Chileans desperate: files missing after death of controversial ‘adoption nun’ | Interior

More than two hundred Chilean children have been (illegally) adopted in the Netherlands since the early 1970s. The Dutch Truus Kuijpers, who ran children’s home Las Palmas in Santiago for more than 25 years, was involved in about a hundred adoptions.

Adoptes accuse her of child theft. Among other things, she is said to have taken babies from hospitals to Las Palmas for adoption without the knowledge and consent of the mothers. She was questioned in 2019 by the judiciary in Chile, which is investigating the illegal adoptions of 20,000 children in the 1970s and 1980s.

An investigation of this site shows that Kuijpers was guilty of deception. She had been expelled from the congregation of the White Sisters during her probationary period for being “manipulative and dishonest.” Yet she presented herself everywhere as a ‘sister’ and managed to collect many tons of donations for Las Palmas. She later linked several adoptees to the wrong biological family, but refused to talk.

Chileans tried in vain to access their adoption files with parentage data. Wereldkinderen, which mediated most adoptions from Chile, has only thirteen Chilean files in its archive. It was recently announced that the Central Authority for International Children’s Affairs may also be introduced in 1999 destroyed thousands of adoption records.

After Cooper’s death Chileans, with the help of a lawyer and the Expertise Center for Intercountry Adoption (INEA), stipulated that the next of kin must transfer all data about adoptions from the estate via Las Palmas.

A bailiff seized five boxes of administration in Kuijpers’ home, as well as a laptop and external hard drive. They are now with Fiom, center for ancestry questions, which is making an inventory of everything. So far, names of fifty adoptees have surfaced, address books and photos, but no information about biological parents yet.

Adoptes fear that Kuijpers has already destroyed a lot of crucial information about the adoptions. Last December, in one of her last interviews, she told this site that she has all the records of adoptees and birth parents, but shreds them.

She refused to share information with adoptees until her death. “I contacted her by e-mail to ask for her cooperation in looking for some adopted children,” said Chilean researcher Karen Alfaro. “She has acknowledged that she knows where the children are, but would not give me or their mothers any information.”

Miep Bastiaanse, Kuijpers’ sister, says that she is now busy sorting out the rest of the estate that is stored with the family. This also includes material about Las Palmas, such as (annual) reports. “I’m not going to keep it.”

The Adopted Chile Netherlands Foundation is concerned that no one is now checking which belongings about Las Palmas are still with the next of kin and whether relevant information is being thrown away. Chilean adoptees and their families are looking for answers. “We are making a moral appeal to government agencies, adoption agencies, organizations and individuals who have played a part in this. We ask for openness and cooperation to help those who have been wronged. There is no choice but to continue until the bottom stone is up.’

According to Inea director James Timmermans, the heirs have ‘handed over everything’ they had. He points out that they are legally obliged to hand over all relevant information for adoptees that they come across now. “I still assume they are acting in good faith. The heirs have no interest in withholding anything. They also want to get rid of this file.”

Next Saturday the complete story about Truus Kuijpers and children’s home Las Palmas