WIERDEN/RIJSSEN - Two sisters from Nepal are adopted at a young age by different Dutch families. What is the chance that they will live close to each other in Twente? Sanumaya Lensen (43) and Shanti Tuinstra (44) found each other in Rijssen.

Sanumaya and Shanti were both adopted in 1979 and 1980, but not by the same Dutch parents. It has only been a few years since they officially confirmed that they are biological sisters, after they had a DNA test. "But we already felt it. We were both told that we had a sister in the Netherlands."

Dads knew each other

Sanumaya came to her adoptive parents in Rijssen in December 1979 as a toddler of 1.5 years, Shanti a few months later at the age of 3 in Enschede. “Our fathers knew each other,” says Shanti. “My father worked in Rijssen, and we later moved there too. Every day I cycled past Sanumaya's house on my way to my school in Nijverdal. One day, when it was her birthday, I brought a present.”

Our bond has become much closer since we have proof that we are really sisters, it's magical

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Bringing her camera to a home for unwed mothers on South Korea’s Jeju island, Sun Hee Engelstoft anticipated an empowering story about young women keeping their babies.

Instead, she ended up with a raw and unsettling documentary about how a deeply conservative sexual culture, loose birth registration laws and a largely privatized adoption system continue to pressure and shame single mothers into relinquishing their children for adoption.

The shock and grief of mother-child separations and intense fear of social stigma captured in “Forget Me Not” offer insight into what’s preventing thousands of Korean adoptees from reconnecting with their silenced birth mothers, decades after they were flown to the West.

Adoptees, including Engelstoft, have also blamed these disconnections on limited access to records, falsified documents that hide their true origins and a lack of accountability shown by adoption agencies and South Korea’s government.

“Every time I started following a woman (at the home), they strongly told me that they wanted to keep their child, and that’s just not what happened,” Engelstoft said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “I was completely horrified at the result.”

A case of child trafficking has been reported from H.D. Kote taluk, Mysuru, in which a seven-month-old baby was allegedly purchased from its parents.

The parents of the child belong to the nomadic Hakki Pikki community who are settled in Bengaluru. The child was sold to a couple in H.D. Kote, whom they got to know during an online sale of herbal and traditional medicines.

E. Dhananjaya of the Child Welfare Committee in Mysuru said the incident came to light when the parents of the child approached the police in H.D. Kote seeking custody of the baby. However, the couple refused to give custody on the grounds that they had “purchased” the baby for ?1.5 lakh.

The issue came to the notice of CWC in Mysuru who informed the police that it was a clear case of child trafficking and an FIR should be registered. The CWC has taken custody of the child, who has been transferred to an adoption centre in Mandya district.

Mr. Dhananjaya said the biological parents who sold the child and the couple who “purchased” it are guilty under the law and legal action will be initiated against them. H.D. Kote police has registered a case and are investigating.

On 9 June, a debate on adoption was held in the House of Representatives with outgoing Minister of Legal Protection Dekker. During this debate, the report of the Joustra Committee, the temporary ban on intercountry adoption and the minister's exploration into an alternative public law system and stronger international supervision were discussed.

Room divided over adoption stop

The House appreciates that the Joustra report has been published and believes that Minister Dekker's apologies on behalf of the Dutch government are appropriate, because the conclusions are painful and confrontational. Opinions are divided about the temporary shutdown.

Intercountry adoption subject to conditions

Lisa van Ginneken (D'66) believes that intercountry adoption under the right guarantees can be a solution to help a child and wants to reopen the procedure for consent in principle. Ulysse Ellian (VVD) states that intercountry adoption could come from a select group of countries. Barbara Kathmann (PvdA) wants to lift the adoption freeze and offer customization. She calls for a reconsideration of the financial support for searches of adoptees. Roelof Bisschop (SGP) asks for an exception for the adoption of brothers or sisters of a child that has already been adopted. Can these parents still get a permission in principle?

Treating the most vulnerable young people as a money-making opportunity is wrong. The care review must lead to change

It is impossible, even for an appointee regarded by critics as too close to government and with overly restricted terms of reference, to look at children’s homes without being appalled by what is going on. That is the conclusion to be drawn from remarks this week by Josh MacAlister, who is several months into a long-awaited review of children’s social care. He warned that the sector is broken and that operators must cut “indefensible” levels of profit and improve young people’s experiences.

