Friends Annick (37), An Sheela (42) and Sheela (41) lead different lives, but have one thing in common: all three are adopted from India. and they know what you struggle with if you don't know exactly where you come from. “Adoption is not always a fairy tale.”

Recognition and recognition

“Recognition and recognition. That's what I find with An Sheela and Sheela and all those other adopted kids from our Facebook community. For example, if I say, "I don't know exactly who I am," they know exactly what I mean. It is something that binds us. What do you run into if you don't know who your biological parents are? How does it feel when the start of your life is unclear and what you know about it may be based on lies? What are you struggling with then? They are things we discuss when we see each other on meeting days.” Annick is speaking. In 2008 she was only fifteen when she wanted to meet other adopted children. Together with her mother, she founded the Facebook group Adoptie Schakel, for children and their parents adopted from India. Initially a friendly group that exchanged messages and saw each other now and then, years later it became a more serious community. On which members post messages and photos, but which also organizes and undertakes all kinds of things.

The club got more and more members, from the Netherlands and Belgium. At a certain point, Annick was no longer able to manage everything on her own. In 2017 she asked An Sheela to help, a year later also Sheela. The three of them try to take the Facebook group to an even higher level. Together they organize meeting days and information evenings about DNA tests, for example. The three also fight against illegal adoption in their home country of Belgium. Despite their adoption stories being completely different, the trio feels connected to each other and to the members of their community.

Annick: “In the fourteen years that I have been working on this, the adopted children from then have grown up. Many have started families or have now made a roots trip to India. Sometimes they find what they are looking for, but often it is impossible. India is a huge country and the government discourages adopted children from looking for their biological parents. It's simply not done. The moral is: let the past rest.”

News and comment from the 14th European Forum on the rights of the child in Brussels

The 14th European Forum on the rights of the child took place between the 27th and the 29th September 2022 in Brussels. Hope and Homes for Children was among the few organisations invited to attend in person. The forum covered topics crucial for our work such as

child participation

children in armed conflict

and addressed important EU policies, including

What if after years of searching you finally find your biological parent(s), but afterwards you are told that it is not the case after all. It happened to participants of the Dutch TV program "Spoorloos". Noëmi Plateau also testifies that such a search is difficult and emotional in "Late". "All my life I felt a kind of mourning and loss. Something I've lost, but don't know."

There was a lot of commotion in the Netherlands when it became known there that the popular program “Spoorloos”, which has been looking for lost relatives for more than thirty years, has linked at least two people to the wrong biological family. That's what investigative journalist Kees van der Spek of a competing channel told on Monday evening at the table at Eva Jinek. The program makers of "Spoorloos" paid a Colombian intermediary for research work and that's where things went wrong.

A painful story that the Flemish Noëmi Plateau can also speak about. When she was one and a half years old, Noemi was adopted from China. Last year, together with her adoptive sister Anéline, she went in search of her biological parents in the program “We are family” by Lidewij Nuitten. A quest that started with hope.

"I wanted to find my biological parents for a long time", Noëmi begins her story in "Late". Ultimately, that search starts at the age of 25 with sending her DNA to all kinds of DNA databases. Six months later, there was suddenly a result.

"We found your birth father. The DNA was a complete match with you," she heard via an online conversation with someone in China. "As big as the shock is for you, it is for him too," continues the woman on the other side of the world. A message that hit the adopted Noemi with great intensity.

DNA does not lie, but the interpretation that can be given to it, says genetic genealogist Maarten Larmuseau after the testimony of Noëmi, who is linked to the wrong biological father. Because it is such an emotional and existential quest, it is precisely the scientific execution of genetic genealogy that is so important. Don't let descent be just a commercial product, he explains in this opinion.

The testimony of the Flemish Noëmi Plateau was heartbreaking. On Tuesday evening she told openly about her difficult and emotional search for her biological parents in "Late" on One. Noëmi was adopted from China at the age of one and a half and had felt a loss all her life.

She first felt where she came from when she was linked to a biological father after a DNA test. But a second DNA test disproved this claim. She's back at the start of her quest. How is it possible that different DNA analyzes provide conflicting results? DNA doesn't lie, does it?

DNA kits

However, there is no doubt about the power of DNA analysis for finding biological relationships. As soon as commercial DNA kits came on the market, many adopted children found their biological parents, children of the same anonymous sperm donor were linked together and genealogists further clarified their family history by searching for distant relatives worldwide. For children with unknown biological parent(s), the commercial DNA companies are often the only hope in their emotional and existential quest.

Child welfare organization Wereldkinderen is shocked by the role it played in the much-discussed mismatches in Colombia, according to program maker Kees van der Spek. Like the TV program Spoorloos , the foundation worked for years with Edwin Vela, the Colombian fixer who became discredited after the broadcast of Scammers .

On September 29, 2022, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice and reparation, the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children and the Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances have issued a joint statement (in English only) on illegal international adoptions.

