Wereldkinderen / Bureau Interlandelijke Adoptie (BIA) - Netherlands.
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Wereldkinderen / Bureau Interlandelijke Adoptie (BIA) - Netherlands.
SIA, International Adoption Foundation
International Adoption Foundation, likely referred to as NFIA on KSS Adoption Files
BIA, Bureau Interlandelijke Adoptie that merged with Wereldkinderen in 1983
world children
If you are a Dutch KSS / Wereldkinderen Adoptee, we highly recommend starting a Birth Family Search with KSS in Seoul.
1969 or 1970 - 2006: KSS adopts to Wereldkinderen in the Netherlands. The vast majority of Dutch Adoptees are adopted through KSS.
According to a Dutch KSS Adoptee who spoke with Wereldkinderen in 2021:
”I recently asked Wereldkinderen about the reason for the termination of the cooperation of Wereldkinderen. They stated the reason: KSS did not want to provide insight into their finances. No transparency about this was the reason for Wereldkinderen to end the collaboration.”
*The earliest Dutch Korean adoptions were processed through Stichting Interlandelijke Adoptie (SIA), likely referred to as NFIA on KSS Adoption Files. SIA eventually became Bureau Interlandelijke Adoptie (BIA), which eventually merged with Wereldkinderen in 1983.
(Source: B. Flickert, KSS Adoptees)
It is believed that a financial dispute between KSS and Wereldkinderen put a stop to their relationship in 2006.
(Source: KSS Adoptees)
It appears that the vast majority of Korean Adoptees in the Netherlands were adopted through KSS. It is believed that there are roughly 4,000 KSS Korean Adoptees adopted to the Netherlands.
(Source: KSS Adoptees, KSS Pamphlet)
Dutch KSS Korean Adoptees appear to have the most amount of information of any KSS Korean Adoptees sent to any of KSS’ other Partner Western Adoption Countries (including the US, Denmark, and Switzerland). Many Dutch KSS Korean Adoptees have “flight buddy” lists and the majority appear to have had real Korean Passports (real passport booklets as opposed to the one-page Travel Certificates which some Korean Adoptees have). It should be noted that both the Korean Passports and Korean Travel Certificates were one-way exit visas which were only good for the single use purpose of leaving Korea, and these documents have no validity today. However, these documents should, of course, be retained.
We believe that due to the fact that the Netherlands is a smaller, more tightly regulated country than the US, that likely Korean Adoptees sent from KSS to the Netherlands in many cases had more information (at least in terms of flight buddy lists - not necessarily in terms of biographical information) - than their US KSS Adoptee counterparts.
Anecdotally, it appears that many Dutch and Danish KSS Adoptees originated from Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan. Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan is still a functional orphanage, and you can schedule a file review with the Nam Kwang’s new Director. Find out more about Nam Kwang Orphanage’s contact information here. Please note that KSS Adoptees to the Netherlands (as with all other Western receiving countries) could have originated from many sources apart from Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan.
Another orphanage which many Dutch KSS Adoptees seem to have originated from is Choon Hyun Babies Home in Gwangju (Jeolla Province). This is now a museum and the Director is Mrs. Hye Ryang YOO.
(Source: KSS Adoptees)
Dutch Korean Adoptees are encouraged to join the community on Facebook:
Arierang.nl
Through Google Translate:
“Mrs. (Syngman) Rhee secured the appointment of Mrs. Hong Oak Soon as director of a program of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and in 1954 the Child Placement Service was established. Another foreign adoption agency started through the Korean representative of International Social Service. This agency began operations in 1957 and merged with the Child Placement Service in July 1966. Mr. Harry Holt, an Oregon farmer and a staunch Christian, founded an adoption agency in 1955. The Catholic Relief Service has also worked in this area since 1955. The Korea Social Service began its relief work for mixed-blood children in 1965, under the direction of Mr. (Kun Chil) Paik, who is a graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Social Work and who was previously director of the Child Placement Service. Of the five agencies, the Child Placement Service and the Korea Social Service are indigenous organizations. The three others are foreign private initiative organizations. Of the full - Korean children placed, 90% have been placed through the Holt Adoption Program. Since 1965, the Child Placement Service has also played a major role in the placement of BL (Black?) - Korean children in Sweden. From 1962 to June 1969, the CPS placed 518 full Korean children in Swedish families. Holt Adoption Program placed 3,469 children during 1955-1966 and the number is now likely to exceed 4,000. Korea Social Service has engaged in the placement of mixed-blood children since 1965: 29 in 1965, 71 in 1966 and 83 in 1968. It is clear from the above that since 1962 the number of foreign adoptions has gradually increased. In connection with the amendment of the law , the number of adoptions shows a decrease for several years after 1962. While full-Korean adoptions tend to increase, despite…”
Source:
Book which many Dutch KSS Adoptees have: “After A Long Journey” by Elaine Reid and Hi Taik Kim
KSS Adoptees
+
Article:
'Give me one of those Koreans!'
