Police probe into foundation providing illegal adoption

Evi Mariani The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Working on a tip, the Jakarta Police and the City Social Agency have opened an investigation into a foundation that allegedly placed more than 100 children in illegal adoptions.

"We are searching for more information but we haven't named any suspect yet," city police detectives chief Sr. Comr. Mathius Salempang said on Thursday. He refused to identify the foundation.

According to media reports, the City Social Agency has recently closed two orphanage run by the Pancaran Kasih Foundation, which has been operating for 20 years. The agency also took over 20 babies under the age of two and 77 school-aged children from the orphanages.

The agency's head of children affairs, Afrinaldi, confirmed the reports but refused to confirm the details.

Police sources said the social agency filed a police report on Wednesday after its official partner in providing adoptions, the Sayap Ibu Foundation, informed it of an unregistered foundation in Kampung Ambon, East Jakarta.

According to the report, a Sayap Ibu employee, Sucipto, met with a Singaporean in early November who was considering adopting a four-month-old girl from Pancaran Kasih.

Following up on the report, two social agency officials pretended to be a couple looking to adopt a baby. They went to the foundation's office in East Jakarta on Nov. 6.

They were told to contact the foundation owner, who could arrange the adoption documents for them. However, the officials were unable to reach her.

The social agency on Thursday took nine babies aged between two and four weeks and 33 school-aged children from the Kampung Ambon premises, and another 11 babies aged between two months and two years and 44 school-aged children from the foundation's other orphanage in Cinere, South Jakarta.

Police arrested two people in June and charged them with being members of a syndicate trafficking babies to Singapore. There are no indications these two are connected to this latest case.

Many would-be parents prefer to adopt babies illegally because of the lengthy process of legal adoptions.

Afrinaldi said the lengthy procedures, stipulated in a 1993 ministerial decree, were required to protect the children.