Author: lynellelong

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Searching in Intercountry Adoption by Adoptee Experts

On April 23, ICAV will be providing a webinar on some of the complex issues involved in searching in various birth countries, but with specific knowledge of Colombia, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Greece, Korea, and Sri Lanka.

Our webinar will be unique in that we are not only bringing our lived experience as individuals, but also presenting as a global resource, highlighting the adoptee led organisations who provide a formal search and support services. Our panelists hold the dual role of knowing intuitively how complex searching is as individuals having done their own searching and also having decades of experience in providing formal search and support services to the community.

ICAV knows intuitively what the latest research (p231) conducted within the Korean adoptee community shows – i.e.,, that intercountry adoptees find their peers and adoptee led organisations to be the most helpful in their searches. There’s nothing better than those who live it knowing intuitively how to best provide the services we need as a community.

If you’d like to be part of our audience, click here to RSVP.

Our 8 panelists are:

Marcia Engel

Marcia is the creator and operator of Plan Angel, a nonprofit human rights foundation currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her organization has a powerful mission: helping Colombian families find their children who were lost to child trafficking and adoption.

For fifteen years now, Plan Angel has grown a strong community with over 1,000 families in Colombia. The foundation helps these families search for their missing adopted children all over the world, hoping to one day reconnect them with each other. Marcia and her foundation have reunited hundreds of families and continue to support them after their reunion.

Linda Carol Forrest Trotter

Linda is a Greek-born adoptee, adopted by American parents and found her biological family in Greece five and a half years ago. She is the founder and president of The Eftychia Project, a nonprofit organization that assists and supports, free of charge, Greek-born adoptees searching for their roots and Greek families searching for their children lost to adoption.

In addition to its Search and Reunion program, the Eftychia Project, in collaboration with the MyHeritage DNA company, distributes DNA kits for free to adoptees and Greek families. To date, The Eftychia Project has facilitated the reconnections of 19 adoptees with their Greek families.

The Eftychia Project also actively advocates on behalf of all Greek-born adoptees with the Greek government for their birth and identity rights, including transparency about their adoptions, unfettered access to their birth, orphanage and adoption records, and the restoration of their Greek citizenship.

Kayla Curtis

Kayla is born in South Korea and adopted to South Australia. Kayla has been searching for her Korean birth family for over twenty years. She returned to Korea to do ‘on the ground’ searching using posters, newspapers, local police, and adoptee search organisations. In the absence of having a reunion with birth family, she has built a meaningful relationship with her birth country and Korean culture and proudly identifies as Korean-Australian.  

In her professional life, Kayla works as a Senior Counsellor for the Intercountry Adoptee and Family Support Service (ICAFSS) at Relationships Australia.  

Kayla is a qualified Therapeutic Life Story Worker and has a Master’s in Social Work as well as extensive experience working in the area of adoption both in government and non-government, providing counselling, education and training, community development and post adoption support.  In this role, Kayla supports intercountry adoptees with searching and navigating this uncertain and complex process between countries, as well as offering therapeutic support to adoptees, on this journey. 

Trista Goldberg

Trista Goldberg is an international DNA influencer, DNA consultant and founder of Operation Reunite after finding her Vietnamese birth family in 2001.  Trista used DNA to verify her family’s biological connection and verified that she was half Vietnamese and half American.

Over the last 20 plus years she helped make DNA mainstream. Operation Reunite became the beta pilot group that launched the autosomal DNA test in 2010. The miracles she has seen in her lifetime has been magnetised with DNA.

Trista believes there are so many blessings when you really know who you are and where you came from. She understands the value of expanding the adoptee network, sharing and educating how we can harness the technology of DNA to help our community.

Benoît Vermeerbergen

Benoît was born in Villers-Semeuse, France under “Sous X”. This means that his parents and especially his mother did not want to be known or found. His birth certificate literally only shows X’s as parents’ names. Growing up Benoît had a lot of questions trying to understand all of this. After his studies, he purposely began working for the ‘Population Services’ in the hope of discovering more information about his birth mother. 

During this process and the years that followed, Benoît helped so many other people in their search (for example, trying to find their biological birth parents), that he made genealogical research his main source of income. It has always been and will always be his greatest passion in life! 

Genealogy and adoption therefore are his field of specialisation. In the past couple of years he has also started working in the field of ‘DNA’. In 2019, he found his biological mother through this method. Today, he cooperates with a lot of genealogical and adoption related authorities (for example, he works at Afstammingscentrum in Belgium) and helps to invent and build many adoption related platforms. Although Belgium is his home country, he also has experience in doing research abroad, i.e. Australia, Mexico, and The Netherlands.

Rebecca Payot

Rebecca is the founder of the association Racines Naissent des Ailes and co-founder of Emmaye Adoptee’s Family Reunion. Adopted in Ethiopia at the age of 5, Rebecca is a graduate in early childhood psychology specialising in adolescents in identity crisis. She has worked for 20 years in international adoption in France as a consultant and speaker on quest of origins. She is the author of her first book entitled “The Quest of Origins, a Miracle Remedy for the ills of the adopted?”

Hilbrand Westra

Hilbrand is a Korean adoptee raised in the Netherlands and has the longest track record, working with and for adoptees in the Netherlands since 1989. Internationally, his name is well known and disputed at the same time by the first generation of intercountry adoptees because he dared to oppose the Disney fairytale of adoption. He is also the first adoptee in the world to receive an official Royal decoration by the King of the Netherlands in 2015 and is Knighted in the Order of Orange Nassau for outstanding work for adoptees and in the field of adoption.

In daily life, Hilbrand runs his own school in systemic work and is a renowned teacher and trainer nationally and his work has sparked great interest in the UK. He spends time bridging the work in this field between the Netherlands and the UK. Hilbrand is a confidant and executive coach for leaders and directors in the Netherlands and also works partly with the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

Celin Fässler

Celin is adopted from Sri Lanka to Switzerland and is the Communications Manager and Board Member at Back to the Roots. Back to the Roots is a Swiss NGO founded in 2018 by Sri Lankan adoptees. Its main goal is to raise awareness of the complex search for origins and to support adoptees in their searching process. Since May 2022, Back to the Roots has been funded by the Swiss government and the regional districts in order to provide professional support to adoptees from Sri Lanka to Switzerland.

