Abandoned and orphaned baby boomers battling Hong Kong bureaucracy to trace their roots
Joel John Robert’s recent attempt to gain full disclosure from the Social Welfare Department returned hundreds of pages with vast amounts redacted
For half a century, Hong Kong-born adoptee Joel John Roberts spent his entire life not knowing the identity of his parents.
But as others rehomed by charities such as Po Leung Kuk or orphanages such as Fanling Babies Home have shared their experiences, Roberts, who was abandoned at 15 days old began his own “journey of discovery”.
Roberts was one of many children born in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 60s adopted by western families and taken to countries such as the UK, Canada and the United States. Roberts was adopted by an American family and moved to the US aged two and a half.
Documentation from this period is often hard to come by and his recent attempt to gain full disclosure from the Social Welfare Department about his early life was met with blanks. It sent him hundreds of pages with vast amounts redacted.
“People would ask me if I was interested in finding my birth family and I said no because I just never thought about it. But as I got older, I [realised] I didn’t know anything about the first few years of my life or my birth parents,” said Roberts. “I don’t know anyone who has had the same experience.”