New corporate due diligence law could put an end to profit from forced labour and child labour

Brussels, 8 February 2021

We are on the brink of a major opportunity to advance and protect human rights for people all over the world. In the next few months, the European Union will further debate a proposed business and human rights law that would require companies operating in the EU to prevent and address human rights abuses and environmental damage in their global supply chains. This commitment to responsible business could help tackle forced labour and child labour in supply chains around the world.

On Monday 8 February, the European Commission closed a public consultation on the proposed law. We took part in this consultation, together with partner organisations in more than 20 countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Nepal, South Africa and Turkmenistan. We also actively encouraged our supporters and allies to do the same, and we want to thank everyone who took part: this consultation proved to the European Commission that people all over the world look to the EU to show leadership, courage and compassion for oppressed people everywhere.

Real action needed to combine business and human rights

The Joustra Committee has advised the outgoing cabinet to suspend the adoption of children from abroad for the time being. The report of former director Tjibbe Joustra will be presented on Monday morning. The report refers to "serious abuses" in the Dutch adoption culture.

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Commissie presenteert rapport over misstanden adoptiecultuur

De commissie-Joustra heeft het demissionair kabinet geadviseerd de adoptie van kinderen uit het buitenland voorlopig stil te leggen. Maandagochtend wordt het rapport van oud-bestuurder Tjibbe Joustra gepresenteerd. In het rapport wordt gesproken over "ernstige misstanden" bij de Nederlandse adoptiecultuur.

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Statement Adoption Association Gereformeerde Gezindte (AVGG) in response to the report of the Joustra Committee. [1]

On February 8, 2021, the Commission Investigation into Intercountry Adoption handed over the report with the results of its investigation to the Minister for Legal Protection. The committee has investigated the actual course of affairs regarding intercountry adoptions and the role and responsibility of the Dutch government in this regard. Commissioned by the committee, Statistics Netherlands has conducted research into the living situation, well-being and search behavior of intercountry adoptees. This covers the period 1967-1998, before the introduction of the Hague Adoption Convention. During the execution of the original investigation assignment, the Committee, in consultation with the Minister, expanded the investigation into known abuses outside this period and outside these five investigated countries of origin.

The adoption community is deeply shocked by those adoptions where abuses occurred in the 1970s-1990s. Recognition is appropriate here for the suffering inflicted on those involved, the adoptees and their biological family. Our association also thinks of the adoptive parents, who entered into a procedure in good faith, which later turned out to be based on lies. They see the pain their children struggle with. We realize that questions can arise about God's providence, doubts about God's way of which adoptees and their parents were previously firmly convinced. Could not then arise the complaint from the book of Job: Shall God pervert justice, and the Almighty pervert justice? (Job 8:3)

The AVGG was founded in 1979, in the middle of the period under investigation. (Former) members of our association have also had to deal with abuses. Although the AVGG has not mediated in adoptions and has not committed any culpable acts, the association has not always reacted as alertly and empathetically. If anyone was hurt in doing so, even if it was done in ignorance, we hereby apologize.

We support the following recommendations made by the committee and adopted by the minister:

Abii was adopted from Zimbabwe by Australian parents when she was a baby. She always wanted to know where she came from - but the answer was wilder than she imagined.

Early one morning in August 1983, lives are about to change forever. A baby was dumped in a gutter outside a Zimbabwe hospital, wrapped in a towel.

That tiny, abandoned baby would one day become Australian - a true blue Aussie. But who left her in a lonely stretch of African wasteland - and why - has remained a mystery for 36 years.

36 years have passed since that little girl was found dumped by an African roadside.

The young baby, Abigail Prangs, is now a happily married mother of four living on the Sunshine Coast.

When I decided to adopt orphaned twins from Ethiopia, it felt like the most natural thing to do. But it raised many questions about motherhood and the bond we have with our children

I assumed I would conceive naturally when John and I decided to start a family. I didn’t. We turned to fertility drugs with ambivalence. Reports of the mood swings the drugs sometimes caused worried me. I had only gone through one round when I broke a wooden dish-drying rack over John’s head. I don’t remember what he said, but I’m sure it was something I’d otherwise have considered innocuous. Instead, a growling, uncontrollable rage emerged from nowhere and then overcame me like an emotional tsunami. We decided the drugs weren’t for us.

I had gone along with fertility treatments for the same reason I went along with other non-decisions I’ve made in my life, like having an enormous wedding, because people whom I loved wanted it for me. I thought I was supposed to want it, just like I was supposed to want to get pregnant by any means. Yet I cried genuine tears when, month after month, I was unable to conceive. I felt like a failure.

My friend Lisa, a scholar of the Bible, sat with me once as I confessed that another fertility treatment had failed to take. “This is your pain,” she said. “You must bear witness.”

Her words gripped me physically. I stopped crying. I was erect, alert and full of purpose. From that moment, I paid attention to the more important presence in my insides: not the drugs but the little door in my heart that had always been closed to them. Behind that door was my truest self and she didn’t want to conceive that badly.

