被收养者专家搜索跨国收养网络研讨会

2023 年 4 月 23 日，ICAV 举办了一场小组网络研讨会，为您带来了我们在世界各地的搜索专家的专业知识，分享了他们关于在跨国收养中进行搜索时应考虑哪些因素的最佳智慧之言。他们直接代表来自斯里兰卡、埃塞俄比亚、韩国、海地、哥伦比亚和希腊的收养组织。

在这里观看网络研讨会：
注意：如果在 Chrome 中观看，请单击“了解更多”按钮观看视频

时间码

对于那些时间不够并想跳到相关部分的人，这里有一个时间码可以提供帮助：

00:20 介绍，欢迎，目的
04:30 嘉宾介绍
04:39 玛西娅恩格尔
06:48 丽贝卡Payot
09:29 乔纳斯·德西尔
10:25 琳达卡罗尔特罗特
12:55 凯拉柯蒂斯
15:22 希尔布兰德韦斯特拉
17:44 Benoit Vermeerbergen
21:00 席琳·法斯勒

问题和答案

23:28 一般搜索过程涉及什么？ – 凯拉
27:30 被收养人需要准备什么？ – 琳达，玛西娅
35:51 结果是什么？ – 乔纳斯、凯拉、琳达
46:50 可能遇到的一些障碍？ – 丽贝卡，琳达
56:51 需要考虑哪些道德规范？ – 玛西娅、凯拉
1:06:40 搜索费用应该是多少？ – 丽贝卡、琳达、塞林
1:11:46 谁值得信任？希尔布兰德，乔纳斯
1:16:16 DNA检测需要考虑哪些问题？ – 伯努瓦
1:19:18 DNA 检测会产生什么结果？ – 伯努瓦
1:20:40 你推荐什么DNA测试？伯努瓦，玛西娅
1:23:51 使用领养者主导的搜索组织有哪些优势？ – 塞林，玛西娅
1:28:28 成为受信任的政府资助的搜索组织涉及什么？ – 塞林
1:30:36 政府最需要什么来帮助我们寻找被收养者？ – 希尔布兰德，玛西娅

关键信息摘要

点击这里对于我们的pdf 关键信息 来自每个小组成员

资源

非常感谢 26 位收养者愿意分享他们的寻找经验，以便其他人能够获得更深入的了解。它们代表了13个出生国（中国、哥伦比亚、印度、马来西亚、摩洛哥、秘鲁、菲律宾、罗马尼亚、俄罗斯、韩国、斯里兰卡、泰国、越南）的经验，被送往9个收养国（澳大利亚、比利时、加拿大、法国）、德国、苏格兰、瑞典、英国、美国）。

ICAV 最新的 Perspective Paper 搜索跨国收养

有关更多资源，请参阅我们的寻找与重逢页

4月 12, 20234月 13, 2023

让我们谈谈非法和不正当的跨国收养

There’s a resounding silence around the world from the majority of adoptive parents when adult intercountry adoptees start to talk about whether our adoptions are illegal or illicit. Why is that? Let’s begin the conversation and unpack it a little.

As an intercountry adoptee, I was purchased through illicit and illegal means and it has taken me years to come to terms with what this means and how I view my adoption. I’m not alone in this journey and because of what I hear and see amongst my community of adoptees, I believe it’s really important for adoptive parents to grapple with what they’ve participated in. This system of child trafficking in intercountry adoption is widespread! It’s not just a Guatemalan, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan or Russian issue – it impacts every country we are adopted to and from, beginning back in the 1950s enmasse, through to current day adoptions. The 1993 Hague Convention came about because of the vast number of illegal and illicit adoptions. The Hague could possibly blind adoptive parents into believing their adoptions cannot be illegal or illicit because they went through the “approved” process and authority. But while a Hague adoption is less likely than a pre-Hague private or expatriate adoption to have illegal and illicit practices within, it is no guarantee because the Hague lacks mechanisms to enforce and safeguard against child trafficking.

