[Jensboys]

I live in Canada and last night on "The Passionate Eye" (a CBC documentary show) they showed the true story of a now 22 year old girl who was adopted as a 9 year old to Canada by a doc and his wife. The child, and her brother (adopted by another couple at the same time) were "voluntarily" placed for adoption by their widowed mother who had 8 children she was trying to care for. The children werent taken from an orphanage but rather "found" by a translator.

Anyways, the 9 year old was adopted in 1991 by this Canadian family and Romania issued her a new birth certificate listing the Canadians as her parents, and Canada as her birthplace - thus voiding her Romanian citizenship. 6 months later her adoptive parents told her they couldnt handle her anymore (after bringing home a new Romanian baby) and stuck her back on a plane BY HERSELF with her romanian papers and enough money to catch a cab back to her birth family's home.

What they didnt realize is that she wasnt Romanian anymore either. She wasnt Canadian though because her aparents never finalized the adoption in Canada. She was essentially stateless. She was not allowed to return to school in Romania, her mom was unable to get any help because according to the law there, she wasnt her mother.

Now all these years later, she is still in limbo. With the documentary team she returned to Canada to look in the home she used to live in, and she went to the states where her adoptive father now lives and is a prominant heart surgeon. He talked with her very briefly but was unwilling to answer her questions.

She was also able to meet her baby brother (now 15) who was adopted at the same time as her. She was VERY angry and anti-adoption now and had alot of anger at her brother's aparents for "taking him". But the documentary was fairly sympathetic towards this family as they said over and over again they would of adopted her if they had known she her afamily was disrupting. (bmom has since died due to essentially complications of being poor).

The female profiled in this story is still without citizenship but because of the film, her daughter (whom she was also at risk of losing due to terrible poverty) has been granted Romanian citizenship and will be allowed to go to school.

It was a heart breaking story to watch ... Anyone else see it?

Jen