Adoptive parents to House of Representatives: it must remain possible to adopt children from the US

It must remain possible to adopt children from the United States. Some 400 adoptive parents plead for this in a letter to the House of Representatives. After a damning report from the Joustra committee about abuses in the adoption system, all international adoptions were suspended. Last November, the government came up with the plan to make adoption from 6 selected countries possible again, but the US was not among them.

Adoptive parents to Parliament: It must remain possible to adopt children from the US

"The abuses that occurred in the years before 1998, to which I add that the US was not yet an adoption country at that time, have led to a call for: there must be more transparency, the process must be easy to follow, there must be no drugs The United States as an adoption country meets all these conditions," says adoptive parent and one of the initiators Reinout van Haperen in the NOS Radio 1 Journaal.

Cabinet

According to the government, there is enough suitable care available for children in the United States and it therefore does not want children to be brought to the Netherlands for adoption. Van Haperen sees it differently. "What the cabinet does not say is that there are approximately 120,000 children in America that are adoptable, of which no more than half are adopted domestically each year. Those other children always remain in changing foster care."

These children would constantly switch families and homes. "If someone gives me the guarantee that all those children, which are not so many who are now coming to the Netherlands and other countries, would receive good care. I dare to say that that is not the case now."

Not adopted

According to Van Haperen, American children who are adopted in the Netherlands often have a complex background. "That can be for all kinds of reasons: drug use, stress in relationships, violence. These are often not the children of whom it is said in America: let's adopt them," he explains.

Responsible Adoption

The adoption process from the United States is very transparent, says Van Haperen. "Most of us know where their child comes from anyway, who the parents are and often there is also contact with them," he explains. This is also known as the adoption triangle. "There is often contact with the adoptive parents, biological parents and the child as they get older. Sometimes also when they are younger, it's a very natural system. The parents who choose this have done it very transparently and the whole process is with enormous many guarantees. It is exactly what adoptions should meet, which unfortunately adoptions have failed to meet in the past."

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