Sarah Ramani Ineichen is the President of Back to the Roots and may present with Celin in this webinar.

Our webinar will be recorded given the timezone will not feasible for everyone. The recording will be made available at ICAVs website not long after.

If you have questions you’d like to see addressed in our webinar, please add your comments to this blog or contact us.

Huge thanks to the Australian Government, DSS for funding this event via our Relationships Australia, Small Grants & Bursaries program.

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UK Intercountry Adoptees Webinar

On 30 January 2023, a small group of intercountry adoptees in the UK participated in a webinar panel event to share their thoughts and experiences with adoptive parent organisation, AdoptionUK.

In this webinar you’ll meet Sarah Hilder adopted from Sri Lanka, Joshua Aspden adopted from Ecuador, Emma Estrella adopted from Brazil, Meredith Armstrong adopted from China, and Claire Martin adopted from Hong Kong. Together we answer some questions that adoptive parents at AdoptionUK ask.

Watch the webinar and below is a timecode, key messages and relevant resources.

Webinar Timecode

00:20 Intro from AdoptionUK
01:03 Intro from Lynelle from ICAV
02:44 Sarah Hilder
03:35 Claire Martin
05:34 Meredith Armstrong
07:39 Emma Estrela
09:39 Joshua Aspden
12:17 How to protect myself from scammers while searching for family – Lynelle
17:23 Tips for approaching life story work – Meredith
20:54 Do you feel life would have been better if you’d been adopted by a family in your birth country?
21:27 Joshua
24:56 Emma
28:00 What would we want adoptive parents know when starting out on an intercountry adoption?
28:24 Claire
32:25 Meredith
35:12 Sarah
38:24 Emma
40:24 Joshua
43:34 Lynelle
45:30 What connects you most to your heritage?
45:45 Sarah
48:23 Claire
49:30 Joshua
51:07 Planning on visiting foster family, any tips or hints to manage the big emotions that will come up for adoptee?
51:30 Meredith
52:24 Emma
54:25 Lynelle
56:24 Jo ending and thanks

Summary of Webinar Key Messages

Click here for a pdf document

Relevant Resources

Can we ignore or deny that racism exists for adoptees of colour?

Connecting with people of colour is not automatic for transracial adoptees

Race resources for adoptive parents

Culture resources for adoptive parents

Global list of post adoption support specific to intercountry adoptees

The importance of pre and post adoption support

Search and reunion resources

Thoughts for adoptive parents

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Vietnamese adopted brother and sister find each other through DNA

Mikati is a fellow Vietnamese adoptee raised in Belgium, who joined the ICAV network some years ago, wanting to connect to those who understood the complexities of this lifelong journey. I’m honoured to be a part of her life and she told me the amazing news recently of finding and reuniting with her biological brother Georges who was also adopted, but to France. Neither knew of the other until their DNA matches showed up. Together, Mikati and Georges have shared with me their thoughts about finding each other and searching now for their Vietnamese family. Since sharing this and having their news go viral in Vietnamese media, they are currently awaiting news that they have possibly found their mother. Incredible what can be achieved these days with DNA technology and social media! Here is their story as reunited brother and sister.

About Your Life

Georges

I’ve been adopted in 1996 by French parents and my Vietnamese name is Trương Vanlam. I live in Noisy-le-Grand, a little Parisian suburb near the river Marne. I happily live with my cat and girlfriend.  

My life in France (childhood to present) meant I’ve grown up in the countryside surrounded by medieval castles, fields and forests. It has not always been easy to be different in a place where Asian people were very rare to encounter. I was a shy kid but I was happy to have the love of my adoptive family and some friends. Later, I studied in Paris, a pluri-ethnic place with a lot of people from different origins. I have an interest in arts like theatre and cinema and I’ve started to develop short films with my friends. I am not shy anymore but creative and more confident.  

My adoptive parents were very happy to see me for Christmas. They are retired and they don’t leave their village very often like before. They try to help me as much as they can and are happy about my reconnection to my new found sister, Mikati. I trust and respect my adoptive parents and they trust me and respect me equally.  

I teach cinema, video editing and graphics with Adobe suite to adults and teens. I’m making videos and one day, I hope to become a movie director.  

Mikati

I was born in 1994 and adopted to Belgium in June 1995 at 7 months of age. I currently live in Kortrijk in West-Flanders, Belgium. My childhood was in Anzegem, not so far from Kortrijk.

I have been able to develop and grow up in Belgium. I have some dear friends. I have a nice job. Over the years I have made beautiful trips in and out of Europe and met many people. I have done two studies – orthopedagogy and social work. Here I learned how important human, children’s and women’s rights are. I have been working for a non-profit organization for years. I follow up families in socially vulnerable situations and connect them with a student who is studying at the college or university. I did not study to be a teacher, but it is true that I do train students about how they can work with vulnerable families, how they can reflect on their actions, etc.

My childhood wasn’t all that fantastic. As an intercountry adoptee, I grew up in a white environment. That environment had little respect for my original roots. Sometimes I would walk down the street and hear racial slurs from people I didn’t know. As much as I tried to assimilate, I didn’t forget my roots.

My Vietnamese name is Pham Thi Hoa Sen which says a lot about what my life has been like. I grew up to turn out beautiful but I grew up in mud just like a lotus flower. A thorough screening could have prevented a lot. My adoptive parents are not bad people and they did their best, but they underestimated the care needed for children adopted internationally. My adoptive mother already had two children from a previous marriage that she was no longer allowed to see. She was mentally unable to raise children. My adoptive parents are burdened by trauma that they have not worked through. At that time there was also little to no psychological support and guidance for adoptive parents. It was very difficult growing up with them. It is by seeking help for myself and talking to people about it, that I am more aware of life. Just because you mean well and have good intentions does not mean that you are acting right.

