Painful truth about adopted children

Siobhain Ryan and Sean Parnell | August 26, 2008

WHEN Julia Rollings first heard that the orphanage from which she had adopted her son and daughter was embroiled in a child-trafficking scandal, she was faced with a life-changing choice.

She could do nothing, safe in the knowledge that her children, Akil and Sabila, had been declared free for adoption by Indian courts, were Australian citizens and were in a place they called home.

Or she could find out for sure whether the story she was told - that Akil and Sabila’s parents had voluntarily relinquished them because of ill-health - was true.

Two years ago, Mrs Rollings chose the truth, and the truth hurt.

An Indian friend she commissioned to look into Akil and Sabila’s background found they had been sold by their drunk and violent father to the Madras Social Service Guild orphanage for $50 without their mother Sunama’s knowledge or consent.

“We’ve all been caught up in a horrible situation not of our making,” Mrs Rollings said. “All of us, Sunama, the children, are all victims of what happened.”

Dozens of other Australian parents face similar painful truths about their children’s histories. At least 30 children are thought to have been wrongfully adopted in Australia in the past 10 to 15 years after they were targeted by a trafficking network in India.

This time around, it is a different adoption agency in Chennai - Malaysian Social Services - that is the centre of the kidnapping scandal.

The Indian Central Bureau of Investigation has asked to question the Queensland family of a nine-year-old girl who they say was snatched from outside her Indian home as a two-year-old.

Like Mrs Rollings, the couple concerned were tricked into believing their child had been given up voluntarily.

And like Mrs Rollings, many more families will wrestle with the fear their child will be reclaimed by Indian parents.

Mrs Rollings said she and her husband, Barry, spent two years providing the paperwork and assurances required by Indian authorities for the adoption, only to find they had none of the same guarantees about their children’s backgrounds.

“The authorities overseas should be held responsible for carefully checking all the agencies and making sure that their credentials are absolutely beyond any kind of doubt,” she said.

The family has since visited Sunama to re-establish the relationship they were cheated of for so long, but Akil and Sabila will stay in Australia.

“I feel for Sunama to the greatest extent because she was the one who lost the children,” Mrs Rollings said.

“And for the children, because they’ve had to come to terms with a fundamental part of their identity being changed.”

For the nine-year-old involved in the latest scandal, however, the trauma is not over.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said yesterday it was too early to predict what would happen to the girl.

She said that while the Indian Government and the Supreme Court of Chennai had approved the adoption, the birth parents still had rights.

Ms Bligh was the minister responsible for adoptions when the Queensland case occurred in 2000. She said yesterday she could not recall any issues being raised with her about the Malaysian Social Services.

West Australian authorities had reportedly refused to deal with the agency because of serious question marks over its dealings five years earlier.

Brendan Nelson has suggested Australia had a “moral obligation” to return any stolen children, but federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland maintains the birth parents would need to apply to an Australian court for custody.

Mrs Rollings said Akil and Sabila had reacted as she had when they heard how they came to be adopted. “It was incredible grief for their first mother and what she must have gone through,” she said.

No Common Ground

I came across an old classmate of mine the other day.  We found each other on a really well known social website.  We have known each other since our preschool days, attending the same elementary, middle and high school together.  I added him to my friends list.  And he in return.  Then it was the usual email exchanges of Hi!  How have you been?  What have you been up to?  And then the next day I get this long email message from my friend stating that he adopted a child from Vietnam.  “Oh how great!” I thought to myself.  And then he wrote further saying that he was in the process of adopting again from Vietnam, and he and his wife were waiting for their little one to come to their home.  And then it hit me hard.  My friend was now part of my adoptive parents’ world.  He too was an AP with an adopted child from Vietnam.  But would he have the same mentality as my parents?  Having that.. our child is lucky to be adopted in the free world.  Our child should be grateful for getting another chance in life.  This is our child now, and no one elses.  Less they forget, this adopted child has birth parents who had to give their child up for reasons unknown to the future APs.  

And then my friend mentioned that WE HAD SOMETHING IN COMMON.  And that we should get together.  How so?  Is it because I was from Vietnam and was adopted by an all white family in the United States?  Or was it because I was a Vietnamese adoptee just like his daughter?  I think he, his wife and my adoptive parents have something in common.  They all have adopted a child from Vietnam.  Now.. his child and I (and that is in a big and bold capital letter) have something in common.  WE are Vietnamese adoptees.  And that is the common ground here.   But I didn’t tell him this for I didn’t want to sever our ties or the history that we shared growing up as childhood friends. 

