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Friday, September 18, 2009

Trade in children

Ethiopian children exploited by US adoption agencies

Andrew Geogheghan reported this story on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 07:22:00

Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes)

Alternate WMA version | MP3 download

This transcript is a record of the Radio National broadcast. It will be replaced by the updated local radio broadcast at 10am.


TONY EASTLEY: In Australia, international adoptions are handled by the Government and are highly regulated, but that's not the case elsewhere in the world.

In the United States international adoptions are a big business, where a large number of private international adoption agencies are paid on average $30,000 a time to find a child for hopeful parents.

The number of Americans adopting Ethiopian children has quadrupled, especially since American celebrities adopted African children.

A Foreign Correspondent team has been investigating American adoption agencies operating in Ethiopia and has uncovered some alarming practices.

Africa correspondent Andrew Geoghegan reports.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Famine, disease and war have orphaned around five million Ethiopian children. It's not surprising then that the business of international adoptions is thriving here and Americans in particular are queuing up to adopt a child.

EXCERPT FROM DVD: This is Yabets. He's five years old and both of his parents died; it says they died of tuberculosis. Can you smile? Oh, nice smile.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: This is the sales pitch from an American agency Christian World Adoption. In a remote village in Ethiopia's south the agency has compiled a DVD catalogue of children for its clients in the United States.

EXCERPT FROM DVD: Father has died. I'm not certain what he died of and this is the mother. Hoping for a family who can provide for them, they're just really desperate for people to take care of their children.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Incredibly though, many of the children being advertised are not orphans at all. American Lisa Boe was told by Christian World Adoption that the little boy she'd adopted was an orphan, but she soon had doubts.

LISA BOE: There was a picture of the people that had found him, and there's a man and a woman in the picture. I point to the woman and he calls her mamma. I would never, never have brought home a child that has a mum. Never.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: At least 70 adoption agencies have set up business in Ethiopia. Almost half are unregistered, but there's scant regulation anyway and fraud and deception are rife. Some agencies actively recruit children in a process known as harvesting.

EXCERPT FROM DVD: If you want your child to be adopted by a family in America, you may stay. If you do not want your child to go to America, you should take your child away.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Parents give up their children in the belief they'll have better lives overseas. But many have little understanding of the process or that that they may never see their children again.

EYOB KOLCHA: It was considered good for the children in the community and the people came.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Eyob Kolcha worked for Christian World Adoption before quitting in December 2007.

EYOB KOLCHA: There was no information before that time, there was no information after that.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Did their parents realise that they were now legally someone else's children?

EYOB KOLCHA: They didn't understand that. I don't think most people, most parents understand even elsewhere in Ethiopia right now.

MUNERA AHMED (translated): I have no words to express my feelings and my anguish about what happened to my children and what I did.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: After her husband left, Munera Ahmed gave up two sons - one 12 months old and the other five through another adoption agency.

She has had no word about her children since she handed them over; that's despite guarantees that she'd be kept informed. The agency has now closed.

MUNERA AHMED (translated): As a mother not to be able to know my kids' situation hurts me so much, I have no words, no words to express my emotions (crying).

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: About 30 Ethiopian children are leaving the country every week, bound for a new home, new parents and an uncertain future.

Koreans in the Netherlands 1 +2:
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Geplaatst door Bert E. Spoor-de Rave op Friday, September 18, 2009 0 reacties

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Koreans in the Netherlands 1.

It's only since a couple of months that I had a renewed contact with a guy I worked with in the past. One morning I found me an e-mail all the way from Korea, "If I could remember Don Gordon Bell" he asked. Yes, I did. We worked on several movies together in the 80's. A long time ago but a time never to forget. Don, an ex-Vietnam veteran had a nice record of movie making already. His high light, no doubt, was his input in Apocalypse Now, a classic among the Vietnam war movies, shot in the Philippines. Don was a well skilled martal arts practicioner, doing all kind of unsown Korean styles. Due to his experiences in 'the field of action' he was connected to this film as a military adviser, casting assistant and AD or assistant to the production. Besides that he played characters and loved to do stunts. Don had started a blog as well, (also in april, like me..) His main page is 'Korean War Baby, he writes about him being a half-breed ,(Korean mother and US father) , his adoption and his search for his natural mother. Therefor I'ld like to post something about the Dutch/Korean adoption numbers.

