For 40 years, Brazilian mothers have been hoping for forgiveness after shady adoption procedures

Maria went to child protection, but it was judged that the baby would not be well off with either her or the couple: the couple lived in poor circumstances and she, Maria, was too young. “I tried to explain that I would move in with my mother in the countryside with my daughter. But then I was told that it would be better if I gave up my child. The judge said, “You are still young. You have a whole life ahead of you to get married and start a new family.” I said I wanted to raise my daughter.” Under duress and with the promise that she could see her daughter every two weeks, she signed a document that she later says she did not know what it said. She never saw daughter Katia again.

Stricter conditions

The countless abuses in foreign adoptions to the Netherlands in the years 1967-1997 came to light in 2021 in a damning report. Then Minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection, VVD) immediately suspended foreign adoptions. It is now possible again, but under strict conditions.

Brazil is one of the countries that the research was extremely critical of. For years, birth certificates and adoption documents have been tampered with and information about the reason for adoption has been fabricated. Until the 1990s, it was not mandatory in Brazil to put the mother’s name on a child’s birth certificate. “It also made it easier to give children up for adoption without the mother’s consent,” says Liza da Silva-Alijaj of PDBH. “It is precisely this mess with birth certificates and documents that gives adopted children a lot of unrest. They don’t know who they are, and later in life that can cause major problems with their identity.”

This was also the case with Patrick Noordoven, who took the Dutch state to court a few years ago. Noordoven was adopted from Brazil in 1980, through what later turned out to be an illegal adoption, with the help of Dutch intermediaries and diplomats. As a baby, Noordoven was picked up from a hospital in São Paulo by Dutch adoptive parents and traveled with them, with forged papers, to the Netherlands. They registered him as their own child at the municipality. For twenty years he searched for his biological parents. In the end, the judge ruled that Noordoven must receive compensation from the State, because it withheld legitimate information about his adoption. That verdict led to the investigation of the ministry.

Dozens of children in the Netherlands, like Noordoven, were adopted illegally: they have no certainty about their identity. That is why PDBH does the DNA tests: it is the only way to get 100% certainty. In Brazil, the DNA is first tested at the renowned genetic laboratory Genera. It then goes to the Netherlands, where it is checked whether there are matches with the adopted children of the foundation. The DNA of the mothers also ends up in large international DNA banks, such as My Heritage and Family Tree.

PDBH carries out the DNA program with financial support from the Ministry of Justice and Security. The foundation has now found the biological family of four hundred Brazilian adopted children in the Netherlands, with or without the help of DNA.

Birthday

The pain of distance mothers and adopted children is what drives PDBH founder Liza Alijaj, who herself was born in Montenegro and is of Roma descent. She was given up because her then 16-year-old mother could not take care of her. She was eventually reunited with her family. In the Netherlands, where she ended up with her biological mother at the age of eleven, she met her (now ex-)husband, an adopted Brazilian. Together they went looking for his biological family. “That grew into this foundation. Adopted children who come to me often say: why didn’t my biological mother look for me? I therefore tell them that the mothers often do not know how to search. By bringing the DNA tests to the mothers, we also hope to help the children.”

The Brazilian Raimunda and her two other children celebrate Alessandro’s birthday every year. “He will be 40 soon,” she says. “I hope he has a good life. Every day I ask God to watch over him.”