Translation below via Google Translate:
'Give me one of those Koreans!'
Episode: 27 minutes
Reading time: 17 minutes
"Even if you save only one." These six words mark the beginning of international adoption in the Netherlands. They are spoken by writer Jan de Hartog, in a television interview with Mies Bouwman in 1967. After the Korean War (1950-1953), thousands of American soldiers were left behind as an occupying force under the UN flag. De Hartog talks about the inhumane conditions in which the children of these American soldiers and their Korean mothers find themselves. They are rejected by the family and have no future in their own country.
September 20, 2006
'Give me one of those Koreans!'
Watch Video
27 min
Driven by idealism, thousands of Dutch families respond to De Hartog's appeal and indicate that they want to adopt a Korean child. The 'adoptive Korean girl' is becoming a hype. Between 1970 and 1988, more than four thousand Korean children came to the Netherlands. Unprepared, full of enthusiasm, but also very naive, the first generation of foreign adopted children, now about 35,000, is welcomed. The wave of adoption from Korea comes to an abrupt end in 1988, when the Olympic Games are held in Seoul and the Korean government prefers to present a more modern image than 'child exporter' in the media. Other Times speaks with those involved from the very beginning. Marjory de Hartog, the writer's wife, parents, children, social workers. A broadcast about idealism,
Adoption wave
"Give me a Korean!"
"Even if you save only one." It is the spontaneous call for adoption from bestseller writer Jan de Hartog on the couch at Mies Bouwman. A phrase that, together with the images of his Korean daughters, unleashes a true wave of adoption in 1968. Thanks to the power of the TV screen, the Netherlands is under the spell of the underprivileged 'third world orphan' and the taboos surrounding adoption are disappearing like snow in the sun. The new phenomenon breathes the idealism of flower power. But the pink cloud won't last long...
This year it is fifty years ago that adoption in the Netherlands became legally possible. But despite the adoption of the Adoption Act in 1956, the taboos persisted. An adopted child aware of his status was the exception rather than the rule. Everything was allowed to hide the fact that in many cases the adoptive parents could not have children. Until the early 1970s, adopting children from third world countries became fashionable. Children whose appearance does not hide anything about their origin.
Jan de Hartog at Mies
'Even if you only save one'
The immediate reason for a real wave of adoption is the appearance of the popular writer Jan de Hartog in the television program Mies en scene by Mies Bouwman. A film crew has traveled to the United States for the successful broadway musical 'I do! I do!', an adaptation of De Hartog's play 'The canopy bed'. Afterwards, an interview with the 'writer in residence' himself is on the program. But those shots take an unexpected turn. A few days before, the writer couple took care of two Korean orphans and De Hartog called for help to the many thousands of foundlings and orphans in South-East Asia. Vietnam appeals to everyone's imagination, but the situation in South Korea is still dire, as he seems to want to impress upon television viewing the Netherlands.
Thousands of American soldiers remained in the area after the war (1950-1953) to maintain the status quo. The years of stationing have consequences: a considerable increase of 'half-breeds'. They are babies who are rejected. “Not only were they discriminated against, they simply didn't exist,” says Liesbeth Graatsma, social worker and contact mediator for Korea in the 1970s. “Koreans didn't have a population registry like here, but a family registry that was managed for the family eldest. Such a person would never accept an illegitimate child. Those children simply had no future.”
The Quakers, a religious community to which De Hartog belonged, are one of the driving forces behind the adoption of these children in the United States. There it is the famous writer Pearl Buck, who sets the 'good example' with six adopted children. Marjory, Jan de Hartog's English wife, reads a book about Buck's adoption work. She is so impressed by this that she wants to start taking care of orphans herself when the Vietnam War breaks out. “I started peddling to all kinds of organizations that they should pay attention to these children. Especially in Vietnam,” recalls Marjory de Hartog. But it wasn't until 1975 that peace was signed in Vietnam, and few were allowed access before that time. The couple gets involved with Buck's volunteer organization.
