OPINION: There’s an unfathomable quality about TV programmes such as Long Lost Family, or its antipodean cousin, David Lomas’ Lost and Found. The narratives are heartbreakingly familiar: a child adopted out to loving parents enjoys a happy childhood, only to discover in later life that a piece of the “who am I” puzzle is missing. There’s a void in their identity, which the programme naturally manages to fill.

Redemption makes for top-rating telly that’s guaranteed to shed a tear among the voyeuristic like you and me. What these programmes blithely ignore is that, for the approximately 80,000 people who’ve been adopted between 1955-85, the state has engaged in sanctioned child-trafficking that redistributed children from single mothers to couples who couldn’t have children, claiming the birth mothers had a choice – when they didn’t.

Now finally, the most antiquated of the three pieces of legislation surrounding adoption, the 1955 Adoption Act, is under review.

The Ministry of Justice has released a discussion paper “Adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand”, reviewing the act. It’s seeking submissions on six key issues: what is adoption and who is involved; cultural aspects of adoption, including wh?ngai? or atawhai; how the adoption process works in New Zealand and offshore; the impacts of adoption; and the adoption process for a surrogate child.

READ MORE:

This article is the seventh in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children they had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. ? ED.

By Lee Kyung-eun

gettyimagesbank

From early 2000, Korea witnessed the permanent return of children it had once sent to the U.S. for adoption. Unlike adoptees visiting on motherland tours, these individuals had been deported by the U.S. after committing petty crimes. Despite having grown up in the U.S., they had never acquired American citizenship and therefore were regarded as foreign criminals since their Korean nationality remained intact.

These cases have had tragic consequences. In 2011, Philip Clay, born Kim Sang-pil in the 1970s, suffered such a fate. Like the other deportees, his adoption was never finalized, and he failed to acquire U.S. citizenship. After a long struggle to adjust to Korea, he committed suicide in 2017. While Clay had Korean citizenship, his adoption should have guaranteed him U.S. nationality. Adoption is meant to serve as a permanent and secure solution for children deprived of parental care, and becoming a national of the receiving country represents a fundamental basis for achieving such security.

'Adopted' woman, 56, reveals horror at learning her parents illegally BOUGHT her from a Georgia baby trafficker - after spending 13 years searching for answers about her birth mom

Jane Blasio, 56, from Akron, Ohio, was one of the hundreds of babies who were trafficked out of Dr. Thomas J. Hicks's clinic in McCaysville, Georgia

From the 1940s through the 1960s, the small-town doctor sold more than 200 newborns to out-of-state couples, many of which hailed from the Akron area

Blasio was told she was adopted when she was six, but it wasn't until she was a teenager that she the discrepancies on her birth certificate

Her mother, Joan, and father, Jim, were illegally named as her birth parents on the document, which also listed the Hicks Clinic

Jane Blasio went looking for her biological parents and uncovered a shocking scandal — she was one of hundreds of infants illegally sold in the 1950s and 1960s from a clinic in Georgia

Six-year-old Jane Blasio was playing in her backyard one afternoon when her life was upended. Her father, Jim, asked her to come indoors because he wanted to tell her something.

The Akron, Ohio resident ran inside to find Jim puffing on a cigarette.

"We have something to tell you and it may be hard for you to understand," he said to Blasio and her sister Michelle, 11, who sat at the kitchen table.

As he fumbled for his words, Joan, the girls' mother, announced, "You two were adopted. Do you know what that means?"

ZEVENAAR - Sam van den Haak from Zevenaar, born in Sri Lanka, is suing the Dutch state. She was adopted in 1984, under false pretenses. “When I saw my adoption file, I was in shock.”

Together with twenty other adopted children, Van den Haak will send a letter to the Dutch state this week. Their adoption papers are forged, that is the conclusion of the Joustra Committee. The adoptions have caused them a lot of damage and they want to be compensated for that.

The date of birth in her passport is certainly not the day she was born, Sam learned from her Sri Lankan grandmother. To top it off, the date of birth in her passport is not the same one listed in her adoption file. "I feel sold and bought", says Sam.

