Born on a baby farm , stolen from your mother, or traded by criminals. That is the past of many adopted children from abroad. The Dutch government knew about it, but there is no compensation to find out the truth. Some adoptees are fed up and go out of their way to find answers.
A group of adoptees has sent a statement in which they hold the Ministry of Justice and Security liable for damage caused by illegal adoption procedures of children from abroad. The adopted children hope for a financial compensation. Among other things, they want to pay for the searches for their biological families.
The Joustra Committee published a report in February which showed that the Dutch government was aware of abuses in adoptions from abroad between 1967 and 1998. The government then apologized - to the surprise of many adopted children. Lawyer Dewi Deijle, herself adopted from Indonesia, has been campaigning for the rights of adoptees in the Netherlands for years. "I did shed a tear that day," says Deijle.
But then came the next step. "If you apologize, you also have to take responsibility." And according to Deijle, that should be in the form of compensation for all adoptees. Minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection) wants to set up a knowledge center and has come up with a subsidy scheme for organizations that support adopted children, but financial support for all individual adoptees is not yet available.
Deijle talked to Dekker: 'He believes that the Dutch taxpayer should not have to pay for this. While I think that the Netherlands is all about solidarity. I don't know who my biological mother is, but I was most likely trafficked by criminals. We are solving crimes, why do we have to pay for it ourselves? '