Western volunteers do more harm than good in African orphanages. Ban this 'orphanage tourism', says Arne Doornebal.

HThe idea that 'we' from the West will sometimes help poor countries to 'develop' is based on a bad idea of ??superiority. NRC 's analysis of the Dutch apologies for the slavery past (24/12) examined how that past still has an effect today. Striking and perhaps also painful for many readers: development cooperation was soon mentioned.

I immediately thought of one of the excesses in that area, which is not even qualified as development aid. That is the large number of young volunteers who, driven by an urge for adventure or the hope of ending up in heaven, go to Africa. There, usually not hindered by any experience of working with children, they go to work as volunteers in orphanages. Voluntourism is what this is called in English: a combination of volunteer work and tourism.

The proliferation of orphanages is clearly visible in Uganda, traditionally a country that is very popular with do-gooders. In 2018, the Ugandan government stated that more than five hundred orphanages were operating without a permit. It is estimated that more than 50,000 children live in orphanages in that country. This is striking, in a country where children of deceased parents are almost always taken care of by relatives. The main reason for the existence of these orphanages is the fact that western volunteers are lured to them, because they usually also bring a lot of money.

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At the beginning of December, seven Croatian citizens were arrested in Zambia, due to doubts about the validity of the documents for the adoption of minor children from the DR Congo. The investigation is still ongoing, and the Croatian institutions are transferring responsibility for the adoption process, Croatian reports. Index.

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The investigation involving several competent authorities will determine what really happened, whether someone forged Congolese documents or failed in the adoption process of Congolese children who received Croatian documents. Currently there are various theories about this and various information and misinformation is being spread.

On Wednesday, there was also a misunderstanding when the President of the Supreme Court of Croatia, Radovan Dobroni?, stated that the Croatian courts made a mistake and that the procedure on the basis of which Congolese children received Croatian documents was not valid, because Congo is a signatory to the Convention on the Protection of Children. therefore the procedure should be different.

But Dobronic later admitted that he had made a mistake and confused the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Namely, DR Congo is not a signatory to the Convention and the adoption procedure is under the jurisdiction of the courts, not the Ministry of Family and Social Policy.

Since a few months you can again adopt a child from abroad in the Netherlands. That child will have a promising life here, but what does the adoption actually do to someone's identity? We ask influencer Lara Mallo (34), she was adopted as a baby from Brazil and made the YouTube series Looking for Lara in which she goes in search of where she comes from. “I couldn't find inner peace.”

At the age of one, Lara Mallo (34) from São Paulo was adopted by a Dutch family. She grew up in Het Gooi, where she was bullied as a child because she looked different from her classmates. Although she has actively searched for her biological parents, it has yielded little to this day.

Hey Lara, thank you for sharing your story. When did you find out you were adopted?

“I never really realized I was a different color because I always felt white. Just like my adoptive parents. But at the age of four, classmates already showed that they thought I was 'dirty' because I have a different skin color than them. As a child I didn't understand that. I thought: why am I brown and my parents are white? Then my parents explained to me that they adopted me because my biological parents could not take care of me. They said it honestly and directly, without making a fuss.”

What was it like growing up in your adoptive family?

Since a few months you can again adopt a child from abroad in the Netherlands. That child will have a promising life here, but what does the adoption actually do to someone's identity? We ask influencer Lara Mallo (34), she was adopted as a baby from Brazil and made the YouTube series Looking for Lara in which she goes in search of where she comes from. “I couldn't find inner peace.”

At the age of one, Lara Mallo (34) from São Paulo was adopted by a Dutch family. She grew up in Het Gooi, where she was bullied as a child because she looked different from her classmates. Although she has actively searched for her biological parents, it has yielded little to this day.

Hey Lara, thank you for sharing your story. When did you find out you were adopted?

“I never really realized I was a different color because I always felt white. Just like my adoptive parents. But at the age of four, classmates already showed that they thought I was 'dirty' because I have a different skin color than them. As a child I didn't understand that. I thought: why am I brown and my parents are white? Then my parents explained to me that they adopted me because my biological parents could not take care of me. They said it honestly and directly, without making a fuss.”

What was it like growing up in your adoptive family?

Couple had applied through the website of the Department of Women Development and Child Welfare

THE HINDU BUREAU

A 13-year-old orphan girl, who has been residing in the town-based Balasadanam, the childcare institution, for the last eight years, was adopted by a childless couple from Tamil Nadu as per the mandatory procedures governing adoption of children in the town on Monday.

The childless couple from Tamil Nadu had earlier applied for legalised adoption of child online through the Department of Women Development and Child Welfare’s website and completed the legal adoption process, sources said.

