Some were born in Belgium, others were born in secret in the North of France, where their mothers were forced to give birth. The infants were then sold to Belgian families in need of children. In total, more than 30,000 babies would have passed through this dubious adoption network, which operated from the 1940s until the 1980s – even 1990s.
The victims of this trafficking describe a well-established system. To avoid the shame of a pregnancy outside of marriage, young single Belgian women were entrusted to Catholic organizations which took care of the birth and the placement of their babies for adoption. But these children were very often taken from their mothers against their will.
These religious institutions would even have enriched themselves thanks to this system. The word is difficult to hear today for these adopted children, but they were indeed “sold” for sums of up to 20,000 Belgian francs – the equivalent of 500 euros today – or even beyond.
Today, victims are demanding answers from the authorities, but also concrete help in researching their origins. A particularly difficult quest for those born under X in France, one of the only European countries to authorize secret births.
Despite the creation in 2002, in France, of a body facilitating access to origins, the CNAOP, this research remains difficult, if not impossible for Belgian cases. Because, on the other side of the border, few archives remain on the practices of these adopted works. They would have, in part, disappeared.
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