„Mager bewijs voor misstanden adoptie”

Anne Vader

20 mei 2021 18:31

Van Dam.?beeld RD, Anton Dommerholt

Van Dam.?beeld RD, Anton Dommerholt

There really is no convincing evidence that adoption abuses are still taking place, the intermediary agencies say. According to them, the fact that they could take place is not enough reason to stop adoptions.

Mediation organizations that oppose an intercountry adoption stop. It may not sound very surprising. Nevertheless, the four organizations that supervise adoptions from abroad in the Netherlands kept silent when the caretaker cabinet decided in February to stop intercountry adoptions . Consciously, says Sanne Buursink of the A New Way foundation, on behalf of all of them. Because if the Joustra Committee, whose investigation was the basis of that decision, had reason to believe that abuses such as tampering with documents and even child trafficking are still occurring, they first wanted to know exactly what the investigators were based on. “We work every day to do everything as carefully as possible,” explains Buursink. "But we thought, maybe we have a blind spot."

Yet the organizations are still speaking out strongly about the issue this week . They also find the additional information that the Joustra Committee sent to Minister Sander Dekker (legal protection) wafer thin this week.

The Joustra Committee gives some sixty examples which, according to the researchers, demonstrate that abuses still occur around intercountry adoptions. Why are you not convinced?

Buursink: “The sources cited by the Committee to substantiate that position often date from a completely different era. They relate to countries that at the time the abuse took place had not yet ratified the Hague adoption convention (an international convention in which stricter rules for intercountry adoptions have been established, ed.), But have now done so. Or they are not even related to the abuse to which the committee has linked them. ”

Sun Hee Engelstoft, who was born in Busan in 1982, was 4 months old when she was flown to Denmark to meet her white adoptive parents.

Her biological mother had given her up for adoption, and through no choice of her own, she became part of the large adoption exodus: more than 210,000 babies have been sent overseas for adoption since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

Engelstoft recalls that although she was the only Korean in her village, she has had a good life living in the midst of nature. She also lived for three years in a refugee camp in Botswana in the 1980s where her parents were volunteer workers.

"I have a strong bond with my adoptive family. I loved school, but I was always an outsider. When I would walk down the street, my schoolmates would touch my hair because it was dark and different from theirs. Overall it was a beautiful, but isolated time," she said during an interview with The Korea Times, Monday.

Having attended several schools for photography, she was accepted to the prestigious National Film School of Denmark, where she graduated in 2011.

The temporary stop on foreign adoptions must be given up immediately. To that end, Karen Gregory, mother of two adopted children herself, wrote an open letter to outgoing minister Sander Dekker. 'There is so much more transparency now than back then', she says in the section Where is Waldy? in News and Co.

International adoptions have been suspended since the beginning of this year , in response to the report by the Joustra Committee on the Dutch adoption culture and the role of the government. According to the committee, the Netherlands has been too passive in the adoption processes in the past. The supervision would have been inadequate and no action was taken in the event of abuses that came to light. This concerns abuse of poverty, falsification of documents or biological parents who have had to give up their child under duress or for payment.

She does not deny that there have been abuses. 'Too many people looked away at the time and that is disgusting,' says Gregory. Nevertheless, she pleads for reversing the adoption ban. 'The adoption process now can no longer be compared with the process of thirty or forty years ago.' According to her, there are now many more rules, information courses and checks. Adoptive parents are now also monitored for a while by the Child Care and Protection Board.

Transparency

She herself is the mother of two adopted children from the United States. Her children's biological parents remain involved and there is a lot of transparency. When children are orphaned or abandoned, this transparency is not always self-evident. Nevertheless, Gregory thinks that adoption should continue here too. "It is the best child protection measure there is," says Say. 'Growing up in a children's home or foster care system is in most cases a worse option for children.'

Every international adoption in British Columbia is provided through an adoption agency — the external review will probe how adoption agencies are licensed and monitored, as well as how international adoptions are carried out.

The B.C. government is calling for an external review to assess how inter-country adoptions are carried out.

With every international adoption in British Columbia provided through an adoption agency, the external review will also be tasked with probing how adoption agencies are licensed and monitored.

“Over the past decade, international adoptions have decreased, as more countries are choosing to keep their children within their own borders and closer to their home culture,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

At the moment, adoption agencies manage their own funding, metrics for success and operating decisions. When it comes to licensing, the provincial director of adoptions runs them through a three-year process consulting on complex cases, reviewing closed files and investigating complaints.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development issued a notice on Monday urging the general public to “refrain’’ from circulating messages on social media for the adoption of children who have been orphaned due to Covid-19.