The recognised agencies and the authorities concerned facilitated the legal adoption process in strict compliance with the stipulated procedures.

Zambia has been detaining 4 couples from Croatia for 3 weeks. They were detained from the airport on suspicion of trafficking children from the DR Congo. According to the Croatian Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy, two couples are registered in the Register of Adoptive Parents. The same Ministry answered the question of the Narod.hr portal that since 2014, 4 children have come to Croatia through international adoption. And the couples who have already adopted children from DR Congo claim that there are about 180 of them in Croatia. And that all the children were adopted on the basis of the same procedure that includes the courts.

Both in the Congo and in Croatia. Although DR Congo has had a suspension of international child adoption since 2016, as stated by the US Department of State in its Annual Report on International Adoption. Namely, by changing the Family Law on July 15, 2016, the DR Congo suspended the issuance of permits for children to leave the country for international adoption, thereby, as stated in the Report, preventing the legal adoption of children from the Congo. The Report also states that the representatives of the USA had a meeting with the representatives of the Congolese Ministry of Justice and that they asked them for explanations regarding the decisions on adoption which, despite this change in the Family Law, are made by the Congolese courts.

It is estimated that around 180 children from DR Congo were adopted in Croatia

The immigration authorities in Zambia have started following 4 Croatian couples with children from the Congo, because the DR Congo has been prohibiting the issuance of exit permits for children for international adoption for years. They joined the surveillance of Croatian citizens and carried out passport control at the airport of the Zambian city of Ndoli. From the same airport, in the province bordering DR Congo , in recent years, as confirmed by couples who adopted children from Congo, around 180 children have traveled with Croatian passports, Croatian names and surnames.

Adoption of Congolese children in Zambia

MORE than three weeks have passed since the arrest of eight Croatian citizens, i.e. four married couples in Zambia, allegedly on suspicion of child trafficking. The indictment has not yet been filed, and the key circumstances of the case are still not known to the public.

Based on reports from the local and Zambian media and statements from Croatian institutions, we know that four married couples from Croatia came to Zambia to adopt children from the Congo and that the Zambian police arrested them in the town of Ndoli together with the children, who were handed over to a social welfare institution. .

According to a statement by the Police Chief of the Copperbelt Province, Peacewell Mweemba, a preliminary investigation indicates that the adoption documents issued by Congo "are not authentic", local media reported.

Zambian police said they received a tip-off on December 6 that three white men had booked rooms at a guest house in Ndola, after which immigration officials, with the help of police, tracked down the suspects, who were accompanied by children of Congolese origin between the ages of one and three. They were arrested a day later at Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport.

The local police announced their identity, which caused great public interest and calls from various right-wing politicians and portals, from the Vice President of the Zagreb City Assembly from the Homeland Movement Igor Peternel to the Narod.hr portal Željka Marki?.

Orphanage information

Over the years, FFIA has collaborated with around twenty orphanages and a few hospitals with specially established departments for abandoned children. Some collaborations have been very long-lasting, such as with Asha Sadan in Mumbai, ISRC in Kolkata and SOFOSH in Pune. We have collaborated with both private and state orphanages. In the latter part of the 1980s, licensing requirements were introduced for Indian organizations to work with international adoptions. Many state and even private orphanages could not pass the complicated procedure required to obtain a license. In many cases, therefore, children were transferred to the licensed orphanages in order for the adoption to take place.

When the Indian central authority CARA changed the rules in 2012, it was no longer possible to have a direct collaboration between us and the Indian organizations. According to the new rules, it is CARA that decides from which orphanage a family seeking adoption will receive a child. Thus, our opportunities for in-depth knowledge of and good cooperation with the Indian orphanages were impaired.

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Cooperation time

FFIA was the first Swedish organization that came to Romania after the fall of the wall and worked there during the years 1990 - 2001. Almost 200 children were adopted from the big, scary institutions in different parts of the country. Gabriela Coman, President of the Romanian Central Adoption Authority in Bucharest, gives here her history description and her advice to adoptees who want to search for their roots in the country.

At the beginning of the 90s, the law on international adoptions was very lax and allowed a large number of Romanian children to be adopted without clear norms. Because of this, a new law was passed to establish a central authority in Romania to monitor and manage the cases where a native family for adoption was not found.

Despite these improvements, critical voices were raised as more measures were taken to improve the handling of international adoptions. Therefore, a new law was introduced in 2004, which allowed international adoptions of Romanian children only if the adoptive family was related to the child in the second line.

These measures were recently changed (2012) so that a Romanian child can be adopted internationally only if the adoptive parents are related within the fourth degree to the child, or if an adoptive parent is a Romanian citizen.

Adoptions today