Prey children

In 2012, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation entered into a partnership with the non-profit organization Tumaini to organize the adoption of Congolese children. The outlook was promising. The fiasco is complete. Excessive fees, false documents, abuse, theft of children: this is the worst part of adoption.

" I am called Anna. It was written that I am 5 years old but it is not true. I am 4 years old and I was woken up. We got off the plane. A long clean hallway. This metallic gray airport with lots of white people. I have never seen so many. We are eleven children to have boarded the plane, to have left the Tumaini house, in Kinshasa. Without even saying goodbye to Uncle Kitambo.

We are then all gathered in a room, black children and white parents. There are games, presentations. A lady wears, like me, a flower on a sign attached around her neck. She talks to me. I do not understand. I'm playing. Then everyone leaves. Big whites with little blacks. The lady with the sign wants to go with me. I am the only one crying. So the big brother who had accompanied us so that we wouldn't be afraid of the plane said not to cry, he said that they would come and get me.

I believed him. For a week, every morning, I hit the lady. I got dressed, I put on my panties, my socks, my shoes, my pants, my T-shirt, my jacket. I tied my hair in a rubber band and put on my backpack. I positioned myself in front of the window. From the second floor of this lady's house, we could clearly see the crossroads. I waited. No one came to pick me up. It wasn't true.

When I could speak French. I told the lady. "You're not my mom. I have one in the village.” While painting my dolls, I told her about Gemena, my sisters, my parents. She said to me: “I think you are confusing my darling. She is a lady who behaved like a mother.” But it's not true. My parents live in Congo. My anger was to survive. She left. A little. With time. The lady became my adoptive mother.

She told the reporter that he can tell anything. This story is also his. She also said: “I don't want anyone to recognize her. She remembers a lot, but I will explain her background to her.” That's why, in this text, I'll be called Anna. But my name is not Anna. The story begins with a lie. One more. »

It all started in 2011. The Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB) decided to carry out adoptions in Congo. Risky bet. At the end of this story, there will be an imprisoned director, a judicial investigation by the federal prosecutor's office, malnourished children, a Congolese detained for 13 months without the slightest trial, parents torn, in Congo as in Belgium. Children between two families. A beautiful mess. And this intervention by Rachid Madrane, the current Minister for Youth Aid (PS), in the parliament of the FWB, on March 28, 2017: "An internal investigation within the administration has not revealed any dysfunction in the Chief Adoption Officer, the Central Community Authority (ACC) of the General Administration of Youth Welfare. »The question then remains: if everything worked, is one person enough for the whole international adoption system to go wrong?

Would a glance at the Tumaini vzw documents have been enough to damage the confidence of the authorities? No annual accounts have been filed for four years.

At the launch of the project, the minister at the time, Evelyne Huytebroeck (Ecolo), ensures that all guarantees are given for adoptions in Congo. For two years, missions in the field, meetings and official reports pave the way. This with the assistance of Professor Ndomba Kabeya, magistrate and authority on children's rights in the Congo, who monitors cases on the judicial level from Kinshasa.

And above all, there is this partner created in 2008: Tumaini. “Hope” in Swahili. One of its founders, Géraldine Mathieu, is an academic reference in questions of filiation and adoption. She is a member of the Superior Adoption Council of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. His mere presence within the non-profit association Tumaini offers guarantees of seriousness. And, finally, there is Julienne Mpemba, lawyer in the Walloon Region, daughter of Belgium and Congo.

To support Tumaini, two accredited adoption bodies (AAB), obligated intermediaries for international adoption in Belgium, announce themselves as Tumaini's partners: Larisa and Sourires d'enfants. Everything is ready. Except a financial plan proving that the orphanage based in Kinshasa will be viable. The search for new collaborations by the Community Central Authority, as specified in its activity report for 2011-2012, is nevertheless part of "the fight against undue profits, the search for optimal guarantees on the legal and psychosocial adoptability children offered for adoption, financial transparency…” A detail no doubt.

