1970-1990 අතර කාලයේ මෙරට දරුවන් 14000 කට ආසන්න සංඛ්යාවක් රට පටවලා යොදාගත් ලිපි ලේඛන බොහෝමයක ඇත්තේ වැරදි තොරතුරු ප්රංශය සොයන ළමයින් 18න් 17 කොටම වෛද්ය සහතික නිකුත් කොට ඇත්තේ එකම වෛද්යවරයෙක් සැඳෑ අහස දෙස අරමුණකින් තොරව බලා සිටින ඇයගෙන් එක් වරම කවුරුන් හෝ පැමිණ නමක් සහ ලිපිනයක්…
Between 1970 and 1990, nearly 14,000 Sri Lankan children were deported
Most of the documents used contained incorrect information
The same doctor issued medical certificates for 17 out of 18 children seeking France
As she was staring aimlessly at the sunset, someone came up to her and asked her about someone, showing her a name and address. It was a young foreign national and a well-dressed Sri Lankan man wearing a T-shirt. The address they showed was exactly correct. But the name on it was wrong. They were asking about the mother of a daughter who had been given up for adoption in a foreign country 44 years ago. She and her son once said, “The address is correct. But there is no one with that name here.” The truth is that those people had come to the very address. They had met the very person. But she did not have the courage to say it. Suddenly, she was taken back 44 years. A tear escaped her eye, remembering her baby daughter, who she had carried in her womb for nine months, but she hid it so that her son would not see it.
Anulawathi, who is tormented by the new memory
Let's say her name is Anulawathi (not her real name), and her village is twenty to thirty kilometers from Anuradhapura. Exactly 44 years ago, while she was on her way to a garment factory in Katunayake in search of work, she was deceived by the lies of a deceitful lover and ended up in the house of a young woman alone with a pregnant child. The only help she had was the help of a friend from the company where she worked. With the help of that friend, she secretly gave birth to her firstborn child in her hometown and from her parents. Her only hope was to give her child up for adoption. In the end, she came to that decision, albeit reluctantly.
With the advice and guidance of her friend and her lover, she handed over her newborn daughter to a foreign family, thinking that her future would be better. Even today, she regrets it a hundred thousand times.
After that incident, Anulawathi, who started her life anew, is now a mother of two. She is the wife of a retired army officer. There is no one to tell the sorrow that is burning in her heart. Now her only wish is to see her daughter's face once before she dies. But that wish has not been fulfilled because no one knows about her past. Now, no one can tell about it. Without words, she will undoubtedly become a bad woman in the eyes of society.
After that incident, every moment she is alone, she thinks about how much she would have loved to see the child who had been cuddling her for a few hours 44 years ago.
She is a housewife. If she leaves the house, it is only to go to the market. On the other hand, she is now almost seventy years old. She cannot go to Colombo alone to ask for information. The friend who helped her at that time is no longer there. She does not have any documents. She has buried her past for a long time now. She buried it with the intention of never digging it up again. But with the arrival of these sudden guests, she is alone between two worlds. She is a single mother who cries tears of joy after being deceived by the lies of a deceitful lover and giving her firstborn child to a foreign couple.
What was safe goes to Eliya
The story of Malkanthi, who lives in a village near Kalawana, is different. She gave up her third child for adoption because she could not afford another child due to her poverty. It was because of her husband's insistence. She never wanted to give her child to another couple for adoption, just as the vine does not bear fruit. But she had no other option in the face of her husband's insistence. She was somewhat comforted because she gave her child to a couple she knew quite well. She had the hope in her heart that even if we did not, this boy would live well with those ladies. Another thing that dispelled her fear in her heart was that the couple also had a daughter who was two years older than their child. They said that since their wife could not bear children again, they would adopt this child in her absence.
