BACKGROUND
Adoption was really no longer possible and would be phased out within five years. There was discussion about it within the Ministry of Justice and Security for months and the lobby was at high speed. The decision to stop was made, but was canceled at the last minute. A reconstruction.
It is March 7, 2022. Minister Franc Weerwind has prepared a draft letter to Parliament about intercountry adoption and is sharing it with other ministries. It states that every intercountry adoption system is more or less susceptible to abuses. Adoption is not a sustainable instrument to protect the interests of children, Weerwind believes. It is a firm decision and will mean that the practice of intercountry adoption will end within five years.
Weerwind (D66) will then be Minister for Legal Protection in the Rutte IV cabinet for just two months. During those months, officials, who have been on this file for much longer, are heading for a definitive freeze on adoption. Although these officials certainly do not all agree on this among themselves and they email back and forth furiously, according to documents that the Nederlands Dagblad has requested.
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For example, someone writes that he has 'great difficulty with the course'. He believes that a lot is already being done to prevent abuses within adoption and that these processes are now being inadequate. Another writes: 'Let us also not be afraid to contradict or go against a line that may not be workable.' By 'not workable' the official means that stopping adoption is quite difficult in relations with other countries.
Yet at the beginning of March 2022, it seems that the decision to phase out adoption completely will win out at the ministry. And there has been a long process leading up to that. In December 2018, Sander Dekker, then Minister for Legal Protection, launched a committee that will investigate abuses surrounding intercountry adoption.
abuses
The committee, led by former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra, will release a damning report in early 2021: things went wrong on a large scale in adoption practice, ranging from forgery of documents to child trafficking and child theft. Although the investigation does not extend beyond 1998, the committee states that the system is still vulnerable to abuses. Minister Dekker therefore responded immediately with a temporary adoption freeze. He says he can't believe that things are going well everywhere now.
In the run-up to this measure by Sander Dekker, his ministry appears to have already had extensive discussions about the conditions for such an adoption stop. There are two scenarios: a strict one and a slightly milder one. The strict rule means that only the adoptions of 'several dozen' parents who have completed the full procedure and only have to travel to the country of origin will be completed.
The broader scenario means that all parents who are in a mediation procedure are allowed to complete their process. There are roughly four hundred of them. The minister chooses the latter option, partly because he is afraid that the strict variant will lead to many legal proceedings against the state and financial claims. Moreover, the adoption mediation agencies will then have sufficient work during the temporary stop and therefore less financial compensation will be required for them.
The report of the Joustra committee and the announcement of the temporary adoption freeze stir up a lot of emotions. One feels recognized in his pain, the other feels misunderstood in his commitment to adopted children. The ministry receives emotional letters from individual adoptive parents. “You did the adoption with all the love and strength in the whole world,” one of them wrote. 'You work every day to help your child grow and blossom. And then you are accused of such nasty things. I think it's downright scandalous.'
no better alternative
But above all, many organizations and experts are taking up the position of giving their opinion and lobbying for their interests. Two camps soon emerge, namely those in favor and against intercountry adoption. Proponents include mediation agencies, the association of adoptive parents, a foundation of adoptees themselves (SIG), LGBTI advocacy organization COC and a number of experts who work with adoptees. They believe that the Joustra Committee does not pay sufficient attention to the improvements in adoption practice after 1998. They also point out that for some children there is no better alternative in the country of origin and that adopted children are often very satisfied with their adoption.
Opponents of intercountry adoption - such as children's rights organizations, the Children's Ombudsman, the Child Protection Council - argue that the child is better off in the culture of its own country and that the adoption practice maintains the poor care system for children there. The debate quickly becomes black and white (for or against), notes director Ellen Giepmans of Fiom, an expertise center in the field of unwanted pregnancy, kinship questions and adoption. She has difficulty with this, because she believes that the interests of children benefit from nuance.
All correspondence in the first months after the Joustra report indicates that Minister Dekker wants to speed up the recommendations. For him, stopping adoption completely is 'a realistic option for the future', he reads. When the House of Representatives debates adoption on April 2, 2021, he also plans to maintain that line. Although he does ask his civil servants for 'fallback options' if the House of Representatives 'finds his texts about stopping too strong'.
However, the House of Representatives initially adopts a wait-and-see attitude and waits for the proposals from the cabinet. A week after the parliamentary debate, the minister receives a shocked email from the interest group of adoptive parents (LAVA) and a foundation for adoptees (SIG). They call the minister's communication 'cold'. They are also shocked that Dekker is so explicit about the possibility of a complete adoption stop. According to them, it appears that the decision has already been made 'before an orderly decision-making process has taken place'.
Dissatisfaction about the alleged bias of the minister and his staff also recurs around a so-called 'diner pensant', which is held in October of the same year. This is a meeting with a large number of involved organizations and experts. The minister will give a speech there and all arguments for or against intercountry adoption can be exchanged there. When one of the invitees sees the list of participants, he cancels the meeting in disappointment.
According to him, the list does not reflect the scientifically established fact that most adoptees are positive about their lives and adoption. 'In my opinion, this invitation policy creates an unsafe environment for those present.' Another invitee also wonders whether the outcome of the debate has not already been determined in advance. The dinner is held anyway and in a report afterwards an official writes that despite the commotion beforehand, there was a 'friendly atmosphere' during the dinner. Mirjam Blaak, director of Defense for Children, especially remembers an uncomfortable evening.
'There was a lot of commotion beforehand about who would be over- or under-represented at that dinner. Everyone was afraid that the evening would not be representative of their point of view. It was painful that at the end of the evening some of the intercountry adoptees present indicated that they did not feel sufficiently heard. They felt that it was not taken into account that the conversation was about their lives.'
