Intercountry adoption is 'in the interests of the child', how can D66 be so sure?

“For too long, intercountry adoption has been seen as a laudable way to save children in need.” That sentence appears almost at the end of the Joustra committee report (February 2021). There are children in need and there are no good solutions in their own country; they are better off in the rich West. Here are - childless - couples who want to receive them lovingly. Adoption is a form of doing good. 'In this way of thinking there was no room for contradictory or unwelcome judgments that could disrupt this picture.'

In fact, it still works that way, as can be seen from the reconstruction in this newspaper on Saturday of the decision-making in the cabinet in April last year. Perhaps there is room for 'unwelcome' judgments; the risk of abuse is discussed. But the consequence is not drawn. Minister Franc Weerwind wanted to stop adopting children from distant countries, with a phase-out period of five years. But when it turned out that his own party D66 wanted to go through with it, he made a U-turn within a day.

Many adopted children are doing well; they wouldn't want their lives to have turned out differently. And many adoptive parents are of good will and provide a loving home. There is no doubt about that. But is continuing with adoption 'in the interests of the child', as D66 claims?

This decade, 48 million children under the age of five will die from 'preventable causes'. 200 million children suffer from malnutrition, almost 160 million are threatened by drought, 160 million children have to work. More than three-quarters of all children under the age of fourteen grow up with abuse or psychological violence. And the UN children's fund Unicef ​​has even more figures. In the Netherlands, several dozen children are adopted from abroad every year. If that is a form of child protection, as advocates say, it bears no relation to what is needed. On the other hand, there is the risk of abuse - 'until now', said Joustra, and you cannot eliminate this, even if you set up one central mediation organization in the Netherlands.

The entire Joustra committee had not been necessary; Ultimately, D66 and in its wake the cabinet listened to interest groups again. The children currently concerned do not yet have a voice. And there is another group that is not heard: their biological parents - to whom the children are first and foremost entrusted, if necessary with help from people and institutions around them and support from the wealthy West.