Raising concerns that such unregulated “adoptions” could even lead to child trafficking, the ministry had earlier written to states asking them to monitor such activity and also ensure that such orphaned children be produced before District Child Welfare Committees. The Ministry has since issued such alerts regarding the matter on several instances.

In the public notice issued today, the ministry had said, “…If any child is found to have lost parents to Covid, with no one to look after them, the child ought to be produced before the District Child Welfare Committee within 24 hours.” The notice also said that information regarding such children could be shared on the child helpline – 1098.

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U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Co-Chairs of the Congressional Adoption Caucus, announced that they have reintroduced legislation to improve the intercountry adoption process.

“There are millions of children around the world without a safe, stable home,” said Blunt. “We can help connect these children with the families they deserve by making sure intercountry adoption remains a viable option. This bipartisan bill will give the Secretary of State a valuable resource to develop and implement policies that promote intercountry adoption. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and join us in our efforts to make it easier for loving families to adopt a child.”

“Around the world, there are so many children who need loving homes – but too often, the process of intercountry adoption is filled with challenges,” said Klobuchar. “Creating an Intercountry Adoption Advisory Committee will promote the development of best practices to support those looking to adopt. I’m proud to introduce this bill to help American families and children worldwide.”

The bipartisan Intercountry Adoption Advisory Committee Act provides the Secretary of State the authority to establish an Intercountry Adoption Advisory Committee within the Bureau of Consular Affairs to focus on coordinating the development, refinement, and implementation of policy and programs on intercountry adoption. The Advisory Committee will develop recommendations to enhance the intercountry adoption process and to ensure that the diverse voices within the adoption community are considered in advance of new policies being developed and programs being implemented. The legislation is also co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Bob Casey (Pa.), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), John Boozman (Ark.), and Roger Wicker (Miss.).

For years, Blunt and Klobuchar have worked to improve the adoption process for Americans.

Since she was adopted at the age of five, Ae Jin Huys (44) had lost any connection with Korea. Until she came into contact with a Korean family and thus rediscovered Korean cuisine. "The power of flavors catapulted me to a distant past that was once 'home'."

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DN Nagar police are investigating a matter after filmmaker and producer Ashoke Pandit, tweeted a video of parents, who were allegedly physically and mentally abusing their adopted daughter. In this case, three residents of the building have registered an official complaint with the child helpline 1098 and approached DN Nagar police to register an FIR against the parents.

The girl and her parents reside in Ratnasamuh Society at Juhu Link road in Andheri West. The girl was adopted at birth and is now around six years old. In the complaint, the neighbours have alleged that the parents physically abuse the child. They also said that the parents leave her in the compound when they go out, and the watchman looks after her.

The society members, who registered the complaint, have been identified as Amit Mohite, Yogesh Pingulkar and Raju Anarkat. Speaking with mid-day, Pingulkar, said, “The watchman found her crying by her window and fed her. Another resident, who has a CCTV installed, saw in a video that the father was hitting her.” Anarkat said, “Finally on May 2, we contacted 1098, and they told us to send an official complaint via email. Meanwhile, we also contacted filmmaker Ashoke Pandit and shared the video with him. On Saturday morning, Pandit tweeted this video and tagged Mumbai Police. Then, DN Nagar police inspector Swapnil Manjre recorded our statement.”

When contacted, Senior Inspector Bharat Gaikwad said, “We have not registered an FIR yet. We are recording the statements of everyone involved. Once the investigation has been completed, we will take action.”

Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani took to Twitter to flag adoption requests as illegal and urged people to prevent trafficking in the garb of adoption and report all such cases to 1098 or police or a Child Welfare Committee.

In Odisha’s Ganjam district, a 45-day-old girl was found next to her mother’s body, when neighbours broke open the door of their house in Golapalli village. Suspecting it to be a case of death due to COVID-19, the local police sent the corpse for post-mortem and contacted the centre in-charge for Childline 1098, the national helpline for children, to arrange help for the toddler.

In Delhi, a mother left two daughters, a 15-year-old and a seven-year-old, with her neighbours before getting admitted in a hospital and losing her battle against the pandemic.

In Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, COVID-19 dealt a cruel blow and claimed the lives of four members of a family over 12 days, leaving behind two daughters aged six and 10.

“I will not send the girls to any institution, I will raise them,” said Anil Kumar (name changed), their paternal uncle. “It is what their father wished. Just two days before his death, he kept asking us to look after them if something happened to him. Earlier, too, on several occasions he had raised this issue,” Mr. Kumar adds.