But what actually happened was something she had never imagined. What she had been careful of was like going to Elijah. The couple who had adopted their child disappeared from the house they were living in the city after a few days. Later, it was found that she had sold her child to a foreign couple and they had also left all their villages and gone to the Netherlands. It has been thirty-eight years since this incident. She is suffering immensely from not seeing her child. Every moment that passes, she blames her husband, saying that if her child were with her, she would have lived happily ever after. There have been countless times when she has quarreled with her husband.
Despite the intense pressure from her wife, the husband occasionally inquires about it, but they do not have the money to look for further information. They do not have enough knowledge to search for government offices. To find documents from thirty or forty years ago in a government office, one has to do some digging. They still live by making a living from Kitul. Under such circumstances, they do not have the money to spend on it. When he did some research, he found out that they did not go abroad under the name mentioned in their child's birth certificate. For this purpose, a fake birth certificate with separate names and surnames has been prepared, as well as a foreign passport.
The separation of a child from her womb is felt best by the mother. Even if she makes hasty decisions in the face of pressure in certain situations, she feels every moment of peace that she has made a big mistake for her child. She told us that she sometimes hopes that her child will come looking for her at any moment, as shown on television.
“Who are my mother and father?” The silent pain of Anusha, who is still searching for answers after forty years
“Is the mother who gave birth to me still alive? Who is my father? Do I have brothers and sisters?”
Living a life without answers to such questions, “Anusha de Silva”, or “Anna Silva” in foreign documents, who is thousands of miles away from her birthplace, is still engaged in a never-ending journey to find her real parents.
Born in Sri Lanka nearly four decades ago, she learned later in life that she had been given up for adoption by a foreign couple at a very young age, not through proper procedures, but on the basis of false certificates and incorrect information.
Although she was raised with the love and care of foreign parents, she never lacked love, but the inability to find a proper answer to the question, “Who am I?” has become an eternal void in her heart.
Although she had a birth certificate, it was later revealed that many of the details mentioned in it were incorrect. Due to the incorrect place of birth, the change of the names of her parents, and the mismatch of even the dates on several documents, it has been an extremely difficult task for her to find her true identity.
Currently married and a mother of two, Anusha remembers the mother who gave birth to her every time she looks at her children.
“When I hug my children, I remember that a mother must have hugged me like this once. She must not have forgotten me. Maybe she still cries today remembering me…” she says with emotion.
The only precious treasure in her hands is a few old documents that have turned yellow and a few photographs taken when she was a child. Although she has contacted various institutions and people over the years in order to find the lost part of her life among the secrets hidden in them, she has not yet received a definitive answer.
However, she has not given up hope.
“Even if my mother is no longer alive, I want to go to her grave and lay a bunch of flowers and say, ‘Mom, I have come.’ I have the right to know who my father is,” she says.
Anusha’s only wish is to see the face of the mother who gave birth to her at least once before her life ends.
She is still waiting…
All three stories are about children who lost their mother’s love due to the fraudulent actions of various people at one time, as well as about mothers who are suffering from child pain.
Although Sri Lanka is at a high point in terms of children’s and women’s rights today, the situation was completely different two or three decades ago. The Thirty Years’ War, the youth uprising, and the riots between the ethnic groups were not over. This also had the greatest impact on women and children. Also, with the start of the garment industry in this country, many young women who came to the city from the countryside were deceived by the lies of young men from wealthy families and the Bodhisattva Leela and became orphans.
Detailed archival statistics report that between the 1970s and the early 1990s, more than 11,000-14,000 children in this country were taken to foreign countries for adoption (fostering). Due to socio-economic problems and fatherless mothers, most of the children born to them have been sent to foreign countries without the knowledge of the parents. Some families have seven or eight children. In such cases, due to the difficulty of feeding the children, there have been cases where the children have been given to foreigners voluntarily. This was in exchange for gifts and money received from them.
Most of the children in this country have been taken to France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany. This has happened with the help of illegally prepared documents. Several people in the Mount Lavinia area told us that there was a separate team to prepare fake documents for this purpose. Government officials from the hospital to the Immigration and Emigration Department have also done a great deal of work in this racket. Without them, this racket could not have been carried out in any way.
