Forced adoption

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Forced adoptions are a means of state interference in family life. For various political reasons, the state apparatus acts by removing children from their families of origin and placing them in foster families.

The thought of re-educating the affected children - be it for racial, cultural or political motives - plays a role in forced adoption. The implementation of forced adoptions is the abuse of state violence against the citizen. Characteristic for forced adoptions are the targeted use of emotional cruelty and psychological violence against affected children and parents with the separation of existing family ties and the subsequent uncertainty about the fate of family members. In the case of racially / culturally motivated forced adoptions, in addition to parental alienation, the intended phenomenon of cultural alienation in language , morals , beliefs and the interpretation of history occurs in the children .

Forced adoptions are known from the time of National Socialism , from the history of the GDR , from Switzerland , from Australia ( Stolen Generations ), Argentina (see Desaparecidos ), Canada and the USA .

Germany in the time of National Socialism

In Germany , under the ideology of National Socialism , selected children from the occupied territories from France , the Benelux countries, Denmark and Poland were kidnapped to Germany and placed in foster families or in homes of the so-called Lebensborn organization (see also Lebensborn # child trafficking ). The boys and girls were classified according to so-called Aryan tables of the SS . This type of forced adoptions had a racial and demographic background.

The cross-border transfer of children to the Greater German Reich was an offense of international child abduction , which was later convicted as a crime against humanity in the Nuremberg war crimes trials .

Forced adoption in the GDR

Reports in the Spiegel from 1975 brought the issue of forced adoptions in the GDR to the public, but left room for speculation. It was not until a file was found in Berlin in May 1991, which was also echoed in the media, that an in-depth study of the topic came closer. The files found also included cases that Spiegel had reported in 1975 and gave rise to the establishment of a clearing house for forced adoptions at the Berlin Senate . The clearing house existed until October 1993 in accordance with the legally stipulated contestation periods for adoptions made in the GDR and defined “forced adoptions” as cases of children “who were taken away from their parents for political offenses such as ' unlawful border crossing ', 'hatred of the state' or 'defamation of the state', without any evidence of a failure directed against the best interests of the child in the past. ”This definition is therefore not limited to adoptions per se.

In the course of a study from 2007, which evaluated material from the clearing house and other sources, five cases of forced adoption as defined by the clearing house and one “attempted forced adoption” were counted. The "attempted forced adoption" was a case in which the youth welfare department's complaint for the deprivation of the right of upbringing before the district court was not upheld and the youth welfare department withdrew the complaint in the appeal proceedings, so that the children went to theirs parents who had been ransomed from prison could leave the country. It was concluded that the number of six cases is probably not to be understood as absolute, but “overall, a far lower number of cases can be assumed than was initially assumed due to the media coverage.” The case analysis showed that no continuous or predominant procedural pattern of the authorities and courts is recognizable. In addition, since there are no generally binding instructions from the Ministry of National Education and the cases assumed were in a time window from 1969 to 1975, it can be assumed that the instrument of forced adoption in the GDR was a temporary phenomenon.

In 1997, the German Bundestag was informed by the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the GDR with regard to "forced adoptions" (in quotation marks!) In its activity report as follows:

“In connection with family reunification, numerous documents on 'forced adoptions' have also been made available. It's all about children whose parents in the Federal Republic of Germany moved and are seeking to reach after a publicity move their children. "

In the spring of 2017, the Federal Government's Eastern Commissioner at the time, Parliamentary State Secretary Iris Gleicke, commissioned a pilot study to investigate whether forced adoptions could still be proven after more than 30 years. The authors were able to prove that such evidence is possible. They named the archives and described the research methods. The pilot study was completed on February 26, 2018. Since then, several federal and state committees have been working on a concept for a major main study. This time is necessary because laws have to be changed in this way in order to comply with data protection.

On April 5, 2018, around 80 participants demonstrated to provide information about the whereabouts of the forced adoption children. They also complained of as yet undocumented forced adoptions or other illegal child abductions.

On June 25, 2018, the Petitions Committee of the German Bundestag held a hearing of experts who unanimously called for an investigation into the forced adoptions in the GDR. The chairman of the committee spoke of a "huge gap in processing."