About Your Reunion

Georges

It has been surreal, like a dream and a little bit frightening to be found by my sister because all my beliefs about my personal history are now unsure. The first days, I remember repeating again and again, “I’ve got an elder sister, I’ve got an elder sister”. Then we started to talk and get to know each other more and it became more real. Now I’m very happy and proud to have Mikati as my sister. It’s very strange because even though we met only two weeks ago, I feel like I have know her for a long time. For me, it’s a new step in my life, the beginning of a journey where I will connect more with her, with Vietnam, where we will try to discover our family story, I hope.  

Mikati is a strong and caring woman who is always trying to help others despite having encountered many difficulties in her life. She’s very passionate, clever, funny and above all I respect and admire the person she is. We like to discuss many things from important subjects like international adoptions and smaller subjects like the life of our respective cats or tv series or why Belgians are so proud to eat French fries with mayonnaise. I don’t know why but I’ve quickly felt a connection with her. It could be because of our shared DNA but I think it’s more probably because she is fundamentally fantastic as a person. I like to tease her a little sometime and she’s very patient with me and my jokes! We’ve got our differences of course, but siblings always have differences. I’m very glad to have her in my life.  

Mikati

1.5 years ago I decided to take a DNA test through MyHeritage (a commercial DNA-kit). To get a bit of an indication of where my roots come from. Through the result I got a little more information about ethnicity and I saw distant relatives. It was cool to know something because I know very little about my roots. I hadn’t looked at MyHeritage in a long time until early December 2022. I have no idea why exactly as I didn’t even get a notification. To my surprise, I saw that I had a new match. It wasn’t just any distant relative, it was my brother! He lived in a neighbouring country, France!

You have to know that I just woke up when I looked at my mobile phone, so I immediately sent a message to some close friends and my guidance counsellor at the Descent Center. I wanted to know if I was dreaming. Finally I got the confirmation from the experts at the Descent Center that my DNA result were real and we share over 2500 centimorgans! That means he is not half but rather, a full brother.

I was so happy! So many emotions raced through my body that day. I saw a lot of people who were also adopted at an event that day. Most of them were a great support. Most were as happy and moved as I was. A minority reacted rather short, jealous or gave unsolicited advice about anything and everything. I also understand their feelings. It is an exceptional situation that triggers many emotions. Those emotions of others made it sometimes overwhelming for me.

I contacted Georges through Facebook. I wondered if he had already seen it. When he didn’t reply, a friend gave me his LinkedIn profile that had his email address on it. I felt like a little stalker but I decided to send him an email as well. I sent him a little text and gave him the option to get in touch if he wanted to. When he answered, he introduced himself and asked a few questions. The contact was open, enthusiastic and friendly. So we are very sure of the DNA match, but some mysteries soon surfaced quickly during the first conversation. We told each other what name we got on our adoption papers. Our last names are different. I see on my adoption papers that I have the same last name as my mother. Maybe he has the father’s last name? Georges has not yet properly looked at his adoption papers, so there are still pieces of the puzzle missing.

I am happy when I connect with my brother. The contact feels so natural! We talk and joke like we have known each other for years. We both got a little emotional when we talked about our childhood but also realised how close geographically we grew up. Georges is barely 14 months younger than me. Did the orphanage ever talk to my adoptive parents and suggest taking Georges too? So that we could grow up together? What would my adoptive parents do in such a situation? With a reunion, the search for one’s identity is not over. In fact, it has opened up many more questions!

About your biological family in Vietnam     

Georges

My determination to find my family in Vietnam has increased since I met my elder sister but I’ve always been curious to find more information about my biological mother and father. Growing up as an adopted child, I grew up with a perpetual mystery about my origins. It defines me, marking me forever because I’m always facing the fear of being rejected again . Like many adoptees, I grew up with this explanation: “Your first parents left you because of their poverty.” This is speculation which may be true or not and we do not know until the facts are gathered. I feel no anger about that but I want to know the real motives, the real story from their point of view. Was it their decision or not….?

Mikati is really passionate and determined in this search and about our story and she told me about the real problems caused by some organisations which have seen international adoption as a business in the 1990s. I did research to gather information based on official and independent reports from the press and UNICEF and I talked to adopted people who have been in our orphanage. I’m worried about some testimonies, about the lack of transparency in the adoption process and to adoptive parents, adopted children and biological parents and now I want to be sure if our parents gave their consent or not. I’m also determined to discover this truth and to show our journey through a documentary in order give more information about what could have been problematic in international adoption in the 1990s to year 2000. I’m not alone in this quest ,my elder sister is with me and I’m with her.  

I’ve never had the opportunity to return to Vietnam yet but it is something I hope to do in the near future. I’m sure it won’t be only for fun and tourism!

You can follow Georges at Facebook, LinkedIn or Youtube.

Mikati

I have my reasons for wanting to find my parents. Under Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the child has a right to information about his or her parentage. It is also fundamental in human beings to know where they come from. As long as I don’t know the story about my biological parents, I can’t be mad. I really wonder what their
story is. I know it’s going to be hard to search. I know that commercial DNA testing is less used in Vietnam. Papers and names were sometimes forged. I don’t know if my mom actually came from My Tho. Is her name really Tuyet Mai? Right now I’m looking at it mostly inquisitively and with compassion. I want to look at the bigger picture. Why is it that parents are faced with the decision to give up a child? How can a system support parents so that such things do not have to happen again?

Recently a Vietnamese woman contacted me on social media. She told me why she had given up her child in the same orphanage as Georges and I. It has not been easy for her to find out where her child went and she continues to search for her child, even if it was more than 20 years ago. She is still saddened by the situation. If anyone can help us broaden this search, please see here.

I have lost contact with my adoptive parents, so they know nothing about my search. I’m sure my adoptive mother would have disapproved.

It would be nice if we find our parents, but we’ll see. I am very grateful for Phuc who has offered to help us search. He seems very nice. I hear from other adoptees that he is friendly and reliable. I also read articles about him and it’s unbelievable what he does to bring families together! I would find it courageous if families dare to come out for what was difficult in the past and why they gave up their child. By telling their story as biological parents, even if they feel ashamed, our society can learn and improve the future.

