Sri Lanka’s baby farms Inter-country adoption racket exposed !
For tourists the paediatric ward resembled a supermarket
- When a DNA database is created it was certain that our papers were fraud, because through DNA we have the proof of family ties.
- Sometimes these contact persons say I have located your mother, but they don’t reveal the address.
- The adoption agencies from western countries treated me as a profitable thing, instead as a person.
- Nobody can tell me, that Sri Lanka or India can’t take care of its children.
- Another child has been shown a fake mother and the association has continued for 6 years.
- Adoption isn’t a transaction and therefore parents can’t accept money.
- A child has a right to know its biological parents.
- The biological parents lose the right for a child if it was given for adoption voluntarily.
A recent documentary by Zembla, a Dutch current affairs programme, brought to light an adoption fraud during the latter part of the 19th century. Previously in 1983 a documentary was made based on the adoption scandal by Flash, a Dutch adoption organization that made massive profits by ‘selling’ children. News reports from 1987 highlight that a ‘baby farm’ had been raided and the police found 20 newborns and 22 women. The report further revealed that the babies had been purchased for about $30 and was sold abroad for about 30 times that value. However neither the Sri Lankan Government nor the receiving Governments have taken any worthwhile steps to address the issue, until recently when Health Minister, Dr. Rajitha Senaratne admitted to the revelations of the documentary makers that there had been baby farms and that he will investigate into the issue and take the initiative to set up a DNA bank. 