But I did tell him this.  That I was on my adoption journey and writing my memoir.  And I told him straight up to not be surprised when their adopted children grow up and want to start searching for their birth mother and father.  They need to search for their cultural roots.  And that they will still love him and his wife no matter what.  It is something they will do and must do in order to heal as an adopted child.  Especially as a Transracial Adoptee.  I spoke the truth from my point of view as an adoptee.  In my opinion, this is something that I hope he will understand… but I don’t think he will fully grasp the situation.  I don’t think he fully understands it now because his child is so young.  And I don’t think he will in the future, especially when his children are on their adoption journey of self discovery.  Simply because he wasn’t adopted and wasn’t in the shoes of an adoptee’s life.  But he can understand my own adoptive parents points of view because he himself is an AP.  Well… needless to say, I haven’t heard back from him after I responded in regards to that long email.  And I don’t really care if I do or not hear back from him.

I’m not going to bounce back and forth on either fence of the issue or topic.  Because (and don’t take this the wrong way… and I’m speaking towards all of you APs out there) I don’t agree with APs and their views on adoption issues.  Issues on how adoptees should be grateful.  They should feel lucky, they should stop feeling angry etc. etc.  I stand on one side of the fence.  And that is as a Transracial Adoptee.  Why would I want to engross myself with other APs and their adopted children?  Simply because I’m adopted?  Or is it because that their child is a Vietnamese adoptee like myself?  I will find no common ground with an AP at all (not even my own Adoptive parents).  Simply because they weren’t adoptees.  They grew up with their blood family.  And They know their ancestoral history.  They know what types of health complications run in the family.  They KNOW their family roots (both physical and mental).  And also the fact that they never have gone through what I have gone through like so many other of my fellow first generation Vietnamese adoptees.  Of being abandoned by the birth mother.  Living in a war zone.. and I mean literally.. living in a war zone while gun fire and bombs are going off in the distance.  Where food and medical supplies are scarce.    

And it also goes back to how I was raised by Caucasion APs and how my new family perceived me.  I’m not going to go into detail with this but it was no walk in the park I can attest to this.  They weren’t truly understanding of my life before I came to them, and the mental and physical symptoms I suffered and carried inside of  me as a result of a child of war when I joined them.  If these details that I deliberately failed to mention didn’t happen at all, I would still have the same attitudes I have today.  Simply because of what was taken away from me at birth (My biological mother), my homeland, my Vietnamese culture, my very first language.  Everything that was a reflection of me was taken away.  My past was wiped clean like a new slate when I came to America.

And it took me 36 years to finally realize that I have a voice to find my past.  My culture, my homeland, everything that was taken away from me, I can try to make ammends and find the peace that I have so desired for 36 years.  And no one should tell me that I have something in common with them (especially APs).  The only people that I do have in common with is adoptees, ESPECIALLY my fellow Vietnamese adoptees who are part of my generation who came here and to other countries to new families so long ago. 

We know our boundaries as adoptees.  We try not to step over APs feet.  We are only saying our peace and how we feel.  If we sound like that we are highly emotional with our issues it’s because we are passionate about how we feel and how we were brought up into an all white society.  But it’s you APs coming to us for advice and guidance on how to raise your Transracial Adoptee child.  And yet some of you speak your peace, your anger and bitterness, and think you know everything there is to know about how to raise adopted children.  How dare us as adoptees to even think against the grain.  We should be grateful.  Spare me that run of the mill BS.  Especially with us Transracial Adoptees.  There is NO common ground between you and us adoptees.  And these are the facts.  No common ground.  It’s like comparing apples to bananas.

As for my childhood friend and me, I personally feel that we have no common ground on adoption.  You may say yes we do.. adoption in general.  But peel back the layers… we don’t.  There is no common ground.

Tougher adoption regulations needed

Authorities want to tighten regulations on adoption following recent allegations of forged documents in northern Nam Dinh Province.

Early this week, police were seeking forgery charges against the heads of two charity centers in Nam Dinh.

At a meeting in Hanoi Friday to review the three years since the Convention on Adoption between Vietnam and the U.S was implemented, experts recommended stricter regulations to manage adoption.

Financial aid to orphanages should be handled solely by the Ministry of Justice’s Department of International Adoptions (DIA), the department’s director Vu Duc Long said.

He said related authorities were considering restructuring adoption procedures to prevent direct contact between international adoption agencies and orphanages. DIA would connect the two.

He said it would prevent possible unhealthy relations between the agencies and orphanages.

“The financial aid in cash and flexible financial structures have created loopholes in adoption,” Long said.

“It has offered opportunities for unhealthy relations between international adoption agencies and the orphanages.”

DIA’s Vice Head Le Thi Hoang Yen said: “We are very worried with the recent fake adoption documents. We had been confident about the legitimacy of documents appraised by police. But in recent cases in Nam Dinh Province, there were fakes which police appraised.”

Recently, 134 U.S. senators – including Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John D. Rockefeller IV – and hundreds of adoption associations and 8,460 U.S. residents petitioned for the extension of the Convention on Adoption between Vietnam and the U.S., after the U.S. decided not to extend the convention when it expires September 1.