There are adoptees whose biological parents thought their baby was stillborn but it was actually sold for adoption. If that’s the case with our parents, they don’t even know we are alive. Our story can be everything. It’s hard to know what our case was.

I have so many unanswered questions and I would like to know my family’s story.

If I were to see my biological mother again, the first thing I would tell her is that I would like to get to know her and listen to her story.

Vietnam will always be special to me, even though I didn’t grow up there. I was 9 years old when I went back with my adoptive parents and my sister (non biological) who is also adopted. We went from North to South. Even though my adoptive mother was negative about Vietnam, she couldn’t ruin it for me. The food, the smiling people, the chaos in Ho Chi Minh and the nature in smaller villages have stayed with me. Now I’m reading more about Vietnam and talking more to Vietnamese people. I am saving up to travel to Vietnam again. Maybe alone, maybe with friends or maybe with Georges. We’ll see. But I certainly will go back and learn more about my beautiful country.

You can follow Mikati and her journey at Facebook or Instagram.

To read Mikati and Georges’ story as published in the Vietnam media, click here and the English translation here.

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Adopted for 32 years and now FREE!

by Lynelle Long, Vietnamese ex-adoptee raised in Australia, Founder of ICAV

I can officially now say, “I WAS adopted” as in, it is of the past. Now, my identity changes once again and I am no longer legally plenary adopted. I am my own person having made a clear and cognitive adult age decision that I want to be legally free of the people who looked after me since 5 months old. Mostly, I wanted to be legally recognised as my biological mother’s child and for the truth to be on my birth certificate and flowing into all my identity documents for the future. This also impacts my children and their future generations to ensure they do not have to live the lie of adoption either, but are entitled to their genetic truth of whom they are born to, multi generationally.

The biggest lie of plenary adoption is that we are “as if born to our adoptive parents”. My Australian birth certificate reflects this lie. I grew tired of the untruths of adoption so I decided to take matters into my own hands and empower myself. Nine months later, on 13 December 2022, I was officially discharged from my adoption order which had been made when I was 17 years old. Previous to this, I had been flown into Australia by my adoptive father at the age of 5 months old in December 1973 and the family kept me with them for 17 years without legally completing my adoption. So technically, I was legally under the care of the Lutheran Victorian adoption agency and Immigration Minister’s care as my guardians until my adoption got completed in April 1990. These institutions however didn’t seem to followup on me nor did they create a State Ward file on me. It is still a mystery to this day how I was barely followed up on, given they knew quite clearly that my adoption had not been finalised.

My case is very unusual in that most adoptive parents want to quickly complete the adoption so they can be officially regarded as the child’s “legal guardians”. I have no idea why my adoptive parents took so long and what baffles me is how they managed to pass as my “parents” at schools, hospitals, or any places where there should be a question around “who is this child’s parents” when they had nothing formal on paper to prove their “parenthood”. It’s quite obvious I can’t be their “born to” child when I am Asian and they are white caucasians. We look nothing alike and they raised me in rural areas where I was often the only non-white, non-Aboriginal looking person.

So as this year closes, I can celebrate that my year of 2022 has been a year of empowerment in so many ways. On November 2022, I was also recognised for my years of suffering by being offered the maximum compensation, counselling and a direct personal response under the Royal Commission for Institutional Sexual Abuse Redress Scheme by the two entities responsible for me – the Lutheran Church (the Victorian adoption agency) and the Department of Home Affairs (Australian Immigration). The past 5 years I’ve spent talking to countless lawyers, trying to find a way to hold institutions accountable for my placement with a family who should never have received any vulnerable child. Finally, in some small way, I am able to hold these institutions somewhat accountable and be granted a face to face meeting as a direct personal response via the Redress Scheme. What I want them to recognise is the significant responsibility they hold to keep children safe. It is still hard to fathom how any country can allow children in with parents who look nothing like them, clearly having no biological connections, no paperwork, yet not take all precautions to ensure these children are not being trafficked. I am yet to finish with that larger issue of being highly suspicious that my adoption was an illegal one, if not highly illicit. Our governments need to be on higher alert, looking out for all signs of trafficking in children and ensuring that these children are followed up on and that they have indeed been relinquished by their parents before being allowed into another country with people who are nothing alike.

My case in the Redress Scheme also highlights the many failings of the child protection system that is supposed to protect vulnerable children like me. If I’d been adopted by the family as they should have done, I would never have been allowed this compensation or acknowledgement through the Redress Scheme. It is a significant failing of the system that those who are deemed legally “adopted” are not considered to be under “institutional care” when these very institutions are the ones who place us and deem our adoptive families eligible to care for us. I wrote about this some years ago when I was frustrated that I hadn’t been able to participate in the Royal Commission for Institutional Sexual Abuse. Thankfully, a kind lawyer and fellow sufferer as a former foster child, Peter Kelso was the one who gave me free legal advice and indicated the way through the Royal Commission labyrinth. He helped me understand my true legal status as “not adopted” at the time of my sexual abuse and it is this truth that helped my case for redress via the free legal services of Knowmore. So it’s a bitter sweet outcome for me as I know of too many fellow adoptees who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their adoptive families. Most will never receive any sense of recognition for their suffering and the pathway to hold individuals criminally accountable is also tough if not impossible, depending on the country and laws. In most other countries except Australia, the statute of limitations prevents most victims of sexual abuse from seeking justice. I know from personal experience that it can take survivors 40 plus years to get to the stage of being strong enough to take this route of fighting for justice. More so for an adoptee who lives their life being expected to be “grateful” for adoption and being afraid of further abandonment and rejection should they speak their truth. For some, they never ever talk about their truth as the trauma is just too great and they are busy just surviving. I know of others where the abuse played a major role in their decision to suicide.

