First lawsuit against the State for the forced adoption of children in the Netherlands
Trudy Scheele-Gertsen was forced to give up her son in 1968 because she was a single mother and is asking for recognition of what happened. About 15,000 Dutch women went through the same ordeal between 1956 and 1984
Ten days after giving birth to her son in February 1968, Trudy Scheele-Gertsen, a 22-year-old Dutch girl, left the foster home for single mothers run by Catholic nuns where she had kept him. Although she was without the baby, she was not going to abandon him. A nursing student, she wanted to pick him up as soon as she got a job and a house, but she didn't see him again for 48 years. Her parents did not want her back with the child, who she named Willem Jan, and despite their repeated protests she was forced to put him up for adoption. Trudy is 75 years old today and is one of about 15,000 women - called distant mothers.- who went through the same trance in the Netherlands between 1956 and 1984. This Friday she has sued the State in court for what happened: she wants it to be recognized that she was pressured by the authorities to give up her little one. The State Attorney argues that the case has prescribed and the pressure exerted could also be social and not only from the Administration.
"What happened is an indelible trauma, and the recognition that it was not our fault is a way to cope," said Trudy Scheele-Gertsen emotionally before the judges. “We were disqualified as people for not offering what was considered a stable family to the child, and there is a general feeling of guilt among those of us who go through this. Loneliness, because society separated us, and it is something that continues to happen today. For example, with women who are assaulted and blamed for what has happened to them. This should not prescribe ”, she added, already made a sea of ??tears. Years later, she had access to his complete file, where the Child Protection Service “tells a story that is not mine. It is assured that I did not go to see the child, and that I was in a meeting and signed the documents renouncing him from the beginning; and it is not true ”, he pointed out. He signed them years later, and to find out what happened to his son he had to ask his permission when he was of legal age to read thenotes corresponding to its adoption . She married and has three other children, and although she has been reunited with her firstborn, the pain is still alive.
Her lawyer, Lisa-Marie Klomp, has alleged that the State is responsible for this forced resignation because “it had an obligation to protect the mother, but she was excluded due to the fact that she was single. The mother and child were abandoned through the Protection of Minors, which prevented me from recovering the child with documents and a story that my client does not recognize as hers, ”he indicated. In 2017, the Dutch Radboud University published a study at the request of the Ministry of Justice, which estimated 15,000 Dutch children adopted in their own country between 1956 and 1984. Its conclusions indicated that “pressure from doctors, families of single mothers , social workers and other instances of the sector could be so strong that it prevented keeping them together ”.
Unheard stories
The three judges of the court have invited other mothers present to speak, and the room has been silenced by stories that had not been heard in this way in public. "These mothers, who do not fantasize, ask for recognition for something they should not prescribe," said Will van Sebille, who had her son in 1967, at the age of 17, and then adopted him without her being able to decide. “I am one of the adopted daughters and I am here also on behalf of my mother. I think we can talk about institutional violence in what happened ”, added Eugénie Smits van Waesberghe, adopted in 1966 and an expert in special education. Between sobs, other mothers have emphasized the errors in their files, and that they insisted on their inability to care for children for whom they fought without success.
Mette van Asperen, a State attorney, has alleged the statute of limitations in the case and also that the Administration cannot be blamed because there was pressure of all kinds. "There is also a ministerial investigation underway on all mothers in these circumstances, and it has been admitted that what happened is a black page in the history of the country." The Dutch institute Clara Wichmann - who was one of the first lawyers in the Netherlands - supports this case and represents other women in the same situation as the applicant. It is also supported by the Fundación de Madres a Distancia, which maintains that in the past, single mothers were systematically prevented from having the guardianship of their children. The ruling will be public in December.
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