Colombian María Orfi Cifuentes has fallen victim to the Dutch adoption scandal. She did not want to give up her child at all, documents were forged and she was told that her son had died. She didn't see him again until 40 years later. In the Netherlands.

“I only got a glimpse of his foot,” María tells NOS. “Then they wrapped my newborn son in a blue hospital blanket and took him away. In the hospital they said he was dead, but it turned out that he had been adopted. ”

“A nun came over to my bed and said the baby was doing very badly,” she says of the day her child was born. “She had two blank sheets of paper with her and told me to sign them. That would allow me to have my son baptized before it was too late. She also asked me to give him a name. A little later a nurse came to me and told me that my son had died. ”

Psychologically heavy

It happened in 1977, but the loss carried them with it for years. “It was very difficult psychologically. I considered suicide, but I passed on for my other children. ”

"In our case, adoption is not shady. There was no question of child trafficking and misery." Chantal and Dirk-Jan de Boer have to defend themselves for the adoption of their son after Joustra's hard report about abuses in adoption in the past.

Chantal and Dirk-Jan from Eagum in Friesland have just received permission for the adoption of a second child from the United States. Outgoing minister Sander Dekker announced a provisional ban on adoption on Monday. A new cabinet must look at it again. Four hundred parents who were already very far in the procedure are still allowed to continue, including Chantal and Dirk-Jan.

'Terrible Time'

The days before the report came out, they heard that the minister was going to intervene. They feared their adoption would not go through either. “It was terrible leading up to the report. We knew it was going to come and cause dust. We never expected any adoption to be called 'child trafficking'. Until yesterday it was terrible, we are there all weekend sick of it. "

The adoption may therefore continue with Chantal and Dirk-Jan, but mixed feelings still dominate due to the hard conclusions of Tjibbe Joustra. "We feel that we have to justify ourselves. We are very sorry that it is pretended to be all adoptions. People think that we are keeping it going, the child trafficking."

At the moment, having children is often a difficult process for gay and lesbian couples. Adoptions are becoming increasingly difficult, there is no legislation on surrogacy in our country and multi-parenting seems taboo. 'This leads to a lot of grief and frustration for LGBTI + wish-parents,' writes Bruno De Lille. "It is urgent time for a clear framework."

Our son turned eighteen. Because of the corona crisis, there was not really a party, but he seems to like the idea that he is an adult. His joy, however, is nothing compared to ours, his parents. Because that we have been able to help a son grow up can be called a small miracle. Had I been born twenty years earlier or in another country, I would never have been a dad.

Even now many people are still surprised when my husband and I turn up somewhere with our son. A male-male couple with a child, it remains special. Because it is not because Belgium has now allowed adoption by couples of the same sex for almost fifteen years that it is not easy to have a child (entrusted) as two men.

High time for more rights for rainbow families

It used to be simple: if you were openly gay, you wouldn't have children. Point. In the 1990s and 2000s that started to change. LGBTI + couples receive legal recognition, are allowed to marry and later adopt. Since then, adoption seems obvious for gay couples who want to become dads. Although it remains difficult.

Most striking about the report on intercountry adoption is that the abuses had been grinning in the face of the state, the mediators and often the adopting families for decades. Without taking action or stepping back.

This is NRC's daily commentary. It contains opinions, interpretations and choices. They are written by a group of editors selected by the chief editor. In the comments NRC shows what it stands for. Comments offer the reader a handle, an angle, it is "first aid" with the news of the day.

The hardest observation is that the adopted children offered were "usually" not orphans at all. But displaced, outcast by poverty or excluded by extra-marital birth. Then they were channeled abroad via the adoption market to relieve the burden on the shelter.

So in the adoption scandal there are also "duped parents". These are the carefully anonymous or kept birth families, which have often been misguided. They have no say in this matter - they are the most to blame.

The pattern in the Dutch institutions was looking away, tolerating, neglect, neglect, powerlessness, etc. Intercountry adoption could last for so long because of a collective mistake. That a foreign child in need would in principle be served by adoption and emigration. That children were saved with it. Adoption would be "for their sake."

EXCLUSIVE: 'Evil doesn't have a color.' Biological family of adopted three-year-old 'beaten to death by Worst Cooks in America star' say race isn't the issue as they share photos of the girl's bruises and blame Social Services for her death

Ariel Robinson, 29, and her husband Jerry, 34, were arrested on homicide by child abuse charges for the death of their adopted daughter Victoria

Three-year-old Victoria Rose Smith died on January 14 after being taken to the hospital with blunt force trauma injuries

The Robinsons have two biological sons but in February 2020, they adopted Victoria and her two biological brothers

DailyMail.com spoke to Victoria's biological family who blame Social Services for putting her in the care of 'evil' adoptive parents

MANILA, Philippines — An investigation on schemes shrouding the illegal adoption of children that often surface on social media platforms such as Facebook is being pushed in the House of Representatives.

In filing House Resolution No. 1555, Quezon City Rep. Alfred Vargas said the Department of Social Welfare and Development earlier disclosed in a virtual forum last February 6 the existence of more than 40 social media accounts on Facebook facilitating the illegal adoption.