I am 2 years into the midst of criminal proceedings against my adoptive family. Next year begins the court contested hearings and who knows what the outcome of that will be nor how long it will go for. I talk about this only to encourage other victims to empower themselves, fight for that inner child who had no-one to protect them! For me, this is what it is all about. I spent years in therapy talking about how none of the adults in my life protected me and even after I exposed the abuse, none of those in professions where child protection is part of their training and industry standard, offered to help me report the perpetrators or take any action to hold them accountable. I finally realised the only one who would ever stand up for myself, was myself. Yes, it has meant I end the relationship with that family, but what type of relationship was it anyway? They were more interested in keeping things quiet and protecting themselves then protecting or creating a safe space for me. I eventually realised I could no longer continue to live the multiple lies both adoption and sexual abuse within that family required. Eventually, I had to chose to live my truth which ultimately meant holding them responsible for the life they’d chosen and created for themselves and me.

I hope one day to also hold institutions accountable for the illegal and illicit aspects of my adoption and once I’m done with that, then I’ll feel like I’ve truly liberated myself from adoption.

Until then, I continue to fight with the rest of my community for this last truth of mine. So many of us should never have been separated from our people, country, culture, language. We lose so much and there is absolutely no guarantee we get placed with families who love, nurture, and uphold us and our original identities. 

The legal concept of plenary adoption is truly an outdated mode of care for a vulnerable child and its premise and legal concept needs to be heavily scrutinised in an era of human and child’s rights awareness. I agree there will always be the need to care for vulnerable children, children who can’t be with their families, but it is time we walk into future learning from the harms of the past and making it better for the children in the future. My lifelong goal is always for this because adoptees are the ones who spend so many of our years having no voice, having no independent people checking up on us. Adopted children are so vulnerable! Too often the assumption is made that adoption is a great benefit for us and this oversight impedes a serious deep dive into the risks to our well being and safety. In my case and too many others, it isn’t until we are well into our 40s and onwards that we find our critical thinking voices and allow ourselves to say what we truly know without fear of rejection and abandonment. Plenary adoption needs to be outlawed and simple adoption should only be a temporary solution for a temporary problem. Any form of adoption should always be the choice of the adoptee to have their adoption undone and allowed to return to be legally connected to their original families, if that is what they want.

May we continue to bring awareness and much needed change to our world so that vulnerable children will be given a better chance in the future and to empower our community of adoptee survivors!

I wish for all in my community that 2023 will be a year of empowerment, truth and justice!

Resources

Discharge / Annulment / Undoing your Adoption

In Australia, each State and Territory has its own process to discharge:
VIC, QLD, NSW, WA, SA
This process includes costs that vary between States. All Australian intercountry adoptees can seek the Bursary amount of $500 from our ICAFSS Small Grants and Bursaries to contribute to the costs of their discharge. Domestic adoptees might also access Small Grants and Bursaries via their local equivalent Relationships Australia program too.

Adoptee Rights Australia has extra info on Discharging your Adoption and what it means legally, plus a quick run down on the main points of difference between the States of Australia

Australian domestic adoptee, Katrina Kelly has a FB group Adoption Reversal for adoptees needing help with their adoption discharge

Australian domestic adoptee, Darryl Nelson has a book about annulling his adoption in QLD: A timeline of the injustice of adoption law. He also participated in an SBS Insight program with this article: How I rediscovered my birth family and annulled my adoption

Australian domestic adoptee, William Hammersley’s Last Wish: Give me back my true identity, says adopted man

Denmark intercountry adoptee Netra Sommer: Cancelling My Adoption

Denmark and Netherlands: 3 Ethiopian Adoptions Annulled – a wake up call

UK adoptee activist Paul Rabz’s FB group for Adoption Annulment Group for Adoptee Activists (note, in the UK it’s legally not possible yet to annul your adoption as an adoptee)

USA

Adoptees United: Examining the Right to end your own Adoption (webinar)

Can you Reverse an Adoption? Reversing an Adoption: Adopted child returned to birth parents (historically, legislation in countries to discharge / reverse an adoption was included to allow adoptive parents the right to undo the adoption if they felt it wasn’t working out)

HCCH – Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention : information collected from Central Authorities to summarise countries that allow annulment and revocation of adoption

Plenary and Simple Adoption

Adoption law should be reformed to give children legal connections to both of their families – here’s why

Sexual Abuse in Adoption

Lifelong impacts of Abuse in Adoption (Chamila)

The Legacy and Impacts of Abuse in Adoption (3 part series)

Broken

Sold via adoption on the Gypsy black market in Greece

Cuts You Deep

Expectations of Gratitude in Adoption

Self Care and Healing

Research: Child Sexual Abuse by Caretakers

Sexual Abuse Support

Professional Support: Relationships Australia – Child Sexual Abuse Counselling

Peer Support: Me Too Survivor Healing

Sexual Abuse Lawsuits

USA: Sexual Abuse Lawsuits – Your Legal Questions Answered (parts 1 – 3, podcast)

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Navigating Disability and Rare Medical Conditions as an Intercountry Adoptee

Webinar, Perspective Paper and Resources

On 23 November, ICAV ran a webinar with 6 incredible panelists sharing lived experience as intercountry adoptees with disability and rare medical conditions.

It’s taken some time to edit this webinar and I hope you will take the time to have a listen. Adoptees with disability and medical conditions are often invisible amongst the intercountry adoptee community and our goal was to elevate them and help to raise awareness of the extra complexities they experience.

Webinar Video Timecode

For those who are time poor, I have provided a time code so you can see exactly the parts you wish to hear.

