Karlijn (27) traveled to Indonesia to meet her biological grandmother: “We hugged each other tightly”
In the past twenty years, more than eleven thousand children have come to the Netherlands for adoption. Anyone who deals with adoption from abroad can become curious about that which has always remained unknown. Karlijn went with her mother to look for her biological grandmother.
The adventure begins early with Karlijn's curiosity about her mother's background when she is in her early twenties. "She is of Indonesian descent and adopted. I always asked her a lot of questions about her biological family in Indonesia ; I was always so curious! But she couldn't tell me everything about it either, because of course she hadn't been told much either." Fueled by Karlijn's many questions, her mother thinks: if I ever want to get in touch with my biological mother, I shouldn't wait too long. "The older you are, the greater the chance that she might no longer be there. That's why we started looking."
The preparation
The search began in 2018. “We found a foundation that stands up for the interests of adoptees, specifically from Indonesia . They also have many contacts there.” That foundation organizes all kinds of events where adoptees from Indonesia can meet each other. They also have searchers in Indonesia who start searching for biological family of adoptees throughout Indonesia. A searcher started following the trail based on the information on Karlijn's mother's papers. The searcher approached village elders and placed calls in Facebook groups. One such call was responded to: Karlijn's grandmother had been found. Before they knew it, within three months, contacts were made and my mother took a DNA test with my possible biological grandmother.
“It's crazy how quickly it all felt so familiar.”
There is some confusion; twenty-five years ago, another adopted woman in the Netherlands had already been matched to the woman in Indonesia , but she had never done a DNA test. Karlijn's mother and the woman in Indonesia take a DNA test and appear to be a 100% match. She is one of the few whose details on the papers appear to be correct. The searcher has checked whether the found family is open to a meeting. And they are willing. "We could start packing our bags."
The adopted woman from the Netherlands who is left behind without a match decides to help Karlijn and her mother anyway. This ties in with her work as a travel consultant, so she can ultimately plan a large part of the trip later. “The fact that someone like that helps you is really beautiful and shows how deeply this affects some people who are in this situation; of course she didn't have to do it at all.” Then, in 2019, they boarded the plane with the entire family and her uncle and aunt on her father's side. “They have worked a lot in Indonesia and know the language and customs of the country. That turned out to be a good choice, because their knowledge helped enormously with our trip.” This makes the group nine strong.
“We flew into each other's arms”
The group travels via Jakarta to Bandar Lampung, a large city in the south of Sumatra. This city is ultimately their base for the week they stay there. After a long day of travel, the time has finally come. They first visit her mother's birthplace in Metro. A day later, they drive to her grandmother's place of residence. "We drove in two cars towards Gisting. On the map, it looks close to Bandar Lampung, but the roads are extremely bad, so it is at least another hour and a half's drive before we arrive in the village. I was in a car with my brothers and sisters, my mother was in a car with my uncle and aunt. They drove in front and we followed, but we lost them."
They continue driving and at some point they know that they are near where they had agreed to meet her biological grandmother, although the car with her mother is still nowhere to be seen. “We got out anyway. We looked around in confusion. We walked to the house anyway and there my grandmother was standing there with open arms. Of course we didn’t understand each other, so no one knew what to do; I just felt panic, because where is my mother? You don’t leave your grandmother standing there, so I just went to hug her. She hugged me really tightly and we both started crying right away. It’s bizarre how quickly it all felt so familiar.” Her mother turned out not to have driven very far and joined them not much later.
Her uncle films the meeting and unsuspectingly posts it online. The video was immediately picked up by a local news platform and went viral in Indonesia . It has now been viewed more than five million times. That sounds nice for aspiring influencers , but Karlijn says that they were actually not very happy about it. “Of course we would have preferred it not to have gone viral like that, because it was a very emotional moment for us. Very private.”
Communicating with your grandparent is the next step, but the language barrier is not so easy to break through. “Nobody speaks English there and we don’t even know Indonesian,” she says. Fortunately, her uncle and aunt are with them, who can translate everything for them. With them, and with their own hands and feet, they eventually get very far. The conversations are mainly about external characteristics. “You start pointing things out: We have the same hair, you are the same height. You are much more observing. It is actually similar to how you used to make holiday friends at the campsite with children who didn’t speak Dutch.”