Badly put together file

At the time, would a quick glance at the internal documents of Tumaini vzw have been enough to damage the confidence of the public authorities? No annual accounts have been filed for four years. And a disturbing observation: in 2009, the board of directors of Tumaini met at its president, Rufin Makoso, in Marche-les-Dames. Adoptions are already mentioned, but Tumaini mainly leads sponsorship projects. One hundred and twenty-five euros per year and you ensure the schooling of a child. Ten children are already in care. In any case, this is what Julienne Mpemba explained to the journalist from Passe-Partout, the free weekly of the group L'Avenir, which, very interested, asks to follow the project. Problem, recorded in the minutes of the general meeting: if there are firm commitments for sponsorships, the association does not yet support any child! Dealing with the most urgent, Julienne Mpemba makes her relations work and asks three Congolese pastorals (from Mwenga-Kasika, Uvira and Kiliba), who work with orphans, to send her files and photos of children during the week. . Quickly done well done.

Difficult month-ends

2012. A first wave of adoptions is launched. The collaboration between the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and Tumaini is praised from all sides. Julienne Mpemba settles in the Congo and takes the opportunity to launch "Kabuya Diombelay Clement", a structure whose purpose is to organize "pilgrimages and tourist trips" to the Congo, but also the "defense of the rights of women, children and people with disabilities” . Getting started is tricky. In a private letter, Julienne Mpemba informs a friend of the financial difficulties she is facing to set up the orphanage. “Very difficult end of the month” to “feed the children until then on own funds. The plaintive speech will remain unchanged for four years.

“Sorry Alex, sorry! We got the file wrong, your Sophie is HIV positive. »

Julienne Mpemba to an adoptive father

This devout Catholic relies on God. But not only. The OAA will pay advances to set up the project and the orphanage receives 5,000 dollars per adopted child, the sum covering the costs of welcoming the children. The Antwerp company Deme, active in dredging and present in Africa, signs the same year a donation of 25,000 euros to Tumaini. And until mid-2013, the OAA Smiles of Children will pay 45,000 dollars as advances on adoptions which, in the end, will never take place...

Despite these “financial difficulties”, the association obviously has ambitions that go beyond the borders of Kinshasa. She is asking the King Baudouin Foundation for 20,000 euros to renovate a school in Mbutu Mbemba, in Bas-Congo. The project will not be supported.

Thirteen Congolese children will be adopted in 2012 and 2013 and, according to former Minister Evelyne Huytebroeck, “each of these adoptions was strictly supervised and controlled by the ACC (before and during the Congolese legal procedure) ?”. This control of the administration is no longer assumed by Professor Ndomba. The latter, guarantor of legal procedures in the Congo, threw in the towel at the end of 2012. The reason? A personal disagreement with Tumaini on the organization of file follow-up. The lawyer never questioned the merits of the files. However, in Médor , he explains that Tumaini found him "too severe".

In February 2012, Evelyne Huytebroeck visited the orphanage, housed in the Ngaliema district (Kinshasa). The framing is remarkable. Belgian parents come to pick up their children there in May. It's not going smoothly. Fees deemed undue by the parents are claimed. Other testimonies are more worrying: “I had received photos of two different girls. When I arrived in Kinshasa, I waited for my daughter for four days because she had gone on an excursion. At 15 months! No child of my friends was present at the orphanage. We got angry. We got scared. We notified everything to the OAA and the ACC” (the adoption and control bodies of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, as a reminder).

At the same time, Julienne Mpemba, with a luxurious lifestyle (prestigious apartment and high-end 4 × 4), is in contact with an American partner, Journeys of the Heart, to also organize adoptions. An American family will be relieved of 20,000 dollars for a child, whose death they will be told and who will be adopted… in Belgium.

two plus one free

On September 25, 2013, the Congo imposed a moratorium on the international adoption of its children. Reason: fraud and the very Christian fear of adoption by homosexual couples. Even if all the documents are in order, the Directorate General of Migration of the DRC no longer issues exit vouchers. Clearly, not a single Congolese orphan leaves the motherland. Reacting quickly, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation will be among the first to suspend adoptions with Congo.

