Journalists Cindy Huijgen and Ruth van der Kolk were babies in the same Chinese children's home and were adopted by Dutch parents. They write to each other about how their fairytale image changed from adoption: "The story I was told is now unsettled."

Journalists Cindy Huijgen (29) and Ruth van der Kolk (27) were born in China and ended up in the same children's home as babies. In the 1990s they both ended up in the Netherlands via adoption. Years later, the women go in search of their roots separately. The romantic image that they would have been rescued from a hopeless situation does not last. An exchange of letters.

CINDY HUIJGEN: 'MY LIFE IN CHINA HAD NOT BEEN HOPELESS'

Cindy Huijgen was adopted from China in 1993 and grew up in a village close to Rotterdam. Since 2019 she has lived in Beijing, where she works as a correspondent for De Telegraaf, among others .

Hi Ruth,

The Joustra Committee rightly recommends the establishment of an expertise center for adoption. First of all it is appropriate to consider the grief that has been done. But with the suspension of international adoption, children are once again left out in the cold ...

On 8 February, the Joustra committee presented the results of its investigation to the Minister for Legal Protection (RD 5-2 and 8-2 ). The adoption community has been deeply shocked by those adoptions that saw abuses in the 1970s-90s. It is appropriate to recognize the grief that has been caused to those involved, adoptees and their biological family, but also their adoptive parents.

The Adoption Vereniging Gereformeerde Gezindte (AVGG) was founded in 1979, in the middle of the period studied. Also (former) members of our association (adoptees and adoptive parents) have to deal with abuse. This should never have happened! Pain and uncertainty are felt (again). We are also thinking of adoptive parents who entered a procedure in good faith that subsequently turned out to be based on an impure basis. We recognize that this can raise questions and doubts about God's providence, of which adoptees and their adoptive parents have previously been firmly convinced.

The Joustra Committee makes recommendations for the government to recognize that it has failed to combat adoption abuses. She also advises the establishment of an expertise center. These recommendations wholeheartedly endorse the GDPR. However, we do not support the recommendation to suspend intercountry adoption, which received the most attention. This recommendation causes attention to be diverted from the results of the original research assignment: what exactly happened in the 1970s and 1990s and what was the role of the Dutch government in this?

The period studied was followed by the Hague Adoption Convention (HAV), which entered into force for the Netherlands on 1 October 1998. This convention formulates all the conditions that international adoption must meet and can be tested. More than 66 'sending' and 'receiving' countries subscribe to this convention. The committee cites the principle of trust that is part of the HAV as a potential weakness in the system. The Netherlands no longer receives adopted children from those countries about which doubts have arisen.

Bezoekadres:Parnassusplein 52511 VX Den HaagT070 340 79 11F070 340 78 34www.rijksoverheid.nlOns kenmerk1824474-218159-PGBijlagen1Uw brief05 februari 2021Correspondentie uitsluitend richten aan het retouradres met vermelding van de datum en het kenmerk van deze brief.Pagina 1 van 5

> Retouradres Postbus 20350 2500 EJ Den Haag

De Voorzitter van de Tweede Kamer

der Staten-Generaal

Postbus 20018

.

NEW DELHI: The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act 2015 to give district

magistrates the power to issue adoption orders and monitor functioning of various agencies responsible for implementation of

the Act.

The divisional commissioner will have the power to decide appeals with regard to adoption cases. The government says it will

enable “speedy disposal of adoption cases and enhance accountability”. Currently adoption orders are issued by the district

The Union Cabinet today approved landmark amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, to allow district magistrates and additional district magistrates to pass adoption orders ending the existing challenge of legal hurdles to adoptions.

Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani flagged the amendments which seek to make childcare institutions and child welfare committee members and chiefs accountable, besides ensuring that district magistrates have the power to monitor child shelter homes to ensure child safety.

At present, childcare institutions need to state their intent to get permission from state governments to set up homes. But after new amendments, the permission would be subject to reports submitted by district magistrates who will do antecedent checks. Also, eligibility will be fixed for CWC members.

The most important amendment relates to the DM and ADM being allowed to issue adoption orders to fast track the process.

Former CEO of the Central Adoption Resource Agency Lt Col Deepak Kumar, who was involved in drafting the amendments, said: “At present, the family court, district court or a city civil court is competent to pass the adoption order under Section 61 of the Act. However, large scale pendency in the court is observed despite the Act mandating decision within two months. This causes duress to adoptive parents and the child.”

After decades of campaigning from advocates, and multiple recommendations from the Law Commission, UNICEF and the Human Rights Commission, NZ’s adoption act is finally going to be repealed. But will it address the rights and needs of those whose lives it has affected – and are we at risk of repeating the same mistakes?

The government has this week told adoption reform campaigners it intends to overhaul the 1955 Adoption Act - a long awaited action over a law widely accepted to be outdated and unfit for purpose.

The law was created when unwed mothers were seen as shameful - their newborn babies often forcibly removed and placed with strangers, mostly married P?keh? couples.

In a letter sent this week to adoption law reform advocate and author Barbara Sumner, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi says the Government will take up the issue this parliamentary term.

It had already indicated the prospect of adoption law reform in its release of Briefings to Incoming Ministers (BIM) late last year, but this has only now been confirmed.

The government has failed to combat adoption abuses, but the same government can also organize safe adoption, argues René Hoksbergen.

After the publication of the report of the Joustra committee, there was immediately a lot of attention in the media and also in the Volkskrant for international adoption. It was to be expected that adoptive parents and some adoptees would resist an adoption stop.

The committee's recommendations: acknowledge that the government has failed to combat adoption abuses and suspend all adoptions for the time being, are after all painful for those involved. Serious abuses in intercountry adoption had been known for decades . Only the lawsuits of a few adult adoptees forced the government to set up the Joustra commission of inquiry.

Of course, immediate reactions followed that an adoption stop would be at the expense of foreign children . After all, they are now living well with their adoptive parents. Parents who indeed often devote themselves with love and attention to these children in need. And that's how intercountry adoption started around 1970, with idealism and the involvement of possible adoptive parents. They themselves often already had children. The taboo on adoption had virtually disappeared in the meantime. By the way, the world became more and more open due to the increasing air traffic and the rise of television . Poverty and misery entered the living room almost every day through the CRT . The need for aid to the Third World was widely accepted.

Abuses

New Delhi: The Ministry of Women

and Child Development (MWCD) has

requested the foreign ministry to have

dedicated nodal oicers in Indian

embassies for monitoring adoption

The woman's husband and in-laws allegedly harassed her and asked her to give her son to her husband's sister for adoption, an official said.

Thane: Police have registered an FIR against a man and five other members of his family for allegedly harassing his wife after she refused to agree for adoption of her five-year-old son by a relative in Maharashtra, an official said on Wednesday.

The woman, 26, got married in 2015 and gave birth to a boy the next year.

However, her husband and in-laws, residents of Bhiwandi town in Thane, allegedly harassed her and asked her to give her son to her husband's sister for adoption, the official from Nizampura police station said.

When the woman refused to part with her son, her husband threatened to divorce her, the official said quoting the complaint filed by the woman on Monday.