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March 11, 2014 edition

From Indonesia's invasion of Timor-Leste in 1975 until its citizens voted for independence in a 1999 referendum, thousands of children from the tiny island nation were shipped to Indonesia. University of Queensland academic Helene van Klinken's doctoral dissertation, published in the book Making Them Indonesians, Child Transfers Out of East Timor (2002), tells of their forced assimilation. They are the generation of Timorese who were deprived of the land of their birth.
These children were adopted by families of Indonesian soldiers, placed in orphanages and even in Indonesian pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools). There are many dark and deeply moving tales of what happened to them. When Timor-Leste finally won its independence, most of the children returned to Timor-Leste to find their birth parents.January saw publication of the Indonesian translation of Klinken's book. Tempo has tried to find some of the children now adults and back with their original families.

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