The Swedish Agency for Family Law and Parental Support (MFoF) and the Adoption Center - mediators of international adoptions - request an independent investigation into how foreign adoptions to Sweden took place during the 20th century. Stock Photography. Photo: Jessica Gow / TT

The Netherlands froze adoptions from abroad this week after a government commission discovered that children had been stolen from their biological parents.

A similar inquiry should also be appointed in Sweden, according to both the Swedish Agency for Family Law and Parental Support (MFoF) and the Adoption Center.

The report of the Joustra Committee on abuses in intercountry adoption in the past is a valuable document and does justice to victims of the abuses. I would like to add nuance to the report from my scientific expertise.

First of all, I would like to say that I am very happy with the work of the Joustra Committee on abuses in adoptions in the past. It is a good thing that our government is now taking responsibility by apologizing to victims and is committed to rectifying abuses as well as possible.

As a scientist specialized in adoption and foster care, including 10 years as coordinator of the Leiden University-based ADOC - Knowledge Center for Adoption and Foster Care, I also have critical comments.

Children's rights

First of all, the scientific literature on which the Committee relies appears to be very one-sided and important articles that provide a broader picture of the phenomenon of adoption have not been included. It almost seems that those who focus on abuses surrounding adoption at some point become trapped in one side of a reality and lose sight of other perspectives such as child protection.

NEW DELHI: About 80 per cent of children adopted within the country since 2015 were aged 0-2 years, while just two per cent were in the age group of 10-18, the Women and Child Development Ministry said on Thursday.

In a written response to a question in Rajya Sabha, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani presented data of in-country adoptions from 2015-16 to 2020-2021 (as on February 3, 2021).

According to the data, of the 16,856 children adopted within the country in the last five years, 13,495 were in the age group of 0-2 years, 1,340 were in the age group of 2-4 years, 889 were aged 4-6 years, 401 were aged 6-8 years, 350 were aged 8-10 years, 192 were in age group of 10-12 years, 100 in the age group of 12-14 and 59 were in age group of 14-18 years.

Irani said the number of infants below the age of three months adopted during 2016-2017 to 2020-2021 (as on February 3, 2021) is 725.

Responding to a question on the time taken to declare a child legally free for adoption, Irani said as per section 38 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, orphaned and abandoned children are required to be declared legally free for adoption within two months in case of a child up to the age of two years and within four months in case of a child above the age of two years, after following the due procedure.

Ibu Ellya is 78 years old and lives in Desa Susukan in central Java. She was 25 years old when she became pregnant with a son and married to Iwansa. She was a Javanese herself and her husband was from Sumatra. At the time, not everyone was happy that she chose someone from another island. They found a Javanese with a Javanese a better match. But she was happy with Iwansa, a dentist.

She had completed junior high school and after that she was able to find work in Jakarta and later Surabaya. She was a sporty woman, loved volleyball and swimming. Singing was also a hobby of hers. When the time came for her to give birth, her eldest son was ill and to make matters worse she was told the very sad news that her husband had died ...

Adoption

Photo credits: Bud Wichers

Giving birth without a child

--------- Forwarded message ---------

From: ACT

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2021 at 13:28

Subject: Joustra Committee / Intercountry Adoptions

To:

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