She is working on a book about her life. Not born on my birthday, is the working title. "I think it is important that my story is told," says Sam She will be 40 in December of this year. Although, according to her passport, she celebrated her birthday earlier this month. "Future adoptive parents should learn from the mistakes made in the past. And I want my real date of birth in my passport."

How is it possible that these people passed the screening for adoption?

Bombay High Court

Janani Ashish Charitable Trust vs Frederic Christian ... on 8 July, 2021

Bench: D. S. Naidu

4. FAP No. 17 of 2021

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY

Author: Dama Seshadri Naidu

Bench: Dama Seshadri Naidu

                                              4. FAP No. 17 of 2021    IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY        ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION                        AND     IN ITS GENERAL AND INHERENT JURISDICTION        FOREIGN ADOPTION PETITION NO. 17 OF 2021                        WITH             JUDGE'S ORDER NO. 106 OF 2021Janani Ashish Charitable Trust               ...Petitioner        VersusFrederic Christian B. Delvaux, Belgian and   ...Proposed                                             Adoptive parentsAnr. And Flore Aachal Anelle Maureen(Minor)                          .....Mr. Rakesh Kapoor - Advocate for the Petitioner.Mr. O. Hareendran Nambiar, Scrutiny Officer, IndianCouncil of Social Welfare, present.Mr. D. R. Talekar - Chamber Registrar, present.                          .....                   CORAM : DAMA SESHADRI NAIDU, J.

DATE : 08th JULY 2021.

P.C. :

Bombay High Court

Janani Ashish Charitable Trust vs Frederic Christian B.Delvaux,Belgian ... on 8 July, 2021

Author: Dama Seshadri Naidu

Bench: Dama Seshadri Naidu

                                              4. FAP No. 17 of 2021    IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY        ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION                        AND     IN ITS GENERAL AND INHERENT JURISDICTION        FOREIGN ADOPTION PETITION NO. 17 OF 2021                        WITH             JUDGE'S ORDER NO. 106 OF 2021Janani Ashish Charitable Trust               ...Petitioner        VersusFrederic Christian B. Delvaux, Belgian and   ...Proposed                                             Adoptive parentsAnr. And Flore Aachal Anelle Maureen(Minor)                          .....Mr. Rakesh Kapoor - Advocate for the Petitioner.Mr. O. Hareendran Nambiar, Scrutiny Officer, IndianCouncil of Social Welfare, present.Mr. D. R. Talekar - Chamber Registrar, present.                          .....                   CORAM : DAMA SESHADRI NAIDU, J.

Some maternity wards in Turkmenistan secretly offer abandoned babies for illegal adoption to prospective parents willing to pay a bribe to skip the normal bureaucracy and long wait that goes with the process, several sources tell RFE/RL.

The illegal deal often involves employees from registry offices who provide the new parents with false birth certificates that show them as the biological parents, the sources claim.

People with knowledge of the deals blame rampant corruption in the agencies involved in the legal adoption process for pushing some parents to a "cheaper and faster" option.

RFE/RL spoke to a married couple who admitted illegally adopting a baby in 2020 after paying about $4,300 in bribes. The couple, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they initially tried for three years to adopt a child legally, but without success.

Like many other countries, Turkmenistan requires prospective parents to provide documents from various agencies to ensure their suitability to adopt a child. The couple said they diligently assembled the necessary documents and submitted them, but each official involved in the process demanded bribes and deliberately delayed the process, the husband said.

Key policy documents

Australia’s key policies and documents for prospective adoptive parents and approved applicants are available below.

For information on the intercountry adoption process, including eligibility criteria, immigration requirements and post-adoption support, visit the Intercountry Adoption Australia website.

Protocol for Responding to Allegations of Illicit or Illegal Practices in Intercountry Adoption

The Protocol provides information and assistance to adoptees and adoptive families in circumstances where there have are allegations or concerns about illicit or illegal practices, including: