Scandals and drama have long been part of the history of adoption.
Alongside the magnificent stories of families united in love by different genetic origins, doubt, fraud, corruption have also fueled intimate tragedies.
An interministerial inspection mission (Foreign Affairs, justice, childhood), mandated in November 2022 and whose conclusions were expected last summer, delivered a harsh report on Wednesday to the Minister responsible for Children and Families Sarah El Haïry and to the Minister Delegate in charge of the Francophonie and French people abroad Franck Riester.
How do you admit that you were adopted when you were not an orphan?
How can we overcome the hurt of having thought we were saving a child, when he was stolen from his biological parents?
For decades, the story of international adoption has been mixed with these individual stories.
Also read “It’s human trafficking”: stolen children, seeking recognition from the State
In this 118-page report (to be consulted here), the mission - composed of the General Inspectorate of Foreign Affairs (IGAE), the General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ) and the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) - calls on France to “recognize” officially and “directly” “collective deficiencies” and to “take into consideration” the harmful “consequences” for adoptees.
“A potentially very lucrative market”
Because “the rise of international adoption in an unregulated or poorly regulated context has been accompanied by significant abuses,” recognize the inspectors, who carried out 179 hearings.
Adoption has become “a potentially very lucrative market, giving rise to the emergence of numerous intermediaries.
The payment of large sums of money to facilitate the operations, or the obtaining of parental consent which is in reality very poorly informed, seem to have been common practices,” add the authors of the report.
Adoption has “given rise to real trafficking based on the falsification of documents to make a child adoptable, the
production
of children for adoption, the theft of children from maternity wards…”, they continue.
These realities could only blame the states of origin, often poor, poorly organized or corrupt, which let the children go.
But, the inspectors believe, it is “established” that “the (French) public authorities had been alerted early and delayed in taking the necessary measures”.
“Sometimes dubious intermediaries”
120,000 French people have been adopted abroad since 1945, especially from the 1960s, with a predilection for children from Asia and Latin America.
A record number of 4,136 children born abroad were adopted by French parents in 2005, the year the French Adoption Agency was created, intended to prevent fraud.
There were only 421 in 2019, and 232 in 2022, proof that the new procedures have put an end to deviance.
But “the list of illicit practices (offenses or crimes) is long and was established in publications from the 1990s and 2000s. In the mid-1990s, the jurist Brigitte Trillat and Edwige Rude Antoine, sociologist and doctor of law, responsible for research at the CNRS, stated almost all of them in studies that have become references", wrote, last year, in their "Historical study on illicit practices in international adoption in France" researchers from the University of Angers Yves Denéchère and Fábio Macedo.
The international adoption procedure is "today organized on the French side in such a way as to minimize the risks", judges the mission, which nevertheless warns against the "development of a new market for the search for origins" where "prosper sometimes dubious intermediaries.”
The inspectors recommend setting up “an organized and secure framework for the search for origins”: the entry point could be the “national council for access to personal origins” (CNAOP), created in 2002 under pressure from children “born under
The new challenge of the - difficult - quest for origins
Among the 28 recommendations that it put on paper, the mission recommends having a “recognized contact person” in each country of origin to support adoptees.
They say they find themselves left to their own devices, 40 years after the events, without speaking the language, facing uncooperative administrations.
They also recommend “initiating a reflection” on the use of DNA tests, banned in France but requested by adoptee associations to verify filiations.
In a press release, the State Secretariat for Children declared that “the government recognizes that there have been collective failures in the protection due to children and that these could have consequences lasting for their lives. 'adult ".
And said he had asked the National Adoption Council (CNA) and the CNAOP to “debate the recommendations made” and give “a joint opinion, within six months” on their recommendations.
The associations of adoptees and adopters would have appreciated an apology.
“Recognition of the authorities’ failings and the systemic nature of illegal practices is important.
But for the victims and those who will never find their family, a public apology was expected,” Céline Breysse, founder of the Collective of Adoptees of Sri Lanka, regretted to AFP.
“We are waiting to see how the recommendations will be implemented and whether adoptee groups will be involved.
This involves human trafficking, stolen children, abused parents.
For the thousands of people we represent, this is the fight of a lifetime,” declared Marie Marre, founder of the Collective of French Adoptees of Mali, who said she was “disappointed” and “indignant”.