The Belgian files are not targeted by suspicions of fraud, and trust reigns between Tumaini and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. At the end of the year, however, two worrying signals came to Didier Dehou, director of the FWB's adoption service. First, Alex recounts his adoption experience with Tumaini. This Belgian lives in Kinshasa. He and his wife contacted Tumaini in late 2012 to adopt two children. The first contacts are idyllic. The Belgian couple paid $14,400 and, one evening in February 2013, Julienne Mpemba showed up with a nanny at Alex's. They each carry a baby that they entrust to the couple. The children sleep and will wake up with strangers the next day. We do better as an ethical approach. Alex worries about the lack of medical records. According to his words,

A few days later, Julienne Mpemba arrives in tears. “Sorry Alex, sorry! But what is Julienne ? “We got the wrong file, your Sophie is HIV positive. » But let Alex be reassured, Julienne can… exchange the child. Alex politely kicks her out. He will meet her once again, to explain himself, at the new pastry shop, a chic place in Kinshasa life. Julienne Mpemba will offer him a third "free" baby to apologize. The child, Celine, was waiting in the car with a nanny throughout the discussion. Julienne Mpemba will dispute the facts.

To damage the relationship of trust a little more, Tumaini borrowed $20,000 from Alex in December 2012. The loan is supposed to be very short term, but Alex is struggling to receive the first repayments, warning whoever he can. The SPF Justice will ask him to write down his experience, which he will do in November 2013 (there are still 4,000 dollars to be reimbursed). Julienne Mpemba will split a six-page letter to respond to the accusations, explaining her unfailing commitment, she who "loves the Tumaini children" as her own children.

Mafia and child theft

At the end of December 2013, another email fell into Didier Dehou's inbox. He was alerted by a "flash-news" from the Congolese NGO Friends of Nelson Mandela for the Defense of Human Rights (ANMDH). Dating from December 16, 2013, this information bulletin mentions that “well-organized networks which hide behind NGOs of philanthropic actions strive to cause thefts and the sale of children”.

The Friends of Mandela evoke events from May 2013 and a “first investigation by Interpol (…) towards an NGO called Tumaini”. The accusation of the association is heavy: Tumaini would steal children in the Kinshasa neighborhoods to place them in orphanages and, in a second step, "sell the children abroad".Facts that date back to May 2013. On December 19, 2013, confronted by the police with Congolese families, Julienne Mpemba denies any involvement, but she promises them to invest so that their stolen children are found. A successful challenge for two of the children a fortnight later... An expert from the Congo draws our attention to the difficulty of identifying the associations there, the necessary mistrust to have, in an often tense climate, in the face of accusations which may have as their sole objective to harm. But the ANMDH, member of the Pax Christi International network, advances specific facts. Contacted by Médor , Robert Ilunga Numbi, general manager of the ANMDH, describes Tumaini as a “mafia network that had to be denounced”.

What is certain: the adoption service of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation has received Alex's mail and the Friends of Mandela file. Twice, he will ask Julienne Mpemba for clarification. The former minister, Evelyne Huytebroeck says today that she was never informed of these letters. “On the contrary, I was assured that the partner had our full confidence. I imagine that if we had had the slightest suspicion about the adoptability of the children, the Belgian legislation is so strict that we would have had to stop the procedure. »

children-theft-congo

Orfee Grandhomme. CC BY-NC-ND

In campaign

For the twelve families whose children are blocked by the Congolese moratorium, the amount paid by the parents must enable the orphanage to operate for one year. On Huytebroeck's proposal, the National Lottery also grants 10,000 euros to the non-profit organization Tumaini. A year goes by, almost without contact, without information, without photos for the families.

Julienne Mpemba gives little sign of life. Is she too busy with her election campaign? She is running on the Socialist Party lists in the European elections of May 2014, 8th on the list behind Marie Arena and Marc Tarabella. But these locomotives will not manage to take off the popularity of the Belgo-Congolese: she collects 116 votes. Not disappointed, however, she will continue to campaign within the Namur socialist section.

Anna's mother receives a second photo of her child. She does not recognize the adopted daughter who was announced to her.

Side adoption and changing majority obliges, Evelyne Huytebroeck (Ecolo) yields its post of minister to Rachid Madrane (PS). Within the new firm, it is Eric Mercenier, assistant chief cab, who takes over the "Tumaini" file. This sailing enthusiast saw the storm rise at the end of 2014. There were still twelve children left to leave the Congo.

