When Viktor Adolfsson was very young, he and a sister were adopted from Romania, and they grew up together in a family in Örebro.

But many more siblings remained in Romania, and in 2009 Viktor received help from the TV program Spårlöst to find them.

Not a day goes by without Viktor thinking about how grateful he is that he was adopted, and how much he wants to help his siblings to a better life.

Anna Björndahl

anna.bjorndahl@sverigesradio.se

The CDA in Zaanstad wants to know whether the involvement of a French investor in Zaan youth care is detrimental to the quality of the care.

The mental health care provider has come into French hands and the fear is that the profit is more important than the care.

CDA member Nick Hendriks wants to know whether Zaanstad notices that the practitioner is in the hands of a company that has nothing to do with care, and also whether other institutions active in the Zaan region are owned by investment companies.

Research has shown that complex healthcare in particular is disadvantaged if assistance becomes an investment object. Hendriks also wants to see that translated to the Zaan situation.

If the situation requires it, the CDA wants Zaanstad to make new agreements with the care institutions together with the other municipalities in the region. A way must always be found to prevent young people asking for help from being told no.

Until 2009, all adoptions from the United States concerned partial mediation adoption procedures. This meant that the Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs), after receiving permission from a Dutch adoption license holder, started the adoption procedure themselves through a self-established contact in America and took care of everything themselves. In 2009, the Dutch government decided against partial mediation in American adoption procedures. The main reason for this decision was the lack of insight into the details of an American adoption procedure. Partly for this reason, there was a sense that ‘things might not be completely right’ with adoptions from the USA For a long time, it remained uncertain what the future of the American adoption procedures might be. Especially when at a certain moment the American adoption contacts Michael Goldstein and Adoption ARC – both with long-term experience in intercountry adoption mediation to the Netherlands – stated that it would not be possible for them to work with the existing Dutch adoption license holders. This would have meant the end of adoptions from the United States.

Meanwhile, the Dutch Central Authority for Intercountry Adoption (CA) took over the complete adoption mediation responsibilities for these American contacts, although this should not have been the role of the CA in an adoption procedure, because the CA should monitor the adoption license holders and all the individual adoption procedures. However, this concerned a temporary situation, which also meant that the mediations from the United States would come to an end.

Some of the adoptive parents felt strongly about this, and in their free time and of their own free will they founded a new adoption license holder, applied for the license, asked permission to provide mediation services in the United States and in the Netherlands, and held meetings with Adoption ARC and Goldstein to establish new partnerships with them.

After putting a lot of time and energy into it, their efforts did not go unrewarded. The founding of this new adoption license holder, Adoption Foundation A New Way (Adoptiestichting A New Way) made it possible to continue with the adoptions from the United States, and to place these children with safe and loving families in the Netherlands: with hetero couple’s, individual applicants, and same-sex couples!

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A New Zealander who has fought for years to adopt her nieces and nephews from Ethiopia is now facing the possibility that one will have to be left behind - unless there is government intervention.

Ms Norman* filed for adoption in 2017, so the four children, whose parents disappeared in 2013, could live with her in New Zealand.

In Ethiopia, the children are under the care of another aunt, with financial support from Norman.

The children all share a small room with their aunt and her 10-year-old daughter.

Once rent is paid, there is only money left for the most basic of food, with no money remaining for other necessities such as clothes.

--------- Forwarded message ---------

From: ve_just.a.1-civil-justice(JUST)

Date: Tue 30. Mar 2021 at 16:33

Subject: Ares(2021)2200774 - [Re] Letter from SRJ regarding illegal adoptions - UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

To: DOHLE Arun

In the Netherlands, on 8 February 2021, the so-called Joustra report , prepared by the Committee for the Study of International Adoption for the Ministry of Legal Protection, was published . The report presents studies of adoptions to the Netherlands from 23 countries with emphasis on the period 1967-1998 and special focus on adoptions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Colombia and Indonesia.

The conclusions speak for themselves: In all countries, irregularities and systematic blackmail of mothers and child trafficking have been identified - even after the introduction of the Hague Convention in 1998 - a convention whose main purpose is otherwise to ensure that international adoptions are carried out on a legal and ethically sound basis. .

The report has led the Netherlands to impose a temporary ban on adoption applicants, and it has not yet been decided whether the country will definitively shut down the placement of foreign children into childless families.

