Three of my children went abroad

The adoption of Serbian children abroad was not possible until a few years ago, and yet the Association “For truth and justice about babies”, more precisely three of its members, who are also members of the State Commission for collecting data on the situation of newborn children suspected of being missing from a maternity hospital in Serbia, they came across a witness who denies it and claims that babies long before, illegally, “crossed the border”.

According to Milica Spasojevic from the village of Brdjana, near Gornji Milanovac, the babies went abroad for adoption in the 1970s. Milica was an adoptive mother from 1963 to 2005, and more than 50 children passed through her home, including the baby. Katarina Ilić, according to Večernje novosti.

– Six of my children were directly up for adoption. Three went to other countries, one to Kragujevac, one to Belgrade and one to Novi Sad – says our interlocutor.

As they told him, they found little Katarina in front of the cinema in Čačak.

– After spending seven days in the hospital, the workers of the Social Work Center brought her to me, in Brdjane. She was here for 10 months and I gave her the name Katarina Ilić, says Milica Spasojević.

The abandoned baby arrived at the foster home in the second half of 1971 and the following year, before the end of the summer, the adoption took place. The adopters were a married couple from Sweden.

– The Norwegian Ingvad Hana and his Swedish wife Lena. As Milica recalls, they came to Brdjan through the now deceased Milovan Studović, a nuclear physicist at the Vinča Institute. Ingvad himself was a nuclear physicist, who came to Belgrade on business, where he met Milovan. Milica has photos not only with the married couple, but also with Milovan.

The Swedish couple spent a month there, constantly traveling the Belgrade – Cacak route.

– Brđani, until they received the papers for their adoption. Meanwhile, the Spasojevic taught them how to roast pigs in Serbia, offered them homemade brandy and prepared little Katarina for the trip.

– When they finally received the papers, I went with them to Čačak, to the Social Work Center, to sign the adoption contract – Milica recalls.

For some time after leaving the country, the adoptive parents from Sweden called Katarina’s guardian and sent her photos, but eventually the contact was broken. The Association’s representatives came to this woman because they learned that there was a grandmother in Brđani who was feeding about fifty children.

Looking for the fate of their babies, they visited her a few days ago. So they learned about the history of foreign adoptions of our children.

– According to the laws of the time, foreign citizens could not adopt our children – confirms Radiša Pavlović, President of the Association and member of the Commission. – The state authorities assure that something like this did not happen to us. How could it not be, when we have a witness who is … We responsibly affirm that in the seventies of the last century nothing could have happened at the Vinca Institute without the knowledge of the security services. Therefore, they had to know this and other similar cases of illegal adoptions of children abroad. According to the Missing Babies Act, the commission has the authority to conduct an investigation into this case, and at the first meeting we will ask that the files be opened.

The Association says that if children are illegally adopted and taken from our country, it could be a clue that the babies were abducted from their mothers at the maternity hospital, declared dead, and handed over or sold to foreign adopters.

I am without a pension

Milica Spasojevic was the breadwinner for 42 years. A few years ago, during the presentation of the plaque (in the photo below), the then Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Rasim Ljajić, promised him that he would receive a pension. To this day, this woman has not received it.

(Kurir.rs/Vecernje novosti, VC Spasojevic)

delivery courier

Author: delivery courier