In November, parents receive a second photo of their child. Anna's mother does not recognize the adopted daughter she was told. The OAA Larisa tempers, puts it on the stroke of emotion. In December, an epidemic of typhoid fever worries the Belgian authorities, who decide to visit the orphanage. The employee of the Belgian embassy and Kathryn Brahy, general delegate Wallonia-Brussels in Kinshasa, lack practical information: the address of the orphanage. He moved and… Julienne Mpemba refuses to give the new address. We lost track of the twelve children. A call from the Madrane cabinet will unblock the situation (Eric Mercenier does not remember this, however). The following two reports are catastrophic: the orphanage has joined a sordid place. The move was reportedly forced following unpaid rent. There are staff, but no mosquito net, no kitchen, no stock of food, no stock of water. Unpaid wages. Electricity every other day. And the absence of an account book. The children seem in relatively good shape but weakened. A proposal for a concrete solution is made: place a manager present daily in Tumaini.

“We were in a terrible situation. What bad parents were we, if we blindly refused to pay this organization? »

An adoptive father

During the same period, Belgian parents were invited by the authorities of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation to the Namur restaurant “Le Pâtanthrope”. They hope to finally hear from their children. Didier Dehou and the OAA are in the game. On the menu: settling accounts. We talk about money and the meeting is stormy. Julienne Mpemba and Alice Copette, a friend who plays an unofficial role as an accountant, announce major financial difficulties. They claim 350 euros per month per child. Parents nod. But the majority are wary. “We were in an atrocious situation , explains this father.What bad parents were we, if we blindly refused to pay this organization, because no one was able to justify the amount claimed? Not paying seemed immoral to us, but paying without justification, too. In the end, this couple will pay. Others will offer fundraising or sending food. Faced with this resistance from the parents, the Mpemba/Copette duo did not take off.

We continue !

Tumaini moves to a less sordid place, but the parents are increasingly worried. Upon returning from a mission of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation on site in February 2015 (which will note, among other things, the absence of medical reports), the same family still does not recognize their child in the photos. Their daughter grew two years in six months. It's too big, too different. It's Anna. After several exchanges with Tumaini, the obvious is finally recognized: apologies and mea culpa , there is confusion. The establishment welcomes two Sylvies, two Annas, two Françoises… The files would have crossed.

For an expert in the adoption sector working in a certified organization, things are clear: “I would have stopped everything. It would have been a tragedy for the parents. A tear. But it was getting too risky. “ But we are not going to stop everything. The Madrane firm then requested that an in-depth verification of the files be carried out. The administration, which will not receive the reports, relies on… Julienne Mpemba to clarify this error. We are in April 2015. “We have all the minutes and the placement documents in the files , explains Geneviève Gilson, of the non-profit organization Larisa. They are also documents required for the procedures. Some of these documents would be forgeries.

In June 2015, the administration of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation “maintains its confidence”in Tumaini. Julienne Mpemba, however, comes to make aberrant calculations. On the basis of a monthly budget of 10,500 euros for the orphanage (30 children), without a precise count, she is claiming 56,000 euros from the parents of the twelve children still stranded in the Congo. The director also says she is cornered by debts and subject to a garnishment of wages of 820 euros per month. The parents have already paid an additional 6,800 euros, in addition to the 5,000 dollars provided per child (and the 1,250 euros for medical monitoring). The FWB, via Larisa, pays 27,000 euros to Tumaini. That is almost three times the amount she would have had to pay if she had met her own criteria, namely 217 euros/month from October 2014. For the remaining 29,000 euros, of course, Julienne Mpemba is counting on the parents . And very clearly announces the rules of the game: those who don't pay won't have their child! Announced kidnapping and, this time, the FWB trembles. It's because Julienne Mpemba has an arm as long as the Congo River. She has connections, was or is the mistress of Évariste Bochab, a former law student at UCL but, above all, former President of the National Assembly and Deputy Prime Minister of the Interior and Security of the congo. Excuse a bit.