The Swedish government has just decided to conduct a similar study of adoptions to the country from the 1960s to the 1990s. The study also aims to account for the responsibilities of Swedish intermediary organizations and the state in any illegalities.

The background for the government decision is, among other things, an ongoing investigation in Chile, which shows that thousands of adoptions of Chilean children to Sweden and other countries have been made on an illegal basis, with false papers and without parental consent. In addition, adult Swedish adoptees via the association chileadoption.se, among others, have worked for years through various media channels to inform the public about the systematic fraud within adoption.

It is worrying that more children are adopted away without consent, says the researcher. Lolland Municipality is responsible for most forced adoptions in the country.

Several children are adopted away against the will of their parents.

Last year, 30 children were forcibly adopted, according to figures from the National Board of Appeal.

That is 9 more than in 2019 and 20 more than in 2018. Back in 2016, one child was forcibly adopted.

And it is a worrying development because there is not enough knowledge about forced adoptions, says adjunct professor at Aalborg University Inge Bryderup, who researches child placements.

'We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...schools are not orphans to be adopted,' said the activists.

BENGALURU: As many as 17 academicians and activists in the education field have taken offence to the use of the word ‘adoption’ in the ongoing school adoption process after the state government constituted a committee to monitor school development programmes.

In a memorandum to the state government, academicians and activists led by Niranjanaradhya VP, Senior Fellow, Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School India University (NLSIU), have said that the term ‘school nurturing’ should be used instead of ‘adoption’, and have iterated that the Department of Public Instruction had already begun a programme called ‘Shalegagi Naavu Neevu’, to mobilise additional support for nurturing government schools through School Development and Management Committees (SDMCs).

“We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘monitoring committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...Government schools are not orphans to be adopted. The parents’ body, established through an Act of Parliament, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, is the parent of the school; hence no authority has a right to give away the school in adoption to anybody else,” they said.

“The notion of ‘adopting’ a school creates a sense of helplessness, charity, lack of resourcing and abdication by the constitutionally mandated responsibility of the state which is delegated to the SDMC, as well as by its trustee, the state government,” they said. “Today, we are in the era of ‘Rights-based development’ and not ‘Charity-based approach’ of erstwhile monarchies. We request the CM and the Education Minister to set right this mistake,” they added.

'We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...schools are not orphans to be adopted,' said the activists.

BENGALURU: As many as 17 academicians and activists in the education field have taken offence to the use of the word ‘adoption’ in the ongoing school adoption process after the state government constituted a committee to monitor school development programmes.

In a memorandum to the state government, academicians and activists led by Niranjanaradhya VP, Senior Fellow, Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School India University (NLSIU), have said that the term ‘school nurturing’ should be used instead of ‘adoption’, and have iterated that the Department of Public Instruction had already begun a programme called ‘Shalegagi Naavu Neevu’, to mobilise additional support for nurturing government schools through School Development and Management Committees (SDMCs).

“We note, with deep distress, the announcement by the state government, of a ‘monitoring committee’ to monitor the ‘school adoption’ programme...Government schools are not orphans to be adopted. The parents’ body, established through an Act of Parliament, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, is the parent of the school; hence no authority has a right to give away the school in adoption to anybody else,” they said.

“The notion of ‘adopting’ a school creates a sense of helplessness, charity, lack of resourcing and abdication by the constitutionally mandated responsibility of the state which is delegated to the SDMC, as well as by its trustee, the state government,” they said. “Today, we are in the era of ‘Rights-based development’ and not ‘Charity-based approach’ of erstwhile monarchies. We request the CM and the Education Minister to set right this mistake,” they added.

From 1956 onwards, ten thousand women gave up their children. They were often young, disgraced their families and the new adoption law made it easier to give up a child. But by no means always this was voluntary for the women. Many mothers never saw their children again.

Distance mothers program

Did you give up your child for adoption in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s of the last century? Have you been walking around for years with the question: Where is my child? The program Where is my child? from 3CTV would like to help you with your search. In this series, the program makers go in search of their child with Dutch, biological mothers. They support and guide the mothers. The goal is to find the child, but just as important is the way there. In Where is my child? the makers follow the mothers, they listen to your story and the taboo that still exists on your story in the Netherlands is broken. With this program, attention is finally being paid to mothers who lost their child to adoption.

On March 29, 2021, Time for MAX will also pay attention to this topic.

Sign up for Where is my child?