The period between 1982-1986 was the golden age of this racket. As the Joustra report of the Netherlands and the Zhaw report of Switzerland indicate, during this period, Sri Lankan children have been taken to those countries mostly due to the laxity of the laws in this country as well as in those countries.
Between 1982-1988 alone, the number of children taken from this country to the Netherlands was 2001. In 1986 alone, 565 children, 460 in 1984 and 537 in 1985, our children have been taken from this country in various ways.
There is a trend that children who were taken from this country to foreign countries thirty or forty years ago are now returning to their native villages and finding their real parents. No matter how much wealth and facilities they have, there comes a time when they are forced to find their true roots. But the only obstacle for all of these people is the lack of accurate information to find their true roots. Most of the existing documents are fake. This racket is using fake birth certificates written in books stolen from hospitals to create fake birth certificates.
Even if requests are made, the applicant must come forward to provide the information. Also, there is no reliable organization or institution for this. Some do it by holding media appearances. Others just steal their belongings.
Meanwhile, recently we came to know about a social service institution that provides the necessary support to Sri Lankan mothers who have endured decades of separation. It provides the opportunity for internationally adopted people to reconnect with their biological roots without charging any money. Sarv Social Service Institute is one such institution. Established in 1999, it was registered at the Moratuwa Divisional Secretariat in 2000 and later registered as a national level NGO for voluntary and social services under the Ministry of Social Services of Sri Lanka. It is also a non-profit organization.
In 2020, after a thorough assessment, ISS officially joined the International Social Services (ISS) network, which supports 75,000 separated people globally each year. ISS has been entrusted by the French government to trace 18 children who were taken from Sri Lanka to France and find their biological parents. It is being carried out in a safe and confidential manner without compromising anyone’s privacy.
Sanjeewa de Mal, Executive Director of ISS, explained the responsibility they have been given thus:
“Our social services agency, with the support of the French Embassy in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, has been provided with information on 18 children who have been placed in foster care in France at the request of the International Social Services of France. We are currently conducting searches for them.”
How the children were smuggled
Two of the 18 parents who were given to the Servant Social Services Institute from France to trace have already been found. Now all that remains is to confirm them through DNA testing. Many important facts were revealed there. This shows how fraudulent the procedures were at that time. 78% of those 18 children were girls. Also, 72% of these 18 incidents are related to the Colombo district. What is surprising is that a single lawyer is responsible for 84% of the 18 incidents. He was the main broker in this. That lawyer is no longer alive. But the affidavits he prepared are still available. Most of them do not have ID numbers. Even if they do, they are incorrect.
Also, when giving a child up for adoption, a medical certificate must be submitted to the court. The medical certificates for all but one of these 18 cases were issued by the same doctor. This alone shows the extent of the racket.
Don’t be afraid to come forward
You may be a mother, father or brother who still regrets thinking about the daughter or son who was lost to their care many years ago. If so, you can tell the Sarva Samajwa Seva Institute about it. Without further embarrassment in front of the world, without any media spectacle, the Sarva Samajwa Seva Institute will help you find your abandoned daughter or son in a way that does not harm your privacy.
Sanjeewa De Mal, Executive Director of the Sarva Samajwa Seva Institute, says that nothing is done without the consent of the families.
“We protect the confidentiality of the information we receive and act in a way that does not tarnish their character or image. We also provide information to Sri Lankan children in France only if they are willing. Information can be obtained by calling the phone number
+94 701 242 242 or by visiting the website soyamulk@gmail.com.
It is doubtful whether any of these people were greedy for money and even thought about the mental trauma of having to separate a small child from its mother and go to someone else. Did the people involved in this fraud even think about the physical and mental distress that the mother would suffer by separating the child from her mother while she was still warm.
At that time, it is said that a political hand was also behind the child smuggling racket. Now, all that needs to be done is for the few mothers who are still alive to see the faces of their children. Just planning.
Sameera Kannangara