The ransom

On July 6, 2015, Koen Geens, Federal Minister of Justice, wrote to his French-speaking colleague Rachid Madrane about adoptions. He points out the numerous material errors, the different documents submitted to the embassy, ??the omnipresence of Julienne Mpemba in the procedure (she is the guardian of all the children) and the failure to respect the principle of subsidiarity. In short, the Belgian State, an eminent minister and through him our institutions admit great uncertainty about the origin of the children… while welcoming them to Belgian soil! Surrealist. For Eric Mercenier, this letter from the minister is an “umbrella to protect yourself in case things go wrong”.

Rather well seen then. In October, one of the twelve children returns to Belgium. He weighs 5.7 kilos at 2.5 years old – a severe case of malnutrition (read “The double promise” on medor.coop). The return of the others is near. In agreement with Foreign Affairs, Eric Mercenier (Madrane cabinet) negotiates. Maximum 15,000 euros to cover the last months. Either the cash of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation available in Kinshasa, equivalent to more than 400 euros per child and per month. At the beginning of November 2015, the children can leave. But Julienne Mpemba holds them back. She is accused of kidnapping children. A complaint is filed in Belgium and things get carried away.

In February 2016, a Congolese NGO, Rodechic, denounced in the press the kidnapping by Tumaini, in May 2015, of three children in Gemena, 800 kilometers from Kinshasa. In April 2016, journalists from Het Laatste Nieuws meet the Congolese parents whose child was stolen. Four cases, including that of Anna, would be affected. The journalists' fixer, Dieu Merci Kitambo, is the man who brought the children to Kinshasa. He assures that they had to return to Gemena, that he was tricked by Julienne Mpemba. Unable to meet him. Dieu Merci Kitambo has been imprisoned for more than two years in the jails of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR). In its "hearing report of Sieur Kitambo Boso Dieu Merci" of May 5, 2017, the ANR considers that“there is reason to seek his release, given that he is a plaintiff on whom there is no evidence of guilt”. Dieu Merci Kitambo's lawyer invokes political interventions to keep his client in detention and not to complicate Mrs. Mpemba's case...

She too, Julienne Mpemba, presumed innocent, is now being held in preventive detention in the prison of Marche-en-Famenne. Via her lawyer, she did not wish to follow up on our questions.

The investigation by the Federal Prosecutor's Office in progress, on facts of trafficking in human beings and forgery and use of forgery, will determine the responsibilities of each.

Until October 2017, the Tumaini orphanage continued to publish photos of children welcomed into its organization. How does he work? With whom ? And what funding? And who is responsible for this debacle? Tumaini's lack of accounts, Professor Ndomba's defection, Alex's bad experience, Friends of Mandela's report, parents' testimonies, catastrophic reports, requirement for large funding, difficulty in meeting children and the confusion of the photos were they not signals to avoid the tragic outcome of the adoptions via Tumaini? The parents kept alerting the public authorities.

The Huytebroeck cabinet, which had taken the initiative, handed over. Professor Ndomba left the project at the end of 2012. Géraldine Mathieu resigned from Tumaini asbl. Accredited adoption organizations let go (and parents) in the crisis. The hierarchical manager of the “adoption” service at the administration level, Liliane Baudart, did not wish to answer us and the Madrane firm ensures that the framework worked. There remain, still in the front line, the “adoption” service and Didier Dehou, its director. Those who meet him describe a committed man, attentive to public funds, quick on a mission to pile into a collective bus rather than to hail a taxi. "You can call at 6 p.m., he's still there. »And if you had to recognize only one thing in Didier Dehou, it is to have never hidden.

adoption-stolen-children

Orfee Grandhomme. CC BY-NC-ND

2018

“My name is Anna but you know that's not true. I am 8 years old, it seems, and I have been in Belgium for three years. I speak French. I got dressed, mom had prepared my panties, my socks, my shoes, my pants, my T-shirt, my jacket. She tied my hair in a rubber band and I put on my backpack. I positioned myself in front of the window. From the second floor of my house, you can clearly see the crossroads. I'm expecting a friend.

My mum doesn't keep me up to date with everything, so I don't know that a court is going to rule on my fate. Where should I live? With my adoptive parents or my biological parents? Whatever happens, the person forever hurt is me. »

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