, "It is totally unacceptable that five years after the Indian authorities discovered that this child was kidnapped and allegedly sold for inter-country adoption to a family in the Netherlands, the Dutch ministry of justice has done little to sort this out. The ministry of justice seems to be hiding behind procedures and formalities and appears to have totally lost sight of the tragedy the Indian parents are living (through)." …

Source: CBS

Webmagazine, maandag 12 april 2010 9:30

Number of adopted children almost halved

In recent years less children were adopted into the Netherlands. The number of adoptions was almost halved between 2004 and 2008…

Aantal adoptiekinderen bijna gehalveerd

In de afgelopen jaren zijn in Nederland minder kinderen geadopteerd. Het aantal adopties is tussen 2004 en 2008 bijna gehalveerd. Dit komt vooral door een kleiner aantal adoptiekinderen uit China.
800 kinderen geadopteerd in 2008
In 1995 werden in Nederland ruim 700 kinderen geadopteerd. Vervolgens is het aantal adoptiekinderen gestegen tot 1 370 in 2004. Daarna is dit aantal weer afgenomen. In 2008 ging het om bijna 800 kinderen…

Source: NRC

Adoptive father struggles to keep his Haitian son
Published: 6 April 2010

The Haitian earthquake brought a father and his adoptive son together. Now Berny Jansema fears the death of his wife might tear them apart.
By Frederiek Weeda

Four-year-old Clay was thirsty. “Clay wants water,” he said cheerfully. His adoptive father Berny Jansema gave him a glass of water and handed him a straw. Clay, who wore a denim jacket and a blue cap, likes to smile. He also likes water. Since Clay arrived in the Netherlands from Haiti in January, Jansema has tried offering him glasses of fruit juice and milk. But all Clay wants is water, the drink he always got at his orphanage in Port-au-Prince.

Clay has been living with Jansema (40) since January 21. It doesn’t take an expert to see that the two have already become close. But Jansema is worried. On April 13, a family judge will decide whether he will be granted custody of his adoptive son. Child protection services have advised the court to leave Clay in custody of the Nidos foundation instead. This organisation usually holds custody of underage refugees and asylum seekers in the Netherlands.

Dozens of children in custodial limbo

Nidos has been granted custody of about half of the 105 Haitian children who were brought to the Netherlands post-haste after the devastating earthquake in their home country on January 12. Most Dutch adoptive parents will take over as the children’s official guardians at some time in the future, if they haven’t already.

The number of Haitian children given up for adoption has grown explosively since the quake. Many Western nations, including the Netherlands, have sped up adoption procedures to bring children over from the ravaged nation as quickly as possible. UNICEF has warned against any rash actions. The UN child-welfare organisation has stressed that foreign adoption should remain a measure of last resort….

Source: www.nrc.nl

Children abandoned as Morocco deports adoptive parents
Published: 16 March 2010 09:30 | Changed: 17 March 2010 09:00
Last week, Morocco deported a large number of Christians on suspicion of proselytizing.
By Gert van Langendonck in Rabat

Their only crime, Herman Boonstra said, was letting children read from a children’s Bible. “Stories of Noah and the Ark and Jonas and the whale. Stories that appear in the Koran as well.”

Last week, Boonstra and 15 other people working at the Village of Hope orphanage in Ain Leuh, a town in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, were booted out of the country for suspected proselytizing. Elsewhere in Morocco, Christians were also deported, including a “significant” number of Americans, the US embassy reported….

Source: http://www.justitie.nl

No reconsidering of adoptions from Ethiopia

There is no reason to reconsider the adoption relation between Ethiopia and the Netehrlands. That writes Minister Hirsch Ballin from Justice in a letter to the Parliament. The agencies Stichting Afrika and Wereldkinderen will resume adoptions from Ethiopia

Geen heroverweging adopties uit Ethiopië

Nieuwsbericht | 18-02-2010

Er is geen aanleiding om de bestaande adoptierelatie tussen Ethiopië en Nederland te heroverwegen. Dat schrijft minister Hirsch Ballin van Justitie in een brief aan de Tweede Kamer. De vergunninghouders Stichting Afrika en Vereniging Wereldkinderen zullen adopties uit Ethiopië hervatten.