The gap in the processing regularly leads those affected to hope for remedial action through media support. A prominent supporter of the interest group of stolen children of the GDR is TV presenter and consumer expert Peter Escher . The search for biological parents is often difficult due to the lack of official documentation and is supported by private detective work. Cases that have seriously interfered with the fate of the parents, adoptive parents and children concerned regularly attract particular attention.

Forced adoptions in the Federal Republic of Germany

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the will of a parent with regard to consent to child adoption can be replaced by the guardianship court. Such adoptions are particularly limited by the regulation in Article 6 of the Basic Law . As with all adoptions, the prerequisite is an expected family relationship between the child and its future adoptive parents and the acceptance of the child's best interests. In addition, there must be circumstances in which the best interests of the child must take precedence over the right of the natural parent. This includes:

  • Persistent gross breach of duty: For example, if the parent leads an erratic lifestyle with excessive alcohol consumption, treats the child roughly carelessly or largely leaves it to itself. Parents who do not have custody must have persistently and grossly neglected duties such as maintenance or visits. Failure to pay maintenance is only a reason if the child is in need as a result. Such breaches of duty only justify the replacement of the consent, however, if the failure to adopt would result in a disproportionate disadvantage for the child.
  • Indifference: If the parent shows over a longer period of time that he is not interested in the child's fate and does not show any personal attention. Here, too, it is a prerequisite that failure to adopt would result in a disproportionate disadvantage for the child.
  • Particularly serious breach of duty: If there is no persistent but a particularly serious breach of duty and the child can therefore no longer be entrusted to the care of the parent (Section 1748 (1) sentence 2 BGB), e.g. if the child is kidnapped abroad.
  • Serious mental disorder that makes the parent permanently incapable of caring for and raising the child if the child cannot grow up in a family and develop healthily if the child is not adopted.

If the mother of the child only has custody because she was not married to the child's father at birth, did not marry him later and no declaration of custody was given, the father's consent can be replaced if the failure to adopt the child is disproportionate to a disadvantage the child would represent. All circumstances must be carefully weighed against each other, taking into account the interests of the child and the father.

For the stepchild adoption of a child by the mother's spouse, the Federal Court of Justice set more stringent requirements in a decision dated March 23, 2005 (Ref .: XII ZB 10/03). According to this, there is a disproportionate disadvantage only if the adoption offers such a significant advantage for the child that a parent who cared for understanding would not oppose it. So if the father's rights of access are thwarted by adoption or the stepfather-child relationship is legally secured, this is not sufficient. The Federal Constitutional Court took in a subsequent decision to the Supreme Court ruling in agreement terms.

With regard to the release of children for adoption by single mothers against the wishes of their biological father, the Görgülü case caused a sensation.

Switzerland

From 1926 to 1972, around 2000 mainly Yenish children were forcibly separated from their parents by the Swiss authorities and placed in foster families, homes or as contract children . The purpose was to raise all children from traveling families to be settled citizens and thus to eradicate the traditional way of life of the Yeniche and other travelers in Switzerland in the medium term. The Kinder der Landstrasse charity of the Pro Juventute Foundation played a special role in this, taking on more than 600 caretakers during the period mentioned. Compensation has been paid to those affected, but so far there has been no legal review of the action.

Australia

The forced adoptions in Australia have racial and demographic political backgrounds. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Aboriginal children have been forcibly taken away from their parents, placed in foster families and re-educated as “white values” in mission schools. Officially, these should only be mixed-race children. These events and these children are referred to with the catchphrase “ Stolen Generation ”. Forced adoptions are part of the state's assimilation policy .

USA and Canada

See also : Residential Schools (Canada)

The forced adoptions in Canada and the USA have racist and demographic backgrounds. From 1879 to 1970, by order of the US government and the Canadian government, children were taken out of Native American families and forcibly adopted into foster families or put in re-education centers, these usually being church-sponsored for the purpose of forced missioning . These crimes are now classified as cultural genocide . Forced adoptions have been part of the state's violent assimilation policy.

On October 6, 2017, the 29th Canadian Cabinet under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to pay damages to the surviving victims of the "Sixties Scoop", the forcible, mostly violent removal of children of the autochthonous people amounting to Can $ 750 million. From 1960 until well into the 1980s, around 20,000 children were torn from their parents by the state under this program. They have been given to white families for adoption or as foster children, some even to the United States and Europe and New Zealand . The government's 2017 response is in response to a series of victim lawsuits; those affected complained of mental and emotional problems as a result of the removal, not to mention the loss of their own culture. A number of the victims complained of sexual abuse in foster families. The compensation was officially granted in court by the responsible minister, Carolyn Bennett.

