Make adoption fraud free

An adoption break proposed by Minister of Welfare Wouter Beke , in which the intercountry adoption system had to be thoroughly revised, has not materialized. What will remain of the package of recommendations that should make adoption fraud-free remains to be seen.

Tens of thousands of foreign adopted children

What once started as an act of charity soon derailed into outright child trafficking.

Since the 1950s, tens of thousands of children have come to Belgium through international adoption. Their exact number is unknown. Until 2005, children with whom parents do not share a genetic link could be registered as 'own children'. Many adoptions also happened with the help of an uncle father in Verweggistan and were therefore not registered. How many adoptions took place will therefore always remain a mystery. What once started as an act of charity soon derailed into outright child trafficking.

In the 1970s, those first adopters were joined by pacifist hippies whose lifestyle suited them to save colored children. It was the backpackers who returned home with a load of didgeridoos under their arm after a trek through India.

Also childless couples found in intercountry adoption a means to create the family that was denied them by nature. They were well-to-do middle-class people who could afford an adopted child — which has meanwhile become very expensive.

A lucrative business

The increasing number of intended parents has led to a proliferation of adoption agencies. Any housewife could run an adoption agency from her kitchen. A reality to be taken literally as a result of which a lot of money was paid for the thousands of adopted children of foreign origin who ended up in Flemish families.

Adoption had become a lucrative business. And where money can be found, money wolves are drawn to it. At some point, scientists began to wonder whether it's a good idea to remove a child from its natural environment. The first reports of child trafficking and 'baby farms' also appeared. Those stories, however, were dismissed as rare cases and as collateral damage to be added. And such cases would enable us to save a vast majority from a terrible fate.

In the interest of the child?

The current adopters are a symbiosis of the hippies and benefactors of the past. Today we call them woke . They claim to act from altruistic motives and the need to give a child more and better opportunities. The question arises whether Flanders, with its long waiting lists in youth care and child psychiatry, is really that paradise on earth. Because in recent years, the adopted children that still come to our regions are more often than not children who need intensive, medical and/or psychiatric care.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, it is persistently maintained that adoption is in the best interests of the child

Even now, prospective parents say that these abuses no longer occur and that the child is now really central. They shout that the 900 fraudulent Haitian adoptions are exceptions that we should take into account. Despite the evidence to the contrary, it is persistently maintained that adoption is in the best interest of the child and the poor part of this planet.

But is it true that you are doing poor countries a service by taking the most vulnerable children off their hands? Aren't we just preventing those countries from setting up well-functioning youth protection systems themselves? Is it really necessary that Flanders adopts children from Haitian orphanages for which more than 300 million dollars have been collected and which are on escrow accounts?

Adoption helps few

Adoption has not exactly eradicated poverty. The opposite is true. A Dutch study last year showed that adoption has a pull effect on the number of children that end up in homes. In fact, 80 percent of those children are not orphans at all. Adoption also hinders the emancipation of women in many countries, with the right to abortion and birth control being the biggest bottlenecks.

All the excuses that have long been made for shipping children out of their country seem to have been disproved. And yet the number of prospective parents continues to increase.

The system seems to have degenerated into a luxury migration for the chosen few.

Last year, 23 foreign children were adopted. A stark contrast to the hundreds who arrived earlier. And yet the budget for intercountry adoption has tripled. In addition, adopters can enjoy a tax benefit of up to 6000 euros of the costs incurred. The system seems to have degenerated into a luxury migration for the chosen few. Wouldn't it be more benevolent if we invested all that money in projects that could help not one, but hundreds of children? We could even support parents so that they can raise their child themselves. And we could give corrupt regimes one last push to invest in children.

Neocolonial mentality that deprives children of their individuality

Perhaps we should finally dare to push our finger on what intercountry adoption is really all about. And touch the wound of the complex of the ' white saviour ', from which so many of the woke fellow human beings suffer. Because under all this tolerance and inclusion hides a neocolonial mentality that does more bad than good.

Do you contribute to a multicultural society when you name a child an African Joke or a Chinese Liesbeth?

What is so multicultural about depriving children of their individuality and forcing them to grow up among white people who do not speak their language? People who have no insight into their culture of origin and with whom they do not find any external recognition? Do you contribute to a multicultural society when you name a child an African Joke or a Chinese Liesbeth? Many adoptive parents argue that they want to protect their adopted child against racism and social discrimination by giving it a Western name.

Why more and better opportunities? What is so inclusive about the adoption of Moroccan children where Flemish parents are excluded? As a second-generation adopted child, I see the need for confirmation of the neocolonial, and thus basically racist, motives of some. As if they are the only ones who can give poor, brown children a chance as the engine that keeps the adoption system running.

Again no concern for the victims

During the discussion of the past few weeks, it was striking what had not happened. Namely: that those benefactors have never directly addressed the victims of fraud. The aftercare they need was only sporadic throughout the debate.

But oh well… (attention: sarcasm!) Let's keep on saving poor children. Here they take center stage and they get better opportunities, they are surrounded with loving attention from people who adopt not for themselves but for the sake of the child…

Yung Fierens (45) is a critical adoptee from South Korea and a victim of adoption fraud.

She chairs the adoption advocacy group CAFE www.cafe.website that champions the rights of adoptees, first parents and adoptive parents.

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