In september 2009 besloten de vergunninghouders (adoptiebemiddelingsorganisaties) Stichting Afrika en Vereniging Wereldkinderen om de procedures voor nieuwe aanvragen voor adopties uit Ethiopië voorlopig stil te leggen en nader onderzoek te verrichten naar de dossiers van kinderen in de lopende adoptieprocedure. Aanleiding daartoe was dat de feitelijke achtergrond van sommige geadopteerde Ethiopische kinderen niet in overeenstemming was met de informatie zoals in deze in de dossiers was opgenomen.

Vervolgens is in november 2009 door een delegatie van het ministerie van Justitie en de betrokken vergunninghouders een bezoek gebracht aan Ethiopië, waarbij is gesproken met diverse instanties, waaronder Ethiopische ministeries, de ambassades van de VS, Italië en Frankrijk en met UNICEF. Doel was het verkrijgen van inzicht in de adoptieprocedures in Ethiopië…

Date: 2010-01-25

Source: www.monstersandcritics.com

No EU plan foreseen to fast-track adoptions of Haiti children
Jan 25, 2010, 14:06 GMT
Brussels - The European Union would not launch a comprehensive plan to facilitate adoptions of child victims of the earthquake in Haiti, the European Commission said on Monday.
The idea was floated last week at an informal meeting of EU justice ministers in Spain, where Commissioner for Justice, Jacques Barrot, said the EU would look for a 'European framework' on the issue, in cooperation with UNICEF, the United Nations' fund for children.
But on Monday in Brussels, his spokesman Michele Cercone said 'a European framework for adoptions at this stage seems premature, and anyway the commission does not have any competence' to act.
Cercone added that the EU executive has 'no opposition to any speeding up of already existing adoption procedures,' a measure which the governments of the Netherlands and Italy have already announced…

Date: 2010-01-18

Source: RNW

The authorities in Haiti have given permission for 109 Haitian children to go to the Netherlands for adoption.

Adoptive parents have yet to be found for nine of the children, and they will be placed in temporary foster homes. Development and adoption agency Wereldkinderen and the Netherlands Adoption Foundation have chartered a plane to collect the children.

Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin decided at the weekend to fast-track the adoption procedure for the Haitian orphans, and all that was needed was permission from Haiti. Under normal circumstances it might have taken years for the Haitian authorities to process all the paperwork…

Date: 2010-01-15

Source: NAS

WE GO TO HAITI: TO GET THE CHLDREN!!!

WE GAAN NAAR HAÏTI: DE KINDEREN HALEN!!!
De NAS heeft een vliegtuig gecharterd om "onze" kinderen op te halen vanuit Haïti. A.s. maandag vertrekken we vanaf Schiphol om via de Dominicaanse Republiek naar Haïti te vliegen. We hopen woensdag weer op Schiphol te landen. Om de adoptieouders en de kinderen af te schermen van de media, zullen we in een aparte ruimte de overdracht van de kinderen regelen. Met het regelen van deze vlucht neemt de NAS een financieel risico. We vragen dan ook om financiële steun. Wilt u deze luchtbrug financieel steunen? Maak dan uw bijdrage vandaag nog over op rekening 48.68.96.684 (let op: dit is het juiste rekening nummer!) ten name van de Nederlandse Adoptie Stichting te Oudewater, onder vermelding van Luchtbrug Haïti…

Source: De Telegraaf

Tuesday 06 okt 2009, 22:26
Tweede adoptieorganisatie in VS

Second adoption agency in US

The Hague – There will be a second adoption agency in the United States that will help in particular gay couples Er komt een tweede adoptieorganisatie in Amerika, die met name homostellen helpt aan een kind te komen. Dat heeft minister Hirsch Ballin (Justitie) bekendgemaakt.

De Nederlandse Adoptie stichting (NAS), die al bemiddelt vanuit onder meer Haïti, Bolivia en Mongolië, wordt de tweede Nederlandse vergunninghouder in de VS, naast het veelbekritiseerde stichting Kind en Toekomst.
De organisatie gaat in Amerika helpen bij volledige bemiddeling en deelbemiddeling en heeft bijzondere aandacht voor ’stellen van gelijk geslacht’. Daarvoor wordt een samenwerkingsovereenkomst getekend met belangenorganisatie COC…

Source: www.latimes.com

Some Chinese parents say their babies were stolen for adoption

In some rural areas, instead of levying fines for violations of China's child policies, greedy officials took babies, which would each fetch $3,000 om adoptions.

