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Alice Honegger, from eastern Switzerland, has worked as an adoption agent for almost 50 years. In the 1950s and 1960s, she mainly placed babies from Switzerland around the world. She later brought almost 1,000 babies from Sri Lanka to Switzerland.
But Honegger wasn’t the only one running a questionable adoption agency. According to a report by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) on behalf of the Federal Council, children from Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, India, Colombia, Korea, Lebanon, Peru and Romania also came illegally to Switzerland. The Federal Council now assumes that “several thousand adopted children between 1970 and 2000 could have been victims of irregularities”. A central actor was the aid organization Terre des Hommes.
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According to the ZHAW report, Terre des Hommes mainly placed babies from Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Colombia and Peru. Throughout the activity from 1960 to 2016, “local institutions and orphanages were carefully selected for partnerships that met both local and Swiss standards,” stressed spokeswoman Anna Bertschy. “Terre des Hommes distances itself from all illegal and unlawful activities of criminal groups that misuse our name.” Nowadays, the aid organization sees it as its duty “to support all people placed for adoption by Terre des Hommes in finding their origins.”
Mother Teresa’s religious order also mediated
The Ticino branch of Caritas confirms that it was involved in adoptions from Colombia between the 1970s and 2010. Caritas mainly checked potential adoptive parents for their suitability and ‘validated’ documents about the children’s origins. The cantonal authorities ultimately decided on adoptions.
Pro Kind Adopt Inform was also active in adoption mediation (in Brazil and Chile). This organization later gave rise to the Bras Kind club, which focused on Brazil. The religious community of Mother Teresa (“Missionaries of Charity”) was involved in India, as were the Social Activities Association (Zurich) and the French-speaking Swiss organization Diwali Adoption Service. The Mother and Foster Children’s Fund Bern (MPB Foundation) was active in Colombia, the Bureau Genevois d’Adoption (BGA) placed children from Colombia and Peru; the Service d’Adoption du Mouvement Enfance et Foyer children from Lebanon.
Most of these organizations no longer exist or have rejoined. The association Bras Kind was removed from the commercial register in 2009, and “Zämeläbe” (successor to the MPB Foundation) in 2011. When asked, the “Bureau Genevois d’Adoption” emphasized that it welcomed the efforts to expose irregularities in adoption . procedures. For the placement agency in Geneva, “the well-being of the child is always central”. An adoption process must be carried out “correctly, according to the law and transparently”. The “Zämeläbe” foundation and the “Social Activity Association” left a question from the Observer unanswered.
Source:Blick
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