At the time of the dinner, the temporary stop on adoption had already lasted more than six months and due to the difficult cabinet formation, there is no new government yet. At the ministry they realize that permanent policy must be prepared so that a new minister can quickly implement this. Due to 'the complexity and sensitivity' of the adoption mediation agencies, an external research agency is hired to develop two scenarios: stop intercountry adoption or continue in another system, with stricter conditions.
These are then sent to various stakeholders. Adoption mediator Wereldkinderen responds critically and even a bit cynically: 'For which concrete problems after 1998 are these scenarios the possible solution according to you?'
no consensus
It appears that first drafts of policy letters will already be ready at the end of November. These concepts themselves have not been shared with this newspaper, but the emails about them show that there is certainly no consensus at the ministry. "In my opinion, there is a lot of blame for stopping adoption based on a one-sided perspective," writes an official. 'I realize that I don't have everything to say here and that I sometimes have to comply with what Mrb (then minister Sander Dekker, ed.) wants, but here is my last attempt to find something out of this.'
'In my opinion, there is a lot of blame for stopping adoption based on a one-sided perspective'
After a historically long formation, the Rutte IV cabinet will finally take office in January 2022. And then things immediately get tense on the file - because the new minister Franc Weerwind (D66) has to make a decision. In the months of February and March there will be plenty of consultation, e-mailing and calling back and forth, and working on a draft letter to Parliament. The documents that this newspaper studied show that another crucial twist has been made here.
weight in the scale
An important player entering the final phase is the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference (HCCH), which regulates international treaties and adoption procedures. At the end of February, this institute became aware of the plans to permanently stop adoption and strongly urged Minister Weerwind to allow adoption to continue. The HCCH carries weight and officials believe that this vision cannot simply be pushed aside.
Someone even crosses out the text that talks about phasing out within five years, but it returns in a later version. In response to an explicit request for advice from Weerwind to his officials about the HCCH, he received the answer that it is not reasonable to delete the five-year term if we want to quickly provide clarity to those involved.
That line (adoption will stop within five years) will therefore be included in the draft letter that will be sent to other ministries. Some of these ministries come together in the so-called Commission for Administration and Justice (CBJ). The letter will be discussed there on March 15. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) has requested that the tone of the letter be made more empathetic. The Emancipation department of this ministry (which includes LGBT+) also wants to know why the content of the letter has not been coordinated with them. But no fundamental objections are made to the five-year phase-out period.
changed course
There is another problem that is raised in the CBJ consultation. There is hardly any insight into the position of the House of Representatives. That is why the letter must be discussed very quickly within the coalition. This is called 'Sonderen' in The Hague jargon and the top of the coalition parties in the House of Representatives are also involved. The sounding will take place the following week. And then things change again.
On March 25, an official emailed that the sounding had taken place and that the proposal had been changed on that basis: 'The version of the letter submitted to the CBJ provided for a phase-out within a maximum of five years. That term has now been released. The ultimate goal is still to stop intercountry adoption. However, the current proposal leaves the end date open.'
What happened in the consultation with the coalition factions that resulted in such a fundamental change? Everything indicates that D66 - Weerwind's party itself - has indicated that it does not agree to a reduction in five years. One day before the civil servant emails about the deletion, the draft parliamentary letter was discussed at a so-called ministerial meeting (bpo) of D66, a meeting of the D66 ministers together with the party leader in the House of Representatives.
This political consultation of March 24 will later also be explicitly mentioned in an internal explanation of the final letter. 'Comments from the D66 BPO' have been incorporated. There is no discussion about the other parties. The final letter will be sent to Parliament on April 11. Adoption will again be possible from a limited number of countries (the Philippines, Hungary, Lesotho, Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa, and now also Portugal). There is no phase-out period, but it will be periodically checked whether countries can be removed from the list.
confidential
The D66 faction states that the discussions in a BPO are confidential and therefore does not comment substantively on the content of the meeting on March 24. MP Lisa van Ginneken, who speaks on behalf of the faction about adoption, says that she was not involved at that stage. According to her, it has always been clear that D66 is in favor of maintaining adoption, as long as it is necessary as a child protection measure.
This is also stated in the party's election manifesto. And the party is also against a phase-out period. Van Ginneken thinks that some countries will need much longer than five years to get their own youth care system in order. 'If you stop prematurely, you block the path to a happier future for children in those countries.'
Minister Franc Weerwind said through his spokesperson that the five-year term was ultimately abandoned because a number of countries of origin 'still have a way to go before they are able to properly arrange reception'. According to him, there is not one moment or one consultation in the decision-making process where the phase-out period has been abandoned.
Weerwind still supports the goal that countries can ultimately provide good shelter themselves, he says. 'Ideally, intercountry adoption will no longer be necessary in the long term.' But no term has been set for this anymore.
doubt
Is it realistic that adoption will indeed stop in the long term? Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of the committee of inquiry into intercountry adoption, doubts that. "There are always other parties that advocate adoption," he says in conversation with this newspaper. 'That is why I am in favor of providing clarity at some point and setting a deadline.'
D66 MP Van Ginneken counters that the new policy does indeed put pressure on countries of origin to improve the situation there. According to her, the Hague Adoption Convention offers opportunities to look over the shoulders of countries of origin, including on-site visits. The Netherlands has done this for years in a rather easy way. 'That is why I am happy that first Dekker and now Weerwind say that they will be much more strict on those countries. We are going to help them professionalize their youth protection. As far as I am concerned, that is also the condition under which adoption can continue.'