By Barbara Demick
September 19, 2009
reporting from Tianxi, China - The man from family planning liked to prowl around the mountaintop village, looking for diapers on clotheslines and listening for the cry of a hungry newborn. One day in the spring of 2004, he presented himself at Yang Shuiying's doorstep and commanded: "Bring out the baby."

Yang wept and argued, but, alone with her 4-month-old daughter, she was in no position to resist the man every parent in Tianxi feared.

"I'm going to sell the baby for foreign adoption. I can get a lot of money for her," he told the sobbing mother as he drove her with the baby to an orphanage in Zhenyuan, a nearby city in the southern province of Guizhou. In return, he promised that the family wouldn't have to pay fines for violating China's one-child policy.

Then he warned her: "Don't tell anyone about it."

[…]

Doubts about how babies are procured for adoption in China have begun to ripple through the international adoption community.

"In the beginning, I think, adoption from China was a very good thing because there were so many abandoned girls. But then it became a supply-and-demand-driven market and a lot of people at the local level were making too much money," said Ina Hut, who last month resigned as the head of the Netherlands' largest adoption agency out of concern about baby trafficking…

Wereldkinderen stopt met adoptie vanuit Ethiopië

Wereldkinderen stops adoptions from Ethiopia

Netwerk 17 September 2009

The biggest adoption agency from the Netherlands, Wereldkinderen, stops per immediately with adoption procedures from Ethiopia because of a new adoption scandal.

From research done by the organisation it appears that the background information of the adopted children is not always in line with the information in the files.

In a number of cases the mothers of the childern appeared to be alive, while in the files it was mentioned they were dead.

It is the so-manieth scandal in the adoption world. Recently the former director of Wereldkindren resigned after she was intimidated by the Ministry of Justice because of research into adoption irregularities in China.

K&T stopt met bemiddeling VS

K&T (Child & Future) stops mediation US

September 2009

Partial mediation US

On Monday 24 August Foundation Kind en Toekomst (Child and Future) informed both Mr. Michael Goldstein and Ms. Tara Gutterman (ARC) that the foundation ends all efforts to get a contract with them for regular procedures.

After many years of negotiation Foundation Child and Future could only conclude that the needed transparency and openness in communication remained inexistent, whereby sensitive but very important issues could not be sufficiently discussed.

Therefore, Foundation Child and Future will not and cannot carry the responsibility for concluding a contract for regular…

Money plays too big a role in adoption

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 28 August 2009
She says she is battle-weary and very disillusioned by all the wrongs she has come across over the past years. This week Ina Hut, director of Wereldkinderen (World Children) the largest adoption agency in the Netherlands, is calling it a day. She is handing in her notice in protest against the way things are run in the world of international child adoption.

By Maurice Laparlière*

In the Netherlands there are more than 30,000 children adopted from abroad. In the early years, international adoption was legalised in the mid 1970s, the children mainly came from South Korea, Indonesia and India. In a relatively high number of cases the adoption parents’ motives were idealistic. ‘Even if you can just save one of them,’ was a statement you heard a lot in those days, referring to children who led a miserable life, for example, in prostitution or in impoverished children’s homes.

Children from China
Today most children come from China. The attitude of many Dutch would-be parents has drastically changed over the past 30 years, says director Ina Hut from World Children:

“Would-be parents have strong desires, and I understand that. Everybody has the right to want children, but you don’t have the right to children. Children have the right to parents. The right to children doesn’t exist on this planet.

For me the last straw was an important political meeting in June. Once again it became clear that in the debate around international adoption it is not in the interests of children that come first, but in the interests of the would-be parents, or gay couples who want to adopt, and also in the commercial interests of the Netherlands and that of politicians who are afraid of losing votes. All other interests than that of the child.”

Baby girls taken and sold for adoption

SW China: Baby girls taken and sold for adoption
By Wang Jingqiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-03 08:06
Comments(1) PrintMail
About 80 newborn baby girls from a county of Guizhou Province in southwest China have been removed from their families by local officials since 2001, and most have been handed over to foreign adoptive parents as orphans at a price of $3,000 each, the Southern Metropolis News reported on Wednesday.
Among the 80 families are Lu Xiande and Yang Shuiying, a poor farming couple whose fifth daughter was removed by local family planning officials when they didn't pay the appropriate fine, it reported.

