Dear journalists,

I’m Nameless Adoptee, a Korean adoptee advocating for the rights of adoptees worldwide. Today, I’m reaching out with an urgent plea: Matthieu Sung-tan, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee in France, is dying from a rare genetic disease, and South Korea’s National Center for the Rights of the Child (NCRC) is blocking access to the records that could save him. His story, detailed in two Yonhap News articles published today, March 17, 2025, exposes a systemic crisis affecting thousands of adoptees. Your coverage can make a difference — Matthieu’s life depends on it.

Matthieu’s Heartbreaking Struggle

Matthieu Sung-tan Foucault (Korean name: Jang Sung-tan) was born on December 23, 1986, in Iksan, South Korea, and adopted to France at four months old in April 1987 through Holt Children’s Welfare Society. Raised in a loving middle-class French family, he became a skilled stonemason and carpenter, contributing to the restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral. He loved playing the guitar and dreamed of a simple life with his wife, Lauriane Simon, and their children, Eloise (3) and Esteban (1).

But since spring 2024, Matthieu’s life has unraveled. He’s suspected of suffering from Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI), a rare genetic disease that prevents sleep, leading to hallucinations, memory loss, and a disconnection from reality. Yonhap News reports that he’s so exhausted he must close his eyes constantly, yet he cannot sleep — his condition is deteriorating rapidly. Without treatment, FFI patients typically survive only 18 months, with a range of 7 months to 6 years. Matthieu’s survival window is closing.

The country that receives internationally adopted children is the receiving country, and the country that sends them is the sending country. Sending has a stronger meaning of 'mechanically transmitting goods, electricity, radio waves, information, etc.' than 'sending people abroad.' Receiving simply means 'accepting money or goods.' The reason I looked into the meaning again is because of a sentence written by Lee Kyung-eun, the representative of human rights beyond borders, in <A country that abandons its citizens> (Geulhangari).

Lee Kyung-eun, the representative of Borderless Human Rights, says, “International adoption is a transaction that takes place in a market of illegality and injustice.” Reporter Kim Jong-mok

“I am not an object.” “I” am the 15-day-old baby “SK (the initials of his name).” In one chapter of the book, CEO Lee uses the form of a dream to represent SK. SK was almost illegally adopted from Korea to the United States in June 2012. In the process, he was in danger of being sent to a U.S. refugee child detention center. CEO Lee, who was the director of the Child Welfare Policy Division of the Ministry of Health and Welfare at the time, took the lead in repatriation, even going to U.S. courts. It was not an easy task. High-ranking officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs treated SK as “someone involved in illegal activities.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “I don’t know anything about it” until a high-ranking U.S. official contacted him. CEO Lee also dealt with Americans, including employees at the U.S. Embassy in Korea. CEO Lee says, “I suffered so much that I had to trade a tooth.” The book is also an indictment against several public officials in powerful ministries, such as the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

LAVA and AVGG have applied for and received a subsidy from Inea for organizing the adoption breakfast . In accordance with the subsidy conditions, we have
listed Inea's contribution on the website.

We were surprised to learn that Inea
distanced itself so openly from the meeting on Linkedin on 12 March 2025. In the relevant Linkedin post, Inea states that the
final implementation of the meeting does not fit within Inea's mission and vision.

First of all, we are curious about what Inea based this judgment on. LAVA and AVGG
organized this meeting to update members of parliament and their employees on the
(im)possibilities of the phase-out plan, both legally and socially, emotionally and socially.
In our opinion, the meeting worked out exactly as indicated in the request for proposals.
In addition, permit holders, parents and adoptees were involved in the organization and the
organization was organized by two associations together. It is precisely on this subject that it is good to
seek connection and in our opinion this fits within Inea's mission and strategy.

In addition, Inea's attitude surprises us even more, because the approval for the subsidy
was only given on March 6 (one day after the meeting). Due to malfunctions in the system, Inea was behind in
processing applications. In our opinion, Inea was therefore able to
inquire in advance about the elaboration of the meeting at all times.

We deeply regret that Inea, after the commotion caused by a small but very verbal group of
radically critical people, feels compelled to self-censor its own decisions
. In our opinion, this shows that Inea is mainly there for those who
are critical of adoption. Inea should be objective and independent and for all adoptees. However, because
this post also suggests that LAVA and AVGG have done something that would not be in line with
the application, we feel compelled to publicly distance ourselves from these claims. In addition,
we will file a formal complaint about this course of events.