For the children who were abducted to clerical homes against the will of their parents, a number of 150,000 people, a separate agreement was made with their own compensation amount. A senior judge responsible for Ontario , Edward P. Belobaba, had already clearly identified the crimes against the children in a preliminary ruling in February 2017 and thus forced the government to act. According to one of the victim's lawyers, it is the first time in a western country that the state and church struggle against the cultural identity of children from the First Nations has been named as a crime in a lawsuit.

The government financial commitment is expected to be followed by an official apology to the victims later; the state of Manitoba issued such an apology back in 2015.

Argentina

During the "dirty war" of the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983) up to 30,000 opponents of the regime were secretly kidnapped, tortured and murdered, the so-called Desaparecidos . It was common practice to give children born in custody to abducted and then killed women to officer's families without children for adoption. After the end of the dictatorship in 1983, many grandparents and remaining parents tried to find these children again. The organization Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo estimates that there are a total of around 500 children in Argentina who were kidnapped by the henchmen of the dictatorship and then secretly given up for adoption. In at least 128 cases, children who had disappeared during the military dictatorship were returned to parents or rightful families by 2018. The efforts continue. The confrontation with their true origins is usually a very painful process for the now grown-up children - also because their supposed fathers were often involved in the torture and murder of their actual birth parents.

Spain

In Spain there are said to have been around 300,000 so-called irregular adoptions at the time of the Franco dictatorship . This estimate comes from the first report on the crimes of the Franco dictatorship, which was prepared by the examining magistrate Baltasar Garzón . However, this judge was suspended and could therefore no longer work on the investigation.

It is assumed that the child was often stolen from a poor or illegitimate pregnant woman and that the newly born women were often told that their child was stillborn. The adopting parents, in turn, believed that the pecuniary claims were fees that, among other things, should cover the cost of childbirth.

With the adoption law passed in 1987, this form of adoption was prohibited.

In the 2019 election campaign, the conservative candidate Pablo Casado suggested that pregnant migrants should not be deported until they had given birth, provided they gave their newborns up for adoption.

See also

  • Ethnocide , a comprehensive concept for the extermination of one or more minorities, also by means of forced adoptions as well as killing and starvation
  • Assimilation politics , a less violent concept of involuntarily adapting minorities to the majority, forced adoptions as a means to do so
  • Upbringing
  • Human trafficking , smooth transitions to forced adoption

literature

Argentina

Argentina: the stolen girl. Who is Claudia Poblete? - GEO No. 9/07

GDR

  • Marie-Luise Warnecke: Forced adoptions in the GDR. Diss. FU Berlin, Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-8305-1630-9
  • Ines Veith: Give me my children back. Forced adoptions in the former GDR. (Fates and Horizons), Goldmann, 1991 ISBN 3-442-12388-7
  • Fiebig, Elke: The legal management of politically motivated custody withdrawals and forced adoptions. Zentralblatt für Jugendrecht, Vol. 82, 1995, No. 1, pp. 16-20
  • Raack, Wolfgang: The Unification Treaty and the so-called forced adoption in the former GDR. Zentralblatt für Jugendrecht, Vol. 78, 1991, No. 9, pp. 449–451

Switzerland

Cinematic processing

Argentina

Australia

  • Long Walk Home . Original title: Rabbit-Proof Fence. Film drama from 2002 based on the book Follow the rabbit-proof fence by Doris Pilkington.