Gu Chengjun, who was later adopted by a woman from the Netherlands, sits on the lap of a caregiver in Zhenyuan Orphanage in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province in January, 2007. Bao Xiaodong
Like every other father in Zhenyuan, Lu wanted a boy, who finally arrived after three daughters. His wife then gave birth to another girl, and the couple had to support five children with a yearly income of about 5,000 yuan ($732).
Shi Guangying, a local family planning official, gave them an ultimatum: Give away their little daughter or pay fines of about 20,000 yuan ($2,928)…

Baby uit Leopoldsburg verkocht voor 25.000 euro

Baby from Leopoldsburg sold for 25.000 euroDe Standaard,  20 June 2009
A 39-year-old woman from Leopoldsburg sold her baby to a Dutch couple from the North of the Netherlands. She received 25.000 euro for this transaction, as was confirmed by sources at the court.  
[...]
"Unfortunately in our country there is no law that forbids the selling of a child", reacts lawyer Jef Vermassen...

Adoptie

Adoption

Nederlands Dagblad: 12 juni 2009
...It seems very much so that in this the interests of a category of adoptive parents was put central, and not the interest of the to be adopted child, concluded parliamentarian Ed Anker. SGP-parliamentarian Kees van der Staaij concluded that each proposal that would limit the rights of homosexuals, regardless of the arguments, was without chance. The Minister has with an inimitable legal twist been able to prevent to be looked at as if he would have anything against homosexuals. 

Petitie: deelbemiddeling moet blijven

Petition: partial mediation must remain(16515 signatures – 23 June 2009)

Children of the Cedars
The adoption of children across international borders is hugely controversial.

Arthur Block has always been haunted by his adoption from Lebanon when he was just six months old. Now, he is determined to lay some ghosts to rest.

He was adopted from Lebanon in 1976 - a year after the civil war started and while disorder and corruption was rife.

Twenty-seven years after being adopted into a loving Dutch family, he decided to travel back to Beirut to piece together his past.

Filmmaker Dimitri Khodr records Arthur's emotional journey as he investigates the taboo subject of the adoption of the children of the cedars, so called because the cedar is Lebanon's national symbol…

Stricter requirements in respect of adoption from the United States
Press release | 28-04-2009
Adoption of children from the United States will become subject to stricter requirements. Minister Hirsch Ballin has submitted this policy directive in writing to the Lower House of Parliament. The reason for the above development is that there is currently some doubt as to whether current practice in the United States is in line with the basic principles of the Hague Adoption Convention, which has been signed by both the Netherlands and the United States...

Letter of conditions for adoptions from the United States
Ministry of Justice, 20 April 2009

OM belgië wil adoptieouders baby Donna vervolgen

Belgian Public Prosecutor wants to indict adoptive parents Baby Donna
The Belgian Public Prosecutor wants to bring the surrogacy mother of baby Donna before court. The reason is the ‘inhuman treatment of a child’.
Donna was born in February 2005 in Belgium and by the surrogacy mother sold to a couple from Leusden. The girl was in fact promised to the biological father Bart Philtjens and his wife.

Time passed 
The Dutch Prosecutor decided in January that the Dutch couple could not be prosecuted for the illegal adoption of a child. When the biological father handed in a complaint in 2007, the case was already barred.

Gentse moeder belooft zelfde kind aan drie paren

Mother from Gent promised the same child to three couples
De Standaard,  04 December 2008 
Childless couples from the Netherlands often go on the Internet looking for a surrogacy mother in our country [Belgium]. A new, hallucinating documentary from the Dutch TV program ‘Netwerk’ shows how some surrogacy mothers have no scruples to abuse this.

Verdachte illegale adoptie op vrije voeten

Suspect illegal adoption released
De Volkskrant, 02 September 2008
The 25-year old woman who was suspected of an attempt of illegal adoption of a baby in Sri Lanka may leave prison. That was decided by the court in Zwolle. De 25-jarige vrouw die wordt verdacht van een poging tot illegale adoptie van een baby in Sri Lanka mag de gevangenis verlaten. Dat heeft de rechter dinsdag bepaald in de rechtbank in Zwolle. De vrouw, Susan H. uit Rheezerveen, zat sinds haar aanhouding meer dan drie maanden in voorarrest.