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Geplaatst door Bert E. Spoor-de Rave op Thursday, September 17, 2009 0 reacties

Koreans in the Netherlands 2.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Koreans in the Netherlands
Total population
4,968 (2009)[1]
Regions with significant populations
No data
Religion

Buddhism[2]
Related ethnic groups

Korean diaspora

Koreans in the Netherlands form one of the smaller Korean diaspora groups in Europe. As of 2009, 4,968 people of Korean origin (immigrants from North or South Korea and 2nd-generation Koreans) lived in the Netherlands.[1]

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Demographic characteristics

As of 2009, statistics of the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek showed:

  • 37 North Korean-born and 2,733 South Korean-born persons
  • 3 persons of North Korean origin and 409 persons of South Korean origin born locally to two parents outside the Netherlands
  • 1,792 persons born locally to one South Korean-born parent and one parent born in the Netherlands

For a total of 4,968 persons, not including ethnic Koreans from other countries. This represented more than three times the 1996 total of 1,492 persons. However, they still formed little more than a minute proportion (0.1%) of the total number of persons with a foreign background.[1]

[edit] Adoptees

About 4,000 of the people of Korean origin in the Netherlands consist of Korean adoptees.[3][4] Dutch interest in adoption of babies from Asia began to pick up in the late 1960s; Dutch writer Jan de Hartog, who himself had earlier adopted two Korean War orphans, was promoting charitable activities for children in Vietnam who had been orphaned due to the Vietnam War bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong in 1966. In 1968, he appeared on the television show hosted by Mies Bouwman with his two adopted Korean daughters; after this broadcast, nearly a thousand people called the studio and expressed interest in adopting Korean babies. Since 1970, Dutch parents adopted 3,993 South Korean babies.[5] The number of adoptions has fallen off; from 1995 to 2006, the total number of adoptions from South Korea was 349, with just two in 2005 and only one in 2006. This made South Korean adoptees about 10.9% of the 3,194 international adoptions and 2.25% of the 15,467 total adoptions during that period.[6]

A small number have relocated to South Korea; however, due to cultural differences and the high expectations placed on their behaviour due to their external appearance of being Korean, they find it difficult to fit in there, and also find themselves the objects of unwanted pity for their status as adoptees.[3][4]

[edit] Notable individuals

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Population by origin and generation, 1 January, The Hague: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2009, http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?DM=SLEN&PA=37325eng&D1=a&D2=0,l&D3=0&D4=0&D5=63,169&D6=0,l&LA=EN&HDR=T,G1&STB=G5,G2,G3,G4&VW=T, retrieved 2009-07-17
  2. ^ "Korean Buddhist congregations in the Netherlands", World Buddhist Directory (Buddha Dharma Education Association), 2006, http://www.buddhanet.info/wbd/search.php?keyword=korean+&prev_keyword%5B%5D=korean&newsearch=new&search=Begin+Search&country_id=70&province_id=0, retrieved 2009-03-09
  3. ^ a b Deters, Sigrid (2003-10-29), "Voordelen van de dubbele identiteit", Wereld Expat, http://www.wereldexpat.nl/nl/wonen/cultuurverschillen/Korea_koreaansuiterlijk.htm, retrieved 2009-02-25
  4. ^ a b Yoo, Sang-ah (2007-10-09), "'Korea zit in mijn bloed': Adoptiekinderen treffen lotgenoten in hun geboorteland", Trouw, http://www.trouw.nl/achtergrond/Dossiers/article1487759.ece/_lsquo_Korea_zit_in_mijn_bloed_rsquo__.html, retrieved 2009-02-25
  5. ^ van de Wetering, Chris (2000-10-26), "Je blijft een Koreaan", NRC Handelsblad, http://www.nrc.nl/W2/Lab/Profiel/Korea/adoptie.html, retrieved 2009-02-27
  6. ^ Adopties naar land van herkomst, soort adoptie en geslacth, The Hague: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistie, 2007, http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37722&D1=a&D2=0,11&D3=a&D4=a&HDR=T,G2&STB=G1,G3&VW=T, retrieved 2009-02-27
  7. ^ Stoffer, Paul (2007-09-01), "Récardo Bruins Choi niet te kloppen op drogend circuit in tweede kwalificatie", RaceXpress, http://www.racexpress.nl/index.php?nav=Artikel&nid=8274, retrieved 2009-02-27

[edit] Further reading

  • Daamen, Bas; Hennart, Jean-Francois; Kim, Dong-Jae; Park, Young-Ryeol (2007), "Sources of and Responses to the Liability of Foreignness: The Case of Korean Companies in the Netherlands", Global Economic Review 36 (1): 17-35, doi:10.1080/12265080701217165
  • van Tijn, Eli (1991), Nederlanders in Korea, Koreanen in Nederland, Ph.D. thesis, University of Amsterdam, OCLC 71730828

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans_in_the_Netherlands"
Geplaatst door Bert E. Spoor-de Rave op Thursday, September 17, 2009 2 reacties

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Missing in Action 3 , crashes for reel and for real...

I'm not in this shot, I'm on top of it !!! No kidding. When the plane with Chuck Norris and the children on board makes all kinda moves, it's us ( me and a couple of other guys) jumping on the wings. We were jumping like mad-men during the 'crash'. The kids never were air born during these takes. It was shot in Maragondon Cavite. Hé, I didn't go to Manila first to join the cast and crew, I took my bike and was there in 15 minutes. Later on this film a real accident happened with a helicopter crashing near my place. About a mile or so, I mean that's close.





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