Adopted child According to Chamila Seppenwoolde, who was adopted from Sri Lanka, something is lost forever with every international adoption. "You can't go back to how it should have been."

It would have been close if Chamila Seppenwoolde (34) had ended up in another family. Her adoptive parents had ticked a girl on the form, but had been assigned a boy. In the van on the way to the lawyer in Colombo, it was other adoptive parents who convinced them not to agree. "They said, you have ordered a girl, so you must have a girl too."

Sri Lanka was a popular adoption country in the second half of the 1980s, as many newborn babies were offered here. Often this was not done voluntarily. Chamila's mother thought she would give up her daughter temporarily, until she could be financially independent again. "Only when she saw in court that I was being picked up by two white people did she realize she had lost me."

The Sinhalese baby that was handed to the couple Seppenwoolde was called Dilrukshi Chamila, but the Seppenwooldes did not like the first name and was deleted. Her passport therefore states Chamila Chandrani - the middle name is that of her Sinhalese mother. A loss, says Chamila. "My real names are all my mother gave me."

In the Seppenwoolde family not much was said about Chamila's origins. It wasn't until she was in high school that she was shown a picture of her mother. "I was always told: your mother could not take care of you and gave you up out of love."

The cabinet must put an end to adoptions from abroad as soon as possible. That is one of the recommendations from the upcoming report of the Joustra Committee on the abuses in foreign adoptions. "What we have known for years is now finally being recognized," victims respond to Hart van Nederland .

Parents who gave up children without knowing it, children who subsequently received a false adoption report and can therefore no longer find their biological parents. Much went wrong in the adoptions between 1967 and 1997. Monday the report of the committee headed by Tjibbe Joustra that has investigated the role and responsibility of the Dutch government in Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will be published.

Ghost parents

One of those adopted children is Amanda Janssen from Nieuwegein. "I have ghost parents," she tells Hart van Nederland . "I know I was born of something, but from what?"

Amanda's life was turned upside down when she and her adopted sister set out to investigate her origins. But at the hospital she found out that her whole life, her name, her date of birth, belonged to someone else. "At the hospital they said: your document is false." The sister, who had always been told to be a thoroughbred sister, turned out not to be related.

Adoption of children from abroad must be halted for the time being. This conclusion can be found in the yet to be published report of the Joustra Committee. Under the leadership of former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra, this committee advises the cabinet on international adoptions and the role of the Dutch government in this culture.

The verdict of the leaked report feels like recognition for Patricia Steenstra from Groningen. She was adopted from Indonesia as a five month old baby. She is looking for her biological family in her native country. This did not work, her file appears to be forged. She is one of the thousands of children who were brought to the Netherlands for adoption from countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Colombia in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and now find out during their search that their adoption file has been tampered with.

Serious wrongs

Due to the continuing flow of adoption abuses, Sander Dekker, Minister for Legal Protection, announced that an investigation would be conducted in 2018. The report will be presented next Monday. Sources around the cabinet leaked to the Algemeen Dagblad about the content. According to the newspaper, it appears that this investigation shows serious abuses in the adoptions of children from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka in the period of 1967 and 1997. This problem continues to this day, the committee finds .

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Tough report on adoptions from abroad: cabinet urged to stop

The adoption of children from abroad must be stopped completely for the time being. A committee led by former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra draws this conclusion in a report to be published, sources around the cabinet report. The outgoing government team is very upset with the recommendations.

Jan Hoedeman 05-02-21, 03:00

In a harsh judgment about the Dutch adoption culture and the role of the government in this, mention is made of 'serious abuses'. The committee identified child theft, child trafficking, corruption, forgery and theft of documents, unethical acts of civil servants and the transfer of children to the Netherlands under false pretenses.

The Joustra committee has mainly focused on adoptions of children from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Joustra researched the thirty years between 1967 and 1997, but encountered a permanent and structural problem that still persists. Because contemporary adoption practice is still not good enough, bringing children to the Netherlands should stop for the time being, the advice is.

Minister Sander Dekker voor Rechtsbescherming (VVD) afgelopen zomer tijdens het Tweede Kamerdebat over fouten bij het onderzoek naar afstand en adoptie in Nederland.

Minister Sander Dekker voor Rechtsbescherming (VVD) afgelopen zomer tijdens het Tweede Kamerdebat over fouten bij het onderzoek naar afstand en adoptie in Nederland. © ANP

Kabinet zet nieuwe adopties in pauzestand, maar wil geen verbod

Het kabinet volgt de suggestie van de commissie-Joustra om adopties vanuit het buitenland stop te zetten. Maar het wil niet zo ver gaan dat interlandelijke adopties verboden worden. Maandag wordt het besluit bekend, melden Haagse bronnen.

Jan Hoedeman 05-02-21, 19:04