'Stolen' kids traced to Dutch orphanage
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...

CBI goes after foster parents in child racket
CHENNAI: The CBI Anti-Corruption Bureau in Tamil Nadu, which is investigating a child adoption racket that was busted by the city police in May 2005, will try to contact the foreign foster parents who adopted the children with the help of an illegal agency in Chennai.

According to sources in CBI, three foster families based in the Netherlands, Australia and the US would be contacted. CBI will also review the procedures followed by the foster parents for the adoption.

“The Central Crime Branch of city police had investigated only the local angle. They have handed over the investigation details which prima facie provides evidence against the adoption agency. Now we want to know about the procedures used by the foster parents who adopted children from Chennai,” a senior CBI officer told The Times of India…

‘Adopties behandeld door amateurs’

Adoptions done by Amateurs
13 March 2008
‘Misstanden in de wereld van de adoptie zijn geen uitzondering. Met name bij Stichting Flash, bemiddelaar bij adopties onder meer uit Haïti, werkt een stelletje amateurs.’ Dat zegt Judy Bralds van belangenorganisatie United Adoptees International (UAI) in De Ochtenden. Bralds, zelf ook geadopteerd uit Haïti, vertelt wat voor klachten er zoal bij zijn organisatie binnenkomen. Maar eerst is er een reportage te beluisteren waarin de familie Jansen vertelt hoe de adoptie van Sabine (alle namen zijn gefingeerd) uit Haïti  in 2006 uitliep op een nachtmerrie.

Weer Ophef over Adopties uit China

Chinese adoptions again in the news
Trouw, 11 March 2008 
The 7-year old Zeng Hong from the Chines province Hunan has a twinsister. But she and her parents have no idea where the girl is. In fact, in April 2002, Zeng’s little sister was taken away by a civil servant, because her parents could not pay the fine.
[…]
‘Netwerk’ got two other Chinese couples in front of the camera, with a similar history: their (grand) child was also taken by someone of the office for family planning. He brought the childen to the Shaoyang Social Welfare Institute in Hunan, from where it probably got adopted by a foreign couple. Without consent or knowledge of the parents.

Two Dutch adoption agencies did in 2003 business with the Shaoyang children’s home. Through Wereldkinderen [Children of the World] seven children came from this home to the Netherlands, 10 through Meiling. It is not sure of proven that these cases concern children that were taken away…

«Les enfants volés ont l'impression d'être de vulgaires marchandises»

Stolen children have the impression to be just goods
Céline Giraud, French from Peruvian origin, was adopted by French parents at the age of 16 days. Until the age of 24, she believed her biological parents had abandoned her, as not able to raise her. But when she found her original family in Peru in 2004, she discovered a terrible sectre: just like 25 other Peruvian children, adopted in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands, Celine Giraud was stolen from her parents…

India demands return of adopted child
ANP HILVERSUM; 22 May 2007
An Indian boy that was adopted by a Dutch couple six years ago must return to his country of birth. Indian authorities are demanding that the child undergo a DNA test and be reunited with his birth parents. A police investigation in India reportedly indicates that the child was not voluntarily put up for adoption but stolen and sold to an orphanage.
The television programme Netwerk reported this on Tuesday on the basis of the police reports and investigation in India. The Dutch adoption parents received a letter from the Indian police in February asking them to return the child...

El Salvador's kidnapped children search for their parents
Response magazine - 2006
Marina Dolores Ortiz spent 17 years worrying she had lost her family. Yet she kept on searching, not knowing that her mother was simultaneously looking for her. When they finally came together, it was an emotional moment.
[…]
At times the search goes beyond the country's borders. Pro-Busqueda has tracked down children who were kidnaped by the military and ended up being adopted by families in Italy, France, Holland, Belgium, the United States, and other countries. Mejía said that most adoptive families, although initially cautious, respond openly to the news that their adopted child was not abandoned as they had been told. In several cases, children have returned temporarily from abroad to be reunited with their birth families, discovering their roots–as painful as that may be…

Ambtsbericht Nepal 2005
Ministry of Justice
... Possibly children are traded via children’s homes for intercountry adoption. However, proof and statistics about these practices are lacking.  UNICEF is doing research on this. Some children’s homes are especially founded to fulfill the big demand for adoptable children from abroad….

