Since 2001, Patrick Noordoven has experience in family tracing in Brazil, tackling the consequences of the deprivation of the human right to identity.
In 1980, as a newborn he was deprived of his identity and trafficked out of Brazil. During his investigation into his own illegal intercountry adoption, Patrick became dedicated to the cause of unveiling the international scale, context and impact of the practice, as well as, to supporting fellow victims around the world.
Therefore, in 2014 he established the NGO Brazil Baby Affair, advocating for the right to identity and access to origins, supporting Brazilians worldwide who have been deprived of their right to identity through illegal intercountry adoption and who are in search of their original families.
His advocacy includes that the right to a birth certificate should be accompanied by safeguarding measures to ensure the authenticity of the civil birth registration, for which Patrick has been lobbying to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the permanent bureau of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.
Since 2011, Patrick has been litigating the consequences of the deprivation of his identity and thereby generating new jurisprudence. In 2018, he won his first court case in the Netherlands and shortly thereafter, 8 years of legal efforts culminated into the instigation of a National Committee Investigating Intercountry Adoption in the past.
In February 2021, the report of the Committee concluded that, in intercountry adoption cases from Brazil, the government of the Netherlands was aware of misdeeds in adoptions and the role of Dutch diplomats stationed in Brazil therein but did nothing about the misdeeds and allowed them to continue.
In November 2021, a final court ruling concluded that, by doing so, the Netherlands acted in violation of Patrick’s right to identity and knowledge of his parentage. The court therefore ruled that the State is liable for the damage that he has suffered as a result. In February 2022, the Netherlands lodged appeal against the court ruling. The appeal judgement is expected for May 2024.
Patrick Noordoven has a Master’s degree in Law and a Bachelor’s degree in Political History and International Relations. He has written his LL.M. thesis about Intercountry Adoption and the Right to Identity and his B.A. thesis on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
