Sorin Dhondt (31) was adopted from Romania as a child: “They told my mother that I was dead”

Sorin with his adoption file. — © Joris HerregodsIn the years that followed, Sorin grew up with his adoptive parents in Antwerp. “Although my parents never lied about my adoption or my origins, I always had many questions about it. However, I didn't feel like I could ask that. I felt like I should be grateful because they rescued me from the Romanian orphanage. I was afraid of losing my parents by asking too many questions. Outsiders never even asked how I felt as an adopted child. Presumably out of fear of hurting me or my adoptive parents. That way it is never talked about and you lose part of your identity. Adoption simply took away part of my identity. That is the case for many adopted children.”

Adoption Support CenterIn 2016, he took matters into his own hands and contacted the Adoption Support Center, a non-profit organization that promotes the rights of adoptees. They search for his biological parents for him in the hope of reuniting them. Only months later does he receive a letter from his biological mother. She writes to him that she was too ill to care for him and that is why she gave him up. When she was better, she wanted to take care of her children again. Sorin's sister was returned to her mother, but the orphanage management told her that Sorin had died. “When my birth mother discovered that I was alive and adopted in 2016, she broke down,” says Sorin.

Sorin's mother writes that she wants to meet up. His biological sister also really wants to see him. Shortly afterwards he goes to Romania to meet them. “It was a very strange meeting, because we were strangers to each other,” he says. “Yet we spent four fantastic days together. My sister's children had even drawn pictures for me. I was no longer able to see my biological father, because he had already died. My official father, who is listed on my birth certificate, wanted to see me, but I held off on him. At the time, he signed the document in which my parents renounced me.”

Not the only oneAfter the meeting, Sorin collapses. “It was a very emotional period in which I was able to close things. We had little contact afterwards and we are actually very different. We come from a different culture, but I am still very happy that I took the step towards my biological family. They are a part of my identity that I have not known for a long time.” Sorin is not the only one who can tell such a story. Between the fall of Romanian dictator Ceausescu in 1989 and the Romanian adoption freeze in 2001, an estimated 30,000 children found their way to the West through adoptive parents.

At the height of the orphan crisis, more than 100,000 children lived in Romanian orphanages. — © ©John Vink/ Magnum PhotosIn Romania, at the height of the orphan crisis, more than 100,000 children lived in orphanages. The situation was a consequence of Ceausescu's demographic delusion. He believed that a strong country with a healthy economy needed many young people. That is why he required by law that families must have at least five children and banned any form of contraception. However, many parents were too poor to care for so many children, so the state took over. Orphanages sprang up like mushrooms all over Romania in the 1970s and 1980s.

Up to 40,000 eurosAfter Ceasescu's fall, the world sees what the psychopathic dictator was able to do for years. The country is groaning under poverty and hunger. The Romanian orphans are given a face on Western television screens. They are malnourished, underdeveloped and abused. It is a humanitarian disaster that quickly translates into a call for adoption. European and American adoption agencies are finding their way to the Eastern Bloc country en masse and children are being shipped abroad en masse. Americans sometimes pay as much as 40,000 euros for a child. During this period, Romania is a young liberated country, but there is no question of a healthy constitutional state at all.

Corruption was rampant in Romania in the 1990s and orphanages made a pretty penny from adoption. Biological parents, like Sorin's mother, were often told that their child had died, when in fact it was adopted. That was well deserved. By 2001, 30,000 questionable and corrupt adoptions later, Romania banned adoption under intense international pressure. The country received money from Europe, among others, to close the large orphanages and organize a different way of child care. It was too late for children like Sorin and their parents. They fell victim not only to Ceausescu's madness, but also to the spontaneous and sincere solidarity that turned into a powerful adoption lobby and legal child trafficking.

Foreign adoption in FlandersIn 2022, 29 children were adopted from abroad, according to the Flemish Center for Adoption. Hungary ranks first among the countries of origin. Six Hungarian children found their way to Flanders through adoption. Thailand comes in second place with five children. Other popular adoption countries include Burkina Faso, Ghana and India. Until 2017, adoption from Ethiopia was also possible. However, this was stopped after reports of malpractice and corruption in various adoption files. An examination of twelve files showed that the Ethiopian mothers had not voluntarily given up their children. Just as in Romania, money was allegedly made from a form of child trafficking.Child trafficking becomes human trafficking

The House Committee on Justice approved an amendment to the criminal law on Wednesday that classifies child trafficking in the context of adoption as human trafficking. “That will make it easier to tackle and punish child trafficking and illegal adoption,” says MP Ben Segers (Vooruit). “The adjustment of the criminal law is of course not retroactive, but it is recognition for the many children who were adopted by Belgian adoptive parents in a questionable manner.”