Born in America, adopted abroad
27 October 2004
African-American babies are going to parents overseas even as US couples adopt children from other countries...

Homo’s mogen buitenlands kind adopteren

Homosexuals allowed to adopt foreign child
19-12-2003
Lesbische en homoparen mogen in de toekomst ook buitenlandse kinderen adopteren. Een voorstel van Lousewies van der Laan (D66) om de buitenlandse adoptiewet aan te passen, kreeg steun van een ruime meerderheid in de Tweede Kamer (PvdA, VVD, GroenLinks en SP).
Door het nieuwe voorstel wordt, na een jarenlange strijd voor gelijkberechtiging, de laatste discriminerende bepaling voor homoseksuele mannen en vrouwen uit de Nederlandse wet geschrapt.

Opschorting adoptie Cambodja

Suspension Adoptions from Cambodia
Letter Ministry of Justice, 22 May 2003
- Subsidiarity Principle
In report 2 it it noted on page 7 that staff of the MOSALVY no longer looks for foster families, nor do any efforts for national adoptions nor otherwise are trying to find an alternative for intercountry adoption. Intercountry adoption (see below) has become the first option. Reason fir this is that the lucrative intercountry adoption (see further) spoiled ‘the market’ for Cambodians who would like to adopt.  “Since competition already exists among foreign prospective parents, it is all the more difficult for local Cambodians to compete”, says report 2, p. 7.
- Inappropriate financial gain
There is no official tarif for adoptions from Cambodia. According to talks with Embasssy staff, adoptive parents would pay between 5.000 and 20.000 USD per adoption. The amount to be paid is not clear as of the beginning. For most payments no receipt is given. One of the adoptive parents described the situation as “the higher the payment, the faster the process of the file.” (memorandum, p. 3). Corrupt practices exist at all levels of the administration. Report 2 speaks about “an ‘industry’ that is now well established and keeps growing.”…

Adoptiebureau Flash moet stoppen door geldgebrek

Adoption agency Flash has to stop due to lack of funding
18 April 2003
The adoption agency Flash stops because of lack of money. Three staff members have already been fired, the fourth has to pack his suitcases soon. The rent of the office at the Bijleveldsingel has been stopped, all adoptions have ended. Flash tries this way to prevent a final bankrupcy and to maintain the licency for adoption.
Last year Flash was in the news because of some very bad experiences with adoptions from Haiti. The Ministry of Justice, who monitors the adoption procedures, no longer allowed Flash to do adoptions from that country since September last year…

Op zoek in de wereld van 'wij weten het ook niet'

Searching in the world of 'we do not know' 
19 augustus 2002
Sixty adopted people gathered last May in Utrecht to talk about their Lebanese roots, and especially about the lack of precise information about their background. One of them was Arthur Block, for whom the talks were the last push to go to Lebanon to find out exactly how the adoptions were done. 
The history of several thousand Lebanese adoptees - between 
three and four hundred in the Netherlands - begins with the 
adoption, two days to six months after birth. Because all the information 
about their parents is missing, and months of research in Lebanon has brought no change. Behind the procedures seems to have been a well-oiled machine that would not fare well with too much information…

Twijfels bij rol stichting in adoptie uit haïti

Doubts with role Foundation in adoptions from Haiti
De Gelderlander: 15 August 2002
Lawyer P. Baur has asked the Ministry for Justice to investigate the functionning of the Foundation Flash, accredited for adoption mediation. According to Baur the Ministry of Justice will see if the foundation is acting carefully in the finalizing of adoptions from children from Haiti. 
Direct reason is the adoption of two Haitian boys by a family in Nijmegen. The boys appear never to have lived in the children home where they were supposed to have lived. They allegedly were living with their family and offered for adoption by their father through the children’s home...

