Colombian mother about Dutch adoption: 'They said my son was dead'

Colombian María Orfi Cifuentes has fallen victim to the Dutch adoption scandal. She did not want to give up her child at all, documents were forged and she was told that her son had died. She didn't see him again until 40 years later. In the Netherlands.

“I only got a glimpse of his foot,” María tells NOS. “Then they wrapped my newborn son in a blue hospital blanket and took him away. In the hospital they said he was dead, but it turned out that he had been adopted. ”

“A nun came over to my bed and said the baby was doing very badly,” she says of the day her child was born. “She had two blank sheets of paper with her and told me to sign them. That would allow me to have my son baptized before it was too late. She also asked me to give him a name. A little later a nurse came to me and told me that my son had died. ”

Psychologically heavy

It happened in 1977, but the loss carried them with it for years. “It was very difficult psychologically. I considered suicide, but I passed on for my other children. ”

Eventually she learns that her son has been adopted and is in the Netherlands. She finds him back with the help of the Spoorloos program. She is very happy about that, but she is also angry. “I was a minor and I didn't even have any identity papers at the time. Still, they claim I went to the solicitor to part with my boy. It is completely wrong. ”

The adoption of children from abroad was immediately halted this week due to a damning report from the Joustra Commission , which investigated adoptions between 1967 and 1997 and concluded that major abuses had taken place.

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