The meeting is very special for the family and they continue to drive back and forth to the kampong for another week to get to know their new family a little better. In addition to her biological grandmother, she also has three aunts: all half-sisters of her mother. Two of them live with their partners at Karlijn's biological grandmother's house. Although very special, this trip was also very intensive. After that intensive week, Karlijn travels with the family for a while without her uncle and aunt from the Netherlands through Indonesia . They take it easy, so that they can process all the impressions.
Just in time
She will return to Gisting in 2022, after the country has reopened to travelers. Due to the travel restrictions due to the corona pandemic, it was not possible to visit her grandmother for a long time. During the pandemic, Karlijn's biological grandmother unfortunately passed away. "My mother tried to go there for the funeral, but that didn't work out. So in 2019 we went just in time to meet my grandmother."
Fortunately, contact with her Indonesian family has remained close. They have a group chat on WhatsApp and have helped the remaining family members in Indonesia build a house next to her grandmother's. "Now the two half-sisters who lived there with their families could live next to each other."
Before they decide to visit them in 2022, she takes language lessons. “Then I really lived with my family in the kampong for two and a half weeks. I wanted to experience everything and said yes to everything. That gave me a migraine; it became much too busy for me. When I took it a bit easier, things went much better. I saw a lot there and really experienced what life is like there. And now I can speak A2 level Indonesian!” she says proudly.
Now I'm forced to think about it. That's not always easy."
What this journey has meant
Karlijn is very happy that she has been reunited with her family in Indonesia , she says. “This is also a home now; I can really relax here. Here I learned that you can be so happy with very little. In the Netherlands we are often very materialistic, here it is the complete opposite.” But it is not all rosy; there is still a lot to process. “It led to me thinking a lot about my identity. At first, the entire Indonesian part of my origins was unknown to me. I knew it existed, but I was not actively involved with it. So I did not know what I was missing. Now I know and it is a part of me, but I am also forced to think about it and do something with it. That is not always easy.”
She therefore does not know whether she would recommend reunification to everyone. "It is very different for each person." She now also sees this in her work at an independent, national expertise centre in the field of intercountry adoption. "Some people do not have the means to reunify, such as the right papers. There are also many people who are afraid of the disappointment that no family can be found. It can certainly be an enrichment, but it is also just the beginning of a whole new part of your life. And that can cost so much emotional effort that it is good to realise that there is a lot involved."
Context of intercountry adoption
The story of Karlijn and her mother falls within the framework of intercountry adoption. In recent years, many abuses have come to light within this sector. In February 2021, the government suspended all adoptions from abroad, following the publication of the Report of the Commission for the Investigation of Intercountry Adoption (Joustra Commission). This report identifies structural, serious abuses in Dutch adoption culture that are difficult to combat. The identified abuses concern activities that took place in violation of applicable laws and regulations, as well as unethical acts and corruption in the period 1967 - 1998. This includes, for example, making it impossible or more difficult to trace the origins and identity of adoptees by falsifying documents, deliberately stating incorrect information in documents, relinquishing children for payment or under duress, child trafficking, child theft and kidnapping, baby farming and embezzlement.
Examples of unethical acts include parents renouncing children under false pretenses or moral pressure, abusing poverty or other social and cultural circumstances of birth mothers (war, disasters and social taboos), inadequate archiving, carelessness in recording data and a lack of transparency in documentation. From the Report of the Commission for the Investigation of Intercountry Adoption: “The Dutch government was aware of adoption abuses from the late 1960s onwards. In doing so, the government failed to fulfil its responsibilities and obligations and failed to intervene when there was reason to do so. (…) Adoption abuses also occurred before 1967 and after 1998 (…).”
One of the solutions from this report is to set up a national expertise centre. The advice from the Joustra committee: “Ensure an independent national expertise centre in which knowledge in the field of identity questions, searches and aftercare are bundled so that adoptees are facilitated in accessing their files, searching for their birth parents, finding appropriate psychosocial help and legal support.” This is now INEA, the foundation where Karlijn works.
In April 2024, the House of Representatives requests, via the Van Nispen motion, to reduce intercountry adoptions to zero in the long term. Minister Weerwind then decides to no longer allow intercountry adoptions, with the exception of current cases.