The fact that abuses can arise is insufficient reason to stop adoptions altogether: 'Then you can also stop the marriage'

There really is no convincing evidence that adoption abuses are still taking place, the intermediary agencies say. According to them, the fact that they could take place is not enough reason to stop adoptions.

Mediation organizations that oppose an intercountry adoption stop. It may not sound very surprising. Nevertheless, the four organizations that supervise adoptions from abroad in the Netherlands kept silent when the caretaker cabinet decided in February to stop intercountry adoptions . Consciously, says Sanne Buursink of the A New Way foundation, on behalf of all of them. Because if the Joustra Committee, whose investigation was the basis of that decision, had reason to believe that abuses such as tampering with documents and even child trafficking are still occurring, they first wanted to know exactly what the investigators were based on. “We work every day to do everything as carefully as possible,” explains Buursink. "But we thought, maybe we have a blind spot."

Yet the organizations are still speaking out strongly about the issue this week . They also find the additional information that the Joustra Committee sent to Minister Sander Dekker (legal protection) wafer thin this week.

The Joustra Committee gives some sixty examples which, according to the researchers, demonstrate that abuses still occur around intercountry adoptions. Why are you not convinced?

Buursink: “The sources cited by the Committee to substantiate that position often date from a completely different era. They relate to countries that at the time the abuse took place had not yet ratified the Hague adoption convention (an international convention in which stricter rules for intercountry adoptions have been established, ed.), But have now done so. Or they are not even related to the abuse to which the committee has linked them. ”

Can you give an example of this?

"Certainly. About the United States, for example, it is said that there are occasional missing personal details. The committee cites an example of a family who adopted through us. It concerns two men. In America it is arranged in such a way, completely according to the Hague adoption convention, that when the adoption is complete, the original birth certificate is stored in a closed part of the birth register, which not just anyone can access, but the adoptive family can. The family will then receive a new birth certificate. In this case with the names of the two men on it. Because you cannot register a birth certificate in the Netherlands that does not contain a woman, the men encountered problems, but that has nothing to do with missing personal details. This family is simply in contact with the biological family. The girl has full control over her data and all her files. If the Joustra Committee had called me to ask how this is, I could simply have explained it. But they didn't. ”

Is this not also because the committee has not actively searched for examples of recent abuses? The investigation was limited to five countries, and to the period from 1967 to 1998. Examples of recent abuses were by-catch.

"Which can. But they thought they had found examples that were at least convincing enough to proclaim around the world that the serious abuses continue to this day. When you say something like that, you have to be able to substantiate it. ”

Yet the Joustra Committee's criticism goes further than the examples. According to the researchers, there are still perverse incentives in the adoption system. Isn't that reason enough to quit?

“If you say: there can be so many abuses, and that's why we shouldn't do it, then I think you can stop doing many more things. Like with marriage. Because that ends in divorce in 30 percent of the cases.

“Look, it is of course very complicated material that we are working on. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't. This concerns children for whom the parents cannot, will or are not allowed to take care of. If no solution can be found in the country of origin, we will help them so that they can have a family in the Netherlands. ”

Then you have to check carefully whether that solution is really not available in your own country.

"Yes. That is why that control has also been tightened up enormously in recent years. You can see that. We can no longer cooperate with a lot of countries. Not because there are no children there who actually deserve help, but because the procedures in those countries cannot be properly controlled. ”

Still, the Joustra Committee thinks that it will never actually be good enough to check.

“We disagree with that. Of course we all prefer that children can just grow up with their biological mum and dad. But the world, unfortunately, is not like that. There are simply children for whom there is no place in their own family or in their own country of origin. As an international society you cannot look away from that. ”

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