As you may already know, helping the people, and especially the children,
of Cambodia is a major passion in the life of Oscar winner Angelina Jolie.
"I'll always be very grateful to this country, and I hope I've given back as much as it's given me."
She even adopted her first child, the now 19-year-old Maddox , from the country in 2002.
But what if the adoption wasn't as completely above board as we thought?
What if Jolie herself had been duped by shady practices? That's what filmmaker
Elizabeth Jacobs aims to find out in a new documentary titled "The Stolen Children."
Jacobs, who is 21, was adopted from Cambodia in the same period of time as Maddox,
and she told The Sun that she has uncovered some troubling discrepancies in her own
adoption process — though her parents had no idea of anything wrong at the time.
And it has to do with the potentially unethical adoption practices of a certain adoption
"facilitator" named Lauryn Galindo. According to The Sun, at least half of all adoptions from
Cambodia to the United States went through Galindo and her sister Lynn Devin's agency
Seattle International Adoptions between 1997 and 2001, including Maddox.
In 2004, Galindo was sentenced to 18 months in prison for running an adoption scam,
according to ABC News, and it turned out many of the hundreds of Cambodian children Galindo
placed for adoption with American parents weren't orphans or abandoned at all. They were basically
stolen from their parents who thought their children were being sent to boarding school,
or that they would be paid thousands of dollars by Americans who wanted to adopt them.
The question is whether Maddox Jolie-Pitt was one of those children who was stolen from his parents.
Officials looking into the adoption have said that Maddox was indeed a real orphan when his mother,
Angelina Jolie, adopted him. In a 2020 interview with Vogue India,
she recalled meeting Maddox for the first time.
"In 2001, I was in a school program in Samlout and as clear as day I thought:
'My son is here.' A few months later, I met baby Mad at an orphanage. I can't explain
it and am not one to believe in messages or superstition. But it was just real and clear."
That said, Cambodian welfare workers at the time believed that Maddox may have been sold
by his impoverished mother for $100. A 2004 report in the Sydney Morning Herald
even featured human rights leaders in the region claiming Maddox wasn't truly an
orphan. With her film, Elizabeth Jacobs is determined to find out.
Angelina Jolie previously opened up about the adoption process
and how her connection to Cambodia brought her to motherhood. As she told Vogue India in 2020:
"Cambodia was the country that made me aware of refugees. It made me engage in foreign
affairs in a way I never had, and join [the UN Refugee Agency]. Above all, it made me a mom."
According to the Daily Mail, Jolie's focus on Cambodia at the time of her son's adoption
became a focal point in her art, culminating in directing the 2017 film "First They Killed My
Father." The film told the story of the genocide of nearly 2 million cambodian people in the 1970s,
under the regime of dictator Pol Pot.
At the time, according to The Daily Mail, Jolie talked at length about how
deeply every Cambodian had been affected by the war, and noted:
"I don't know much of Maddox's birth parents, but I believe they would have gone through this war."
Although Jolie did not have much knowledge of Maddox's birth family, she remains determined that
he build a connection to his home country. After the adoption of her first child Maddox in 2002,
Angeline Jolie went through the process twice more with her daughter Zahara in 2005 and son Pax
in 2007. The mother of six later welcomed three biological children — Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne
— with ex-husband Brad Pitt. In discussing her mixed family, Jolie was sure to explain to Vogue
India that she treats the adoption journey with as much importance as the birth one.
"With my adopted children, I can't speak of pregnancy, but I speak with much detail and love
about the journey to find them and what it was like to look in their eyes for the first time."
The actor gave fans insight into her parenting style, too, revealing that she works to make sure
each of her children's cultures remains part of their lives. According to Jolie, it's important
that her children, quote, "never lose touch" with the culture of their home country. Despite the
allegations over Maddox's adoption, Jolie remains a devoted, open mother to each of her children.
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