In the United States, an adopted child can be resold online like an object. This system, called rehoming, affects 25,000 children each year, transferred to other families without any oversight. A scandal that reveals the serious flaws in the American system.

Behind the facade of adoption in the United States lies a sordid reality: adopted children are being resold online as mere objects . This system, known as rehoming , allows adoptive parents to part with a child by giving them to another family without any oversight from the authorities . A frightening practice that affects approximately 25,000 children each year and takes advantage of a worrying legal loophole .

Rehoming: A market for unsupervised adopted children

In many US states, adopting a child requires only a few days of training and a clean criminal record. But if parents feel the child doesn't meet their expectations , they can simply resell them online . Private agencies, operating without any official regulation , offer platforms where children are listed with photos, detailed descriptions, and even prices . "Here, it's a money-back guarantee. After adopting a child, you can decide you don't want them anymore." - Seven  to Eight.

A father in Texas has admitted to killing his 8-year-old daughter with his wife by forcing the youngster to jump repeatedly on a scorching hot trampoline, which apparently had a surface temperature of approximately 110 degrees at the time.

Daniel Schwarz, 48, didn’t care about the blistering August heat when he forced his child, Jaylin Schwarz, to keep jumping on the trampoline that day in 2020 at their home in Odessa, according to prosecutors. Schwarz pleaded guilty Friday to manslaughter and was sentenced to serve 18 years in prison after accepting a plea agreement. The Ector County District Attorney’s Office announced the deal in a Facebook post, saying it came after Schwarz’s wife, Ashley Schwarz, was previously convicted of capital murder in May 2023.

“(Schwarz) has pleaded guilty to Manslaughter in the tragic death of his adopted daughter,” the DA’s office said. “The case dates back to August 29, 2020, when law enforcement responded to a medical emergency involving an 8-year-old girl. Investigators later discovered that Daniel and his wife, Ashley, had forced their daughter to jump on a trampoline for an extended period without food or water as a form of punishment. The trampoline’s surface temperature was approximately 110 degrees at the time.”

Related Coverage

A 39-year-old mother in Hawaii is accused of killing her 11-year-old adopted daughter, allegedly punching and slapping the child for a half hour straight until she ultimately died.

Sina Pili was indicted by a grand jury and taken into custody Friday on one count each of manslaughter, endangering the welfare of a minor, and persistent nonsupport in the slaying of Azaeliyah Pili-Ah You, authorities announced.

According to Lieutenant Deena Thoemmes of the Honolulu Police Department, officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel on Dec. 22, 2023 responded to a report of an unresponsive juvenile female at a home in Laie. The fire department was first on the scene and apparently found Azaeliyah’s father performing lifesaving procedures on the victim at the direction of the 911 dispatcher.

Paramedics rushed the victim to Kahuku Hospital where she was pronounced dead. A determination about the manner and cause of death were delayed pending further testing.

Thousands of Georgians are coming to terms with a black-market adoption scandal in which children were stolen from maternity hospitals from the 1970s to the mid-2000s.

Irina always thought that the suitcase buried underneath a tree in her backyard contained the remains of her twin sons who had died shortly after birth, in 1978.
"When I gave birth, the doctor said to me: 'Do you have the means to raise these children?" she recalled decades later.
Three days after they were born, Irina was told the babies didn't survive. As instructed by the doctors, her husband brought a cloth and a suitcase to bury them in.
Since they couldn't find a cemetery plot, they buried the suitcase in their garden, unopened.
For more than 40 years, the suitcase and its contents laid untouched, until Irina's daughter Nino came across a Facebook group filled with stories of children searching for parents and parents searching for children.
Black-market adoptions and child trafficking had thrived in Georgia for decades from the Soviet era in the 1970s until the mid-2000s, when tougher laws were introduced.
Experts who have spoken to those affected by the scandal said a culture of shame surrounding adoption was one of the reasons the practice lasted so long underground.
Others believed high-level government officials were complicit and some of those involved might still be working in Georgian hospitals today.
"I read a few [Facebook] posts and then I couldn't read any more," Nino said.
Parents said in the posts they had been told their children had died but never saw the bodies — something that sounded familiar to Nino.
She asked her sister Nana: "Did our brothers really die?"
The family grew suspicious of the twins' fate and decided to dig up the suitcase in the backyard.
For more than 40 years, a suitcase was buried in Irina's garden believed to contain her twin sons' remains. Source: BBC

Inside, they found a couple of twigs, which the police later said were from a grape vine.
"We were completely shocked," Nino said. "There’s nothing inside. They’re probably alive."
 

