My Daughter’s Mother

Journalist and mother of five annemie struyf travels to kenia in search of the roots of her adopted daughter hope. Helping her in her endeavour is the hiv positive achieng, who saved newborn hope from certain death two years before. Together they set off to find salomé, the woman who gave birth to hope.

Determined to complete their mission, the women cross the country from nairobi to kabondo and from mombasa to lake victoria. From the embassy to the ghetto, from the beach boys to the prostitutes, from childbirth to the rape clinic. Each step brings them closer to the answers to their many questions: who was salomé, hope’s biological mother? Why did she die so shortly after childbirth? Why was her child not given a name? Why did no one take care of the baby? Why did the biological father give the child to a casual passer-by?

With hope’s story as the red thread, this personal quest is the ideal starting point to consider a bigger issue: what would have been hope’s fate if she had stayed behind as one of africa’s 13 million (!) Orphaned children?

‘de moeder van mijn dochter’ is a spine-chilling quest, with moving, shocking and captivating encounters. A quest without a script.