‘Oogje dicht op ambassade voor transseksuele ex’

Geknoei met papieren voor illegale adoptie

door Johan van den Dongen BANGKOK, zaterdag In het onderzoek naar mogelijke misstanden op de ambassade in Bangkok richt Buitenlandse Zaken het vizier onder anderen op een diplomaat die onder toeziend oog van zijn meerderen zou hebben geknoeid met adoptiepapieren en naturalisaties. De man zit nog op zijn post.

De consulair medewerker zou hebben verzwegen dat zijn ex-vrouw, voor wie hij ooit een Nederlands paspoort zou hebben geregeld en met wie hij twee Thaise kinderen zou hebben geadopteerd en genaturaliseerd,
een transseksueel is. “Daarmee mag je veronderstellen dat die Nederlandse papieren onrechtmatig zijn afgegeven. De vrouw is geen moeder, maar vader”, zegt ambassademedewerker Dirk-Jan van Beek, die
vandaag wordt ondervraagd door het ingevlogen team van het ministerie.

De onthulling van het onderzoek in Bangkok, gisteren in De Telegraaf, heeft tot een stroom reacties geleid van mensen die zeggen bedroevende ervaringen te hebben met de ambassade.

Het bizarre verhaal rond de consulair medewerker zou eind 2009 aan het licht zijn gekomen, toen
een Thaise dame aan de balie verscheen met een zwaar beschadigd, verlopen Nederlands paspoort. “Ze verklaarde dat haar Nederlandse man tijdens een scheidingsruzie het paspoort had toegetakeld. De baliemedewerkster liep ermee naar de diplomaat, die door het paspoort bladerde en goedkeurig gaf voor een nieuw exemplaar.” “Tot ieders verbijstering merkte een collega op dat ze de dame had herkend als de
ex-vrouw van de diplomaat, die juist door het paspoort had gebladerd en er verder niets over had vermeld.

Uiteindelijk kon hij niet anders dan opbiechten dat de vrouw zijn ex is, met wie hij ooit twee Thaise
kindjes adopteerde.” Toen de vrouw werd gebeld door onze baliemedewerkster, viel op dat
zij een zwaardere stem had. Er rezen vermoedens, maar toch werd nieuwe paspoortafgifte goedgekeurd en behield de ‘dame’ haar Nederlandse nationaliteit. Bij nader onderzoek bleek dat in het beschadigde
paspoort ook ne’t daar te zijn beschadigd waar het geslacht vermeld had moeten staan. Na sterk aandringen gaf hij toe dat ze een kathoey is, een transseksueel.”

De diplomaat heeft zijn functie behouden, aan het Nederlanderschap van zijn ex en adoptiekinderen is nooit getornd, meldt Van Beek.

Children are not commodity

In the wake of not so recent scandals over adopted children’s deaths and violence in the United States, France and Finland, Russian parliament set up a commission on children’s rights, headed by Pavel Astakhov, a top-class lawyer, and children’s rights ombudsman. In a recent interview he spoke about the commission’s activities.

Pavel Astakhov is a lawyer with a name whose opinion counts. As the head of this commission he insists that the number of foreign adoption agencies in Russia should be reduced. This statement came ahead of another round of negotiations on a bilateral child adoption agreement between Russia and the USA. The document should outline mechanisms to control living conditions of adopted Russian children in the United States and other countries.

“At present some Russian 700,000 children need the care of the state. So the issue of adoption legislation have gained a greater than ever importance. In the last several years we came to realize that we must remedy the situation with orphaned children. We also learnt that we have too few children – 26 million or so. This number in the United States, for one, is 72 million. Demographers say Russia is facing the problem of reduction of children’s population, so by 2025 their number can fall to 22 million or so. Compared with the United States again – that country can boast some 100 million children or more. To whom are we going to give the helm, and how strong and competitive will Russia be then,” asks Pavel Astakhov, ombudsman for the protection of children’s rights.

Astakhov says that every Russian child is worth his or her weight in gold. This country cannot afford losing 2,000 children’s lives in car crashes and another 2,000 or so in accidents at home as we had it last year. The problem is not much spoken about, but it must be focused on to find ways out, to speak on the issues of adoption. As things stand now, few orphans find new Russian families. Anything that helps to bring them into families is good, be it guardianship, patronage or adoption. We should offer incentives to adults who want to adopt a child but hesitate not knowing enough about the necessary procedures. As a matter of fact they are rather simple, given that just one precondition is there – the assistance of domestic guardianship bodies. Of course any psychologist would tell the parents adopting a child that they would have problems with him or her. But adults should be able to cope with children‘s problems, seeing their ultimate goal of raising full-fledged citizens with every right they are guaranteed by the state.