Vargas is the chairperson of the House committee on social services.

“The propagation and facilitation of illegal adoption schemes in social media jeopardizes the safety and welfare of children in need of loving and caring families and is in violation of Republic Act No. 8552,” Vargas said in the resolution.

Republic Act No. 8552 or the Domestic Adoption Act of 1998 provides for the legal framework of adoption in the country.

The Netherlands will temporarily stop adopting from abroad. The government has decided this after a spicy report from the Joustra Commission. This shows that the Dutch government has known since the 1960s about abuses in the world of adoption, such as child trafficking and child theft. San-Ho Correweyn was also adopted himself and also proposes such an adoption break in Belgium. To get rid of the long waiting lists and to reflect on how things can and should be improved.

"Not five to twelve, but three in the afternoon"

San-Ho Correwyn was adopted himself and co-wrote the book "#HetGevoelGeadopteerd". “I knew that the adoption studies were underway in the Netherlands and that the reports would be critical,” he says in “Sofie's World.” “But what I didn't know was that the government would respond so quickly with that pause. I am pleasantly surprised. ”

Also in Flanders, an expert panel is working on a report on adoption. And Correwyn is really looking forward to that. “It's not five to twelve, but three in the afternoon, for that matter. I hope that those responsible will admit that everything went wrong. A recognition is already the first step. "

"We are also happy to have adoptees involved," said Correwyn. "We had to sound the alarm to make that happen."

Response to the report of the Joustra Committee

Written: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 2:23 PM

On Monday, February 8, the Joustra Committee published the results of their research into past intercountry adoptions. The Meiling Foundation received the report on Monday 8 February and took note of it.

We are shocked by the committee's findings and the contents of the report. The picture presented by the committee in the report is confrontational and the conclusions and recommendations are harsh. In response to this report, the cabinet has apologized and is adopting the committee's recommendations.

The Meiling Foundation emphasizes that every abuse in adoption, wherever and whenever, is one too many and can mean serious suffering for the person concerned.

An inquiry found systemic abuses like child trafficking, lack of record-keeping and government complicity until 1998. Practices have since improved, the government said, but not enough.

The Netherlands has temporarily halted all adoptions from abroad after an investigation found that the government had failed to act on known abuses, including child theft and trafficking, between 1967 and 1998.

“Adoptees deserve recognition for mistakes that were made in the past,” Sander Dekker, the minister for legal protection, said on Monday, as the results of the investigative report were made public. “They have to be able to count on our help in the present. And for the future we have to critically ask ourselves if and how to continue adoption from abroad.”

The government formed an independent commission in 2018 to look into international abuses after a lawsuit showed that the Dutch government had been involved in an illegal adoption from Brazil in 1980, and pointed to the possibility of more such cases. Experts said they knew of no other Western country that had stopped international adoptions.

In its report, the commission said it had found systematic wrongdoing, including pressuring poor women to give up their babies, falsifying documents, engaging in fraud and corruption, and, in effect, buying and selling children. In some cases, the Dutch government was aware of misdeeds in adoptions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but did nothing about them and allowed them to continue, the report said.

Major abuses in the system of intercountry adoption were recognized on 8 February, which also recognized all adoptees who have raised the alarm with the government and other stakeholders in recent years. The Joustra Committee concludes that the government's supervision of adoption procedures is insufficient and that no action has been taken in the event of abuses that came to light. Minister Dekker for Legal Protection concludes that the Dutch government has failed by looking away for years and offers adoptees an apology on behalf of the cabinet. Minister Dekker has decided to immediately suspend intercountry adoption procedures. Defense for Children Netherlands sees this as a wise decision. For years, Defense for Children Netherlands has taken the view that intercountry adoption must be extremely restrained, based on Article 21 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Not being able to check or guarantee that intercountry adoptions to the Netherlands are properly effected is an important reason to argue now for an end to intercountry adoptions.

Independent committee

At the end of 2018, Minister Dekker asked an independent committee to investigate past intercountry adoption from abroad . The reason for this was a case of illegal adoption from Brazil and involvement of government officials. In addition to Brazil, the research assignment also focuses on Bangladesh, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The Ministry of Justice and Security also received signals from adoptees about possible adoption abuses in these countries. In its investigation, the Joustra Committee came across various types of abuses that occurred structurally. This concerns matters such as forgery of documents, child trafficking, fraud and corruption. But it is also about unethical acts such as allowing parents to renounce children under false pretenses or under moral pressure, deliberately creating uncertainty or ambiguity about someone's origins, and taking advantage of poverty. In certain cases, the Dutch government was aware of abuses, but did not intervene effectively. With this the abuses were perpetuated,

Apologies Minister

Minister Dekker apologizes: “It is painful to conclude that the government has not done what could be expected of it. Because although many adoptions were experienced as positive, the government should have taken a more active role by intervening in cases where there was abuse. The positive sentiment surrounding adoption in the last century - with the guiding idea that we did good with adoption - offers an explanation, but no justification. Apologies are in order for this attitude of the government, ”said Dekker. "I am grateful to the committee for the mirror in which the government did not want to look for so long."