Adopted, double-crossed and returned to Jamaica

Dear Mrs Macaulay,

Thank you for your advice on how to obtain my birth certificate (Adopted child rejected, sent back to Jamaica — 30/10/2023), but I am going to fill you in on what really happened to me.

As I stated before , I was adopted at age six and sent back to Jamaica at age 14. I still don’t have anyone to help me get any form of justice.

I was hated by my siblings (all adults) so they found all kinds of  ways to make their parents send me back to Jamaica. You can’t imagine the types of hell that I went through.

They cooked up with their mother, who hated me, and I was told she only agreed with the adoption because of her husband, my uncle. She never treated me as one of her children. My adopted mother and her daughter  conspired and booked a plane ticket behind my father’s back, and she brought me back to Jamaica without my father’s knowledge. When my father  found out what his wife had done, he sent a cousin of ours to Jamaica with all my documents to retrieve me,  but my cousin never came for me. Instead, she stole my passport, my birth certificate, and all my documents, and used them to take another child to America. She committed identity theft and broke all kinds of laws. Right now that girl is living my life and using my social security number, collecting all kinds of benefits, while I’m here suffering like a dog. I am totally lost.

My adopted mother died. I have siblings living in the United States (US), but they are just like their mother. My father is also ill. One of my brothers came to Jamaica in 2018 and found me and said he was going to help me, but I haven’t heard back from him.

What do you think I can do, because all of my life was a waste. Because of them I made nothing out of my life because I had no papers to succeed in life.

In your original letter you made clear your need to obtain your birth certificate — the adopted one — and by your current letter you seem to require assistance to obtain redress against the people responsible for placing you in the position which your adopted mother and her children, your adopted siblings, engineered together.

You have not said whether you have now obtained a certified copy of your birth certificate, which could be your original document, stamped with the date and the order of your court adoption endorsed on it.  As a result of such an order, you were entitled to have your uncle’s surname as your legal surname from the date of the order.  Obtaining a certified copy may take some time, but there is no reason why you cannot succeed in doing so.

Your cousin committed several criminal offences, and since I assume that you know your names as they appeared in your documents, I’ll ask whether you reported this cousin’s actions to the US immigration services during the years when you were trying to obtain a copy of your birth certificate.   Surely, with such facts as you have, you could trace the entry of that cousin with the child she took with her to the US, and who you say is well settled there and is receiving benefits whilst you are still in Jamaica struggling to survive.  Have you ever reported this and the cousin’s identity, occupation and address, and whatever other information you have, like the approximate date of the fraud?

I feel certain that you have more information which may assist an attorney-at-law to properly identify the issues involved in your case and which cannot effectively be done via this means. You need to sit in front of a lawyer and relate all the facts in your possession and in such circumstances the lawyer can ask you questions directly in order to clarify matters and so determine what can possibly be done to assist you after so many years.

There are what are called ‘limitation periods’ in law, which when a certain number of years have passed, makes whatever cause of action a person had no longer exist, and so that person would not be able to file a claim, unless there is also a legal provision which also says otherwise.

I would therefore strongly suggest that you try and find a lawyer with whom you can speak in person who can properly assist you.  Perhaps you can try Jamaicans for Justice and seek their help.  Please try this and hopefully you can obtain the assistance that you need.

All the very best.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.

DISCLAIMER:

The contents of this article are for informational purposes only and must not be relied upon as an alternative to legal advice from your own attorney.