Police probe into foundation providing illegal adoption
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.