To date, most adoptive countries have also not curbed or stopped private and expatriate adoptions that bypass the Hague processes. This means illegal and illicit adoptions are very much still possible and facilitated through a country’s immigration pathways and usually the only role an adoptive country will play in these adoptions, is to assess visa eligibility. This remains a huge failing of adoptive countries who assume a birth country has all the checks and balances in place to prevent illegal and illicit practices within private and expatriate adoptions.

If you aren’t grappling with what you’ve participated in as an adoptive parent, you can be sure your adoptees are, at some point in their lives. More so these days, as the world around us changes and country after country (荷兰, 比利时, 挪威, Switzerland, Sweden, 法国) eventually investigates and recognises the wrongs done historically in intercountry adoption. 德国, 丹麦和澳大利亚 are countries where adoptees are currently pushing for their governments to investigate. Support comes from the UN who last year, issued their joint statement on illegal intercountry adoptions.

It’s important we have these discussions and be truthful with adoptees about illegal and illicit practices that are our adoptions. In ICAV, we grapple with the reality, especially when it comes to searching for our origins and finding out the truth. Here’s a 网络研讨会 I co-facilitated two years ago on this topic. As you’ll see from the webinar, we are all impacted by these practices – adoptees, adoptive parents, and our original families.

When I first started ICAV in 1998, I didn’t want to discuss the darker sides of adoption. I blindly mimicked what I’d heard – being grateful for my life in Australia and thankful that my life was so much better than if I’d remained in Vietnam. It’s taken me years to educate myself, listening to fellow adoptees around the world who are impacted and advocating for our rights and for the dark side of adoption to be dealt with. I’ve finally come to understand deeply what the adoption industry is and how it operates.

My adoptive parents couldn’t deal with my questions or comments about being paid for in France, or the questions I had about the Vietnamese lawyer who facilitated my adoption. They jumped to his defence. But there is no evidence I am an orphan and my 40+ years of searching for the truth highlights how illegal my adoption is, to date: no relinquishment document, no birth certificate, no adoption papers from the Vietnam side, only a few personal letters written from lawyer to adoptive family and an exchange of money to a French bank account, then the Victorian adoption authority processed my adoption 16 years after I entered Australia with parents who were questionably “assessed and approved”.

I’m a parent of teenaged children and I know what it’s like to have those tough discussions on topics we aren’t comfortable with. I’m sure many adoptive parents must feel doubts and possibly a sense of guilt looking back in hindsight, for not looking into things more, pushing away doubts about the process, the costs, the facilitators, in their zeal to become a parent at all costs. If you feel guilt or remorse as an adoptive parent, at least you’re being honest about the reality of intercountry adoption. Honesty is a good place to start. What’s worse for adoptees is when our parents deny and defend their actions despite data that indicates there were plenty of signals of illicit practices from that country or facilitator. Being honest will help your adoptee start to trust you can take responsibility for your actions and not pass the buck to the “other” stakeholders who also contribute to trafficking practices.

The difficult part for us all, is that there are rarely any supports or education on this topic from those facilitating adoption or supporting it – either as pre or post adoption organisations. Even less support exists for those who KNOW it was illegal or illicit adoption and no-one guides us as to what we can do about it except our own peer communities. This needs to change! It should not be the responsibility of the impacted community to provide the industry and authorities with education and resources on what it means to be a victim of the process and how to support us.

At ICAV, we have been attempting to fill this gap because the industry continues to fail us in this way. Here is our global paper we compiled of our responses we’d like from governments and authorities. I hope those who feel guilt or remorse will turn that feeling into an action to demand better supports and legislation for impacted people and speaking up to hold governments and agencies accountable. That is how you’ll help us in my humble opinion. The fact that so many parents who participated in trafficking practices are silent is only damning your adoptee to have to fight the system by themselves.

Thankfully, the work I was involved in, to represent adoptees in the Hague Working Group on Preventing and Addressing Illicit Practices in Intercountry Adoption, has concluded with a published toolkit in which Central Authorities are now provided a template for how they could respond to queries from victims of illegal and illicit adoptions. Sadly, this toolkit, like the 1993 Hague Convention is not enforceable and so, it requires those of us who are impacted to spend much time and energy pushing governments and authorities to respond to us in an appropriate manner.

