Statistics Netherlands investigated the search behavior of intercountry adopted persons for more information about the adoption and background. Fiom, in collaboration with Statistics Netherlands, has summarized the results of this research in a clear fact sheet.

Survey Research

In 2021, the report “Commission investigation into intercountry adoption in the past” was published as a result of an independent investigation into the state of affairs surrounding old international adoptions and the role of the Dutch government in this. In 2020, Statistics Netherlands investigated for the committee which searches adopted persons have made for more information about their background and adoption. Statistics Netherlands conducted a representative survey among people who were adopted internationally, born in the period 1970 - 1998. By chance (random sample), 11,456 adopted people were invited for the survey, of which 3,454 people completed the online questionnaire. The mean age of the participants was 35 years and 55% were female. Most participants were born in Colombia, India, Sri Lanka, China,

Information from adoptive parents

Most adopted adults feel that the parents have been open about the adoption (90%) and indicate that the parents have shared information about the adoption voluntarily (70%) or after they have asked (20%). However, two in three adoptees indicated that information was found to be incorrect during the search, including birth certificate, date of birth, name of biological parents or reason for renunciation.

Ukraine simplifies the procedure for adopting Ukrainian children through a "fast digital process", the Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy and the Ministry of Digital Transformation announced on Wednesday, reports CNN, according to News.ro.

About 17,000 children in Ukraine are waiting to be adopted, said Deputy Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine Kostiantin Ko?ielenko.

He mentioned that there are "several times fewer potential adoptive parents. One of the reasons is that the adoption procedure is very complicated".

The Ukrainian official emphasized that they will "implement a fast digital process", which will include only five minutes in which to submit the request for "initial consultation".

An initial adoption application can be submitted through the Diia portal starting Wednesday, and adoption applications will be able to be submitted online from August, Ko?ielenko added.

June 1, 2022 - Exactly 60 years after the independence of Rwanda and Burundi, the three-part documentary series Metissen of Belgium tells the disconcerting history of more than 300 metis from the Belgian colonial period in Rwanda.

The makers of the series do this on the basis of the life stories of three of them: Jaak, Paul and Jacqueline.

As illegitimate children of a white father and a black mother, they were taken from their mother by the Belgian government and placed in Save's boarding school in Rwanda. Just before independence, they also had to leave there and were rushed to Belgium.

There they ended up uprooted and traumatized in an adoptive family or an orphanage. They were events that marked the rest of their lives. It was only in 2015 that they gained access to their official file and were able to search for their roots.

A production by The Chinese for Canvas.

Vive research helps to stamp out the government's plans for more adoptions as a social measure, but the report's conclusions lack the necessary reservations and nuances, writes Anette Faye Jacobsen, senior researcher at the Department of Human Rights.

Anette Faye Jacobsen

Ph.d. and senior researcher, Department of Human Rights

This post is merely an expression of the writer's own position. All submissions to the Althing must comply with the rules of press ethics.

A new Vive report fits like a glove for politicians who want to lean on science when the Child's Law is to be presented.

SHAH ALAM: The High Court here has allowed an Algerian man’s application for a paternity test to be conducted on an adopted male child.

The man’s lover had given the child up for adoption, without his knowledge, 12 days after giving birth.

Judge SM Komathy said should the result of the DNA test prove so, the plaintiff will also be declared the biological father.

In her judgment released last week, Komathy said the plaintiff had strong prima facie evidence that he is the biological father as there was compelling evidence that the biological mother and the plaintiff had a sexual relationship.

“The plaintiff has produced adequate corroborative evidence to show that there is a good possibility that he is the birth father, and only a DNA test can confirm conclusively the veracity of his claim,” she said.

Rosanne (41, obstetrician) and Martin (38, has her own company in marketing and strategy), have three adopted children: Shawn (12), Josiah (9) and Hannah (3). All three children are from South Africa. First came Josiah (when he was 11 months), then Shawn (who was 5.5 at the time). Hannah came in April 2020, she was almost 1.5 years old then. The family lives in Veenendaal.