“This brings us to the theme of adoption by foreigners,” said Pavel Astakhov. “In the past 16 years Americans, for example, have been very active adopters. They took children from Vietnam, China, Ethiopia, and other countries. Many prefer Russian children and are ready to stay on long waiting lists, because they find them especially gifted and talented thanks to their roots. Americans have already adopted more than 60,000 Russian children. As a lawyer, I refuse to view this as a positive trend,” said Pavel Astakhov, “as we still have no relevant inter-governmental agreement, even though there’s no selling any commodity to the United States without a contract. Children are no commodities but we still allow taking them out without any contract or obligations. And now we have 17 children who died of parent cruelty there. And if it were not for the situation with Artyom Saveliev whom his new American “mummy” put on a plane as a sack of potatoes with a one-way ticket and a note “Take him back!” we still would not have addressed adoption legislation,” said Pavel Astakhov.

Now that this issue is being handled, and Russia’s stance on it is quite tough. Without such an agreement we would not let foreigners take children out of Russia. We do have a law that allows foreigners to adopt Russian children, but only if a child has not been adopted by Russian citizens. There are agencies here who try to circumvent this provision by hook or by crook to get their fat profits. This is another problem we have to solve. But, Pavel Astakhov adds, he is against business on children with no guarantees and regular reports about their well-being. We will sign relevant agreements with the United States, France, Germany, Finland and Spain similar to the only one we have with Italy. Ireland had recently announced it would not adopt Russian children any longer. This does not hurt us,” Pavel Astakhov said, adding that he is confident that it would not take too long before motherless Russian children would be adopted by Russian families.

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Illegal Adoption Landed Them In Netherlands 14 Years Ago

Jaya Menon | TNN

Kanyakumari: A strong sea breeze whips through Kootupuli, a hamlet dotted with windmills and new houses built post-tsunami. There is much excitement in a cramped, brightly-painted house in the colony over a reunion. This is where two Dutch teenagers, Melissa, 19, and her brother Miquel, 18, will meet their mother, Dekla Selvam, a fisherwoman, after a gap of 14 years. In 1996, Dekla bid them farewell after visiting them in an orphanage in Chennai, promising a weeping Melissa a pair of anklets on her next visit the following week.
In anticipation of a reunion, the family waited all through the day as the teenagers, accompanied by a team of Dutch authorities and child counsellors, landed at the Thiruvananthapuram airport and later drove down to Kanyakumari. As news of their arrival spread, Kootupuli, a fishing hamlet 13km from Kanyakumari, ravaged by the 2004 tsunami and rebuilt in two years, rejoiced.

Dekla, 51, and her five children, Lily (28), Leo (27), Ditto (26), Dino (23) and Dismin (16), cleaned and washed the house and dressed up for the occasion. The warm glow that enveloped the family as news was conveyed to Leo about the arrival of his siblings more than made up for the shabbiness of the house, which has a television to boast of and a few clay statuettes adorning the window sill.

“God has finally heard my prayers and has brought my children back to me,” Dekla told TOI, tears streaming down her face. Clutching a print of Melissa’s picture sent to her two years ago, Dekla, who relentlessly tracked down her children, said, “We have nothing to give them but our love. When they come, we will hug them and take them into our fold.”

As the family waited anxiously, surrounded by a few relatives and neighbours, a mediator called Leo to inform him that he and his mother could come to a hotel in Kanyakumari, where the teenagers were staying, and take them home.
It was an illegal adoption that separated Dekla from her children. Trying to make ends meet by selling fish in Nagercoil, Dekla had confided in a customer, who was a frequent visitor to Chennai, that she was finding it difficult to look after her seven children with no support from her husband, Maria Selvam. German NGO helped track teens

Kanyakumari: It was an occasion of great joy for Dekla Selvam of Kootupuli near Kanyakumari, who sells fish. Her children Melissa, 19, and her brother Miquel, 18, who were put up for adoption abroad 14 years ago without her knowledge. Unable to makes ends meet for her seven children, Dekla had told her problems to a customer, who was a frequent visitor to Chennai.

The man suggested that she leave her children in an orphanage run by the Malaysian Social Service. The adoption agency assured her that it would educate the children and send them to her when they were 18 years old. She gave up four of her children. While two were returned to her, Melissa and James Kapil, now Miquel, were put up for adoption abroad without her knowledge.

When a major scandal broke out in 2005, she learnt that the adoption agency had kidnapped and sold several children to couples abroad. The CBI is now probing the case. Dekla immediately rushed to Chennai, but there was no trace of her children. Tracking them proved difficult until Germany-based Arun Dohle of ‘Against Child Trafficking’ helped unravel the mystery. Their foster parents had separated legally and Melissa and Miquel were placed in a government-run home in the Netherlands

I am so touched to hear that you have been waiting for me all these years. I am desperately waiting to see you again. We are no longer with our foster parents. I go to college on a motorcycle everyday. I am not too good at studies, but can read and write. Please send a photograph of yours. I love you very much and I am sending you kisses from me and Kapil,” the girl said in a letter to her mother.

A few weeks back Arun Dohle received a mail from the Dutch officials of the Centre for Agogische Zorg Zeeland (AZZ) informing him of their 10-day itinerary in India. “The goal of the trip is the reunion of the young adults with their biological parents,” said a representative of the Netherlands government-run organization in the letter. “It has been a traumatic experience for the woman. And it was very difficult for Arun to track the children with the government being so uncooperative,” pointed out Anjali Pawar of the Punebased Sakhee, an organization working on child issues.