Ethiopia Adoption Scandal: Did Good Samaritans Sin Only Through Negligence?

Between 1990 and 2017, 1,575 Ethiopian children were adopted in France through an approved association, Les Enfants de Reine de Miséricorde. In a book published in 2020, one of them, Julie Foulon, denounces irregular and even illegal adoption procedures. On May 26, 2021, several families and adoptees filed a complaint against ERM for breach of trust and fraud.

One morning in August 2017 in her Parisian studio, Julie Foulon, 20, logs into her Facebook account where a message from a stranger awaits her. “Hello Julie, I am Gertrude. I'm looking to get in touch with you. Do you know a lady in Ethiopia named Askale Mekonnen? »Julie's heart stops beating. This name is that of her biological mother, whom she left in 2003 when she was adopted, at the age of 6, with her little sister by a Norman couple. This contact with an intermediary from the Ethiopian diaspora confirms what Julie strives to explain to her adoptive parents since she can speak French: no, contrary to what is indicated in the adoption documents, her biological mother is not deceased. Worse still, Julie learns after having joined her biological mother by Skype through Gertrude: Askale had been looking for her daughters since the year of their separation and found their new names by accident, by dint of imploring the Social Affairs office of Dessie, in Ethiopia, where she lives, to hear from them. A stranger, white, ended up going to her house and providing her with a photo of her daughters. On the back of the photo, their new French name.

This reconnection in 2017 and the Skype exchanges that followed shake Daniel and Chantal Foulon, to whom the little girls had been presented as orphans. Everything seemed to be in order in their eyes when they concluded, in 2003, the adoption procedure for their daughters. Having received their approval, they approached an organization authorized for adoption (OAA) in Normandy, Les Enfants de Reine de Miséricorde (ERM), established in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso since the beginning of the 1990s. August 19, 2003 , after having paid 10,000 euros for the operating costs of ERM as well as for the costs of proceedings in the country, the Foulons go to Roissy airport to pick up Sara, who will become Julie, and her little sister from 4 years old, whose first name will also be changed. Growing up, Julie turns out to be a difficult child, especially with her mother. The young girl refuses to forge a relationship with her and for good reason: in her heart, the place of a mother is already taken by the one left behind. How could such a mistake happen? How could the existence of a biological mother fall by the wayside in the context of a full and transnational adoption, strictly supervised in France? How could such a mistake happen? How could the existence of a biological mother fall by the wayside in the context of a full and transnational adoption, strictly supervised in France? How could such a mistake happen? How could the existence of a biological mother fall by the wayside in the context of a full and transnational adoption, strictly supervised in France?

For Julie Foulon, this fourteen-year separation remains a suffering, which she expresses at the age of 22 in Sara et Tsega? 1 , an autobiographical book mixing memories and fiction published in May 2020. "I hesitated to publish it, recounts -her for Chat. But I said to myself: “Do it, because there are bound to be other adopted people in your situation.” »She was not mistaken: the book had the effect of a small bomb in the middle of the adoptees of Ethiopia, where it passed from hand to hand. Quickly, she received many testimonials from people between 20 and 40 years old, like her adopted through ERM and who, too, had strong doubts about the conditions in which their adoption took place. Biological parents declared dead but still[…]