DIA’s statistics show 1,700 Vietnamese children have been adopted by families in the U.S. since the convention between the two countries took effect in 2005.

The Ministry of Justice has authorized 69 international adoption agencies to operate in Vietnam, of which 42 agencies were from the U.S. Orphans at the Humanity Assistance Center of Y Yen District in Nam Dinh Province.

Nam Dinh Police were seeking charges against the center’s director, Tran Thi Luong, early this week for allegedly faking babies’ documents.

Reported by Thanh Phong

China starts adoption process for 88 earthquake orphans

CHENGDU, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) — Civil affairs authorities in China’s quake-hit Sichuan Province on Saturday issued the first list of 88 children orphaned in the May 12 earthquake for adoption.

The process is restricted to qualified Chinese mainland families in line with guidelines jointly instituted by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the provincial government of Sichuan after the earthquake.

“Of 532 children who lost both parents in the earthquake, 240 were under the age of 14. Most of them had their grandparents or other relatives as guardians. Only 88 orphans currently need care,” said Chen Kefu, deputy head of the provincial Civil Affairs Department.

He said families that met the regulations for adoption could apply through civil affairs departments in the children’s birthplaces from Saturday.

According to the guidelines, only childless Chinese aged over 30 would be considered as adoptive parents.

The ministry also stipulated that only children under the age of 14 could be adopted, and those older than 10 should be consulted on their preferences.

Tens of thousands of families across China overwhelmed civil affairs departments in Sichuan with telephone calls asking to adopt orphans for a week after the magnitude-8 earthquake on May 12.

“The status of orphan can only be determined with death certificates of both parents, which should be given by police or hospital departments. Those whose parents are missing must wait for a court to declare their parents dead after two years,” said Jiang Tao, a Sichuan adoption official.

He said his colleagues were still working to find relatives of orphans.

Sichuan’s civil affairs departments gave custody priority to the children’s relatives.

The provincial government has found temporary foster homes or school boardings and provided an allowance of 600 yuan (88 U.S. dollars) per month for each orphan.

The tremor claimed nearly 70,000 lives, left thousands of others missing and millions homeless in Sichuan and Gansu provinces.

Adoption racket kids ‘may be returned’

August 23, 2008

ANY children kidnapped in an overseas adoption racket will likely have to be returned to their families, federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says.

At least 30 children adopted in Australia may have been stolen from their parents by a child trafficking ring operating in India between 1998 and 1999.

The Queensland Government and Indian investigators will soon begin working together to investigate the claims.

“Let us hope that the inquiry, in fact, does not find that children have been effectively kidnapped,” Dr Nelson said.

“But if they have, then we will have a moral responsibility to do the right thing.

“And the right thing, we would expect in most cases, will be to look at returning them to their rightful families.”

Dr Nelson rejected suggestions Canberra should wrest control of adoption legislation from the states.

“I don’t think that we should have knee-jerk responses that suggest that the Commonwealth should automatically take it over.

“So let’s just wait until we get the outcome of the inquiry before people start to say: ‘Well, if the Commonwealth takes it over that will solve all the problems’.

“Generally speaking, Government is the problem, not the solution.”

The Hidden Charm

Madonna Snubbed in Orphan Adoption Bid

August 18 2008

Madonna has hit yet another roadblock in her bid to adopt an orphan from Malawi — after the uncle of the tot she is said to want to take home yesterday declared: “We won’t surrender her.”

John Ngalande — uncle to Mercy James, three — has twice been visited by adoption officials.

He said, “They were telling us a famous lady is interested in adopting our girl. They told us how another Malawi kid has had his life transformed by her. I don’t want that attention. We want an ordinary life.”

John lives in Zomba city, 60 miles from Mercy’s orphanage. He says she was put there after her mum died when she was nearly one “and there was nobody to buy milk”. He added Mercy was the only reminder his mum, 60, has of her late daughter.

Malawi director of child welfare Penstone Kilembe confirmed officials from Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity had visited Mercy “but there is nothing official”.

He said relatives must be consulted — but that special cases apply for abandoned children.

A source from Raising Malawi confirmed photos of girls, including Mercy, were sent to Madonna.

Last month a Malawi High Court judge blessed Madonna’s 2006 adoption of David Banda, two.

What I Feel

This is what I’m feeling deep inside sometimes. Listen to the lyrics. It’s ‘Faint’ by Linkin Park. At first when I heard about this band I thought it was just another rock band. But the more I heard their songs they spoke out to people. Not just the teeny boppers but to everyone going through stages in their lives. This song is no exception.