GDR

  • Stolen Children - Forced Adoptions in the GDR. Film by Mica Stobwasser and Natascha Tillmann (2001)
  • Mothers without children - kidnapping in the GDR , MDR, A case for Escher , broadcast on December 25, 2003.
  • The Wall - Berlin '61. WDR television film from 2006, directed by Hartmut Schoen, actor u. a. Heino Ferch , Inka Friedrich , Frederick Lau , Iris Berben .
  • Raven parents. Film by Hans-Dieter Rutsch, accompanying documentary for the television film "The Wall - Berlin 61".
  • Beyond the Wall , TV film 2009 with Katja Flint and Edgar Selge
  • Separation from the state , ARD documentation 2009

Canada

  • Foster Child. Film directed by Gil Cardinal, 1987
  • We are Indians / Voyage en mémoires indiennes. Documentary by Jo Béranger and Doris Buttingnol (2001)

Switzerland

Web links

Argentina

Australia

GDR

Canada

Switzerland

Spain

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Spiegel (1997): Children for Führer and Stasi , No. 25, pp. 72–73
  2. ↑ Article: GDR / Children: Never again. In: Der Spiegel. Issue 51, December 15, 1975.
    Article: GDR: “The children firmly rooted”. In: Der Spiegel. Issue 52, December 22, 1975. Both accessed on March 29, 2019.
  3. ↑ Article: Forced Adoptions: Masters in Looking Away. In: Der Spiegel. Issue 23, June 3, 1991, accessed on March 29, 2019.
  4. ^ A b c d e Marie-Luise Warnecke: Forced adoptions in the GDR. PhD thesis FU Berlin. Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-8305-1630-9 .
  5. ^ German Bundestag: Briefing by the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic. Third activity report of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic - 1997. Part of the Central Coordination Group, Relocation to the Federal Republic and Abroad (ZKG). Document 13/8442 of October 29, 1997.
  6. ↑ Brochure: Dimensions and Scientific Verifiability of Political Motivation in GDR Adoption Proceedings 1966–1990. Preliminary study on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. February 26, 2018, accessed on March 29, 2019 (PDF download).
  7. ↑ Message: Forced adoptions in the GDR: Against a wall of silence. In: tagesschau.de. April 5, 2018, accessed March 29, 2019 .
  8. ^ German Bundestag : Experts: Investigate forced adoptions and infant death in the GDR more intensively. 2018, accessed March 29, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Catharina Karlshaus: He is looking for his birth mother. In: Sächsische.de. April 13, 2018, accessed May 15, 2019 .
  10. ^ M. Deutschmann: Adoption drama in the GDR: son finds mother after 38 years. In: Bild.de. April 27, 2018, accessed May 15, 2019 .
  11. ^ Antonia Kleikamp: Forced adoptions: GDR authorities are said to have parents stolen newborn babies. In: Welt.de. April 4, 2018, accessed May 15, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Gregor Völtz: Rechtsstipps ( Memento from September 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) On the requirements and limits of adoption even against the will of the parents ], May 6, 2006 ,rechtstipps.net. Retrieved October 3, 2013.
  13. ↑ "The [...] goal pursued primarily by those involved in re 2 of thwarting the father's rights of contact by way of adoption, as explained above, does not normally support a replacement of the consent." BGH decision , AZ XII ZB 10/03 of March 23, 2005, p. 10.
  14. ^ Successful constitutional complaint against the replacement of the biological father's consent in the adoption of stepchildren , Federal Constitutional Court, press release no. 123/2005 of December 13, 2005
  15. ↑ in English , according to Wikinews
  16. ↑ Werner Marti: Videla convicted of child robbery. Argentina's judiciary speaks of the systematic appropriation of babies by the military. Neue Zürcher Zeitung online, July 7, 2012
  17. ↑ Ralf Streck: The "stolen children" in Spain are demanding clarification. In: Telepolis. February 13, 2011, accessed November 28, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Margot Litten: A Long Night over Spain's Stolen Children: Walls of Silence. In: Deutschlandfunkd. February 25, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017 .
  19. ^ A b Hans-Günter Kellner: The stolen children of the Franco regime. Victims demand clarification despite the difficult evidence. In: Deutschlandfunk. January 26, 2011, accessed November 28, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Spain: Stolen Children - Babies Kidnapped and Forcibly Adopted - Already under Franco. In: www.spanienlive.com. April 13, 2012, archived from the original on December 1, 2017 ; accessed on November 28, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Reiner Wandler: Forced adoption in Spain. The nun and the kidnapping. In: taz.de. April 22, 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2017 .
  22. ↑ https://www.zeit.de/2019/16/zwangsadoptionen-spanien-aufverarbeitung-wahlkampf-pablo-casado
  23. ^ "Mothers without children - kidnapping in the GDR." ( Memento from January 6, 2004 in the Internet Archive )