Not much later, the Korean Eva and Julia figure in Mies Bouwman's broadcast. Two cheerful preschoolers in a sun-drenched American suburb. There is no better advertisement imaginable for adoption. But De Hartog's flaming argument also helps. 'Even if you only save one', is such a statement that has an impact. And then something happens that nobody cares about. The telephone at the VARA does not stop ringing after the broadcast. “We didn't know when it aired, but suddenly in the middle of the night the phone rang. Mies was on the phone hysterically,” recalls Marjory de Hartog. “She didn't know what to do with all those phone calls: 'What do we tell those people? Can they call you?' was her question.” In total, that evening and the following days, more than a thousand people called for 'a little Korean'.
Sang and An de Klonia
Vietnam, the pill, the social assistance law
Plenty of reasons for a child from abroad
How can a spontaneous statement in one television program spark such a massive reaction? In 1967, growing criticism of the Vietnam War dominates the era. Television brings the war into the living room and millions of families are witnessing the horrors, especially the images of overcrowded children's homes and neglected, malnourished children.
In the meantime, the number of adoptions in the Netherlands is declining due to the introduction of the pill in 1962, which reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, and the new General Assistance Act in 1963. This guarantee of a minimum subsistence level for every citizen leads to a decrease in the number of distant children. In more and more cases, the social services advise young unmarried mothers to raise their children themselves.
The Adoption Act (1956), which was introduced relatively late in the Netherlands, essentially meant that in a legal sense the adopted child becomes the full child of the adoptive parents. Until 1978, however, the biological parents retained the right to reverse the renunciation of their child through the courts. According to F. ten Siethoff, then secretary of the Adoption Council, an advisory committee for the Ministry of Justice and the court, it was one of the reasons for moving abroad. “It was the threat that the real parent would put up a barrier. With a child from afar, the family is also a bit further away.”
When it gradually becomes clear what the wars in Southeast Asia mean to tens of thousands of displaced children, little more is needed than an emotional speech from a popular speaker. A new social phenomenon is emerging: the adoption of third world children.
In a Korean hut
Polder idealism
'Full is full'
An action committee will be set up with the aim of starting aid for children in need. Foreign adoption is just one of the means. But the efforts are politically sensitive. “In the Netherlands, the argument was that the country was too full. There was serious fear of a wave of immigration,” says Marjory de Hartog. F. ten Siethoff, former secretary of the Adoption Council, also remembers reticence at the Ministry of Justice. “Guidelines were drawn up. It stated, among other things, that you were not allowed to admit the child if it was not certain that the distance had been properly arranged. There was also a whole bureaucracy involved. In practice, this meant that it was difficult to keep those children here. This put a brake on the unbridled entry.”
But the ministry also had moral concerns. There was a fear that bringing children from a completely different culture to the Netherlands would lead to all kinds of problems. The transition could be much too big and all kinds of difficulties in the parenting situation were predicted. They also feared child trafficking. Ten Siethoff: “Looking back, society presented us with a fait accompli. There were all those private initiatives. Practice has caught up with us. Nothing had been arranged. They just came in with those kids. And you couldn't send them back either."
“I remember a fortress consisting of rows of small houses. It was primitive, I slept on a mat and when there was food we ate rice, just rice. I remember having a great time there until Grandma got sick and couldn't take care of me anymore. Then I had to cook for her. Once upon a time, a woman would come by who was said to be working in Seoul. I think she was my mother. But if you ask me, did you know at that moment that that woman was your mother, then I say no. She came too little for that. I never knew my father. He was probably back to the US before I was born.”
These are the words of Sang de Klonia, now thirty-nine, and one of the first hundred children from South Korea to be adopted in the Netherlands. He's four when he comes. “It was my first time in the car and my first time on the plane. It was really an outing with other children. A nice day until we arrived in the reception hall at Schiphol. I thought something isn't right here. This is wrong.” Social worker Liesbeth Graatsma supervises the flights over time. “The journey took almost 32 hours. You had been with those children for a long time and then you kind of bond. Often those children had played wonderfully on the way, but they got stressed out at Schiphol. We tried to keep them calm, but if such a child continues to panic, there is only one solution: get the children and parents out of the car as quickly as possible.”
As easily as the first children, once at Schiphol, were pushed into a new life, their arrival was so precarious with the authorities. Political pressure eventually had to make the government acquiesce. Erie den Doolaard is the personification of this lobby. She is the wife of De Hartog's good friend and colleague A. den Doolaard. The residence of the writers' couple in the Veluwe serves as a temporary postal address for the many letters that pour in after De Hartog's appeal. Not only she, but also Mies Bouwman, receive loads of letters from parents who want to make themselves available. One of them is An de Klonia, Sang's adoptive mother: “Dutch children were not in stock and then this came our way and we thought bingo! So that was sign up and see what happens. Because at that time they were not allowed to enter the Netherlands at all.