00:00:25 Welcome – Lynelle Long

00:03:51 Acknowledgement of Country – Mallika Macleod

00:05:15 Panelists Introduction

00:05:31 Maddy Ullman

00:07:07 Wes Liu

00:09:32 Farnad Darnell

00:11:08 Emma Pham

00:12:07 Daniel N Price

00:13:19 Mallika Macleod

00:15:19 The changing definition of disability – Farnad Darnell

00:17:58 Reframing how adoptees with disability can be viewed – Mallika Macleod

00:20:39 Processing the shame and brokenness often associated with being adopted and living with disability – Wes Liu

00:23:34 Dealing with people’s reactions and expectations – Maddy Ullman

00:28:44 Sense of belonging and how it has been impacted – Emma Pham

00:30:14 Navigating the health care system – Daniel N Price

00:31:58 What helped to come to terms with living with disability – Mallika Macleod

00:35:58 How disability might add some extra complexities in reunion – Maddy Ullman

00:39:44 The dynamics between adoptive parents and what is ideal – Wes Liu

00:42:48 Preventing the risk of suicide – Daniel N Price

00:44:26 Children being sent overseas via intercountry adoption because of their disability – Farnad Darnell

00:47:09 What people need to consider when starting off adopting a child with disability with “good intentions” – Emma Pham

00:50:13 How the experience of feeling isolated changed over time – Wes Liu

00:53:25 The role of genetics in her conditions – Maddy Ullman

00:56:35 What worked when facing employment challenges – Mallika Macleod

00:59:11 Becoming self sufficient and independent – Emma Pham

01:02:42 Suggestions for adoptive parents – Daniel N Price

01:03:48 Suggestions for adoption professionals to better prepare adoptive parents – Farnad Darnell

01:06:20 How adoptive families can best discuss whether disability was the reason for relinquishment – Farnad Darnell

Summary of Key Messages from the Webinar

Click here for a pdf document outlining the key messages from each panelist and the matching webinar video timecode.

ICAV Perspective Paper

For those who want to dive deeper and explore this topic further, we have also compiled our latest ICAV Perspective Paper which you can read here. It is a collation of lived experience perspectives offering a rare view into the lives of a dozen intercountry adoptees who live with disability and rare medical conditions. Together, these resources of the webinar and perspective paper fill a huge gap in knowledge about this subset within the intercountry adoptee community. I hope this instigates the beginning of further discussions and forums designed to help raise awareness and create better supports for and within the community.

I want to raise extra attention that within the in-depth sharing of our perspective paper and the webinar, those who contributed made numerous mentions of the heightened risk of suicide, depression, and isolation. We need to do more to better support our fellow adoptees who are most vulnerable living with disability and medical conditions.

Photography courtesy of Maddy Ullman and Wes Liu

If you have any additional resources that can help build upon what we have started, please contact ICAV or add your comment to this post, so I can continue to grow this list below.

Additional Resources

Rare Disease

#Rareis : Meet Daniel N Price – a rare disease advocate and intercountry adoptee

With Love August (intercountry adoptee August Rocha, a disabled trans man with rare disease)

Diagnostic Odysseys featuring August Roche (disabled trans intercountry adoptee with rare disease)

Once Upon a Gene – Rare disease intercountry adoption with Josh and Monica Poynter (podcast)

#Rareis: Nora’s Forever Home – a rare disease domestic adoptee

The Rare Disorder Podcast

Rare in Common (documentary of those affected by rare disease)

Rare Diseases International

Enola : an application by Medical Intelligence One that helps diagnose Rare Diseases, freely avail

One Rare – Young Adults Impacted by Rare Disease and Transitioning to Adulthood

Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network

Global Genes – Allies in Rare Disease

Disability

Adoptees with Disabilities (FB group)

International Adoptees with Disabilities (FB group)

Neurodivergent Adoptee (FB page by intercountry adoptee Jodi Gibson Moore)

We all have the power – Marusha Rowe (cerebral palsy advocate and intercountry adoptee)

Violence, Abuse, Neglect & Exploitation of Adoptees with Disability : Australian Disability Royal Commission submission by ICAV

Invisibility(ies) Session Five (video, led by domestic adoptee Nicole Rademacher who interviews adoptee artists Anu Annam, Jessica Oler, and Caleb Yee exploring how their art relates to their disability)

A Disability Primer: Reclaiming, Imagining, Creating Change (Conference recording, Nov 2022)

Unfixed – sharing stories of those living with chronic illness and disability

Chronically Capable – for job seekers with chronic illness and disabilities

Transitions of Care – Child Neurology (helping you transition from paediatric to adult care)

The Caregiver Series (videos, for adoptive parents)

Sing Me a Story (Stories and Songs for kids in need)

Watershed DNA (support and guidance to help those understand their DNA results)

Easterseals Disability Film Challenge (changing the way the world views and defines disability)

Familial Fitness: Disability, Adoption, and Family in Modern America

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One Adoptee’s Thoughts on the UN Joint Statement on Illegal Intercountry Adoptions

Resilience by CLAIR

On 29 September 2022, the United Nations (UN) published a press release titled: Illegal intercountry adoptions must be prevented and eliminated: UN experts which provides a Joint Statement from the UN Committees. While the majority around the world could not have pre-empted this statement, it was not news to me because our coalition Voices Against Illegal Adoption (VAIA) had been talking with the UN to ensure our input was included. I know other experts in illegal intercountry adoption around the world gave input too.

The UN Joint Statement created for me a day of mixed feelings. For many of us, myself included, who are the victims of the past and current practices that constitute illegal and illicit practices in intercountry adoption, we have been speaking up, shouting from the rooftops, demanding attention, help, and support. But usually to no avail. Most Governments around the world have continued to turn a blind eye to the reality that some of our adoptions have been questionable and some, outright illegal with prosecutions of perpetrators. As one adoptive mother and fierce advocate, Desiree Smolin essentially said on her Facebook post, why has it taken the UN so long given the decades of trafficking and illicit practices? Why have so many families and adoptees been left to suffer the same impacts when it has been known to happen for so many decades?

So on 29 September, I felt our voices have been finally heard and validated – that someone in power was listening to us. Thank you to those at the UN who worked tirelessly to make this happen. It felt a little vindicating but at the same time, the reality of this world crushes hope because I know the statement from the UN is not going to put any true pressure on governments around the world to act in our best interest, let alone help us in any practical sense.

I felt personally so empowered by the UN Joint Statement that I wrote another letter to our leader here in Australia, the Prime Minister. In my letter, I ask the Australian government once again, to please do something to help those who are impacted instead of the deathly silence we’ve experienced in the 25 years I’ve spent advocating for our rights and needs.

