exposing the dark side of adoption
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Family's 14 year long trauma ends

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14 years after they were separated, teenagers Miquel & Melissa were re-united with their parents in Kanyakumari. They were given up for adoption illegally by an agency in Chennai in 1996.

Dekla Selvan has spent the last fourteen years in agony... waiting for this one moment to get a glance of 19 year-old Melissa and 18 year-old Miquel, her two children who were given up for adoption illegally.

Talking about the incident, Dekla Selvam said, "My children were sent to Netherlands without my knowledge. We have been searching for them ever since. We are so happy that they have come to meet us now."

Deklas children were amongst the 300 odd children given for illegal adoption by an agency in Chennai. After 14 years of relentless battle by their mother, the children have to come to meet their family.The only communication all these years was a letter written by Melissa to her mother.

Perhaps more than the mother, it is the children whose heart wrenching ordeal has to be heard to be believed.

Times Now has been persistently following the tragic tale of Dekla and her children. Two years ago we tracked down Melissa and Miquel and found out that they had been abandoned by Dutch foster parents and put in Netherland's state orphanages.

The contrast between mother and children couldn’t be starker; Dekla speaks only Tamil and cannot communicate with her children and this fisherwoman's impoverished life style quite alien to Melissa & Miquel. Still the warmth in this mother’s words and eyes ...is beyond linguistic and economic barriers.

It was a rare reunion, a moment of extreme joy for Deklas whole family. Dekla says it is now up to her children to decide whether to stay back here in India or come visiting once in a while from Netherlands. At the moment they are busy mending the long lost family ties.

2010 Aug 20