Documentary on Adoption from Haiti – FLASH
Zembla – 2002
About: the reason why more and more Dutch people want to adopt a foreign child; the organisations involved in bringing adoptive children to the Netherlands. Complaints to the Ministry of Justice about Foundation Flash who mediates children from Haiti; the incorrect information about adopted children Junior and Wasnel Joseph, who think they will be allowed to go back to their biological parents and oppose their stay in the Netherlands; the cooperation of Flash, Marijke Zaalberg and the children home Emmanuel in Haiti; the information which Flash cannot collect, but is provided by the Haitians; the need that children for adoption first stay a while in a children home for ‘de-attachment’; the manipulation with documents in Haiti; the question if the Netherlands must close Haiti as adoption country…

Alles legaal' aan snelle adoptie Paul de Leeuw

Everything legal on Paul de Leeuw’s quick adoption
Paul de Leeuw and his husband Stephan Nugter became fathers last week of their adoptive son Kas. "Must one be famous to adopt a child so fast?"
[...]
Since 1998 it is since possible for singles, irrelevant of their sexual preference, to adopt a child. According to lawyer Paul Baur, specialized in adoption law, is it very likely that De Leeuw used this way in the United States. When the child will be three years in the Netherlands, his husband Stephan Nugter can become the official father of the child, as in the Netherlands adoption by a homosexual couple is allowed....

10 000 Dollar für ein Baby aus Kolumbien

10 000 Dollars for a Baby from Colombia
DER SPIEGEL 28/1982 of 12.07.1982, page 36 
The "little black one" is great fashion: thousands of childless couples in Germany, Holland and Sweden buy children in Asia or Latin America. Dutch agencies do big business with organized tours to the tropical island of Sri Lanka, in the quick adoption procedure is guaranteed. 
[…]
The trade knows, unlike the drug market, no replenishment worry, because there are children en masse in the developing countries. 50000 "Crianças de Ninguém", abandoned children, about whom no one asks about, sit alone in the orphanages of the Brazilian giant city Sao Paulo.
[…]
No wonder that the world's Baby Connection blooms and kidnaps and sells children where poverty prevails, proceeding their work in ever new variations …

Wir machen es aus Idealismus

We do it out of Idealism
Spiegel, nr. 28/1982 of 12,07.1982, page 47
Spiegel: Mr. Hordijk, “Flash’ works as commercial private baby agency in the Netherlands, just four kilometers away from the German border. If you would go into the German Republic, your organization would be immediately forbidden.

Hordijk: In Germany one needs an official accreditation for adoption mediation. But not here in the Netherlands, we do it out of idealism…

An angry doctor battles a gruesome black market in Asian children (Bangladesh)
December 1981
… Even more devastating, in its way, was Preger's discovery, in 1977, of what he claims is a kidnapping ring that supplies children not only for illegal adoption but also for prostitution, mutilation and murder. The British Anti-Slavery Society is preparing a report on Dr. Preger's findings for the United Nations Economic and Social Council as well as for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Interpol and the Dutch Ministry of Justice have launched separate investigations into the matter at the request of a Swiss child welfare agency, and Renee Bridel, a Swiss U.N. delegate in Geneva, is writing a comprehensive report on the international traffic in children. "This involves hundreds of thousands of children from all over the Third World—and certainly from Bangladesh," says Bridel. "They are sent to wealthy countries everywhere, including the U.S. and Canada."

Before being deported from Bangladesh in 1979 for allegedly meddling in the country's "internal affairs," Dr. Preger says he discovered how the flesh peddlers gathered the children and what they did with them. Some victims were simply snatched off the streets; others were taken from their parents with the promise that they would be sent to boarding school. Many illiterate, poverty-stricken parents, in a country where the average daily wage is less than a dollar, were duped into giving up their offspring in the belief that they would be fed, housed and educated by a Dutch relief agency. Assured that they could visit their children at any time, the parents discovered when they attempted to do so that the schools did not exist and that their children had vanished without a trace. They were also informed, to their horror, that the blank papers to which they had trustingly affixed their thumbprints were forms by which they had relinquished their sons and daughters for adoption.…

Bangladesh - War Babies (1971)
…Inter-country adoption of the war-babies Following a personal request of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the U.S. Branch of the Geneva-based International Social Service (ISS/AB) was the first international non-profit organisation to come forward to advise the government concerning the war-babies. Two local voluntary agencies, the Dhaka-based Bangladesh-Central Organisation for Women Rehabilitation and the Family Planning Association, had worked with the ISS throughout the consultation and implementation phases…