Have a read of my lengthy letter which highlights the many times I’ve attempted to raise this issue to our Australian government, asking for supports for the victims. I’m as yet to have any response from the Australian Prime Minister. I imagine that the post-COVID economic recovery of the country, the current floods that have hit Australia all year long, and the other more higher priority issues like domestic family violence will receive his attention first compared to my long letter about a topic that impacts only some of the 20,000 of us intercountry adoptees. We just don’t rank up there in importance and unless it was their son or daughter being impacted, there’s just no reason why our Australian government would care enough to act.

I’ve been asked by a few about what I thought the impact would be of this UN Joint Statement. I truly think the best outcome might be that States (governments) will realise the risks they bear in continuing to conduct and facilitate intercountry adoption with all its pitfalls in safeguarding the human rights of intercountry adoptees. When we consider the legal cases being fought around the world by various intercountry adoptees and the revolution in awakening that we can fight for our rights, I would caution any government against participating in intercountry adoption. Legal pathways are slowly but surely being found by adoptees around the world. Governments must realise that if they continue on as they have in the past, there will be a time of reckoning where the abuses to our human rights will finally be recognised and the injustices need to be compensated.

In the Netherlands, the fight for adoptee rights is led by Brazilian adoptee Patrick Noordoven who won his right to compensation due to his illegal adoption to the Netherlands. Dilani Butink also won her court hearing for her case of an unlawful adoption from Sri Lanka. Bibi Hasenaar is also mentioned as having liability claims in this joint report. Sadly, both Noordoven and Butink’s cases are still being appealed by the Dutch State who have unlimited funds and time which highlights the power imbalance and ongoing victimisation that adoptees face. Sam van den Haak has also sent a letter to the Dutch State about her own and 20 other Sri Lankan adoptees whose adoption files have errors that caused emotional damage.

In Sweden, Carlos Andrés Queupán Huenchumil filed an appeal to change his name back to his original, having been illegally adopted from Chile. In France, a group of Malian adoptees are taking legal action against the adoption agency for its role in their illegal adoptions. In New Zealand, Maori adoptee Bev Reweti has mounted a class action against the State for being displaced and adopted out of their Maori whānau. In South Korea, Korean-Denmark intercountry adoptee and lawyer Peter Regal Möller and his organisation Danish Korean Rights Group have submitted just under 300 cases to the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission seeking to know the truth about their identities that were falsified in order to be intercountry adopted. Peter openly talks about the legal cases against agencies Holt and KSS that are coming in the future. I also know of other intercountry adoptees who haven’t had published media articles yet but who are progressing in the early stages of their legal cases against States and agencies for their illegal adoptions.

The momentum is growing around the world as adoptees become more aware of the human rights abuses they’ve lived that have been facilitated via intercountry adoption.

It’s not just adoptees who are taking legal action. Some incredibly courageous parents are, and have, also taken action. Recently in France, adoptive parents Véronique and Jean-Noël Piaser who adopted a baby from Sri Lanka have filed a complaint in 2021 for the fraud that involved the stealing of their baby from her mother in Sri Lanka. In the USA, adoptive parents Adam and Jessica Davis have been successful in assisting the US government to press charges against the adoption agency European Adoption Consultants (EAC) for its role in fraud and corruption of theirs and many other adoptions.

In a landmark first, both adoptive parents and biological parents of Guatemalan-Belgium adoptee Mariela SR Coline Fanon are taking civil action in Belgium as victims of human trafficking. The case is currently under judicial investigation. This is not the first time biological parents fight for their rights in intercountry adoption. In 2020, biological father from Guatemala, Gustavo Tobar Farjardo won at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for his sons to be returned to him who had been adopted to separate families in America.

So ultimately, I believe the UN Joint Statement acts two-fold: firstly, it goes some way towards validating the traumas some live in our adoptions and encourages intercountry adoptees and families around the world to stand up and demand action and legal vindication of our truths; and secondly, it makes it clear to States the risks they undertake if they continue on in their current practices of intercountry adoption.

I would personally be glad and celebrate if adopting countries assess the risk of participating in intercountry adoption as too high to continue it into the future. We are long past the time of being blind to the colonial practices and harms of intercountry adoption. We must do more to help all countries become more aware of the responsibility they hold to their own born-to-children. Remember that some of our biggest sending countries in intercountry adoption are our richest – China, South Korea and the USA. It is time we moved past the easy solution intercountry adoption provides to countries who don’t wish to take care of their own and challenge countries to understand there is an inherent cost if they ignore their children by casting them aside, when it suits. Intercountry adoptees do grow up, we become well educated, we are empowered by Western mentality to demand our rights be respected and injustices no longer be ignored.

The UN Statement is long overdue given the decades of generations of us who are impacted by illegal and illicit adoptions. I celebrate that we have been heard at the highest level internationally, but I’m fairly certain that States will not step up to deal with this issue in any practical way. I know they will remain silent for as long as possible, hoping it blows over and meanwhile, as in the Netherlands, they will continue on in their trade of children but in a slightly different way, despite conducting a full investigation; because that’s what countries do. I’m a pragmatist and I will continue to raise awareness and push for much needed change, because I know despite the UN Joint Statement, we are still at the beginning. It will take a huge en-masse movement from impacted people to get governments to act in support of us because for too long, they’ve been able to get away with doing little to nothing. At some point, the cost for governments and participating entities of doing little, will outweigh the cost to stopping the practice.

I believe in its current form and as practiced under the 1993 Hague Convention, governments are unable to prevent and stop the illegal and illicit practices aka trafficking that include human rights abuses in intercountry adoption. Therefore it needs to be stopped. The UN Joint Statement is simply a reflection of where we are at today. Victims no longer need to plead to be heard, we HAVE been heard at the highest level internationally. What we are waiting on now, is for appropriate responses from governments and facilitating organisations — which might be a long time coming.