Searching for answers

In 2016, Georgian journalist Tamuna Museridze was cleaning out her mother's house after she unexpectedly died. She found a birth certificate with her name but with a different birthdate.
In Georgia, every woman receives an official document after giving birth. But when Museridze went to the archives, she found no such document existed for her mother.
She concluded that her mother didn't give birth to her, so she must have been adopted. When her family refused to talk about it, Museridze set out to find answers.
She and her friend set up a Facebook group called "I'm searching". It quickly exploded. In post after post, people shared how they too, were looking for their biological parents and siblings.
Museridze's research found that the trafficking of babies was happening in at least 20 hospitals across Georgia. Many were in rural areas, like Kvareli, a small town in east Georgia, where Irina and her family lived.
Georgian journalist Tamuna Museridze accidentally found out she wasn't her mother's biological child. When she set out to find answers, she uncovered an old illegal adoption scheme that had thrived across Georgia. Source: BBC

Aid Pamela Keesee's Medical Journey

My mom, Pamela Keesee, age 69, had a major stroke on January 14, 2025. She was rushed to the ER in Brenham, TX, and later moved to Memorial Hermann Hospital for treatment and physical therapy. She was then moved to Katy Encompass Rehab facility where they would evaluate and help her recover. Finally, she was moved to Katy Silvercrest Memory and Assisted Living until she heals.

This would be her 6th stroke with 2 major and 4 minor. This would be the first time she has experienced cognition problems leading to longer stays. However, all the medical bills came at once and are too much for me and my mom to pay, and would love help in our times of need.

0 Catholic adoption agencies pressured unmarried mothers to give up their newborn child. In three episodes, investigative journalist David Van Turnhout examines these practices, but he also looks at the consequences and the current situation. Today he speaks with Benoît Vermeerbergen of Binnenlands Geadoptteerd.

From 1945 to 1980, Catholic adoption agencies such as Thérèse Wante organised thousands of forced adoptions. Unmarried pregnant girls were usually put in touch with centres through clergy or Christian organisations where they had to hide during their pregnancy, because becoming pregnant without being married was a mortal sin. Those who had enough money to spare could give birth anonymously in France, after which the child was smuggled back across the border and placed with a Catholic adoptive family. In this way, they wanted to prevent the pregnancy from ever coming out and society from speaking shame about the girl's family. Those who were less well-off were often sent to Belgian centres, such as De kleine vos in Borgerhout or Tamar in Lommel. The birth was discreet, but not anonymous, as the mother's name was then mentioned on the birth certificate. In France, the mother's name was not mentioned on the birth certificate.

A total of 30 to 40,000 girls and young women are estimated to have given birth in domestic and French centres and hospitals. The number of adopted children still alive today may therefore be in the tens of thousands. Almost all adopted children have questions about their origins and identity. Their search prompted them to unite. In the meantime, there are Facebook groups in which thousands of members try to help each other find their biological mothers. Their cry for attention led to the first recognition in 2015. Both the Belgian state and the Church apologized for the practices they had organised and made possible for decades.

Mother known for 2.5 hoursApologies do not answer the many questions. To help adoptees and birth mothers, Benoît Vermeerbergen De Coninck and Debby Mattys founded the website and support group Binnenlands Geadopteerd around the same time. “With our platform, we primarily offer a listening ear, but we also stand up for the rights of domestic adoptees. We also include people who were brought to Belgium via an anonymous birth in France,” says Vermeerbergen De Coninck. “There were already a few initiatives for adoptees from far abroad, but not for our group.”Vermeerbergen himself was born via an anonymous birth in France and ended up with an Antwerp adoptive family. Although he grew up in a warm nest, the search for his identity and his birth mother dominated his adult life. It was only a few years ago that he met his birth mother for the first time, who was terminally ill. It was just one meeting. “Her husband didn’t allow any further contact. I didn’t know my birth mother for more than two and a half hours.”Benoit Vermeerbergen De Coninck.Benoit Vermeerbergen De Coninck. © Patrick De Roo

David Van Turnhout

Woensdag 6 maart 2025

om 03:00

Vanaf de jaren 50 tot begin de jaren 80 zetten katholieke adoptiebureaus ongehuwde moeders onder druk om hun pasgeboren kind af te staan. In drie afleveringen neemt onderzoeksjournalist David Van Turnhout die activiteiten onder de loep.

Vandaag deel 1: de naam Adoptiewerk Thérèse Wante keert in adoptiedossiers steeds terug, wat was haar rol?