If you are an Australian and you’d like to support us in our push for an investigation by an independent body into Australia’s history of intercountry adoptions, you can participate in our survey as an 收养人 or as an adoptive parent. We aim to gather high level data showing the human rights abuse patterns throughout the birth countries and the ongoing lack of adequate responses from the Australian government and authorities. Prior to this, we created a letter with signatures from the community which was sent to every Australian Central Authority, every Minister responsible for Adoption at both State and Federal level, and to our Prime Minister and State Premiers.

For the benefit of many, I felt it important to provide an easy to read document on what an illicit and illegal intercountry adoption is. My heartfelt thanks to Prof David Smolin who did the lion share of creating this easy to read document. I’m honoured to know some incredible adoptive parents like David who spend their lives advocating and working with us to change this global system.

4月 7, 20234月 4, 2023

跨种族被收养者和父母的反种族主义在线研讨会

去年，我跑了一个网络研讨会关于跨国和跨种族被收养者与种族主义的经历，以帮助提高认识并作为一个社区表达这些共同经历。为了进一步解决我们社区在这方面缺乏资源的问题，我通过 关系澳大利亚 小额赠款和助学金计划聘请色调，一家专门从事反种族主义研讨会的生活体验公司。 Hue 和 ICAV 共同提供了一个急需的空间（分别用于跨种族收养者；另一个用于养父母），以讨论、提高认识和处理涉及种族、种族主义和跨国/跨种族收养的一些问题。

我们的工作坊是免费的，将分为三个部分提供，作为专门为澳大利亚跨国和跨种族收养者及其父母量身定制的反种族主义计划。欢迎来自其他国家的收养者和父母加入，了解该计划是从澳大利亚的角度（但仍然与其他国家相关）和澳大利亚时区提供的。每个研讨会的上限为 35 人，以确保参与者获得最大利益。

在他们的第一个研讨会中，这两个项目都将介绍种族和种族主义，培养我们对系统性种族主义和不公正的理解和批判性思维。第二个研讨会将探讨白人或白人主导文化，以及我们的态度和生活方式受到这些文化系统影响的方式，特别是在跨国收养的背景下。收养者将完成一个项目，该项目探索忘却和挑战我们在白人主导文化中内化的有害信念的方法、集体解放和团结的工具，以及自我和社区关怀的工具。收养父母将通过一个关于盟友关系的研讨会来完成他们的系列，培养他们在看到种族主义时挑战种族主义的技能，并通过他们的经历来支持他们的收养孩子。

以下是有关 Hue 及其协调人 Elsa 的一些信息，我曾与她合作定制这些研讨会以适应我们的社区体验：

色调是一个种族和社会正义组织，由两名有色人种女性创立，提供一系列易于接受、引人入胜且基于优势的培训计划。他们的研讨会由具有生活经验的人提供便利，为所有知识水平提供参与式和细致入微的学习体验。他们还为希望对其政策、流程和工作文化实施有意义变革的组织提供持续的支持和咨询。

艾尔莎（她/她）是一位酷儿、犹太和中国有色人种女性。她是一名教育者、促进者、组织者和表演者。她是 Hue 的联合创始人，Hue 是一家反种族主义和社会正义组织，为组织提供培训和咨询。此前，她是 Democracy in Color 的培训总监，并在 Switchboard Victoria 的董事会和 QTIBIPOC 董事会委员会任职两届。她拥有社会工作和心理学背景，并撰写了关于来自多个少数民族遗产的多种族人如何处理他们的种族身份的荣誉论文。 2020 年，她被授予 Out for Australia's 30 under 30，表彰 LGBTQIA+ 榜样和领导者，2022 年，她入围 7NEWS 社区服务和社会影响青年成就奖半决赛。她热衷于平台化生活经验、建立社区力量以及在此过程中进行康复。

被收养者研讨会的关键日期是：5 月 21 日、6 月 4 日和 6 月 18 日从澳大利亚东部标准时间下午 1 点开始。每个工作坊持续 3.5 小时，中间有休息时间。通过小组分组讨论鼓励输入和参与。这不是一个坐下来听的研讨会，但如果你觉得这样做很舒服，那也没关系。