Resources

Governments finally recognising illicit and illegal adoption practices

Lived experience suggestions for responses to illicit adoptions

Lived experience of illegal and illicit adoption (webinar)

Stop intercountry adoption completely because abuses can never be ruled out

Unbearable how the minister deals with adoption victims

The case for moratoria on intercountry adoption

Child Laundering: How the intercountry adoption system legitimises and incentivises the practice of buying, kidnapping, and stealing children

False Narratives: illicit practices in Colombian transnational adoption

Irregularities in transnational adoptions and child appropriations: challenges for reparation practices

From Orphan Trains to Babylifts: colonial trafficking, empire building and social engineering

Double Subsidiarity Principle and the Right to Identity

Intercountry adoption and the Right to Identity

Exploitation of in intercountry adoption: Toward common understanding and action

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Agent Orange Awareness Month

I am a product of the Vietnam war in which America treated my birth country as a chemical laboratory with pesticide warfare. Many of my people suffer to this day from the lifelong impacts of the decision to spray thousands of hectares with the deadly chemical cocktail. 

I have witnessed a high proportion of my fellow Vietnamese adoptees suffering from cancers at relatively young ages, a proportion of our children born with disabilities, mine included. Whether we can categorically say it is caused by agent orange being sprayed, is unclear but we know it was an airborne contaminant that would have impacted our mothers with us while in utero and in environments we may have been exposed to as young children.

For the newer, younger generations of Vietnamese adoptees, they are born in a country that still suffers the effects of the contaminated land and waters from agent orange. How many of them suffer from generational impacts of agent orange?

One of the most confronting realities I experienced whilst visiting Vietnam’s orphanages was meeting with the children who live with serious deformities and disabilities, those who are not able to be looked after in family homes because their complex needs are too overwhelming.

Agent Orange awareness month reminds me of the power differentials that precede intercountry adoption. I see the American war veterans and their families can get free testing for exposure to agent orange and recognition of the impacts and support for what agent orange has had on them, yet too little is done for the people of Vietnam and others like us, the collateral damage .. Vietnamese adoptees sent abroad.

Maybe the American and other adopting governments think it was enough to “save” us from their own acts to wipe out our country and have us airlifted to their lands, where we can grow up to whitewash the acts of war and the perpetrators because after all, we should be grateful to be adopted shouldn’t we?! 

Resources

Operation Babylift: An Adoptee’s Perspective

Operation Babylift: Mass Kidnaping?

Misguided Intentions: Operation Babylift and the Consequences of Humanitarian Action

The Controversy of Operation Babylift During the Vietnam War

Operation Babylift (1975)

UN Statement on Illegal Intercountry Adoption

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Adoptee Artists

At ICAV, we strive to elevate adoptee artists as their works can often portray what words struggle to convey. Consistent with this, at the recent 9 September K-Box Adoptee Takeover Night, Ra Chapman and myself wanted the evening to be a celebration of Australian intercountry adoptee artists. We were able to present some of their work in a printout as a ZINE which you can view here:

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Other Adoptee Artists

We’ve had some other incredible intercountry adoptee artists present their works at ICAV over the years. Here is a compilation of what has been shared. Click on the image and it will take you to their blog with artworks.

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Meg at K-Box Adoptee Takeover Night

Meg is a Korean intercountry adoptee, raised in Australia and a comic artist. She makes largely autobiographical and non-fiction work that has appeared in The Nib, The Lily, Liminal Magazine, The Comics Journal and anthologies including Comic Sans, Steady Diet, Threads That Connect Us and the Eisner award-winning Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment and Survival. She has exhibited comic, animation and film work internationally, taught comic making to university students, developed and delivered comics programs to high school-aged students from migrant and refugee backgrounds with STARTTS, and art programs to elementary-aged students in Korea. Meg is currently working on a long-form work based on her experiences as the Asian child of white parents in Australia, a recent period of living in Korea, and a failed search for her Korean mother.

She created the artwork for our K-Box Adoptee Takeover Night promotional material and ZINE:

Meg also presented as one of our adoptee artists and you can watch the video of her presentation here:

You can also view it in the web version format for those who prefer to read and see.

Resources

Find out more about Meg
website: http://www.megoshea.com
IG: @even.little.meg

Check out our Photo Album, Ryan’s and Ebony’s presentations from the evening

Coming Next is our adoptee artist ZINE and other adoptee artists

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Ebony at K-Box Adoptee Takeover Night

Ebony is an Haitian born intercountry adoptee raised into Australia. She is a talented artist whose body of work speaks to the complex issues we live as intercountry adoptees and exploring our identity. 

As an Australian contemporary artist with an interest in interrogating concepts of individuality, adoption, sexuality, queerness and black identity. Ebony draws on her life experience to inform the creation of her drawings and expressive sculptural forms, employing a diverse assortment of materials to compose her work. Performance is also an important element of her creative practice. In 2000, Ebony created the drag personality Koko Mass. Koko loves to perform songs with soul and is a bit of a badass who always speaks up and is honest about issues they face in society. Koko challenges perceptions head on whilst also having fun with their audience. Ebony’s practice is bold and politically engaged, responding to issues that affect her communities with a strong visual language she continues to explore. Ebony completed her Masters of Contemporary Art at Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne in 2020. 

Ebony contributed this piece of artwork for our ZINE which was a printed out magazine celebrating Australia’s intercountry and transracial adoptee artists, for people to take home.

If you live in Melbourne you can see more of her artwork at Chin Chin & Go Go at 125 Flinders Lane. The bar is decorated with her artwork and her video shown below, is projected onto the laneway. 

She is also participating with a group of Australian First Nations adoptees on the 7 Oct at Melbourne University in an exhibition titled – Adopted.

Ebony’s artist statement about this video:

Divine Make-up, 2019

Divine make-up is an example of my drawings coming to life, putting myself within the frame, showing how I draw and then pairing that with my spoken word performance. Drawing is an important part of my practice; I respect the simple form of paper and textas.

I like the immediacy of drawing; I feel my drawings can be spontaneous and I like to free draw. When I draw, I don’t plan the outcome, I start and see where it takes me, I let the marks guide my direction. My work, as Ebony, is personal and honest. My drawings are a mix of feelings, experiences and specific moments in my life. This videos shows the ideas I have explored recently, coming together to fill the space with my black self.

Watch Ebony Hickey’s Divine Make-up:

Resources

Other artwork by Ebony at ICAV:
I am ME
Born both ways

You can find out more about Ebony at:
IG: @ebony.hickey.7

Coming Next is Meg’s presentation from the evening.

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