Acceptance

Why do I have to explain myself on the things that I do?  Why do I have to justify this?  I’m not an outspoken person.  And yet, I still have to speak up for myself.. for all who question my adoption journey and how I am going about it.  I’m always seeking out hope in the comfort of finding my birth parents.  But recently I’ve been told to stop my searching.  And to move on with my life.  

If there is one good thing that my APs taught me well and ingrained into my psyche as I got older.. that there is hope in anything no matter how bad the circumstances, no matter how bad it is that you think life is not worth living, there is always a glimmer of hope.  But I realize now, that I will never find them.. never.  I’ve learned that my birth certificate is false.  ALL OF IT.  I was in denial from the get go.  Yes, that is my true name.  Yes, that is my mother’s name.  I was born on this date.  No?  I wasn’t?  Really?  I was born on this day?  It all made sense to me when I first heard that news.  It was a sense of truth and of hope for me.  I should believe this fact and not that fact.  It brought me to my senses.  I was still on my quest to find my birth mother.     

But fast forward to a year.. and here I am.  Before my “search intervention” I was still wondering about my past.  I wanted to continue to find that HOPE… that I could find my birth mother or birth father and be reunited with them.  I wanted to make sense of it all.  To become whole because I have never felt whole ever in all of my life.  I couldn’t just forget about the past and move on.  I was stuck on the track at the top of the roller coaster ride.  I was looking out to the sky, and wanting to jiggle the ride and get it moving down the track at record speed just to get me off.  And then I kept looking back behind me.  What had just happened to me?  I was on cloud nine one moment and now I was on shaky ground, having to face some ultimatum.  As one fellow adoptee said to me recently.. “You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t” in regards to my search.   

Well, I was caught in limbo the last few days.  And I was stuck on this ride for Lord knows how long.  I think a part of me wanted to go searching for my parents and another part of me conveyed that the journey of my past is over.  What’s done is done.  I cannot go back to my past.  Be happy that I have a wonderful immediate family.   Well, the last few days, it hasn’t been a walk in the park for me.  I was in denial for a long while.  I definitely inherited one of my parent’s traits of being the most stubborn person you could ever meet.  When my mind is set, locked and loaded on one issue, I like to carry it out and block out all noise interference until the task is done.  And I think I’ve been in that stubborn mode for a year now.  No matter what people have told me, especially one inparticular (and I will not name) requests that I stop searching for my birth parents.  I didn’t listen to this person no matter how much it caused so much emotional and mental pain with them.  Well, my stubborn attitude was shook to my inner core (I even lost a lot of sleep over this the other night).  And I realize now, that I will never find my mother or father because the information is all wrong on my birth certificate.  ALL OF IT.  Those are the facts.  That is my reality.  How can I search when the information is wrong?  I’d be searching for people that didn’t exist at all.   

So now, I need to be happy for myself in order to move forward.  I was given a home and a new family (even though most parts of my childhood were traumatic and sad and detrimental to my well being).  But I survived that.  And I have moved on.  I now have a wonderful, loving and caring husband and child who need me, and want me.  I live for them and for my heavenly father.  I was given a new start in life so different from my former life.  A former life that I led for a brief while on the other side of the world.  And I have to finally accept the things that I cannot change.  It happened to me tragically so long ago.  I should remember my past but not dwell in it.  I have two choices.. be negative about it, and continue to stay on that stuck roller coaster, or move on and enjoy the remainder of what life I have. 

I’ve realized this.. and it’s hard for me to admit it.. (I hate justifying my behavior.  I don’t think anyone likes to hear the truth about themselves, especially when they themselves realize that the truth is real.. and it hurts), but… The search for my birth parents is over.  GET OVER IT I tell myself now.  But the thoughts of isolation, no sense of belonging, and the loss of my culture remains within me.  I will carry these hidden burdens as a Transracial Adoptee until my last breath on earth.  I have to accept these facts.  That was then, and this is now.  I have to learn to acccept my loss and accept my present life, and go forward into the future.

Madonna set to adopt a Malawian girl

Thursday, 14 August , 2008, 13:21

Pop superstar Madonna is all set to adopt another Malawian child. This time it is three-year-old Mercy James.

Madonna had abandoned the idea of adoption after her marriage to British director Guy Ritchie seemed to be in trouble. But officials confirmed that she has resumed her adoption process, which friends say proves their marriage is back on track, reports thesun.co.uk.

Penstone Kilembe, Malawian adoption minister, said: “Madonna’s representatives have been visiting the girl. The adoption is now advanced - all the government is waiting for is Madonna to forward the petition of adoption formalities. Then Mercy will be able to leave the country for a new life.”

The singer, who will soon turn 50, wants her son David Banda to have a sister.

A close friend said: “The adoption process in Malawi is so long and stressful that all the legal wrangling put a huge strain on their marriage. They dropped proceedings to pour all their energies into each other. But Madonna now feels they are stable enough to press ahead with the adoption again.”