Tjibbe Joustra sees 'a lot of good will' in adoption improvement plan, but 'filling in will be decisive'

More than a year after the Joustra Committee painted a devastating picture of intercountry adoption, Minister Franc Weerwind presented plans for improvement last week. Former top official Tjibbe Joustra is not yet convinced. 'The interpretation will be decisive.'

'How does the minister want to guarantee that abuses no longer occur with adoption from abroad?' That is what former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra wonders after studying the new plans of Minister Franc Weerwind (Legal Protection, D66). 'I looked for which elements should lead to improvement. They are quite difficult to find.'

More than a year ago the report of the Joustra Committee was published, which painted a devastating picture of intercountry adoption. Adoption from abroad was suspended immediately. In the meantime, a new plan was being worked on.

Last week, the minister wrote a letter to the House stating that adoption of children from abroad will be possible again. A new intermediary organization to be established, closely linked to the government, must ensure that corruption, child trafficking and fraud are eradicated. Moreover, it is always necessary to first look for suitable reception in the country of origin.

Searching for concrete points for improvement

'The letter contains a lot of good will, but the interpretation will be decisive', says Joustra, who is responding to the plans for the first time. 'The committee has always considered the following: how do you handle a child with care? And how do you guarantee that? The minister's proposals are looking for clues and concrete points for improvement.'

Strange, Joustra thinks. 'There has been some time to think about how to shape those conditions. And in our report we said that we are not yet seeing how an alternative system should be designed. We've warned it's not that simple.'

The big question remains: how will the government ensure that no abuses occur in countries of origin? 'Going to a country and looking around there doesn't give you a good idea of ??how things are going there. The minister now says: that is mainly the task of the country of origin. But that's exactly the problem; that doesn't work well in some countries. The minister says that he wants to reconsider cooperation with certain countries, but it remains to be seen which countries are involved.'

One central organization

One of the concrete measures that Weerwind is proposing is the merger of the current four private brokerage firms into one central, government-run organisation. This new organization should be further removed from the adoptive parents and thus be able to assess a case more independently. In addition, the clout of the government in the country of origin is said to be greater than that of an intermediary agency.

This measure is described in the letter as 'mindful of the recommendation of the Joustra Commission'. But, says Joustra, 'we didn't comment on that. That's a curious summary.'

Whoever does the mediation, he says, stands or falls with the substantive standards and their enforcement. 'A central organization requires a much greater involvement and responsibility from the government. In our report we say that for decades the role of government in mediation has not been a very prominent and decisive one. So a lot still needs to be done to improve that.'

Strong signals

The letter and the responses to it also contain criticism of the Joustra Committee's report. Those involved say that there have been few or no abuses in the past ten years and that no conclusions can be drawn about recent years on the basis of the research.

'That has been the criticism from the start', says Joustra. 'Our assignment was to investigate the issue of adoption up to 1998. But because all kinds of things still demanded our attention after 2000, we have included a number of elements to say that the abuses were not over. We took a more exemplary approach for the period afterwards. We cite a number of examples from a number of countries. The signals were so strong that we concluded that the abuses have still not been eradicated. There have been improvements, sure, that's what the report says. The number of abuses will also decrease because the number of adoptions has decreased numerically.'

Adoption from abroad has been steadily declining in the Netherlands for years. While 1,300 intercountry adoptions still took place in 2004, there were only 145 in 2019. The minister wonders whether the enormous investment in setting up a new system is in proportion to the declining number of adoptions.

'That seems like a good question', says Joustra. 'It is very expensive, especially if mediation and enforcement have to be arranged more or less by the government. You may wonder about the costs of adoption. It is not yet clear who will pay for this. But here too the following applies: the letter is more of a step in the right direction than an elaboration of a plan itself.'

'