Most striking about the report on intercountry adoption is that the abuses had been grinning in the face of the state, the mediators and often the adopting families for decades. Without taking action or stepping back.

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The hardest observation is that the adopted children offered were "usually" not orphans at all. But displaced, outcast by poverty or excluded by extra-marital birth. Then they were channeled abroad via the adoption market to relieve the burden on the shelter.

So in the adoption scandal there are also "duped parents". These are the carefully anonymous or kept birth families, which have often been misguided. They have no say in this matter - they are the most to blame.

The pattern in the Dutch institutions was looking away, tolerating, neglect, neglect, powerlessness, etc. Intercountry adoption could last for so long because of a collective mistake. That a foreign child in need would in principle be served by adoption and emigration. That children were saved with it. Adoption would be "for their sake."

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Ariel Robinson, 29, and her husband Jerry, 34, were arrested on homicide by child abuse charges for the death of their adopted daughter Victoria

Three-year-old Victoria Rose Smith died on January 14 after being taken to the hospital with blunt force trauma injuries

The Robinsons have two biological sons but in February 2020, they adopted Victoria and her two biological brothers

DailyMail.com spoke to Victoria's biological family who blame Social Services for putting her in the care of 'evil' adoptive parents

MANILA, Philippines — An investigation on schemes shrouding the illegal adoption of children that often surface on social media platforms such as Facebook is being pushed in the House of Representatives.

In filing House Resolution No. 1555, Quezon City Rep. Alfred Vargas said the Department of Social Welfare and Development earlier disclosed in a virtual forum last February 6 the existence of more than 40 social media accounts on Facebook facilitating the illegal adoption.

Vargas is the chairperson of the House committee on social services.

“The propagation and facilitation of illegal adoption schemes in social media jeopardizes the safety and welfare of children in need of loving and caring families and is in violation of Republic Act No. 8552,” Vargas said in the resolution.

Republic Act No. 8552 or the Domestic Adoption Act of 1998 provides for the legal framework of adoption in the country.

The Netherlands will temporarily stop adopting from abroad. The government has decided this after a spicy report from the Joustra Commission. This shows that the Dutch government has known since the 1960s about abuses in the world of adoption, such as child trafficking and child theft. San-Ho Correweyn was also adopted himself and also proposes such an adoption break in Belgium. To get rid of the long waiting lists and to reflect on how things can and should be improved.

"Not five to twelve, but three in the afternoon"

San-Ho Correwyn was adopted himself and co-wrote the book "#HetGevoelGeadopteerd". “I knew that the adoption studies were underway in the Netherlands and that the reports would be critical,” he says in “Sofie's World.” “But what I didn't know was that the government would respond so quickly with that pause. I am pleasantly surprised. ”

Also in Flanders, an expert panel is working on a report on adoption. And Correwyn is really looking forward to that. “It's not five to twelve, but three in the afternoon, for that matter. I hope that those responsible will admit that everything went wrong. A recognition is already the first step. "

"We are also happy to have adoptees involved," said Correwyn. "We had to sound the alarm to make that happen."

Response to the report of the Joustra Committee

Written: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 2:23 PM

On Monday, February 8, the Joustra Committee published the results of their research into past intercountry adoptions. The Meiling Foundation received the report on Monday 8 February and took note of it.

We are shocked by the committee's findings and the contents of the report. The picture presented by the committee in the report is confrontational and the conclusions and recommendations are harsh. In response to this report, the cabinet has apologized and is adopting the committee's recommendations.

The Meiling Foundation emphasizes that every abuse in adoption, wherever and whenever, is one too many and can mean serious suffering for the person concerned.

An inquiry found systemic abuses like child trafficking, lack of record-keeping and government complicity until 1998. Practices have since improved, the government said, but not enough.

The Netherlands has temporarily halted all adoptions from abroad after an investigation found that the government had failed to act on known abuses, including child theft and trafficking, between 1967 and 1998.

“Adoptees deserve recognition for mistakes that were made in the past,” Sander Dekker, the minister for legal protection, said on Monday, as the results of the investigative report were made public. “They have to be able to count on our help in the present. And for the future we have to critically ask ourselves if and how to continue adoption from abroad.”

The government formed an independent commission in 2018 to look into international abuses after a lawsuit showed that the Dutch government had been involved in an illegal adoption from Brazil in 1980, and pointed to the possibility of more such cases. Experts said they knew of no other Western country that had stopped international adoptions.

In its report, the commission said it had found systematic wrongdoing, including pressuring poor women to give up their babies, falsifying documents, engaging in fraud and corruption, and, in effect, buying and selling children. In some cases, the Dutch government was aware of misdeeds in adoptions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but did nothing about them and allowed them to continue, the report said.