如果您想以跨国/跨种族被收养者的身份参与我们的被收养者研讨会，请点击黄色的 RSVP 图片：

养父母研讨会的关键日期是：7 月 23 日、8 月 6 日和 8 月 20 日澳大利亚东部标准时间下午 1 点开始。每个工作坊持续 3.5 小时，中间有休息时间。通过小组分组讨论鼓励输入和参与。这不是一个坐下来听的研讨会，但如果你觉得这样做很舒服，那也没关系。

如果您想以养父母的身份 RSVP 参加我们的养父母研讨会，请点击蓝色 RSVP 图片：

非常感谢澳大利亚联邦政府，DSS 通过资金使这成为可能 Relationships Australia ICAFSS、小额赠款和助学金计划.

3月 23, 20233月 30, 2023

被收养者专家搜索跨国收养

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, Haiti, 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:

玛西娅·恩格尔

Marcia is the creator and operator of 计划天使, 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.

琳达卡罗尔福雷斯特特罗特

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 埃夫提基亚项目, 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.

凯拉柯蒂斯

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 跨国收养者和家庭支持服务 (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.

乔纳斯·德西尔

Jonas is a Haitian adoptee raised in Australia who has spent many years assisting his fellow Haitian adoptees to search for their families in Haiti. He was adopted from Haiti at 6 years old and eventually was able to find his mother in Haiti. Today he is happily married with children and works a lot to help mentor other younger adoptees and help adoptive families.

贝努瓦·弗梅尔贝根

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 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.

丽贝卡·帕约特

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?”

希尔布兰德韦斯特拉

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.

席琳·费斯勒

Celin is adopted from Sri Lanka to Switzerland and is the Communications Manager and Board Member at 追本溯源. 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

Sarah is adopted from Sri Lankan to Switzerland and is the President of Back to the Roots and may present jointly with Celin in this webinar.

The webinar will be recorded and made available at ICAVs website.

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

非常感谢 Australian Government, DSS for funding this event via our Relationships Australia, 小额赠款和助学金计划.

2月 23, 20235月 18, 2023

英国跨国收养网络研讨会

2023 年 1 月 30 日，一小群英国的跨国收养者参加了网络研讨会小组活动，与收养父母组织分享他们的想法和经验， 收养英国.

在本次网络研讨会中，您将见到从斯里兰卡收养的莎拉·希尔德、从厄瓜多尔收养的约书亚·阿斯普登、从巴西收养的艾玛·埃斯特雷拉、从中国收养的梅雷迪思·阿姆斯特朗和从香港收养的克莱尔·马丁。我们一起回答一些养父母在 收养英国 问。

观看网络研讨会，下面是时间码、关键信息和相关资源。
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网络研讨会时间码

00:20 介绍来自 AdoptionUK
01:03 介绍来自 ICAV 的 Lynelle
02:44 莎拉希尔德
03:35 克莱尔·马丁
05:34 梅雷迪思阿姆斯特朗
07:39 艾玛埃斯特雷拉
09:39 约书亚阿斯普登
12:17 寻找家人时如何保护自己免受诈骗 – 莱内尔
17:23 接近生活故事工作的技巧 – 梅雷迪思
20:54 如果您被出生国的家庭收养，您是否觉得生活会更好？
21:27 约书亚
24:56 艾玛
28:00 在开始跨国收养时，我们希望养父母知道什么？
28:24 克莱尔
32:25 梅雷迪思
35:12 莎拉
38:24 艾玛
40:24 约书亚
43:34 莱内尔
45:30 什么与您的传统最相关？
45:45 莎拉
48:23 克莱尔
49:30 约书亚
51:07 计划拜访寄养家庭，有什么技巧或提示来管理被收养者会出现的强烈情绪吗？
51:30 梅雷迪思
52:24 艾玛
54:25 莱内尔
56:24 乔结束和感谢

网络研讨会关键信息摘要

单击此处查看 PDF格式文档

越南领养的兄妹通过DNA找到彼此

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, 领英或者 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 这里.

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 或者 Instagram.

To read Mikati and Georges’ story as published in the Vietnam media, click 这里和英文翻译这里.

12月 29, 202212月 29, 2022

Adopted for 32 years and now FREE!