This declaration aims to “promote a human rights-based and gender-sensitive approach to preventing and eradicating illegal intercountry adoptions by identifying the rights that are violated by illegal intercountry adoptions and clarifying the obligations of States in this regard. regard, under international human rights law .

This text is undoubtedly welcome at a time when many host countries are considering how to respond to the consequences of past mistakes. The right of victims to know the truth and to obtain the assistance necessary to find their origins is, for example, clearly expressed there. However, the UN authorities have included in their approach other rights and different concepts which, in my opinion, would have deserved either a more detailed lexical study or a development of their ins and outs.

In general, this text presents the risk of a certain confusion insofar as it does not make sufficient distinctions between the bad practices of the past and the standards of human rights whose application is necessary and recognized today. .

On the qualification of the theme first of all: speaking of “illegal international adoptions” certainly makes it possible to grasp the subject of the declaration, but the use of the word “illegal” is not appropriate. In my opinion, there is a bias in understanding between, on the one hand, what is considered today as an "illegal adoption", and, on the other hand, the analysis of the practices which may have affected procedures in the past. In a current reading, there is no doubt that "adoptions that are the result of crimes such as abduction, sale or trafficking of a child, fraud in declaration of adoptability, falsification of official documents or coercion, as well as any activity or practice such as the absence of the appropriate consent of the biological parents, improper material profits for the benefit of intermediaries and the corruption associated therewith, constitute illegal adoptions and must be prohibited, criminalized and punished as such ”.

Van der Spek brought the news last night that the TV program Spoorloos has linked adopted children to wrong biological parents. KRO-NCRV has since confirmed that there have been two mismatches and is investigating twelve more cases . In two other cases investigated, the match was correct.

In his RTL5 program Oplichters tackled , Van der Spek will tonight look for a fraudulent Colombian fixer who linked Dutch people to family members for Spoorloos . ,,Actually, I never realized that adoptive children and their search for their parents is such a huge thing. Coincidentally, my last broadcast is also about adoption, but with a completely different approach. It is about children who are adopted from India from a children's home in Mumbai. From there, 500 adoptions have been made. Children who knock on their door now have to pay to look in their file. That orphanage is a revenue model.”

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A Romanian woman testifies to the Council of Europe about the trauma experienced in communist orphanages/ Independent investigations are requested in all EU states regarding the violation of children's rights/ "We were naked, there was no heating, we only received a little food and we were left in the dark"

Sirmanca Fekete, a survivor of the Cighid home for disabled and mentally ill minors, testified today at the Council of Europe in support of a motion submitted by the Justice Initiative, the association announces in a press release.

This is a pan-European initiative that brings together 19 countries and aims to stop, recognize and prevent child abuse in Europe.

The Justice Initiative was initiated by the Swiss Guido Flori to investigate and find solutions for those affected by this phenomenon present throughout the continent.

The Council of Europe and the member states are asked to ensure an independent investigation of the violation of the rights of the child in each European country and the official recognition of the trauma of children who have suffered any kind of sexual, physical or psychological violence. The motion also calls for victims to receive some form of compensation, and for existing laws in member states to be geared towards protecting all children from abuse and maltreatment.

TV program Spoorloos linked at least two participants to the wrong family

Omroep KRO-NCRV acknowledges that at least two people who participated in the Spoorloos program were linked to the wrong biological family. The broadcaster makes this known in a press statement, in response to findings in the RTL program Scammers Tackled by journalist Kees van der Spek.

The upcoming episode of Scammers Tackled a Colombian intermediary, who for years carried out investigative work in Colombia for Spoorloos for a fee. The fixer, Edwin Vela, was involved in sixteen cases. It turns out that there are now at least two mismatches.

Kees van der Spek told this in the Jinek program:

0:41

MISMATCHES TRACK A Dutch correspondent who has been working as an intermediary in Colombia for the Spoorloos program for many years, had to leave the Wereldkinderen foundation in the past because of allegations of inappropriate practices involving adoptive parents, sources against this site confirm. This seems to indicate a second dubious intermediary in the popular program.

The broadcaster confirms that until 2010, the woman worked closely with Edwin Vela, the discredited Colombian fixer who used the Spoorloos program to track down family members. "She occasionally hired Vela for his detective work in places that were unsafe or difficult to reach for her as a foreign woman," a spokesperson said. "Together with him, she has selected a total of sixteen cases for Spoorloos."

Those involved in the adoption world find it 'inconceivable' that KRO-NCRV still works with the woman, they let this site know.

Bomb under program

Crime journalist Kees van der Spek yesterday put a bomb under the extremely successful Spoorloos program with his revelations, which has been an institution on Dutch television for over thirty years. A fraudulent intermediary in Colombia is said to have participated in at least sixteen searches for biological parents of Dutch people for the program. KRO-NCRV can now confirm two 'mismatches' of Dutch people who are not linked to the correct biological parents in Colombia.