Long waiting times
Marcel van Dam became ombudsman for the VARA in 1971. After many letters from complaining parents, he devotes several episodes to the complicated adoption procedure, which also caused a stir in the House of Representatives. The attitude of the ministry is a thorn in the side of D'66 MP Bert Schwarz, according to the parliamentary debate of January 1972: 'The Netherlands is relatively rich and absolutely full, like a tram can be full, in which everyone is normally admitted without discrimination. . But when the tram is full, no one is allowed in. (…) The government has done almost nothing to curb the immigration of foreign workers. The Department of Justice does make a contribution to curbing the immigration flow, which I do not appreciate, namely limiting the admission of foreign foster children.”
In 1967, the year that De Hartog made his appeal to Mies Bouwman, more than eighty percent of the total number of adopted children was of Dutch descent. Eight years later, almost half of the children placed are of foreign descent and more than one third are Korean. But demand exceeds supply. Parents have to wait endlessly before they can adopt a child. First there is the waiting period for the family survey, then there is the waiting period for the actual adoption. In some cases, it can be up to 7 years. An de Klonia has to wait 3.5 years for her Sang. “Yes, that waiting, that was a difficult period. The age difference with our first child started to play a role. That's why we preferred a slightly older child. Then the difference wasn't that big with our first."
Korea
Exporter of babies
In the following years, Korea's international adoption program has grown in popularity. Started as an initiative to rescue rejected mixed-race children, international adoption is evolving into a last resort for middle-class childless parents in Europe and the US. The Vietnam War puts the problem of third world children on the map. An de Klonia and her husband also participate in protests against the war. “We were anti-militarist yes. We were there from the first demonstrations,” says De Klonia. “It's always the damn soldiers who cause the kids. That also happened in the Netherlands with the Germans and the Canadians.” However, Vietnam will not grant entry until after 1975 when the peace is signed. That is why they move to another country.
In these years, international adoption has become almost synonymous with adoption from Korea, where the lines are short and the authorities cooperate well. But the country does not want to do business with Erie Den Doolaard. Because she is 'a housewife in the Veluwe', as Will Schütte recalls. “That wasn't official enough. A real body had to be created.” Wil Schütte is commissioned to set up a Foundation for Intercountry Adoption (SIA). Until then, she is an employee at FIOM, the Federation of Institutions for Unmarried Mother Care, which until then had been in charge of adoption. For a long time, adoption was inherent in the care of unmarried mothers.
But times are changing and Schütte is told by her boss: "Wouldn't you like to work with the SIA?" and he adds: “But then you have to arrange the financing yourself.” Schütte lobbies here and there in her husband's network, a high-ranking official in the Defense Department, and in her own network. She says she arranges a generous arrangement at KLM to get the children here as cheaply as possible and she also knows how to exert her influence on the Ministry of Justice. “I think those men thought, well that woman must also have something to do. In the beginning, everything really went smoothly. Nobody knew how to do it.” She rents an attic in the Haagse Schoolstraat. She gets the rattan chairs from her own house. A 'friend' gives her binders and she arranges a generous arrangement with KLM to fly the children over as cheaply as possible. Schutte: “We entered everywhere and we often left the meeting with big promises. They thought it was a whim of bored housewives. Adoption today, next year something different. But that turned out differently.”
Sang as a teenager
The Disillusionment of the Eighties
'Ray laserus in the cell'
It became clear in the course of the eighties that the criticized reticence of the Ministry of Justice also has another, more valid reason. The Netherlands now has more than 13,000 children from the Third World who have been adopted by Dutch parents. The babies and toddlers from the boom of the time are the adolescents of the eighties. The media creates a picture of problem cases because disappointed parents of children who have been removed from home seek publicity. Sang is also removed from home. “At one point it went wrong. Petty crime and stuff,” An recalls. She addresses Sang: “Until you were in the cell and the police came to your door. That really was the last straw. Then they made an emergency recording of it.” Sang: “I was untenable and unmanageable. In hindsight, that had everything to do with my adoption. It is underestimated what it means to come here from an Eastern culture. The idea was and is that you automatically do better here.”
Nevertheless, Liesbeth Graatsma, who has been involved in the SIA as a social worker from the very beginning, emphasizes that in many cases things went well. But she has to agree that in those first years there was too much optimism about the progress of the adoption. “We all thought those children are in a bind and there are no solutions in the country of origin. We did have that here. So we wanted to help those kids. We thought: it will take some getting used to, but it will work. With patience and love you will get there. That is what was later called the pink cloud.”