Major abuses in the system of intercountry adoption were recognized on 8 February, which also recognized all adoptees who have raised the alarm with the government and other stakeholders in recent years. The Joustra Committee concludes that the government's supervision of adoption procedures is insufficient and that no action has been taken in the event of abuses that came to light. Minister Dekker for Legal Protection concludes that the Dutch government has failed by looking away for years and offers adoptees an apology on behalf of the cabinet. Minister Dekker has decided to immediately suspend intercountry adoption procedures. Defense for Children Netherlands sees this as a wise decision. For years, Defense for Children Netherlands has taken the view that intercountry adoption must be extremely restrained, based on Article 21 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Not being able to check or guarantee that intercountry adoptions to the Netherlands are properly effected is an important reason to argue now for an end to intercountry adoptions.

Independent committee

At the end of 2018, Minister Dekker asked an independent committee to investigate past intercountry adoption from abroad . The reason for this was a case of illegal adoption from Brazil and involvement of government officials. In addition to Brazil, the research assignment also focuses on Bangladesh, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The Ministry of Justice and Security also received signals from adoptees about possible adoption abuses in these countries. In its investigation, the Joustra Committee came across various types of abuses that occurred structurally. This concerns matters such as forgery of documents, child trafficking, fraud and corruption. But it is also about unethical acts such as allowing parents to renounce children under false pretenses or under moral pressure, deliberately creating uncertainty or ambiguity about someone's origins, and taking advantage of poverty. In certain cases, the Dutch government was aware of abuses, but did not intervene effectively. With this the abuses were perpetuated,

Apologies Minister

Minister Dekker apologizes: “It is painful to conclude that the government has not done what could be expected of it. Because although many adoptions were experienced as positive, the government should have taken a more active role by intervening in cases where there was abuse. The positive sentiment surrounding adoption in the last century - with the guiding idea that we did good with adoption - offers an explanation, but no justification. Apologies are in order for this attitude of the government, ”said Dekker. "I am grateful to the committee for the mirror in which the government did not want to look for so long."

On Thursday 11 February, the House of Representatives will discuss this with the Joustra Committee

the abuses in intercountry adoption. The conclusions from the report of the

commission are firm. For many adopted children from the period before 1998 this is

report confirming the fact that there have been terrible wrongs

took place and the apologies that the government has made are very empty

The Netherlands decided yesterday, after a damning report, to suspend intercountry adoptions. Flanders does not want to do the same helplessly.

The Dutch government has immediately decided to suspend adoptions of children from abroad. Candidate families that are well advanced in the procedure can still continue with it. The decision follows a damning report by the Joustra Commission, which concludes that abuses from the past have still not been completely resolved and that the Dutch government has looked away for years.

The report had already been leaked on Friday, but was officially presented on Monday. Adoptees here also eagerly looked forward to this and the response from the Dutch government.

Happy surprise

"I didn't expect this decision so soon, but it's a happy surprise," says San-Ho Correwyn, 51, co-author of the recently released book Feeling Adopted . 'I have also cherished the hope for a long time that Belgium and my country of origin Korea will do the same, and hit mea culpa. Intercountry adoption doesn't exactly have a clean history. '

The adoption of children from abroad has been temporarily suspended, following harsh criticism from the Joustra Commission. Marijke Bleijenberg worked in a children's home in China and is not surprised, as is Antony Vinke, who discovered errors in his own adoption file.

'Even before this research report brought it to light, I was already aware that adopted adoption procedures are not always correct. My own adoption papers also contain errors and forgeries, 'says Antony Vinke (34). His parents adopted him as a baby from Sri Lanka. He doesn't blame them, he emphasizes. 'They have acted in good conscience and conscience. I am now happy with my family in the Netherlands. But if no mistakes had been made in Sri Lanka, I probably wouldn't have ended up here. '

'A mess', is how Vinke summarizes the papers that his parents received upon his transfer. "For example, the medical document said I was a girl." In 2016, when he was 29 years old, he decided to look for his biological parents in his native country.

He received the assistance of a Sri Lankan who is an expert in such quests. 'I ended up on an emotional rollercoaster. You start with the basic information you have, but in the hospital where I was born I saw my name, but the name of my biological mother was missing. ' Then they tracked down a couple whose husband had the same surname as stated on Vinke's papers. 'It turned out that he had a son from 1986, but he lived in Sri Lanka. So that trail also ended. '

Vinke had a photo of the woman who gave it up. Its publication in the national newspaper in Sri Lanka resulted in a reaction from a woman, but her story did not match what Vinke knew about the transfer at the court at the time.