No need to be pregnant

Rosanne: 'I don't recognize the need to carry a child. Not even to give birth. As a midwife, I am often asked that, logically. I think it's fantastic to experience, but for myself I don't feel that need so strongly.

Now that I am a mother, I can miss that feeling that you know from scratch where your child is and what it is going through. That sometimes saddens me. That I couldn't be there for them from day one. They were able to save them from that difficult and sometimes damaging start they had.

Repair the damage

Coimbatore: The district child protection unit (DCPU) is looking for parents to adopt a 14-year-old girl.

The girl had lost a parent before the pandemic and the other to Covid-19, district child protection officer M Mathiyalagan said. “She is staying in a government-registered shelter in the district because she did not have any relative,” he told TOI.

“As many as 21 children lost both their parents and 544 lost either father or mother to the Covid-19 infection in the district. Unlike other children who had relatives, this girl, a Class IX student, has none. So, we are searching for suitable parents to adopt her,” the official said.

DCPU is planning to conduct counselling sessions for the girl about the adoption process, Mathiyalagan said. “Even though the girl is free to stay in the shelter until she turns 18, she needs a place for foster care after that.”

“The unit had received applications from seven parents willing to adopt children. Most of them showed interest in adopting babies. We check their background thoroughly before proceeding with the adoption process as we need to ensure that the adopted children are given good care,” he added.

It seems natural to know who your parents or grandparents are. Except for donor children like Jessie Kerkhove.

Today is Genetic Identity Day, the day to reflect on the importance of genetic identity. Many people do not think about it, because it is obvious where you come from. You know your parents, grandparents, or even great-grandparents. But not everyone has that privilege. Think of adoptees and donor children (and other target groups whose right to genetic identity is violated).

This is a day to raise awareness. Primarily by the government. Last year we were given a towel for the bleeding and after a lot of work from the target groups and the initiators – for which all due respect – the Flemish Descendancy Center was created. This center provides psychological counseling to donor children, among others, and has set up a DNA database, which currently contains about twenty DNA samples. They also talk to fertility doctors and gynaecologists and give lectures to students.

Although these are certainly also important activities, this does not change anything for the (adult) donor children who are already there. The real changes must come from politics.

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Starting in 2023, Quebec parents who want to adopt a child internationally will be required to take a preparation program developed by the Ministry of Health and Social Services.

The first steps international adoption program was launched Monday morning in Montreal by junior health minister Lionel Carmant.

The preparatory course will be done entirely online through a series of nine episodes, including readings, videos and questionnaires, in order to allow prospective parents to follow the training at their own pace.

The program aims not only to equip parents with the intricacies of international adoption but also to allow them to evaluate themselves about the process.

The nine episodes include the basic motivation to adopt a child, the experiences of children in the adoption context, their social-emotional development and risk and protective factors. The episodes also discuss the child's pre-adoption experience and subsequent search for identity.

With the help of the Donorkind Foundation, donor children found ten fertility doctors in the past five years who used their own sperm without permission to conceive children with women who wanted to have children. Not all those cases have appeared in the media, board member Ester de Lau of the foundation told NU.nl.

Some cases, such as those of well-known sperm doctors such as Jan Karbaat, Jan Wildschut or Jos Beek, have been extensively in the news in recent years. These doctors used their own semen instead of the intended father's to father dozens of children. For example, Karbaat has at least 81 offspring, which increases the risk of love relationships between siblings.

Donorkind Foundation searches for fathers of donor children in commercial DNA databases. Over the past five years, they found a total of 150 to 200 fathers of thousands of children. De Lau finds it "difficult" that especially the donor doctors and their descendants receive a lot of attention in the press. "It is always very much about the abuses, while Monday (the Day of the Donor Child, ed.) is a day to celebrate."

At the same time, the abuses also generate more attention, concludes the board member. "Every time a doctor is in the news, we get a flood of applications from donor children." The attention also ensures that parents start talking to their children.

'Being the doctor is an extra handicap'