Korean baby at Schiphol
The Olympics of '88
The straw that broke the camel's back
Due to the negative media coverage, the positive image of international adoption is changing and the number of adoption applications is falling sharply. Between 1980 and 1989 even by sixty percent. In addition to the critical voices in the press, the first results of research into adoption mention special parenting problems for adoptive parents. The economic conditions are also less positive: the first major round of government cutbacks is underway.
But not only the demand, but also the supply is declining. In Asian countries, the political attitude towards adoption is changing. The increased standard of living in Korea, from $248 per capita in 1970 to $2,268 in 1987, goes hand in hand with growing self-awareness. Domestic adoption is being stimulated and there is a stronger call for an end to the 'export of babies'.
In Korea, this trend is marked by the 1988 Olympics. A year before the world spotlight is turned on Korea, a political upheaval takes place. In June 1987, student protests, strikes and a massive uprising herald the end of 25 years of military rule. The new freedom of expression offers room for a critical voice, but the adoptions continue unabated. One year later at the Games in Seoul, Korea proudly presents itself as a new industrialized democracy. But Western journalists seize the opportunity to paint a different picture of the country, presenting Korea as the world's largest exporter of children. It is the drop that makes the camel overflow. Not a single child disappears across the border during the Games. And the following year, the number of adoptions dropped significantly. In the Netherlands from 107 placements in 1988 to 13 in 1989. Korea seems to have lost its image as a baby exporter. During the 1990s, the Netherlands saw a slight revival in the number of adoption applications. In the meantime, China takes the cake. But every year a limited number of Koreans still await a new life in the Netherlands.
Sang de Klonia
The numbers
Research into behavioral problems
In 1979, research into the adoption of foreign children is presented for the first time in the Netherlands. Prof. dr. Dr René Hoksbergen, professor by special appointment of Adoption, mentions specific parenting problems in his book 'Adoption of children from distant countries'. But there are no firm conclusions because the children concerned have not yet arrived in our country. It was not until the late 1980s that the first major national study by child psychiatrist Frank Verhulst was published. His findings clearly reveal the problems: foreign adopted children come into contact with the police and the judiciary four times as often compared to 'ordinary children', they follow special education three times as often, the number of out-of-home placements is six times higher and a quarter has professional need help.
Yet researchers also contradict each other. Such as professor Femmie Juffer, herself an adoptive parent, who presented research results last year aimed at putting an end to the many myths surrounding the subject. She argues that foreign adopted children may have more behavioral problems than non-adopted children, but that the margins are small. Prof. dr. Hoksbergen regularly seeks publicity to point out the 'scale and intensity of behavioral and parenting problems'. According to him, these are 'many times larger than in children born in the Netherlands'. He still advocates better aftercare.
But those who really know are the nearly 35,000 foreign children who have been, or are being, raised by Dutch parents. Of these, 4,099 come from Korea. To Sang de Klonia, when one of the first asked the question: Is it pleasant to be adopted? "I wouldn't have had to. If only I had left me there. What would have happened then is a difficult question. I probably would have been dead. But the issue is what's worse: dying of hunger or dying of grief."
Text and research: Ariane Kleijwegt
Director: Hein Hoffmann
Editing: Laura van Hasselt
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Disclaimer:
Please note that we are not formal researchers. We are simply KSS Adoptees who have a vested interest in educating ourselves and other Korea Social Service (KSS) Adoptees about KSS’ history, past practices, and current procedures for Birth Family Search.
We do not represent KSS nor any of its Partner Western Adoption Agencies: International Social Service (ISS), Welcome House / Pearl S. Buck Foundation - (Pennsylvania, US), Lutheran Social Services (LSS) - (Minnesota, US), Wereldkinderen - (Netherlands), Adoption Center (AC) / AC Børnehjælp, DanAdopt, and Danish International Adoption (DIA) - (Denmark), Terre des Hommes - (Switzerland), or Family Adoption Consultants / Foreign Adoption Consultants (FAC) / F&CS Foster Care and Adoption Service - (Michigan, US).
All information on this website is for educational purposes only and is based on informal volunteer research. We try our best to provide accurate information, but we consider our knowledge about past and current KSS procedure an investigative work in progress. Because much of KSS past practice is kept secret from Adoptees, we do our best to provide the information we have gleaned from our own and other Adoptees’ cases. We always welcome feedback and suggestions for how to improve the site.
Note:
*While this website is mostly geared toward Adoptees who were adopted through the Korean Adoption Agency Korea Social Service (KSS), there is also information here which is relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees, regardless of their Korean Adoption Agency. Please read carefully to note what info. is purely relevant to KSS Adoptees and what is generally relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees.
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