经过 莱内尔朗, 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 简单的领养 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!

资源

Discharge / Annulment / Undoing your Adoption

In 澳大利亚, 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

丹麦 intercountry adoptee Netra Sommer: 取消收养

丹麦和荷兰: 3 Ethiopian Adoptions Annulled – a wake up call

英国 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)

美国

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

作为跨国收养者应对残疾和罕见疾病

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.

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.

注意：如果在 Chrome 中观看，请单击“了解更多”按钮观看视频

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

点击这里 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 这里. 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 （播客）

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

The Rare Disorder Podcast

罕见的共同点（关于罕见病患者的纪录片）

罕见病国际

埃诺拉 : 申请者 医学智能一号 帮助诊断罕见病，免费使用

一种罕见病——受罕见病影响并正在向成年期过渡的年轻人

罕见病临床研究网络

全球基因——罕见病的盟友

失能

残疾被收养人（脸书群）

国际残障人士（脸书群）

神经分歧的被收养者（跨国收养者 Jodi Gibson Moore 的 FB 页面）

我们都有力量 – Marusha Rowe（脑瘫倡导者和跨国收养者）

对残疾被收养人的暴力、虐待、忽视和剥削 : ICAV 提交的澳大利亚残疾人皇家委员会

Invisibility(ies) 第五节（视频，由国内被收养者 Nicole Rademacher 主持，他采访了被收养者艺术家 Anu Annam、Jessica Oler 和 Caleb Yee，探索他们的艺术与残疾的关系）

残疾入门：回收、想象、创造变化（会议录音，2022 年 11 月）

不固定 – 分享患有慢性疾病和残疾的人的故事

长期有能力 – 对于患有慢性疾病和残疾的求职者

护理过渡 - 儿童神经病学（帮助您从儿科过渡到成人护理）

看护者系列（视频，供养父母使用）

给我唱个故事（为有需要的孩子们准备的故事和歌曲）

分水岭DNA （支持和指导帮助那些人了解他们的 DNA 结果）

Easterseals 残疾电影挑战赛（改变世界看待和定义残疾的方式）

家庭健康：现代美国的残疾、收养和家庭

10月 29, 202211月 7, 2022

一位被收养者对联合国关于非法跨国收养的联合声明的看法

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 帕特里克·诺多文 who won his right to compensation due to his illegal adoption to the Netherlands. 迪拉尼布廷克 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 丹麦韩国权利组织 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，政府无法预防和制止非法和违法行为又名贩运，包括在跨国收养中侵犯人权。因此需要停止。联合国联合声明只是反映了我们今天所处的位置。受害者不再需要恳求自己的声音，我们已经在国际最高级别上被听到了。我们现在正在等待的是政府和促进组织的适当回应——这可能需要很长时间。

资源

各国政府最终承认非法收养行为

应对非法收养的生活经验建议

非法和非法收养的亲身经历 (webinar)

完全停止跨国收养，因为永远不能排除滥用

难以忍受部长如何对待收养受害者

暂停跨国收养的案例

儿童洗钱：跨国收养制度如何使购买、绑架和偷窃儿童的行为合法化并受到激励

虚假陈述：哥伦比亚跨国收养中的非法行为

跨国收养和儿童挪用中的违规行为：赔偿实践的挑战

从孤儿列车到婴儿升降机：殖民贩运、帝国建设和社会工程

双重辅助原则和身份权

跨国收养和身份权

跨国收养的利用：达成共识和行动

10月 11, 202210月 13, 2022

橙剂宣传月

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?!

资源

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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关键信息摘要

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Our 8 panelists are:

玛西娅·恩格尔

琳达卡罗尔福雷斯特特罗特

凯拉柯蒂斯

乔纳斯·德西尔

贝努瓦·弗梅尔贝根

丽贝卡·帕约特

希尔布兰德韦斯特拉

席琳·费斯勒

Sarah Ramani Ineichen

网络研讨会时间码

网络研讨会关键信息摘要

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Plenary and Simple Adoption

Sexual Abuse in Adoption

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Sexual Abuse Lawsuits

Webinar, Perspective Paper and Resources

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ICAV Perspective Paper

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