Sam van den Haak was adopted from Sri Lanka. She studied holistic therapy and remedial education and completed her studies with a thesis on adoption issues. In her practice Verreiking, she helps on-demand clients process with their adoption trauma and rediscover who they themselves really want to be without having to meet the expectations of the outside world. She gives lectures on trauma, adoption and personal leadership as a result of her book. Her book had a 3rd printing in the first month. The motto of her book is: ‘You can become anything you want, but mostly yourself.’
In her book ‘My birthday is not my birthdate’, she describes the path she took as an adoptee. She ended up as a little girl in dysfunctional adoptive family with already two severely multiply disabled children, where she was sexually abused by her adoptive father. At 17, she was kicked out of the house and had to survive on her own in a country where hardly anyone looked like her. She went on a search for herself in Sri Lanka and found out there that on paper she did not really exist at all. She met her biological family who could have just taken care of her and her grandmother told her that her birth date was 17 December and not 4 July as stated in her passport.
When she eventually finds out she was illegally adopted due to child trafficking, she is determined to prevent children from being illegally adopted anymore. A Top Voice on Linked In with over 8,000 followers, she regularly posts about the state of affairs regarding intercountry adoption in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. To put this issue on the map nationwide, she is suing the Dutch state in a class action lawsuit. With seven other duped adoptees from Sri Lanka, she, led by lawyer Mark de Hek, holds the Dutch state liable for poor supervision in child trafficking and adoption fraud. She hopes to make it easier and free of charge for adoptees to get their own identity details in their passports. Getting her own birth date n her passport is at the top of her bucket list.
Visit her website for more information: www.nietgeborenopmijnverjaardag.nl