Recent years have seen numerous reports and complaints by official bodies about a dysfunctional system, in which councils on the verge of bankruptcy pay ever increasing prices (up 40% since 2013, to about £200,000 a year per child) while profits soar. The top 20 private providers are making £250m profit annually from the provision of children’s residential care in England, Wales and Scotland and the delivery of fostering services.

Opaque ownership structures make the money hard to track. Research earlier this year found some providers recording profits of more than 20% of income, while four of the seven largest provider groups had debt and liability levels that exceeded their assets, leading to concerns about future stability. Private operators now control around three-quarters of all children’s home places in England and Wales. Councils frequently have no other option than to pay whatever they ask.

Even if the children in these homes were thriving, excess profits would be a problem, particularly given the dire state of local government finances. But far worse than the waste of financial resources is the attitude to human lives and relationships that goes with it. While most children’s homes, along with most private fostering agencies, get a good or outstanding rating, Ofsted – which oversees them – believes that the current regulatory regime is unfit for purpose, casting doubt on these reports’ reliability. On its own, the fact that 60% of children are moved out of their local area when placed in a home, with all the disruption to social life and education that this entails, shows that something has gone terribly wrong.

ASSIGNMENT REVIEW · Rumors of stolen children. An investigation into crimes against humanity. The story of the stolen adopted children from Chile spans several decades and affects hundreds of divided families. Assignment review is now publishing a new series about what happened when the children were taken to Sweden.

The rumor

There have long been suspicions and rumors that children were stolen from Chile in the 1970s and 80s. In the early 2000s, Chilean journalism student Ana Maria Olivares decides to investigate the rumor and travels around the country to meet mothers who testify that their children disappeared during the dictatorship. In 2003, she publishes her essay in which she describes a network of people who in various ways have taken children from their mothers and then taken the children out of Chile - and that it is not about individual cases, but a pattern.

• New revelations

In 2018, SVT will, together with Chilean journalists, present new revelations about how adopted children in the 1970s and 80s may have been taken without the consent of mothers. Networks of adoptees are created and several Chilean parents get in touch with children whom they say have long believed to be dead or missing. Demands for a Swedish, state investigation are beginning to be made.

The possibility for adoptive parents to have their child's parentage data removed from the Basic Registration Persons (BRP) must be ended.

That is what the Christian Union thinks. The party will therefore submit a proposal on Wednesday to remove this possibility from the law.

PEDIGREE DATA

The adoptive parents can still choose, if their adopted child is younger than 16, to delete, for example, the name of one or both biological parents or the nationality of the child. According to the ChristenUnie, if this happens, an extra threshold will be raised for adoptees who (at a later age) want to know where they come from.

In addition, this authority for the parents is at odds with the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, the party states.

The possibility for adoptive parents to have their child's parentage data removed from the Basic Registration Persons (BRP) must be ended. That is the view of the Christian Union (CU). The party will submit a proposal on Wednesday to remove this possibility from the law.

The adoptive parents can still choose, if their adopted child is younger than 16, to delete, for example, the name of one or both biological parents or the nationality of the child. According to the ChristenUnie, if this happens, an extra barrier will be raised for adopted children who want to know where they come from.

In addition, this authority for the parents is at odds with the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, the party states.

“Everyone has the right to know where he or she comes from,” says ChristenUnie MP Don Ceder. “When an adopted child embarks on that quest, there should be no unnecessary obstacles. The interests of the (adopted) child must be paramount during this process.”

The House of Representatives will debate the BRP on Thursday. The CU's proposal is also discussed.

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On Tuesday, Jaap Jonkers from Joure presented a petition to the permanent parliamentary committee for Justice and Security, for the preservation of international adoptions. The signatories do not agree with the decision of outgoing minister Sander Dekker to temporarily suspend international adoptions because of previous abuses.

Photo: ANP Photo

With the decision of Minister Dekker, adopted children are victims, say Jonkers and 13,500 other signatories. Jonkers himself was adopted from Bolivia as a little boy.

"The MPs were impressed. It is now up to them to make sure that the minister reconsiders his decision," says Jonkers. "Good questions were asked and compliments given."

Report