In 1992, Turid Fiskerstrand and Nils Harald Oterhals traveled from Molde to Sri Lanka to adopt a little girl. She was only 13 days old when they held her for the first time. The language differences meant that the Norwegian couple and the Sri Lankan mother, Pojani, could not talk to each other. But they met daily for several weeks. – I had a heart rate of 120 before our first meeting. It was a huge moment for us, but I don’t know what Pojani was thinking. That’s why I asked the manager at the orphanage if she could interpret for us, explains Turid. They sat down together and looked at albums from Molde. Turid wanted to show Pojani where her daughter Priyangika would live and grow up. Explain that she was going to go to school and that they were going to take good care of her. Give her lots of love. – In retrospect, I realized that she thought we were just supposed to relieve her and look after her daughter until she was able to do it herself. It hurts to think that she didn’t understand that we were going to adopt her. We had nothing to compare it to and thought everything was going well, but I wonder what the manager actually said to Pojani, wonders Turid. Priyangika and her Norwegian parents when they came to Norway in 1992. Photo: Private To Norway with a new name The Norwegian parents engaged a lawyer and were in court to get all the papers in order. They gave her the Norwegian name Kine, and took her home to Norway when she was seven weeks old. Turid and Nils did their best to give Kine a good upbringing. They taught her both Norwegian and Sri Lankan culture, but from the time Priyangika was very small, she felt an enormous lack. She longed for her Sri Lankan mother and Sri Lankan culture early on and did not want to be Norwegian. She absorbed everything she came across from the culture and learned the language on her own. – I did not experience alienation because I was kept out or experienced racism, but I isolated myself because I thought I was going back to Sri Lanka. I have a very different adoption story, because I never wanted to be in Norway, she emphasizes. When she was seven, she got help from her Norwegian father to look for her mother. He helped her write letters to government agencies that she was looking for her family in Sri Lanka. They wrote to the county governor, the Adoption Forum and the state administrator and asked for help with a reunion. Because she was under 18, she was refused access to the adoption papers after almost a year of many hopeful letters. – I was completely crushed when the rejection came, she recalls. But she didn’t give up. When she was in her teens, she took back her birth name Priyangika. She spent a lot of time trying to find her mother via acquaintances, registers, websites and investigators in Sri Lanka. She continued to search for over twelve years, but there was little information to be found. Through the search, she established a large network and helped many other families. – I had reunited many families without finding my own mother, says Priyangika. Mother Turid and daughter Priyangika have a very strong relationship. – We talk almost every day and have a very good relationship, both say. Photo: Karianne Berge / Indie Film Reunited in Sri Lanka When Priyangika was 19, she became a mother for the first time. At the same time, after many years of searching, local investigators had finally found the mother Pojani. Priyangika took her son with her and flew down to Sri Lanka to meet her. When they met, Pojani reacted that Priyangika spoke Sinhala so poorly. According to Priyangika, her mother never understood that she was adopted out of the country. Priyangika says that Pojani, whom she calls Amma, felt a great deal of shame: – I think it was very difficult for Amma. She had been looking for me for so many years that it was strange to meet me as an adult. But she probably saw a lot of me in my son and related to him. She was a very good grandmother. Priyangika stayed in Sri Lanka for three weeks. She also went back several times before moving down in 2015 to live there for a year. – Every time I return to Sri Lanka I feel that I can finally breathe again. It gives me peace to be there, despite the island’s political situation, she thinks. Priyangika does not consider herself adopted and has felt a longing for Sri Lanka for as long as she can remember. Here she is with her Sri Lankan mother, Pojani. Photo: Way home / Indie Film Investigating the adoption Pojani was very young when she became pregnant with Priyangika, and needed help. The daughter later learned that she moved into an orphanage as support during the pregnancy, but that she had never intended to adopt her away. – Amma gave birth to me and nursed me for several weeks, while my Norwegian parents visited me every day. She was told that the four of us would live together in a house in Sri Lanka and that this was how she would get help. She herself has said that this was one of her premises for staying at the orphanage, says Priyangika. The Norwegian parents did not know this. Turid and Nils Harald thought Pojani knew that they were in the process of adopting. They did not speak the same language and only the interpreter knows what was said to whom. Priyangika says that after she was taken to Norway, the Sri Lankan mother looked for her everywhere. She had no documents that her daughter had been adopted away. She did not even know that her daughter was no longer in Sri Lanka. Priyangika is looking for her birth certificate at the hospital in Colombo. Photo: Veien hjem / Indie Film AS After much investigation, Priyangika felt she had confirmation that not everything was right in the adoption. She believes she was adopted away without the consent of her biological mother. – The ministry in Sri Lanka could not find me in its archives. The National Register had my birth certificate and the hospital has registered that I was born there. But they don’t have my medical record nor have they given it to my adoptive parents. It was not even registered that I was sent out of the country, says Priyangika. Adoption Forum was a publicly approved mediator of adoptions from Sri Lanka in the period 1975 to 2015. They cannot comment on individual cases, but point out that they have nothing to do with the child until it is released for adoption abroad. Adoptions are proposed by the country’s authorities and must be approved by a court. – Adoption Forum is not aware of any illegalities related to international adoptions from Sri Lanka to Norway, and is awaiting the public investigation committee’s report for a possible clarification as to whether this has occurred, writes general manager Sidsel Elie Aas. Priyangika is in Sri Lanka and tells her Sri Lankan mother that she is going to be a grandmother again. Photo: The way home / Indie Film – Documents eaten by rats In May 2022, Priyangika submitted a request to the Sri Lankan criminal police to investigate whether illegal adoptions from the island have taken place. – I have started a process of trying to get my adoption recognized illegally. It is so important that my Norwegian parents get answers. Everyone close to me seems to be taken advantage of, says Priyangika. Only when a Sri Lankan verdict has been handed down can she take the case further here in Norway. The Norwegian parents are aware that she wants the adoption reversed. They believe the problem is the injustice that exists in the relationship between a prosperous Norway, a poor country and a family that has no right to know where Priyangika went. – She is, in a way, kidnapped and I find it difficult. I believe Pojani when she tells what she perceived. Then she is in a way deceived, reflects Turid. She refers to the documentary “The Way Home” where Priyangika goes back to the orphanage and asks questions. – The reaction from the employees means quite a lot. They are evasive and laugh, and have several explanations for why they can’t find the papers. They say the papers have been eaten by rats, destroyed in fires and floods. I understand that there have been irregularities here, she says. For as long as she can remember, Priyangika has known that it was wrong to come to Norway. She wishes she grew up in Sri Lanka. – She will always be our daughter. We are not going to lose contact even if a document says she is no longer our daughter, emphasizes Turid. Mother and daughter still have a very close and good relationship. – We talk about most things and are very happy with each other. When our relationship has endured all the stress we’ve had over the years, it’s only gotten stronger and stronger. Priyangika’s Sri Lankan mother died in January 2018. Nevertheless, Priyangika still goes back to Sri Lanka several times a year to visit the rest of the family and continue her work on the island. See more about Priyangika in the news series “Gitt bort” In the news series “Gitt bort” you meet presenter Christian Strand, who is going back to his native Indonesia for the first time since he was adopted.
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Adopted Priyangika will not be Norwegian – Documentary
